Power More Incredible And More Horrible

When he was first locked away in the mountain, it didn't take long for the brotherhood to find him. He noticed the absence of the Bull King in the group idly, but it was such a small detail in the sheer density of his ire that it didn't bear comment. In the face of the silence he maintained with gritted teeth under a stiff expression that only communicated with an acidic glare, Azure and Yellow Tusk were the only ones to speak. Azure spared no word to reassure him that they would all work tirelessly to find a way to get him out, that they understood

"What do you think you're doing?"

"What else? A little favor for an old friend." Macaque says it jokingly, but his delivery is humorless and uncertain, and his eyes glide through their surroundings as if looking for somewhere else to stare. "I'll just run ahead and make this delivery for you."

"Wha- are you nuts? I haven't seen you in over a hundred years and you ransack me and my friends just to say you're doing me a FAVOR?"

Wukong spent more time than he had liked, during the journey, trying to predict how meeting Macaque again would go about. What he would say and feel, what Macaque would, and how he would answer. There was no way he could not think about it, with how old their friendship was; there was no chance they wouldn't meet again. A lot of that time was spent deciding that he wouldn't be the one to seek out the other, and he was glad that Macaque was the one to breach the distance since, every time he reaffirmed he wouldn't seek out Macaque, just as every previous time he would be just as unsure that he wouldn't forget he decided as such.

All that ruminating only served to leave him utterly clueless as to how to deal with the reality of their reencounter. He didn't expect to meet Macaque before the journey was over, for starters, but that was the least appalling thing that was currently happening. Macaque's bewildering actions and nonsensical reasoning left him utterly feetless in the conversation. All the things he considered saying and that never were quite settled which and whether he actually wanted to say, all the things he couldn't discern between being things he wanted or feared hearing - they were all suspended in the air, waiting for Macaque to bring reality closer to something they could remotely gravitate towards.

"Listen, I'll play the part of you and your lot, make the delivery, and the big guys will release you and your friends of your little headache thinking that it was you that did the deal. Then you guys can go on your merry ways doing whatever - you won't need to see me again after that."

"This - This is supposed to be a journey, you can't just - what are you even getting out of this?"

"Wukong, the last time we saw each other, I... Regardless of anything else, you didn't deserve being stuck there. The fight against the Jade Emperor... I'm sorry I promised to follow you just to leave at the last second."

Wukong's body had been rigid from tenseness, strung like a coil, and he only noticed it when the words loosened it as if thawing. He wasn't sure if it was from relief or disbelief.

"...you... Well, it wasn't just you there, and it was a stressful situation, I know you were trying to..." he trails off to avoid rambling. He's repeating things he'd recited to himself several times under the mountain, whenever he felt inclined to try to forgive Macaque; not that it ever stuck. "Yeah, you shouldn't have run off. But... you know. I get it."

But Macaque was staring at him with a strange expression. "That's not... what I meant," he says, but doesn't elaborate further.

His eyes search Wukong's face for something, but Wukong can't indulge his mysterious reluctance. Keenly, he feels the tension that the topic holds, how it holds whatever was left and what could become again of their friendship in a teetering precipice, and it makes him somewhat impatient. "What did you mean, then?"

The expression in Macaque's face was strange not because it was unrecognizable, but because it seemed mismatched. His tone was the one he used pretty frequently, of uncertainty, but when Macaque was uncertain "I meant that I should have stayed behind."

Wukong is about to go into denial that macaque is onto anything so maybe introduce him to bring in denial about macaque understanding him at all

A small part of Wukong that was still under the mountain felt vindicated. Even when he began to hate Macaque, even if everything else about him turned untrustworthy and contemptible in his eyes, he still held tight the belief that he understood Wukong better than anyone. That belief once again was affirmed: his words didn't just clarify his meaning, but his tone: it wasn't unsure, it was placating.

I'm not sorry for leaving you, Macaque clarified. I'm sorry for promising not to leave.

Shame overtook Wukong, freezing his previously hammering heart.

his tone was placating

"I'm not gonna assume what you would have done if I hadn't gone, but at least you wouldn't..."

"Woah, there! Isn't that kind of --- Kind of conterproductive? I'm pretty sure the monk's lessons involve some kind of non-violence theme somewhere? You're gonna get yourself more in --"

"You don't know anything!"

