“Are you a god, a demon, or a cultivator?” The dragon asked, stalking around me like the last, and somewhat hard to identify piece of pizza in the work fridge, trying to determine if I was spoiled, edible, or just too weird to risk.

I thought about that and answered “Sort of yes and mostly no, sort of no and mostly yes, and I have no idea but I probably need to be.”

The world shook, the earth trembled and the sky shook. A growing thunder raised in pitch until the great dragon threw back its head and laughed so hard the trees shook and every predator within a hundred miles froze in terror at the shadow of her power. The dragon looked at me again and her eyes glowed with more than their internal light. Whatever this chi was, it answered to her call more easily and naturally than my own body had ever answered my commands. She looked into me and saw.

“Two gates open, your throat and your belly, you breathe chi, but you do not see it. You don’t have mana channels at all, you have a pure divine body, a pure spirit body, yet you have not cultivated at all. You are an abomination. Yet, there is one of the Divine inside you, and demons. Some unbound and seeking destruction, yet some bound and purified. You are an abomination, even to abominations. If you were a cultivator, you have the potential to be a demon hunter, no, a soul eater. A demon consumer. More than a saint, one who seeks out and destroys the corruption of this world. Yet, you can’t cultivate, you cannot even see the chi. You have the body of an ascendent immortal, and the knowledge and skills of an….” The dragon trailed off.

“An idiot! A fumbling child? A half wit? A fool playing with powers he cannot understand and should not be allowed to touch?” I asked, hearing the laughter of my god in the back of my head. This above all, to thine own self be true.

The dragon nodded, great shaggy head looking too cute for anything that looks like it can eat main battle tanks. “A blind child on a long branch over a cliff edge swinging a sword too large to control.”

“Jiaolongma, great and wise earth dragon, this lowly one begs for instruction. Please, teach me how to walk the path to cultivation, that I may become a soul hunter to protect the people of this realm and not a demon to prey upon them.” I say, bowing to her, pressing one fist to the ground as I kneel before her. I have zero issue with begging, as the gap in knowledge is even greater than the gap of power between us. Besides, she literally can see through me. Lies will not serve me.

Her clawed foot slams me to the ground. The demons inside me scream and try to claw their way out, but I am still too strong, and hold them.

“Do not play games with me, Bolverk. Evil Worker. Yes, you lie with truth, and tell the truth with lies. I cannot teach you, for you cannot see. Although, the first one, he could not see. I made the mistake of telling him, and he became the first emperor, the first Ascendant immortal. All it cost was, well, she pays for it still, so the cost is not yet done counting.” Jiaolongma said, and there was resignation, guilt, and defeat in the dragon’s voice. More to the point, there was information hidden in there. Something important.

“What do you mean ‘he couldn’t see’ and who is she who pays for it still? Did this first Emperor guy need something from this woman so he could see chi?” I asked, the dragon knew the answers, but had been betrayed before. Being called Evil Worker is not a great inspiration to trust.

“Yes. Nyan is the spirit of this stream. Her mother is the River Dragon. All the streams are daughters of the River Dragon, but although her daughter has wept a thousand years, she cannot run to her mother to be healed, for she gave up her sight to him, the one who became the First Ascendant, the First Cultivator, and the Founding Emperor. He needed to see chi to cultivate and grow strong to protect his village from the demons, but moral eyes cannot see chi. She had the eyes of a spirit, she was the daughter of dragons, and to her eyes, chi was clear as characters painted on a page. He told her of his need, and his weakness, and she fell in love with him. She offered up her eyes, that he could see chi and cultivate to become strong enough to save his village. He swore that he would return when he was done, and give her back her eyes. He took her sight, her eyes, and her love. He defeated the demons, conquered every village and city of all the lands, founded the first sect and taught the path of cultivation for humanity to strive to join the ascendants in the Celestial Palace. He became the strongest in all the lands, ascended the steps to heaven, and never returned. She weeps still, and waits for his return.”

