Find Home by Elwin Fortuna

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Find Home

For anyone who hasn't read Heaven Official's Blessing, Hua Cheng, also known as San Lang, is an immortal Ghost King in love with disgraced and outcast god Xie Lian. Both gods and ghosts are ordinary humans, or at least start out that way, and attain immortality through hard work and self-improvement. Xie Lian has a particular interest in swords, and, canonically, before Hua Cheng ever has the chance to introduce himself to his beloved god, he is already amassing an armoury full of swords for his gege (literally means older brother, but is actually a term of endearment). 

It was a dull night in the Gambler's Den until the stranger entered. Hua Cheng, lounging back in his chair twiddling his thumbs, suddenly sat up, then stood. This was something new: a tall creature with pointed ears and a flaming light in his deep silver eyes. He carried a harp on his back and a long sword at his belt, the scabbard decorated and jewelled to the utmost extravagance. His aura was complex: the fiery brightness of red, the deep sadness of blue, all the colours of the rainbow scintillating around him.

Hua Cheng knew immediately that with all his near-800 years of life, he was the merest child next to this being, though he was by far the oldest being otherwise there. Fascinated and intrigued, he parted the red curtains and with all eyes turning to him, the hall hushing suddenly, made his way down the long set of stairs. He hardly needed to gesture to signal the person over; as if he could read Hua Cheng's mind, that creature was already on his way.

"What is your name, stranger?" he asked. The being smiled and spoke, not aloud but inside Hua Cheng's mind, with no need for passwords or arrays.

"Makalaurë I was in the days that are long gone, far to the West of the world," he said. His mental voice was melodious and deep, calling to mind the sound of ocean waves, and though the words he spoke were correct, the accent was strange, as though he had learned the language only recently. "Hua Cheng," he went on, "I have come to this place to ask a question of you.”

"What is your question?" Hua Cheng asked this back into Makalaurë's mind, the connection easy and straightforward, like it was utterly natural to the creature now standing before him. Even with Hua Cheng standing on the first step of the stairs, the being overtopped him, was looking down at him.

Makalaurë's face shifted and changed, his youthfulness suddenly fading. For an instant he looked old beyond age, withered and tormented. Hua Cheng looked down at his hands and realised that one of them was twisted and scarred, a large white burn scar in the shape of a cut jewel.

"Can I go home?" Makalaurë asked aloud, a pleading note in his voice. With the word "home," a torrent of images flooded into Hua Cheng's mind: white towers amidst green hills, music of a sweetness far beyond anything imaginable, the smoke and heat of a forge, cool stone statues that looked almost as though they might move, wide fields and gardens in a lush green valley. "How may I find the Road?"

"Why have you come to me?" Hua Cheng said. “What help is a ghost who cannot find home himself?”

Makalaurë smiled, and it was at once sweet and sad and fierce. “You know what home is.” He took a long slow breath and spoke on. “I have heard throughout many lands, Ghost King, that you have the blessing of good luck, and I ask for your favour and aid. I come not empty-handed, for what I bear is of value for its ancientry and beauty, forged by my father Curufinwë Fëanáro in the morning of the world. I will offer this sword in exchange for your help.”

“Do you wish to gamble it?” Hua Cheng said. His dead heart was fluttering within him. Such a sword! What a prize it would be for his armoury, what a present for Dianxia, if he could be found.

“Such a thing was not meant to be played for in gambling halls,” Makalaurë said. “And, what’s more, it is of great sentimental value to me. So, no, I offer it as a straightforward trade to you as proof of my sincerity and honesty.” His eyes were clear and bright now as he looked down at Hua Cheng. “They say that fortune favours the bold, so I will be bold now in the hope that it is true.”

“Fortune favours the bold?” Hua Cheng said. “I like it. I will accept your trade, Makalaurë of the far western shores. Come with me.”

They ascended the stairs to Hua Cheng’s throne, and as the red curtains fell closed behind them, the Gambler’s Den roused itself from the hushed silence it had been in and resumed their raucous play.

Behind the curtains, Makalaurë unbuckled the sword in its scabbard from his belt and held it out to Hua Cheng. “Look for yourself to see its quality,” he said.

Hua Cheng took it into his hands, slowly drawing the sword from its sheath. It was a long straight sword of steel, surprisingly light for all its strength, with intricate patterns woven into the blade and letters in an unknown language at the base of the hilt. The hilt itself bore a pattern of leaves and flowers wrought in gold, wrapping around the steel core.

"What are these words?" Hua Cheng asked.

"My name," Makalaurë said. "Kanafinwë Makalaurë, 'strong-voiced Finwë, cleaver of gold.' These names speak to my abilities with Song. My voice, if I desire, can defeat armies."

"I should think the world would have some use for you," Hua Cheng said, sheathing the sword and laying it aside on a low table. "Why do you desire so strongly to leave it behind?"

"No use that I want," Makalaurë said. "But my home is out there, far away, and if I cannot come to it by boat, then I am ready to go there by death. I ask you to use your skill to find me my embarking place, to take me where I need to go."

"If your home is in the West, why come East?" Hua Cheng asked.

"The World is round," Makalaurë answered simply. "My home that was once West from West has been removed from mortal shores altogether. Eastern shores, Western, all are alike. Any hope I have of seeing my family again -- my mother and father, my older brother and my five younger brothers, my husband, my son by adoption and his own family -- rests in the hands of the Valar, whom some call gods."

"You don't call your Valar gods, I take it?" Hua Cheng asked, his eye flashing. "Don't they deserve to be called so?"

