The tale of the fox and the dragon egg

Chapter 49 - Healing

As Wei Ying was forced to look at him, truly look at him and not his reflection, he finally saw the expression his brother was making.

A splash of red colour surrounded his eyes and cheeks, his eyebrows were tugged together and that mouth of his was slightly open, the corners turned down. It was almost impossible to meet those purple eyes before, but now the fox found himself almost unable to look away. Not when he saw his own reflection in them, huge silver eyes and a face that was ashen.

"And now tell. Me. The reason."

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He watched his own reflection, how it moved in the water.

The same steadily rocked back and forth, towards and away from the wooden pier. It was a shame that the pavilion was destroyed, the one where his Shijie had sat when he was younger. No shadow crossed him and the sunlight burned on the black clothes on his back. On the brink of uncomfortable, but it was the first heat of the sun in Lotus Pier, so he wouldn't complain.

Soft patterns of light and shadow were drawn into the lake water. His own reflection greeted him there, where his shape could reach it and with a concentration that broke at hypnosis, he met those silver eyes.

That expression in them was something Wei Ying had experienced often, but he still couldn't decipher it. They travelled upwards until the soft rosy petals of the lotus engraved themselves in his mind, then looked back down.

They had done this motion so many quick times in the last hours, but he wouldn't demand them to stop.

Everything was better than loosing her out of his sight again.

Whenever he opened his eyes, he saw he in pink. Whenever he closed them, he saw her in red. So, he would stare at her until he could erase one of each.

Wei Ying's mind was split into two pieces. The one he couldn't and didn't want to forget, the one he knew all his life until now and the one that presented itself to him in such a rosy colour full of life.

There had never been a moment in his life where he had truly accepted even the hope that her chest might have truly moved in that slow pattern as he saw her die. Not even once.

And now, to sit right in front of the physical proof that something, even a part of her had remained here was so mind-blowingly strange that he found himself torn on believing it.

Not even the fact that she could be truly alive was certain. But the energy radiating of those soft petals was everything but that.

He found himself torn between these two opposing forces, right in the middle.

A heavy sigh tore from his throat and his hands came up to bury themselves in his hair for a minute. He rubbed over the sweaty skin of his neck, a desperate attempt to easy some of the tension lying there, but it was not crowned by success.

Even his seven tails, which roamed free behind him, felt sticky and wet from the sweat travelling down his back and under his fur. The feeling was uncomfortable, disgustingly so, but somehow, he craved exactly that.

In the end, he was still hunched over his knees, staring into the water and the reflection that taunted him like this. He should stand in near time to at least seek some refuge in the shadows, but Wei Ying didn't want to. Perhaps he deserved to feel that burn creeping up in his neck or on his face, because he let her out of his sight. Willingly.

It was in such a reverie that the seven tailed fox didn't notice the footsteps approaching over the wood, a dull sound that vibrated over the pier.

Only when he saw the statue of a man, stopping at his side and a little bit behind him in the reflection of the water did he curl up even more into himself.