Now I know you’re wondering: why a tuning fork?

Firstly, let’s re-establish that Raika is at this point literally delirious from pain, hunger, grief, and poor living conditions. Established? Lovely.

In what is left of her mind, she holds strong to a few deeper, meaningful truths.

Her old cultivation is lost.

She still has Qi.

She can’t circulate Qi, but it does kinda sorta move on its own sometimes and it can be guided. That’s what formations are, and there are even things called natural formations, which don’t need fancy symbols and flags and materials and such.

So if she creates a pattern for her Qi to move to, or move at all, even if it’s not cultivation per se, it’ll change something, and maybe that’ll do something, and maybe from there she can do something else.

It’s a bit vague, but she doesn’t hold it against herself; she’s been sleepy for days and she just ate a rat. It was not tasty.

A little over two months after she woke up from losing everything, she hits herself in the head with a tuning fork. It makes an awkward little “dink” sound.

No. No no no.

Is it defective? Is it broken? Did the storeowner see someone he could scam without consequence and just go for it? Could she not tell? Even if she can’t “sense” things like she could before she can still see, even if it’s blurry and-

Oh gods. He gave her a broken tuning fork.

For sixteen fucking coppers?

She hits herself in the forehead again.

“Dink", says the off-key little tool.

Oh for fucks sake.

She’s gonna burn his shop down. Seriously, top to bottom. She can find a sharp rock or some sticks to make heat with, she has rags, it hasn’t rained recently; she can do it. She can only hobble, and her straw is wet, but she’s sure she can find a crack or seam in the wood to plant it in, and besides starving to death she doesn’t have anything better to do than try to stoke the flames until they burn his fucking shop down.

If she can walk tomorrow.

She’s had a few days where she couldn’t. Tonight feels worse than most of those.

She wonders if she’ll be able to walk at all, anymore, very soon.

“Dink”, goes the shitty little piece of metal against her forehead.

She feels nauseous. She feels dizzy and weak, like the world is spinning. She’s angry and about to cry and she can’t afford to cry and she can taste the nasty burnt rat coming back up and her hands are tingling and is she having a heart attack? That’s a thing mortals do, right? When their organs fail? Everything else is, why wouldn’t this!

“Dink”, goes the tuning fork, as hard as she physically can against her forehead.

She feels her whole body shiver, just a bit, and then she’s unconscious and doesn’t feel anything at all.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raika wakes up feeling… slightly better.

Statistically, this is a surprise. In her new life, waking up has not been pleasant, each day slowly dragging her towards a worse one, only her struggles holding back that tide.

Her body hurts, limbs the most, face still sucks, etc, and she’s still plenty hungry (though she didn’t barf up the rat, so that probably helps too), but she feels better. A bit more awake, a bit less shaky, like back when she had rations she could still dip into when she was too hungry. Raika the formerly-bloody wakes up feeling, for the first time in months, like she isn’t holding back death by the skin of her teeth and the edges of ragged, bloody fingernails.

One might be forgiven for thinking that splurging on the meat and rat last night were the main reason for this. The thought crosses Raika’s mind, too, a little doubt weaving into the confusion, and she almost lets it take root.

Except that she’s sore. Like, really sore, like just took a nap after lifting some weights or going for a run around the sect. She was never a body cultivator per-se, but it always seemed a waste to neglect one’s foundational flesh. Some even say that being both a body and soul cultivator is the real way to go, and while she certainly wasn’t worth all that, she had one or two body breakthroughs in her day, so the feeling of burn in her muscles isn’t alien to her.

This feels like that, but different. Like she actually used her body for the first time in so long, like she had done stretches and pushed in the right places.

It hurts a lot worse than normal, true, but everything hurts, and it’s better than before, so… overall a win, probably.

Or a delusion, whispers that little worm of doubt. What are the chances, really, that after months of trying, she figured something out that no one else could? She’s never been a genius or prodigy, no one special, no one capable of uncovering the world’s mysteries.

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The alternative to believing that the tuning fork did something is, obviously, rotting in an alley with no hope at all. So… Raika figures it’s probably pretty reasonable to ignore that little voice and just do what seems right. Only makes sense; forward or death and all that.

Part of her tries to remind the whole that she is absolutely misusing that philosophy and really should listen before wasting time or doing something truly stupid. That part is, obviously, an idiot and a coward, and can’t possibly be correct because, as mentioned, it’s an idiot and a coward, and since it isn’t helping anyways, should eminently be ignored.

She uses the wall, pulling herself up, then leaning on it, then climbing a bit more, then leaning, until she’s made it to her feet. On a slightly higher indent where a brick used to be lies a scarf, to cover her face; a blanket, thin and threadbare, to sit upon; and a small wooden bowl, likely once used to hold soup, repurposed to hold coins. She collects all three into a small bundle and takes them in hand, carefully placing her crutch under her ruined side, and, deciding to trust the only voice in her head that doesn’t think she’s going to die like this, makes sure that the tuning fork is included in the bundle.

