Wei Zin wakes up surrounded by familiar colors.

For a moment, he is safe. He knows, deep down inside, that he is healthy and whole. The broad leaves, interwoven with sharp grasses and twined thorns. He sees the patterns and the ways that they flow, mimicking trees and brambles and shadows, but making the colors all the brighter in tune with the dark. He sees the furniture, feels the softness of flower and fuzz that he lays on, and for a moment, he is home.

And then he wakes further, and he remembers that there is no home.

Home is gone. Home is an empty field, where a Daemon and a shining thing that CUT met, and where both made the world into ruin. Home is the place that the end of the world marched to, clad in gold and white, and did as it ever promised to.

And then he remembers everything.

The fear. The screams. The dying. The running, running, always running. He is deep into the Foundational realm, but his Core is far from him, his Soul further still, the shape of it long-gone with the devastation he has faced, and no Foundational realm cultivator can run without end. He would sleep, and he would wake beneath branches or in the dark of a root-covered crevasse and wonder if he should keep going, if he could- and then he would taste them, getting closer, their steps loud against the world, and he would run again.

Until it hurt to run. Until it hurt to walk. Until it hurt to breathe, to even move. And then he would collapse again, and sleep, and when he woke, they would be close again.

And then- the god.

They have other names. Divine Beasts. Avatars. Grand Spirits. There are many things which exist in the pantheon of the Overgrowth, many things that defy description- but surely, if not a part of that pantheon, he does not know how to describe his savior.

Skyclad, wrapped in smoke and blood, with hair like a sunset. So strong that he could sense nothing from her, but the whole world around her reacted. A beast in human skin, wielding the True Speech, to which all things heard and obeyed.

She saved him. She killed the things hunting him.

It is only as these last few memories catch up to him that he remembers how to breathe. He unclenches his fists, the familiar blankets of his tribe very nearly torn by the force of the grip, and presses his face into his pillow, letting it drink down the tears painting his face.

He’s alive, and they’re dead. He’s saved.

Then… where is he?

He takes a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. It doesn’t entirely work: he’s not sure how long he’s been asleep, but his body still aches from fatigue, his muscles only hurting more for how much time he gave them to accurately tally their complaints. But he takes another, trying to force himself away from the panic and the draining weight of relief.

Slowly, eyes closed, he rolls off of the bed, sitting upright with feet on the ground. The bed sways, hanging as it is from the ceiling, better to block out ground-crawling things, and the familiar sway almost disarms him. It would be easier, wouldn’t it? To rest a bit longer? To forget, for a while, that he is not, cannot be home?

Exhale.

In. Out.

Once more.

In. Out.

He needs to find out where he is. What he owes his savior. He- fuck, he needs to eat, to drink. It’s been… surely over a day by now.

Holding onto one of the ropes of his bed for support, he pulls himself to his feet.

It hurts. It aches the whole way, but he makes his way to the door. Hanging reeds, heavy, but reactive to touch, pulling back and away.

He is not home. It is familiar, nonetheless.

He recognizes the person who turns to look at him, sitting in the center of the living space, and has to take a breath again.

“Auntie Na…”

She is up to her feet, her arms embracing him, before he can say anything more. Which is good, all things told. He’s not sure he has it in him to say anything else.

“Oh child,” she whispers, hugging him tight. “Oh, precious one. Blessed be the world, that you survived. Blessed be this old weakling, that she might see her family again.”

He reaches up slowly, unsure of how to respond- and then she squeezes a bit tighter, and he grabs at her back, hugging back with all the force he possesses, uncaring of anything except the hug.

It doesn’t last as long as he wants it to. It lasts long enough for him to remember how to breathe.

“Auntie, where-”

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“Shhh, child. We’re in Singheart. Though there has been such loss, the treaties are forever honored. We’re safe here. I… oh, I dreaded the idea that you might not wake. That you might sleep a week or more, as you deserve. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

He almost laughs at that, but it comes out as a breath, barely more than a huff of air. “I feel I could sleep a lot more than a week, given the chance. It’s been…”

“I know, blood o’ mine, I know. When they brought you to me… I thought you might have died, you were so still. So skinny. I may not be as much of a chef as your mother is, but-”

“Was.”

She freezes, tight against him. They stay there a while, acknowledging the slip and the grief behind the correction, before she squeezes him once and then pulls away, looking him up and down.

“You’ve… you’ve gotten taller. Stronger. Your prana is low, but the quality has gone up. You’ll do them proud, of this I know.”

He smiles, and it is a sad thing, only barely equipped to hold back what’s beneath it.

“They’re gone, auntie. I am no stronger than anyone else. I could grow ten steps further, and a hundred feet taller, and I could no longer do them proud.”

“They’re one with the Growth, blood o’ mine. They’re with us, even now. It’s-”

“There was no Growth where they died, Auntie Na. There was nothing where they died. It all… went away, when the world ended.”

