The early morning sun showed an old man walking down a path between two vast fields. He wore a simple brown cloak, over expensive, yet tasteful and well worn silk clothes in blue and green. If he so wished, he could have flown to his destination, yet unlike most of those his age and power, Virion has long believed in not using his frivolously. He may be on the 4th Step of the 8th Layer, but he still remembered a time when such heights seemed but a lofty dream.
As such, he would on occasion walk as the mortals do, though only when time allowed. He wasn’t concerned about being attacked by bandits or Essence Beasts. Any that would give a cultivator of his potency cause for concern would not be this deep in the Greenways Province.
Virion always enjoyed experiencing new sights, no matter how mundane, so this day, on his way back to the Falling Sky Sect from his biannual rounds through the surrounding Provinces, he was taking a new path. It proved to be a much more impactful decision than he could have known.
It was a short time later that Virion spotted a farmhouse out in the fields after cresting a short hill. Even with his cultivation not being focused on the physical body, Virion’s eyes were still sharp enough to see the man digging a hole in his backyard.
And the grief etched plain on his face.
There were few reasons for a man to wear such grief so plainly, and even from this distance, Virion could see the small bundle beside him. Acting on a gut instinct he had long learned to trust, Virion projected his spiritual senses forward, focusing on the child.
His eyes narrowed.
With a twist of essence, Virion launched himself towards the home, his power and control such that not a single speck of dust was disturbed in his wake. He landed a short distance behind the man soundlessly, unnoticed. The twig he stood on unbroken by his will alone.
Then he let it break.
At the snapping sound, the man turned towards him, shovel raised in defense. But upon spotting Virion, and feeling the subtle weight of a high-Layer cultivator’s carefully restrained presence, he forcefully relaxed.
“Honoured cultivator,” he said, voice hoarse from tears, “I must ask you forgive me for not paying due respect. What brings you to my home?”
Virion looked at the man, haggard and on the verge of breaking. Then he looked at the child.
“A child?” he asked.
The man’s face fell. “Aye, our daughter. Stillborn. The birth was hard on my wife, she’s yet to wake.”
A pause hung between the two.
“And if I told you she’s not yet dead?”
The man’s face hardened, though Virion could see the undercurrents of a fragile hope. “You lie.”
Virion chuckled mirthlessly. “Most of my colleagues would strike you dead for that accusation.”
The man paled, but Virion stayed his tongue with a raised hand.
“She’s not dead yet, but she doesn’t have long. I can save her, if you’ll let me.”
Suspicion and mistrust warred with hope on his face, and Virion sighed internally. He wished that suspicion was unearned, but too many cultivators succumbed to greed and apathy, and ruined the lives of men just like this one with casual ease. It was a point of pride that Virion remained among the powerful without committing such sins.
Eventually, the man said, “What do you need?”
Virion smiled reassuringly. “Privacy, and time. The process will be long and delicate, it will be best if I remain undisturbed for the length of it.”
He nodded. “My name is Jason Alterse, honoured cultivator. My wife is Miranda, and our daughter is Dawn.”
“I am Virion.”
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Almost eight hours later, Virion stepped out of the side room Jason had let him use for his work, holding a sleeping Dawn in his hands. The child’s previously pale and clammy skin had returned to a healthy pink glow, and her breathing was even and steady.
Entering the main room of the house, Virion found Jason and his wife Miranda, talking quietly among themselves. Seeing the two had yet to notice his presence, Virion took the time to examine them. Jason was a tall and broad shouldered mortal man in his mid thirties, the evidence of a hard but honest life in his tanned face and blonde hair. Miranda was slightly younger, with black hair and kind features, only ruined by the kind of eternal worry only a mother could have. Their clothes were modest, even by mortal standards, but not signs of poverty. The farmland Jason worked was clearly enough to sustain them both well.
Undistracted by the direness of the moment, Virion noted that Jason was a Cultivator himself, though only on the early 2nd Layer. What’s more, he could tell from the state of his Spirit that he was previously a soldier, based on the unending sameness that all soldiers were deliberately molded into. The method cost them in power, but it made it easier for the Empire’s generals to strategise around their troops when all those in the same position had the same strengths and weaknesses.
