Disciple Shu sat with Tian at a little table outside the hospital. It seemed that where there were hospitals, there must be patios available for the exhausted doctors to cover their eyes with cool cloths, and rest.
“I just wanted you to see what we are doing.” Shu fiddled with her fingers a bit. “You seemed… so angry, and so sad. You said you didn’t want me to understand you, but you really, really looked like you wanted us to understand you when you dueled… when you beat the hell out of Senior Brother Ho.”
Tian nodded. She was right.
“And then you fought Elder Feng. I’ve never seen anything like it. None of us have. I don’t think the Elders have! You and Daoist Hong…” She looked away, letting the sentence drift off. “You were saying ‘This is what a fight is. This is how hard you should be training. Nobody gives a damn about flowery fists and embroidered kicks.’”
Tian nodded again. He didn’t know what flowers or embroidery had to do with anything, but he more or less got what she meant.
“And I thought about the wounded we were treating. I’m not working in the hospital yet, but we are a small sect. I heard about them. And I wanted you to understand. That we don’t understand fighting like you do, but we do care. We work hard. We work really, really hard.” Her voice got smaller and smaller. Shu’s voice trailed off and she hunched in on herself.
It was a beautiful night. The stars seemed a little hazier here than in the desert, but there were still so many of them. They still seemed like a miracle, an impossible wonder- uncountable twinkling gems scattered across the dark sky. Tian looked out into them, and for a moment, he wondered if you could fly to them. Could you pick them from the sky? Collect a pocket full of stars?
Probably not. There wouldn’t be any stars left if you could. Someone would have stolen them all ages ago.
“I can tell. I couldn’t do what you do.” His voice was soft and strong.
“Well the sect-”
“Daoist Shu? I couldn’t do what you do.” He leaned in, catching her eyes and keeping them with his.
She looked lost for a minute, staring into his eyes before blushing and looking away. She coughed lightly, hesitated, and visibly gathered her courage. “Then why are you so mad?”
Tian groped for the right words for something he couldn’t even explain well to himself. He couldn’t find them, so he just shook his head and sat back. “Would it be alright if I came back to the ward?”
“Pardon? You mean, to visit the wounded from Ancient Crane Mountain? Yes, I think so.”
“Thank you.”
He needed to talk to someone, and the omnipresent Elder Feng made talking freely in the Manor difficult. But his senior brothers and sisters in the wards had been in the same hell he had. They had survived when others hadn’t, and been pulled from the field. They would understand him.
Daoist Shu fiddled with her fingers again. “Senior Brother Ho is fine, by the way. He needed a bit of medicine for some organ bruising and internal bleeding, but nothing too serious. Unfortunately, there is no medicine for regret, so he’s going to have to suffer a shattered reputation."
“He had a reputation as a fighter?”
Disciple Shu laughed bitterly. “Would you believe he had won several internal tournaments? He had even accompanied our guards on bandit suppression missions. His great uncle, Elder Ho, had accompanied a few caravans as a guard and healer, and Senior Brother Ho always claimed he was inheriting the martial tradition of the family.”
“Your guards?”
“We hire mercenary cultivators to provide external security for the sect and to accompany our inbound shipments. Though after today, I think a lot of us are seriously questioning that. It made sense before.” The finger fiddling had reached the point where Tian began to worry she might never be able to separate them.
“Why spend time on something you will hopefully never use, when you could more productively spend the time studying or tending your fields.” Tian’s voice was gentle as the night breeze.
“Yeah.” She nodded softly. “Exactly that.”
Tian sighed. If the Monastery was flying out his brothers for treatment, it meant the Monastery was paying for that treatment too. They were putting real resources behind this. It was insane that things had to get this bad to force the sect to make an obvious change, but at this point he was just glad anything could make them change.
How the hell do you solve a problem like Black Iron Gorge? How do you solve a problem, when the problem is you?
He rubbed his rosary, then smiled. He couldn’t solve that problem. It was too big, and too complicated. But Daoist Shu was kind. She wanted to help, to explain. She gathered around the lamp in his heart. So really, there was only one thing to do.
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“Daoist Shu, could I interest you in a comparatively terrible cup of tea?”
Morning came with a silent breakfast, followed immediately by not particularly quiet ribbing.
“So. You and Daoist Shu? HMMM? Alone, together, the dark of night? Tell Big Sister everything.” Hong leered.
“We went to the hospital, then had some tea and admired the stars.” Tian said, his voice plain as lukewarm water.
There was a pause. “Well that’s no fun.” Brother Wang shook his head. “I mean, there is material to work with there, but you aren’t blushing or looking away or anything.”
“Why would I do that, Brother Wang?”
Hong cracked up. “I knew it. I absolutely knew it would turn out this way. Heavens have mercy on that poor girl, you really did just visit the hospital and drink some tea. Or at least, that's all you think happened.”
“That is all that happened. What else could I possibly have been doing?”
