Book One: Chapter 9 - Chilly Streets and Tasty Treats

Hello! One more chapter will be edited tonight, and I'll write up the new chapter before bed hopefully. Hurrah! Enjoy! Added quite a bit to this one, and it's a fatty to begin with.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the benefit of all its people, the Empire’s Divisions act upon its differing needs and enact policy to best guide lower mortals to prosperity and the possibility of cultivation. Each Division bears a holy purpose, as decreed by the Emperor of Emperors, but for most, the one which they will most interact with is the Division of Mortal Affairs. While the Division of Education is responsible for bettering the behavior of people through the schools and academies the Empire provides, and the Division of Creation is responsible for the raw labor and production of the vast multitude of supplies that our great land requires, it is the Division of Mortal Affairs which commands the complex logistics of our world to the betterment of the Empire. Whether that relates to levying taxes, distributing food, medicine and building supplies, organizing highway construction or designing the ideal specifications for the Empire’s cities, the Division of Mortal Affairs is ubiquitous, taking the complex world we live in and shepherding the billions of lives within it to their ideal purposes. Without the foresight to create such a branch of governance, the poor, hungry and unsheltered peoples of the Empire would be forced to live on the fringes of society, rather than having their assigned places and arranged support. It is proof of the righteousness of the Empire that it provides the resources and foundations for the vast multitudes that call our great lands home, no matter how high a burden they place on society.

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

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you’re immune to neither cold nor sneezing, winter tends to suck ass like it’s going out of style. 

It’s vaguely familiar in a way that hurts to think about, calling back further than she likes to think. Back before she was strong, before she felt the heat of existence itself running through her, before she had sect lodgings to go along with her responsibilities, Raika spent her first six years learning to huddle indoors when the winter came. The wind would howl through thin boards, and the floor would hurt to stand on without protection, and the most comfort she ever found was in the hands of… her mother. 

Her face is distant, but her laugh, less so. The warmth of her embrace, wrapped tight around a too-small body, shivering together against the cold. 

Even still, it was better than where she is now. It wasn’t perfect, but there were times of warm fires, tea, and heated cakes from a warm pan, always just enough that so long as you huddled close and stayed indoors, things would be ok. The details are faint, as faded as the faces of those beside her, but pain, and the relief from it, is a sharp-edged thing, capable of digging deep into even the sturdiest minds, nevermind a child’s. 

Then, they passed through her village. She remembers the census, tall figures that looked fuller and stronger than anyone she knew, carrying strange artifacts and writing words she couldn’t read on glowing scrolls. She remembers the prick of pain as they cut her finger, taking the blood into one of their devices, and remembers the confusion she felt when she and two others from her village left with those strangers later that same day. 

The cold felt sharper, then, without arms to wrap around her, or warm fires to huddle close to. 

Then, she spent the next twenty odd years learning that huddling with loved ones and cozy fireplaces is baby stuff for amateurs, and real badasses just refuse to be cold. Cultivation- the practice of remaking yourself, throwing aside all those mortal things that would hold you back or limit you. She even got good enough that it started to be true; back at her peak, she got to the point where she could have bathed in a river on the longest night of the year and come off maybe just a touch chilly. Maybe a little cloak or a shawl for a particularly nippy area, blessed with a natural source of Qi tainted with frost or when hunting a beast with cold-aligned cultivation of its own. Mortal winter almost stopped mattering except as something to look at, painting the world white.

Now she couldn’t get a shawl if she wanted to, nevermind a heavy cloak, because life isn’t fair and winter clothing is apparently a thing for rich people with indoor heating in their homes and no one else.

Raika started the winter with two blankets, both thin, the clothes she’s worn every day for months, and stray straw. She got lucky with an alcove behind an old building, itself wrapped by a few alleyways, enough of one of its walls eroded to make a little cubby one can curl up into. A broken box left nearby and the aforementioned straw and blanket makes for a “cozy” patch of real estate; she’s got about a third of a poorly balanced roof, half of one wall, a quasi-tent for some privacy and to pretend to keep the wind out, and as much moldy straw as she can find for that chic in-home rustic look. A paradise fit for a cultivator, truly. 

Unfortunately, even in a private wonderland, resources dwindle. Rats, once plentiful in the quiet passing of summer and autumn, eager to reproduce and grow plump, are just as starved as the people that used to feed them. Those that remain are more than happy staying cozy with their litters underneath houses, in the cracks, in basements and warrens beneath the ground. Further, neither Li Shu nor Qen Hou have come by since the first snow fell. For Li Shu, she’s pretty sure either she or her master realized the chances of Raika surviving the cold and decided it best to cut contact before things got too sad; for Qen Hou, he probably just got bored of her sneering at him. Either way, what little buffer they provided is as gone as the rats now.

