“Good news!” Her husband straightens, rubbing the small of his back as he uses his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Not they they need it here, with the heavy, overcast nature of the place. “It’s already dead.”

She looks up, the wind playing gently through her hair. He was as strong as an ox when they met. And still is, even if he tires more than he used to. There are a few premature gray hairs at his temple, despite his high cultivation level. She knows that she put them there.

When she doesn’t smile at the sight of the monster’s deceased form, the relief fades from his face. “Is that not what we came here to see?” He asks, gesturing around them. “There is nothing living here. Is that not enough to set your mind at ease?”

Wei Changze has always been patient in the face of her restlessness. Her curiosity. Even when it has led them this far. But when she looks at him now, he sees an unfamiliar emotion in his wife’s eyes. “What killed it?”

He pauses, taking a step back. His boot sinks deep into exposed earth, dust and soot kicking up into the breeze. There is no grass here. The only trees are long dead, forming a petrified forest in the canyon far below.

His mother rocked him to sleep with stories of this place. And like everything else that parents say to frighten children before sleep, he had known it to be a thing of fiction.

And now, staring at fractured columns of rock, stretching hundreds of meters into the sky like dark claws, he begins to wonder. What killed it? “…It’s been so long,” she whispers, taking a step closer to the ridge. “And nothing grows.” “C—“ “Nothing has come back.”

“…It might just be a scar,” he mutters, unable to take his eyes from the same sight, left with that question roiling in his head, over and over. What killed it? “A place for dead things.” Her lips press into a thin line. “…No,” she says, her hand curling into a fist.

This isn’t a graveyard, no matter what people might call it. It’s not empty, either. “…They don’t know,” she says quietly, the truth of the matter sinking in. “None of them know.” And it might already be too late.

But there is something far worse to be afraid of. Wei Changze’s gaze slowly rises, watching the shrouded sun, it’s glow taking on a reddish haze through the clouds of ash. “…But if that story was true…” his heart plummets. “What about the last one?”

Oblivious to the fear of his parents, a small child kneels in the ashes, pushing them about like sand on the shore. He doesn’t like it here. His fingers catch on something hard, and he smiles, curiosity poking through his boredom.

It takes a moment for him to grasp it, small fingers grappling with sharp edges—and when he does, a small stone rises from the earth. Covered in grit, obscuring its shape. “…Who could we tell?” His mother mutters in the distance, grasping the sides of her head.

“Who would even /understand?/“ “Your martial brothers, your shizun—“ “I have left the mountain,” she shakes her head, her face pale. “If I return, I would be able to leave again.” And now, she has too much that would be left behind.

And if they knew how much she had told her husband— She closes her eyes. So engrossed in their discussion, she does not hear the crunch of the earth beneath her son’s boots. Not when he toddles away, towards a small crack in earth—filled with water.

The surface of the puddle is almost like glass— And if Wei Ying were older, he would know that water moves when there’s a breeze. But there were so many things that he didn’t know. /Splash!/

The stone cuts through the water like a knife, hardly making any ripples as Wei Ying rubs the soot and grit away from the edges, somehow managing not to slice his fingers in the process--and slowly, its true shape comes into view.

A fox, carved from black stone. With a surface as smooth and reflective as glass, with only one blemish. A sharp, jagged crack--running through its face, just between the eyes.

The child's head tips to the side as he turns the stone over in his hands, watching as it catches even the most minute rays of light, reflecting across his face. So lost in the beauty of it, that he doesn't see what's reaching for him. /SPLASH!/

It's strange. It wasn't more than a crack in the ground. A puddle no bigger than his head, but-- But Wei Ying can't breathe. And when he opens his eyes, he-- When he's yanked from the muddle, the scream hasn't died in his throat. It tears from him like a yanked thread.

"A'Ying!" His mother holds him close, wiping the soot from his face. "What's wrong? What is it?" "I was--!" He can't stop coughing, like there's something caught in his throat. "It pulled me in!"

"What?" His father's hand is on his back, rubbing soothing circles. "Pulled you into what?" "The--!" Wei Ying forces his eyes open, twisting his head around so he can point, but-- There's nothing there. His parents watch as he stares at nothing but a blank desert of ash.

No crack. No puddle. No water. "I..." He tries to catch his breath, so small, that the heaving of his chest is almost painful to watch. "It pulled me into the.../ah!/" His pained cry only seems to make them more frantic. "What is it?! Where does it hurt?!"

His mother holds his face, trying to get an answer from him--and Wei Changze is the one who watches the stone drop to the earth. Oh, but the shape he sees is a different thing entirely. "Don't touch it," his wife warns him, soothing their son as best as she can.

"Not with your bare hands." No, he doesn't dare. He pulls a leather glove from his belt, slipping it over his fingers before he reaches for the seal, lifting before his eyes for inspection. But-- It's not a seal at all. It's a /brand./

Etched in characters he cannot recognize--but when he lifts it for his wife's inspection, her face grows pale. "No..." She mutters, reaching for Wei Ying's palm, and when she flips his wrist-- There it is, welded into his skin.

Wei Changze does the only sensible thing that can be done--hurling the thing over the ridge as hard as he can, sending it plummeting out of sight. But from the sound of his son's pained breaths, distance won't ease anything. "...We shouldn't have brought him with us."

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, wrapping one arm around Wei Ying's head as she presses him into her chest, shielding his ears from her hissed whispers. "And who could we have left him with?" She asks, eyes burning. "Who would I have trusted? Who would /you/ trust?"

They each know the other's answer. She would have sent him north. He would have sent him south. And neither cultivator could have agreed on who wouldn't have betrayed them. Things like jealousy and honor are so difficult to predict, much less trust.

Wei Changze stares down at his son, curled against his mother's chest, clutching the torn piece of cloth she wrapped around his hand to hide the wound from the elements. And he can't say what they should have done, or where they should have gone.

All he knows is that something killed that monster. No-- He turns his head sharply, hair whipping in the breeze as he looks down at the corpse. No-- The hollowed out husk. Something /consumed/ it.