Book 2, Chapter 17 – If Only For A Breath, To Breathe (Patreon)

I remember who I used to be. Soft. Weak. Bones that would break from a fall, skin that would tear from a sharpened stick as easily as a sword. It has not been so long since that time, in the grand scheme of what is, but still, I have begun to forget how anything could survive that sort of fragility. 

It was the first thing I cast aside, when I took myself apart. 

When the sky opened up and tore me to nothing, that weakness was the first thing I left behind. 

I do not know how to see anymore. My eyes are too clear, my sight too distant and too close. 

I re-learn to eat, because my teeth tear through hard shells and soft meats just the same. 

I do not regret the changes. But I do wonder if, perhaps, the loss has meaning.

–Personal journal of research subject K468-IA1 after successful trial initiation, recorded by Researcher XX XXXX of the Division of Altered Cultivation

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It takes a while, but they manage to find her something before they have to raid Taurus’ closet. She’s pretty sure it’s a blanket of some kind, or maybe just a very sheer rug, but she’s not one for complaining after how long it took to get her clean. It was like her body had put out every drop of filth and muck it could get its hands on, and the ooze of the cocoon was thick with things that smelled quite strange over top of that.

Not bad. Just… strange. Watery, almost like sweat in a way. But everyone else gagged or blanched at the scent, so it’s probably best that she washed it all off.

She almost wants to ask them to keep it. They probably will anyways, just for study. It’s like… the material left behind is empty, somehow lighter than the things around it, and it smells a bit of trash, of cold streets, of all-too-human stinks.

It makes her think of that old myth, the one about how cultivation was before the Empire. “Impurities”. 

Rumor has it they used to be some kind of big deal of some kind. She remembers some references to them in the much older texts she’d seen Li Shu try to copy, but the details were scarce and pretty bland. They struck her as listening to someone talk about extracting blood for a fever; maybe it’s a real thing, but probably not the most profoundly understood thing. 

Most cultivators she knew, both in the Hungering Roots Sect and in her wanderings outside of it, never mentioned anything of the sort. Old books would talk about it like something that came as a result of cultivation, purifying the inner body, but it might have been more metaphorical than literal (and with how cultivation works, that might have made it true to begin with, before new ideas spread). 

But then why would her transformation do the same thing? Or even something similar?

The leftovers smell of burnt sugar, blood, and decrepitude. Like the smell equivalent of seeing someone with broken limbs, maybe. The smell-to-concept sense she’s working with is hard to articulate. Through it all, undertones of rot, of Black smells that–

Hmm. Weird. Capital B, when she thinks of it. 

Still, nothing like the demonic stink she’s heard of. 

Something to figure out later, maybe. Maybe she stumbled into something old, or accidentally did some convergent evolution stuff to make something similar but different.

(She’s very proud of knowing the words for it. Some of the medical books she snuck from / for Li Shu were a tough fucking read.)

Whatever the case, it’s not something she feels she could easily re-do. She used a lot of energy, for one thing; it took an hour and a half of hard scrubbing in a bath for her to refocus, get cleaned, and take stock of just how low her reserves are.

She can still feel her Qi. That part’s important, and she checked for it as soon as she realized it wasn’t in its usual places. But rather than feeling like that constant harsh, violent hurricane of razors and ruin that she’s gotten used to, poisoning her constantly, it’s more of a buzzing sensation, lighter and a bit tingly. At first she worried that she just lost most of it, that she’ll have to build it back up from scratch, but even with almost nothing, Qi always hurt inside her, no matter the quantity. It would seem, at minimum, that her resistance to the damage it causes has gone up, though she definitely did spend most of it inside that cocoon. It bodes well for the new heights of Qi poisoning she can force on herself in the future, though.

And she’s clearly already been storing a lot. It’s the only thing she can think of to explain why the beasts came after her like they did– she’s been accumulating as much as she can for as long as she can, forcibly saturating her biology in it and enduring the harm of it directly. Whether it’s just that she was a big fat clump of Qi without any detectable cultivation with which to defend itself, or if Qi-poisoned meats just taste better, she’s not sure, but she can’t figure out what else it could be.

