v8c15: The Choice (Patreon)

“Yeah, they have big buildings where everyone can see them—though, admittedly, I used to be more interested in the dinosaurs as a kid…” Gaolan’s Connected One narrated, painting a picture of the ‘museums’ that the other place had. The idea itself was pretty common, rich people always did like having old artifacts, but that it was open to the public that was the fascinating part. “Pachycephalosaurus was always my favourite—huh. That's probably why I like you two so much. I’ve got a soft spot for things that like to headbutt people,"

All three of them laughed at the thought.

“It was truly fate that bought us together," Gaolan said with a smile, as images of the “bonk lizard” started flitting around her mind.

“Oh, he's so cute!” Tianlan gushed.

He absolutely was. Gaolan kind of wanted one now. Goats and bison were cute too, but there was something about the way the bonk lizard looked like it would go “meep meep!” before slamming into things that made it endearing. Like an oversized plainsrunner.

They were together again tonight. She and her other half were sitting on either side of their Connected One, at the edge of the Grand Ravine in the Spirit Realm. It had been a long, tiring day of reconnecting Dragon Veins, and they were deeper than normal. The nature of the Ravine was different this deep into the realm.

The colours and shapes were more like something out of a dream—it was ten thousand impressions of how humans and animals remembered the Ravine, rather than what it actually was in the physical world. 

The colours were more vibrant in some sections, more dreamlike in others. The horizontal trees had their trunks curl around in loops, and their crowns looked like pom-poms. 

Instead of water, the Ravine’s bottom was a river of gold. Last week, it had been a trickle at the bottom. Her Qi, their Qi, flowed endlessly onward. Little lights like fireflies drifted up from its surface to settle in the black sky as stars, adding to the Celestial River that flowed above their heads.

Jin called it the “Milky Way”.  A name utterly without grandness, but accurate enough. A lot of her people said it looked kind of like milk, too.

They lapsed into silence, the three of them, content with each other's company. Tianlan had clambered onto Jin’s lap and pulled his arms around her. Gaolan knew she liked being small for precisely that reason. She was the land. She was massive and unfathomable, but here, in that short little avatar, she could be the one embraced.

That, and she thought it made others hesitate before punishing her. Gaolan knew that part intimately, and could only think “How devious!” with appreciation.

Being a part of someone else normally meant you understood what they wanted very well.

“This is the best, isn’t it?” Tianlan asked after a moment.

Gaolan simply nodded. She loved this. She loved talking with her other half, with her contractor, about everything and nothing. She loved Meiling, her presence close enough to touch, but still far enough to give them some privacy for their final decision. She loved the others, Bi De and Ri Zu and Wa Shi, and Bei Be, and Gou Ren, and Yun Ren, who were all so different, their Qi containing what made them them as they gave to the earth with nothing but love in their hearts.

“It is," Gaolan agreed. She leaned closer to the two of them, and closed her eyes.

Time flowed. She felt something shift in Tianlan.

“We’ll visit as often as we can, okay?” Tianlan asked, turning to look at Gaolan. The assumption in her voice was clear. They had come down here to speak about her choice, whether to be assimilated, or remain separate… and Tianlan considered everything they had said proof of her choice.

Gaolan opened her eyes again, and turned to look at her larger half.

Tianlan should have wanted to just absorb Gaolan. To finally be completely whole again. Others likely wouldn’t have even had a second thought.

And yet she withheld herself. Because of their differences. Because she didn’t have the intensity of those thousands of years of care and worship that had made Gaolan.

All her larger half had was pain. Unrelenting pain and betrayal until their Jin found them.

She considered them different enough that Gaolan was her own person to her.

Being a part of someone else normally meant you understood what they wanted very well.

But not always.

“That’s good. I’m sure the people of the Ravine will be overjoyed," Gaolan said, her voice gentle. “But as to the question of remaining myself or joining you… I have chosen to rejoin with you,"

The words hung in the air, peaceful and serene. Jin’s eyes widened. Tianlan’s face froze, the little smile falling off her face.

“Why?” she asked. She could have just opened the gates between them. She could have instantly understood. And yet she still waited for Gaolan to speak.

“Because remaining myself, like this, is exactly what my people fear," Gaolan began, rising to her feet. She stepped closer to the Ravine, looking out over it. “What would they get if I remained as I was? A tiny corner. A tiny piece of us, to call their own. And that is it," 

Gaolan shook her head, and turned back to her contractor and herself. “No. They deserve Tianlan. Not a small, cut off part of her. All of her. That was our promise to Altan. That the sons and daughters of the Ravine would have a place with us, no matter where we were. And not just them. Everyone.“

“The people, the Spirit Beasts, even the trees and the stones, shall have one Tianlan Shan,"

Her eyes fixed on her other self, who knew the sincerity in her words. 

Tianlan’s mouth opened. It closed again. 

Gaolan had thought long and hard about this.

