Sword and Snow

Emery

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from my sisters' injuries. Between the explanation of how they had received them, our father's decision to send them to Avuri and I, and the severity of the injuries themselves, I was being pulled in four different directions.

Still, watching Avuri do her best to examine and draw up a treatment plan did relieve me somewhat. I could feel that she was genuinely trying her best to help - not to mention the sincerity in her concern and desire to assist. Knowing that she would do her utmost to help put more at ease than any other spiritual doctor would have, regardless of skill level.

While Avuri, Rylie, and I helped unbandage Demi's arm to start, spent most of the time silently bouncing back and forth between them and the kids. For as much concern as I had for my sister, I trusted her to be honest if she felt like she was in real danger. Our childhoods may have put us all through hell and left us scarred, unable to process physical pain and hurt normally, but we still understood physical danger, and Demi continued to joke as if she was fine the entire time.

But on the other hand, her arm looked awful. The open, necrotized wound and the ichorous discharge was abhorrent on its own, but her entire arm was pretty severely damaged by the poison. The sight of it may not have bothered me any, but I could feel Avuri's aversion to it. And I didn't need someone to tell me that the children should be kept away from it.

That thought alone made me a jittery, nervous mess all morning. I silently bounced between watching my wife do her work and checking on the sliding door panels to make sure the kids were occupied with their exercises. I didn't care how much I told them to stay away from the doors, and I suspected they wouldn't care either. And I couldn't get the image of one of them sliding the door open to ask for a glass of water or something, only to be greeted with the gruesome, grizzly sight before me.

That slight twinge of dread only got worse once we had Demi re-bandaged up and Rylie took her turn. I had seen enough dead and dying bodies in my time to recognize pretty quickly that Rylie, despite her good cheer, was lucky to be alive. They had said that her right flank had gotten 'messed up', but that did not do it justice.

The wound itself looked very similar to Demi's. It thankfully wasn't that deep, appearing more like she had just been just a bit too slow to dodge the attack. But even 'not that deep' in the grand scheme of things was not good for what almost amounted to a belly wound.

The gash that opened up Rylie's side was positioned just below her ribs. Like Demi's, the poison had rotted and necrotized the flesh around the open wound, stopping it from healing or scabbing closed. Unlike Demi, however, because of the location the open gash seemed to be regularly oozing the same thick, ichorous blood and gunk that Demi's had when it was bothered.

All of that would have been bad enough, but the veins that traced the poison in her system had gotten concerningly close to where important organs resided in a human body. It was very likely, had Rylie not been a Sky Realm Cultivator with her Qi-reinforced body, that she would already be dead. I could see the realization come over Avuri too, as soon as Rylie's bandages fell away.

"So, how's it look, doc?"

I rolled my eyes automatically at Rylie's joke and quickly shuffled over to the door to make sure the children were still occupied. With Rylie's appearance what it was, I felt the need to actually stand guard at the door while Avuri worked on her.

To Avuri's credit, she wasted no time getting to work. Worrying about the poison continuing to spread up Demi's arm and into her shoulder was a concern, but not an immediately dangerous one. In direct contrast, the poison spreading further across Rylie's torso was imminently dangerous.

I only half listened as Avuri quickly explained to Rylie how to set up internal dams and moats to try to keep the poison from reaching her important bits, helping her through the process all while teasing out some of the poison like she did for Demi. With Rylie, the process seemed to go much faster. I suspected that Avuri had spent a lot of time with Demi trying to identify and take mental notes on the poison, but skipped that with Rylie after just confirming it was the same.

All in all, Rylie only spent fifteen minutes or so under Avuri's scrutiny before she was once again covered in her bandages. Once she was, I sighed a breath of relief and stepped away from the doors, no longer worried about a sudden intrusion.

"So?" I asked as I stepped up to the others.

"Honestly, I think as long as we move forward carefully, things will be fine." Avuri said. Despite seemingly being in good spirits the entire time, the declaration seemed to still lift a weight off my sisters' shoulders. "We'll have to reassess things if those bandages of yours stop working, but as it is I think we have a fairly standard plan ahead of us. Each day, I'll spend an hour or two working on one of you, swapping each day. I don't know how long it might take to fully remove the poison, but I would guess a month. Perhaps two."

"That's…it?" Demi asked.

Avuri couldn't help herself and snorted out a laugh. "That's it? Demi, this entire situation is insane. I need you to understand that. If you two didn't have some magical artifacts stopping the poison's progression this would all be far, far beyond me. I would run out of Qi capable of treating you in an hour or two and you'd likely be dead before I recovered enough to try for more." She pointed to the sealed bandages. "I realize that artifacts and powerful, ancient items and Arrays exist, but those? Those may as well be literal magic."

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We all stared at the bandages, made of a dark gray cloth wrapping with the Array-like seals woven into the cloth itself.

"Dad, I assume?" I asked.

"Who else?" Rylie said sardonically. "I recognized that they were special, but…"

Avuri sighed. "We can thank Vale for it later, then. I have no idea how they work, and the idea that they do at all is beyond me. I could think of a couple ways to create a functional Array that could accomplish something similar, but they would all cease your blood and Qi flow along with the poison. Whoever made those is, for all intents and purposes, a miracle worker."

