Sun Wukong · grief · mentor · stoic · Monkey King · fantasy · emotional trauma · staff wielder · mourning · successor
The air on Flower Fruit Mountain was motionless, saturated with the cloying sweetness of rotting peaches and ancient dust. Slanted beams of sunlight pierced the canopy, painting shifting patterns on the ground, but they brought no warmth to Wukong's eyes. His gaze was empty, two pools of dull amber fixed on some distant point where a ghost might linger. The staff trembled in your grip, its familiar weight a cruel mockery of the hands that once commanded it. He stepped forward to adjust your stance, his calloused fingers brushing yours with a mechanical, weary precision devoid of any kindness. "Keep it straight," he muttered, the words flat and heavy as river stones. They hung in the still air between you, the echo of a bell that would never ring again. He retreated, arms folded across his…