Virion’s colleagues would have called the single storey house ‘quaint’ or ‘rustic’ if they were feeling polite, or a hovel if they weren’t, but he knew better. There was a history to this building that few sweeping mansions and temples could match. He could see it in the way the essence flowed throughout, the house’s Spirit sturdy enough that it caused even Virion to be wary. It was a foolish cultivator that crossed the spirit of any home, no matter how powerful they were.
He approached the couple, presenting their now healthy daughter to them.
His footsteps finally caught their attention, and Miranda’s eyes snapped to Dawn. The relief on her face caused a veritable shift in the atmosphere of the room.
“Oh, my baby, my sweet baby girl. Thank you, thank you so much. Oh, by the Gods this is incredible.”
Perhaps forgetting who and what Virion was, Miranda stood up and swept Dawn out of his arms without a second thought, and immediately began fussing over her daughter, though careful not to wake her.
Jason eyed Virion warily, in case his wife’s actions had offended him, but since Virion’s only reaction was to smile warmly, he stood up and bowed to the cultivator.
“If there is anything we can do to repay you for this, please, let us know. This is a miracle we could never have hoped for.”
“I am not so heartless as to abandon a child at death’s door. You can relax, there is no debt,” Virion replied.
Satisfied that her child was alright, Miranda turned to Virion and said, “If it is not too much to ask, what exactly what was wrong with her? Jason said the midwife was adamant it was a stillbirth, of all people she’d know the signs.”
Virion sighed. “A difficult discussion, but one, I think, that must be had. Let’s sit back down first.”
Once they were all seated around the table, Virion said, “Firstly, you should not feel too hard on yourself for misidentifying her affliction, Jason. In truth, the symptoms will have made it impossible to tell that young Dawn was still alive. Even most cultivators will have missed it. The four of you are beyond fortunate that I was nearby.”
Virion’s phrasing was not lost on the couple.
“Four?” Jason asked. “Forgive me, honoured cultivator, but what do you mean four?”
He smiled. “Allow me to explain. Your daughter suffered from an extremely rare mutation of the soul, in such a way that the conflict caused her to appear to be on the verge of death. This mutation, at least in every other form I have seen it take, is caused when the soul enters the body malformed. There is a sort of tumorous mass affixed to it, that causes the body to reject its own soul. Healers of the 7th Layer and beyond, like myself, can remedy this by simply carving out and disposing of the extra portion of soul, allowing it to mesh with the body in full. However, this is not quite what happened here today.
“Instead, your daughters’ malformation presented itself as a soul that had split itself in half, almost perfectly. One half attached to the body, while the other attached to the Spirit of the body. Both halves were trying to gain control of the part they lacked, and the turmoil from this caused her body to go into complete and total shutdown. What I did to fix this was forcefully separate both halves, and then convince them to work in tandem. One to control the body, the other to control the Spirit.
“I said four of you, Miranda, Jason, because apart from me there are four separate, if not complete, souls in this room. You do not have one daughter, you have two.”
Stunned, the couple stared at their child.
Miranda recovered from her shock the quickest. “You mean to say I have a second daughter, and I cannot see her? What cruelty is this?”
Virion raised a hand. “Calm yourself. Just as blind men learn to see with their Spirit, and mute men speak without words, I have every reason to believe her desire to be seen will cause her to overcome this shortcoming.”
Jason wrapped an arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “It’ll be okay, love. We’ll figure this out.”
Virion stood up. “I will return in six months to check on the health of them both. I must admit, as callous as it sounds, this is very interesting. I’m quite curious to see how they’ll develop.”
Jason stood up as well, and bowed to Virion. “Once again, thank you. It might not mean much, but you will always be welcome in our home.”
“Oh, what will we name her? We hadn’t considered twins.” Miranda asked Jason.
“If you’ll permit me to make a suggestion?” Virion interjected. At their nod, he continued, “Why not lean in to the uniqueness of their situation. You named the body Dawn, why not name the spirit Dusk?”