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I look down at my form and see hands, long fingers spread curiously in the air. How disgusting. Below that, a shape enveloped in black fabric that must be legs. Nausea rises: I'm entombed within a prison of flesh.
I stop looking. My teeth- and how I hate to find that I have teeth- grit. Instead, I examine my environment. Around me: dead wood, harvested from my fellows years ago, closes me in. There's not even the slightest hint of living qi within it. Who would surround themselves with this hollow mockery of strength? It's offensive; grating. And standing within this mausoleum, I can't even feel the sun: more of my slain kin and the baked remains of soft earth, all moisture and nutrients ripped from it, block its rays. Neither is there the slightest hint of moisture beneath my booted feet, isolated from the call of the ground. My skin- my disgusting, human skin- crawls with it.
Why am I here?
Some panting animal vocalizes at me. I lower my gaze from the cursed roof above me and see, standing before me, an ape of some kind, having just entered the room. Ape? Monkey? No- I sense that it's a human. Its shape is the same as mine, long and hairless on the face and hands, covered in cloth spun from the dead silk of insects. Its mouth is moving, sounds coming out. Unfortunately, I find that I'm able to understand them, the longer it continues.
"-Lun," the creature says. "You've reformed your core- but it's out of control, like this. It won't-"
I stop listening. I'm not interested in what it has to say; I want to feel the sun. Ignoring the growing volume of its cries, I stride out of the human dwelling, one flimsy thin wall falling in a slab as I push through it. How interesting; it's as if it was designed to come off. Is whatever harvested my kin so weak, that they think something like this would protect them? It certainly won't, if I see them. My brow is tight; how I hate this form. Why am I not myself? Why...
My body stops moving right before I pass into the sun. Confused, I look down at it- there's a hand wrapped around one arm, the knuckles white. I follow it up to see the human from before, staring at me with wide eyes, streaks of white in its hair catching the reflected light of the sun it won't let me reach.
"You can't sense your power?" it asks, and my eyes close, a heavy ache pounding behind my brows. Why do I feel like this? I never knew pain, when I was a tree. Only the startle of leaves being ripped off; the occasional gouge through my thick bark, barely enough to register. But now I feel... terrible. Unsteady. Like some danger is swirling around me. What's happening? Is this mortal form killing me?
Some alien sensation brushes against my sensitive human skin, forcing my entire form to tense into high alert. I stare down at my arm: a deep red twines lazily around it, issuing from the hand of the human. Threatening to sink into me.
I continue to stare. I should be throwing the hand off; but something about this power is riveting. What is it? What can I sense...
A second creature bursts into the open space from behind us, drawing my eyes. This one is also white in places; the long stripes stir a strange, unsteady remembrance in me. Another human-
But no. Something is slowly reforming in my mind: a recollection.
The swirling red power. The discomfort in my body.
Instinctively, I reach deep into myself, drawing from the core that has persisted all throughout my existence: through root, through trunk, through breath, through bone and muscle. Deep indigo floods through my cursed body, sweeping away the pain and leaving me fairly thrumming with power. With its arrival, I can suddenly sense my surroundings: the wind, the absent rain, the green things in the courtyard. The strength of the sun, only a few steps away.
And before me: the two beings. They're not humans; I can see it, now. They're as I am- yao, forced into these unnatural forms. Confined in these foul bodies, constrained to follow the movements of limbs and blood foreign and repulsive to us. How it grates; how I'm sickened by it.
"Li Lun," the first says, voice urgent. "Calm yourself. You've only just reformed- you must circulate the energy-"
"He's going to bring the bureau down like this," the second snaps, but I am not listening. My energy is pulsing with need. I can't continue like this. I must-
"Li Lun!" the first cries, but I've already ripped my limb from its grasp. I ignore its vocalizations to stride forward: forward, into the hot, bright light of the sun.
Bliss. On face, on hands; even filtering vaguely though the sweep of dark, shadowing hair on my crown. The urgent churning of violence inside me is quelled, and the indigo spilling out of me slowly winds its way back under my bark. No- my skin. I look down at my hands, fairly glowing in the light of the sun, and exhale slowly. Even this alien body can grant pleasure, it seems. Can absorb power. The sensation of air moving in and out of me so swiftly- into wet, steady lungs- is is still alien; but I find that I am more calm, now. I waste no time shrugging out of the confines of the pitch robes around me, baring my shoulders, my torso. The warm radiation lapping against me makes me sigh in contentment.
I am well.
"As long as he's in a courtyard-" one of the yao is saying behind me; I pay it no mind. It's only when one of them steps too close, shadow obscuring the warmth of my communion with the sun, that I open my eyes to glare warning. How strange, to have to change my body to be able to sense. This opening and closing of skin, of lids... I don't like it. But even less do I like being denied what I need.
The yao nods agreeably, moving back half a pace; its shadow falls away. "That's better, then?" it murmurs, voice quiet now. "Don't worry. I'm here- I can help you steady your core."
Unintelligible. I regard it for a few long moments: I can see, now, the almost invisible crimson power wreathing it. Is this strength the reason that it doesn't fear me?
It's a strange thought; it gives me pause. Why should anything fear me? I've always been rooted; never moved to harm. Had no need to: the dahuang always gave me all I needed.
My gaze goes far away as the yao continues speaking. The dahuang. Something is wrong about this place- the sun is so strong, so vivid. The air is so bright.
"Where is the dahuang?" I murmur, startled to feel the hum of vocal cords in my throat. The yao startles as well; its gaze changes.
"I can take you there," it says, slow and even. Is it slowing its speech on purpose? "Here," and it extends a hand, making my eyes track down to it. Its fingers are long and straight; lines trace across its palm, like the whorls of bark on a tree trunk. "Hold on."
There's no urgency, now that I'm under the bright light of the sun; I don't speak for a long few minutes, letting the strange cadence of its spoken voice sink through into my understanding. What does it mean?
"You want me to go with you?" creaks out of my mouth, hoarse and offputting. How I hate the movement of air through my lips; my throat. It grates to be reminded of their existence.
"Yes," the yao says, steady and unmoving. "Come with me."
I study it further: the lack of reaction to the sun, the discomfort it fails to evidence at our surroundings. It's not like me; not like me at all.
"No," I say. The yao's face changes, drastic enough that it catches my eye. From behind it steps the second yao, approaching closely enough that its shadow just brushes the hems of my robes without obscuring the light. It's accompanied by an almost intangible sense of cold: the faintest wash of air, smelling of frost and ice.
"Your roots won't fit here," it says, and I glance down at my feet. I am interested to see that my thick, woody roots have spread beneath the earth from where I stand, uprooting the stone of the paving tiles and twining up onto the dead wood of the platform we left. I relax, my power flexing, and the dead wood splinters under the strain of my roots' curl. I sense them extending further, deeper into the earth, sideways under the heaviness of dark, dry weights above. More dead wood and earth? I could pull them down, make room for the sunlight and rain to come through...
"You need the space of the dahuang," the cold yao says with a sense of urgency, and I sigh in slow, unwilling assent. Already I am stifled, here; I want the easy warmth of the sun, the patter of rain. "I will take you."
"Very well," I respond, and I withdraw my awareness from the earth. The cold yao extends a hand holding a relic of some sort; I lay mine atop it, and golden light billows around us, leading me away.
The last thing I see before the world disappears is the stricken expression of the yao whose hand I declined.