So once again, the curse of mundanity rises up, and she suffers just the same as any creature does when lost, packless and unsheltered, out in the cold. About a week into the first cold snap, she gives up on begging entirely; the streets of the few areas she can hobble to are anemic with travelers and merchants both, and the only scraps being thrown out are the ones too spoilt to sell or burn. There’s still some good to be found in the trash that’s collected near business centers and residential districts, little bits of unspoilt leaves or scraps of skin and char that no one wanted; she focuses on these rather than praying for pity from the few stalls still open. Besides, the exercise is useful in the right doses. She doesn’t have the stamina or well-being to actually work out, not to her definition, but moving the muscles makes for minor body heat, helps keeps her joints from stiffening up completely, and slowly helps her walk further.

By week three of winter, she can walk almost twenty minutes at a time without needing to stop and rest. She comforts herself that she only just started: she haunts herself with the fact she’s been conscious three months and change and is only barely able to walk twice as far as when she started.

She keeps busy, keeping thoughts like that quiet and still like they should be. It’s almost meditative once she gets into the right mindsets- there’s usually no room for distraction, no space for stray thoughts or focusing on the pain. She empties her mind, shuffling through the empty streets of the lesser citizen’s district, one step after the other. Inhale, exhale. Step forward. Again. 

The process repeats until she reaches a destination, or is too exhausted to keep going safely. During these moments of rest, she wakes herself back up just enough to practice visualizations, every moment she can afford spent picturing how her body is definitely changing, how the beats of Dink against her bones forces the Qi in her to for sure move around some. 

And, if she’s really got some energy left over, she practices picturing Feng Gui’s stupid bearded face trying to talk as she holds them under boiling hot water. Really cathartic, especially if she focuses hard enough to hear the screams. 

Even then, though, while she lets her conscious thoughts re-emerge and drift to fantasy and memory, she keeps part of herself focused. There is one thing she is always doing, always.

Cultivating.

So to speak. Kind of. Not really. Actually kind of insulting to compare it to that, but the dictionary term fits and it feels nice, so she doesn’t give a fuck.

She alternates between tapping Dink against her forehead and her sternum, focusing on different things for each.  With each tap against her skull she focuses on the feeling of the vibration, trying to attune herself to it until it’s all she can sense, until it overrides other senses. A ripple from crown to feet, following what little she knows about how the brain extends down through the body. When used against her sternum, she focuses on her blood, on the thought of the note being carried to her heart and then back out to every part of her. She makes the two a constant pattern, adding them into her half-conscious movements as she shuffles through the snow, stopping only to sleep or when exhaustion takes hold.

So she walks. She meditates. She pictures what must be, what is, how it’s changing her. And, on occasion, she thinks of the violent torment of bastards. Together, it’s enough to keep her moving, keep her circling from dumpster to dumpster, day by day.

Interestingly, she starts to notice a difference in the behavior of her fellow downtrodden. She spent the first three months of her begging trying to avoid getting kicked by street urchins, drunks and assholes, trying to avoid them just reaching into her bowl to take what they wanted. Against the kids, at least, she can still use her crutch for whacking without feeling too worried, but for the able-bodied? She’s gotten kicked in the teeth a few times over that, and has learned instead to just memorize faces for later, maybe add them to the “held under boiling water” idea. And to aim for the genitals. Amongst humans of all realms, that shot never stops being useful.

And yet now, in winter, the most desperate time for the destitute, the need for defending herself has diminished. Most of those she’s met that call the streets their home turn away or duck their heads at her presence, avoiding her like the plague. Rag-clad and limping along on her crutch, the sound of a broken tuning fork ringing and announcing her coming, she’s found herself almost alone in the cold, snowy streets of Paleblossom City. On the few occasions where she does run into anyone on the streets, even those visibly heading to a proper abode of some kind, they tend to swerve to avoid her or take a different route.

It’s weird. Not like she’s gotten uglier, or less vulnerable. One would assume that she’d be a more attractive target in the winter, not less.

So, starving a bit less than anticipated, (mmmh, yummy yummy trash), as fit as she’s been since she woke up (competitive hobbling champ material) and, despite the effort needed for meditation, bored out of her mind and cold as a Witch’s tits, when she hears a scuffling sound the next street over, she doesn’t just walk on. 

It feels strange to interrupt her constant  “Dinking”. If she’s awake, she’s hitting herself with a tuning fork, even as she walks, as she eats, as she sits and tries to survive the cold. It’s been a gradual but powerful change from when she could only do it a few times a day, and in the breaking of her pattern, she can almost feel the gaps where the rhythm used to be. It makes her feel fidgety, holding the fork in her hand and pulling it forcefully back down to her side every time it comes up from habit. Her heartbeat feels too loud, her flesh feverish, flesh aching in tune to a rhythm that isn’t there as she wakes herself.