I thought about that for a while and sighed. “So, let me guess, every one of these stream spirits has eyes that can see chi, just like I need to survive.” I asked.

The dragon nodded.

“And everyone except Nyan still has her eyes, right?” I asked, already hating where this was going.

The dragon nodded, great claws coming off my back.

“And they are all caring, loving, and trusting as Nyan was.” I asked, really hating myself for asking.

Jiaolongma looked at me sadly with eyes that held all the sorrow in the world. “Yes, and with the chi that fills your voice when you speak, none could resist you. You have only the belly and the throat gates open, but the god inside you, he fills your voice with inspiration. Those less than myself, those less in power than a dragon or strong cultivator would listen when you spoke, would want to believe what you said.”

I laughed softly. “I am Bolverk, the Evil Worker, you really don’t have to lay it on that thick. I have never been a wise choice for women in any world, and have used more than one poorly. So which of these streams has a trusting innocent with the eyes that I need?” I ask pointing my left and right hands to the two streams in the distance. Jiaolongma points to my right.

“And which has the weeping woman still waiting for the lover, the immortal founder of cultivation, the first frigging emperor who ran off with her eyes and never looked back?” I asked. Jiaolongma pointed to my left.

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With a heavy sigh. I turned and started walking left. There is the smart decision, then there is the necessary decision. There is a strange bit of grammar that turns out to matter in magic. It is found in the space between two words: price, and cost. One is how much you need to buy something, the other is how much you have to give up enough to gain something. If you don’t see the difference, then you have only paid prices that are measured in resources. Costs are different. Costs hurt. I marched until I heard the stream. I marched to the stream until I heard the silence, the place where no birds would sing, where the squirrel did not chirp, the fox did not run. The place where even the water went gently across the stones so as not to unduly disturb the sorrow that bided there.

I was still mother naked, so it cost me nothing to hop into the stream at a pool where the silence seemed deepest, and find myself a nice rock to sit upon.

I sat, and I began to sing. I suck at singing, but I am Odin’s man. I know the songs of pain and loss. The song was old before I was born, of soldiers trading hearth and home for gun and grave, taking the kings shilling and selling all the soul he had. I took my shillings, lost too many friends, too much of myself, but I can’t bring myself to regret anything. I was a fool, Odin’s fool. A soldier and monster, a killer and a thief, a fool and a tool, yet oft enough the reason some innocents lived another day. I sang a song of lands she could not know, wars she could not know, for once she had given all for a soldier, and I knew she would hear.

“Here's forty shillings on the drum

For those who'll volunteer to come

To 'list and fight the foe today.

Over the hills and far away.

O'er the hills and o'er the main.

Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain.

King George commands and we obey.

Over the hills and far away.

When duty calls me I must go

To stand and face another foe.

But part of me will always stray

Over the hills and far away.

O'er the hills and o'er the main.

Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain.

King George commands and we obey.

Over the hills and far away.

If I should fall to rise no more,

As many comrades did before,

Then ask the fifes and drums to play.

Over the hills and far away.

Then fall in lads behind the drum,

With colours blazing like the sun.

Along the road to come-what may.

Over the hills and far away.”

I felt the waters carry hair black as midnight, long enough to trail on the ground behind a standing woman, and I felt a woman’s form press behind me. She was clad in a kimono so soft that it could not be silk, and she wrapped her arms around me, Her tears fell upon my shoulders hot and burning like sake from a fresh pot. She came, blind though she was, to the sound of pain and loss, drawn even from her own grief, to ease my own. They call all those who are not human, but have spirit power here demons, and this innocent was one of those. A demon, who came to the song of my pain, even through the pain of her own loss, so yet another “hero” could trick her.

