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The hospital tent is a hive of frantic activity. Jiaoqiu has been treating casualties since morning, having left the kitchen in the hands of the other medicinal chefs to support the primary team.
He is halfway through administering medication to a patient when a sudden hush sweeps across the tent. Instinctively, his ears prick and an uneasy chill runs up his spine.
“... Master Jiaoqiu! Call for Master Jiaoqiu!” someone yells outside. Jiaoqiu is already up at the shout of his name, pushing the half-administered medication into a nearby staff member's hands as he rushes out of the tent.
Outside, the first person he identifies is the first squadron captain, Feixiao’s next-in-command on the field. A sweeping glance of the area reveals that most of the platoon has returned with a group of civilians, nursing injuries and missing armour. Crucially, Feixiao is not with them, and neither is Moze.
He swallows down the dread rising in his throat. There is no time for panic. “Report,” he orders.
“The General’s affliction struck when we were evacuating district 6,” the man says. “Master Moze has engaged her in combat, but he was already injured before that.”
Jiaoqiu sets his jaw. “Have your men bring the civilians inside and find food from the kitchens. Gather your most able-bodied men and meet me at the docks in fifteen minutes.”
The captain nods in affirmation. Jiaoqiu doesn't wait for him to excuse himself before whipping around to head straight back to his personal tent.
As he pulls open his field kit to throw in more herbs and tranquiliser bolts, he goes over the information he has.
Moze is injured, and Feixiao must not be in much better shape, knowing her penchant for dashing headfirst into the fray. District 6 is half an hour away by regular Yaoqing starskiff, but he can halve that time if he goes a little over the limit. It's nothing he hasn't done before.
When it comes to Feixiao, what would he not do?
Checking the field kit one last time to make sure he has everything he needs, he tosses in a pack of Moze’s special nutrient bars for good measure and sweeps out of the tent.
District 6 is eerily silent when he docks. Once-bustling streets have been half-reduced to rubble, their blinding lights extinguished and replaced by the cold and mocking plaguemark hanging above.
With no direction for him to follow, Jiaoqiu begins to trace the trails of destruction to their source. The taste of ash builds in his throat with every step through the carnage – among the fallen borisin corpses, ginkgo leaves cover the ground where mara-struck Verdant Knights once fought.
How ugly war is. How needless and meaningless. How full of grief and anger and never-ending death.
Eventually, he finds Feixiao and Moze in the near-levelled remains of a building. Ducking behind some rubble to stay in Feixiao’s blind spot, he observes them. Borisin bodies litter the area, ripped apart as though by a red-eared bear sinking its serrated teeth into its prey. They must have attempted an ambush at some point, thinking to take advantage of Feixiao’s affliction. They had certainly underestimated Moze, then.
But Moze has multiple deep wounds on his arms that Jiaoqiu can see, and his strength is clearly faltering. Feixiao swings her battleaxe mercilessly at him, graceful even in her madness, a relentless hunter with unseeing eyes set on its prey. The shapeshifting has progressed especially fast; her fangs are out, and half of her features have already grown deformed. Having tasted blood with nothing to keep it in check, the Rage must be growing exponentially vicious, seeking to ravage everything in its path. It has already consumed all but one of its opponents, its surroundings, and it must be doing so to its own host as well.
Every moment that passes is one closer to Feixiao’s consciousness being devoured by the mutated beast within her body, and to Moze being killed by the only person in the universe to have ever earned his loyalty.
Jiaoqiu takes a deep breath as he pulls out the tranquiliser bolts, keeping his hands steady as he infuses the bolts with his custom narcotic powder.
There are many things he hates about this situation, but none more than this injustice: the foul paradox that the blood on his hands should never belong to the person he has taken oath to protect, yet he cannot fulfil his oath without deliberately hurting her.
The next time Feixiao lands on her two feet, Jiaoqiu sends the bolts sinking into her meridians. She hisses at the interruption, a feral curl to her lips as she turns to where he stands smiling atop a collapsed building and readies her battleaxe.
Before she can spring at him, she crumples in on herself, a puppet with its strings abruptly cut. Behind her, like a well-practised dance partner, Moze catches her limp body, cradling her close to his chest for a moment before he staggers and sinks clumsily to the ground, his body still given to breaking her fall even as it gives out on itself.
