59 Chapter 57 - Long Awaited Reunion

"Xi?" Ao Wen asked, finding that her head throbbed horribly when she woke and one side of her vision had gone red and blurry, forcing her to keep her eyes screwed shut to stop from being disoriented. "My head hurts, my arm hurts… honestly, everything hurts." 

"Wen," Feng Xi said softly, moving to sit next to Ao Wen and reaching out to gently stroke her cheek. "You came back to me," she whispered, gently wrapping her arms around Ao Wen, trying to hold her close without putting pressure on her still-tender wounds. "You're really back."

"Mmm," Ao Wen murmured, wrapping her right arm around Feng Xi and pulling her close. Feeling Feng Xi tremble in her arms brought everything sharply back into focus in her mind. The desperate fight against the Rage Queen, their even more desperate circumstances as the storm raged and Tang Jin lay injured and then…. Tears slipped unbidden from her eyes as she remembered waking to the nightmare of the orphanage and her doomed attempt to fight Yin Fiend Transformation sickness. She'd promised she wouldn't do this to Feng Xi as soon as she came back, promised that she'd hold strong and take the time to tell her but… Tears turned to soft sobs and grew louder into pained cries as the tears she'd never shed in her days as Little Yu the Orphan of Salt Flats City surged forth in a flood. Fen, Gong, every one of the children she'd… 

"It's okay," Feng Xi whispered, running her fingers through Ao Wen's hair, opening herself up to the storm of emotions contained within Ao Wen's pained sobs. "Let it out. I'm right here," she whispered next to Ao Wen's ear. "I'm here and I'll always be here. For you. Always for you," she said. 

"Thank you," Ao Wen said hoarsely as the storm of sobs abated. "I'll always come back to you. No matter what, I'll always come back." So many things had become distant while she lived the life of Cong Daiyu but now that she was back, all she wanted was to spend the next three years and more in Feng Xi's arms. "H-how long," Ao wen started to ask, her voice cutting off as pain wracked her head from the intense sobbing combined with the head wound that had yet to heal. 

"Three days," Feng Xi said. She knew that it must have been much longer for Ao Wen though she hoped that it hadn't been too long. The last time had been three months for Ao Wen in nine days for Feng Xi but this time, feeling the deep changes in Ao Wen's cultivation, Feng Xi feared it was even longer despite being a shorter time for her. "And you?" She asked, apprehension thick in her voice. "How long was it for you?"

"Almost three years," Ao Wen said breathlessly. "A lot happened," she said simply. "People died," she forced herself to say. "I…"

"Shh," Feng Xi interrupted, placing a finger on Ao Wen's lips, gently silencing her. She could feel the raw, ragged edge to Ao Wen's emotions like a zither thrown against a wall. It was clear that Ao Wen felt a need to explain herself but also that she wasn't ready to. Whatever happened, however bad it had been, Feng Xi wanted to hear it all, accept it all, and hold Ao Wen through it all. Whenever Ao Wen was ready, she'd listen. "You don't have to force yourself," she whispered softly, resuming her stroking of Ao Wen's soft hair. "You can tell me now if you want, or later. All at once or one piece at a time. I'll just listen," she promised. 

"Thank you, Xi," Ao Wen breathed, catching Xi's hand with her only working one and giving it a squeeze. So much time had passed, and it had been far too long for her since she'd been at Feng Xi's side. "I think I have a concussion," she said, changing the topic and shifting the focus from her emotional wounds to the physical ones. Those, at least, she felt would be easier to address. The rest could come after that when piercing pain stopped sapping both her physical and mental reserves. 

"The arm's in rough shape too," she continued, grossly understating the extent of the injury to not alarm Feng Xi. "How are we doing for supplies?" Ao Wen asked, setting aside the many feelings and trying to distract both of them with practical items. "I don't remember what we have with us anymore," she added with a shallow laugh. "Are there any silver needles? Silk Thread Dew or Spotted Cloudweed Leaf? I'd settle for a bottle of wine and a handful of New Moon Qail Berries if that's all we have," she said, smoothly rattling off several possible herbs she could use to deal with her concussion which felt like the biggest priority at the moment. 

"Um… I don't think we have any of those things," Feng Xi said, trying to follow Ao Wen's lead and focus on immediate concerns. "I used the last of the medicinal paste on the bruises along your back and when I changed out the brace for your arm. I've been keeping cool water on the lump on your head but I didn't know what else to do," she said helplessly. She'd felt so tremendously inadequate the past several days. Now that Ao Wen was back it felt like there was light behind the clouds but hearing her capably begin asking for things that would help her and not even knowing what most of them were left Feng Xi battling anxiety and inadequacy all over again, even more intensely than before. 