"Oh-ho, don't I? I bet I don't, if you're this reasonable about it!"

The wind had stopped cutting all around them and the magic had relented its grip, and the abrupt rush of silence left them all only to stare at the dense but slowly descending sand mist at the center of the foregone storm. Macaque's figure could be seen faintly. With unsteady legs, he languidly got to his feet, and with the same hand as before still firmly holding onto his wounded eye, he turned his back on them and walked away.

No more than four steps made, however, he fell forward into a faceplant, as if strings that were supporting him had been suddenly cut. After a minute of that stillness remaining unchanged, Wukong finally stopped holding his breath with a shaky sigh. It brought to focus how his heart was still racing with adrenaline and how his cold sweat was pulling at his skin.

He turned his own back to the scene, already trying to redirect his thoughts away from the horrible realization that, more than Macaque leaving him to the Jade Emperor, more than leaving him to the mountain, Macaque had wrenched back his freedom just to turn away and leave him behind for good. And, now, Wukong was reciprocating. From then on, both their lives would be separate for the simple reason that they did not want each other in them.

Making his way back to their camp --though he was really only wandering in as arbitrary line away from where Macaque fainted, considering he hadn't yet located how far their fight had strayed them --, his attempt to distract himself was working so well he almost removed his own senses from the surroundings. The environment mostly muddled together, and the only things that remained sharp enough to distinguish were his friends' voices increasingly behind him.

Bajie shuffled his feet. "So he's not gonna, uh..."

Wujing, in turn, fidgeted with his spear on the ground. "No, I can sense nothing."

"This what you meant with 'can't escape with their life'?"

The monk Sanzang simply sighed deeply in reply to Bajie. He lifted a hand as he began a prayer he used for the newly departed, but barely got three words in before that same hand was suddenly gripped tightly in place, startling him to a halt.

"Wait a second." Only a small sand cloud signaled that Wukong had undone his trek away from the scene in a snap timing, staring incredulously at his master. "What are you talking about?" Sanzang's face had been stuck in shock at his sudden appearance, but now the expression had dulled into confusion, as if he was trying to understand something strange in Wukong's face.

Realizing his uncomfortable grip on his master, he released his hold with a step backwards, patting his own pants as if to clean them. "You think that guy's dead?" He used the staff to point over his shoulder, though he neglected any preciseness, since he didn't turn to look. "I just spent the past two days pummeling him and you saw all the gusto he still had when he lost. He's not the type."

Whatever confounded Sanzang in Wukong's expression had been solved, judging by his expression. It slowly cleared into some solemn kind of surprise. His wordlessness disturbed the monkey.

He felt jittery in a way he was only faintly familiar with. The sensation was recognizable because, in a way, he felt it every moment of his life. Every time a meal ended, and every time he went to sleep. In the inhales of his farewells, and then in the exhales of his greetings.

The familiarity ended in the shape of the feeling, though, because it usually manifested as a spark in the corner of his vision that drove him forward so to keep it firmly away from view. Increasingly weightless -- as if either him or the ground had become less real --, he couldn't call it a spark. The feeling crept forward languid and inexorable, all-encompassing as it rose in him, so it was more like the morning sun.

"Wukong, listen to me. Your hands are empty -- this is no door, and there's no one here to curse. No life, and no spirit; whatever you want to reach is somewhere else."

start sanzang's section by him mentioning wukong has been avoiding the others and it was wukong that rubbed in his face how subodhi told him to socialize more.

"I was sent to free and oversee you because of your power. I've witnessed it first hand - I loathe to put it to words when you boast it so often, but there is no dismissing it. It's an incredible, horrible thing that I thought made a stranger out of weakness. But that day, I... you..."

wee woo needs to acknowledge wukong was very much brought to heel by the circlet lol

He didn't know how to avoid sounding insulting. That day, he could only see Wukong's back as he cursed and swore at the body he jostled with both hands, but only one adjective came to mind. Even in the following morning, Wukong's testy dismissal of Wujing when he explained the reason why he'd let Wukong sleep through his shift as their sentry - you seemed uncomfortable so I tried whistling but then morning came - "You looked pitiful."

The monkey scoffed with a disdainful expression and a twitch of an eyebrow, but made no movement otherwise. Not even his gaze budged from whatever it seemed stuck to. "Coming from the resident expert on the topic that's saying something."