Crimson Qi, Exiled Beautiful Lady Falls in Love with a Shy Demon

Almost Safe

~TIEN LYN~

Ships only loomed large in the harbour. Once fully crewed, and sailing the expanse of the Jade Sea, they felt more like a wood chip crawling with ants in the middle of a pond. Privacy was at a premium, so Finch and she had to wedge themselves between some barrels by the stern and pretend to not be overheard. A third of the crew started to settle to sleep in the cargo hold, and Finch looked like he should find a corner for a nap as well.

Tien Lyn told him so.

"I will," he replied, "after you tell me what happened in Zhushulin. Everything that happened in Zhushulin."

The name brought tears to her eyes. She had been happy in Zhushulin once, but now it was a place of grief. She turned away from Finch, leaned against a barrel and counted the rolling waves. Finally, when she was in control of her voice, she told him all that her memory had not blotted out to preserve her sanity.

When she came to Ho's final moments, she discovered that the eternal procession of waves was not enough to keep her sadness at bay. Tearful, she asked Finch the question that nobody else could answer, "What did he do in the end? Was it a spell?"

Finch replied without a moment's hesitation. "Yes, it was a side-effect of him Understanding one of the Laws. It is an uncommon one, but he was an unusual man."

She counted out twelve hundred more waves. "He was," she whispered then. "Ancestors, he was...."

Finch stifled a yawn and explained apologetically to the back of her head, "I kept ready to cast for days on end. It's tiring me out, Lady."

Tien Lyn turned her head round to see him, looking ready to collapse. Relentlessly, she pressed on, "Ho was a mage?"

"Not quite." It was his turn now to consider the view.

She followed suit. It did not change at all, pretty but monotonous. Watching the endless gray swells and the billowing clouds on the horizon, fringed with distant rain, did not displace the sight of Ho's burning corpse from her mind's eyes.

"Finch?"

He exhaled and cleared his throat, but his voice remained hoarse with fatigue. "Magic affinity like every other talent can be minuscule. The less significant it is, the easier it is to find a harmless outlet for it. I first encountered Chong Ho when he'd just manifested, and gave him a nudge in the right direction."

The mage's face was as blank as ever, but Tien Lyn thought she saw a shadow of a smile. Was this 'manifesting' something that held sentimental value for them? A rite of passage?

Whatever the case, he was less listless now, visibly warming up to the subject, "Sometimes even a stronger magic can be rerouted. My Master could not deter your mother from her social conquest constructs—-"

Her mother was the last person she expected to be mentioned in this conversation. Surprised, Tien Lyn blurted out, "But... she gave birth! To me!"

"She'd manifested just after she delivered you," Finch explained patiently.

"And that does not count in your lineage charts?" Tien Lyn wanted to know. It sounded like cheating. "My mother's name was not written in the golden script."

"She was not receptive to training by then," Finch shrugged in the 'it's just how it is' way. "Her mind was fully consumed by politics and social advancement. She shut the magic off without ever knowing she did it, perhaps."

"I can't begrudge her this," Tien Lyn said. Her father would have remarried, but still. "I love my mother."

"I suspect that she uses Compulsion, intentionally or not," Finch mused, "but that's faery magic, not human. Some mysteries are just that, Lady. Mysteries."