Chapter 32 - Aftermath of Rampage

"Wen!" Feng Xi shouted, clutching her zither and sliding down to the ground from atop the boulder. Her feet slipped on the wet stone ground as she landed, sending her sprawling on the ground but the pain of the fall hardly registered to her as she scrambled to Ao Wen's side. "Wen!"

"Present," Ao Wen said weakly. With the death of the Rage Queen, the energy resonating with her dragon bloodline had disappeared, leaving her muscles twitching from over exertion and her body screaming in pain. Blood trickled from her head wound and the world seemed to spin if she moved her head too quickly. "Check on Jin," she managed to say when Feng Xi arrived beside her.

"You first," Feng Xi said, pulling Ao Wen away from the fallen beast enough to be sure there wasn't an obvious injury that needed immediate tending. Ao Wen's left forearm had returned to its normal appearance, all signs of dragon scales vanished as though she'd imagined it, but it was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly badly broken. Seeing Wen's bloody face and broken arm, tears threatened to overwhelm Feng Xi. Her heart ached for the person who mattered more to her than… Feng Xi's mind and heart both froze, staring at the bloody, battered Ao Wen in realization. Ao Wen wasn't the person who mattered more to her than anyone except her parents. At that moment, Ao Wen mattered more than anyone, herself included. Tears slipped from her eyes silently, lost in the rain as she struggled seeing her love in so much pain. "Can you stand?" Feng Xi managed to ask. "Once I get you out of the rain, I'll check on Jin."

"Standing maybe," Ao Wen, her voice strained and face pale in pain. "Walking no. Everything spins when I move."

"Okay," Feng Xi said. Slowly, she slid an arm under Ao Wen's right arm and helped her to her feet. "It's just a dozen meters or so," she said softly. "Close your eyes if things are spinning, just lean on me and I'll get you out of the rain."

"Okay." Ao Wen couldn't manage any more than that, closing her eyes and leaning on Feng Xi as the two young women limped into the sheltered area at the base of the ridge.

"Just rest," Feng Xi said, setting Ao Wen down as gently as she could. Once she could see that Ao Wen had settled, Feng Xi jogged out into the rain, hurrying to where Tang Jin's figure lay unmoving in a puddle. Blood flowed from a long gash on his temple where the impact of the tail had split his skin like a whip. For a moment, Feng Xi's heart quaked at the sight of his unmoving body. Then, relief flooded her as she noticed ripples in the puddle beneath his face, the surface of the water shimmering with each of his shallow breaths.

"Hey," she said gently, shaking him to rouse him. "Come on," she pleaded. "I need your help." Still, Tang Jin made no sign that he heard anything. "Fine, but don't blame me for dragging you," she muttered, wrapping her arms around him and lifting him up enough to drag back to where she'd placed Ao Wen. "Wen," she said, "Wen!"

"Hmmm?" Ao Wen muttered, opening her eyes and seeing Feng Xi with Tang Jin. "Jin?" She barely managed a single word before the pain in her head made it impossible to keep her eyes open. "How's Jin?"

"Breathing," Feng Xi said. "But he won't wake up," her voice as she finished was thick with concern.

"Jun Ben is an idiot," Ao Wen said randomly. "Tang Jin is a sleepy head. Sleepy Jin. Sleep is good," she trailed off, finally allowing the darkness to claim her now that she knew Tang Jin was okay, just unconscious.

Feng Xi found herself the only one awake and able to do anything. The sky was darkening, the rain had steadily become heavier and there was no one who would come to help them because no one knew they needed help. Fear and anxiety clawed at her mind, especially when she looked at Ao Wen's broken arm. Outside a real storm was brewing, one that would surely bring lightning strikes, making the entire forest unsafe to travel for days until the energy dissipated. They'd be trapped out here.

Shaking her head, Feng Xi tried to visualize a chord that she could use to sort her emotions. This time, it was harder than when she'd done it with Ao Wen. After several failed attempts that sent her heart racing, she realized why. Her fear and anxiety for herself and even Tang Jin had become separate from her fear and anxiety for Ao Wen. The latter were much sharper notes that carried the character of a frayed and over-tightened zither string. Touching it at all threatened to unleash a wave of other emotions, helplessness, confusion, desperate longing that she couldn't fully describe. It was no wonder her attempts had been failing.

Dashing into the increasing rain she retrieved her zither along with Ao Wen's saber Wild Fang. Initially she'd only thought of using her zither to calm herself and focus but when she saw the saber in a puddle of rainwater and cougar blood she realized that Ao Wen would likely look for it as soon as she woke. It would be better if it was close at hand.

Returning to Ao Wen's side, she looked over her instrument, going through the familiar motions of checking each string and making adjustments more to ground herself than because the instrument needed it. A mortal zither would surely suffer for being left in the rain all day, but as a cultivator her instrument needed to be strong enough to withstand the flow of her energy and the techniques it would be used for. While she would never wish to do so, her trusted partner could likely block a strike from Tang Jin's sword if she needed to.

Having restored a semblance of order to her mind, her fingers began plucking out the familiar notes of Blossoms in Snow. When she'd last played the song, she'd seen herself as the maiden in the snow, giving fleeting glimpses to Ao Wen's dragon energy to tease it out. This time, she felt like she'd become the one entranced by fleeting glimpses of Ao Wen's figure.

Feng Xi poured all of her confusion into the song, each glimpse in the song seeing a different version of Ao Wen, even a different future together. In one glimpse, they challenged the world as sworn sisters and mighty cultivators, in another glimpse they lay together beside a fire to keep warm from the snow. Still another glimpse as they grew old in Turning Leaf town, each raising a family of their own. Finally, the notes shifted in key. She caught a glimpse of Ao Wen becoming a stranger, leaving her behind. A glimpse of Ao Wen in the arms of another person walking away and finally a glimpse of herself, mere days from now, dressed in white and holding incense before Ao Wen's memorial tablet.

All of these things that could be swirled with the notes of Blossoms in Snow like the snowstorm itself had come to reside outside the room of her small inner world. With an act of will, Feng Xi closed herself off from the snowstorm, allowing it to exist but not allowing it to affect her. Once she'd done that, setting aside her other concerns wasn't nearly so difficult.

"One thing at a time," she said to herself, setting aside her zither at last. The storm would last for a day or two at most but the lingering lightning would take several more days to disperse. Food would be an issue after three or four days when their supplies started to run out. Those were concerns for later but they needed to be addressed soon. The rain actually provided a boon in that it washed away the scent of blood from the battle. The local predators likely knew to avoid this place because of the Rage Queen's presence giving them precious days of safety but the body of the Rage Queen and her cubs needed to be secured before the rain stopped.

The ridge provided some shelter but cold and wet would be an issue. She needed to get Ao Wen abs Tang Jin out of wet clothes before they lost too much body heat and she needed to get a fire burning that would allow them all to stay warm and dry out. Both Ao Wen and Tang Jin had injuries that should be bandaged using what remained of their limited medicinal paste and Ao Wen's broken arm should be affixed to a brace so she didn't hurt herself further.

It was a long list and she was just one Understudy. Similar to Ao Wen, she felt that she'd let her breakthrough go to her head and the adoration townsfolk gave second stage cultivators hadn't helped her stay humble. Those were problems for later. For now, she had a list and time was not her ally.