She hasn’t interacted with the others much yet. She’s been thinking.

Only a few hours since she woke up, but already she feels like she wants to sleep for a week. She feels she needs to do something, to move, act, but… she just can’t bring herself to move. It’s the whole reason she has the time to let her mind wander as it is, and she is so fucking tired. 

Nevermind the lack of Qi ripping her apart and keeping her upright, nevermind the fact that she spent an unknown period of time in a flesh-cocoon, the last memories she has are a blurry recollection of a week-long hellscape without sleep and then a dream where she got hit with a fucking mountain trying to wipe her away like a stain. However long she spent as soup inside that horrific bundle of flesh, it didn’t feel like sleep. 

It was not restful.

She’s so Gods-damned tired.

But no matter how badly she feels the need to sleep, her body is twitchy with energy and new sensations. Even the air on her skin has nuances it didn’t have, little bits of dust visible and tactile to her now, and the sounds. The smells! She can smell the last four people who’ve been in this room, maybe days ago. She can taste the leftover cultivation of whatever inner disciple was using this manor before the Division of Altered Cultivation moved in, flickering at the back of her throat like spices and sunlight on rain. She can smell, through the window, every person passing by, out to a range of… of she doesn’t-know how far. She can smell the scent of the roots from the trees that the wood of her bed was cut from, and can feel every grain of it through the mattress. 

And then there’s the movement. Always, always movement. Bodies and footsteps and vibrations through everything. She can see with her eyes closed, now.

She can see Kaena and Maen speaking. She can see Kaena making their way over to the room she’s in.

She opens her eyes right before they knock.

“Raika?” She hears them ask, voice quiet. “You still alive in there? It would be a terrible grief to have witnessed such a stunning display of disturbing birthing, only for fresh tragedy to strike.”

Raika flexes the muscles in her throat, letting her voice come back. It takes her a moment, a few little vocal grunts and hiccups, before she is sure that it is as it used to be, rather than the dramatic, thrumming thing it is now. She likes it, sure, but the exercise of controlling it has been a good distraction, and the sound of her old voice feels like an anchor to hold tight to.

“Come in,” she says, new voice temporarily just like the original, low and slightly raspy.

Kaena opens the door, stepping inside calmly. The room is small, made of stone entirely, keeping out the summer heat with the help of the arrays built into the wider sect. The entire building they’ve been using as a sort of headquarters seems to be made of stone, probably brought about by someone’s Qi techniques, though there are quite a few luxuries packed into it to compensate for the semi-brutalism of its interior. It’s no Palace, but somehow, the figure in the doorway looks as effortlessly at home amongst these lesser accommodations as they were in Imperial finery.

Kaena walks over to her, peach and gold vitiligo shining even in the dark, barefoot and whisper-quiet against the ground and still just so… so audible. 

And yet, again, there is that sneaking suspicion about what prompted the choice to be barefoot. It’s very Kaena; exactly as accommodating and appealing as you need them to be. 

The smell of them washes over her. Peaches and cream, heavy and sweet yet just light enough not to be overwhelming or tiring. A dessert, but also a sweet for a summer day, or to keep warm with on a cold evening, delectable at every opportunity. But the thing beneath it, the quicksilver, the mercury, an artificial venom.

She doesn’t hate the taste. Metallic and cold and acrid, and yet, she can’t help but feel her palate tingling, enjoying the thought of it, no matter how horrid, how designed to harm.

And it roils.

It’s an interesting change. It feels, in this moment, a hundred times worse than before, so concentrated and horrifying and blisteringly venomous, but… it’s so much quieter in the balance of the other smells. As much as it almost smells like it’s moving, as much as it smells heavier than the other flavors it wanders between, it is lesser than before, reduced or hidden somehow. A cold, heavy center of a soft cream, lighter and gentler and juxtaposed with the flesh of the fruit.

