Book One, Chapter 38 - Love, And All Its Agonies, Unmolten By Flame

Alright! That makes three! This chapter was really nice, actually. I really enjoyed rereading it and the ways that Raika's walls fell, the way that the stuff I've been playing with about her trauma comes to a sort of climax here. Seeing Maen back this early and getting to add to her was nice too! It's funny how much of a small start they had, lol. Anyways! See you all tomorrow for more!

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“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.” 

-Words of a wise sage, known for his comprehension of the Dao of Music

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She is free.

She is in the wind, her feet striding strong and confident beneath her, every moment of her existence determined by instinct, choice and desire as she runs under a beautiful night sky. Every step touches her with pain, kissing her to remind her she is awake and she is here, and she kisses the roofs she lands on in equal measure, crimson droplets left in her wake like hickeys. She moves like she hasn’t in so long. It’s been a year, it’s been closer to two years since she has needed a crutch, a cane, crippled in form and soul, imprisoned by joints and bones and muscles that could only fail and hurt and fail again, and now she is free.

It’s different than her cultivation. She doesn’t use movement techniques, no abrupt movements of Qi or specific stances designed to empower her and alter the way in which she moves in the world. She runs purely with her limbs, with burning muscle and singing tendons and pumping heart and bright, joyful eyes to guide her. It has a lot less flashiness, but she does not need to ever stop moving, and she strides and thunders and sprints and eats up ground before her, leaving only dust and distance behind.

Priorities.

The Purple Flame Burning Lotus sect.

Still a stupid name.

Besides the Imperial Palace, it is the tallest plateau in line of sight, standing almost opposite the city’s (and province’s) capitol at the edge of the horizon and kissing the stars above. It is a clear and distinct target, as any sect that takes its role seriously as a vassal of the Empire should be, standing as a bulwark of civilization against the wilds and testament to the challenges and heights of new cultivators.

And Raika is about to rob them.

A little bit. Not much. But there’s a set of servant’s quarters she can almost guarantee no one has touched for fear of being cursed by the cripple-horror’s presence. And somewhere in a little corner of said quarters, there will be a bundle of cloth with a spare cane and a poorly made tuning fork, hidden in the bedframe itself.

Some habits earned on the streets die hard and live well, and hiding your shit properly is one of them.

It’s stupid. But it’s also louder than anything else right now. She might not be able to kill everyone who’s wronged her, or make good on every threat and imagined retribution she thought of, but leaving behind those parts of herself, in the hands of the people who tried to murder her in front of an audience, is… no. Just no. As revenge goes, it’s small, but to sneak in under their noses, take back from them some of what was taken, is a moment of triumph over her captors, those who stood in judgement and willed her to die for the crime of surviving.

And… there’s people there that she wants to say goodbye to.

She doesn’t know if Li Shu will want to see her. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea to expose her, potentially, to a dangerous connection to the escaped / confiscated monster that invaded the sect. But it is her and Li Shu’s decision to make, not theirs. 

And in this moment she is free. Deep in her soul, she dares them to try and stop her.

It doesn’t take her long to get to the plateau, but climbing up a sheer rock wall and slowing down one’s fall against one, while both difficult, are exceedingly different tasks.

The walls surrounding the lower plateau are closed at the moment, gates barred for the night. 

She doesn’t bother with them, leaping over them in a single bound that almost tears something in her legs. There is a brief moment where she smells the walls, a shifting mass of flame and formation and semi-wakefulness-

And then she’s past, and the smell she senses isn’t one of alarm, just alert. Some disciples are already making their way over to check, but they’re unhurried, on alert but not… well, alarmed.

And she’s already gone.

Unlike the Palace, the sect is covered in pathways and staircases that spiral up it, ways for aspirants to be tested and for supplicants to come make their pleas and leave their offerings. Beyond that, it’s more natural- most sects don’t bother to turn their plateaus into alien monoliths, maintaining the illusion of naturality even as they subvert it. There’s handholds, cracks, stray rocks and “natural” angle, enough there for her to get a grip and solid places to step.

