Chapter 151 - What Domesticity Does To A MoFo (Patreon)

Enjoy! I'm getting back into having space for hobbies and character developments now that people are on the same page and not suffering constant breakdowns, lol!

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The walk back to their cabin is uneventful. Li Shu gives Raika a bit of space, making sure to be close enough she can provide support if needed, but no closer. The kid, meanwhile, walks well behind Li Shu. He’s skittish, which is only to be expected after seeing a ritual like that, but Raika didn’t fail to note the way he saw something in the ritual circle before she did. Either way, he seems to have come to the conclusion that he’s either safer with the two of them than in the woods, or that he’s too scared of either of them to try to run, both of which are pretty reasonable.

Raika, meanwhile, just… walks.

She lets the sounds of the night flit through her senses as they move. It’s a newer exercise, one she’s taken up after the events of the tournament, and it’s gotten easier as time goes on, letting all the data flow in and back out without needing to set up walls. In moments like these, when she wants to be alone with her thoughts, it can even be meditative.

She’s not sure what she expected. There was every chance the ritual wouldn’t even work, but Li Shu clearly pulled through. Either instinct or her time in the wilds or something have inspired her, because for all that she remains an impressive healer, her grasp on coming up with weird ideas and how to make them work has been… impressive. But there was always a very, very solid chance that it had all simply been in her head, that JiaJia hadn’t been there at all. What the manifestation showed was that whatever there was still clinging to her, it hadn’t exactly been strong, just a passing flicker, a piece of what was left.

Maybe she would feel better if he’d yelled at her. Maybe she’d feel better if she still thought that he was in pain somehow, to make the guilt more painful to bear.

Instead, he’d been… kind. Smiling. Almost gentle with her. She wonders if there was enough of him to even remember what happened, or where he was, but… sort of pointless, isn’t it? He was there enough to speak, there enough to respond, and he had called her out for being an idiot.

And then he’d gone away.

She’s not an exorcist, rare profession that they are. Li Shu could probably come up with something, but… whether or not he truly passed back into the cycle of reincarnation or to some afterlife, or if he’s still around, it’s not something she needs to know. He’s still gone. What little was left said goodbye. And now…

Now that particular item has been, at long last, crossed off the agenda.

The patch of green they’re walking on begins to slope downwards into a valley, at the back of which is their cabin.

It’s not much. None of them are particularly good builders, but Hao Nera at least has some experience living out in the wilds and building shelter, and four Foundational-realm-or-higher entities make light work out of digging and putting down logs. As it stands, four walls make up the cabin’s exterior, the slanted roof on top covered in thatch and bits of hay, woven in with still living leaves by Li Shu to potentially make it self-repairing, and it is elevated a few feet off the ground, a small stream running out from beneath it and down into a large pond further down the valley. It’s only about half a mile across, maybe two lengthwise, but that works in their favor, keeping landmarks small and the area mostly hidden even from the woods outside.

Raika idly traces the strange veins of Qi that run through the valley out of the cabin as they walk, seeing/smelling through the ground the strange, uncertain flow of it as something in the cabin weaves roots through the terrain. If she focuses, she can see how it might look to regular senses, simply as slightly greener bits of grass, but the moment she relaxes, her senses meld again, letting her almost feel the Qi digging roots through the space.

Mmmh. Progress. One of their ongoing projects, bearing fruit.

They make it to the cabin, the kid breathing hard (admittedly, it’s not a short distance for a mortal to walk in the dark). Li Shu touches a few points along the walls near the door, pushes Qi into them to deactivate some formations, and lets them in.

Raika takes up her usual role, heading over to the fireplace to light it. They’re pretty far south, but winter is still winter, and the boy’s been in the cold most of the night. Li Shu gives her a Look™ before kneeling next to the kid.

“Stay here, alright? I’ll go find you some new robes, just sit near the fire a bit. Raika, keep an eye?”

Raika nods, taking a seat one one of the mats they have set out in front of the fire pit. The coals crackle, occasional glimpses of True Flame manifesting from her igniting it, but mostly just emitting a warm glow.

The kid sits, numb, staring into the Flame like he’s never seen a fire before.

“Hey,” Raika says, “you’d tell me if you were possessed, right?”

The kid turns to look at her, his heart skipping a beat audibly.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to smell it. Just good to double check.”

The kid nods, slowly at first, then faster. “Um. No. I don’t- I don’t think so.”

She grunts. “Good. Bad form, getting possessed without telling anyone.”

He gulps audibly, and she has to suppress a little laugh at that. 

She pokes a stick into the coals, shuffling them around so a fresh batch of embers flutter out into the air. The kid watches as flecks of golden Flame flicker between them, lighting up the cabin ever so slightly. They sit in silence a while.

Eventually Li Shu comes back in, holding one of her smaller, more casual robes. White, simple, and waaaay too big for the kid- and sits across from them both, a needle and thread hovering in the air next to her and a scalpel in hand.

“Raika, you mind getting dinner started?” she asks, the blade already cutting away parts of the clothing even as the needle moves seemingly independently. “I’ll keep an eye on the little one. And light some candles, please, not all of us can see as well as you.”

Raika smiles, enjoying both the way she says it and the way she can multitask. Compared to when they first met, Li Shu’s fine control of Qi has multiplied, and frankly, Raika’s not sure she knows how impressive it is to be exercising telekinesis through her Qi, no matter how minute, while talking and cutting something.

As much as she hates to miss the show, she stretches, cracking a few of her many additional joints as she does and gets up to do as requested. Her left arm still aches a bit, her reserves of blacksteel still ringing faintly from the gaze of the Cold Sun, but it’s nothing that’ll interfere with anything beyond the basics. She reaches up to touch her necklace, feeling the metallic trinket on it bring her some comfort. She makes her way to a few candles, lighting them as she moves into the kitchen.

