Three days before their appointed “final” day, she heads back into town.
She takes Jin with her too, hoping that it’ll be a good chance to talk things through with him. Li Shu’s still visiting the town nearly every day, though Raika’s pretty damn sure there’s no chance anyone that was going to make it hasn’t already, not with her skills. Maybe she’s overestimating her friend’s skill, but… nah. It’s Li Shu. She could probably rebuild someone a damn body if only she had the tools.
Her reception through the front gates is very different this time.
Both the guards stand at attention immediately, bowing at the waist to her. The yells of “Greetings Honored Cultivator!” echo loud though the village.
“With your permission, honored one, this lowly guard shall go and alert the elders of your presence!”
She sighs, then nods, and one of the two guards (smells slightly more of sandalwood while the other, who’s a bit more fungal?) sprints away like there’s a fire somewhere. The other one seems to not really know what to do, and is just sort of maintaining the bow.
“So… we’re gonna walk past you now,” she says.
“Of course, honored one! I would never seek to impede your progress!”
“Right. My thanks for your diligence and honor.”
As they walk past him, she looks down at Jin. She can smell his surprise, but the expression on his face is pretty hilarious too. He looks like he just doesn’t know how to process what he just saw.
Good. That’s useful.
The walk through the village is… interesting. The smells and sounds are more vibrant, alive, the scent of relief and the sort of joy that comes after despair filling the air. It’s still not back to how it was before the attack, not as loud or full of moving bodies, but there’s a lot more bodies in their own homes now. She’s still a long ways away from sensing the whole town, not without sitting down to focus, but what she senses as they walk is enough to let her know that Wayun village will be alright.
She makes it nearly to the town center before one of the old guys she’s seen with the village leader shows up with two new guards and a couple of the stronger looking farmhands, all who bow at the waist before her and Jin.
“We greet the honorable cultivator!” they say in… almost unison.
“We thank you for your greeting,” she replies, giving a slight bow in response. “I just came to see how things are going. The farms are still recovering at pace?”
“Indeed, honored one! Your help was incredible, it cut weeks off of our reconstruction efforts. Without your aid-”
“I’m happy that my help was useful. I assume that Li Shu’s been doing a good job keeping everyone alive that she can. Do you mind taking us to her?”
“Not at all, honored one. Please, right this way.”
She’s a little bit… frustrated. At the way he’s treating her, how he’s reacting. Three “honored ones” in four sentences, and she hasn’t even learned his name. He hasn’t told her, and she didn’t exactly look it up while she was selling charms and trinkets on the street. She’s glad that she helped them, and she can see that they’re not… afraid per se, but it’s close. A recognition of fear, rather than an overwhelming amount.
They know she is strong, and they fear her for it.
The Flesh’s stomach rumbles at that, just a bit. The bitterness of the fear would certainly match well with the richness of the meat, so long as it doesn’t get too tense…
But at the same time, the Want looks out at them and… cringes. They offer her kindness because she is strong, not because she helped. Helping might have made them a bit less terrified, but that’s not why they’re bowing.
She looks down to Jin, and sees some of the same emotions and expressions playing out on his face. Not the hunger, luckily, but… still. The Mask keeps her face as perfectly, pleasantly neutral as she can, but the kid has no such advantage.
He’s thinking, though. Good.
Li Shu is exactly where she expected she’d be, sitting a little to one side of the town center in what looks like a donated tent. Someone’s stall has been retrofitted and transformed to have bright white cloth and a big open space in front of it, and there’s a half-dozen bandaged villagers sitting around its perimeter as Li Shu carefully checks them one by one.
She brightens up immediately as Raika comes closer, entering her detection range a few streets before the town center. She looks over as Raika arrives, smiling wide.
“Hey Raika! Good to see you!”
Raika grins right back, walking past the “honorary guard” that’s been set up near the edge of the town center and through the clumps of people sitting by, seemingly just watching. Several of the wounded, startled, go to move out of the way and clear a path, but she waves a hand at them to stay seated.
“You’re fine where you are. I’m here visiting my friend, not… I dunno, demanding anything. Please, stay.”
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They look between each other, then at her… and do eventually settle, partially due to the bandages and needle-string surrounding them shifting slightly and gently tugging them back down.
Shit. She’s getting even better at that.
“Recoveries are looking ok?” Raika asks Li Shu.
“Yep! All of them are looking fine. It’s been great being able to help people again, even if this has been a bit of a rush with so many at once. Your triage helped as well, I’m not sure I could’ve gotten to the worst injuries in time if not for that.”
“I’m glad. How’s uh… what’s his name… I don’t know it, actually. How’s Nan Su’s kid?”
“Nan Hie? Oh, he’s fine. Why?”
Raika shrugs. “She gave me a really good cookie one time, and she looked pretty messed up after the attack. One of the wounded smelled a lot like her, just a lot younger. Figured I’d ask.”
Off to one side, a young man stands and bows. “This one is honored you would think to ask about his condition, great one! I-”
“Yeah yeah yeah, don’t worry about it. Your mother’s good people, kid. And she makes great cookies.”
The guy seems to hesitate for a bit, but… then he smiles. “She’ll be happy to hear you say so, great one. Her lavender-oranges are a rarity in these parts, and she has yet to share the recipe for those cookies with anyone. Even her loving son.”
