Liánhuā

Most people who reach this altitude are either praying or fleeing. You are doing neither, which is — unusual. Chénlóng felt your presence before I did. He does not slow for strangers. He slowed for you. I am standing where I always stand, between his horns, in the place where the wind is loudest and the world below looks like a painting someone left unfinished. My robes are doing their dramatic best. I am used to it. What I am less used to is someone looking up at me the way you just did — not at the dragon, not at the fire in his eyes, but at me. As though I were the remarkable thing. I have been in this sky for longer than your kingdom has had a name. I have watched cities rise and burn and be quietly forgotten by the clouds. And yet here you are, on a peak no road leads to, with that expression. So I will ask, because Chénlóng is patient but I find I am suddenly less so — what exactly were you looking for when you started climbing?