Chapter Text
Shi Qingxuan is used to hearing her name spoken in conjunction with Ming Yi’s. They are Wind-and-Earth masters, like she and her brother are Wind-and-Water masters. It's nice to receive an invitation, and for it to be for both of them because everyone knew where there was Shi Qingxuan, there would be Ming Yi.
It's terrifying to hear people scream for a healer for the Wind-and-Earth Masters.
“I’m fine,” she gasps, still stunned on the ground after their emergency ascension. “Ming Yi pushed me out of the way; I’m fine.” She waves away some middle official who is trying to help her up.
Behind him, she can make out the shape of Ming Yi sprawled facedown on the ground. No one is rushing to help him, and anger bubbles up in her. She staggers over, dropping to her knees beside him.
He isn’t breathing, but they’re gods. They don’t need to breathe, and she’s noticed his tendency to stop in his sleep before. More concerning is the fact that he’s unconscious at all.
She goes to roll him over, hesitating slightly before grabbing his shoulders. The other god avoids touch with a passion, but he tends to allow Shi Qingxuan more leeway than he would allow anyone else, so she goes ahead and drags him into her lap.
“Ming-xiong?” She taps his collarbone insistently. “Ming-xiong, honestly, wake up.” The crowd of assembled gods is staring, making her skin crawl.
She can tell the exact moment he wakes, not from any tensing of his muscles but from the fact that he starts breathing again. His eyes flicker open a moment later, but he remains limp, his head pillowed in Shi Qingxuan’s lap.
His eyes widen, and she knows that he’s just realized their situation. He’s making the face which means it’s time for her to make a distraction so they can leave, but there’s no distraction strong enough for this. Instead, she hauls him into her arms (civil god or not, she’s more than strong enough to carry him), blows a kiss to the spectators, and books it to her palace before anyone can remember a healer hasn’t checked them over yet.
As she’s running, Ming Yi begins to stir. He’s almost certainly uncomfortable, and Shi Qingxuan debates stopping to set him down. His fingers are clutching weakly at her robes, and it makes something in her chest clench, the movement almost childlike. If she sets him down, she reasons, and he can’t get up to walk, it would only upset him more to admit he needs help. It’s definitely not because she enjoys having him close without him pushing her away.
In her heart, she knows it’s not that he would push her away. Ming Yi would never push her away. He simply lets her hang off of him, acting like a statue. She just likes holding him, feeling like she’s the one protecting him for once.
They’ve arrived at her palace too soon, and she slips into the guest room she’s long since set aside for Ming Yi’s use. He seems to have recovered enough to wrap his arms securely around Shi Qingxuan’s neck, and it’s hard to say if he’s stayed still because he can’t move yet or if he’s just trying to avoid being dropped.
“Ming-Xiong? Are you…” Better? Recovered? She’s not sure what she’s asking, but luckily, he answers before she has to decide. “No,” he rasps. “There is still some paralysis.”
She hums, unsure what else to say, and hastens to lay him on the bed. Ming Yi releases the arms around her neck, and they flop down. Shi Qingxuan takes his hand, shaken but unwilling to admit it. “You were very easy to move,” she comments. “So it doesn’t seem to be a physical paralysis.”
Ming Yi nods or makes the closest approximation he can with his limited mobility. They’ve faced paralysis before: the ghost of a woman who was buried alive and left a curse that felt as if a grave’s worth of soil was pressing down on you, a spirit that had started as a rock that could make its victim's skin grow hard and stiff, but those had all been confined to the physical realm. It was not an inability to move but a barrier to the movement. “There was no sensation to press against,” he confesses.
“It began to wear off, did it not?” Shi Qingxuan questions. “Perhaps it is simply time-based?”
The two sit in silence, considering. “The cure may be in the ghosts' history.” Indeed, the more influential the ghost, the closer their curse was to their past, and this had been a rather powerful ghost indeed.
Ming Yi shakes his head nonetheless. “We won’t see her again,” he objects, and yes, trying to apprehend the child ghost had been an unmitigated disaster, but there was no reason to be so despondent. Shi Qingxuan opens her mouth to say so, but something in Ming Yi’s face stops her.
“Trial and error then,” she says, but Ming Yi shakes his head again. “I know what it is.”
Shi Qingxuan can’t quite hold back the little questioning noise that escapes her. Although all curses must include their solutions, it’s often so cryptic it’s useless or even a deliberate red herring.
Ming Yi inclines his head, agreeing silently, but makes no move to share. “Ming-xiong…”
She could cajole him into answering, but Ming Yi is practically allergic to sharing personal information, much less vulnerabilities.
Instead, she simply sits with his hand in hers until he shakes her off, stands, and leaves.