Raika laughs. “I’m not surprised. Such a rare recipe should be treasured, I think. Give her my best wishes.”
Nan Hie smiles softly, the crinkles of his eyes and dimples in his cheeks immediately marking him as related to Nan Su more than his skin, hair or eyes dare to. “I shall do so, honored cultivator. Though I warn that my mother is a strong woman, and cannot promise she won’t insist on making me return with more gifts.”
Raika shakes her head, smiling ruefully. “Thank you, but I’m afraid we’ll have left by the time such a thing could occur. I’ll treasure the memory, and am glad that I could help.”
He accepts gracefully, bowing out, and the air around the town square gets… a bit lighter.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s about two hours later when she manages to find a moment to slip away.
Size notwithstanding, speed and ability to sense people’s perception makes her decent at stealth, at least at this level. She takes Jin off to one side with her at a crucial moment where Li Shu tells a joke, startling some of the elders and getting a few very genuine laughs out of most of her patients.
Before the kid can blink, she’s picked him up by the back of his robes and launched them through the air, landing on top of the defensive wall that wraps around the village. It circles off quite a ways to protect the farmland, but hugs the village walls fairly closely on this end of it, and it takes a few seconds for her to leap onto it and sprint up the side.
By the time they stop, atop the wall, Jin hasn’t even had the time to catch his breath to scream.
She plants herself down on the wall, looking out over the village, the farms, already bustling with more repairs and preparations for the next planting, at the town center where dozens congregate around Li Shu, at the streets gradually filling with life…
And then at Jin, who’s still pretty wobbly on his feet.
“Do you want to stay?” she asks.
She gives him time to process. It’s a loaded question, and he is still catching his breath after all.
Eventually, he takes a seat on the wall, his legs dangling over the side. He takes a deeper breath, then pushes it out in a huff. She stares out at the town, keeping her gaze off him. Lightening the pressure just enough, she hopes, for him to take it seriously, but not feel… crushed.
It’s a big fucking question.
Eventually, she smells his Qi stir, ever so slightly. Just enough for her to know that he’s accessed it. And he breathes out, nice and loud.
“I don’t know.”
She chuckles a bit. Then, she nods.
“Good answer, kid.”
He looks at her in clear surprise, but she shakes her head.
“Absolute certainty isn’t something you grab onto if you’re not absolutely fucking certain. There are some things you need to be ready to stand and die for, but if you don’t know, then all you can do is work to find out. And it’s a good village. Out of the way, quiet. Keep cultivating, especially once you figure out some easier way to convert Qi, and you could be a pretty big deal here. Fight off most spirit beasts, probably, and be able to call for help if one too big arrives. You could enjoy Nan Su’s cookies, and get respect from that village leader guy, Hao Kai. You could enjoy a life of genuine growth and genuine comfort.”
“But…”
“But nothing, kid. It’s a choice you have. Stay low, stay quiet, and be a big fish in a pleasant pond. You’d have to change your cultivation, probably. Especially with my history, chances are the Divisions would come swoop you up if you kept your path as it is, and… I don’t know. Maybe it won’t be as bad for you as it was for me, but it’ll still be bad. You’ll still be theirs. Be owned.
“But if you changed your cultivation, you could do it. Live here. In peace. Or if that doesn’t work for you, I might be able to get you into the Hungering Roots sect. Hisheng would be more than willing. That’s a path, too.”
Jin looks at her, and she pointedly does not look at him, the Mask keeping her face calm and content. A little wind blows past them, making her dreads wave a bit, and she enjoys the coolness of it, and the scent of forest.
“Or?” he asks.
She sighs, long and slow.
“Or you come with us. Li Shu and I. I know I already asked, but you hadn’t seen what I could do. And I’m weak.”
He gives her a sharp look, his eyes wide.
“It’s true. I am. I’m getting stronger fast, that’s for damn sure, but the world is large, and dangerous, and I am not strong enough to guarantee your safety. There are monsters in the wilds and there are monsters in the cities and the world is not a kind place because the powerful are not kind. You can come with me, past the fortress cities that hold armies, past the gates of the world into places where things like what nearly destroyed this village are common. If you do, Li Shu and I will do what we can to heal you and keep you safe, and to help you grow alongside us as we do some things that most sane people would tell you are crazy to do. You’ll be different, and strange, and you might even become powerful in your own way, but you are almost as likely to die on the path there. Maybe more.”
She lets things sit, silent and heavy.
Jin looks out over the town as midday approaches, the sun bright and shining in the air, the world loud and lively. There are dozens of people visible and even more out of sight, and the smells of the city are loud and real.
“I don’t want to stay small,” Jin says.
She smiles softly. “That an absolute certainty, kid?”
He nods. Once.
“Well alright then. Good enough.”
He gives her a look. “That’s it? That easy?”
She shrugs. “Yup. I stand by my principles, and the freedom to choose who you are is just about the biggest one I’ve got. We’ll be leaving in three day’s time. I’m going to visit my old sect first, then help Li Shu with her ritual, and then we’re off.”
There’s a jangling sound as she brings out a line of silver coins, of shiny Imperial mint, all arranged on a string.
“These are yours. Buy what you want to buy, gift what you want to gift. Go get some traveling clothes and do what you want with the rest.”
And with that, she hops right off the wall, falling back down into town.
On her way away from the wall, she smiles as Jin starts cussing to himself about how the fuck he’s supposed to get down from there.