"Uuugghhh," Wu Ling groaned, followed by a sharp gasp of indrawn breath when his attempt to move put pressure on the wound across his chest. Opening his eyes, he blinked away the sleep and tried to determine where he'd been taken after he collapsed. The cloth ceiling overhead said tent so he wasn't in a wagon and he probably hadn't been brought back to the waystation or Silver Sword City. Taking in the collection of chests and the rich medicinal smell of the tent, he'd have wagered heavily that this was Alchemist Huang's tent if he'd had anything to bet with.
"Good morning Young Master Wu," Huang Yeyan said, floating into his field of view and sitting down next to him with a concerned look on her face. Oddly, Hou seemed to have taken up residence on the alchemist's shoulder, peering at Wu Ling with anxious eyes while the older woman examined him. "The elixirs I used on you last night have done good work but it'll be at least a quarter moon before you're on your feet again," she explained, pulling back the blanket Su Xiang had draped over him last night to take a closer look at his healing injuries. "This won't leave a scar," she added, gently resting her dexterous fingers on his chest beside the wound. "I've bound it with Ethereal Magnolia Dew, the healing will be a little slower than other methods but the benefit is that you'll heal as pure and pristine as you were before you were injured," she reassured him, staring into his pale silvery eyes as though afraid he'd be disappointed in her efforts.
"I've caused Alchemist Huang to incur considerable expense," he said with a light laugh. "I imagine I'll be indentured for years to pay back your good graces." As much as he joked, what Wu Ling actually wanted to know was if she intended to reveal his secret to others, or perhaps she already had. Would he be their captive for deceiving them? Perhaps worse? Wu Ling had no idea what would happen now that he'd been exposed. If one thing gave him hope that circumstances weren't dire it was that Hou seemed to have cozied up to the alchemist while he slept. Even now that Wu Ling was awake, the bird showed no intention of giving up his comfortable perch!
"This little bit of medicine is of no concern," the older woman said, waving off the thousands of spirit crystals worth of medicine she'd already poured into his treatment. If Wu Ling saw the tally, he likely wouldn't sleep well for weeks. For Huang Yeyan however, it really wasn't a great burden. She'd been an alchemist for just over a century and in that time she'd concocted tens of thousands of the elixirs she'd used to treat Wu Ling.
While they weren't free to produce, the cost to her in ingredients ranged between half and one-hundredth of the cost that the elixir could sell for on the open market. Alchemists like her might burn money on research but they also easily made small fortunes as long as they were of decent enough skill to sell their work. When she looked at the broken celestial beauty lying in her bed, however, she felt that even if the medicines had been rare and expensive, she'd have used them all the same. Her heart wouldn't rest otherwise.
"Is Su Xiang alright?" Wu Ling asked, realizing that she was absent and she'd surely have wanted to be here when he woke. Looking around the room, he could see both a narrow bed set up on the floor next to the one he currently lay in and another blanket and set of cushions draped over a comfortable chair. It felt like he hadn't been the only guest in Huang Yeyan's tent last night.
"She stayed with you all night," Alchemist Huang reassured him gently. "Her wounds weren't nearly as severe as yours. She left a short while ago to help Researcher Ji Wufei retrieve the bodies of the mutated Red Mist Wolves that she slew last night. Those and the Blazing Yang Sun Bear you killed are both considerable treasures for her and many of the other researchers back at the Academy," she explained. Replacing the blanket, she moved around to the end of the bed and looked at his tightly bound foot.
"I'm going to take a look at your foot now. Last night, it was badly broken and it's dislocated at the ankle. If the swelling has cleared enough, I can reset the ankle and then we can start to worry about the broken bones."
"Okay," Wu Ling said passively, watching the alchemist work as she tended to him. Wu Ling was no stranger to alchemists, he'd brought several to see his mother over the years. Most of them wore the same mask when they examined patients - cold, a little detached, professionally gentle but there was a polish to the kindness that made it somehow feel less genuine. Huang Yeyang was different though.
