Chapter 24
Xiaoyu
The next morning, there are gifts laid by the steps.
I don’t know who they’re from, but I have a feeling they are from the Void.
Datu, I think his name is. There are weaves of silk, a wicker basket of fruits, flowers and an ivory bulb with a cuspid tip.
There’s a beautiful gemstone on it that I can recall the name of.
It’s a smooth rock with chromatic striations, splitting into veins of brilliant light.
The gem is boulder opal, my mind whispers.
But the actual object? I should know what this thing is! It doesn’t matter if I can’t put a word to what it is. I smile as I wrap twine around it and wear it as a necklace. It’s a weird pendant, but all gifts, I appreciate when given freely.
It rolls over my chest, glowing as it passes my skin.
I love it already. Underneath the flowers, I see a satchel.
It’s…mine. Excitedly, I pour out all its contents and see things I know!
One is a pen, a blow torch, a canister, and a notebook.
As I spread the notes open, I get the distinct feeling I’m violating someone’s privacy.
Lin Xiaoyu. My name! I skim through the notes, and I notice I've made this a diary. At first, it had been just clinical notation about the subject. Datu. Then, it goes downhill after day two. I’m now reading confessions of an attached girl who's been having weird dreams.
Chewing my lip, I appreciate how my notes break everything down into things I can easily understand. One thing rings clear, though. There’s a drought we need to fix, and Datu and my past self have had…relations.
I snap the notebook shut. Too detailed. I even sketched the thing I have basically sliced off him. I pick everything up and place them by the altar, still admiring my pendant.
In the woods, there’s a whistle. Already, I’m feeling chills. I descend from the stairs, standing on the last step. I swallow as my eyes peer around the darkness of the woods.
“Who is that?”
It whistles again, and it’s on the other side now. I have to chase it. The urge is…overcoming. My feet hit the ground running as it whistles again. I’m tracking the sound, my sole purpose to meet the thing making the noise. I know it. It can give me answers.
Surprisingly, I do not find myself in the forest. I find a path where the plants weren’t as dead. There’s an odor in the air I can’t put a finger on. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s just…very woodsy. Freshly-cut grass and trees.
My excitement grows at this. I pass by six-footer fungi, and it glows and dusts me with glitter. I look above, and there isn’t a sky. Instead, there’s a forest with pine trees growing above us like stalactites. Finally, it dawns on me there’s no drought here. Everything flourishes and thrives.
I feel prickling on my ankles. When I look down, I see tiny plants, venus flytraps biting me. No, not biting me, greeting me. They are telling me something I can’t understand.
“Do I have to eat you to understand?” I joked.
They all make a thin screeching noise and burrow themselves into the ground. That’s a no, then.
“It’s alright, I won’t eat you.” I straighten and survey the area. It’s a vast land, but there’s an undeniable pulse in the ground. A heartbeat. The whistle sounds louder, echoing around the meadow. The plants rise and lean to a direction in unison.
“Do I go there?” I ask them. It sounds silly, but I’ve come to terms that nothing should make sense to me.
The trees sway and the flytraps nod together. Adrenaline rushes through me as I run as fast as my legs take me. The grass parts to give me a clear path to follow until I see it. It is humungous—the size of a small mountain.
A plant trapped in amber, but it’s just not one particular plant.
I recognize him. I named him.
Brother Bear in my dreams, but here, his size is unfathomable. My bones quiver at the sheer incredulity and fear I feel. He does not look cute and fluffy, this is a creature meant to raze down worlds and swallow them whole.
Something whistles again, and it is from him. I don’t know how he makes this sound, but I know it’s him calling me.
Slowly, the cloud in my mind disappears as I remember bits and pieces of my life. It doesn’t overwhelm me, just giving me enough to think through and process.
“You’re real…” I gasp.
He whistles softly, telling me he hears me. I step closer to the wall of amber, realizing this is where the smell comes from.
“How do I get you out?”
Brother Bear makes a low, mournful sound. He doesn’t know. I wrack my brain until it hurts. Remembering memories buried is…painful, to say the least. Literally. There’s this subject called geology. It should have at least taught me the natural makeup of amber and how to break it down.
