Journey to the East 19(May)

Steam curled from the brush in her hand, flames licking at the bristles as she ran it through the dark red mane. She was silent as she observed the camp outside of the stables. The rush of men moving back and forth, the chatter and constant noise washing over her ever here.

“Refeng”

Gu Xiulan raised an eyebrow as the stallion tossed his head, shaking out the smoldering mane she had been brushing. “Oh, so simple as that, no ceremony at all?”

The stallion, Refeng, looked at her without saying a word.

“So you pride yourself on stoic silence then,” Gu Xiulan said, tilting her head.

“Is the fire blossom well?”

Gu Xiulan sighed, setting the longer brush aside for the shorter body brush. Beginning the process of clearing sand, ash, and clinging deathly qi from his coat. She had to admit there was a certain meditative quality to this. Father had been clear that a cavalrymen must care for their own warhorse. Lesser beasts could be left to servants, but the horse one rode into battle was different.

“She is exhausted, but a wildfire always springs back, if even a spark remains,” Gu Xiulan answered. “What changed?”

For the first leg of this journey, her horse had refused to engage with her as more than a beast. He followed her guidance in the saddle, but did not speak.

“Your fire is worthy of carrying. You rage, as your sire does.”

“And you will scythe across sand and stone like your namesake then, like your own sire?” Gu Xiulan asked, amused. The sound of the brush sliding along his coat was soothing, and the shimmering heat of the stall was quite comfortable compared to the nights chill outside.

It was amusing. She had been denied her ‘horse-y’ as a little girl, but here and now, Father had given her a warhorse of his own steeds line. How things changed.

“Yes,” Refeng agreed, stamping a foot in the straw, kicking up a a sharp gust and a shower of sparks.

“Why call me a madwoman then?”

He looked at her, flicked his tail. “Reckless.”

“Is that not what you sought in a rider?”

“I did not understand.”

Gu Xiulan hummed to herself. While Refeng was no foal, she supposed that the horse was not experienced either. Most likely he was similar to herself in maturity. “Was that your first real clash?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. She shook out the brush, and burned away the deathly qi clinging to the bristles.

“...Yes.”

“It was my second,” Gu Xiulan said, thinking back to the incursion on the Sect. The Wall of wood and thorns, that ghoulish assassin. Her friend choosing to stand and take a mortal blow just to give her a solid shot. Her sisters blazing wings, sheltering them as the whole world rattled and threatened to shake apart.

No, she did not think she was reckless at all.

Refeng did not speak again, and neither did she, as she completed his grooming. She brushed her fingers through his mane when she was done and gave a simple nod as she left him to his feed, and returned to the outside of the camp.

The cold desert wind blew, but even out here the fires burned. Under the dome of the starry sky and the pale half moon, the activity in the camp never really stopped. Gu Xiulan observed, eyes wandering to the medical tents, to the mess and the barracks. Her own soldiers would be scattered there, getting ready for the call in the morning. Their casualties were light. No deaths, only some injuries.

The scent of the pyres had left her stomach unsettled all day, but she had begun to move past it. Excellence was, as always, the answer. To do better, to be better, was the solution to one’s ills. She had learned in watching her Father that it was not enough to merely be excellent oneself though. The truly great and talented brought forth the strengths of their subordinates. Perfection might be beyond her, even father, but that was a miserable excuse to cease your striving.

She caught a loud, braying guffaw of a laugh, and her eyebrow twitched. She glanced to her right, toward one of the bonfires, and saw Zheng Nan there, laughing with a gaggle of soldiers. He took a deep drink from a leather skin in his hand nearly deflating the thing before letting out another laugh and passing a flask to the solider who had given it to him.

By the Gods and ancestors did he have to walk about bare to the waist? It was so irritating that he was able to ignore all etiquette like that. Should she retire then? She was not sure she should cultivate with how strained her meridians were, with the lightning crackling in her veins still.

It had been some weeks since she had actually slept. Perhaps a few hours of indulgence would do her health well. She turned toward the officers tents and began to walk.

“Thinkin deep thoughts?”

It was barely two minutes later when that casual voice assaulted her ears. And the sound of footfalls not present a moment before appeared. She refused to so much as twitch in surprise as she tilted her head, looking up and up to give Zheng Nan an unimpressed look.

“Deeper thoughts that you certainly.”

“Probably!” he laughed. “Heard you did real well out there! Congrats.”

She sniffed. “Naturally I was not going to let my Father down.”

“Didn’t think you would. You got the right eyes for it. Prettiest and deadliest jewels in the dunes!”

Spare me,” Gu Xiulan replied dryly. “Are you truly so lax, even now?”

“Lax?” Zheng Nan asked gormlessly. “Dunno what you mean.”

“Its one thing for the soldiers to drink and cavort to stave off thoughts of mortality, but we should be better,” Gu Xiulan said. “Do you not understand how serious this is, or is it merely beneath the notice of the mighty Zheng?”

He hummed, not replying as he chewed on a strip of dried meat. “Yeah, that’s wrong. It’s cause its serious that I’m so cheery you know? I get to live out here. I’m actually doing something. Not just cracking some fools head for petty garbage that’ll spring back up the moment I turn my back.”

“Well, I am glad we are entertaining you,” Gu Xiulan replied, crossing her arms.

Zheng Nan frowned. Really frowned, there was nothing playful about it. “It ain’t like that. I fought too today you know? I just don’t agree with you. Acting all stiff and above it all. Well maybe that reassures folks, I’ve seen weirder, but that ain’t me. When I fight side by side with someone course I want to laugh and drink with ‘em afterward, what does power got to do with that?”

Gu Xiulan let out a breath, she was probably being unfair. The Zheng’s leadership style was certainly as casual as everything else about them. “I do not understand how it can bother you so little. I am glad for my glory, but…”

“Hm, oh, so that’s it,” Zheng Nan said, considering her out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah… yeah Battles and fights are different, my Master was right about that. Course I don’t agree with everything the old coots say about that, but… yeah. Just means we gotta win harder huh?”

“Just win harder,” Gu Xiulan snorted. She hated that the crude statement was not so far from her own thoughts, stripped of any pomp

“Drink?” Zheng Nana asked her, holding out his flask.

She narrowed her eyes as she took it, sniffed at it. The strong spiced scent mde her wrinkle her nose.

“Red Century Plum, still got a bit from home. Don’t take more than a mouthful though! You’ll end up spitting fire. More than usual I mean.”

She rolled her eyes and drank.

To the new day.

And winning harder.