And then it’s easy.

She flies up the cliff wall, moving at a speed that would have surprised even her younger self. She doesn’t need to pause and cycle her Qi, she doesn’t need to plant her feet into a specific stance to channel it, she doesn’t need to figure out how a human should balance, here. She simply moves as she wills, flesh shifting her weight in small but meaningful ways, skin and muscle gripping with far more force than her changed body should technically be able to exert, and every part of it balanced on a knife’s edge in her mind. She moves like a thing, like a person-shaped creature designed to be puppeteered up a cliff, and if she didn’t feel the wind on her scalp, or feel the distance falling away beneath her, or the sheer joy of being able to move as she wants to, she might almost be disturbed.

As it is, she’s just a little bit in love. With life, with the beauty of the night, and with the sensation of feeling and moving exactly as she tells herself to, unbound by wounds and weakness and a failing body.

She does still miss her left arm, though. That one’s a bit of a pang of loss, even still.

She clears the top of the plateau in under an hour, arriving at the lantern-lit perimeter road that guards and disciples are meant to patrol. She can see, compared to when she last passed by the perimeter wall, that there are quite a lot more here than normal. 

But she did like climbing, and rather than follow the paths to the doors… well, there’s another wall here.

This one is far smoother and more difficult than the plateau, but it has multiple windows in which archers and cultivators can fire out of in times of war, and some decorative statues and carved sections here and there, so…

She waits another hour or so for a moment where two guards pause and speak to each other, and leaps about twelve feet over both of their heads in a burst of force, agonizing and muted to the outside world by her body’s ability to muffle and hold it and the curse on her outer flesh. Lesser guards they may be, but both immediately look up to try and see what made the sound of something whistling by them… and neither see anything, Raika nothing more than a dark-skinned shadow on the other side of the road already.

It takes her less time to climb the wall than it took to wait for a chance to do so, and she glories in it every step of the way.

And then she is over the side, staring down at the expansive fields, the clustered buildings, the ornate, massive structures, of the Purple Flame Burning Lotus sect.

From there, it takes her ten minutes to sprint from shadow to shadow, tree to tree, to the servant’s quarters.

The doors are unlocked, because why wouldn’t they be, here in the security of their home and where servants come and go at all times of day or night as their duties and “betters” demand. Deeply changed she may be, but her face still has a deeply distinctive scar and her skin, while rather average, remains a lovely shade of reddish-brown that she’d rather not have recognized. It’s still night, and no Qi-Gathering realm cultivator (as most, if not all servants most assuredly are) can deny sleep more than a few nights at most, but there’s a final puzzle piece that makes the infiltration far too easy; she can smell anyone coming from a while away.

More proof that her miraculous, poorly understood regeneration did more than just improve her muscles and wounds. Where before, she needed to have someone use or transmit their Qi for her to smell them, now, so long as she stays focused, she can smell faint wisps when they move. Taran, Yun Ka and Taurus are all examples that high levels of control must affect these wisps, but she does not encounter anyone with such skill in the servant’s quarters tonight.

She eventually walks, silently, back into the bunk room she was assigned to, and finds the bed that used to be hers. 

Like she guessed, it’s empty, even the bunk above it left absent a sleeper, so potent is the curse of a misinformed bunch of gossips. The wooden slates of the bedframe itself, on the other hand, still have the very slight indent of a bundle of cloth.

She has to hold herself back from talking with Dink the moment she has it back in her hands. It sits there, unused for over a month, surely lonely but loyal to a fault, keeping itself hidden and safe just like she set it up to be. She can’t help but reward the little shit with a quick, relieved hug, before tucking him into her shirt.

“Raika?” asks a voice so quiet she thinks she imagined it at first.

Raika turns, moving almost silently but far too fast for something that should be human, eyes that should not see in the dark immediately centering on a small, bleary-eyed figure who looks at her in a mix of confusion and outright terror.