The sun is a bit past the horizon when she sets up. Better to arrive early, get the morning risers when there’s not as much of a crowd to hide and guilt them. Come midday she’ll move around the corner two streets down, where market-goers are a bit more populous flowing into and out of the more worthwhile areas, and by evening, she’ll come back this way to catch stragglers. Efficient, no, but considering she can only hobble so far, it’s the best she’s come up with. With her blanket lain, scarf and shawl covering the most nauseating parts of how she looks without hiding the arm or leg, and the bowl in front of her, she leans the crutch against the wall, and takes out her tuning fork.

“Ding,” it says as she taps it against her forehead.

Hard to tell, but she might be a bit more tired. It’s important to be able to tell; sensing a downturn in her energy may mean the difference between a collapse in the backstreets or making it back to relative shelter before she falls. Even still, no matter how carefully she measures and watches how tired she feels, there isn’t quite a conclusion. Maybe it’ll be like a bad day where she starts trembling, or falls apart, or simply sleeps where she falls, maybe it won’t.

“Ding”, the tuning fork agrees. Important to be careful, it wisely offers.

“Hush,” she tells it, voice a painful rasp. “I don’t need a sycophant, little nugget. If I need someone to agree with me I’ll ask, hmm?”

“Ding”, it shoots back, making her blink.

“Well good,” she hisses with as much dignity as she can. “I like a bit of backbone in my inanimate objects. Keep it up.”

“Ding,” it goes against her forehead.

And she’s out like a light.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She wakes up for the second time in the same day to the sun beating down on her as violently as it can. For early autumn, that’s still rather considerable, and it’s another lovely piece of the puzzle she got to ignore before becoming mortal again. Used to be it was winter winds and summer burns that did anything, now a bad breeze has her shivering all day.

Point being, Raika thinks, is that it’s midday, and she hasn’t moved from her morning / evening spot. The last thing she remembers is getting some well-earned flak from her tuning fork, hitting her forehead again with it, and waking up again.

Her bowl is empty, but that doesn’t mean anything really. Kids and urchins both take what they can grab if they think you won’t notice or can’t chase them, and in her state, she couldn’t do either.

So.

The tuning fork does something, then.

That, or she’s so weak that taps to the forehead and little “Dink” noises are enough to knock her unconscious or leave her so triggered it does the same thing, just by different means. Luckily, this opinion is held by a part of her that is an idiot and a coward, and can be disregarded because it’s not being helpful.

She feels… maybe a bit worse than before. Like rather than exercise herself and then rest, she just exercised again, without proper recovery. Perhaps the tuning fork is doing something, and once she finds a good rhythm for it, she can create a solid, healthy balance of rest and “tuning”.

A fascinating idea, she agrees. One that sounds like it would take a very long time and probably never really get her to where she needs to be.

“What do you think, dink?” she rasps.

“Dink,” the tuning fork chastises her as it taps her forehead.

“Yeah, well, what do you know, you’re a fancy rock,” she rasps back.

She goes to hit it again, and then pauses.

Maybe she shouldn’t be pushing herself like this, genuinely.

Maybe she should be pushing herself harder.

Drawing in Qi is a dangerous proposition. Beyond the amounts needed, there’s the danger of drawing in qualities one doesn’t want. In a normal, healthy cultivator, that’s something which is no big deal unless it’s a consistent strain or a larger infection, but if, say, there were someone who couldn’t really remove their impurities, or sense the balance of Qi in their body, or control where in one’s self it is, then even minute amounts of impure or damaging Qi might hurt her. In this little corner of a wider city, amidst rats, and the floor, and the remnants of mortal comings and goings, and smoke, and sunlight, each and every concept might push qi that could easily kill her into her body. It's probably a big factor in how people get sick. Maybe. Sounds right, maybe. So, seeing as she has no natural defenses or senses or vitality in the Qi department… maybe she shouldn’t try to pull in Qi like she normally would.

But if the tuning fork is causing an effect (and obviously it is, for sure) then… rather than just let it run wild, which sounds like a recipe for bad things, or trying to draw things in, which she probably can’t do and also might be worse, maybe all she can do is focus on what she has, and go from there.

The idea feels familiar. It feels right.

She breathes as deep as her lungs can take. Holds it for a moment, then lets it go. Repeats the pattern a few times, to build a rhythm. And then, counter to what she’s used to, she exhales as hard as she can, making sure her lungs are well and truly empty…

And hits her forehead with the tuning fork.

She doesn’t feel anything. Whatever it’s doing, she can’t perceive it, crippled as she is.

But even if she can’t see it, even if she’s lost two hands and gained a broken flipper to touch it, she can still try, and hope, and demand to the universe that this work.

She pictures the vibration moving in her bones, in her blood, in the empty spaces without air she holds. She pictures it making her insides tremble, pictures the dribbles and dew of what’s left of her Qi trembling in tune with the poorly formed device. Finally, she pictures the vibrations magnifying her, letting the droplets slowly, ever so slowly, jiggle. Against each other, bouncing off each other, and just… bouncing in place as much as she can make them, more like sloshing against a firm table than artfully weaving in any detail. She holds the idea as firm as she can.

And then she breathes in once. Out once. In again, and then out, with as much totality as she can muster.

And does it again.

“Dink”.

By the time night falls and she’s managed to crawl back to her alcove, she’s done it eight more times, and she can’t stop smiling past the taste of copper in the back of her throat.