“I know you aren’t that innocent, Brother Tian.” Wang shook his round head in mock disappointment. “Nor are you that young. Fourteen is a fine time to start feeling your heart flutter as you stare deeply into the eyes of a gentle little sister.”
“Oh.”
The silence landed with a thud.
“Really, nothing?” Sister Su looked curiously at him. “I’m not particularly romantic myself, but really nothing?”
“She seems nice, and was nice to talk to. Does there have to be something more?”
This was met with general grumbling. Tian shook his head at his excessively free sectmates, and walked towards the hospital.
“Oi, Brother Tian! Where are you off to?” Brother Wang asked.
“Going to sit with the wounded and the dying. What else can I do in a peaceful land?”
He was greeted with another cheer by the wounded brothers and sisters, but this time, he had a different sort of question for them. “How do you accept living, when so many didn’t?”
It wasn’t the happiest conversation, but they had all been out there. They had all lost people, even before the current war. For some, this was their second war. One brother still tasted a bitter memory of his mortal days, watching his family die of plague. Then he staggered into a temple, and rang the Dragon Calling Bell. How was he supposed to square that? How was that fair?
They all had stories of survival through no virtue of their own. A brother that took a blade for them, or a sister who found the demon in the bushes and paid with her life. Some had bitter platitudes, and others just shook their heads.
“That was when I started spending serious time in the cells.” One brother explained. “Sister Wei and I were close. We weren’t talking about marriage, but hell, we had been together for twenty years. And then some no-name bandit with half a teaspoon of cultivation and a lousy bow art managed to put a poisoned arrow in her neck. Out of the blue. We were talking, and then she grabbed her throat and tried to rip out three feet of wood. The bastard had been aiming for me and missed. Slipped right over my shoulder and got her.”
The old man’s fists knotted up the sheet on his bed. “Not a damn thing I could do to save her once the arrow struck. But I’ve spent most of my life wondering- what if I had stood just a bit taller? What if I had paid more attention and been alert for ambushes? What if? What if?” An old hand splayed out spasm fast, flicking away the memory.
“And? How do you manage, Brother?”
“I meditate. I work. And I talk about it with my brothers and sisters. It’s never a nice conversation. But sometimes…”
That got understanding nods from around the room. “Sometimes you just need to talk to someone who’s been there. Who’s lost someone that way,” A brother with one remaining eye and one remaining ear agreed.
“So why did you wind up in the cells, Brother?” Tian asked. “You led with that, but never explained.”
“I thought it was obvious. One thing I tried was drinking to numb the pain, or drinking to forget. Never seemed to work, but I always told myself I just hadn’t drunk enough. And everyone was so damned irritating, I just had to shut them up. With my fists. Often while drinking.”
That got murmurs of understanding from the others. “I did that too.”
“Me too.”
“I didn’t have to be drunk. I just started punching. Then I got drunk because, for some reason, I didn’t have any friends.”
One of the older men snorted and looked out the window. “It’s annoying, but the answer to most problems like this seems to be “Meditate, exercise, keep your organs balanced, do meaningful work, and talk with people who have been there. Because it doesn’t go away, Junior. Not entirely. You just find ways to accept that you did live, that fair has nothing to do with fate, and you then learn to live with it. You just hope that in a few years, you have a new friend who sometimes looks at you with old eyes.”
Not a happy conversation, but for some reason, the mood in the room was lighter afterward. Tian felt wrung out, but more at peace than he had in a long time. On his way out of the hospital, he stopped one of the orderlies.
“Sorry, Fellow Daoist, I was wondering if you had one of my Martial Aunts here, surnamed Wu?”
“Elder Wu? Yes, follow the blue tiles on the floor until you start seeing doors marked with green tablets. She’s the third door on the right.”
Auntie Wu was sleeping. Tian took a good look at her. Pale. Thinner than he remembered, and she had always been slender. She looked older. Medicinal incense smoldered in an iron burner next to her bed. Plants had been carefully positioned around the room, and large windows let in the light and air. The blanket looked soft, the walls were painted a gentle green, and all seemed very well suited for healing.
She had always been a pillar of strength for him. If things went really sideways at the Heavenly Person level in the Depot, she was the person he always planned on running to. It had never come up, but it was always in the back of his mind. “If things go really wrong, run to Auntie Wu. She likes you and will look out for you.”
Auntie Wu looked fragile. Right now, she needed looking out for. Tian looked out the window. It was still early. On the other hand, he was here until Elder Feng was done, so really, what else did he have to do? Tian sat in a chair next to the bed and started to cultivate. When Auntie woke, she would see a friendly face. He would make her tea, and peel her one of the oranges Brother Wang had gifted him.
And if he felt strong enough, and brave enough, and the black fury rose up in him like a consuming storm, he would ask her how the hell a quartermaster could miss the fact that Ancient Crane Monastery was funding the war that was killing them all. He truly liked his martial Aunt and she had looked out for him a lot. So he would really do his best not to ask what her cut of the profits was.