It’s overwhelming. Worse, it’s exactly the same as it was before. It’s Raika that’s changed.

She has to stop herself, closing her eyes again. She takes a deep, deep breath. Lets it out. Another, and another, until the smell begins to fade to the background, until her senses adjust.

Kaena, seeming to know exactly what to do, the exact amount and space to give, stands still there for a long while. Eventually, Raika opens her eyes again, and they smile softly.

“It happens, sometimes,” they whisper. Not a stage whisper, free of the sibilant, painful hiss that she can sometimes hear around her as some of the others try to be quiet. “Special bloodlines. Unique medicines. New techniques. Advancements in one’s Realm, most often. The first while can be… overwhelming.”

Raika scoffs lightly, feeling how the vibration of the air echoes against the walls of the room, unable to stop feeling the shape of the space she’s in. 

“It has been so far,” she whispers back. Even that much feels loud enough to make her flinch.

“The whole “secluded cultivation” makes more sense now,” she says, powering through. “Consolidating one’s growth” or whatever. I never understood it. Never had access to those sorts of techniques, maybe. When I advanced, I usually had to move, figure out where I’d fucked up and what needed fixing. I adjusted gradually, most of the time, and when I didn’t, I just gritted my teeth through the pain and the unstable cycling. ”

Kaena shrugs, the sound of silk shifting on skin as loud as another voice in the room. “Everyone is different,” they whisper. “But being from such a small sect, so unsuited to you, you likely never ran into anything truly transformative. And body-focused transformations tend to be more intense for a number of reasons. Most people aren’t really designed to get so much information all at once.” They stop, and smile at her. “You’re doing better than most I’ve seen, at least.”

Raika raises one eyebrow. “And you’ve seen many?” she asks.

“A couple,” Kaena admits with a nod. “Less than four, though a proper delight doesn’t kiss and tell. Bodily transformations or modifications are a bit more common in the first and second ring, closer to the Throne, and most of those fresh from change so profound hope for a bit of… assisted decompression from the stresses of it all.”

“Hmm,” Raika hums, that strange vibration in her voice peeking through for a moment. “And you… assisted.”

The scent of quicksilver and poison grows just a bit brighter for a moment. On the surface, Kaena doesn’t so much as vary their heart-rate.

“Usually, yes,” Kaena replies, not missing a beat. By their face and voice, you’d never know a thing. “Though my tastes tend to be more… eclectic nowadays.” They let their eyes drift a bit, over to Raika’s shoulder where the blanket / robe has fallen away a bit.

Raika huffs out a breath. Too tired to use the mental energy it would take to snort, to feel all that comes with it and shifts. Then… she breathes in, slow. Breathes out, slow. Let’s Kaena wait for a bit, centering herself against a sea of sensation and unpleasant physicality she has yet to adjust to.

“You don’t have to,” she whispers to Kaena.

“Oh?” they ask. They don’t elaborate. Don’t agree or disagree. 

The silence sits between them for a while. The room, Raika realizes belatedly, is pitch dark except for a sliver of gray dusk coming in through the window, and even that is occluded with heavy curtains and wooden boards. She can see in the dark, she realizes. No need to burn Qi, no need to force an alteration. She just… can.

“I can tell,” she whispers. “It’s not exactly a comfortable thing for you, is it? Being here?”

Kaena says nothing. Raika makes sure not to look at them, to let them have the illusion of the dark.

Mutual lies can be useful like that.

“You don’t have to,” she whispers. 

Kaena comes a bit closer. Raika says nothing. They get closer again, and sit on the edge of the bed.

“What makes you think you can tell how I feel?” they ask.

“Maybe I can’t,” she whispers, keeping still due to more than just overstimulation. “Maybe it’s just a bad guess. But it doesn’t make it any less true. You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to do anything. If you can’t leave, then… you can take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

Another guess.

