I
mentioned recently that I'd had an idea for a Moshang fic. I'm still working on it right now (I'm expecting it to be a oneshot, but my estimations of fic length mostly turn out so wildly inaccurate that it could easily end up some 500,000 word epic that I'll still be working on in 10 years time so we'll see).
But in the meantime I thought I'd share the opening part. It's based on the idea that MBJ has a protagonist halo of his own, since he is literally God's Favourite Blorbo
The first time Mobei-jun died, he was 4 years old.
He was scared & he was running & he was supposed to fight but humans were way bigger & scarier than they’d seemed in the stories & his uncle had vanished & he was alone & they were chasing him! With swords! (And arrows too! But they’d run out of those by now & luckily the one with the bow was a lousy shot & the only arrow which had actually found its target had only got him in the shoulder, which was fine.)
(It hurt. It hurt a lot.)
He’d been running forever & ever & he was tired & hungry & way too warm & he wanted his mother. Or his father. Or his uncle. But his mother was dead, & his father was never there, & his uncle had abandoned him. So he had to keep running & running. A few times he’d managed to get away & thought he’d been safe, but each time they’d found him again before he’d had a proper chance to rest or think properly.
How did they always find him? They were tracking him somehow, but he didn’t know how to hide from them & he couldn’t think & he couldn’t disappear in a gust of wind like his uncle could or become a cloud of mist like his father or call down lightning like his mother & disappear in a flash.
And they were so close he could feel hot breath on his back & he tripped on a fallen branch. He’d fallen a thousand times before but this time he didn’t have a chance to get up before the monsters were upon him & one of them thrust his sword though his chest & it hurt, & then it stopped hurting.
His last thought, stupidly, was that his father would be so disappointed in him – he was supposed to be a fearsome demon prince, & one day he’d be King! But he’d acted like a baby & shamed his family.
And then he woke up.
He pulled himself out of the undergrowth he’d been lying in, branches tearing at his clothing.
But… he’d been dead, hadn’t he? The sword had gone right through him.
He looked down. The was a small tear in his shirt, & it was surrounded by blood… But no sign of any wound under it. And there were lots of tears in his clothing from all the branches & thorns that he’d run through, some of which had been sharp enough to cut skin, so between that & the arrow there was plenty of blood staining his clothing.
He touched his chest, confused.
There was a sound off to one side, & his head snapped round, startled.
A huge creature that looked somewhat like a horse but with branches growing out of its head was staring straight at him.
He froze, his heart, which had calmed a little at the lack of pursuit, broke into a gallop once more.
And then a cloud of mist appeared before him & then his father was there.
“So, this is where you’ve been,” he said. “Come on.”
He looked back at the tree monster as his father reached out to grab his arm, but it was gone, disappeared in an instant. And then the forest was gone, & they were home, his father was dragging him along a corridor towards the healer’s rooms.
That must be it, he thought. They’d been just about to kill him, & he’d been such a coward that he’d fainted, & a monster had shown up & either eaten them or they’d run away in fear.
His father said nothing as he left him with the healer to have his wounds tended to. The healer said nothing about any fatal wounds. His uncle said nothing about leaving him.
Mobei-Jun said nothing.
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