Brother Fu didn’t say much. He carried them home in near silence, his old face trying to find the stillness and tranquility it usually wore. Before he left, he said “Thank you.”
Their little cottage in the mountain, with the sunshine streaming through the wide hole in the roof of the cavern, and the little stream that trickled into the newly-dug shallow pond, and the vegetable patch that was doing its best, and the little herb garden around the front door. The walls were plastered stone, the roof was slate shingles, the windows had sturdy shutters painted black that Tian had never found a reason to close. There was a hearth, with a hook to hang a pot and a grate to hold a wok, a few small chairs, two small tables, and exactly three rooms. The living and dining space, what was probably supposed to be a closet, and the bedroom. Tian had taken the closet as his bedroom, once he had knocked a hole through the exterior wall and roughly framed in a window.
He liked feeling cozy, but he needed to see the outside to sleep well. Besides, he didn’t have a lot of stuff to clutter a bedroom with. What did he need beyond a cot?
The two stood in front of the house, the mundane seeming suddenly new, and a little dangerous.
“Did I handle that right, Sister?”
“Is there a right way to do it? He knows you love him, but he’s like me. Your forgiveness helps, but it only helps.” Liren’s voice was soft. They hadn’t discussed it much since coming back to the mountain. They hadn’t discussed it much at all.
Tian had the sudden urge to make tea. Conversations were easier with tea. But they just had tea. Difficult.
“So. We need to have a conversation.” Liren jumped into the silence with both feet.
“Yes. Inside?”
“We have a new pond, let's grab some stools and put our feet in it.” She pointed, and Tian agreed. The pond was cool, and still empty of life. They would need to plant some grass around it, and slowly introduce some little fish. Maybe it needed to be deeper, too. Tian could feel the inane thoughts filling his head, doing their best to distract him.
“You are still glowing.” Liren said, quite out of nowhere. “Just a teensy bit. But you are.”
“Going to be annoying at night.”
“It looks like it’s fading. On the other hand, you now smell like lotuses and a hint of incense. I can’t explain that, and don’t intend to try.” Liren snorted.
“Your hair is a little more red. Almost a third are red hairs now. I always liked that. It looks lively, and makes you more interesting than… others.”
“The story is that we are descended from some unimaginably ancient ancestor who, somehow, mated with a fire sparrow. The family legends are vague. The red hair came in as soon as I first awoke the Southern Mountain Physique.” Liren’s voice was soft. “It happened when I was… eight, maybe. I remember that it was the first time in years I had seen my parents smile. I was so proud. I promised them I would be a cultivator. The best cultivator.”
Tian smiled, encouraging her, but she shook her head. “Of course, I know how you got your Dustless Physique. Though I flat out refuse to believe that is what actually happened.”
“You wouldn’t believe the amazing things you learn from old men in junkyards.” Tian stroked his chin, not realizing he stroked it exactly the way Brother Fu stroked his beard. Liren saw it though.
“I wish I didn’t believe that you believe that.”
They wiggled their toes in the cool water, suddenly finding it hard to speak. They had known each other for nearly half their lives, but they didn’t know what to say.
“What did you dream about, when you ate the Heartsear fruit?” Tian asked.
“Other paths. I imagined I was a delicate beauty, the princess of a great clan. Imagined being dead in the desert. Imagined being… imagined bad things. Not all bad. I was happy in some of those lives. Strong.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“You were sometimes, for a while, in different roles. Never like this.” She wasn’t looking at him, staring at their feet in the moonlight dappled water.
“It was the same for me. Well, not the delicate beauty thing.”
“Brother, I have some terrible news for you…”
Tian snorted and kicked up a spray of water. “Half our lives together. Who knows how many years it’s been-”
“Five. Since we went to the desert. It’s been five years. The last two years we have barely been apart. Living together on a boat or in a small house, far away from others.”
There was an edge to her words. Tian couldn’t piece together what she was feeling. He was having a hard enough time understanding what he was feeling.
“You never sounded interested in romance. That made it easier for me.” Tian said.
“I was interested. I said so loud and clear. You just didn’t hear me. Let me tell you, I have so much more sympathy for Sister Su now than I did back on Windblown Manor.” Her voice shot up.
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“Every time sex got mentioned-”
“I don’t want that!” Liren’s voice moved from lively to a yelp, then dropped with the corners of her mouth. “I can’t, even if I wanted to. And neither can you.”
“I’m in perfect health. I haven’t felt any urges up to this point, but-”
“Lucky you.” Her voice grew cold. “Did you forget who you are? Who I am?”
“No?” Tian blinked, looking over at her.
“I don’t have any siblings, Zihao. Not any more.”
“I know.”
“Which is interesting, given that mom wasn’t that old when the war with the Long family started, and we employ plenty of maids who could get promoted to concubine status if they managed to bring a son into the world. Or any healthy child.”
Tian felt a sudden pain in his heart and his guts clenched.
“The curse. The land is cut from its roots. Why I don’t have any siblings. Probably why I was born so damn sickly. But we are on the mountain now.”