Raika freezes, half-panicked herself and ready to react, but not act, as they stare at each other. She forces herself to stop and think. She let her guard down. New advantages, old bad habits. A sleepy, barely-awake figure, full of memory-altering panic and adrenaline. Herself, a black-clad, dark skinned figure, hairless and probably at least a little weird-looking with how she turned so sharply, crouched in the dark next to the bed of the thing that survived the flames of the sect’s greatest cultivator and then tried to kill him. It’s a genuinely reasonable reaction, and a scream here would ruin a lot if she doesn’t play this right. She curses herself for an idiot; what use is a sense that tells you when someone is close to you in a room full of people?

Then she blinks again, her brain clicking a name into place.

“Maen?” she blurts out, as quietly as she can.

The terrified young woman nods, ears flicking and nearly invisible for their fur as she picks up the sound of her name.

Well shit. Raika’s… not really sure what to say now. Better to be honest?

“I’m… just gonna go,” she whispers, starting to edge towards the door. 

“Wait,” Maen whispers, and Raika flinches at the added noise, no matter how quiet.

Then she looks around at the deeply sleeping, exhausted servants, none of whom have reacted.

Huh. Did her hearing get better, too?

Raika, sort of surprised by the request… does actually wait. She turns back to Maen. “Yeah?” she whispers.

“Are you leaving?” Maen asks. 

Raika nods.

Maen hesitates, until the silence starts to feel a bit oppressive (and awkward). Then-

“Can I come with you?” she asks.

Raika blinks. Well. Not what she expected.

She pauses. Then- “Why?”

Maen doesn’t seem to have a good answer… and then just sort of looks around. Keeping her voice down, bowing so her face is close to the blanket, she eventually whispers; “I think this place is a cage. I think it’s getting more dangerous here the more things go wrong. The lockdown hasn’t been lifted since your execution. And… I think I can get more with you.”

Well. Points for honesty. 

Raika has places to be, so she doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll be leaving by the Eastern gate, when the guard shift changes. Meet me there in… I don’t know, thirty minutes? We’ll see after that.”

She has no intentions to leave by the east gate, obviously. She’s going to be climbing the wall again. But before Maen can ask any questions, Raika leaves her with that little lie and a clear possibility of where one might set up an ambush if Maen betrays her. And… well, Raika can swing by from a distance, maybe. Just to see if the beastkin woman does go there, on her own, and she can make up her mind then.

And then she’s off like a bullet, leaping down hallways, sprinting on silent, altered feet around corners, and back out into the night, towards the medical pavilion.

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 Li Shu does not say anything.

Raika’s not sure what she expected her to say, to be honest.

They stand there, alone in a darkened room, and all she can feel for a moment of bone chilling unhappiness is that she will leave this place with only silence as her answer.

So, moving slowly, she steps into the room. She closes the door behind her as quietly as she opened it, and kneels on the floor in front of her honored healer.

She feels Li Shu’s Qi. She can smell it in the room now, how it has changed, the notes she refuses to let herself stop and examine or think about because it would take away from her moment here, now. She refuses to let herself feel the fact that she can smell her, so close, and the scent is that of a comfort she did not expect and a fear she cannot articulate.

And Li Shu says nothing.

…

The silence goes on.

Eventually, Li Shu shifts from where she was sitting, leaving behind the inks and candles and study, and walks over to Raika, and kneels down in front of her. 

Raika feels like she cannot breathe.

Li Shu touches her, and it is like a wound, like stabbing pins and needles, like a trembling of flesh on flesh.

“Are you okay?” Li Shu asks, quietly.

Raika blinks and looks into her eyes for the first time.

She is angry, that much Raika can see easily. She is frustrated, and angry at something, but not at her. In this moment, all that she sees when Li Shu looks at her is a genuine, moment-encompassing concern for the well being of someone who has only brought her trouble.

Raika can’t help it. She laughs. It starts as a small chuckle, and morphs into a larger giggle, and then falls into full on laughter as her tears hit the floor, as she curls up against herself and lets Li Shu lay a soft hand on her and ask her, again, if she’s ok. She lays there for long enough for the laughter to fade, surrounded by the smell of lavender, of soft candles and of sharp, delicate steel.

