Chapter 10 - Darn Meddling Kids

Bweh! Had some unexpected friendship pains (someone needed a bit of company in a tough moment) so no bigger writing today, but two edits ain't nothing. Enjoy the nostalgia trip, folks!

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While the sins of mortality remain, much of the Empire’s strength has been dedicated to eradicating the unjust exploitation of others by providing order and security for the many communities within our borders. Houses of ill repute, once ubiquitous across the land, have been effectively removed from common culture, and thievery, predation, and most forms of crime are at a generational decline due to the ongoing efforts of the Empire and its many Divisions. Materials best left out of mortal hands can now be found almost exclusively with cultivators of good reputation, allowing them to pursue their paths to Immortality and explore the opportunities and gifts our great land can offer without the dangers that might come from lesser mortals being exposed to such things.

-Primer on the benefits of Imperial Living, mandatory reading in all lower-level governmental education programs.

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So that was pretty interesting. Turns out she can still fight. After six months of barely being able to walk, she actually won, and killed a motherfucker to boot! Honestly, the whole event felt very affirming somehow.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” she asks. Dink sort of waffles back and forth on it, failing to commit to agreement or not, which is honestly pretty rude, but fair enough. It’s already pretty surprising that it can do anything other than vibrate out of tune, and it doesn’t know her from before her crippling, so expecting it to formulate an opinion on the subject might be pushing it.

Lying in her alcove, huddled against the cold, she marvels at the feeling of a stomach fuller than she’s had in a long time, enriched by the taste of copper and iron in the back of her throat. It was… horrifying. Undignified. Messy. 

It was glorious. Violent, brutal, animalistic, victorious.

The feel of her teeth on another’s throat, of hot, warm meat in her gullet, of standing triumphant over another predator, at last able to feed.

She doesn’t deny that she might be a little delirious. Lack of food, constant pain, her perpetual meditation trance, and whatever “Dinking” has been doing to her (and it has been doing something) have worked together unsurprisingly well to keep her disoriented. Before she “woke up” at the sounds of violence, she couldn’t properly say how long she’d even been in that cycle, walking back and forth from shelter to scavenging. 

But this…

The feel of her heart beating like a drum, thrumming against her ribs, through her limbs, in her bones. Her head pounded, pounds still, with a headache that feels like she’s experiencing her entire skull at once. She felt like an animal, and for a moment, her hunger wasn’t a weapon against her, but one she could wield for herself, sharp in her teeth and in the grip of her hand.

She’s not sure how long it’s been since the fight. A few hours, the time it takes to get back to her shelter? A day? Maybe a little more? She’s not sure if she’s slept, but the pain in her guts keeps her from having enough energy to get up or focus, the abuser’s final strikes still aching amidst ruined organs. It’s gone by in a haze, the only things marking the time for her the fullness of her stomach and the rhythm of vibration, Dinked into her body and fueling the always-fever she lives in.

It’s the best she’s felt in months.

Eventually, though, the feeling fades.

A sound breaks through her haze, sharp in contrast against the muffled sound of snowfall. There, around the corner. Too heavy for an animal, too light for a child.

Someone followed her then. Mmh. It was bound to happen at some point.Ah. Well. If she does have to get her shit kicked in, now’s as good a time as any- fresh off a victory and still tinged red from it, belly half-full and teeth sharpened on a man’s throat.

She lifts up her greatest weapon- a still-bloody tuning fork. Not particularly threatening, but she’s gotten proof that it can be… effective. It probably won’t be enough to ward off anyone who really wants to take whatever she’s got, coming to such a secluded corner, but it might help her do enough damage that they decide she’s not worth the trouble.

Except as it turns out, the person coming up behind her is one of the few people alive who may very well be absolutely terrified of tuning forks, now. Makes the whole “intimidation” part of the conflict a lot easier.

It’s the kid.

There’s a scab over one eye, and his whole face is swollen, his movements stiff in the cold. He's stumbling about, kicking up snow into awkward piles behind him as he moves. He has one hand on the closest wall, managing to walk just fine but clearly unable to do much else. His eyes look a bit better, though, so not maybe not terribly brain damaged. Just… you know, lightly. Concussed. Which is brain damage for babies. He’ll be fine.

It’s hard to tell beneath his robes, heavy enough to almost be appropriate for the weather, but she’s pretty sure he might have some bandages, too. Someone’s taken care of the kid, at least enough to help him wrap up the raw cuts on his knuckles.

In spite of the fact that he’d have had to explicitly follow her trail to get here, he does look at her like a deer before a fire, eyes wide and confused. She stares back, her more-functional eye tracking his movement.

