Chapter 72: Chapter 70: The Skin of a Goddess

The mountain was close to the forest and river, towering over it like the needle of a giant. Idony remembered the mountains in Norwen which were wide broad blue-and-black stoned things that seemed to forever hug the horizon. But the red mountain nearby looked a little silly to her. One half was still covered in frost while the other resembled a bloody shank of meat, glistening in the sun. The air smelled like sharp pine with the distant scent of cooking food from the town making her mouth water. She had already eaten earlier, but she wanted more!

"Zhu Er!"

She turned around to look at the woman calling for her, standing knee deep in tall grasses. "Coming!" She answered, running over with her basket clutched tightly in her hand.

"Listen to me, having skills is very important!" Aunt Hua said as she pulled up a plant with long slender leaves and a dark reddish stem. "See this? It's very good in flower arrangements, it balances out more brightly colored flowers for when you want a more dignified bouquet."

Idony nodded.

"Lin also says they can be boiled and then the liquid drunk to relieve allergies," she added. "I'm giving you an education, Zhu Er."

Idony nodded again, not from lack of understanding but to assure Aunt Hua she was listening to her. She mimicked the woman's movements. pulling out some of the plants from the cold soil.

"In this life, good looks and a nice personality are rarely enough to get you far," Aunt Hua instructed as she pulled up another stem, examined it, and placed it in her own basket. "Your good looks are going to fade eventually, and nobody cares for an old maid with a pleasant mind. If you want to get ahead at all, you need some skills to exploit. Like I, for example, focused a lot on my poetry. I was the Poetess in the Brothel and men came not just for my face but my words."

Idony pulled another plant up, "what's a brothel?"

"Where you'd be sold probably if those people who hurt you didn't get you, or Lang Lang hadn't found you," Aunt Hua's tone was blunt and with a hint of bitterness. "Flower arrangements and herbalism are good skills to start off with for a girl your age."

She bent down as her hands pushed around the tall grass, finding the red stemmed plants and yanking them from the cold ground. The white roots looked like thick wriggling worms as they desperately clung to the dirt but her strength won out in the end and they found their place in her basket. Shuffling slowly, she kept pulling at the plants as she came across them. Idony pushed apart more grass as she continued scanning the ground, the sound of the nearby river growing louder and louder. The hard ground gave slightly under her feet, cold muck colored water seeping around her shoes. Pushing past another clump of tall grass she stood right on the bank of the river, which calmly flowed past her. Numerous beautiful white flowers were sitting together in a cluster beside the river, their large fat petals swaying lightly in the wind.

She straightened up while pointing to the blooms, "Aunt Hua! I found-..." there was nobody around. All she saw were trees and more tall grass. The mountain looked farther away than she remembered it too. How far did she go in her hunt for red stems? She looked back at the flowers, their floral scent was soft yet prominent even among the pine. Maybe Aunt Hua would like the flowers too? Idony grabbed one flower and pulled it upwards, her eyes widening in surprise as six other flowers came up with it, their roots clinging to a long slender yellow-pinkish rock. She stared at the rock for a moment in confusion before she started extracting the flowers' roots from it, ignoring the weird cold fibrous stuff on the rock. Putting the flowers in her basket she stood back up again. "Aunt Hua!" She yelled again.

"She can't hear you, Idony."

A cold hand of ice seemed to clutch her heart, squeezing it. She had not heard that name in what felt like her to be a long time, but it was not Liu Xie's voice. She slowly turned around to face the speaker, her heart still being crushed of its warmth.

It was a beautifully dressed woman in various shades of black and jade sitting atop a leaf pad that emerged from the water, its thick stem somehow too thin to support anyone's weight. The end of her skirt was submerged in the calm water, swirling around like a small whirlpool. Her hair was carefully done up, jewelry clipped to it and giving the strange impression of moonlight on a dark lake.

But her eyes were cold and as pale as blood freezing frost. Her face was more a mask than anything, like something else besides bone was below the fragile looking skin.

Idony tried to think. She tried to pull up thoughts beneath that impenetrable stare.

The woman's lips broke into a smile and the absolute fear vanished from Idony's body. "What is in your basket, Idony?"

"F-flowers... plants," she answered, her voice tiny even as she managed to pluck up a spark of bravery. "Who are you?"

"Mortals have taken to calling me the Lady of Calm Waters," she replied. "I know you are supposed to be with Liu Xie, where is he?"

"I... I don't know," Idony admitted. She had not wanted to think about it much even as the hope still remained that Liu Xie and the others would find her. As the days passed that hope burrowed deeper and deeper into her, growing quieter and quieter. "H-he's coming though! Him, and Bo, and Rui Yifu and Gege and Baozi..."