Kaena huffs behind her, the scent of peach a bit stronger now, with hints of green on the vine. It’s… confusing. Still peach, but different context? So many signals, so many interpretations.

“Maen asked me to check in on you,” they admit. “See if you’re alright. I told her she’d be better for this, but she insisted that I have more experience with dealing with cultivators, which I can’t deny. Is there nothing I can do for you, fair beast? Nothing at all you wish to ask of me? Even knowing, with a certainty, that I can help you?”

Silence in the room. Raika doesn’t know what to say.

“You’ve deduced quite a lot from so very few interactions,” Kaena whispers. “You’ve barely even asked me anything, really. And yet, here you are. So very certain about so very much.”

Raika huffs again. “I’m not certain about almost anything,” she whispers. “I think I used to be more so. Or maybe I just… never thought it through. Not in the last few years, and not before. Now, the only certainties I have are who I am and what I won’t allow, though both facts have brought me pain and tribulation plenty. So if I’m wrong, then tell me. Please.”

Kaena sits on the bed, facing her, quieter than the sound of Raika’s own breathing.

“You do look like you could use some de-stressing, though,” they eventually say, a soft smile in their voice.

Raika laughs a bit, flinching at the way it makes her diaphragm flex and shift behind her sternum. “Gods, yes. By all the hells, I could use some help with rest. But you don’t have to, and if you don’t want to, then I’d much prefer you not do it at all.”

Kaena hums softly at that, a lyrical note that Raika can’t help but hear every part of, but which still comes across as more musical than painful. “I can think of a way around that,” they whisper. 

“I’m afraid it may be a bit… awkward, and if you’re not comfortable with the idea that’s fine. But whatever reservations we may have, you could do with some help figuring out your changes, and you’ll break if you keep letting yourself be worn down. Hard for you to stop, isn’t it?  So if someone were… willing. Would you be?”

Raika keeps herself quiet. She lets the silence take its time filling the space. She lets herself think.

She is here. She is safe. She is deeply uncomfortable in strange skin. She is tired.

She…

She could use some help.

She nods.

Kaena hums. The scent of their Qi reaches out, soft and subtle but expanding, leaving the room, guided by will. 

And, after a few moments, she smells yuzu and small, sharp edges, and hears the sound of footsteps again.

Maen opens the door slowly, ever so slowly. There’s hesitation there, and Raika winces at the sound of the hinge, but then it is closing behind her, and the sound is gone, and the flutter of Maen’s heart takes its place of prominence in the room.

She is in a simple shift, less like robes and more like nightwear, making it just past her thighs. She stands there, so much shorter now than Raika, even moreso than before, black hair and flickering cat ears above hazel and dark green eyes. Her skin seems like it’s glowing in the little moonlight that has begun to leak into the room.

She gives a soft, shy bow. 

“Greetings, honored Raika,” she whispers, voice somehow even quieter than Kaena’s. “I am hopeful that I may assist in any way required by my honored seniors.”

Raika and Kaena both huff, almost simultaneously. “You’re not in a sect, kitty, and neither are we,” Kaena tells her.

Then she turns back to Raika. 

“Do you accept?”

Raika hesitates. She deliberates for a long, long while, long enough that Maen shuffles awkwardly, but in truth, she’s already made her choice.

She clawed her soul back from gods, clawed her body back from death and monsters, clawed her life back and tore it up in the process. She… 

It’s not about pain. She needs rest, or she’ll stop, and she can’t let herself stop. So… a moment. Just one night. Just a little bit of help. She can let the pain back in later. She promises.

She does not hear or smell or see anything, but she can sense them, outside the room. Peasant clothes stained by blood. Her hands, red with what’s left of them. A stain that was tangerines and spring and growing roots, whose sandal is under her bed.

She promises. She’ll hurt later.

But everyone has to rest sometimes.

Burning with shame and want and hurt and fear and bone-deep, ruinous exhaustion, she nods.