She holds back her strength, but even at her weakest, his aunt is a full two realms above him, gracing the opening steps of the Nascent Soul realm. The blow still rocks his head back, ringing through his meridians and through the air around him. It stings more than aches, and he blinks, off-guard.

“The world didn’t end, fool child,” his aunt says, the world trembling with the statement, broadcast through the All-speak. Auntie Na was never particularly good at All-speak, a point of well-mannered teasing in the family, but here, it speaks loud of her outrage at the thought, of the stone-clad grip she holds on the fact that it is not true. “We have lost… so much. But you are here, Zin. You are here, and you are alive. We owe gratitude for your survival, for the fact that we could meet again, this much you know to be true. I will not stand for you to speak as if you are already dead. You are alive.”

He doesn’t turn his head from where the slap rocked it back. He takes a breath, ignoring the hot trails that run down his cheeks, that wet his eyes when he blinks.

“Home is gone,” he says, his voice near-silent. “My world has gone. The people of it are gone. I… I watched them go, auntie. I watched them be taken from us. And I could do nothing.”

“And are you going to let it stop you?” she asks.

He blinks, and turns back to look at her. He has never seen his aunt cry before, but he notices that she looks a lot like his mother when she does.

“...what?”

“Are you going to let it stop you?” she asks, steelwood growing in her voice. “Is your grief all you are? Because I know my sister, I know your father, know them, and I know as truth that they did not raise my nephew to hold so little as only grief.”

She hugs him again, the words echoing in his head like a drumbeat. “You survived. You ran so far and so well, and you survived so much, and you are so full of their love and their history, and I… I grieve. I grieve with you. But this cannot, should not be, where you stop, oh blood o’ mine. Not when they love you so deep still.”

Wei Zin does not know when, exactly, he went limp, but he dimly notices his aunt lowering him to the ground, the both of them kneeling together against woven grass. He feels heat on his shoulder, and realizes it is her tears, and for some reason, that only makes him cry harder.

He cries. He feels something crack, and then he is dragging in rough, gasping breaths, barely enough to keep him conscious, hiccuping with the force of it.

She holds him, the whole time.

He’s not sure how long it takes for the fit to pass. For him to feel awake again, rather than just an outlet, a source of the sounds and tears he felt running out of him. When he does, he sees that he is still held, and still protected, and that his family, the only family he has left, is still keeping him upright.

It hurts. It hurts.

But she’s right.

In a lot of ways, that’s why it hurts. The truth, when confronted so openly, can’t not hurt, at least a little. But she’s right.

So he makes a choice.

“Auntie? The… the honored one that rescued me. Is she still close?”

His aunt laughs, subdued against his shoulder. She pulls back, clearing her eyes.

“She is, child. She calls herself Raika, the Broken, and has announced herself to the city… rather forcefully. I have already offered her all that I can in thanks, and have ensured that she knows that the name of the Wei family is always at her disposal. We owe her… I owe her everything for saving you.”

“Is… she’s still in the city?”

His aunt gives him a look. Arching a brow. “...Yes. Is… is something wrong?”

He doesn’t say anything at first. And then…

He bows, getting down to his knees and touching his forehead to the ground.

“Thank you, auntie. It has brought me… more comfort than I can truly say, to have seen you well and alive. It brings me joy I did not know I could feel. But… I have seen something beyond me. I have been saved by something beyond either of us. And I would follow your words, and walk forward.”

She blinks, then her gaze turns sharp. “Child, it is best not to make such decisions in your state. You are fragile. You have undergone grief without equal, and I am here, I am here for you, but it is not something that you can brush away and march onwards with. Dashing blindly ahead is almost as deadly as staying still, falling to stasis in grief. Give it a few days. You’ll come to realize-”

“I will come to doubt,” he interrupts. “I will come to fear. I will worry and grow anxious and I will regret. You’re right, Auntie Na. I am fragile. But if I stop here… I…”

He doesn’t know how to phrase it. Doesn’t know what he means.

So he just… waits.

And hears her sigh.

“You are grown, blood of my blood. Make your choice. I will be here for you, in whatever way I can.”

He doesn’t wait. Doesn’t hesitate, lest she change her mind. To go, and leave her behind rather than still at his back, rings like the taste of despair in his mouth, but he would have. To have her support, tacit and quiet though it may be, means more to him than anything.

Anything except where he needs to go.

He runs, and he can taste the fear he felt in the wilds.

He runs, through the city, heading towards the place where the world roils like its alive to his senses, and hears the crunch-squelch-thump of the bodies of his pursuers dying.

He runs, and even as it feels like he can barely breathe, he feels so awake it almost hurts.

He doesn’t notice when, exactly, she appears before him. The world bends, and its almost like she stepped out from within a root growing along the ground, or perhaps a bit of purple vine-growth down the branch her presence rests upon. He looks up, and he sees a titan of form and power, carnality and violence, staring down at him, her hair red and purple like dawn, her eyes glowing with the radiance of every color there is around an eight-pointed star.

He collapses, breathing hard, his body still exhausted and damaged- and bows.

“Please,” he begs. “Please. Take me as your disciple.”