Zéyì woke in a dim room.

The shutters were drawn on all the windows, letting only a little light in, but she could see the simple ceiling, and feel the soft but homely texture of the bedding surrounding her. And this scent – a little sweet, a little earthy...

"Shī jiě?"

An unfamiliar voice called from a party of the room Zéyì couldn't see. She tried to turn her head and raise herself, but jolts of pain seized her limbs and locked her to the bed. The face of a Jyun Mei disciple came into view.

"Shī jiě, please stay still. You're still badly injured. Do you need something? There's water here, and I can call anyone you need."

"... water..."

She couldn't sit up to swallow, so the disciple dripped water, agonisingly slowly, from a wet cloth that she kept dipping into the water jug.

At last, Zéyì's tongue felt a little less dry and swollen, but she could still faintly taste blood.

"Shī xiōng..."

"Shī fu? Do you wish to see him?"

"... mm."

"Anyone else, shī Fén?"

"..."

A face crossed Zéyì's mind, grey-brown eyes, usually cool and powerful like a slow river, now fierce and raging. Chestnut-coloured hair falling around them both as a voice called out her name...

"... no."

----------------------------------------

"Yì shī mèi, you've rejoined us," Yuān Mù sank into a chair beside her bed with a look of relief.

"How long...?"

"A week."

"... Is... where is... Gong jiě?"

"She's been back and forth... Well, I'm not entirely sure where she's been going, but she makes sure to return every day to see how you are. Would you like to see her?"

"..." Zéyì bit her lip fiercely her face contorting as she struggled not to cry. Heavens, she was so sick of crying.

"Are you angry at her, shī mèi?"

"I know! I know I... Why... Why am I like this..."

She began to cry in earnest, tears sliding horribly into her ears as she didn't even have the strength to raise her hands. Yuān Mù considerately applied a cloth to her face to assist her until she ran out of tears and energy.

"It can wait, shī mèi. You've been through a lot. Nothing will make sense for a while. Sleep well, eat well, and when you're ready, you can think about it again."

"Please... I don't want to see... Don't let her see me like this."

"When you're ready, shī mèi."

For a month, Zéyì drifted in and out of sleep, waking erratically, eating when she could, slowly moving her body until she could turn over in bed.

She cried. Days would go by where she would not speak to anyone, days where she stared at a single spot on the ceiling, or hid under the bedcovers. The disciples stopped asking her if she wanted to see Gong Lau Jan.

Stop stop stop she screamed in her mind, trying to push down the fear and the demonic energy threatening to boil out of her.

It didn't work. For all the rest she got, for all the good food and the gentle words, one night it all exploded out of her.

Yuān Mù raced into her room, an outer robe hastily thrown over his sleeping clothes, to find her pulling out clumps of her hair, engulfed in a roiling heat and screaming uncontrollably. When he reached out to touch her, she flinched away as though she had been burnt, then launched herself back at him, fingers vicious and desperate. Yuān Mù gathered his energy and met her halfway, seeking to quell the demonic power that threatened to consume them both.

Zéyì cried and screamed and scratched at him, scratched at herself until they were both bleeding. Yuān Mù in particular was streaming blood from his seven apertures (1) and feeling faint.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry!" Zéyì howled, clawing at her face. The room creaked and shook. Outside the disciples, woken by the screams, stood anxious and alert, their mouths dry.

At the very doorway of the room, a slender woman stood grimly, her palm placed upon the closed door.

"A Lián."

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Her voice was soft, but somehow Zéyì heard it over the din of her own heart. The demonic energy flickered and surged.

"I would like to speak with you, A Lián. You can keep saying no, if you want."

Zéyì saw herself for a moment, covered in her and her shī xiōng's blood, clumps of her own long hair in her hands, drenched all over in sweat and tears. Her face contorted.

"Why... why did you leave me behind...?" she wailed. "... why did you come back? Why didn't you just let me die...?"

"... May I come in, A Lián?"

Zéyì made a choking noise, vaguely affirming, and Gong Lau Jan swept in.

She looked haggard. There were dark circles around her eyes, and her skin was unhealthily pale, but she wore a rich set of robes in a style that Zéyì had never seen before, deep brown and draping about her form to emphasise the long lines of her body. A silken cape with a large, tasselled collar that covered her shoulders was gathered at her throat and fell to her feet. Large pearls gleamed on her earlobes, while seed pearls peeked from other parts of her ears like stars in a constellation, between the chestnut strands of hair that had been left loose in front of her ears, separate from her high ponytail.

Zéyì felt hideous and wretched.

And then Gong Lau Jan knelt before her, as though the loong were a vassal before a queen on a throne, and said, "May I hold you, Your Highness?"

Zéyì shook and before she even understood what was happening, she was reaching out towards Gong Lau Jan with bloodstained fingers, and the loong and wrapped her up in her arms and her cloak, heedless of sweat and tears and blood. Zéyì buried her face in Gong Lau Jan's cool-skinned neck and cried.

The loong carefully extended her own energy, guiding the demonic power escaping from Zéyì this way and that until it slowly, slowly began to dissipate. Yuān Mù tiptoed from the room to be treated by his disciples.