Li Shu has changed; by Qi alone that much is proven. Raika has changed; by appearance alone, that much is proven. But in this moment, after the crashing of so many waves, after so much pain, after perfect loneliness locked in a fucking box after the worst pain she has ever experienced in more than a year filled with record-breakers, they are both here, and her friend has asked if she’s ok, and that’s all it takes for something to unwind in her.

She uncurls, bit by bit, as the laughter dries and the thing behind it is finally let out to uncoil and be with her, as heavy as sorrow, as harsh as still-remembered pain. She sniffs, sitting back up onto her knees, and gives Li Shu an apologetic little smile.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. “I… didn’t know I was going to do that.”

Li Shu nods. “It’s ok,” she murmurs back. “Well, not entirely, because the fact that you’re even here is incredibly stupid, but… clearly you needed that.”

She huffs out another laugh. “Yeah,” she says, “I guess I did. I… didn’t realize I had that with me. Didn’t realize it would come out like that, either.”

“That part is definitely alright,” Li Shu murmurs. “Shitty patient or not, I have a responsibility of care for those in my care, and despite his best intentions, Qen Hou doesn’t discharge you, I do. And it seems like you needed a bit of… this.”

“Hah,” Raika mumbles. “I really must be your shittiest patient, huh? At least the idiot kids they have you treating here have the common sense not to actively jump back into the flames.”

“It’s a character flaw,” Li Shu agrees, “but you wear it well.”

She pauses, touching Raika’s jawline, ever so gently, to lift her gaze.

“Why are you here, Raika?” she asks.

Her breath shudders as it leaves. “I wanted to see you,” she whispers. “Before I left. Before I get taken away. I don’t think I can stop them, and I don’t think I can try without hurting you, and Qen Hou, and anyone else I’ve touched.

“And… when I was at my absolute worst, in the cold, just a ruined version of myself to my name, you were kind. You were always kind, without ever needing to be asked, without ever making me feel like I was nothing, or like you only saw what mattered to you, or like I mattered to you less than the deformities and the novelty. So… I came back. One last time. And I know it’s stupid. Incredibly stupid, even. But… I couldn’t not.”

She meets Li Shu’s eyes. “I have no reason to be here except that you’re here. And it hurt that I might never see you again.”

Li Shu looks away, scoffing a bit, but there’s no heat to it. Her hand trembles, and in this moment it is very hard to tell if it is in sadness or in rage, if her scent is more of soft, strange candles or of sharpened scalpel. It takes her a long time to meet Raika’s gaze again.

“You’ll see me again,” she says.

She doesn’t say it like it’s a joke, or a possibility, or a promise. She says it as if it is already true.

Raika laughs at that, and it’s like the laugh lets all the tension in her body out in one final shuddering gasp.

Li Shu smiles. “You were never meant for that kind of hurt, Raika. No one is. I have seen you crawl and limp and bite and writhe until the whole world bent its back to let you become strong again. I have seen you wound things so far above you in the Heavens and the earth that it’s fucking funny. I’ve seen you survive pain and torment from those who did not deserve to wield them against you, who paraded you in an arena and lit you on fire, and who still could not kill you, and you were not meant for that kind of hurt, Raika. It is not owed from you, no matter how much of it you’re happy to give. And it is what I am to heal what I can reach, no matter where they try to lock me up.”

Li Shu gets closer, eyes intense and bright and wide, and for a moment, for the first time, Raika can believe that this place of fire and strange mysteries suits her honored healer.

“I don’t know what I’ll be,” she whispers, “and I don’t know who you’ll become, but you are my first patient, Honored Raika the Undying, the Unbroken, the Unburnt, and you don’t get rid of me that easy.”

And then the room twists, and the far wall begins to melt, and it is to the backdrop of molten rock and steel and glowing, impossible flames that Raika sits and memorizes the look in the eyes of the person who first showed her kindness in a world bare of its pretty illusions.

“Gods damn right,” she whispers back.