"It's fine," Ao Wen said gently, realizing she'd said something wrong even if she wasn't sure exactly what. "We'll figure it out. I'll need your help searching the forest for a few things though," she said. "I'm pretty helpless without you, you know. You have to promise to help me with everything for a little while longer before I can cook for you again."

"Okay," Feng Xi said with a heartened smile. "Did you learn new recipes this time? Better ones than you got from Granny Jun?"

"I did," Ao Wen said with a smile. "I even taught myself to cook with Alchemy flames just to practice flame control arts," she added. "Plus family dinners cooking with Senior Brother Huang and Senior Sister Qi. I'll cook lots for you when we get back," she promised. "Speaking of cooking," she said, getting back to practical items. "What about tools? I'm sure we weren't lugging a cauldron around but do we have a decent pot that I might be able to concoct in? Even a common cook pot can usually survive a few low level elixirs. Oh, and needles," she added. "Silver needles would be best, even if we only have a few, otherwise I can try to make do with a few sewing needles. I'll just bleed a bit using something so dull."

Fenx Xi reluctantly moved away from Ao Wen, rummaging in the packs that each of them had filled with supplies before releasing an exultant shout. "Ah ha! We're in luck, it looks like Jin's mother packed his emergency supplies, there are ten silver needles here. Will that be enough?" Feng Xi asked anxiously. She didn't like the idea that Ao Wen would be using blunt sewing needles on herself for acupuncture if they didn't have enough propper needles. Hadn't she suffered enough pain already?

"Leave it to a good mother to pack things her son can't even use because they're just part of the emergency supply kit," Ao Wen said with a smile. "Bring them over here, I only need three to start but I'll want the rest after that," she said. Slowly sitting up with Feng Xi's help she deftly inserted the needles in the same three accupoints that Cong Houzi had used to dispel her headache after her Alchemy Initiate exam. Thankfully, while recovery wasn't as instantaneous as it was when Cong Houzi had treated her, she could already feel the swelling beginning to diminish and the red haze fading from her vision. "That's one problem that's smaller," she said with a trace of a a smile and a sigh of relief, finally opening her eyes to look at Feng Xi. Seeing the other woman's haggard face smiling at her through misty eyes her heart ached, instantly realizing just how hard the past several days had been on Feng Xi. It looked like she hadn't slept at all! "Hey," she said gently, reaching out and touching the other woman's face gently. "You look as bad as I feel. It's been hard on you all this time too hasn't it?"

"Hard on me?" Feng Xi said incredulously. "I just had to watch you two. That's not hard at all," she denied outwardly. "You… you looked like you were suffering for an entire day," she said softly. She desperately wanted to ask what Ao Wen had gone through, but at the same time, she was afraid to know. Already she felt like Ao Wen had changed. She'd said that people had died this time. Her little sister had started to feel like a big sister, steadily working through problems, talking out solutions, treating her own concussion. Feng Xi ached to understand the events that had transformed her friend, events that had clearly been much harder on her than just three days of watching in worry but she held her tongue, abiding by her promise to talk about it when Ao Wen was ready. 

"It was hard," Ao Wen said, dancing around the things that had been so overwhelming in the beginning. She felt like she owed more to Feng Xi than she knew how to give her right now but she tried to find a way to sum up some of it without poking the painful wounds before she was ready. "It took nearly three years to learn everything I did and it wasn't easy," she added. "But I had some good teachers, I spent two years in a really good sect, I was even adopted by a True Dragon," she said with a smile. "Not bad for a starving little orphan girl right?" Ao Wen added with a laugh. 

Feng Xi's eyes went wide the more Ao Wen said. She spent time in a sect? A True Dragon?! It was the last bit that really shook her though. Starving little orphan girl. Ao Wen had said it so casually, even laughed about it but Feng Xi had become an Understudy and she was far too sensitive to pain to miss the hurt hidden behind that laugh. Clearly, there was more to the story, but just as clearly, Ao Wen wasn't ready to talk about it yet. It was fine, Feng Xi told herself. She would wait until Ao Wen was ready, or at least until they got back home. Then they could have a nice long chat and they could help each other heal the scars this adventure had inflicted on both of them.