After what felt like centuries, a pair of hands suddenly grabbed at her elbows, "Seventeen is that really you?!"
She looked up to see Zi Lan grabbing her, looking at her with a mixture of anger, disbelief, joy, and unshed tears in his eyes. And as she nodded, he suddenly hugged her while shouting at her "Do you know how long I've been looking for you? How worried I've been?! I thought you were gone!"
Hearing him scold her was all it took for the tears to come flowing down, washing away all the distance between them she felt previously. As she repeated her apologies again and again, she could feel the tight embraces of all her seniors surrounding them as they huddled them, she could hear the tears in their voices as they welcomed her home.
After a long time had passed, they broke away from the embraces as Bai Qian filled them in on what had happened these past 70,000 years, skipping the years she had slumbered after her battle with Qing Cang. She explained why she had to hide herself and Shifu's body, what she knew she had to do in order to preserve his body because she believed he would come back. She knew that no one could know Si Yin was Bai Qian, or that might cause a war between Qing Qiu and the Celestials. She could not implicate anyone else, Si Yin had to disappear.
Die Feng watched her as Bai Qian talked, feeling the heaviness in his heart grow. Gone was the carefree litle Seventeen who loved creating mischief with a twinkle in his eyes. In his place stood a woman with eyes that looked like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, who sacrificed 70,000 years of her life and believed she had to do it alone.
He could see how much she had grown, how much she endured. And although he was immensely proud of the woman she had become, he wished that they could have been there for her, to have shouldered some of her pain and loneliness. He made a silent promise to himself, even though she might be a Queen and high goddess with immense strength and power, but she would never have to shoulder anything alone again.
Sensing a surge of energy coming from Mo Yuan's meditation cave, Die Feng knew that Shifu was awake and was waiting for his little Seventeen. Calling an end to the questions the rest were asking her, he gently nudged Bai Qian to let her know that Mo Yuan was waiting for her.
YOU ARE READING
It has always been you
FanficA Mo Yuan/Bai Qian Fanfiction pairing: Mostly canon with some minor changes. Ah li does not exist in this storyline. I'm just a new writer who has rewatched the show far too many times. I've always loved the pairing of Mo Yuan and Bai Qian and I'm...