"Talk to me, Meí Guī?"

"... Why do you always leave me behind, Miss Fén? First at Chūn, and then, at Yùhǎi- No, no, I'm being irrational, you had good reasons for leaving, how dare I think I'm so important... Why... Why..."

"I misunderstood." Gong Lau Yan ran long nails through Zéyì's damaged hair, soothing the bleeding skin. "Meí Guī, I thought... I don't think I understand humans very well. Loong live a very long time. For us, dozens of years between seeing or speaking to another means nothing. I forget, sometimes, that this is not the same for humans, even ones who can live as long as you."

She continued petting Zéyì's hair gently. The demonic energy still hung heavy on the air, but it had ceased its frenzied rampage.

"When I left you at the Chūn Kingdom, I always intended to come back and visit. Things move so quickly in the human world... No, that's... I should have ensured your safety before I left. I was chasing information on the fall of Zyu and got impatient. I left you alone, who didn't have anyone else to rely on, after being trapped for so long."

"I should have been able to handle it," Zéyì whispered hoarsely. "It's nothing... I survived so long by myself, and it's not the first time a family member... Or the second time, really. I'm just weak. It was better that I managed it myself, it's nothing to do with you-"

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Gong Lau Jan's arms tightened reassuringly." Maybe you could this alone, Meí Guī. But does that mean you should? Why shouldn't you have help? Haven't you been alone long enough?"

The last vestige of lurking demonic energy disappeared in an instant like a heart breaking. Zéyì couldn't stop shaking.

"And this last time... Even if..."

They clung to each other in silence. At last, Gong Lau Jan managed to say, "Ze ze is dead. You and Zyu Ngaan Wan are not. I shouldn't have pushed you away."

"You... were grieving. You couldn't..."

"I'm still sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

"Why?

"For being so needy."

"What's wrong with that?"

"... everything."

"It's me who's lacking. Needs are needs. They cannot be controlled. I... am still learning. I don't fully understand humans..."

"You're doing well right now?"

"I'm been talking a lot with Yuān Mù. He's a good shī xiōng. Meí Guī... Zéyì."

Zéyì opened her eyes anxiously, although she kept her face pressed to Gong Lau Jan's neck. Her tone of voice had changed strangely.

"I am not confident in myself right now. Ze ze is dead. Zyu Ngan Wan is still missing. I still can't clearly see what happened to the Zyu Kingdom all those years ago. One of my close friends, who I thought was dead, has reappeared in the guise of a Ghost of Impermanence (2), with ze ze's... skin. And you're not well, and the Chūn Kingdom... Is this the right thing?"

"Is what the right thing?"

Zéyì sat back. The two exhausted women stared at each other.

"Is it right, for me to want to stay by your side?"

Their fingers were still interwoven. Gong Lau Jan squeezed them lightly.

"Meí Guī... I have no confidence. I'm over a thousand years old and I have never felt so lost..." She suddenly returned to the floor of the room, kneeling formally as she had before. Her long brows tussled and she gnawed at her lower lip. Zéyì clutched herself, almost faint with weariness, her mind only able to wonder at how beautiful Gong Lau Jan looked right then, vulnerable and raw.

Gong Lau Jan closed her eyes tight for a moment, and when she reopened them, they had regained their calm, deep power. She looked directly into Zéyì's eyes.

"Zéyì. I will find Zyu Ngan Wan, and then I will come and speak to you again. You... Don't wait for me. Don't wait for anyone, Your Highness. You have people who love you and will support you. Don't be afraid, Meí Guī. Don't shut off parts of your heart or fight against yourself. They will love you regardless. I... I will support you, regardless."

She could hear the sound of someone waiting outside the door, and the faint smell of medicinal herbs told her that Yuān Mù had come to heal Zéyì's wounds. She stood up, and was immediately captured by Zéyì's hands. There was no strength left in them, and yet Gong Lau Yan could not escape.

"I understand," Zéyì said softly. "I was afraid too. My mind made up all kinds of stories because I was scared... and lonely. Gong je, if you only tell me what's on your mind, I'll understand. I can wait for you, for as long as needed, if you only just talk to me."

"You shouldn't wait."

"You mean, I don't have to wait. But I want to. I choose to. However long that might be. Gong Jie...is it strange that I'm... so happy? I feel like I'm coming to the end of a long journey.. and I first started to see it coming when you pulled me from the water."

Nervously, she cast about the room, until her eyes fell on a little table beside her bed. Her delicate jade lotus earrings lay on a small dish. She picked one up, running her fingers over the shape of the the flower, and the little metal rods that dangled below it.

"... Take this?"

Without a word, Gong Lau Jan removed one of the large pearls from her left earlobe, and inserted it into Zéyì's own ear. Then she replaced it with the lotus earring that she had accepted from Zéyì.

"I'll come back, Your Highness."

Gong Lau Jan bowed, and without another word, she left the room.

Zéyì stared numbly at the stained bedspread, acutely aware of the cool orb of the pearl pressed to her earlobe. She looked up at Yuān Mù, a tray of medicine in his hands, and a gentle look in his gold-and-black eyes.

"Shī xiōng... I'm tired."