"Never ask a drowning man for an explanation. Wait until he stops coughing." — Ren Yao, later
She noticed her robes at the exact wrong moment.
Ren Yao had managed to drag himself further onto the bank, where the rocks were flat enough to lie on without the current pulling at his legs. He was staring up at the canopy of trees that lined the riverbank, breathing carefully because breathing carelessly still hurt.
She'd been standing over him, dripping, demanding answers.
Then she looked down.
The silence lasted about two seconds.
"Turn around," she said.
Her voice was very controlled.
He turned around. He was looking at the Greymoss Forest now, its dark pines and the mist threading between the trunks. He heard water being wrung out. The sound of cloth. A sharp breath of cold.
"You can turn back," she said eventually.
She'd wrung out what she could and pulled the outer robe tighter across herself, arms crossed. It helped somewhat. Not entirely. She'd clearly decided to pretend it helped entirely, which was its own kind of composure and he could respect it.
"Your name," she said. Not a question.
"Ren Yao."
"Lian Zhu." She said it like she was filing paperwork. Then she looked at the cliff above. At the figures still visible at the ledge — smaller now, moving. "Those people chasing you. Are they coming down?"
He followed her gaze.
The ledge was high. The descent around the peaks took time — you had to go back through the pass, then follow the switchback trails down. Maybe two hours if they pushed.
"Not immediately," he said.
"Good." She sat down on a rock a careful distance from him. Her jaw was tight. Her hands were in her lap, still. "Why did you jump?"
"They were going to take my eyes."
She looked at him.
He looked back.
"Your eyes," she repeated.
"They have power. Someone wanted them." He paused. "It wasn't a metaphor."
She absorbed this. She was good at absorbing — her face didn't give much away. He filed that away without meaning to.
"Oh, I like her," ARIA said in his skull.
He very carefully did not react.
"She's sensible. Sensible people are more fun than dramatic ones. Dramatic ones always try to monologue when I'm calculating something."
"You should have fought," Lian Zhu said.
"I was already crippled." He said it plainly. "Three days ago. I ran on fumes to get this far."
She looked at his hands. At the way his right one was still slightly unsteady.
She didn't offer sympathy. He appreciated that.
"Then what was your plan?" she asked. "After jumping."
"I didn't have one."
[QUEST AVAILABLE] [TITLE: THE HOLLOW FANG] [DESCRIPTION: Help Lian Zhu and the Hollow Fang Sect survive their current crisis.] [DURATION: Open-ended] [REWARD: Classified] [NOTE FROM ARIA: Accept or don't. But you have nowhere else to go, so.]
The quest window appeared in the corner of his vision like a polite interruption.
He blinked at it once.
"That's not optional," ARIA said. "I mean, technically it is. But I already know what you're going to do."
"Something wrong?" Lian Zhu asked.
"No." He shifted his weight on the rock. "Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask."
"Why were you here?"
The question landed. He watched her decide whether to answer it — the small calculation behind her eyes. She looked at the river instead of him.
"Does it matter?" she said.
"Only if it affects whether you're going to try again later. In which case it affects my planning."
She looked back at him sharply.
He kept his face even.
"Your planning," she repeated.
"I need somewhere to go," he said. "You clearly have a sect. Sects have walls and roofs and reasons for people not to look too hard at a stranger." He let that sit for a moment. "I'm not asking out of sentiment."
The corner of her mouth moved. Not a smile — more like the shape of one that had thought better of appearing.
"The sect has walls," she said. "They're in poor repair."
"Still walls."
She looked at the river again. A long moment.
"I was there," she said finally, "because I had run out of ideas." She said it the way people say things they've already made peace with — flat, without drama. "The sect is thirty days from losing its grounds. I have four members left including myself. Our debt to Ironstone Guild is not the kind that negotiates."
"What kind is it?"
"The kind where the number keeps growing no matter what you pay."
He nodded slowly.
"Thirty days," ARIA mused. "Tight. Not impossible. Probably."
"I can help with that," he said.
Lian Zhu stared at him.
"You're crippled," she said carefully. "You just fell off a cliff. You are currently sitting on a riverbank in wet clothes with nowhere to go and people looking for your eyes."
"Yes."
"And you're offering to help my sect."
"I have reasons."
"What reasons."
He thought about how to say it. He settled on the truth — the practical part of it.
"I need somewhere no one will look. Your sect is failing and people are leaving it — that means no one pays it attention. Attention is what I can't afford right now." He paused. "And I think I can actually help. Not with muscle — not yet. With other things."
"Diplomatically worded," ARIA said. "You did not mention me. Good instinct."
Lian Zhu was quiet for a long time.
The river moved. Somewhere in the forest, a bird called twice and then stopped.
"No questions about my past," she said finally. "In exchange for the same."
"Agreed."
"You work. You don't just exist in my sect and expect to be fed."
"Agreed."
She stood up. Wrung out the last of the water from her sleeve with a precise twist.
"The Greymoss Forest is half a day," she said. "We'll reach the city by evening if we move now. Can you walk?"
He stood.
His legs held. Barely.
"Yes," he said.
She gave him the same flat look she'd been giving him since they surfaced.
"You're a bad liar," she said.
"I'll work on it."
She turned toward the forest without another word.
He followed.
"Quest accepted," ARIA said. "Welcome to your new life. It's got good bones. Questionable everything else."
He stepped into the shade of the Greymoss trees and said nothing.
But somewhere in his chest, for the first time in three days, something that wasn't pain moved.
He didn't name it. He kept walking.