: : :
They just kept coming.
It was all familiar, well practiced at this point. He would shape the stones and the flow of the wounded and soft away from the front. Let them pool behind him, behind walls, behind formations. He would be the hardpoint. He would weather beasts, spirits, cloud tribe, and now filthy pale jackal men, shishigui, for as long as he could. Some days, he would survive. Like defending the village, on that day months ago.
It had been summer then, hadn't it? Just like the dream?
As he whisked another ally away to behind the walls, he realized his face was snarled with exertion and frustration. Another monster approached, another spike of stone pinned it to the makeshift barricade of corpses and mud.
visions of infection, of pain and revulsion. Bald apes reeking of stars dug and smiled as they ripped %!!% om@%%!%*^%
He spat at his feet as even the stone spikes of the barricade started to corrode and crumple. Returned to earth. He screamed in rage as a strong shishigui he hadn't sensed flickered beneath his guard and dragged filthy corruption up his chest like a paintbrush. Lanhua erupted as a raging geyser beneath his feet, scouring the enemy up and away towards a better distance. The trail of slime was washed, but the taint still burned even as a little sun shone bright in his thoughts.
He let his mind wander as the battle raged on, relying on his long practice to carry him through.
There was a certain, peace, in knowing what your purpose in battle is. No worry for decision making. Just reaction. The Shen Clan was a bulwark, a vanguard, a forward outpost of humanity in a often cruel world. The endless combat, the endless violence, the boiling rage and pain and exhaustion. Shen Hu would stand against that. He stomped his foot and skewered a weak enemy, allowing gravity to impale the foe that Lanhua had launched into the air upon it as the enemy returned to earth.
She really should have conserved her energy there. There was no way of knowing how much longer there was to-
*%!#%es in the shadows in the mouths were%#!%^%*
The tide of enemies stopped, for a moment. Lurking beyond the wall of bodies.
Shen Hu shuddered as the ripples of the upper realm combat at the central entrance washed through him. His Surface Unbroken Meditation Art disturbed once again by the horrible spiritual wash spraying from the fight between Elder Jiao and that. Thing.
The corpses of his foes twitched and flailed in response, but where the stone still held they were denied their moment of animation and Shen Hu allowed himself a smile. The first time they had done that many had been injured. Some wounds on the evacuated had looked badly infected, despite being fresh.
If he hadn't had long practice, he would have worried about using extra qi to move them inside.
Lanhua burbled confusion, concern, anger. Shen Hu spat dark blood from his mouth, and wiped some of the pus from his already mending wound off with his hand.
He needed to retreat! He needed to fall back! He needed to use the brief moment to live! This wasn't a dream! He had to live!
The higher cultivation shishigui he had sensed were standing still, and their minions scampered restlessly between them as they channeled their powers. Breathing hard, he watched as the makeshift wall twitched and began to rock back and forth. The higher cultivation shishigui he had sensed were standing still, and their minions scampered restlessly between them as they channeled their powers. The scent of terrible, infected wounds nearly caused him to gag as the air suddenly became thick enough to feel as it crawled around the battlefield. As it crawled into his lungs.
His other spirit shone then, a feeling of warm heat shone on his eyes screwed shut in pain. On his chest that was heaving. On his hands, caked in mud that slowly dried.
He breathed in and smelled the estate. The semi-tamed wilderness of home, sun high, chores done.
Shen Hu looked behind him and saw a familiar sight. A formation's master working diligently with many hands and eyes to finish preparations before the beast could reach the walls. Just like then.
And just like then, it would not be in time.
He coughed, and the phlegm and blood that slapped into his hand immediately tried to crawl back up his arm. Scrabbling at his skin for an entry point. He swatted it with disgust. He felt a scrabbling at his lungs too, something trying to turn him corpse and then into . . . No.
No.
His purpose in battle was to be a hard point. No swarm would eat him piece by piece. No monster would find feast from his corpse. His purpose in death was to be a hard point. He would give every inch of himself in defense, and the enemy would gain not one inch from his falling. That was the meaning of his death.
And he knew that today would be that day. He knew today he would fulfill that meaning.
Thankfully, the meaning of his life was something else.
Shen Hu focused on his storage ring and smiled as he suddenly held in his hands his most treasured possession. His only treasured possession.
A bucket.
: : :
Lanhua burbled so quickly it was incoherent, and she slapped against his body even as she knew that she could never move that boy by force. Not anymore.
