Chapter 120
Prodigal Children Return
Azariel never left his room, not since they returned almost a week ago.
Leo would glance up and at the window every morning, and would swing by after breakfast and leave a bowl of food outside that would be returned empty when he'd return some hours later, but there were no interactions between the two. It reminded him of that brief period with Lu Yang, and Leo couldn't help but purse his lips; that well and that cirque, twice now, rendered someone room-bound after he took them there. Perhaps it was best that he left the slumbering dragons do precisely that--slumber.
Sighing, he stretched as he stepped out into the clearing; Lu Yang had gone to tend the garden, Shui'er was still asleep as she stayed up late last night, and animals... well, they were places, Leo was certain of it.
He also had a late night, having gone into the woods for the first time in days, catching yet another glimpse of the world before this one. It was a memory of a young girl, perhaps not even twenty yet, and her own defiant stand. She was scarcely a fighter--she grasped a short dagger with flimsy grip and shaky hands, wailing about madly while a line of spearmen walked up to her and killed her rather quickly.
The memories were beginning to weigh on him even more, especially now that he had quite a bit of context to them. Though he was a human, he didn't really think himself a part of those who'd appear in the fragmented memories, full of rage and bloodlust. But it wasn't easy to ignore it all, either, and he feared he'd sink into quicksand if he wasn't careful enough.
As he sat down onto one of the boulders and took out a gourd of fruit juice from the spatial ring, Gray and Whiskers showed up from between the trees, soon followed by Milky and Blackie. The four have grown quite close from what Leo noted, often disappearing or playing together, though as to how or why, he didn't bother wondering.
Whiskers leapt off the Gray's back and nimbly climbed up Leo's side, ending up on top of his head and lounging there as it purred. Gray settled by his leg, tail occasionally a-wagging, while Blackie and Milky sat down on the opposite end, seemingly twined. Leo's heart relaxed, though he wondered for how long he'd be able to enjoy days like these. He felt something arouse deep within, not quite a voice but less than a thought, warning him.
Perhaps it was the marriage of so many new things that he learned stoking his paranoia, but he felt, almost, the world beginning to sway. He felt silly believing it, but wasn't confident enough to ignore it, either. For better or for worse, it seemed that this world, at least, was rather cyclical in nature--things never seemed to happen in isolation, but followed a pattern. In fairness, Earth wasn't that starkly different (sans magic and such), but it was even more pronounced here.
Primordial Qi's return, for example, was a signal, insomuch something natural can be one. Signal of the changing times, and he was likely, in some way, at the center of them. He knew that he wasn't brought here randomly--if he had been, there would have been no system, no help, no hands that 'groomed' him. No, from onset, he felt he would have a role to play in this world beyond just that of a hermit in the woods. For a while he believed it was to take care of the animals and the vagrants that happened upon these woods, but, lately, he wasn't certain.
Was he a savior? No. If the world needed a savior, they would have likely dragged somebody else here. There were people far more heroic than Leo dying every day back on Earth. So, what was it? Ultimately, he didn't know.
As though serendipitous, Lu Yang returned from the garden at the same moment Shui'er walked out of the longhouse, rubbing her eyes. She wore a purple dress, fresh and well-stitched, and Leo original. He'd made quite a few in the past week for her, and she finally stopped treating every one of them like a treasure. The first one, though, she still slept with, clutching tightly like it was a shield protecting her from pain.
"I'm hungry!" she exclaimed quickly, prompting Leo to laugh.
"It's over there."
"Ugh, vegetable stew... again?" she grumbled, but still sat down and started eating, eyeing him the whole while as Lu Yang sat between them to the left, smiling faintly.
"Oh? So, you don't like my vegetable stew any longer, huh?" Leo put on a pained expression and the girl panicked immediately, beginning to eat with gusto that only a child trying to appease an adult could eat with.
"No, no! It's delicious! It's the best!"
"Ha ha, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," Leo said as her panicked expression disappeared, a pouty one taking its place. "Sorry. How about this--I'll go hunt today, and I'm going to make something with meat tonight. How's that sound?"
"... you promise?"
"I promise."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." it was a game they began, Leo recognized--the 'Three Okays', he called it. She did it to him on occasion, too, and it felt... oddly reassuring, to have to reassure.
"I'm done," she said, standing up. "I'll go and take a bath. Blackie, Whiskers, let's go together!" the kitten purred atop of Leo's head, seeming to wake up immediately upon having her name called and skillfully climbing down and running over to Shui'er, jumping on the girl's shoulder. Blackie wrestled free of Milky who rolled to the side lazily while the former sauntered over and followed the girl toward the pond.
"She's going to be one mean young woman," Lu Yang commented as Leo chuckled.
"Yeah. It's better that way," Leo said. "I want her to become the meanest little thorn in the world."
"I've found a rapture."
"... a what?"
"A rapture," Lu Yang said. "Caused by Primordial Qi. I mended it, but it's likely not the only one."
"Right. And this means...?"
"It means that something is accelerating--or, at least, trying to accelerate--the Qi's return."
"You pinpointed what?"
"It's beyond me," Lu Yang said as Leo sighed, his shoulders slinking.
"You feel it too, right? The slow change."
"Hm," the old man nodded. "Grandfather used to say that men prayed for stagnant waters as much as women prayed for stagnant men."
"Wow."
"Hm. Grandmother hated his guts. I'm fairly certain the only reason she outlived him was so that she could spit on his grave."
"They sound... happy."
