A Gentle Torment

Fighting on United Fronts (Swan Song)

AN: YG giving YZ something *extra* to fight for? Genius. Making her think she's carrying her? A little unethical... but *hella* effective.

Note for non-English speakers: Fighting blind = Yan Zhi would be going in powerless/'unprepared' (beyond her sword, obvs).

As for the last scene... 'He's dead. He's very dead'... and the Heavenly Mother's 'army' is small purely for the sake that she has no idea wtf is going on since she knows YH and MY are both alive and well.

o~O~o~O~o

5,000 years later

Yan Zhi quietly moves over the bubbling pot of medicine as she continues to quietly fan its flames. Peering over to look at the scroll she had been working off of, she lifts the lid of the pot to examine the medicine. Stirring it, she returns the lid to its place and peers over to the little girl who is playing quietly on the floor, "Yin'er, do you mind getting me some water from the river?"

The child looks up at her, smiles happily with a small nod, and grabs the bucket she always used before leaving the tiny hut.

Watching her go with a tiny smile, Yan Zhi adds in the last ingredient before leaving the medicine to simmer for a while longer while the flames die out. Walking over to the bed she now shared with Bai Qian, she sits down and reaches out to the small lotus flower with her cultivation, carefully probing it to check-up on its well-being. 

The flower is still dangerously close to withering after losing several of its petals and being moved from its previous resting place. Bai Qian had yet to wake ever since her fever settled, yet keeping the two close by one another seemed to be helping on some level.

Whatever the outcome, she was banking all of her cards on Bai Qian waking up before Yin'er turned 10,000 and regained all of her memories. She's still too young to leave on her own for very long, and with Bai Qian being left unconscious, it wouldn't be safe to leave her, either. She couldn't rely on Lao Lao's old bodyguard, as she was too busy looking after her people (who had been temporarily moved into the city that Hua Ye once ruled over).

It's then that she sits down, calling up another tendril of black miasma in order to probe her dreams. She needs to wake her up -- if she's in a nightmare, she'll give her a dream. If she's in a dream, she'll have to give her a nightmare no matter how much it pains her to do so.

And she's dreaming, of Hua Ye and the peaceful days before her dragon needed to enter the lotus. She doesn't dare enter her dreams for long over the risk of spending too much time in them and not being able to look over Yin'er since time passes differently in the dreamscape, so she pulls herself out. Casting the spell the Golden Lion once taught her to use against Li Jing when they were fighting as children felt wrong, but she was running out of options and could stop it at any given time if it didn't work.

When it's done, she shuts her eyes and stays seated on Bai Qian's bed, gently holding her hand to keep her company for the time being. She doesn't expect it to work so efficiently for a last-ditch effort. Every gentle method she'd tried had been useless. This was darker, but if it worked, she would at least have her back. Even though she was waiting for her, she didn't expect her eyes to open so quickly as she all but jumps into a sitting position with a sharp gasp, startled.

She's still holding onto her hand.

Bai Qian looks towards the window for a moment, unfocused and struggling to remember her surroundings.

"Jiejie?"

Bai Qian looks over to her, letting out a second gasp as she reaches up. Her hand falters halfway. She's staring at the scar where her horns once proudly rested.