The Heartless Magician's Fate (GL, Cultivation)

The room was a complete, utter mess.

Not only that; there was an eerie feeling hovering in the quiet air. There were silk robes strewn along the floor like ghosts' clothes, a few ink diagrams of star charts spread about like someone had scattered them in a fury, and there were velvet pillows lying haphazardly on dark wooden floor tiles as if they had been chucked across the room in a panic. The canopy hanging over the large bed, whose legs were carved elaborately, hung thickly, a smothering dark scarlet color.

It was all very suffocating. So alive, and yet dead — like the room of a ghost.

The only noise in was a quiet, desperate clicking.

It came from the window, where a young woman sat with her shoulder pressed violently against the window panes, fiddling with a heavy lock on the window base. She grinded her teeth as she poked a long, thin piece of metal — a sharp golden hairpin — into the lock and jiggled it around fiercelythe way she'd done a thousand times. A drop of sweat slipped down her forehead, tracing along the back of her long, pale neck and disappearing into the collar of her night robes. Another drop crept behind her ear, running over a small character tattooed there. Her breaths were heavy, each inhale a panicked wheeze, and each exhale short and harsh.

At last, with a pop, the lock snapped open. Finally. This lock seemed to be getting more stubborn every day.

The young woman's shaking hand stretched out to shove the window open. A gust of cool night air swept in like a soft puff of breath. The ghostly silk robes on the ground fluttered, as did the woman's long, dark hair.

Beyond the window stretched out a lush botanical grounds, a verdant blanket of life from a bird's eye view: pine trees of all sorts with thick-needled elliptical crowns rose up from underbrush blooming with jewel-like colors from scarlet to jade; glass pools of water reflected the pearly moonlight, pink dashes of flowers on enormous lilies floating through them. It looked like an immortal paradise far below.

The lush garden extended for some distance, then abruptly stopped. They were cut off by a stone looming wall even taller than the girl's window. The wall cast a black shadow over half of the garden, obscuring it from moonlight. Nothing could be seen past it.

Fucking stupid wall, the woman cursed to herself. She muttered more curses as she fastened a sheet to the knob of a drawer beneath the window sill, tying it once, twice, three times in a quick, efficient knot. She gathered up the string of sheets she had tied together and, leaning precariously out the window, dumped them into the air. They fluttered into the lush greenery below.

Swiftly, she reached up to tie her hair up with a piece of leather. Her hair shone, dark as soil. Strands she missed fell to hang down near her dark angular eyes, which darted over the botanical paradise, somewhere between anxious and furious. Another silver bead of sweat swept over her eyebrow, splashing silently onto the windowsill, where it left a damp print.

In one smooth motion, the girl hopped over the windowsill and slid down the rope of sheets, all the way down into the lush paradise.

As she walked among the trees, her breathing began to slow. She matched her breaths to the soft swaying of their branches in the breeze, the whisperings of flower petals as she followed stone pathways. In, and out, in, and out. By the time she reached the lotus pond, her breathing was almost at a normal rate, each breath deeper and fuller than the last.

She lodged herself in the split trunk of a greeting pine right by the water's edge, tightly enough that her shoulders squashed beneath her ears and she felt safe. The tree held her tightly.

For some time, she stayed like this. The pond's glassy surface stretched out from her bare feet and to the opposite bank, perfectly still. Atop it floated pink-white lotuses on lilies, which drifted across the glass surface, not creating a single ripple. The flowers were in full nighttime bloom now, glowing gently, like divine water lanterns. A luminous firefly danced between lilies.

When the girl blinked out of her lotus-watching trance hours later, the wall's confining shadow had stretched much closer, obscuring the trees across the pond. The girl's face contorted, and she glared at the pond fiercely, pent-up hatred coursing through her veins.

"I hate this house," she spat, hurling a pebble into the pond. It splashed and echoed in rippling rings of water, sending the lotus lilies swimming away. "I hate this, and them. As soon as I find a way, I'm out of here. I'm not lying! It's a promise!"