To Wu Ling, her emotions lacked the professional distance he'd seen from the many healers who examined his mother's crippled body. If he were to paint her, he'd use a pensive yellow to express the anxiety he felt from her and perhaps a soft purple cloud of guilt mixed with fear. What was she afraid of? And why would she feel guilty at all? "Are my injuries really that bad?" Wu Ling asked, trying to distract himself from the growing pain he felt in his foot as the healer unwrapped it.
"If the claw strike had been six centimeters lower, you'd have died," she said softly. "If I hadn't gotten to your foot in time, you might never walk again without the use of expensive pills." Suddenly her emotions shifted, a reddish purple creeping in as she continued to speak. "It didn't just try to kill you, it tried to destroy you in the process," she said with growing heat in her voice. "The way you killed it was a kindness it didn't deserve," she all but spat at the end, bright red anger at the bear all but washing away the other colors in the mix of emotions he felt from her.
"I think it's fine," Wu Ling said softly. "Like 'The Duel of Jiang and Tian' only we had a winner. Two foes matched in power are sure to savage each other," he said, coming a bit closer to understanding the two legendary warriors. "I was just lucky to fight it in spring. In the summer, I'm sure I'd have been doomed."
"Don't say things like that," she snapped, then covered her mouth when she realized she'd lost herself in the moment. "Since you snatched your life from its claws, you need to live a long life to show it how much more deserving of life you are," she explained awkwardly. Somehow, the longer she spent in Wu Ling's company, the harder she found it to maintain the proper level of detachment expected of the lead Instructor on the expedition and the more she wanted to be… to be what?
"If Alchemist Huang insists then I won't," Wu Ling said with a strained smile. Now that his battered foot had been exposed to open air, it hurt mightily, seeming to pulse in pain in time with the beating of his heart.
"Do you want something to bite down on while I reposition your ankle? With so many broken bones in your foot, it's going to hurt no matter how I do it," she said gently. Seeing his nod, she passed him a leather-wrapped rod from her kit and then returned to his foot. With a deft motion, ignoring the painful-sounding CRUNCH that came from his foot as it moved, she smoothly repositioned his dislocated foot. Sharp pain flooded Wu Ling's mind bringing a haze of red and black at the edges of his vision that threatened to pull him under before he regained his breath and found that despite the intense moment, his foot hurt considerably less than before.
"Ow," Wu Ling said lamely, taking the rod from his mouth and trying to find a way to breathe through the pain that didn't trigger a burst of fiery agony from his injured ribs. "But better," he managed to say, diminishing the concern he saw in the attentive alchemist's amber eyes.
"You just lie there," she commanded gently. "Now that we've done the worst part, let me fetch something for you to eat. Your body needs fuel for all the rebuilding it has to do. Oh, and how about you, little one?" Huang Yeyan said, looking at the golden bird resting on her shoulder. "Do you need another snack?"
"Caw!" Hou instantly perked up, fluttering his wings excitedly and extending his wide-open beak.
"Just a little," the alchemist said, holding up a finger tipped with a bright white flickering flame.
Wu Ling watched in shock as his Guardian Beast eagerly gulped down the wisp of white flame. Hou's entire being seemed to get just a little bit brighter and a little bit hotter for a moment before he settled back down and snuggled into the alchemist's soft hair, radiating content satisfaction.
"What was that?" Wu Ling asked, trying to understand what he'd just seen.
"Oh, sorry, I hope you don't mind, I've been spoiling him a bit. You know he hovered over you the whole time I was taking care of you? He insisted on standing guard, but after a while, he started to get dim, like he was fading away. Your sister mentioned that he draws energy from you unless he feeds on things like spirit crystals," she explained.
"At first, I just gave him a spirit crystal to snack on, but while I was refining medicine, he was really interested in my Alchemy Flames, so I gave him a little as a snack. It perks him up more than the spirit crystals do but he can't digest very much at once so I've been giving him little snacks every few hours. Now, just relax and let me take care of everything. I'll have you as well fed as Hou before you know it," she said, ducking out of the tent before Wu Ling had a chance to protest.
Wu Ling scratched his head as he watched the lithe figure of the alchemist dart out of the tent. Surely it was a chore to care for someone in his state and he was taking her away from the research she meant to be conducting on this expedition. Given that, just what was it about getting food for him that filled her with such bright pink… anticipation?