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In the dream there is amber and the scent of decay.
There is smoke, and the ever-present droning of a thousand mayflies. Sometimes the sound becomes a groan – the groan of a great, heaving monster. Sometimes it turns into a death rattle: a guttural noise emerging from the back of her throat as she lays on the floor of a blown-out cavern.
There are bodies standing above her, not all of them human, and they are each offering her the breath of life.
The groan of the monster fades; the rattle coming from her grows louder. More taut. Greater, greater, greater still.
She is, then (with teeth and claw and a most human shriek of anger) striking out at her saviours. She leaves ice in her wake, freezing the walls and the teardrops of blood spilling from the cavernous wound in her chest.
There is a melody playing like an undercurrent to her path of destruction. It is the sound of children singing. It is the sound of a contemplative, regretful bird, the shadow of a crane looming over her like a sword.
There is amber and the scent of decay;
The last swing of her arm frozen in place.
In the dream, she is Qiqi.
She is Qiqi because she has forgotten how to count to ten. One, two… seven, seven, two. She remembers that seven is a fortunate, beautiful number – and she knows she is fortunate. She knows because she has ordered it to be so.
She falls off the back of a cart, still covered in the liquefied resin that once contained her. She is hopping through the brush, her legs stiff and knees unable to bend. Her pursuers lose her in the darkness of the new moon, none willing to push past the thicket of bamboo for a zombie.
Is that what she is? A zombie?
That’s what the serpent calls her, tongue flicking out to taste the putrid air she gives off. The doctor, on whose shoulders the serpent coils, laughs amiably.
Do you have a name, young one? he asks of her.
Her eyes are wary and wild. She remains fallen, her leg twisted and surely broken. There is no pain.
She has forgotten pain. She dreams of doctors with green braids so long they become like vines.
Vines cleaving to the faces of cliffs she climbs, her hands reaching for Violetgrass.
I forgot.
In the dream she is falling.
Falling. Falling.
Hitting the blanket of leaves held by floating forest spirits,
Rocketing up again as they throw her aloft.
She thinks she should be laughing, but she’s not sure. She can’t pull out her notebook to check her orders.
A forest spirit came upon her in a thicket of… a grove of…
And it said to her, Do you have a name?
And she said back, I forgot.
She goes up. Comes down again. Above her head is a brilliant sunset sky. Beneath her is a bustling village unlike anything she has ever seen in Liyue.
The order pasted to her hat is fluttering and flapping like doves’ wings. She grips it in her stiff fingers, reading each carefully written character.
( Find Padisarahs for the Traveller .)
She wrote that. She’s the only one who can give herself orders.
On her next descent, she turns her head. Her body is warm and limbre from all the bouncing. She’s going to forget to thank them – but her order is the most important thing.
Where, she asks in spurts, are. The Padisarahs?
At long last, they let her down.
They’re outside!
She says, Take me there.
In the dream, she belongs to a family.
She is the daughter of a medicine man. These are the days where people still remember Marchosius as the God of the Stove. Rex Lapis and Guizhong are a united force safeguarding the Guili Plains, teaching the first Liyuean people to farm.
Her father is a doctor in one of the smallest hamlets. There are some ailments that only herbs found in the Karst can aid, but a bad fall has left his legs useless.
She tells her father, I will go. Her mother is nursing her younger brother. When he is big and strong, she will show him how to climb the harsh mountains.
She is agile. Her cheeks are always flushed red with the blood coursing through her body.
Her father makes magic with his hands. She provides the ingredients for his miracles.
And there is amber, and groaning, and the shrieking and the ice.
There are aurora-blooming flowers where there should be Padisarahs. They don’t resemble the flower sketched in her notebook.
What is this? she asks the forest spirit.
This is a Viparya!
Where are the Padisarahs?
They’re dreaming. The Padisarahs are dreaming the Viparyas.
Oh, she answers.
In the dream she is a crystallised heart.
Her heart of ice is the only part left of her human body. She clutches it between her cold fingers. All she had wished for is laid to rest in this last piece of herself.
But she is being chased by the spitting flames of the afterlife.
If she doesn’t do her callisthenics, her body will lock up. If her body locks up, then the fire of the afterlife will catch her.
If the fire of the afterlife catches her, then that wish made in her final moment will have been for nothing.
She does not recall what her wish was, nor the way in which she died. It’s her notebook that tells her to run. Run. Run.
Run! shouts the forest spirit, soaring away from the Consecrated Beast.
She stands her ground, draws her sword. The Anemo-tinged crocodile opens its maw, blasting forth an endless font of wind.
This monster is not Hu Tao– but it wants the very same thing.
The world wants to swallow her crystallised heart and chew it to pieces.
Orders given, orders received.
The winds turn icy. She leaps forth, unlocking her limbs.
She won’t run.
In the dream, she is a mangle of twisted arms and legs.
The forest spirit flies over her, bouncing up and down in shock.
You– you defeated it! it exclaims. Its mouth never moves; the painted expression on its face never changes.