She can hear the sound of shuffling and heavy, angry breaths, louder than her body’s strange reaction to silence. 

Fuck it. What else has she got going on today?

She turns the corner as quietly as she can, fresh fallen snow masking the clicking of her crutch on stone-paved roads and the awkward shuffle-step of her gait. Paleblossom has many of the markers of a pre-Imperial city, large sections of its streets built haphazardly and without modern city planning- in turn, there are dozens of isolated corners and winding back alleys that shelter the “lesser” elements of society. Even after months, Raika still gets lost sometimes, beneath overhanging straw roofs and efficient but cheap walls. 

In this particular alley, hidden down a maze of lesser turns and obfuscated structures, the white of snow and grey-mud of filth are interrupted by raindrops of scarlet.

Blood on the snow.

Someone falls to the ground a ways down the alley, the trail of red marking their struggle. They’re young, no longer a child but still trapped in the purgatory of adolescence, around the age that most would be searching for an apprenticeship, getting married off or working at a family business. Sixteen, maybe? They’re gangly, parts of them mostly-grown and other parts still trapped by time and lingering childhood. More importantly, he’s the one bleeding, a cut on his forehead leaking red as freely as all head wounds do, matched by visible bruising, a split lip, and bloodied, open knuckles. Standing above him, panting almost as heavily with exertion, is a larger figure, gut heavy and soft from long term drinking, head half-bald and skin sallow. Both have the marks of hard living on them, the kid looking near-malnourished, and that, combined with the obvious size difference, make it clear how the fight is going. The man is weathering the kid’s punches and kicks, grunting at the impacts, but they’re not enough to stop him from stomping the kid’s head in.

Literally. He’s stomping the kid’s head in. Full body weight of a grown man, coming down as hard as he can muster against the boy’s skull and against the ground behind it. The boy is still fighting, or trying to, grabbing at the man’s shoe, trying to squirm away, but he’s visibly exhausted and disoriented, likely already concussed.

A part of Raika stops and examines things. 

The guy’s pretty large. She can barely move, and it’s been at least half a year since she’s been able to fight. She doesn’t recognize the kid, but for all she knows he’s one of the ones that’s stolen from her, or would be if given the chance. She doesn’t know them or the situation, and, quite frankly, it’s not really any of her business. She was a Sect cultivator, not part of the damn Guard or one of the Divisions of the Empire, and she wasn’t a particularly kind sect cultivator either.

Another flash of memory at that. Skinny figures, wearing scarves and masks, her hands stained red.

Raika the Bloody. 

In short- there’s really no reason to step in. She should just turn around, keep walking, and-

Ah.

Yeah, the rest of her wasn’t really listening. 

Most of that analysis played out to the sound of a badly disjointed run, the point of a crutch aimed like a lance at the man’s spine with her whole weight behind it. Her remaining hand, no longer holding Dink, has wrapped the man’s thinning hairline and is yanking back as hard as she can, an animalistic growl coming out of her ruined throat.

There’s so many reasons to avoid a fight. So few why she should even care about this. If she just-

Shut up, she thinks over the sound of her doubts, her fear, her panic, and let me beat the shit out of this dude.

He screams, an angry and surprisingly melodious sound when she yanks. His scalp turns bloody, and she can feel some clumps of hair in her hands, but her grip is still mostly firm; as he tries to turn and swing blindly behind him, she just yanks it again. Her footwork is fucked, she can’t even lift her right leg properly, never mind secure her stance, so dodging is out of the question. If she falls over, getting up is out of the question too, especially without her crutch, which went flying from under the barely realized hold she had on it when she hit the guy.

“The fuck-“ he snarls, so she shoves forward this time, slamming his face against the bricks of the closest wall. The kid isn’t moving to run or help, the little shit, but his eyes are pretty unfocused and he’s breathing pretty hard, so fair enough. “I’ll fuckin kill you-“ another yank, this one the last as her hand comes up with a chunk of bloody hair follicles and maybe some scalp. He shrieks this time, much higher pitched, and curls inward to clutch at his head. This, fortunately, puts him closer to shoulder height, which is right where he needs to be to get a punch to the temple and a splatter of free scalp to cover his eyes with.

“What the hell!” He shrieks, trying to both rub at his eyes and open them in a panic. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“A lot,” Raine rasps, circling him. She can feel her heartbeat, how it pulses in her and pounds against its cage. It’s still hurt, still scarred, the rhythm uneven and honestly rather concerning, but it beats and it’s loud enough that she wants to ask if he can hear it too.