But he doesn’t. He just sort of… stays like that. 

She taps her sternum with Dink.

That gets her a reaction. He full-body flinches, as if afraid the sound alone is going to reach out and pop him like a blister. Which Raika has seen happen before, from a sound-Qi cultivator, so she supposes it’s a fair enough fear. Still sort of silly here though; Dink is hardly all that impressive.

It protests meekly as she taps it against herself again, and she shushes it. “You’re not, Dink, don’t pretend,” she rasps.

The kid cocks their head, confused, and she just sort of shrugs at him. If he can’t follow a basic conversation that’s not really her problem. Instead she just shifts a little bit and, with as much of her body language as she still has, tries to ask the kid to say what he’s here for or fuck off..

“Are… are you the ringing hag?” The kid asks.

She raises one eyebrow. “That’s a shit name,” she rasps. “Plus, I’m twenty seven. Who the fuck you calling a hag?”

He flinched again, but it’s smaller this time, his eyes starting to hold more than just wary apprehension. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s just what they call you. The weird lady in rags with the evil eyes and the ringing sound where she walks. They say you have a broken bell from an old lover, and you use it to lure stupid kids into your cave for eating.”

“Well that’s stupid,” she says, “If I could lure stupid children, I wouldn’t be nearly this fucking skinny.”

He blanches a bit and she can’t help but roll her eyes. During and after cultivation, some things remain true; the sun still sets, the wind still blows, and her comedic genius remains ahead of its time. Perhaps the kid is one of the aforementioned stupid children, here to give proof to the rumor through deed. Or maybe he’s still pretty brain damaged, who knows. 

She shrugs again (which is starting to hurt, honestly), shuffling a bit to one side so the kid’s still in line-of-sight but no longer her focus. She has better things to do than try to explain her sparkling wit to some random stranger..

“Dink” goes Dink as it agrees, ringing slightly against her forehead this time. Alternating the points of contact is either important or slightly less boring, so either way, she’s doing it.

“Wait!” The kid yells. She hasn’t really moved yet, crippled and all, but it’s still annoying having to shuffle back around to face him again. 

“What?” She asks.

“Why did you kill him?” He whispers.

Hmm.

Not “why did you save me”. Not “why me”, even. “Why did you kill him.”

She gives him a smile, pulling in scar tissue and watching him flinch as she does. “Didn’t do it for you,” she rasps. “Just don’t like bastards, and had a good shot at his spine. Good chance to hurt someone earning some hurt, and your shitty excuse for a fight interrupted my walk. Guess you got lucky.”

He frowns as she’s coughing. “Lucky?” He asks. “He almost killed me and now I have nowhere to go. What the hell should I do now?”

She shrugs. “Not my problem,” she rasps, Dinking her sternum again. “Just wanted to hurt him. Glad you’re alive. Shoo.”

Finally, she is allowed to shuffle back around again and scoot back into her little alcove. That feeling she had is still here somewhere, hidden by the memory of conversation but still fresh-washed in the taste of blood from the fight, still sharp in her mind. It was something about her heartbeat, something about vibration, part of a feeling she got from feeling it beat so hard and so clearly as she gripped and yanked and bit and- 

She can hear him walking closer again. Shuffling through the snow, along the wall, faster than she could manage. He does slow down before he reaches her though, staying an awkward few feet back and slowing further to keep distance from her little hovel.

Well, alright. She hasn’t exactly made where she’s living a secret, and she doesn’t actually have anything here besides broken wood and a bowl she’s not using. If he tries to hurt her she just has to hurt him worse, faster. Which she can theoretically do, as she just proved. See? Properly emotionally affirming, worth every drop spilled, especially from the waste of a man. Pretty soon she’ll be crushing Feng Gui’s bones between her teeth and spitting them back at him while he’s turning on a spit or something.

Then she remembers the kid is still there, and laughs to herself. 

Fuck it. Not like she’s busy. And… it’s been rare, finding any sort of company. Anyone she can really talk to. 

An hour or so later, she shuffles out on her crutch, migrating out on her daily trek for the trash bins and street filth. She’s not as hungry as usual, but that’s only motivation to use what she has before it becomes a problem.

To her surprise, he follows. He flinches every time she varies the rhythm of Dinks or visibly moves the tuning fork around, too, which makes for decent in-house entertainment.

Despite her pace, he sticks around. By the time the sun has started to set, just barely past mid-afternoon, she’s found her way back “home”, belly at least full-er than when she left, and the kid, staggering as he may be, trips and falls on his face as they turn a sharp corner.