Neither does Qiqi’s. One by one, she sets her limbs back into their sockets. The crocodile is fast burning down to scales and ash.
While she stands, the forest spirit tells her, You saved me. I thought I would die!
Qiqi replies, I’m dead. But it still wanted to eat me.
You’re not dead, disagrees the spirit. You’re dreaming.
Can zombies dream?
Even the flowers dream, it laughs. With the absence of danger, its vivacious playfulness returns. Everything dreams!
Then I’m dreaming, she agrees.
But her orders are absolute. The Traveller needs Padisarahs. That’s what the paper says.
She hears of Padisarahs dreaming Viparyas and it sounds wistful, half-familiar.
Leaning down to the root of the Viparya, she strokes its moonlight petals.
Here is the moon dreamt by the sun. Here is the sun raising up the moon like a newborn babe.
I shouldn’t take it, she says. This isn’t a Padisarah.
Nodding, the spirit follows her again.
In the dream, they call this place Vanarana.
Their borders do not begin and end in any concrete place. It’s like the way her neck snaps when a Treasure Hoarder punches her hard enough. She ought to be dead; she is dead; and yet, she rises anyway.
Despite the existence of a forest beneath the one in which she stands, here it is: Vanarana.
There are so many forest spirits. They all wear caps like mushrooms, their wood bodies gleaming from all the bouncing sprites and lights.
They show her the Viparya Nursery, where the sun is dreaming the moon a hundred times over.
The Traveller has been here, they say, and brought them each seed that now blooms into a perpetual flower.
Beneath that – beneath the haze of violet, deciduous sleep – must be a bountiful garden of Padisarahs. The Padisarah dreams the Viparya, after all.
Yet Qiqi has no idea how to leave this world for the one where her fingertips meet hard soil and broken earth.
When she asks, one of the forest spirits tilts its head.
Why do you want to leave? it asks. You saved our friend. Let’s celebrate!
I can’t, she says. I have orders.
In the dream she tastes blood on her tongue.
A zombie needs no sleep. When her head lolls, she sees landscapes and fragments of stories that make no sense.
A bouncing baby boy, reaching for her hands;
A father, bowing as far as his paralysed legs will allow, receiving the Goddess of Dust in his doorway;
A mother looking upon her with pride, eyes sparkling in the same way as that woman they called Guizhong’s;
A bronze mirror showing her a warped vision of herself – brown hair, dark eyes.
Now, she opens her eyes and sees their echo of blood staring back at her in the river.
A band of three singing forest spirits trail behind her.
She comes to the edge of a cliff. The spirits startle, coming to clutch her arms.
Careful! says one. It’s dangerous!
It’s okay, Qiqi says. I’m already dead.
You’re still important to someone, argues another. You shouldn’t get yourself hurt!
Oh.
She’s important to Dr Baizhu; her notebook says as much. Hu Tao must think her special, running after her as she does.
And…
The Traveller needs Padisarahs, she repeats.
In reply, the spirits help her glide off the cliff, holding her aloft.
In the dream, she stands behind a golden-haired hero.
They fight tooth and nail to keep her safe when her own blade is broken, snapped in twain by the jaws of a Primo Geovishap. Their extremities glow a gentle green, though she has seen them in other colours: teal and gold and sapphire. They harness this world’s elements as though they were toys.
With her wrists broken, she can’t fix the leg dislocated beneath her.
The golden-haired hero is pushed back, and they pant; they scream back at the Geovishap, unleashing their bloody rage.
You should run, she tells them. I’m already dead. You shouldn’t die.
This person is important; they’re more important than her. Perhaps she once had an order to protect them.
She just can’t remember their name – not even when they turn to her, eyes gleaming.
I’m not leaving you, they snap. We’re getting out of this.
And, flicking the blood from their sword, they advance on the Primo Geovishap again.
They are war incarnate. They are a greater warrior than Rex Lapis or any of Their adepti.
She knows this, but she doesn’t understand how or why.
They slay the beast with a final, visceral silence.
In the dream, the forest spirits stop at the edge of the purple glade.
Vanarana. The name is fast disappearing from her mind, lost on her tongue.
We shouldn’t go any further, one tells her. But the Golden Nara is right nearby. They can help you find Padisarahs! They always help us.
She starts to shake her head, but she finds she can’t complete the motion. She massages the muscles at her neck; they’re loose. What’s keeping her from denial?
Good luck! says another. Thanks for saving our friend. Come back any time!
I’m going to forget you, she answers. Sorry. I might not come back.
That’s okay, the final one chimes in. Most children forget us. But we remember them. You’ll always be our friend!
She’s sure the spirit had a name, but she can’t recall it. She can’t remember her own.
She reaches for her notebook, pulling it out to check.
By the time she lifts her head, they’re gone. The dream forest has receded with them.
Her name is Qiqi. Her orders are to get Padisarahs for the Traveller.
Turning her back on the fading memory, she ventures forth on her expedition.
The sky is amber today.