Then he hits her, and she can’t hear anything past the ringing in her ears. Shot to the jaw, hard enough to rattle her, the scarring screaming, and the only reason she’s on her feet is the wall there to catch her on gentle rocks and mortar.

“Who the fuck are you?” The man barks, one eye clear of blood and hair, the other still being rubbed at. “You dare? He’s mine to discipline, the little shit! Mine! Don’t you know who I am?”

Hmm. Better not to let this drag on. If he’s talking he’s distracted; if she’s talking she’s about to get hit. She starts tuning him out and rather than hobble, decides to just bodily throw herself at him as hard as she can. She lands more against his chest and belly than on his face, and he seems more surprised than put off balance, but, encouragingly, she finds out that she’s in range of his beard.

She grabs that too, yanks as hard as her fucked up arm can manage, and uses the exposed gap between beard and throat to bite.

There is a minor hiccup, of course; between his frankly annoying screaming and stumbling under the surprise weight, he hasn’t thrown her off yet, but she is still missing several molars, most of a cheek, and major functionality in her lower jaw. These factors, combined, do not a potent bite-attack make.

Then again, it’s also important to factor in that Raika really, really wants to hurt this dude, and a bite is what she has to do it with. Her jaw isn’t strong enough, so she uses her neck, her whole body, hooking canines and jagged back teeth against his skin and dragging them as hard as she can.

And, like the mortal he is, his soft, quivering flesh parts.

She breaks the skin and maybe a quarter-inch past it, and it’s more than enough for the man’s drunken rage to turn to true fear. Whatever he was trying to tell her about how great he is, half naked and kicking a kid in the street, vanishes beneath a scream. He starts making breathless noises, high pitched and agonized, like a prey animal that knows it’s caught, and as he tries to back up he trips and falls backward. It might have been the smartest thing for him to do, ironically; the impact jars her teeth away from him, and the impact of falling, even with his generous cushion, hurts everywhere.

She’s had worse. She doesn’t let go. She pulls as hard as she can against his greasy beard and drags herself back up to his neck again.

“Get OFF me!” He yells, scrabbling backwards, one hand behind him and the other pulling back for a blind punch.

Bad news; she still can’t really dodge, and getting hit is going to hurt. Maybe enough to knock her out, at which point she’ll die. Good news; they’re on the ground now, and while it felt like a million miles away at her pace, she technically didn’t drop Dink that far from them when she rushed him.

So she lets go of his beard. She uses a mostly functioning right arm to block his hit and redirect some of it with old instincts. And she reaches, stretching as far as she can, feeling joints and still ruined ribs and a messy spine popping and straining and screaming, and grabs her tuning fork off the ground and shoves it into the open red of his throat.

Tuning forks, even one as hard working as Dink, are not designed with violence in mind. They’re not good at stabbing, bashing, anything of the sort, really.

But anything with a line to it can be a lever. And open wounds are not known for being particularly hard to penetrate.

She lifts herself, feeling her flesh scream in protest, and then falls on her arm, shoving it forward at an angle and tearing open the would like opening an oyster.

He gurgles, once or twice. She can relate.

He’s still moving. He grabs the back of her head, his other hand punching for her ribs, making her flesh scream and crumple. 

She still has his blood in her mouth, running down her chin. 

Supposedly, cannibalism has serious consequences- it’s illegal, for one thing, and for another, it’s supposed to be poisonous or something. And the guy doesn’t exactly seem… the healthiest.

Still. In for a copper, in for a silver.

In for a pound. 

She levers his neck wider, ignores the whimper and the way his fist feels like it’s collapsing her liver, and bites down. 

Over the course of the next few seconds, the sounds of wet tearing and slow, painful chewing overtake the sounds of struggle. 

Eventually, the only sound is the trickling of blood.

And then, just silence.

Slowly, Raika drags herself off of the corpse. She wriggles through the filthy snow, grabbing the ground ahead and forcing her still-bendable leg to push, until she reaches her crutch, a few feet away. She’s not sure how long it takes her to make it back to her feet from there. It’s a slow process, gathering her strength and hoisting herself up against the wall, bit by bit.

She makes it, though.

She swallows, her throat wet and dry at the same time.

It’s meat.

It’s still a little warm going down. 

She looks down at the kid, who has apparently recovered enough to stare back, if not much else. His breath is still shaky, his hands trembling, and his eyes only half-focused. She’s not sure what he sees, looking at her, but the tears, be they from stress, fear or relief all paint a vivid picture. 

She just nods at him. 

“Dink,” goes Dink as they walk away.