Winter Moon | Xiao x Fem Reader

Broken bones and severed heads

Hot, burning flashes of fire made your skin melt off your back. The boiling hot blood mixing and sizzling with the water of the small lake of your domain.

"There is war coming, girl. You have to become stronger," Nuwa's voice boomed in the open space, her hands clapping with her loud commands. "You're weak. How are you going to take the Moon God's throne if you can't handle your elements?"

Training was as brutal as it ever was. But now with war above the horizon, it became a daily occurence. Gone were the rest days, sometimes weeks, you'd have for your body to fully recover before you broke it again.

Today you'd already gone through water, then ice, your breath was still coming out in cold puffs and your throat felt as if it had frozen over but the flames spreading from your hands all the way to your shoulders and back made steam rise from your skin.

The inside and outside of your body were polar opposite temperatures and it hurt. It hurt so bad you wanted to just scream until your throat gave up or burn everything and everyone around you until there was no one barking orders at you and telling you that the pain you were going through meant good.

"Make the flames hotter." Another clap of your overseer's hands and the fire licking your skin became hotter. Another clap. Hotter. Clap. You couldn't take it.

You bit your lip until it, too, bled. You couldn't even feel the ache from it, far too overwhelmed with the pain of your skin melting, of your insides being so frozen they felt like they were cracking.

"Nuwa, please. Isn't this too much?" Faintly you heard Yin's quiet, worried voice over the roar in your ears. As always, she stayed at the edge of the small lake, the silky bathrobe in hand, ready to pull you out of the water and tend to you.

"There is war coming, girl. And she's not ready for it. Who is going to protect our domain?" Nuwa snapped and some sense came back to you at the sound of her thundering voice turning to someone who wasn't you. "Are our sisters going to fight the gods? The animals sheltered here? We're defenceless and our only warrior is too busy giggling about with a mortal boy!"

At the mention of your mortal boy, your head snapped up. Your eyes were suddenly clear, pain forgotten as you struggled to sound a gasp through your ruined throat.

"What? You thought I'd never find out? Do you think me such a fool, girl?" Her face twisted in an ugly grimace as she held the whip tighter in her hand, winding it a few times around the palm of her hand, lifting it and bringing it down on your back with such ferocity it made the breath leave your lungs.

"My lady!" You heard Yin exclaim, followed by splashes of water as she immediately jumped in, treading through the clear blue water to stand in front of you, arms spread out protectively. "Stop hurting her!"

"Get out of there, yaksha! You'll taint the pure water," Nuwa gestured as if she was ready to dive in and pull Yin out herself, until she realised her own words and stepped back. Anger, fury even, made her eyebrows crease and mouth pull back, making her voice shrill.

You could barely make out the rest of the words coming out of their mouths as they continued yelling at each other. Your back was on fire, not literally for once, and you took short little staccato breaths. Your lungs felt too overwhelmed to take in anything more than that.

Your wide eyes were staring at the disturbed surface of the lake water when you noticed the red swirl of colour disrupt it. No wonder Yin was so freaked out, you were losing a lot of blood. You wanted to get up and get out of the water but your knees felt weak and your very being felt like it was made of brittle bones and a slight gust of wind would break it down.

Even then, you could barely hear your own thoughts from their voices echoing in your head, making it pound even harder. As a weak gust of wind blew over your back, right over where the warm blood was gushing out of the slashed skin, you shivered as you realised how big the wounds actually were.