"Both were as miserable as miserable gets," Lu Yang chuckled. "For same and different reasons. Screaming, fighting, cursing... ofttimes I wondered how my parents didn't turn into them. They seldom loved, mind you, but they were civil, at least. At least in public, mother was a loving, supportive wife, and father a loving and supporting husband, even if they could strangle a dragon with the silence in private."
"... well, your grandfather was right--in part, at least," Leo said, taking a sip. "There's seldom a worse time to be born than the times of change." Yu Lang glanced over and smiled faintly.
"Not when you are old."
"No, not when you're old," Leo replied with a chuckle. "I'm old too, you know? In my ways, at least. But that doesn't mean I'm not afraid of dying. Not death, no--death is... kind, I feel--but dying scares. And, more so than that, it scares me what the kids will have to endure."
"... you just have to believe in them."
"Hm. I'll prepare a gift," he said. "And go north. Ask my friend. Maybe he's feeling charitable, again."
"..." Lu Yang remained silent.
Evidently, neither Shui'er nor he remembered much (if anything) of their visit north and of Chilly. While Shui'er didn't seem to question it, moving on as though it was the most perfectly normal thing in the world, Lu Yang's eyes were different. However, he never asked, likely having felt that the question would ring hollow.
Leo himself didn't remember the north--not fully, at least. Ever since, however, he'd occasionally get glimpses and flashes of... things, aberrations melded together into chthonian amalgamations. Inexplicable things, indescribable, hauntingly hallowed. And every time he'd see them, it would reinforce his desire to never return even further... but he had to go.
Whatever Chilly was, and he was likely many things, what mattered the most was that the feathered crow was intrinsically linked to things beyond Leo's ken--there was a bond, a connection to the world's undercurrents, the ones that Leo couldn't see. Perhaps that was the difference between a mortal perception and that of a creature closer to a God
Leo felt faint stirring suddenly as Lu Yang jumped to his feet, readying to fight as a massive rift opened up above them. Purple edges bled out like a beast's maw, framing a dark, obsidian hole--a breath later, silhouettes broke through and Leo quickly recognized the both of them.
"Master, he's not breathing!!" Yue screamed atop of her voice--it was brutal, and it cracked like a boom of thunder, prompting Leo to immediately jump to his feet and rush over, sliding next to the limp body of a young man with a about a hundred different wounds, each one worse than the previous. "P-p-please save him!! Please, please, please..." Yue mumbled, her face smeared with tears and blood, a mixture that made his heart splinter. The rift above closed, and Leo bent over, pressing his ear near Liang's nose--he wasn't breathing. Or, if he was, it was so faint that Leo couldn't hear it.
He pressed his fingers against the young man's wrist, and after a bit of patience, felt the faint pulse. It was there, and however faint, it meant that he wasn't dead, at the very least.
Leo did what he did with Yu Minge--he took out all the same plants and began dressing up the wounds after washing them out with the water from the pond; luckily, the wounds began to close at visible speeds, though it still looked beyond gnarly.
Yue was openly weeping and Lu Yang had to drag her back and away from the body as she thrashed about wildly. She didn't hear him, Leo knew--she didn't hear anything, likely. He very much empathized with the feeling.
He checked his pulse again, but it was still faint; dressing surface wounds was far from enough, after all, so he did the only other thing he knew how to do--he took out the 'juice' from the spatial ring that he prepared specifically for situations like this. He'd tossed in all the herbs he knew had even the mildest medicinal effects and mixed them with the water from the pond. Lifting Liang's head gently, he slowly dripped the liquid, and the boy swallowed it instinctively, drop by drop. He'd hoped that his blind stumbling in the dark would be enough, examining everything once again.
What happened? He wanted to ask, but didn't.
All he could do was stare at the smeared blood, both across his arms as well as the ground beneath, and wonder when his nerves became made of steel. No... they didn't; they were still the same, old, jittery sort, but the weight of Yue's terror, her pleas, and her expectations and desires was the wings to his flimsy courage.
Liang coughed suddenly, and Leo sat him up just in time for the young man to spray out a mouthful of black blood. The liquid dripped violently through his lips, pouring out like gasoline from a hose; only for a few seconds, yes, but those seconds felt like eternity.
"Liang!!!" Yue broke free and thrashed over, sliding next to him and grabbing his face as gently as she could.
"He's fine," Leo said with fleeting confidence; well, as far as Leo's medical skills went, and as far as he could tell, the boy was fine. The pulse had returned to what Leo, at least, considered normal, and he could feel Liang breathing out after putting a finger underneath the boy's nose. Though it looked absolutely terrifying, having someone vomit so much black blood, Leo prayed and hoped with all his might that the boy was 'expelling the horrors', as it were, and not anything else. "I'll take him inside to rest."
"I--I'll come with!" Leo knew that there was no chance in the breadth of the world that she wouldn't come with him, and that she wouldn't stay in that room, as bedridden as he in a way, until he woke up. Though Leo didn't know what happened, he wasn't pressed for the truth at the moment, so he merely nodded his head as he gently lifted Liang's body, glancing over at Lu Yang who seemed just as shocked. The latter nodded faintly as Leo entered the longhouse, Yue in front of him, opening the doors.
So much pain, suffering, misery, and death. Everywhere, at all times, all at once. Would his being here change anything? No. He was a singular drop of water in a world-spanning ocean, a spec of dust on a beach, the tiniest star in the cosmos. The suffering would continue, long after his own death, and unto death of everything. All he could do was gnash his teeth and feel his heart bleed, bubbling into something that he only experienced briefly before--anger. He feared it consuming him, as he knew well enough just how blinding the anger could be. Anger was a poison, the silent, deadly one, that consumed a person inside out until only a shell, a lookalike carcass remained. And he feared, beyond most all other things, becoming that... again.