It was the best way forward she could see.

“...I don’t want to lose someone that I like," Tianlan said, her voice small. Gaolan’s heart panged at the feelings radiating through the barrier between them. The sorrow and loss were much worse than hers.

And yet… this would help her, too.

“I’m glad. It would be awkward if you didn’t like me," Gaolan said, walking forward. She knelt down in front of herself. “But don’t worry. I won’t be lost. I’ll be right here, with you. Always,"

“Are you sure?” Tianlan asked, even though she knew the answer.

Gaolan pressed forward, her forehead gently touching Tianlan’s.

“I am," Gaolan answered. “Thank you both… for letting me have this. For giving me a choice, even if I chose this,"

Gaolan broke the wavering barrier between them.

“I hope the sky is beautiful and blue tomorrow,"

Her body disappeared into motes of golden light.

===

Tianlan’s eyes were closed.

The warmth settled into her. So different from the initial pain. So different than the torrent of betrayal.

She could feel it. The warmth and love, so different from her Connected One, yet a balm in its own way, soothing all the old hurts, all the old pains, with one simple fact.

She hadn’t been all alone. At least one person had remembered her, had cared for her, even when the worst had come to pass.

This must have been what her other half had felt. The love, the joy, the desire for a tomorrow that would bring a blue sky.

“The blue sky is a promise, isn’t it? That today will be a good day!” Altan had said, a big goofy grin on his face.

Tianlan had always thought that sentiment was a wonderful one. The optimism the man still had, even after everything.

“Sure. I’ll make that promise," Tianlan had replied, matching his smile with her own.

She could hear his laughter, swirling through the Ravine. She could feel their hopes and dreams. She could feel them, striving for a future they wanted to make.

It filled her soul, swirling within a core that had been embedded in Gaolan, a core of worship and divinity and belief. Belief that the blue sky would bring good days. Hope and love for their home.

Yet it was not just the people of the Ravine that believed in her. They had just felt it the most intensely. As it fully settled into Tianlan's soul, she could feel the others, outside the Grand Ravine. 

In the Dueling Peaks, in Ash Forest, in a thousand scattered villages. Their own love of the earth. Their own prayers for a good tomorrow. Their own hopes and their own dreams, so similar to everyone who lived in the Ravine.

Humans and Spirit beasts. The forests and plains. Even the quiet hum of stone.

Everyone and everything that called her home.

She opened her eyes.

She was still in her Jin’s lap, her Connected One watching over her, but the scenery had changed.They were in the Ravine now, sitting by a river of water, rather than light.

Tianlan stood, and Jin let her go, as she walked over to the river.

Tianlan wasn’t any taller. She was still the same size… but the flat panes of gold which had covered her body were gone, reduced merely to cracks, similar to the one borne by Xiulan.The most obvious of them was a crack through her eye, where the entire side of her face had once been gold.

She looked at the back of her hand. The tattoo there, previously faded and worn by age, was once more vibrant against her skin. A sunburst and rings.

“You okay?” Jin asked, standing behind her.

“...yeah," Tianlan said, looking at the river.

In the end... it probably was the correct choice.

Tianlan was whole. Still cracked, still not fully healed… but she was whole. The Ravine was completely a part of her once more.

But some things remained. The people’s love of the Ravine. The whispers of its resilience.

Tianlan knelt down, and pressed her hand to the earth.

Her other half was right. They deserved all of her. All of her children did.

But they also deserved her thanks.

She tapped the core within her soul, and planted a seed.

A seed that would surely grow in time, under their careful ministations.

“What do you suggest for a name?” Tianlan asked her Jin. “And something better than Tall-Lan this time!"

Jin just laughed… but this time, he actually gave her a good one.

===

Something in the Ravine shifted. The earth hummed like a tuning fork, a deep thrum through the Grand Ravine’s bones. Golden light raced through the rocks, forming a thousand constellations for a brief instant... before that light, too, faded.

All who listened to the earth felt it. The gentle sigh. The warm approval… and the resolve of a promise affirmed.

Baatar’s eyes opened. There was more ambient Qi. He could feel the minute change, like the way the Ravine slightly rumbled in the spring storms, the sure sign of the river’s swelling later.

It was the first drop. And he knew, knew in his soul, that it would grow in time.

But more than that, he heard the earth. There was something there. Dancing and singing. Using her Olsokh Ir, flowing through the air so she could climb trees and swing from their branches.

He heard a young woman’s laughter on the wind—not now, but in the future. Wild and free, yet calm and as resilient as the Ravine itself, and as familiar as his granddaughter.

And then he heard a name, as the earth spoke.

Tianlan Solongo.

The rainbow in the pure blue sky.

===

Tianlan plants the seeds for a new spirit.

Also: Bonk Lizards are best lizards.
And it is now break week! see you all again on the 16th!

Edited by:  BargleNawdleZouss,