The shishigui beyond the barricade screamed fury and their power erupted down through the earth, and back up into the pile of half melted corpses. The thing shuddered like a caterpillar of gelatin, as it's many mouths wheezed in the cursed air for the first time and breathed out a fetid corruption much older than any corpse could remember. It chittered as it sensed Lanhua's alarm, and noses swiveled towards her as Shen Hu spat curses.
Her boy rose a stone wall to keep the crawling gases back for a time, and looked to Lanhua with love in his heart.
He was the only one that seemed to know how to look at her properly, right where her perception was focused best. The crawling sensation ruptured a lung and began to squirm towards his dantian. Horrified, she tried to pour herself in to try to fight it from the inside. He denied her, and also poured the summer sun out from his soul and into the bucket. He coughed again, careful not to spill, and placed the bucket where Lanhua could hold it. She suddenly understood what was happening.
She frothed, but he knew she wouldn't dare shake the bucket too much. She capped white and livid, like the river relatives she had met.
In response he clapped her on the crest and smiled. Although it looked more like a grimace.
"We talked about this Lanhua. You were always going to live longer than me, and I have shared the best parts of my life with you."
He pointed to the bucket, and then to her,
"but if I were to die, I refuse to share that with you. Perhaps it's selfish" Shen Hu chuckled, tearing up.
"but if I were to die you agreed to take the sun and make sure it shines at our pool. To make sure the meaning of my life is more than my purpose."
Lanhua whirled and crashed. Denying that she had agreed. Denying that she was at a disadvantage to this corrupting enemy. Denying that he had to-
The wall corroded in front of them and Shen Hu threw up another Wall. The corpse thing had begun wriggling, writhing as it attempted to figure out how to move. Lanhua shook as she felt it's rancid power. Something echoed from within her boy as the creature pulsed. He doubled over coughing, and corruption spilled onto the ground. She was forced to back up from it, unable to reach over the squirming mass and pick him up without dropping the bucket. Still, there was no other way for him to survive if she didn't-
Shen Hu activated his mobility technique, and the earth flowed beneath Lanhua as it drained towards safety.
Lanhua sprayed and swirled and curled and tried to make the vocal chords that could scream for him.
He smiled and sent her a feeling.
: : :
It was the first summer they had been together. He had carried her in a bucket from the dangerous water that connected to the greater swamps up and away towards the Shen Clan pool. It'd been the first truly clean water Lanhua had ever seen.
She had tried so hard to tip herself into it, but Shen Hu had simply picked up a warm rock and weighed her bucket down while he fetched a second bucket. He sat on his own rock as he poured half into her bucket, and kept half to put his feet in. It had been such a beautiful life there, beneath that summer sun. It had been living.
: : :
A wall of stone slammed shut over the entrance. Lanhua shuddered as humans tried to usher her away from the archway, barely enough strength between them to stop her even if she had no qi. She turned instead and rushed to find a place to set their bucket down. She wouldn't let anything happen to it, but maybe she could still pour herself back into his soul. Maybe she could send qi back through her bond to him? Maybe she could-
The bond with her boy tightened, frayed, and was cut. He had severed the connection before she could experience more of his death.
She screamed as only a lake can scream
: : :
the formations later finished, the humans had slumped in relief
a melancholy crossed the sun like a cloud, in the bucket of Hu and Lanhua.
She didn't respond to it.
Lanhua proceeded up the ramps immediately. away from the dark. away from the stone. away from the wounds.
As she emerged at the top, some ways up the mountain, she ran down hill towards the nearest lake, the sun flashing warning as she rushed towards relief. Towards familiarity. Towards dissolution, even temporary.
She placed the bucket gingerly on a rock that felt like it had seen much sun, and threw herself into the lake.
: : :
It would be three days before the sect found Lanhua in the lake, a sun spirit humming softly to her from a bucket.
She would, of course, live on for her boy. She had agreed, after all. She would return to the great swamp, and protect that family which had loved him. She would foster the little sun which had brought them such joy.
and in her dreams he would still be there, cooling his feet and pouring cool cleanliness over her. They would relax in the sun, and let life be the reason for living.
and perhaps she would meet someone that would also let life be the reason for living. Perhaps she would bond again. Perhaps the sun would too, resting and restoring the hard working and stony humans of Shen clan.
but that was for later.
much later.
the time now was for grieving.