“Ethanol, turpentine, ether…but these are dangerous. I can’t douse you in those.” The words flow out of my mouth by instinct. My body remembers what my mind can’t.
The ground begins to shake, and something wet plops down my thigh. A drop of water.
“Rainwater?”
He whistles twice, happily and I just know I gave him the right answer. There’s no way amber is water-soluble, but still… I slam my back down the ground.
“Once again, Xiaoyu, NOTHING SHOULD MAKE SENSE!”
I rub my hands over my face and notice I’m glowing. Shimmering. It must be the fungi’s spores earlier.
“I read on my notes I’m here to help the sprouts survive, but it’s as if the whole island is against logic.”
There’s a low, cheeky whistle that suggests some kind of hesitant agreement. Brother Bear doesn’t take, so I keep asking him yes and no questions.
“Do you know what’s happening to the sprouts? Whistle twice for yes.”
Yes.
“It’s really so fucking sad. Some are about to hatch soon, and the weather’s still shit.” I mutter, admitting this to him feels comfortable. I lay my head against the amber, tense.
I knead my forehead, trying to remember more of my conversations about something trapped in amber. The word incubator comes to mind. Incubator that’s been trapped in amber for centuries.
“Can you help the sprouts?”
Yes.
I know I said yes or no questions, but I had to ask… “How?”
Again, the ground shakes until a tiny drop of water falls on to me. I have to flip through my notes again, but it’s clear enough to me that rain can solve all the problems.
How apt. My name is Xiaoyu. I am pure rain.
I don’t know how long I’m gone, but when the plants help me find my way back to Datu’s altar, it’s almost twilight.
The sky is turning grey, and I’m exhausted from all the trekking.
I make sure I track my way so I can come back again, stabbing a thin broken branch before the entryway to Brother Bear’s meadow.
My body is heavy, but as soon as I hear screaming, roaring, I break into a run. I refuse to pass through the forest lest I get lost again. I run around, looking for the edge and what I stumble upon is something out of my wildest fantastical nightmares.
As I stand there frozen, I watch two dragons fight for dominance. One is scaly, thick with scars and brilliant teal platings. It looks ready to decimate everything in sight before a woman wearing leather gear jumps and pulls him by the maws.
It’s an insane and dangerous move, but it works.
My mouth drops open as she successfully redirects the burst of flames the other way. Away from the other dragon. This other one, though? I know it’s not what it looks like. It’s smoky, not exactly solid. Its eyes glowed violet.
It’s the Void in another form.
“For fuck’s sake! Stop it, you two!”
I blink as awareness trickles into me once more. I step forward, hoping to stop Datu, but when the other dragon’s eyes flick toward me, it breaks something in Datu.
The black dragon’s wings spread as he dives toward me. Someone else—someone smaller and faster—slams into me, forcing me back while the colorful dragon bites Datu’s massive neck.
“Nooooo!” A scream is ripped out of my mouth. “Datu!”
“Fuck me,” The woman curses as we land on the dirty, muddy ground. We are coated in that fungus glitter and the mucky stuff of the forest. “It’s a starving forest! We have to get out!”
She basically lifts and drags me by my arm out of the forest.
“Do you control the dragon?” I gasp.
“He’s my fucking husband! Of course I control him!”
Husband? This dragon? Ah shit, I reserve the shock and confusion for later. “You calm him down, I’ll calm Datu down—deal?”
“Deal.” She runs like a maniac and—with her weird metallic hand—rips the other dragon’s jaws apart just to toss him away.
That’s my cue. I run to Datu as his eyes land on me. The enraged, accusatory look is something I can’t miss.
“Whose spores are you covered in?!” He sounds so furious that he forgets about the dragon completely.
“I’m sorry, I got lost and stumbled into a meadow with mushrooms! They were all dusty!” My voice is shrill as I defend myself in all the chaos.
He snarls and charges at me. He flaps his wings then plucks me off the ground. I scream for dear life as we shoot and glide through the sky. We didn’t go too high and I just fucking know he’s gonna dump me into a river.
