Chapter Text
Shin Siyun finds them over one day after the cultivators left.
She is collecting wood for her stove and ends up walking further than she usually would because she avoids a patrolling cultivator in purple robes. Technically she has nothing against them but usually when they turn up, it means trouble. So when they came with a veritable army three days ago, she hid in her house as the mulitcoloured mass of robes passed by. As a normal person in a region heavy with resentful energy, she does her best to keep away from cultivators, so she is not up on their news. From what she could garner, they all went up the mountain to slay a mass-murdering villain.
At least that’s what the kind-looking man in white robes told them when he and his companions returned a day after ascending the mountain. He had stood in front of the shocked village with a tall, scowling man in dark green and a slimy-looking cultivator in yellow robes who was smiling a bit too smugly for having just finished a long battle. The white-clothed man had given them a patient explanation but his whole face and eyes seemed like he desperately had somewhere else far away where he needed to be. Shin Siyun also saw him later, leading away a young man in purple robes who looked like he had been through hell, blue eyes staring vacantly into the air.
Still, the cultivators’ explanations behind the attack made little sense to the villagers because they had never felt any threat coming from the mountain. Sure, the place is ominous and they were aware that someone had taken residence up there, but they were never any danger to the village people. The occasional person who came down was polite and bought nothing but everyday supplies. Since the land here is not an easy one to live in, everyone feels a slight kinship with other people in the area, even if they have never met them, certainly more than to any cultivators who live in their mansions away from the normal people. That ended with most villagers scowling at the cultivators as they left the village, dislike deepening.
Due to that she takes a detour to go collect from a different spot they had been leaving to the people living up the mountain. That’s where she finds them.
At first, she thought she misheard when something that sounded like a small child’s whimper reached her ears. But it comes again which causes her to freeze. She takes a slow step forward, still unsure whether there is actually someone in peril or it’s just the wind. But another whimper has her dropping the wood she was carrying and instead rushing into the direction from where the noise came. It only sounds one more time, so she has to search the area. It’s mostly empty except the blackened trees and stumps standing around.
It takes her some minutes to find the source of the whimpering. In that time, she nearly panics in fear of not finding it and condemning a suffering child or animal to death. But in the end, she nearly literally trips over it as she catches her toe on the root of a tree stump. When she looks down, she gasps at the sight.
Next to the root is a tiny hand, dirty and scraped. It’s attached to a thin wrist. Worryingly thin, like the child didn’t get enough food for some time. Hastily she squats down to look inside the tree stump. A hand flies to cover her mouth. Inside the small cave in the wood are two children, huddled together. From the way they curl around each other, it’s difficult to tell much, but they seem to be around two to four years old. They are too thin, and their black and grey clothes are worn and dirty. Both have black hair, one tied in a small ponytail, the other tousled around his head. From what she can tell they are two boys and except the thinness they seem to have been well cared for before hiding inside the tree.
But why are they hiding in there to begin with? Not to mention where are they from, since she knows all of the children from the village. A cold shiver runs down her spine when she realises that these children probably belong to the group of people living on the mountain. She saw a young man with a child once. Her eyes tear up when it becomes clear that these two are now orphans. When the cultivators attacked, that young man or someone else must have attempted to save at least the children and hid them here. Due to the fact that no one tried to find them by now, she guesses there is no one left to save the children. That drives tears to her eyes.
Carefully she reaches out a hand to the slightly bigger boy’s dirty shoulder and shakes him, “Hey, there, little one. Wake up.”
The kid only moans, curling closer to his companion and Shin Siyun notices how cold the pale skin is. Sneaking a hand to his forehead, she startles to find him burning up.
“You’ve got a fever,” she breathes, checking the other boy with the chaotic hair too, “Both of you.”
She hesitates for a moment to simply take some stranger’s children away, but they need to be taken care of and it doesn’t seem like their parents can do it anymore. So she carefully extracts one child after the other from the tree stump. They cling to each other which makes it difficult, but eventually she manages. Since she can’t carry both of them in her arms, the taller one is carefully set into the basket on her back that she was using for wood. Scooping up the second boy, she hurries down the mountain back to the village.
Once she arrives at her home, she rushes into her living area. Carefully lowering the two children to the floor, she leaves the room again to collect blankets and two pillows. When she returns, the two have curled around each other again. Forgoing pillows for now, she spreads out one of the blankets, carefully moves the thin bodies on it before draping the rest of the blankets over them to keep them warm.
“Stay there,” she strokes their heads, “I’ll be back soon.”
As fast as she can, she runs to her sister’s home. Shin Saijin is the village healer and married a trader five years ago. The man moved to the village because her sister refused to leave to everyone’s surprise. Their first child is three now, similar to the two Shin Siyun found just now. She knocks on her sister’s door urgently.
“Jiejie,” she calls as she hears steps approach the door, “I need your help.”
“Siyun,” Shin Saijin says with wide eyes as she opens the door, her small son on her hip. Her bun is a bit lopsided as she takes in her sister’s nervous expression, “What is wrong?” her eyes run over the younger’s body in search of an injury.
“I went searching for wood today and you won’t believe what I found up the mountain,” she pants, “There were two children huddled in a tree stump!”
“Children?” her sister gapes, “Where would children come from?”
“From the people up the mountain. They probably hid the children to protect them when the cultivators attacked their homes. The two must have been there since then. They are starved and have a fever. I need your help as a healer,” she shifts from one foot to the other, wanting to get back to the two little ones.
