The road was wide enough to drive three carts side by side, but mud and thick green moss had grown around and over the road so thickly as to make the prospect a bumpy ride at the very least. Either side of the road was deceptively flat and stagnant, dotted with thick decayed tree trunks with buzzing insects flying above waterlogged plants. Occasionally something would move under the water, causing the swampy water to ripple outwards. Far in the distance he could see a wall of dense trees that stood like straight needles. He felt a tug at his hair and frowned, turning his head down to the thin child beside him. “Stop that!”

“This place is weird,” Idony spoke quietly as if she had not heard him. “What happened to the trees?” She pointed out to the stumps.

Liu Xie folded his arms into his sleeves. “A few centuries ago, there was a war between two brothers who wanted the throne. They cut down half of this forest over ten years for… reasons-”

“What reasons?”

“I don’t know. Building things maybe?” Liu Xie shrugged. “Anyway, they ended up poisoning the land enough that it’s only just started recovering.”

“What happened to them?”

“To who?”

“The brothers?”

Liu Xie looked up into the sky, “they killed each other. I think their tomb is probably somewhere out to the west of this road.”

“Hm.” Idony put her hands on her hips. She was silent for a few more steps before pointing outwards again, this time to a giant misshapen lump sticking out from the still water.

“A statue,” Liu Xie answered. What he had learned about Idony in the past three weeks of travel with her was that she was a simple creature of simple desires. She ate like a pig and asked questions about everything.

“Of what?”

Liu Xie paused in his walk to actually look at the lump. It was a face, roots crawled over it and moss had covered its ear but he could make out some features. “That looks like… maybe either one of the Ten Immortals or perhaps one of the kings before the brothers.” He scratched his head idly, “no idea why it’s sticking out though, maybe the water level went down?”

“Hm,” she continued staring at the statue. “I don’t know who any of those people are,” she finally muttered.

“Most people don’t know either,” he shrugged. “Of the ten, only Hou, Gu, and Song are still around. Eona met Song, she didn’t like him.” The memory was a fond one, even if Song had insulted Eona. She had told him not to mind it, but grudges were part of Liu Xie's being. Besides, who made Song the arbiter of beauty?

Idony’s eyes suddenly fixed on him intensely. “Why?”

“He was very rude to her,” Liu Xie answered while gently pushing Idony so she would start walking down the road again. “Anyway it’s better to focus on other things than a stupid pervert like Song.”

“What’s a pervert?”

Liu Xie decided he was not going to answer that and continued walking, even as Idony asked the same question several times over the next hour. Afterwards she seemed to have given up and continued walking beside him in silence, her face turned towards the ground. He preferred her this way, quiet and unobtrusive. It would make the journey to the First Palace a lot easier. The dense wall of trees far away seemed to creep closer and closer by the tiniest amounts even as the sun began to sink in the sky, the stumps in the swampy water casting strange long shadows that touched the road.

Idony took a few staggering steps before sitting down on the road, her head still bowed and her legs tucked under her tattered dress. “I can’t walk anymore.”

“What do you mean? We’ve only been walking for…” he paused, “maybe a day? That’s not so bad.”

“What are you, an elk?” Idony huffed, “it feels like my legs are going to fall off!”

“Do you want more tea?” He started pulling up his sleeve.

“I don’t want any gross leaf juice,” she huffed.

He let go of his sleeve and sighed heavily while looking into the darkening sky. Then he closed his eyes and wondered once more how Eona’s daughter was so radically different from her mother. He felt a frown tug at his mouth as part of him once again regretted not begging her to stay. If he had gotten on his knees and put his head to the ground maybe she would have chosen to not leave with her father. He then shook his head to get rid of the thought and focus on the future.

He would see her again.

He would.

The deal was simple, even if he could not freely use the abilities he was so accustomed to. If he could prove his competence in this task, Eona would be with him again. How hard could it be to travel to the First Palace with a child in tow?

Liu Xie was snapped out of his thoughts by a hard painful yank on his hair. He turned quickly on his heel to look down at Idony, whose face was covered in shadow. Somehow the sun had managed to fully sink down below the horizon in the time he was thinking to himself he realized. “...Ah.”

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Idony pointed beside them to a cart pulled by two donkeys sat with a concerned looking middle aged man. The man held up his hand, “hello there! Do you need help, sir? I can’t understand a single thing this little girl was saying, but she has been frantically waving at me the moment I saw her.”

Liu Xie smiled weakly at the man, “we’re on our way to one of the towns on the Black River, and she said she was tired-”

The man’s face brightened while gesturing at the empty space on the cart, “really? I’m on my way to Clay Town, that’s right on the banks! You two can ride in my cart!”

Liu Xie looked down at Idony and found pleading eyes looking up at him. “Alright, thank you very much sir.” He said, picking up Idony and plopping her down on the cart unceremoniously before getting on himself.

The donkeys brayed in protest before, with some urging from their owner, setting off at a slow trot.

“You know, I’m from a village down the way from here,” the man said with the tone of someone who needed to keep the air full of noise lest he feel his own loneliness. “Usually we catch frogs and salamanders in the swamp, and then I bring it to the town to sell.”

