Chapter 9: Chapter 7: Faceless Beasts and Where To Avoid Them

She was there, smiling at her. Idony stood at the edge of the clearing with warmth filling her heart and happiness dancing in her long cold veins as something wiggled in her arms. After so long of being alone, and of being pulled around by a stranger that was starving her… her mother had come for her!

She seemed radiant underneath the sunlight above, the clearing filled with flowers that turned the world around her into a floral wonderland. Their scents rose up and mingled with the gentle calling of her name from her mother. Everything felt wonderfully hazy, even her growling stomach was silenced by the comforting fog.

“Idony… Idony…” she held out her arms to Idony. Her vibrant red hair held strands of gold in the sun, her clothing clean.

“Mama…” her voice was near breathless as her heart swelled in her throat and tears fell over her cheeks. She had seen her mother pass away, pale fleshed and covered in red on a bed in a dark room as strangers whispered prayers or tried to keep her awake. Yet she was full and whole and clothed in a beautiful dress that moved around her like water as she held her arms out for the girl.

“Idony… Idony…” a new voice, a distant voice. But why would she pay attention to it now? Her mother was here. All Idony had to do was walk across the cracking uneven flowers to feel her mother’s arms around her once more. Then everything would be good again. They could go back, away from this strange place full of strangers. Maybe even Liu Xie would come… Liu Xie… her eyes looked away from her mother for a moment as she wondered where he was.

“Idony…” her mother’s voice was close, unraveling her threads of thought.

She looked back up at her mother, who now stood over here with a face as warm as the sun.

A burning pain abruptly raced through her left arm and Idony screamed in shocked agony, moving backwards as she dropped a squirming thing from her arms and tripped over a flower. The warmth and the blooms vanished as she landed on something that smelled wretched and gave out beneath her with wet crunches. Idony held up her arm to see bright red blood coursing down from a bite as Baozi made loud panicked squeals before positioning itself in front of her, angrily oinking at something that approached with staggered steps.

She sat up to see barren ground covered by chewed upon corpses, and where her mother had once stood was a limber masked thing, in the barest mockery of clothing, that lunged towards her with too-long bruise covered arms. Idony screamed again and got to her feet just in time for the thing to wrap long fingers around her shoulder and hoist her into the air as she feebly kicked her legs at its head. It used its free hand to pull away the mask, revealing a skinless face with nothing but a large sharp toothed mouth that grinned up at her. Idony kicked even harder in the air even as it felt as though all her blood was fleeing her body in terror.

Her blood poured forth like a river as the monster sank dozens of needle point teeth into her side, teeth cleaving through cloth and flesh. White hot pain that made her eyes roll in her head and punched the remaining air from her lungs while agony wracked her body as the thing returned the screech.

A white flash filled her vision, bones breaking and an unearthly snarl reverberating in her ears briefly as the hand released her and fell much as she did to the ground.

Idony laid on the dirt like a puppet with its strings cut, the sounds of the world lost to a heavy pounding noise in her head. She was being emptied into the void, unable to summon her anger or fury. She felt something wet and hot pooling rapidly around her. She could hear the loud spasming of the removed arms beside her, their nails piercing the ground below.

Blackness swirled at the edges of her vision as she managed to turn her head to see Liu Xie standing beside her, facing down the snarling monster while blood dripped down his sword. He spared her a glance and for the briefest seconds she thought she saw Liu Xie staring down at her with fury before he wheeled around to kick the armless monster into the trees. He yelled something she could not understand while Baozi’s squealing increased in terror.

More snarling poured out from around the trees like a chorus of rage.

Two arms abruptly wrapped around her. She was pulled from the floor and held close against something soft and warm that was quickly moving through the blackness that swallowed up her vision.

When Idony opened her eyes she was staring up at a wood ceiling with a sweet breeze slowly washing over her face. Her side felt horribly numb like the entire left part of her waist was gone but a quick pat down of herself assured her it was still there beneath unfamiliar clothes and stiff bandages.

She brought herself to sit up with a blanket covered in snake designs rolling off the top of her weary body. Her stomach growled pitifully while her head immediately swam yet she stubbornly refused to lay back down. Idony took stock of the room she was in. It was simple, with some strange scroll painting of a lady walking on a serpent shaped cloud on the far wall, a drawer, a low table, and a blue vase that sat on the open windowsill. Thoughts began climbing up into her mind. Where was Liu Xie and Baozi and that other smelly man? Where was she?

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A sliding door slowly opened and a cheery round faced young man stuck his head in, looking around before his eyes landed on her and his face broke into a happy smile, “ah! You’re awake!” Idony blinked in shock hearing someone speak her language, albeit heavily accented, outside of Liu Xie. “I’ll need to tell Master Liu Xie… after you have some medicine!” He held up a small tray which held a cup of a suspiciously familiar looking amber liquid and another cup that simply held rice. "He made the medicine himself."

“...Where am I?” She asked, before her brain ran to another more upsetting question. She twisted her hands in the bedsheets, “where’s Liu Xie?”

“Master Liu Xie is currently out at a teahouse with Bo and Rui Yifu-”

“Who?”

The man set the tray on the table, “oh! You haven’t met Rui Yifu… you had already run off… you’ll meet him soon though!” He picked up the cup of liquid and held it out to her. He seemed to think on something for a moment before his face brightened. “You can call me Gege, Bo calls you little sister right? I’ve never really used that word before... everyone around us has so many boys, it’s nice to see a girl inside the compound!”

She frowned at the cup and scooted to the end of the bed, eyeing the man warily. He stared back at her in concern before something lit up in his eyes and he set the cup down on the tray. “Oh! I forgot to answer your first question, you’re currently in my father’s house. He was very grateful to Master Liu Xie and Rui Yifu for bringing me back unharmed,” he scratched his chin as a faint blush of embarrassment rose to his cheeks. “My mother was… very enthusiastic with her thanks. My parents said you can stay as long as you want, or at least until you’ve recovered…” his eyes moved down to the numb space on Idony with a regretful frown. “There was so much blood…”

Idony placed her hand back on her wounded side and immediately yelped as the numbness flared into pain, the man took her hands in his and gently guiding them to rest on her lap.

“Ow, ow!”

“Don’t touch it! The doctor said that it’ll just aggravate it.”

“Why did it bite me?” She hiccuped as she tried to stop herself from crying. She was too old to cry, she told herself while not believing a word of it. But she most certainly did not want to cry in front of a stranger. “What was it?! It had… Mama’s face…”

“Face eater ghouls,” Li Baobao explained as he handed Idony the cup of suspicious liquid. She sniffed it and made a face at the herbal smell, but drank it anyway, hating every second of it. “They wear masks and cast illusions to look like the prey’s deceased loved ones, then they eat them. Rui told me about them. I always thought they were only in the Northern Kingdom though.” His gaze became distant as he looked out the window, and Idony gazed out of it to a large courtyard where rocks and trees had been strategically placed to ensure the most artful of shadows were cast along the building’s walls.

To Idony, the shadows looked vaguely like fingers and snakes.

“I thought they were just bandits… maybe if I had warned Master Liu Xie ahead of time-”

A squeal interrupted Li Baobao, and a tiny snout poked over the window sill, followed by two scrabbling little legs as Baozi pulled itself over and rolled like a porky log into the room. Idony smiled and reached out to the piglet, “Baozi!”

“Bao...baozi?” Li Baobao looked at the pig, “you named your pet ‘dumpling’?”

“...Dumpling!?”

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