It was quiet. Besides the crackling of dying fires outside everything seemed eerily quiet in the shrine. She held tightly onto Liu Xie as though the silence around them all was something terrible that could swallow them all up.

Bo and Ji Ying had set aside their bickering to stand close to the door peering out at the destruction, Li Baobao held a sleeve over his nose and mouth against the heavy smell of ash.

The townspeople lingered near the entrance, and beneath the hatch that Bo and the others had come from were concerned voices drifting through the tunnels.

From the townspeople who were near the entrance, a grey haired woman stepped forward. Her face was deeply lined with wrinkles and her eyes were faded from age. She was built like a weary ox, moving slowly to stand before Liu Xie. Despite her age she stood unbowed before him.

Idony moved slightly to get a better look at the old woman. She seemed familiar but Idony could not find a name for the face.

"My name is Chang and I am one of the elders of this town, I have helped guide it for thirty three of my seventy five years," she said.

"I thought Lang Lang ruled this place?" Bo asked unprompted, earning a swat from Ji Ying's hand. "Ow!"

"Lord Lang does not rule, he provides," the elderly woman explained. "It has always been this way. Rarely does he take decisions into his own hands, and when he does it is for severe infractions. As he said, he's not a human. He's a dog, why should he be making the decisions for everyone?"

Idony felt Liu Xie's arm shift slightly under her, moving her up higher against him before he spoke, "Madam Chang, I promise you that none of us originally came with an intention of fighting Lang Lang. We only wanted to get Zhu'er back. The..." he paused and Idony watched his eyes briefly move to Ji Ying, who shrunk away from his gaze. "... the mistake made though was my responsibility, and-"

"Whatever you may say will not change what has happened."

"I am aware," Liu Xie said apologetically, "if you-"

A shrieking wind blew from outside, a black vaporous looking smoke quickly hurtling to the shrine.

The old woman held up a frail looking wrinkled hand and the smoke stopped abruptly. It coalesced back into Hua Qingzhao whose face was obscured almost entirely by her long unbound hair, except for the toothy maw beneath. Idony's eyes flashed with the memory of the creature that had worn her mother's face and she grabbed Liu Xie tightly, hiding her face in the white fabric of his sleeve. After a second, she felt his hand on the back of her head.

"I ask, on the behalf of the town and Lord Lang, that you leave."

The townspeople nearby sucked in a collective fearful breath. Idony blinked dumbly before shaking her head, "it was an accident though!" At least she thought so, someone had accidentally hit Lang Lang and he got mad.

"You can stay if you wish," Chang said softly, her gaze falling on Idony. "Lang Lang brought you here and you've become part of the town. These people carry suffering with them, I can tell they're only going to find more trouble."

Idony opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came so she closed it when she remembered what Liu Xie had just said. 'We only wanted to get Zhu'er back.'

"It's really not safe with them," Hua agreed, her voice a raspy growl that did very little to make Idony feel like staying near her was any safer. "Look at what they did to the town-"

"It was your own stupid mutt of a god that did that!" Ji Ying shouted, indignant.

Hua Qingzhao's body seemed to bubble, whisps of black vapor rolling out from under her clothes as Ji Ying reached for her quiver of arrows.

"We understand," Liu Xie's voice dissolved the tension just abruptly as it had begun. "However, I will have to trouble you with a request. We've been traveling by foot for some time and need to rest before we start again."

The old woman closed her eyes in thought for a long moment, Idony watched as her lips twitched and knuckles tightened before she sighed, "I want to say no. I want to send you troublesome creatures away, but that would not be what Lord Lang would do. There is a small house farther out in the fields to the west. It belonged to an older man who passed away ten years ago. We have not been maintaining the house, so I cannot promise it'll be particularly comfortable. You may stay for one night, then you must leave."

"Thank you," Liu Xie's voice was as flat as Idony remembered it, even with the genuine gratitude in it. She looked back towards the statue, which had watched all that transpired with a serene gaze. Behind it was the short hall into the rest of the building. In that was the room that had begun to feel like her own, and the rooms piled with random objects and weapons, the hearth of eternal bad congee, the doors leading outside. They were shrinking away from her, slowly receding as Liu Xie walked forward. The smell of burnt wood swept over her. "Are you crying?"

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She blinked, more tears that she had not felt until then soaking into his sleeve. Something small was being left behind in that shrine but she had no words for what it was in either language. Idony clung to Liu Xie while still staring back at where Lang Lang was left behind. The white walls of the shrine framed by the burnt wood around it. More people were leaving the shrine, gazing in shock at the ruins as the old woman spoke to them.

"Idony?"

"It's my fault," she muttered. It was always her fault in some way. She had been born wrong, that was where all the problems started. Her father had insisted she had been a cursed child. If she had just been born right, her mother would not had been getting sicker, she would not have been 'used up'. She would still be alive. Lang Lang would not need to rest and the town would not have burned.

