The Time It Takes To Fall

Dust of the Earth

Japan, 1645 A.D.

Kai hadn't expected the burning— the wretched searing pain across his arm as the first of his koi brand disappeared from his forearm. Of course the Blue Koi had warned him of such horrible agony, but it was excruciating after thirty years of no pain. He hadn't felt a thing since his immortality had begun, and the burning sting felt like more than he could bear.

Well, the sting and the knowledge of what it meant. Selene's first reincarnation was gone before he'd even had the chance to properly look. She was gone from the earth for the second time in the same century. Kai vowed to himself that it would be the last.

That time in the throne room at Beijing felt like it had happened hundreds of years ago, and in a way, it almost was. Kai had left immediately after the Blue Koi had granted him temporary immortality. He'd left his home without a word to anyone he knew— not saying goodbye to his best friend Torin, or Nainsi. It would have been painful if not for the aching hole within his chest.

So Kai ran, with nothing but the clothes upon his back and the ring he'd intended to give to her as his sole token. He abandoned the only place in the world he knew and ran northward into the Russian Empire.

His need to flee his home had been the only thing to keep him falling into a pit of depression. The trek across the lands that should have been his was miserable because of the mental torment it brought to Kai. While walking he had all the time in the world to think of Selene and how he had failed her so miserably. All he could do was remember her and how she had whispered his name upon her final breath. All he could see were her eyes and how the soft brown had turned lifeless even as she stared at Kai.

He found respite from the wretched memory only in sleep, where nothing at all existed. As a mortal he had dreamed often of wild adventures filled with fantastical prospects. He had dreamt of freedom and joy and Selene, which were synonyms in his mind. But now he could not dream of anything, whether it be a nightmare or a fantasy. He praised the Blue Koi for the moments of peace, but cursed her all the while for leaving his mind abandoned of the beautiful memories.

Kai wished to dream for the sole purpose of remembering Selene's smile under the moonlight. He wanted to dream of her in his arms as they fell asleep side by side. He longed to remember the taste of her lips on his and the smell of her hair as he nestled his face against hers.

Because if Kai could dream, he  would dream only of her.

In the years that followed that dreadful Lunar New Year he'd traveled all across Eurasia on land and sea. After a brief period in Russia in which he secluded himself in the Siberian tundra, he'd gone to the coast and gotten work on a trade ship. The work was hard, and something that he had never before experienced as a wealthy prince; but he enjoyed the feel of working one's self, even if he did have that advantage of never tiring.

For three years he worked in trade, switching to another ship on occasion until somehow he ended up on a Japanese pirate ship. He still didn't understand how that one had happened, but it was an experience he enjoyed all the same. He only stopped when the captain grew too suspicious of a man who refused to set foot upon the shores of China.

He'd abandoned the ship the next time they raided the Korean coastline, and immediately wished that he had stayed on board the ship. His time in the country was short as he found life there too slow and dreary and normal. He was still young and restless— he needed a distraction from all that twisted about his mind.

That was when the Blue Koi came to him, whispering the name of Selene's first reincarnation, and telling him that he had already crossed paths with the young child in her short span of life. He wasn't particularly pleased to hear such a thing after spending three years upon the soil of many countries and seeing thousands of people. But it was then that he began his search— he'd lived out his remaining days of boyhood and aged to his permanent state of twenty-one. He'd had time to grieve and distract himself from the agony of living.