“Of course,” her sister agrees, “Hold A-Jian for a moment,” she hands her nephew over to rush back inside to grab her bag for healing.
The little boy stares at her, sticking one hand in his mouth. She shifts him in her arms while she waits for her sister to return. It doesn’t take long for the older woman to join her again. Still holding her nephew, she hurries back to her house. She sets A-Jian on a blanket in another room before leading her sister to the two children. Shin Saijin gasps as she sees their state. Immediately she kneels down next to them.
“Where did you find them?” she asks, as she detangles the taller’s fingers from the other’s dirty clothes.
“A tree stump halfway up the mountain, less than one li from the fighting. They were huddled together in there, barely enough space for both of them.”
“They are certainly too thin,” she takes the child’s pulse, bones too obvious at the small wrist.
“I am not sure how much food they could get up on that cursed mountain and they couldn’t have had anything in the past two days,” she kneels next to her sister, taking the other child in her arms when he starts to whimper.
Shin Saijin nods before pulling the dirty robes from the child’s chest. She checks him over before wrapping him in a blanket and exchanging him for the boy in Shin Siyun’s arms. She does the same to him. Then she lays them both down, close to one another and motions her younger sister to follow her back to the sitting room where A-Jian is playing on a blanket. She sits herself at the kitchen table, grabbing her medical supplies to start mixing herbs.
“They both have a fever but if they spent more than two days up on that mountain in a tree stump it’s not surprising. They are also malnourished but not as bad as I initially feared,” she grinds herbs down forcefully, “Except that, they are more or less well taken care of. If I am correct both of them are the children of cultivators and the smaller one has a parental scent marking. I’m not sure about the other one. His fever is worse, so his scent is too messed up.”
“Parental scent marking? An omega?” Shin Siyun asks, she as a beta wouldn’t notice that.
“Yes, but it’s too faded to properly recognise it unless you knew his parent well. But he lacks an alpha’s scent, just his birth parent.”
“They are probably dead,” she startles her older sister, “I don’t think anyone survived the cultivators’ attack, so his birth parent is most likely dead.”
“Unfortunately yes,” her eyes are sad as they land on her own child in the corner, “Orphans at only three years old. Such a sad fate.”
“Are they brothers?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she finishes her herb-mixture, pouring a bit of water into the bowl to make them easier to swallow.
Standing up, she walks to the next room, her younger sister never leaving her side. She lifts one boy after the other and leans them against her shoulder to make them slowly drink the medicine. When both are done, she lays them down and they immediately curl around each other again. The sisters settle in the kitchen again.
“They need to take medicine for the next few days until their fever goes away again. Once that is done, they need some food. But except that they are okay,” she explains.
“That’s good,” Shin Siyun smiles, glad that the children are not as bad as they first looked.
“A-Yun,” her sister takes her hands in her own, “What are you planning to do with them?”
“I’m not sure,” she shakes her head, “I can’t just take them back up the mountain or throw them out on the street. But they are orphans, so I thought of… keeping them…”
“And if they still have parents alive?” she asks carefully.
Shin Siyun’s eyes lower, “If someone comes to claim them, I will have to give them up of course. I would never try to steal a child from their parents, but until then I will take care of them if they are alright with that. I can’t go out to look for a random alpha, so what else is there to do?”
“You could take them to the cultivators. The children are certainly descendant from one of the clans.”
“And which one? I can’t travel from one clan to the next to ask whether any of their alphas fathered that child,” she frowns, “Not to mention their birth parent felt the need to hide them when the cultivators went up the mountain, so I might be risking their lives if I took them to a cultivation clan.”
“That’s a point,” her sister sighs, “Alright, you know how to take care of two feverish children? I will leave you medicine to give them this evening.”
“Yes, thank you for your help,” Shin Siyun stands up to escort the older out as she scoops up her son, “Maybe once they are healthy again, A-Jian can over to play with them.”
Shin Saijin laughs, “Maybe, since you don’t seem to be planning on actually finding a partner and having your own children, so these two will be the closest things to cousins A-Jian will ever have.”
Siyun playfully shoves her sister as the two say their goodbyes. Closing the door, her next action is to warm up some water and dig out some of A-Jian’s robes that have made their way to her house. Once the water is heated, she enters her living room again, kneeling next to the two orphans. She strokes their heads before once again grabbing the larger boy and detangling them. She is extremely careful as she pulls the dirty robe from his body. Using a sponge, she cleans the small boy. His ribs are visible but not as pronounced as she feared. She detangles and washes his raven black hair. It’s perfectly straight and his face shows hints of a beautiful structure. She wraps him in one of A-Jian’s robes, which are a bit short, but slightly too wide at the same time. She does her best to dry his hair, then she lays the clean child on the blankets. Before his companion can curl back, she lifts him up too and cleans him. He is a bit smaller than the other, most likely a few months younger, but also slightly better fed. He has pale skin and inky black hair, but his is more curly, standing up at several points different from the other’s straight strands. She grabs a ribbon, to tie the unruly hair up before putting him down next to what she guesses is his brother.
She pulls a blanket over them, watching as they turn towards each other again. Now that they are clean, she gives the two toddlers a kiss on the head, feeling saddened at the loss of their parents. Grabbing some of her sewing work, she settles in the corner, keeping watch over the children. From time to time, she gets up to check on them, but they are sleeping peacefully. She makes sure they drink something, their medicine included, and their temperature very slowly drops.