I curse him as he does exactly just that. Thank fuck I know how to swim. He dives in after me, changing into the plant-man—the Terra form.
In the water, he is a formidable sight. He wades gracefully, muscles rippling. His skin refracts, and I have to look away before I blind myself. Snatching me by the torso, we emerge together. I sputter out, swiping water off my face.
Without a second thought I smack him by the shoulder.
“Why would you fucking drop me like that?!”
He snarls at me, his sharp teeth glinting threateningly. “How would you feel if I just showed up covered in another female’s cum?”
Angrily, I splash water at him and swim away. I can’t deal with this right now. I have to go see what those people are here for. Before I get too far, something pulls me by the back of my head. Fingers snarl through my roots and—before I know it—I’m lifted off the water and flung toward the bank.
With a dull thud, I land over the shrubs. I can’t do anything but just let out a dignified huff, my anger shrill like a teapot about to burst.
“Don’t you fuckin—” My mouth slams close.
He is changing. What used to be tattoos wrapped around his body emerge, moving like mobile black keloid scars. I feel sick to my stomach as I see some gather around his—I look away before I start hyperventilating. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
“Really, Xiaoyu? You know damn well this cock will haunt your nightmares.”
The sound of his skin remolding itself is like mixing thick bread batter. Wet, thick, stiff. Shivering, I’m startled how much my body reacts to this. I’m horrified, trembling, but I’m so embarrassed to say…
“Petrified and aroused. Just the way I like you.” He’s too close for comfort. His long, violet serpentine tongue licks my hip up to the tip of my breast. “You do not know what it’s like to starve for you, my sweet dreamer.”
I never avert my gaze from him. I don’t fold, I don’t break.
“Don’t you fucking touch me.” I snarl, finally finding my voice.
His eyes flick down, gaze landing on his gift around my neck.
“I see you like my gift. But I don’t think you know what it is.”
Swallowing thickly, I squeeze my eyes shut as he takes the little bulb from me.
The Void stands over me. He retains a humanoid body, tall, shredded with those veiny scars moving all over his form.
Eyes glow red in fury and something else.
The blasphemous tongue swipes over the rows of sharp teeth as he falls forward, roughly flipping me over so I’m on my hands and knees.
“This is the tooth that snapped when I ate you out, my sweet. Tonight, you take this up your—” his fingers sweep over my back hole. “—ass. So you’ll get used to me slowly. After that, you’ll take the bigger tooth, the one you ripped out of me in the forest.”
I kick, but he takes hold of my ankles, pulling me closer until I feel it. Unlike his cold touch, his cock is hot. Fuck. Cock or cocks? Oh, my god. I don’t want anything up my butt—much less several things! I need to protest, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a whimper.
“Do you want to see how soaked you are for this monster, Xiaoyu?”
My sight is immediately ripped from me as I groan. It takes a few moments for me to understand what I’m seeing.
“You’re looking through my eyes. See how much my serpents want you.”
A dance of grotesquerie—that’s what I see—as the aptly-named snakes unfurl from its thick, long phosphorescent center.
Unable to tell fear and pleasure apart, my head falls back as he swipes his carved teeth over the gleaming cock.
It oozes thick, violet liquid. I remember clearly what it is. It’s his cum.
“You may have sliced my other cock off, but this one’s a hydra, my sweet. You cut it, more heads will grow. More fun for me.”
I’m frozen, hypnotized at the sight of him easing the plug up my ass. It hurts. There’s no other way to describe it. I would have stopped him if not for his encouragement.
“Look at yourself, sweet girl. So welcoming, so fucking beautiful.” His voice is smoke in my head. Everytime I grasp at him, he slips through my fingers. “I know you don’t like looking at yourself, but that changes tonight.”
I make a choking sound as he slips it fully in. Tears spring to my eyes. I feel full, almost uncomfortably so. The Void strokes my ass.
“I found the gemstone for you. I knew you were going to like it. You always loved things that glowed in the dark, sweet girl.”
I can’t process anything as he slides his wet cock over my pussy. I know he’s not fucking me tonight.
“Not now, sweet girl. We will fuck you from the inside out, but I have a fucking Sarkany to kill.”