She would check on him, honest- but bending over is really hard. And watching him absolutely eat shit was pretty funny, which is annoying because laughing really hurts if she isn’t ready for it. He doesn’t stay down or puke, which says wonders for his recovery from experiencing the initial operation for a cracked-open skull. He’ll be fine.

How long has it been? Since she last laughed?

She lets him pick himself back up as she leans against the wall of her alcove, starting the painful process of getting down off her feet by sliding awkwardly inch by inch until she’s made it down to one knee (the right, as always, unbending and awkwardly splayed out). She leaves the crutch along the wall for when she gets up again, and takes one of her “cloaks” to start hanging back up, the improvised tent-wall rounding out the hollowed space and ruined wood.

The kid, still staggering a bit, surprises her when he takes a big step forward and takes the cloak out of her hand. He must see something in her eyes as she looks at him, at the way her hand grips and she starts to lean forward as if to move, and stutters out some kind of apology. He holds the rag like an offering, before slowly (and disgustingly easily) starting to wrap it up and against the wind for her. She doesn’t move for a while, eyes following his movements, but… he just seems to be trying to help.

“Not enough money for an apprentice, idiot,” she rasps. “And not much in the mood for a suitor.”

“I’m not- you killed him, s’all,” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” she rasps. “What about it?”

“When they realise he’s not coming back, they’ll blame me,” the kid whines. “They’ll kick me out. It’s not much, but they keep us warm, and-”

“Orphanage or red-light house?” she asks.

Amusingly enough, this time he neither splutters nor flinches. “Red-light,” he tells her. “I’m old for it, but I can count and I’m quick, so I can take some from the purses when no one is looking, and they keep me around. I take care of tha little ones.”

She nods at that. If he can count, that makes him useful; in spite of the best efforts (so they say) of the Division of Education, most cities in the third ring have partial attendance at best for Imperial schooling. Those from poorer backgrounds with less time still only get left further behind, but even still, she’s met a cultivator or two that didn’t know much any maths either. Considering the state he’s in, he probably never had much chance to go, and if he’s figured out numbers anyways, he’s ahead of the curve. She’s never been great at them herself; writing gets meaning across, and if someone owes you then they owe you. It’s enough to know how much you have and how much you gain or lose overall, but keeping track of finances is a specialized thing. Chances are they’re wildly underpaying the kid.

“Go back anyways,” she says. “Say he cost too much, you got rid of him.”

“What?” he asks. “I… that’s not something I can say. He kept out tha bad ones, made sure things stayed-”

“He was one of the bad ones,” she says with a cough. Only a few words left. “You got rid of him. Can even take his place, you buy a knife you can show or eat a bit more. Then if they kick you out its for being stupid twice, not just stupid once. If there’s a chance, it’s your job to grab it and bite and not let go.”

By the end of the sentence she has started to feel a bit of blood in the back of her throat, and the cough hurts worse than normal, so she waves her hand at him. Before he can reply, she’s already Dinked him in the forehead, which sees him flinch back so bad he falls on his ass.

Shit, now he made her laugh again. Or she made herself laugh, more like; she really is too funny for her own good.

The kid just looks at her, clearly confused but not nearly as scared as before. She lets the chortles die down and makes a vague grumbling noise at him, shooing him off with a wave. 

Alright, not exactly disputing the “old hag” rumors like that. Still, it is what it is.

He looks like he just doesn’t really know what to say at first. Then, he gets up and gives her a terrifically bad bow, like he’s barely ever done it before, or like he’s tried very hard to never learn how to bend at the waist without looking like an idiot.

“I am JiaJia!” the kid says, way too loudly, like an idiot. “I will take your advice, old hag lady. If it works, I might come back and help tie your tent, since I do it so much better than you anyways!”

Raika’s eyes widen. With a jerk, she grabs and flings her begging bowl at the little shit’s head, tasting brighter copper and bright red bubbles as she does. He effortlessly dodges, though he does sway on his feet with residual dizziness, but before he runs off he does sort of kick it back towards her. Whatever face she is showing, he seems to find some reassurance there, because he smiles brightly and laughs with her rather than at her.

And then he’s back off around the corner, heading back the way they came.

…huh.

Cute kid.

Dink, insipid contrarian yes-thing that it is, agrees the next time it chimes against her.

“Oh can it, ya damn can opener,” she whispers, keeping the volume as low as she can. “We got work to do.”

And she puts the little meeting from her mind, breathing as deep as she can and trying to find the right rhythm to Dink to the beat of her heart. There’s something to this, she can feel it.

Also, she killed a man. She killed someone.

The savage joy of that is almost as good as the feeling she gets when she manages to start picturing the ripple not of Dink, but of the drumbeat of blood inside her.