“I am sorry for your loss.” She said softly, her voice inhuman in timbre, but more than human in softness. Somehow, no matter how many times some civilian would cheerfully thank me for my service, every single time they said that I wanted to snarl back, angered they thought I wanted or valued words so empty as to be worse than a joke. Her words though. She did not know the names of my dead, nor the fields that they fell, but she did not need to. She felt the holes in my soul where they used to live, felt the weight of their loss I will carry until I am allowed to rest, and reached out her arms to share that burden with me, asking nothing in return.

“You are Nyan. Jiaolongma told me how you helped another warrior long ago who needed to learn to see chi as I do.” I said, feeling like slime for playing an innocent this way, but if I do not learn to cultivate, I will become the demons I was called to stop. If I do not learn to see, the last sights in my eyes will be innocents dying under my claws.

She turned away, cast her head down, hidden behind the veil of her hair. She ran long clawed fingers through her hair and offered in broken sobs.

“I cannot. My beloved, I gave him my eyes that he could see, but he did not return. I cannot leave this place, for I cannot find my way to my mother, or my sisters. I can only wait here for my beloved’s return. I have no eyes to give you, for I have no sight left.” She wept, a broken thing too pure for this world. You could hear it, if she had one eye left to give, she would give it to me without thought, because I hurt, because I needed, because she could make it better. This was what this world called a demon. To the humans of this world, she was no different than Demon Sui and the mad human slaughtering beasts of his horde. Honestly, there are times I am not sure our species is worth fighting for.

I took her hands in mine, and drew them up to my face. I put her long clawed fingers to my right eye socket. Oh this was going to suuuuuuuuuuuck.

“If I gave you my eye, then we would both have an eye. If you had an eye, could you teach me to see chi?” I asked her, and saw the shock and hope in her face. The blind do not know what they reveal, so her face was more naked than my body.

“Perhaps. But you would have lost an eye. It might not even work.” She said, her protests causing her to try to pull her hand away from my eye.

“You gave up all the sight of this world to save a village you have never seen, and people you have never met. Let me give up half the sight of this world so I can do the same, if you will help me.” I put all my spirit into the words, I felt Odin lending me his breath, Ansuz, the rune for Inspiration, the sign of Odin burned in my mind as I felt my soul fill my words. The dragon was right, too much of my will slipped into my words and it worked on this poor innocent. Honestly, Nyan would probably have said yes anyway. She trusted too easily, and cared too much. Humans would always betray her, I was just one more.

I lunged forward, my strong hands pinned her hand, and I rammed my eye socket onto her claws. Reflexively she closed her fingers and flinched, my eye ripped clean out. I screamed like an idiot that just ripped his eyeball out but had inhuman vitality so couldn’t do anything sensible like die or pass out.

I would have drowned if she hadn’t pulled me out of the stream, losing an eye HURTS. She was babbling at me, trying to give me the eye back, but I slammed my palm over my right eye socket and screamed at her in frustration and rage.

“Put the goddamned eye in your socket!” I screamed, and she flinched away from trying to care for me. Honestly, some people just need to be a little less nice.

She put my eye in her socket, and the second she did, it changed. What had been a mean green thing more accustomed to looking in a 3.4 magnification light enhancing sight than directly at normal people became a soft and deep brown thing that fit with her face in the kind of serene majesty that made her tears a crime against beauty. She stopped crying, and smiled. She looked at me, then looked shocked, and then whirled around.

Ah yes, still naked. Well, now that she could see, that was more of an issue.

“So, now that we both know you can see, why don’t we see if you can teach me to see chi, and I can see if I can find a fig leaf or something to hide my dangly man bits?” I asked sweetly. She half looked over one shoulder to nod. She was at least blushing, not crying now. That had to be an improvement. Either she would be able to teach me to see chi, or she would not. Either way, the wreckage left behind by humanities first “hero” had finally been cleaned up. She paid the price alone to teach humanity how to cultivate all those centuries ago, if I had to pay the cost of an eye to return her sight, then so be it. A gift for a gift was the way, even in this world.