England, 1665 A.D.
The streets were gray— that color of dust and hazy smoke. The buildings around matched the streets with near perfection, with only a bit more texture to the hard stones; the sky was only a few shades lighter with its storm clouds. Everything felt dismal in the alleyway as the dying added to the gray with their rotting skin and empty eyes.
Kai treaded carefully throughout the streets, making sure not to step on any poor abandoned soul. Hands reached out to him, the skin cracked and bleeding with oozing purple sores. The sight triggered his gag reflexes, but Kai forced himself not to fall to the ground and retch. He was on a mission, and he could not stop now.
He'd found Selene's reincarnation for the very first time; well, he knew where she was at the very least, which was an enormous leap from her only other reincarnation in which Kai had stumbled cluelessly throughout Asia without finding a hint of Chun Ming.
But when Kai had caught wind of the incredibly talented Chinese mechanic in London, he'd known that it was her. She'd always had a knack for fixing broken things— it was one of her talented that he admired most about her.
Kai had scoured the streets of London for three days now, but to no avail. Those that had known of the talented young girl told him to look for her in the streets, as they were her home. So he searched and searched, but it was hard to find anyone amongst the mass of dying. He prayed only that she would not be among them— that she had withstood the plague.
A hand latched onto Kai's ankle, startling him so bad he nearly toppled over. He leaned down to look into the face of a dying woman. She had green eyes and mouse-brown hair that lay in clumps around her shoulders. Her fingers were freezing and somehow more cold than the December air. Kai shivered, but knelt down beside her.
He grasped her hand and stared into those sad green eyes rimmed with red. Her eyes were that of a young girl, though the sores upon her face and the illness had aged her into looking like an ancient woman. She opened her mouth as if to say something but nothing but haggard rasps came out.
"Shhh," Kai hushed, putting a hand upon her cheek while using his other to clutch her delicate and bleeding fingers. "Shhhh," he hummed, "it will be alright. Let death take hold of you, young one. She is kind; she shall wrap you in her loving arms like a babe and carry you tenderly into a world without suffering."
The girl continued to make disgusting choking noises, her lashes fluttering as she continued to stare at Kai. She seemed to be struggling to get something out, but all attempts at any form of communication on her part failed.
"Fear not," Kai swallowed, smoothing down the girl's hair. "For soon you shall be in a place that is not here— and for that," Kai closed his eyes for a moment, allowing for a tear to slip past his lashes. "I envy you greatly."
The girl stopped trying to say whatever she wanted to tell Kai; her breathing evened out, as if she had fallen into a comfortable sleep. But her eyes remained focused on Kai, deep green and piercing in spite of their imminent death. Then she let out a final sigh, and her eyes glossed over in a way that Kai had only seen one other time in his life.
Kai allowed for a single tear to slide down his face and onto the girl's cheek as he ran his fingers over her eyelids. He hadn't even known this girl— had never seen her until minutes before. But he had witnessed her death and watched as the light faded from her eyes. He prayed to the Blue Koi that she had an afterlife more blessed than her mortal life had been.
He stood and dusted his frock off. He wiped at his eyes and continued down the winding path of death. More hands reached out to him, but Kai closed his eyes and skirted around them. He couldn't waste any more time; he had to find Selene.
Turning down an even danker street, Kai saw a single body lying propped up against a house. He moved closer to the form, examining it as he came into closer proximity. It was a girl, and her appearance was somehow even more wretched than that of the dying woman Kai had found in the street. Because unlike the former plague victim, Kai recognized the form upon the ground.
"Ying," Kai breathed her new name out with a gasp. He rushed to her side, throwing himself down hard upon the pavement that the cloth covering his knees ripped and bared the skin to the cobblestone below him.
The girl only blinked slowly at him, her brown eyes a sort of faded version of their original shade. Her lips parted as if to greet him or ask him who he was, but no words exited those chapped and cracking lips.
Kai pulled her frail body into his arms and held her against him. He brought one hand up to cradle her head against his chest and leaned down to press his lips to her ratty hair. Tears slipped from his eyes in fast succession, falling upon the crown of her head.
He blinked rapidly, then moved her head so that she could look up at his face. Her eyes stared at him with a sort of wonder that one had only while in the presence of something they believed to be truly miraculous.
"A..." Ying croaked, closing her eyes with the effort of the single word.
"Shhhhh," Kai choked, more tears sliding down his face. "Shhhhh, i-it will be a-alright."
"A-are.... Are you an..." Ying let out a weak huff. "Angel?"
"No," Kai sobbed, rocking back and forth. "No, my love, I am not."
Ying's eyes studied him further, as if she recognized him but couldn't place his face. Kai tried to smile at her, but could hardly manage more than a pained grimace. It pained him so dearly to see his Selene in such a state— to leave her dying just forty years ago, only to find her now in the exact same position. It had broken his heart then and it crushed his heart now. He loved this girl more than all the stars in the sky, but this suffering— this agony that she was going through was almost more than he could bear.