Turns out, while non-Qi-enriched foods aren’t very filling for her nowadays, enhanced senses put in a lot of work when it comes to getting flavors right. She does, admittedly, tend to underseason, but she’s still better at cooking than Qen Hou, Li Shu or Hao Nera. She sets a flame beneath a large, cheap pot, filling it with a bit of water for it to boil, and starts preparing the other ingredients.  The fingers and black blades she can form on her left side work as knives just fine, and something about the particular flavor of End she has in them seems to leave minimal imprint on the ingredients, so she washes and then uses her hand to cut up some taro and onions for a quick stir fry.

Some chili oil, a bit of ginger, and finely diced chicken all make it into the pan, with bamboo shoots, some nuts, and a bone broth go into the pot. The rice she puts to steaming last, so it’ll be ready with the rest.

Yeah, she’s gotten a hobby. 

The ability to literally hear when the quality of the heat changes the ingredients, to smell the moment where proteins start to break down and pull things together… it makes it easy. Easier, anyways. She can taste more things in a dish than most, which can make it a bit harder to balance, but most of the things she can taste are actually digestible even if they’re unpleasant. At this point Raika’s pretty sure she could literally digest dirt if she tried, maybe even get some nutrition out of it if it’s Qi-rich enough or if she tried hard. It’s less about if the food is “dirty” and more about if the “dirty” parts are actively poisonous to her or just don’t mesh with the flavors of the food.

She hears Li Shu walk into the kitchen behind her, part of herself tracking the kid’s heartbeat in the other room. It’s quieter, calmed, and past the sizzling of food and the sounds of the kitchen, she’s pretty sure she can make out his breathing, low and slow.

“Sleeping?” she asks.

Li Shu nods, the movement swishing the air around her head in a way Raika can sense. At this point, most of her new roommates have gotten used to not needing to verbally answer a good chunk of the time for Raika to know what they’re saying. “Out like a light. Already pretty late, but I got the impression his system was pretty taxed already. Large amounts of lactic acid and stressed muscle tissue, I assume from running for a while through the woods.”

“I found him out in a little campsite, outside the town walls. Had a weird moment. One of the dead things I was hunting stopped chasing after my blood, went after the kid instead.”

Li Shu arcs an eyebrow. “That… that is weird. Your blood has enough Qi floating around in it to be an alchemical ingredient. That much vitality alone should have been more appealing to its senses than an orphan. Is he…”

“A cultivator? Maybe. He’s got a scent to him, but it’s minor. Bitter. Like harsh tea, meant to wake you up more than taste good, but in a dark room.”

“You’re getting better at that. Used to be you just had strong scent flavors.”

“Mmh. Still working on that synesthesia idea you had, but I think it’s working. Easier to interpret some things, notice others. Not done yet, though.”

“Of course. Qen Hou and Hao Nera should still be back tonight. You want me to stay up and watch the kid?”

“Nah, you three enjoy yourselves. I know you haven’t had a night free in a while.”

Li Shu blushes a bit, but isn’t shy about the smile she gives. “True. Still weird when you can hear everything, though.”

“I won’t need to sleep tonight. I’ll stay out by the pond. Besides, I can literally smell arousal from across a room and hear the sound your inner organs make, you’re not exactly hiding anything in general.”

Li Shu laughs at that. “I wonder if that’s what it’s like for high level cultivators. Or someone who practices a sense-technique.”

“Almost definitely. I just got there early by, you know, losing the ability to project and control Qi and a few years of horrifying struggle and agony.”

For a little while the sizzling of the wok and bubbling of the soup dominate the space in the kitchen.

“How are you feeling? After saying goodbye?”

Raika sighs, long and slow. She’s very good at it considering her lungs can fit enough air for an hour’s worth of oxygen. “I’m… better. Like a weight is off. I… I kinda pictured him as hating me. Or wanting me dead, maybe. Or just… a thing I could project guilt onto. But…”

“I saw.”

“It still isn’t fair. Still hurts.”

“I’d be worried if it didn’t.”

“But… I dunno. Would be unfair to use his memory to hurt myself, after seeing him like that. Wanting more, but not sick. Not sad. Not hurting like I was afraid he might. He’s… he’s dead. And what’s left of his afterlife is up to him. And what’s left here… that’s up to me.”

Li Shu comes up from behind and gives Raika a hug, the top of her head just barely making it to Raika’s shoulder.

“I wish Maen was here,” Raika mumbles.

Li Shu tightens her hug, using just a bit of Qi to give her a squeeze and share the scent of flowers and clean edges (now with a newer hint of something Raika’s still not sure of). “I know. She was nice. A bit intense sometimes, but I’d like to meet her properly soon. Any chance you’ve got a letter for her this week?”

Raika nods. “Yeah. I’ll try and write something tonight. After you three go off to have some fun. I haven’t written in a while. Next drop-off is in four days, yeah?”

“Mhmm. Hao Nera says there’s still some risks, but between him and that Kaena fellow, they’re managing to get the letters through.”

Raika just nods, before killing the flame beneath the food as the soup and stir fry finalize at nearly the same time. 

“Alright. I’ll set this out. Let’s see if we can’t get the kid to eat, leave some stuff still warm for the cute couple when they get home.”

Almost as if on cue, to the sound of a door slamming open and a young voice absolutely shrieking awake in surprise, Hao Nera enters the building.

“Honeys, I’m hooooome!”

Raika laughs as Li Shu immediately scampers over to probably kick him in the shin for slamming the door open, enjoying the smell of fresh food, of wooden walls she’s growing familiar with, and of the scents of those she trusts as they blunder about back into their home.