There are moments in life where time simply stops.
Like a painting, depicting a scene of some profound emotion, right now that emotion is horror. The urchin is a skinny thing, skin taut against bone, she imagines his ribs would be quite prominent under those rags of his. She can see his chipped nails and calloused feet as he sprints away.
She can also see the narrow tip of the cultivator’s blade as it punctures through his back and out his front. There isn’t much blood, the rapier isn’t designed for bleeding, more of a duelist's weapon than one seen on the battlefield. It’s still perfectly capable of killing.
Her eyes are wide as the boy falls to the ground with barely a whimper, hitting cobblestone like a puppet with no strings.
He doesn’t even twitch as the cultivator cleans his blade.
“Honestly, the foolishness of mortals never ceases to amaze, wouldn’t you say?”
Tantra’s just staring at the corpse.
“Ah, new to this then? You do look quite young despite all that Qi packet into your body, say, what sect do you hail from?”
Tantra doesn’t reply as she takes a step towards the boy, kneeling in the pool of blood that’s seeped into the cracks of the cobblestone, she turns him over and cradles him like a babe. His face doesn’t even show a hint of pain, the death must have been quick.
A hand is placed on her shoulder.
“Don’t think about it so much,” says the cultivator, “mortals die all the time, this isn’t some freak occurrence.”
He’s not wrong, mortals do die all the time, whether that be from natural causes, war, beasts, or in this case, a cultivator. She was raised on stories on cultivators, everyone is, and even she, privileged daughter of a prominent merchant, knew that crossing a cultivator was courting death. So why didn’t she expect this? Why did she hold onto the boy instead of letting him run?
She helped him.
She’s an accomplice.
She turns her head away from the boy and vomits up bile and half digested food.
The man sighs, “c’mon girl, I’ll buy you a drink, it’ll clear your head.”
A drink?
He thinks she’s going to what, forget this happened over a drink? He thinks she’ll unsee the moment his blade pierced through the child's back? With a drink. She almost wants to laugh, now that is a joke. Come one come all! Forget your part in the murder of a child with Tarak’s finest ale!
Because this time, she is responsible. The attacks on the sect? The man who was bisected during her unwanted duel? Those that died in the tide? Sure she was related to all of those in some way, but she wasn’t responsible. This time she held a child back from running, and it led to his death. All because she forgot all the cautionary tales of what cultivators are.
She looks up to the man, and there's a lot of things advising her right now. Fear, pragmatism, guilt.
But in the corners of her mind there is rage, simmering at a low burn. It isn’t like fire, not really, fire consumes, rage? It accentuates. Makes the anger more real, more expressive. It also makes people do some very stupid things. Like how she’s considering bashing this man's skull in.
She doesn’t have her Qi senses yet, so she has no idea how strong he is, and she isn’t some martial master sent down from the heavens to deliver justice. She’s just a girl playing at being a cultivator, too weak to really do anything about the cruelty right in front of her, about the injustice.
That urchin was a fool for stealing from a cultivator, but he didn’t deserve to be struck down.
The man lifts her by the elbow.
“C’mon, up you get! No use staring at a corpse.”
“Let go of me,” she whispers.
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“Hmm?”
“Let go of me!” She pulls her arm out of his grasp and backs away.
He raises his hands in surrender, “whoa now, calm down, I’m sorry okay? Didn’t mean to traumatize you.”
“That’s what you’re sorry about?!?”
“Well, yeah, the kid wasn’t worth much, no reason to feel sorry about him.”
The rage flares, and before she can think better of it, she’s swinging her club.
He dodges, barely even trying against her petulant tantrum, and drives a heavy fist through her guts.
Tantra doubles over and vomits again.
“Listen, I know it’s hard, but you really shouldn’t attack someone so far above you.”
She grits her teeth and gets back up.
This time he doesn’t wait, sending a kick right to her temple, bringing her back to the ground.
“Are we done?”
She gets back up.
A jab then an uppercut.
She gets back up.
A simple sweep of the legs.
She gets back up.
He sighs and draws a line of blood across her torso with his rapier.
“We don’t have to do this.”
Tantra isn’t listening, all she can hear is the incandescent rage as she feebly swings at him and misses, and misses, and misses. Each miss comes with a slash and/or stab to mark her body. None of them fatal, but all of them hurt. She pushes through the pain, boosting her muscles to be faster.
Still she doesn’t manage to hit him.
She stands, panting and bleeding as her body can’t take anymore Qi.
“Are you done?” The cultivator says, “or do you need more?”
She huffs and raises her club, bringing it down, weary muscles moving at a speed that perhaps even a child could dodge.
This time the man doesn’t do that though, he grabs her club and rips it out of her hands.
“I have a feeling you don’t feel like talking to me” he says
She glares at him.
“So instead I’ll give you this,” he tosses a token at her, she leaves it to hit the floor.
He sighs, “It’s a guest token, for the Burning Swan sect, ask for Galigan Reynor. Then we can have a talk once your heads cooled.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” She growls.
He shrugs, “perhaps not now, but in a few years? We’ll see.
-
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Rakan says flatly, “you’ve only just entered your foundations and already you’re picking fights with your seniors?”
“He killed a child.”
“So? He’s a cultivator, and this is the world we live in. Did you’re time in the sect, surrounded by genuinely decent people, taint you’re view on what we fucking are?”
The rage simmers, causing her to growl like a hound. She’s angry at the cultivator, but mostly her rage is directed at herself, for her part in such a pointless death.
A hand drops on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
She turns her head to see Kisrin there giving her a look of…understanding.
She can’t hold that look without losing her rage, so she doesn’t.
She needs to be angry right now, not sad.
“I need to be stronger,” she says.
Rakan gives a slight smile, “you do, but I’m not in possession of some secret technique.”
“I don’t care, we’ll just train harder.”
Rakan’s smile widens.
-
“Leeeet’s go!” a boy says, “to the centre of the DarkWoods my fellow friends.”
“Tokar, just because the forest’s emptier than usual ‘cause of the tide doesn’t mean we’ll survive.” A girl with long black bangs points out.
“Ranya agrees, this is a dumb idea.”
Pinia just nods along to their wisdom.
“Argh, you guys are so lammmeee, lame, lame, lame. Where’s your spine?”
“There’s a line between courage and stupidity.” A voice says from behind them.
All their eyes turn to face a servant guard.
“Hey kids, don’t mind me, just giving some elderly advice.”
Tokar harrumphs, “If I wanted advice from a mortal, I’d ask my parents”
The guard raises a brow, “pretty sure I’m further on the path than you kid.”
Ranya tilts her head, “you’re in foundation?”
“Yup, so maybe heed what I have to say eh?”
Tokar crosses his arms, “prove it.”
The man raises a brow then shrugs.
In the next moment he is beside the boy.
It wasn’t instantaneous movement, but it was fast. Pinia might have seen every motion, but she couldn’t have trusted her instincts to react to something of that speed.
Tokar yelps and jumps.
“Believe me now, hmmm?”
Tokars eyes sparkle and Pinia sighs.
“That’s so cool! Do it again.”