A Gentle Torment

He Could Only Wish

AN: Poor Yan Zhi has the best intentions, yet they still jump straight into thinking she's a threat... at this rate, they might attack her the minute they see the girls.

o~O~o~O~o

When Mo Yuan was an infant, no one had been more fiercely protective of him than his mother. The pain of almost losing a child... she wouldn't regret her actions, but she also knew it had heightened her emotions and left her with a constant need to protect the one currently with her.

One evening when her husband was off ensuring yet another war was stifled before it could start, she had fallen asleep with her son in her arms. She sent away the wetnurse and all of her (three) maids in order to have some alone time to bond with her son.

Only she had awoken to empty arms.

Sent into a frenzy that had awoken half of the Nine Heavens, the Empress all-but tore apart her palace and those neighboring in search of her son while fearing the worst.

He had taken his smallest form, the horned snake that would one day be a proud, strong dragon, and slithered across the Celestial palaces until he made his way to the Lotus Ponds, seeking out the golden lotus that held his brother's immortal fetus. That night, delirious from exhaustion and fear, she placed a potent tracking spell on her son so she could always be aware of where he was, as well as a spell that had been lost to time in order to feel his emotions in times of great stress.

Ever in a constant state of growth and change, when her second son was born again, her frantic, grief-stricken mind had evolved into one that was far more knowing and wise after the many antics his older brother had gotten into. She didn't need the second spell then, because the bond between the twins was strong enough for them to feel each other's strong emotions and pain.

She also wasn't as terrified of being a parent as she was the first go around.

She did, however, place a tracking spell on him should one day the worst come to happen and the need arose to collect him.

Her eldest son's fear and concern that spiked through her in the form of a barely contained undercurrent had been enough to rouse her from her slumber. She could sense that her sons were together, and with his fear came her own.

As if it were almost routine, the Heavenly Mother and reigning Empress over the Nine Heavens had descended upon Kunlun Mountain without a moment's notice, leaving all of her son's disciples gawking in her wake.

She had been to their mountains once after he took over but the number of disciples her son kept was smaller then and during that time she had made it clear that the ceremony and pomp of the Celestial Palace were never to enter this mountain under the pretenses of accommodating for her.

She is the mother of their Shifu, but when she stepped foot on the sacred grounds she was to be nothing other than a mother seeking out her son.

It left her with a peace of mind and a taste of nostalgia that stirred her dulled senses, bringing her back to the years when is all she could really remember was Fuxi and the loving gaze he always shared with her.

She doesn't bother telling them not to stand on ceremony, the senior disciples will surely make her identity known to the newer arrivals as she passes through the main hall, taking a familiar pathway to where her sons are both residing.

o~O~o~O~o

Zhe Yan hesitates as he watches his old friend finish the last of his food and medicine, barely able to wait for him to continue regaling him of the most recent events. If he were younger, he would have undoubtedly wavered and bristled under Mo Yuan's steely gaze, "As far as I can tell, the last trace of Seventeenth was outside of the ghost realm. Nothing else has shown up and the scouts we sent into the ghost realm hadn't found her, either."