One Tail at a Time

Fate

I was born an Immortal.  I did not have to live lifetimes to attain Immortality nor accumluate cultivation.  In this lifetime, I came complete with an untarnished soul and no memories to guide me through the many layers of triumphs and failures.  

Yet without a trial, how can one ascend to High Goddess much less gain the Ninth Tail?  

That is the question in my mind as I lie here in the tall grass on the outskirts of Kunlun Mountain.  It is the exact same spot I landed with Fu Yu all those years ago and I cannot help but wonder why.  Of all the places in the world that I could return to, why this place?

In the distance, I can also hear  the lonely tolling of the Bell of Kunlun, it was what I heard just seconds before I was thrown into my trial with the very man who has returned to us.  And though I should be on my feet and running to welcome him home, I remain here in the long grass unable to move and in tears.

Every part of my trial is replaying itself through my mind and once again I ask why I am here of all places.  This is where it all began for me.  One tail at a time is what brought me to him, yet not only was I forced into my High Goddess Acension Trial with him, but I returned to this exact same spot and I cannot help but wonder if he knows I am here.

I can certainly feel him and that is what scares me, because right now, this is the last place I want to be and he is the last person I want to see.  And so I continue to lie here crying and desperate for answers.

Before my trial and not long before his return I had allowed the Discipleship to end and largely because of Shanhu.  Had he not explained that all Discipleships end at death, I would have kept Shifu in my mind as a Shifu despite the feelings I had for him before he died.  And it is here that I am completely honest with myself.

I would be lying if I said I had not seen Shifu as something more than a mentor.  I had strong feelings for him but also a lot of doubts which mainly revolved around the fact that he was my Shifu which I saw as a sacred postiion.  And of course it is, but that doesn't mean I didn't have feelings for him that went beyond the oath, because I definitely did.  Only, it is now that I understand them.  I was in love with him.    After all, one does not feel immense heartbreak at losing ones Shifu the way that I did.  I had felt as if my very life had ended and there was even times when I had wanted to join him.  But back then, I really didn't understand these feelings but like I said, I do now.

And that only has me wondering why out of all the people ever created, was he thrown into my trial with me. Many many reasons come to mind and one of those reasons is my feelings for him before he died.  I am wondering now if my trial was to highlight those feelings and amplify them while also forcing me to accept those feelings.

You see, I was so young when he died. I had no real experience with men other than a short fling with Liwei and though I thought I was in love with him, I really wasn't, otherwise our break up would have hurt far more than it did.  So real love, the kind that moves a soul to bleed when it dies, was not something I knew.  

Only having endlessly gone over my trial, I know it now.  My heart is broken beyond anything I have ever felt, it hurts so much to breathe that I can barely see through the tears, but I am forcing myself to think and to think clearly before I make a move to rise, because once I have made a decision on what I plan to do now,  I cannot move.

And so my mind once again begins to dwell on everything my trial put me through from the very first moment I saw him on the battlefield wounded and close to death and for a while I linger on that moment alongside the moment that Shifu died.  Both events were a reflection of each other in that both events happened in battle and both events affected me but in opposing ways.  The death of my Shifu was unavoidable, I couldn't prevent it and as a result, he died in my arms, where as in my trial, I saved him and in my arms he knew life.