Liu Xie paused and Idony found herself being somewhat awkwardly held up in front of him. Her legs dangled over ground with one shoe dangerously close to falling right off. It did not help that Liu Xie was continuing to walk, with the rest of the group following behind. Bo and Ji Ying were talking to each other but they were far enough that it just sounded like angry buzzing to Idony. Li Baobao was following quietly, and the strange new person was also following with an amused sharp toothed grin as he watched Ji Ying and Bo. Idony remembered that her mother and father would also scream or angrily speak to each other and she wondered if Bo and Ji Ying would come together like them. Was this her fault too? Ji Ying seemed to know her...

"It's not your fault," Liu Xie said, his brow furrowed. "Nothing that's happened has been your fault."

Idony found it hard to look directly at his face. Instead she looked down at his boots, which were covered in char marks and dirt. "My father said-"

"What did I say?" Liu Xie asked, "I haven't said anything about it being your fault. You're just a child, you had no control over your fate. If you want blame for what happened to Lang Lang's town, blame me. I chose to fight rather than attempt to calm him."

"But you came because I'm here," she mumbled.

"It still is not your fault," he insisted. "I won't accept any of this being your fault. You shouldn't blame yourself." Her shoe finally lost its grip, and fell to the ground with a soft 'pffub', a puff of dry dirt scattering around it. Liu Xie finally set her down and picked up her shoe, helping her put it back on. He looked behind himself at the rest of the approaching group before he turned his face towards her. "Do you want to know something about me?" He asked, still crouched down so they could look each other face to face.

Idony had no idea how to respond besides, "yes?" Liu Xie had always been a particularly inscrutable adult to her. All adults were strange, but he was one of the most odd she had ever met.

"I've never been a kid," he said, "I don't understand what it's like."

This made no sense to her. She did not quite know where people came from besides out of mothers, but she knew humans definitely started as babies first, then children, then adults. That was just plain fact! Everyone knew that!

"I know," he said, a small smile on his face. "Your mother thought it was unbelievable too."

She looked behind him, the rest of the group was beginning to catch up. "So did you come out like this?" She asked, pointing at him.

"No. This isn't even my real body," he answered.

"Are you like Lang Lang?" She asked, her brain swarming with curiosity. Now she was being let in on a secret!

Liu Xie leaned closer to her, "in a way. But I'm not a dog, and even Lang Lang started off as a puppy a long time ago."

Idony placed her hands on her hips and thought hard. What else could Liu Xie be? Something like Doctor Lin? Or Auntie Hua? "I give up."

"I can't tell you," he said, "but I can show you a bit."

"Show me!"

"Shhhh," he moved his face closer, until their foreheads touched.

All around her was pale sky and white ash that moved in windspun dunes. There was no sun, moon, or cloud. The only features she could pick out from the dust were tall strange pillars and other vague structures in the far distance. She spun on her heel, trying to find Liu Xie or anyone.

Bu it was just here, standing alone with only the wind accompanying her.

The ash underfoot trembled, ripples moving and gathering speed and height like waves on a storm-tossed sea. In the distance some of the pillars shook. Her heart climbed into her mouth as she felt the ground beneath her move. Ash poured away as massive wooden pillars curled upwards high over her and she tumbled over, laying down on a white wood platform that was being uncovered by the movement. The wind blew strangely, pushing down against her rather than beside her.

Blinking dumbly, she held up her hand to shield her face from some of the falling ash.

Sitting up she saw the other structures had vanished, along with the rolling dunes. The platform was connected to more sloping wood that went downwards.

"...Oh..." it came almost breathlessly as she glanced from her hand to the thing she sat within.

It was a hand.

It was Liu Xie's hand!

"...Wow! That's-" her words collapsed into a garbled mess as wooziness overtook her. Abruptly again things had changed. She was looking up at a cobweb covered ceiling and was laying down, covered by a mussed up bunch of white fabric that smelled oddly and yet familiarly medicinal. She wanted to sit up but her head felt heavy still. Her mouth was sticky and also tasted like medicine but she barely minded it at the moment as she continued to overturn the entire thing she had just witnessed. A big hand and a strange ash desert. Of all the things she had witnessed since leaving Norwen, somehow that had been the most amazing. If his hand was that big, how big was the rest of him? She tried to imagine a giant Liu Xie, but the hand did not have skin on it. So was it like a big wooden doll?

She had been so lost in her thoughts she had not noticed Liu Xie right beside her, sitting straight up when he touched her on the arm. They were in a small hut, full of yet more cobwebs and some weeds poking through the dirt ground. "You fell asleep."

"Was that you?" She asked.

He did not answer but he did smile at her, "we'll be staying the night here." He explained. "I think I recognize this area, so tomorrow we'll go somewhere nice before we start going to the Silent Mountains."

Idony frowned at the distinction made, "...are the mountains... not... nice?"

Liu Xie again did not answer, instead he moved to gently put his arms around her. She felt her cheeks and heart warm up, not in discomfort but she could not identify the feeling. It was like the same feeling being hugged by her mother would give her.

"HEY BOSS!"

Liu Xie let go of her and stood up, "go ahead and rest. I'll wake you up in the morning."

Idony laid back down as Liu Xie left, thinking about the giant wooden hand again and the desert and what exactly the Silent Mountains were. Her eyelids grew heavier and then....