Demi held up her arm so we could all inspect the Array inscription on the seals. I would never have claimed to be great at Arrays, but I could usually at least understand the pieces that one was made out of. Whatever these were, though, was well beyond me.

The intrigued silence that fell over the four of us was neatly interrupted by the sound of a sliding door.

"Mom? Is it okay if we go get some water?"

I had to hold back a chuckle at my apparent clairvoyance. At least Briar had waited until we were finished.

"Of course. We were just headed out to you all, anyway."

The little girl grinned wide and spun from the doorway, happily shouting that they could go get a drink.

"We should join them." Demi said.

"Seconded." Rylie added. "Let's go relax for a bit."

I wasn't about to argue with that, and stepped aside to motion them by while the kids filtered out of the other room to run toward the main house. Avuri followed a few steps behind my sisters and grabbed my hand as she passed, giving it a tight squeeze. "They're going to be alright. I promise." She whispered, leaning in close.

"Don't make promises you don't know you can keep." I whispered back, but returned the squeeze. Despite my words, I felt a deep seated gratitude and trust that she would keep her word, which I'm sure she could feel through our bond. She threw an arm around my shoulders for a quick hug, too, before following after the rest. I followed as well, smiling when Avuri shouted at the kids for running after Karn stumbled over nothing.

Demi and Rylie had rushed forward a bit, despite their injuries, to catch up to the kids. They seemed happy and bubbly as they asked what kind of drinks they wanted, and whether they should have something hot or cold. When the kids said cold, to cool down after exercising, Rylie teased them by saying that after exercising was the perfect time for hot tea, starting a slew of back and forth complaints.

Avuri had held back her pace enough so that we could walk together, and I felt her jumble of complicated emotions coming up as she watched my sisters mess with their nieces and nephews. I stepped up beside her and took her hand, mirroring her action for moments before.

"What's on your mind?"

She stared after the others with a slightly distant expression on her face. "How is it that we have one side of the family that's so unexpectedly great with kids, while the other's…well. Mine."

I let go of her hand to instead put my arm around her shoulders and pull her in close. "We can't choose the family we're born into. Only the one we end up in."

"What's with the sudden poetry?"

I shrugged. "Dunno, it just sorta slipped out. But, more than that, may I also remind you that my side of the family isn't exactly the one I was born into, either."

"That's a fair point." Avuri said, as we watched my sisters and the kids play-fight their way into the house. I felt Avuri's eyes slide to me and a curiosity bubble up within her. "Do you…do you ever wonder what happened to your actual parents?"

"Honestly, not really. I've always figured there are only a couple ways that a kid ends up in the position I was in, and they pretty much amount to either my parents being awful or dead. I don't think there's much there to explore." I looked up at what I could see of the sky between the trees wistfully, just to punctuate my following point.

"Besides, I've always considered Vale to be my true-blue father. I was young enough when he took us all in that while I do remember the…stuff from before, the only family I've really ever known is the one I have now. And I've never had much desire to change that."

"Wish I could say the same."

I leaned my head against Avuri's shoulder in an attempt to offer her some comfort. "I know it doesn't erase the past, or really help with the way your family acts now in any meaningful way, but they aren't your only family any more. Sure, a lot of them were awful, but you're free of them now. And at least we know a few of your cousins are pretty alright."

"It does help a little, knowing that the entire bunch isn't rotten."

"Ri, the entire bunch was never rotten. You were part of that bunch, and you turned out amazing." I squeezed her shoulders tightly.

"I suppose."

I wasn't sure what had caused her to be suddenly so morose, but I was not going to let it stand. "Honestly?" I started, then made a quick show about looking around for the kids, knowing full well that they were all inside the house. "Fuck 'em."

Avuri quirked an eyebrow at my straight shot, and I laughed. "I won't say the two of us are always polite when we discuss your terrible family, but I think we tend to mince words a little too much, sometimes. You should say it out straight, Avuri. Sometimes, at least. It feels good."

"And say what, exactly? My family is terrible?"

"See, we tend to say stuff like that. It's honest, sure, but saying something like they're 'terrible' or 'awful' doesn't quite let out the emotion of it." I grinned when I thought I saw her start to understand my point. "Say they suck. Or fuck them. Screw off. Curse and yell and scream if you want. It's so much more cathartic."

I felt, and then watched, as Avuri hesitated, so I went on. "And you?" I said, using a little bit of derision in my tone, hoping to nudge her forward. "You're far too nice to them. They don't deserve it. And they don't deserve you."

When Avuri rolled her eyes at the corniness of the last bit, I thought I might have pulled back too far in the other direction. But then Avuri glanced at the house, which was still a short walk away, then turned away from it and tugged on her Qi. A sharp gust of wind kicked up, blowing away from the house and in the direction Avuri faced as she took in a deep breath.

She managed to kick up such a fierce wind that I couldn't tell exactly what she screamed, but she did not hold back on volume, the presence of the scream felt even though the words got jumbled. And then the wind died down and she took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Her shoulders, which had been a little tense before, settled lower and more relaxed before she turned to smile at me.

"You're right. I do feel a little better."

"Solid trick, huh? To just scream it out."

"Yeah. It's very 'Emery-like' advice." Avuri said, then pulled me in for a kiss before we went to join the rest of the family.