Choices

2 - Reunions

A/N: Because some things are bound to happen, no matter how different the world might be.

----------------------------------

Fengjiu tugged at the torn hem of her dress, which caught yet again in the sticky bush that seemed to cover this part of Qin Yao mountain, and cursed Xiaoyan on one hand and her lack of foresight on the other.

She had known, of course, how picky Xiaoyan could be. It was one of the most annoying things she had discovered about him, since they first met by chance when they were young, in the Fu Yu mountain bordering Qingqiu and the Southern Realms.

Xiaoyan was much younger then, but already as overbearing and fearsome as he was today (at least to those who do not know him well). Fengjiu, however, was so much more wily and cunning and thus quite easily disarmed him with an offer of food -- the plum cakes with licorice that she happened to carry with her that day, which turned out to be his favorite.

Just like that, Xiaoyan became putty in her hands and even willingly followed her home to Qingqiu. Afterwards, he popped in on occasion to intrude on her family's hospitality during dinner, pester her for desserts, or to lament about his one-sided love for a certain demon princess.

(To say that her family was shocked when she arrived home with a demon lad in tow, after a few months of gallivanting around the realms, would be an understatement. It took a lot of convincing to finally get her grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and all her aunts and uncles to believe that she and Xiaoyan were merely friends, and that no, she is not taking a demon lord for a lover.)

But unlike in Qingqiu, where all the ingredients are readily available to meet Xiaoyan's exacting taste, the demon realm is devoid of herbs and spices that abounded back home. It was only thanks to Fengjiu's culinary skills that she had managed to make do with whatever ingredients were there in Xiaoyan's palace kitchens, but even then, she only lasted a few weeks before she had to venture out to the mountains to find what she needed.

I should have just gone home to Qingqiu, Fengjiu thought, shivering at the memories that Qin Yao mountain provoked. Sure, the deal with Xiaoyan said that she will stay in the demon realm until it was time for Fanyin Valley to open, but certainly, there are exceptions to this rule? Like when the purpose is to simply procure some ingredients for Xiaoyan's eating pleasure?

How foolish of you, Bai Fengjiu, she berated herself, even as she hurried to look among the sparse bushes in hopes of finding an herb or two. Now that you're here, you better just hurry and turn back at once, unless you want to run into danger again and...

When the roar of a beast sounded off somewhere to her left, it was as if time repeated itself, back to that day when she first got lost in this mountain and fell into her very first life debt.

Fengjiu was much younger and relatively unexperienced during her first brush with death in this very same place, so she had been unable to do anything back then but run, and depend on another's mercy to survive. She is still quite young now, but a stint in the mortal realm, years of servitude as an unnamed maid, and suffering in a borrowed fox skin had honed her survival instinct to a finely sharp point. So, when the one-winged snow lion appeared out of nowhere, she knew to jump and hide and assess the situation before deciding how to act.