"I am so terribly sorry," Kai cried, clutching her against him. "This is all my fault. Every ounce of pain you have ever suffered has been nothing other than my doing, and for that I am... I am..." Kai let out a little whimper, his breath hitching. "I am the most unforgivable being upon the face of the earth."
Ying said nothing, but continued to stare up at him with her wide brown eyes. Her face was gaunt and gray, just as everything else around her. There were sores along her cheeks and one at the corner of her mouth, oozing with a clear-orange pus. A single tear slipped from her eye as she watched him.
"I-Is there any way I can be of use to ease you of your suffering?" Kai asked, trying not to choke upon the words. Ying said nothing, but another tear slipped out of the corner of her eye, trailing slowly upon the rotting skin. "M-might I s-sing you to sleep?"
A soft smile curved at the ends of Ying's decaying lips, allowing for them to crack and begin to bleed. Kai choked on a sob, letting his lips twitch upward at the small gesture.
"A-alright, then," Kai's voice hitched. He sniffed and blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear his eyes of the tears. "For you, my love, I shall sing you a lullaby."
Ying continued to stare at him, her lips still turned up just slightly at the corners. Blood leached from the edges of her mouth and tears clung to her lashes in icy splendor. She looked nothing like the girl he had once known— the healthy girl who taught him how to love; but she was still his Selene, and even at her worst he still felt nothing but an unquenchable love for her.
"Like stars down to earth," Kai started, his voice shaking on the simple melody— the one that he had whispered to her as he held her in his arms. The song that he had sung only for her after moments of intimacy. It was the song that had stuck with him through it all, just as Selene had.
"Or rain coming from the sky."
Ying's eyes sparkled despite the gray that ate at everything around them, almost as if she recognized her lullaby.
"Tears sliding gently from your face," Kai choked, tears of his own falling softly from his eyes and onto Ying's cheeks.
"Pennies tossed into a well."
She continued to smile at him, with those cracked and bloody lips.
"A ship caught in the sea's swell."
Ying brought one last breath into her lungs, her eyes still captured on Kai's face.
"Everything it falls," Kai whispered, staring ardently into Ying's eyes.
But the light in her eyes had vanished, like a candle blown out on the darkest night. Kai stared at her for a moment, unable to take in any of the foul air around him. He watched her face, begging for her eyes to focus on his once more— for her chest to take in another breath of air. But nothing happened aside from a soft stinging upon his left forearm as the second koi brand burned away. Ying was dead.
"No!" Kai sobbed, falling back against the wall behind him and cradling the love of his life against his chest. Tears fell from his eyes in quick succession as he clutched at the dead girl. His body wracked with heartbroken sobs, and he rocked back and forth as if he were rocking her to sleep.
Awful choking noises escaped his mouth. He pressed his lips sloppily against her hair and then her forehead, begging her to come back to him— to breath life once more and allow for them to finally be together. He pleaded with her to wake from her eternal slumber and kiss him upon the lips and whisper to him that it would all be okay. His heart ached for her words to comfort him from his years of endless torment; he couldn't withstand another lifetime of this— the dismal searching. He couldn't do it again.
"P-please," Kai wailed. "Selene, my love, I beg you," his words came out as a near scream. "Please do not abandon me; I cannot do it again. Love, do not leave me once more. Please, Selene. Please."
But she did not hearken to his calls and remained rather as silent as ever. She had passed into the realm of the Blue Koi, and he would not meet her again until her next life, wherever it led her to be.
As time wore on, Kai's sobs slowed into a gentle river of tears and then a barren river of emptiness. His breathing eased back to its normal pace and his body stopped its constant quivering. All the while, Kai never released Ying's body; he vowed to hold her until she turned to dust.
The moon came up and shone a sliver of light upon Kai through the murky clouds. The cold bit at him, though it brought him no pain— he could feel nothing of the agony that was mortality. Even his tears brought no headache upon him, reminding Kai that he wasn't human, not really.
Kai eased Ying's body to the ground and rested himself beside her. He maintained a hold of her hand, clutching the icy fingers in his own warm ones. He stared up at the sky, wishing that he could see stars; but how could he make any sort of wish upon a starless sky?
He watched as the night turned to morning, felt a slight shift in the atmosphere around him as light bathed the dying city. He closed his eyes and allowed for a moment of rest to overtake him— not because he physically required sleep, but because he needed a moment of respite from the world around him.
In his dreams there was nothing, just as there always was. He was alone even in his moments of unconsciousness, as if his mind couldn't conjure up a single moment of happiness for him to remember.
When Kai awoke, the sun was high above him, the soft white light filtering through the clouds and into his eyes. It looked almost to be an entering into heaven itself. Kai smiled at the thought. He turned to Ying, as if to tell her of his marvelous thought. But when he turned to see her, he found nothing but a pile of dust.