“Do you really think that matters?” Liren asked.
“Yes, of course it does, or we wouldn’t be able to drink the water, eat the food, or… or whatever else having the roots cut away does to a place.” Tian waved his hands, trying to see if he could see the glow. He didn’t, but he believed Liren that it was there.
Quiet gathered around the two of them, letting their feet play between the water and the moonlight.
“I wish I believed that. It’s logical. It makes complete sense. I just don’t believe it and I don’t dare risk it. You haven’t seen it, Zihao, the way some of the kids are born. They live minutes. Just minutes. Just long enough for everyone to see that what the women were carrying in their bellies for eight months were… horrors. Tortured mockeries of babies. Not every woman, and not every baby, but more than any god could conscience. And I’m a Hong. We don’t get to have healthy kids. Not anymore. And you are a Xia. However you think of yourself, whatever name you choose to wear, the curse knows you. It’s never forgotten you.”
“I am not a Xia! I have curses enough of my own, and I refuse to take on any more. My name is Tian Zihao, and it will be my choice if I have kids, not some damned heavens!”
“Oh it will, will it?”
Tian rolled his eyes at her “Not alone, obviously. My point was-”
“I got it.”
The moonlight pooled around them. Bright and light, which should be yang, but cool, which is yin. The moon as the ultimate expression of the feminine principle, perhaps the purest natural symbol of yin. Tian watched the moonlight dance across the shallow pond. Yin on yin. Lunar Water is a mythical natural treasure of extreme yin, and you often saw it in opposition to Solar Fire in books. What a confusing world they lived in. Who could go to the moon to find water? What cultivator was great enough for that?
“What are we, Sister?”
“I dunno. More than friends, less than lovers.” She looked uncomfortable at the thought, and Tian didn’t like the way it fell on his ears either.
“I… like you more than just friends, Liren.” The ground was far, far below, and his footing was slippery. But he had practiced dangerous jumps since he woke up in the dump.
The long silence made him feel like gravity was pulling his guts out, and the ledge was further away than he thought.
“Damn you. Yes. Me too.”
His foot touched down, but he was still wobbly.
“Brother Fu said, often, that love and sex aren’t the same thing, and you can definitely have one without the other.”
“That’s a strong word to be throwing around, Zihao!”
Tian turned and faced her, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Is it the wrong word?”
Liren looked away. Silence pooled around them once more.
“I don’t know why I expected something other than a cool conversation. There should be flowers. Gifts. Jade would be appropriate, or maybe a special spear or armor or something. Matching bangles could be nice. I’m sure it would sound atrocious, but maybe you could learn a special song on the flute that would convey your… your yearning, burning, heart or something.” Liren’s voice had found its fire again. “Something that said you were courting me. That our being together was something other than a done deal.”
Tian cocked his head to the side. “Did you get me something?”
“What?”
“Did you get me a jade, or a bangle? Make me a painting?”
“That’s not how it works, Zihao.”
“It should. I’m worth courting. Strongest in the outer court, a talented cultivator, I am very well mannered and have simple needs. Besides that, I’m a doctor in training, and have a mighty father. If I’m not a catch, who is?” He gestured elegantly.
“Someone who isn’t the Saint of the Brokies? And the strongest? Excuse me?”
“Alright.”
“What?”
“You are excused.” Tian was magnanimous. “But let’s not get side tracked with your failure to court me properly. We are dao companions, in everything but name. So let’s put the name on it. We can decide what it means for us. Hell, we can decide what dual cultivating means for us. You know there are dual cultivation manuals that have us sitting as much as three feet apart, right?”
“There are a whole lot more manuals that have you-” She cut herself off with a chop of her hand. “See, this is it. This is exactly it. You are being very reasonable about everything. You aren’t wrong. But I don’t want reasonable, I want romance! I want to see that fire in your heart blaze for me, the way my heart blazes for you! I want to see you hunger for me, the way I have hungered for you.”
“Even though we aren’t going to act on those urges?” Tian asked, a little smile dancing around his lips.
“Not right now we aren’t. But.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you really plan to pursue immortality? True immortality?”
“Yes.” Tian nodded. “The price of the journey is pain, but the joy has been so, so much greater. It’s worth it. So long as I’m not flying alone.”
“So… what you are saying is that you are going to have a lot of time.” Liren’s voice got muffled. She was looking away, unable to meet his gaze.
“We will, yes.”
“A lot of time to figure things out. Like how to break godly curses.”
It was amazing how loud two hearts could beat in the quiet moonlight. Tian’s grin blossomed like a night blooming flower into a smile.
“Yes. Let's do exactly that. Liren?”
“Yes?”
“I have a lot of pretty sisters. I have only found two women to be beautiful, and I have only loved one. You. If you want a bangle, I’ll find one, or make it, or steal it. If you want a jade, I will carve it. If you want a song, I will play it. I will spend eternity showing you why my heart burns. But I have a price.”
She looked at him, eyes wide in the moonlight.
“You have to show me your heart burns for me too.”