Liu Xie looked around and noted a curious lack of frogs and salamanders.

“However, these past few weeks we couldn’t find any frogs or salamanders. None at all! We’ve overturned every rock and log within a good distance but the only thing we found were eggs and… spiders,” the man shuddered. “I can’t stand spiders.”

“Spiders might look creepy but they’re actually pretty good,” Liu Xie said, setting his hands on his lap. “They eat pests.”

The man laughed weakly, “oh I know, but they still make me feel uneasy. Whenever one is in my house, my wife is the one who puts it in a cup and carries it outside. Anyway, I’m heading to the town to pick up some supplies and call in some debts,” He looked at Liu Xie with a scrutinizing eye for a moment, from his clothes to the sword at his hip. “So uh, I don’t mean to pry but… are you going to a funeral? Or are you some sort of… I don’t know the word for it. Uhhh.”

“I’m just a wanderer,” Liu Xie answered with a smile. “I wear what others give me.” He held up his arm and tugged at the white sleeve, “I guess… I do kind of look like I robbed someone’s funeral though.”

The man laughed, “I’m happy you have a sense of humor about my question! What about that one there?” He gestured at Idony, who had curled up into a little skeletal ball and fallen asleep. “Are you… selling her? Or something? You know, the Southern Kingdom banned slavery after the queen came to power right?”

Liu Xie still smiled but more thinly now, “no, she’s just a foundling. I’m taking her with me since there’s nobody else to care for her.”

The man nodded solemnly, “ah, I get it. It can be rough for kids with no family. You’re all alone and feel the entire world is against you, from the lowest insect to the gods themselves! My father was a war orphan actually. He told me the only reason he didn’t die one day was because of some farmer giving him food and asking him if he wanted to come to his village.”

“Did your father go?”

“Huh? Oh, no. My dad didn’t trust anyone, so he took the food and ran away and found work some time later in my village. That’s how he met my mother.” The man shrugged, ‘it was a tough time back then, and my dad regretted not paying back that farmer’s kindness. So instead it falls to me to pay it back! That’s kind of why I stopped for you guys, a good deed and all.”

“We’re very grateful to you, sir,” Liu Xie bowed his head before looking up towards the sky. Stars glittered in the purple pall of the twilight above. Then the massive forms of titanic trees swallowed up the sky, plunging everyone briefly into darkness. But gradually, weak light began to appear.

Along the road were tall poles some of which had stone lanterns hanging from them, caged amber colored flames dancing in the confines. They were Ever Burning Lanterns and the wear on the lanterns told Liu Xie they had been in use for a very long time. Other poles stood tall and empty, or collapsed off the road. There was just enough light to keep the outline of the road illuminated beneath the sky-covering canopy of branches and leaves. A set of the poles split off from the others to illuminate another smaller road. As they passed it, Liu Xie saw they lead to a large temple made of wood painted so black it seemed to blend in with the night shrouded forest were it not for the faded golden paint lining the large doorway and the pillars that held up the veranda roof.

There were people coming towards it from another path that Liu Xie could only barely make out. Some wore white, others wore black, some had on undyed hempen clothes. They carried with them simple wooden coffins or even just stretchers with a body covered in white cloth with them.

“Huh,” the man said, squinting into the dark distance to observe the scene. “That temple usually handles travelers who died on the road, did an entire caravan perish?”

Liu Xie watched the line of people, living and dead, filing into the temple. The great black edifice thrummed with the tyrant black flame. He felt its familiar heat wash over him and cast a glance at the man. Normal humans were not often spiritually aware enough to feel the presence of any of the four flames unless right inside of a temple. This was usually a good thing. “It’s a big temple for one that usually handles travelers,” he commented. “They’re usually much smaller.”

“It used to be a rich man’s house, the same rich man who made the shrine to the Lady of Calm Water up near the Bear’s Gate allegedly, but the legend goes that he was so terrified of his death that he transformed his home into a temple to the Empress of Hell in hope she would be impressed enough to make him immortal.”

Liu Xie snorted, “nothing impresses her.”

“What?” The man blinked in confusion.

“Ah, what happened to the man?” Liu Xie asked.

“Oh, well, there are two rumors of what happened to him. The first one was that one day, as he was riding a boat to get to a business deal, the currents abruptly became fierce as if there was a heavy wind blowing on them. The boat flipped and the man drowned really fast, while everyone else got to safety. The other legend is that he had a wife who was furious with him for ruining their house, so when on that boat she pushed him over and held his head underwater until he drowned.”

“That’s scary,” he lifted his brows as his eyes widened slightly.

“Yeah! At least he had a place ready for his funeral,” the man laughed, which matched the creaking wheels of the cart.

“I don’t think he would be so amused,” he laid his back down on the cart and turned his head towards Idony. Without the bitterness or aggression she had while awake, her face looked much softer if still thin. It reminded him a little of Eona.

But only a little.

“Hey sir, what’s your name?”

“Ah. I’m Liu Xie, and this is Idony.” He pointed at the girl.

“...Ih–Ihdu…-ni… uh, that’s a hard name to pronounce, sir!”