"Why wait?" she asked gently, leaning forward slightly to rest a hand on Idony's face. The skin felt as thin and dry as paper. "You want to see your mother again, right? I do too, we can go together."

This person knew her mother too, Idony thought, how many strange people knew her mother? The idea of seeing her mother swelled her little heart with hope.

"He never intended to take you all the way too her, you know," she continued. "Liu Xie doesn't care for you like that. You are just a tool for him to fulfill his vow to the other gods so that he can get what he wants."

"That's not true..."

"Then why are you here?" She gestured into the forest around them. "With Lang Lang and his people, and not with Liu Xie?"

The memories of the night were blurry and painful, but she remembered the men barging in. The noise, the demands. What could any of them do? She pushed Baozi out and tried biting, scratching, all things she had done before. The phantom taste of iron filled her mouth as tears fell over her cheeks. "I-it wasn't his fault, there were... there were bad people..."

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Her hand gently brushed away the tears from Idony's face, "I know, you've suffered so much. Why return to him then? I can promise you that if you come with me, you'll quickly see your mother again and there will be no more pain. I want to help you, Idony." The voice was so soft and warm, Idony could not imagine she would be lying to her and yet...

"I want to see him again," she declared in her own soft voice, straightening up.

"Even if he will hurt you?"

"Then I'll hurt him back!" She said before adding, "I don't think.... I don't think he actually wants to hurt me." Liu Xie was many things. He was dumb. He was dismissive. He seemed perpetually distant and even in the scant few times she could remember him being somewhat nice there was a strangeness to it, as though he had never really interacted with a child before. But she still wanted to see him again!

The smile on the moon like face was sincere yet sad, but the flesh at the corners of the lips split, and Idony watched in concern as red seeped along the lines. "...Ah, don't mind this."

"Are you hurt?"

She shook their head, "not at all. Thank you though. You're such a good child, Idony."

"I don't know how you know my name," Idony said, reaching into her basket, "but here! Have a flower!" She held out the white flower to her. The goddess' eyes widened at the offering. "...You don't like flowers?"

"No, I love flowers," a pale slender hand with splitting flesh reached out to gently pluck the flower from her hand. "I just... had not expected a gift, that's all."

"There's a lot more of them over there," Idony pointed to the cluster.

"Ah, yes, that was Lu Gongqi," she nodded.

Idony felt the hand tensing around her chest again. She took a step away from the goddess, "well, I need to go now. Aunt Hua might get worried."

"Are you sure you do not want to stay with me?" The goddess's words were still warm.

"I want to see everyone again," Idony insisted, taking another step then turning around to begin walking where she was fairly sure she had come from.

The goddess was silent for a moment, allowing Idony to take several more steps away before she spoke again, her voice suddenly low and masculine, "then we will see each other again."

When Idony dared peek over her shoulder, there was nobody there. The river's currents began to pick up, a dark red stain spreading from further upstream.

She needed to run.

Idony did not understand why, or where the urge came from, but it gripped her bones in a terrible frenzy and she started racing mindlessly away from the river. She needed to get away. Far away, as far as she could go. Her hand curled around her basket's handle in a white knuckle grip as branches and shrubs tore at her clothing, cold mud splashing over her legs as she pushed herself faster and faster.

The trees all looked the same, great tall white trees with canopies of leaves so densely woven they turned black. If she turned around, it would be there. If she kept running, it would not. She wanted to scream but there was no breath left in her lungs for it.

A collapsed tree seemed to abruptly emerge from the freezing ground and she skidded to a stop right before smashing into it.

"Zhu Er?"

She looked up, wild eyed and ready to run again, but all she saw above was a pretty faced young woman. It was not Aunt Hua, or anyone else from the village. Her eyes were bright like amber and her hair was done in a careful bun. It took Idony a moment to realize she was still talking.

"Zhu Er! I found you!" The woman said, clambering over the trunk and hopping down beside Idony, quickly pulling the small girl onto her feet again. The mysterious woman had a hip quiver full of arrows and Idony yanked herself out of her terrified trance to watch a pig shaped charm swing from the woman's belt. "I didn't need those stupid idiots at all! Haha," the woman blinked and looked around, "where are they anyway?" She shrugged before she removed the charm from her belt and put it in Idony's hands, squeezing her small fingers around it. It felt as warm as a hearth fire, and Idony suddenly realized she was freezing. The sky had started to darken. "Here! You're so cold, so hold onto this. It'll keep you warm!"

Bewildered, Idony did not fuss at all as the woman picked her up and sat her on top of the tree trunk. Instead she watched the woman mutter to herself for a few minutes before she finally managed to find her tongue, "who are you miss?" When she said idiots, did she mean Liu Xie and the others? The thought made Idony's heart leap.

"Huh? You know me!" The woman said before frowning, "ah. Call me Ji Ying."

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