Makalaurë gave him a smile, a little twisted and strange with tears in it. "It's not about deserving," he said. "They are beings of great power, who formed the world itself. Rather it's that we -- my family -- were exiled long ago, and Doom was laid upon us. If we should pray, they will not hear us, if we should beg, they do not answer."

"Then what's changed?" Hua Cheng asked. "Why do you think you can get home now?"

"I had a dream," Makalaurë said. "Eight days ago, my mother came to me in a dream, standing among her sculptures. They are so like life you would think they move, but they stood still. She was putting the finishing touches on a sculpture of my older brother, his eyes closed, a look of peace upon his face. She set her paints aside and turned, as if to catch my eyes, and just as she did, my older brother's eyes opened. For a long moment, both my mother and my older brother looked at me, then they beckoned with their hands." Makalaurë took a long breath, hands coming up to his face, wiping away tears that were springing to his eyes. Hua Cheng looked on, taking in the gestures and the words. "I think my older brother has been reborn. I think we are forgiven and welcomed home."

Hua Cheng gathered up Makalaurë's sword in one hand. Then he pulled a pair of dice from his sleeves, and without further ado, threw them on the ground. A pair of sixes appeared, and a portal opened up in front of them, on the back wall of the Gambler's Den. "Come with me," Hua Cheng said, and stepped through. Makalaurë, still wiping away tears, followed.

They emerged onto a moonlit beach, white sand stretching far in both directions down the shore. Out on the sea, far in the distance, a tall ship with sails like the wings of a bird was heading steadily toward them. Makalaurë dashed forward, crying out words in an unknown language, sweet and strange as the cries of distant birds.

After a moment, Hua Cheng followed, down to the edge of the waves, but no further in. Makalaurë was up to his knees in surf, weeping and laughing by turns, exclaiming brightly in that foreign tongue. A small boat then detached itself from the larger ship, moving in toward the shore, directly for Makalaurë. Two figures stood upright in the bow of it, both with red hair, one very tall, the other with her hands already reaching out as they approached. At last both leaped over the side, running to Makalaurë and gathering him up in their arms.

Hua Cheng did not have to guess to know who they were. The three of them were not speaking aloud, but by the way their eyes were looking to each other it was clear that communication was happening between them. After a little while, Makalaurë untangled himself and glanced back at Hua Cheng.

"Thank you," he said, his melodious voice a little harsh with emotion, "thank you!"

"It was nothing," Hua Cheng said, speaking truthfully. He held up the sheathed sword. "I should not take a family heirloom from you."

The red-haired man -- Makalaurë's older brother -- stepped forward, speaking swift words to Makalaurë in their own tongue. Hua Cheng noted as he did that the man had only one hand, the other missing from the wrist downward.

"I can't take it with me anyway," Makalaurë said to Hua Cheng. "Maedhros says that any sword stained with the blood of the Eldar is not permitted in Valinor. So keep it, Hua Cheng. Make good use of it."

"I will give it a home, and if I am permitted, I will place it in only the best hands," Hua Cheng said.

Then the woman -- clearly mother to both Makalaurë and Maedhros -- came toward him, smiling. She did not speak aloud, nor in words of any language, but what she said into his mind, Hua Cheng understood to mean, "I have some foresight, King of Ghosts, so believe me when I tell you: your wait is nearly over. You will find him very soon."

"Aah?" Hua Cheng gasped in shock, but she was already retreating.

Makalaurë, behind her, was laughing. "My mother hasn't changed a whit in thirty centuries, I see," he said in Mandarin. "She's still scaring my friends!" He wrapped one arm around her shoulders, saying something to her in their language. It sounded lighthearted.

From the boat, floating just beyond the crashing waves, someone called, and all three turned to look. Makalaurë was the only one to turn back again. "We must go," he said. "Time is running out. Farewell, Hua Cheng, and thank you again!"

Hua Cheng raised one hand to wave. "Goodbye, Makalaurë," he said. In just a very few moments, the three were in the boat again, Makalaurë waving his hand back to Hua Cheng.

The boat retreated back into the sea, and then was lifted into the ship. Without further ado, the ship began to move, and for a little while it moved further out into the ocean, but then began to lift from the surface of the water until at last it was sailing in the air, up, up, into the wide reaches of the sky, where the Evening Star was shining steady down upon it. Soon it was lost to sight.

Hua Cheng gazed after it for a long time, then pulled a pair of dice from his sleeve and walked directly into the armoury at Paradise Manor. There, as if he had specifically arranged it, was a sword stand that fit Makalaurë's sword perfectly. He placed it in, and stood back to look.

"Very soon," he whispered to himself. "Very soon?"

5 Years Later

"San Lang, what's this one? It's so beautiful!" Xie Lian's face was always radiant now, but as he pulled Makalaurë's sword from its jewelled scabbard, he looked almost a little awed. "It's old, I can feel that, and very strange, so light for its size!"

"Gege, it's unique," Hua Cheng said. "It comes from a land far away to the West, forged by a smith unlike any other who has ever existed, and from the hands of a singer exiled from home."

"Oh?" Xie Lian said. "This sounds like a good story. How did it come to you?" He lifted the sword into the air, watching the jewels turn to flame in the light of the sun streaming in through the high windows. After a moment, he slowly began to move through sword forms, arms flexing and feet moving lightly.

"I helped him find his way back to his family," Hua Cheng said, watching Xie Lian dance with the sword. "I helped him find home."

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