Threads 243-Fox 5

She didn’t feel so lucky though, sitting her friend up against the side of the cave.

Su Ling hacked up another mass of bloody water, and her eyes fluttered open. She mumbled, “Pretty sure we’re not dead?”

“Somehow.” Ling Qi swiped soaked hair out of her eyes.

Her friend’s eyes widened then, and she looked down. “Xisheng, are you okay?”

The child held under her arm did not look okay. Soaked to the bone and covered in Su Ling’s blood, the child ghost’s features, which had settled into an androgynous state, was pasty and pale, their eyes shut. Ling Qi could see places on their arms where flesh and cloth had dissolved into shimmering smoke, leaving crumbling patches as if they were a hollow china doll. The ghost’s feet and lower legs were already gone, crumbled entirely beneath the knee.

One eye cracked open, looking up at them. It cycled between colors, green and blue and brown, settling eventually on an eye not much different from Su Ling’s. “You cut her,” the child breathed out in amazement.

“Yeah, I did,” Su Ling agreed. “See, she ain’t so strong. So hang on a bit. You can see me finish the job.”

Xisheng laughed. It was a happy, childish sound. “Sister is silly. I was never real in the first place. Thank you for pretending I was.” They sounded strangely peaceful for what was happening. The holes in their body yawned wider, flesh crumbling like old clay. “I like this. I don’t feel hungry anymore. Nothing hurts.”

“Fucking damn it,” Su Ling snarled under her breath.

Ling Qi was silent, exhaustion finally setting in as she fell back on her heels. She was thankful that the old skeleton was silent. She could not deal with him as well right now.

Xisheng breathed out, and a part of her cheek caved in. There was no bone or blood, just dust crumbling off. “Sister is too nice. Her heart is too big. Don’t break, okay? There’s lots of us, but only one of you.”

“There won’t be any more of you eaten,” Su Ling vowed. “I won’t let this keep happening. Not if I hafta bow and scrape and beg. My pride ain’t worth that. No more Xisheng.”

“That’s good. I think a lot of them would have liked you.” The words grew softer and softer until a final sigh of air came and what remained collapsed inward entirely, leaving no more than fragments of clay, grave dirt, and drifting dust on Su Ling’s lap.

Ling Qi looked away, clenching her fists. Still not enough. She gave her friend privacy and looked to the one who had rescued them at the end. Her eyes met empty sockets that sparked and glittered with eerie green.

Why?

BOLD. APPROVAL.

The spirit’s voice whispered in her mind, the curling caress of dried thorny branches on her thoughts.

She had failed though.

Nuance came, the concepts pressed into her mind growing more complex, more comprehensible. Like an old man speaking for the first time in years, becoming clearer more understandable.

“Practice. The junior oversteps. The senior steadies and catches. Plan better escapes. You have not the fire and spite for broken treasures to bring satisfaction.”

She couldn’t deny that. But she still didn’t understand why.

“Blood.”

She didn’t believe that. Half the province had his family’s blood.

“You know of the difference, little junior. You write it in your soul.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the desolate qi of this place. Last time, she had been panicked, terrified, and surprised, but having come from the fox’s den and its illusions, it did not feel quite so bad. Once, she had considered ignoring the door that had appeared, avoiding the danger this old, old thing represented.

Isolation. It was the desolation of self. This place dripped with it.

“Ling Qi, who’s the skeleton? Why are you staring at it like that?” Su Ling asked. Their voice still cracked, and she knew if she looked at the other girl’s face, her eyes would be red and there would be tracks worn on bloody cheeks.

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Ling Qi clapped her hands together in front of her and offered a small bow, as one would to a senior. “Just a kind uncle who took pity on his junior.”

“You owe me, little thief. But not now. You know the way.”

Su Ling looked hard at the horned skeleton on his throne of muck and stone, woven through with brambles and black petaled flowers. “I trust you, Ling Qi,” she grunted. “But I’m also pretty sure I’m gonna pass out soon.”

Ling Qi blew out a breath, her eyes turning to the shadow of the cavern where the razor thin line marked the position of the door back to her labyrinth gate. She wrapped an arm under Su Ling’s shoulders and helped her up. To the skeleton, she answered, “I pay my debts. I’ll be back to tell you the story soon.”

“That all you have to trade? Stories?” Su Ling’s voice slurred as she leaned into Ling Qi. “Fuck, how do you always get the best deals?”

A horn crowned skull tilted towards her, and Ling Qi limped for the door.

She couldn’t wait to catch a real nap.