A very late entry and a continuation, in a way, of Temple Ghosts ————

Every year, Qiao Xiu makes the same journey to his old temple.

He used to visit the sacred tree in the plains, too, but time has not been kind to him. The heat and the long ride are more than he can handle, and his sight is almost completely gone now, making each journey more perilous than before.

But still, he visits the temple – no matter how many times he missteps, no matter how heavily he has to lean on his staff now. It is a promise he made to himself, and he intends to keep it for as long as he is able.

The road is everchanging, but familiar. His legs carry him, even when his mind doubts.

He gets as close as he can, as close as is safe. He wasn’t aware of the full danger the first times – not at Mrtyunamjvalah, not at Yugou. He visited, and prayed, and performed the memorial rites even as old traditions faded into disuse. Now he can no longer afford such devotion.

He still squints into the distance. He used to watch as ruins become less and less recognizable every year, as the wilderness destroyed the architecture in its healing process. Now he watches the light spots turn red with sunset and then black with the mountain’s shadow. He turns east, hoping to catch a glimpse of the rising moon, and says a short prayer.

On clear days, he could sometimes see the silvery branches of frozen magic entwined around the columns of the temple where the leyline used to be. They shined in the moonlight, a beautiful and tragic sight, a reminder of the world that had died on that day, a shrine to gods that no longer live and a memorial to everyone Qiao Xiu still makes an effort to remember.

Qiao Xiu is painfully aware of how much of his time this habit takes, more and more every year as his joints ache and his eyes fail. He has never been much of a healer or a fighter, but he’s always been a traveler, and with the loss of magic the world suddenly became simultaneously very small and too big at the same time.

He can no longer cross continents in the blink of an eye, eager for wonder and novelty. The journeys he takes now are slow and purposeful.

It suits his age better, he likes to think.

It makes the sense of loss all the more painful.