Jiaoqiu sends up a flare to notify the Verdant Knights trailing him and sets to work on triage. Moze himself has long lost consciousness, but his clutch around Feixiao’s body is stubborn and unyielding, as though his instincts have determined to protect her against anything that should try to wrench them apart. Gently, Jiaoqiu pries his fingers open to release Feixiao from his grasp.
Now subdued and its frantic overgrowth curbed by the cocktail of drugs Jiaoqiu had used, the Moon Rage has begun its recession. Under his hands as he works it free, Feixiao’s blood-drenched armour gives way to show where it must have pressed into and almost definitely bruised her ribcage. Her palms are bloodied from her fingernails digging into skin; such was the strength with which she had been holding her battleaxe. The Moon Rage does rampage so heedlessly of her body.
Just as he feared, Moze has more wounds than he had been able to see from a distance. They’re bleeding, a sure sign they are so deep that even the Xianzhou natives’ naturally regenerative abilities cannot immediately heal them. More scars on Moze’s already-scarred body.
Jiaoqiu tears open his field kit, pulling out portable infusion bags and bandages. He has no time for sentimentalities.
It is peaceful outside Jiaoqiu’s tent, only the plaguemark shining in the far-off distance and the scattered lights of lanterns where small groups of Knights have gathered.
Perhaps it is the stillness that stirs his nostalgia, or perhaps it is the strange tranquillity, despite the fact that conflict continues to rage on the outskirts of district 8.
In another time, in another place, it was like this too. Jiaoqiu remembers the uncharacteristic nervousness, the disquiet welling in his stomach. Back then, he had blamed it on the ongoing war. Far too many of their knights had fallen, their losses piling up in unmarked graves on the battlefield – they were fast approaching a stalemate and out of options to turn the tide.
That night, so many years ago, he had given in to his fears and visited her makeshift tent, with nothing more than a selfish wish to gaze upon that lovely, brave visage for reassurance. She had smiled when she saw him and cupped his face, her calloused hand rough against his cheek but tender around his soul. And then she, that cruel General of his, had ordered him to not follow her out into the field the next day, but to await her return.
He wonders, sometimes, if she had known that it would be their last meeting.
She had not returned — slain by their own Aeon, paying for their eventual victory with her life. He could not even send off her body, at the end of it all; there was none to be found.
There had been fury. There had been a gaping hole in his chest. There had been a pit of despair that had settled itself between his ribs. He had seen many young lives meet their ends too soon, and now even she, his anchor through the pointless losses, had been taken from him as well.
Yet as he submitted his resignation letter and cast off all his ties to the Verdant Knights, he never could find it in himself to blame her for leaving him behind. He had not spent over a century in her service without knowing that her life was a price she was ready and willing to lay down for the Yaoqing.
Stubborn, determined, blinding in her fearlessness. She had always been like that. For better or for worse, her disciple and successor takes right after her. He had known it, the moment Feixiao showed up at his door in the desolate mountains, offering him a letter written in a familiar, beloved, long-lost hand.
Take care of her for me, Jiaoqiu.
Oh, how he loves and hates her so.
How many more times will he have to stay and wait for people who never return? How long does he have until Feixiao and Moze, too, leave him behind for good?
Two days have passed since they were brought back for treatment, and they have yet to stir.
Replacing the cold pack on Feixiao’s feverish forehead, he observes the furrow between her brows. Perhaps even in her dreams, the war with the borisin does not cease. For as long as he has known her, she has always been this way, single-minded in her quest against them.
With his thumbs, he coaxes at her frown until it smooths out. She would be proud to see Feixiao today. Years of leadership have sharpened her features handsomely. Long gone is the vengeful Foxian girl with bloodied feet they had taken in close to a century ago, replaced by an ambitious general set on achieving her goals.
And like a helpless moth to flame in spite of himself, Jiaoqiu has chosen to see her mission through.
There is a soft rustle from the bed behind him. Jiaoqiu spins around to find Moze watching him, eyes clear despite the obvious pain reflected in them.
Relief crashes over him like a tidal wave.
“It hurts because some of your wounds are still healing,” Jiaoqiu says, bustling over to the side table to pour Moze a cup of water. “Here.”
To his surprise, Moze ignores the proffered cup to weakly wrap his bandaged fingers around Jiaoqiu’s outstretched wrist instead.
“You must be the only healer to look like he is mourning after having saved two lives.”
That chokes a laugh out of Jiaoqiu.
“I will not deny it,” he says. “But I am very glad that you both live.”