The ritual complete, Sayewa pulled a reflecting cloud around herself and sped towards the ancient cave, darting anxious glances towards her sisters. She was so close now to completing her quest... Her breath caught whenever she thought she'd heard one of them calling out to her, but this too was nothing more than her imagination.

The first time her heart lifted since the battle had been joined, was when she squeezed herself into the tunnel full of rat droppings and mud. Every turn was familiar here, particularly the chamber of the forgotten idols. She left an offering of red flowers by the statue of the laughing monkey, touching its bared teeth for luck.

A memory of the messed up youth lingering there, questioning her, afraid of her, nearly thickened into a ghost. "I will not fail you this time," she promised him.

She managed to open the portal without drawing on the pistol's stored qi the way she once had to draw on Chong Xi's. She probably would have managed without Xi even then, but she couldn't have taken chances. Yu's death, leaving her newborn to germinate without her - all of it made the world ring emptily, a sonorous sound of a bell, and her command of qi was tenuous.

Tiptoeing through the portal, Sayewa drew her stealth cloud closer around her. Who knew what happened between the Celestials since they had visited last, and if the Mistress of Rats still favoured the people of Tiandi.

After studying the scrolls Sayewa had swiped from the great library, the portals no longer looked like a random jumble. The one she wanted took a long climb to get to, but her insides remained frozen, muscles - wooden, movements - uncertain. She had never been more afraid of being wrong.

She had never been more afraid.

If only she could freeze to the wall and go dormant forever, delay the moment of truth... But she resisted the temptation of indecision until she pulled herself up to the portal she sought and peeked through it. The warmth returned to her extremities: what she saw matched the description in the scroll.

Yes, risking her station, her ideals, to come here was the right thing to do. This was the realm of the mists, the spirits and tranquillity.

This was the right place to bring him to.

The flow of qi touched her face like a sea breeze at first and nearly buffeted her off her feet once she was fully inside the other realm. She lifted her hand and saw its outlines smudge. Just like in her home temple, on the Hill of the Five Seasons, the air here was filled with the fragments of songs and thoughts, from indistinguishable to almost fully realized.

To forget, to dissolve, to disappear... the qi sang to her. To remember, to exist, to last...

Her knees buckled - but she had planned to kneel regardless, and so she did.

Gentle shadows breathed past her on quiet wings, bats and butterflies, birds and spirits. They disappeared in the soft outlines of the hills overgrown by luminescent flowers in pale shades of blue and pink and the gently curving branches of either ferns or shrubs. The heavy fatigue of existence elsewhere weighed down her eyelids. If only she could sleep for a while, then she would get back to her task...

No, I will turn into a ghost, my task will remain unfinished.

With numb fingers, Sayewa unwrapped the silk, placing the pistol on the bed of fuzzy leaves carpeting the ground. Crashed, they smelled tangy and light, tasty enough to want to chew on them.

Sayewa listened in, finding the tune she needed in the chorus.

Spiral down, deconstruct, release... she sang along, deconstruct, release, release...

The dragon maw of the pistol opened up wider and wider like a lotus bloom until the weapon divided into two along its full length. Then it divided again, and again, crumbling into ruby dust.

Against the pastel glow of its surroundings, the crimson of the Righteous Judgment's ashes stood out like a beacon.

Sayewa found herself at a distance from the pistol without moving, and the distance kept increasing between them. She outstretched her dissolving arms towards it, crying freely. Her tears fell between the silvery leaves to become seeds and bloom one day. She had no idea how her sacrifice of tears would turn out, but she hoped it was adding something acceptable to this realm. She'd never trusted ones that demanded a sacrifice of blood from a supplicant.

The crimson glow now crowned the closest hill like the last vestige of sunlight at sunset.

Most of it took shape, changing its form with every gust of the qi-wind, but she could recognize Yu in any shape. He rummaged through the dying flames on the hilltop until it looked like a woman sleeping on her side.

She stirred, and floated up to her feet, into his embrace. The couple zipped downhill, away from the chaotic red lights still dancing on the hilltop, trying to coalesce. They made it to a safe distance before the lights came together. A flare cut through the shadows, sending them into a new rhythm, some of them fleeing, some of them adhering to the newcomer's spirit. He raced away too, gesticulating wildly and was quickly lost between the hills.

Perhaps your punishment is peace, perhaps you deserved it, stranger.

The light was exhausted, with no other entity emerging. It stood to reason that Zha Yao and the Emperor Hsuanji stayed within the Brother's Bequest, guarding their son and brother in his quest to rule uninterrupted over the peaceful and united land.

Tien Lyn and Yu lingered long enough to bow to Sayewa from afar, incorporeal, but luminescent with joy.

Sayewa bowed as well. I should leave... but she watched them drift away, watched the shadows shift and the spirits of fireflies twirl in the mist for a while.

The everlasting tranquility is not enough, she thought, would never be enough for me.

With heavy feet, she finally walked back.

Her task completed, exhaustion gnawing on her bones, Sayewa no longer cared if the Mistress of Rats would spot her crawling among her beloved animals, so she let her stealth cloak dispel. If the Celestial saw her, she chose not to reveal herself.

Sayewa peeked into every portal she passed, seeing the sights that filled her with wanderlust... but not today, not yet. Right now all she had left to do was to climb down and enter the familiar portal home. She circled the getaway to the multiverse with wistful eyes, then pressed her cheek into the familiar gray mist. Beyond its gleaming surface, Tiandi toiled and celebrated, laughed and wept, made peace and war. That's where the memory of her love waited, in a tiny nursery filled with red blooms.

Sayewa sighed and crossed the threshold.

***

The nursery did not change, the same Acolyte she had left on duty this morning greeted her, Tajinyu did not look a day older. Sayewa exhaled in relief but felt like thousand years had passed anyway since she had last seen her child.

Picking up her girl from the moss, she kissed her awake. The bright eyes opened, ready to both laugh and cry, as the babies want.

"Mama's here," Sayewa whispered, carrying her to the courtyard.

There, she lifted her head up, squinting against the sunshine. A golden silhouette circled close to a sinuous shape the colour of jade, guarding the countryside from high above.

Sayewa pointed at them for Tanjinyu. "Look, baby, look! There is a dragon, a big dragon."

THE END

Calgary, April 17, 2019