"You are positive that you wish to do this?" the clan leader asks, watching her finger the red casket with apprehension.
Pacing nervously, Mimi stares at the broad array of weapons on the wall. The fading light from the window dragging their shadows across the wall resembling the quarry they once hunted.
"Yes," Mimi nods, "Do you have an incense burner?"
The clan leader nods and points at his desk, his personal desk, in his private quarters. Mimi still is not quite sure how he had gotten her to agree to this caveat. But she figures they probably would not be interrupted here after curfew.
"Alright, umm, if I am not back within three hours, make sure to wake me," Mimi says quietly.
"Of course, will that give you enough time to complete the task?"
Shrugging, Mimi looks down at the casket, "I can usually figure out what to do within that time frame. I just . . . don't know what I should be expecting."
"I have seen you do this before," the clan leader affirms confidently, "you will be fine. I will be here when you wake."
"Thank you, clan leader," Mimi says, her stomach filling with dread like little miniatures of the snake from the first task.
"You are afraid?" he asks, swallowing his own nervousness as he sets down a spare bedroll for her to lay on.
"I am terrified," Mimi confesses, but takes out the incense and places it in the incense burner anyway, lighting it with her foxfire.
Laying down on the bedroll, Mimi looks up at him as her world began to tilt sideways, "See you when I get back."
Closing her eyes, she feels the sting on her forearm. Mimi allows the fogginess to consume her until finally, she fades.
Putting a hand to her head, Mimi groggily wakes to the sound of waves. Blinking her eyes several times, Mimi realizes she is on a black beach half in the waves. Relieved that there were no strange painted monsters in sight, Mimi looks around. Before her is a dilapidated looking raised pagoda that barely looks like it is holding itself together. Behind it is a simple cliff face. Looking down at her arm, Mimi instantly feels chills down her back.
The tattoo is simple in design. An oval that took up much of her forearm. Yet inside the oval is an exact replica of herself staring into a mirror. Holding a sword to her throat. Letting out a yowl, Mimi scratches at the tattoo. But it remains. It could not be literal, could it? Suddenly she hears a wailing child. Feeling more unsettled, Mimi decides to follow the child's voice. Mimi thinks it must be a baby as she realizes that there were no other places but the pagoda that the child could possibly be in.
Having seen far too many scary movies regarding houses of a supernatural nature, Mimi is hesitant. As if sensing her trepidation, the child makes a sudden yowl as if in great pain before silence. Spurring her on, Mimi climbs to the front door, but it is locked. Brandishing her claws, Mimi summons her foxfire to burn it down. But it does not work. Stumped, Mimi struggles to open the windows on either side of the door, but to no avail. She kicks at the glass, but nothing happens. Looking in the windows, all Mimi can see is darkness within the house. This is her task alright; Mimi thinks to herself as she panes around, trying to see the child. This is probably a trick to lure her in, Mimi thinks, going to the other window and doing the same. Yet from this window, she could see a significant hole in the roof. Alright, she decides, I will go in through the top then. It doesn't take her too long to get onto the roof. The roof seems to twitch in anticipation beneath her feet. Locating the hole, Mimi peers in.
A beautiful light pink aerial silk is hanging from a wooden beam within the house. Not recognizing it from looking in the window, Mimi carefully approaches the beam. It seems stable, she reasons. Deciding to ignore the silk entirely, despite its beauty, Mimi picks her way down into the house by summoning foxfire and stepping onto the globes until she reaches the creaky floor. Looking around for the child, Mimi creeps away from the silks.
"Are you alright, little one?" Mimi searches the room but finds nothing.
Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Mimi turns and almost runs into Rick, who stood directly behind her. Yelping in surprise, Mimi backs away from the cyclops.
"Rick? What are you doing here?"
The cyclops tilts her head to the side, her eye bloodshot, "Cause you left."
"You're not real, Rick," Mimi feels her knees buckle, watching the incredibly tall woman approach her.
"You know, you think you are such hot shit because you live forever. That you don't have to work for anything," Rick smugly grins, her features twisting in hate.
"We're friends," Mimi defends brokenly, stepping back, utterly focused on Rick. She doesn't see the swaying pink silk reaching for her, "I let you live in my flat for months after your divorce!"
"Your nothing without your powers," Rick smirks, and Mimi is dragged back, the silk wrapping around her neck, choking her.
Vision blurring, Mimi clings at the silk around her neck, struggling for breath. Kicking out, Mimi reaches for the top of the silk and rips it with her claws. She drops to the ground, coughing, breath slowly returning to her lungs. Mimi rips the silks from her throat and burns it in her grip. Mimi realizes that once again, she is very much alone. Time to leave, Mimi thinks, running to the door. She wraps her hand around the doorknob and pushes against it. A light touch on her hip stops her. The contact is gentle and familiar. Mimi throws herself against the door and once again blasts it with her foxfire, but to no avail. The caress slides down her back and then across her cheek. This time Mimi waits until she feels the light fingers caressing over her backside before grabbing on to the hand. She pulls at it viciously, and a sharp thud hits the floor from the other side of the room. Looking down at the 'hand,' she immediately throws it as far from her as possible. For it had not been a hand that had been caressing her. But a long winding bit of tubing that had been connected to a bloody syringe.
Sucking in a breath, Mimi follows the tubing line across the floor to where she heard the strange thud. There is a body lying on the floor. Brandishing her claws, Mimi hesitantly moves around the room. Sara lay in an ever-widening pool of blood in her hospital gown. Letting out a sharp cry, Mimi disregards her rising hackles and general feelings of unease to sprint across the room to pull her wife into her arms. The blood from her wife's wrists immediately soaking through her dress.
"Hey, hey, babe," Mimi yanks off her outer camisole and uses it to wraps her wrists before summoning her foxfire to try and heal the damage.
"Mimi?" Sara's eyes slowly open as Mimi checks and rechecks the wounds.
"I am going to get you patched up, babe," Mimi cries, "don't worry, don't worry, I can do this," watching in horror as her wife's wrists were being eaten away by her flames.
"Oh fuck," Mimi screams, as her wife's stomach bulges from underneath the hospital gown and begins to overflow on to the wood floor.
Crying, Mimi picks up her intestines and gently tries to put it back in her stomach, "We're going to be okay!"
"Look what you have done to me," Sara convulses, her eyes searching out Mimi's like a vengeful spirit.
"I love you," Mimi crumples, pressing her hands to Sara's stomach, struggling to keep everything inside.
The sound of a heart monitor beeps somewhere in the shadows before it flatlines. The sound piercing into her flesh better than any weapon known to man.
Waving her arms at Mimi in weak protest, Sara screams, "Look what you made me do!"
"Sara, please," Mimi begs, reaching out to touch her wife's face with her bloody hands.
"Don't touch me!" Sara shrieks rising with unexpected strength and digging her clawed fingers into Mimi's collarbone.
Barely flinching, Mimi holds Sara close to her body, threading her fingers through her black hair.
"It's a good thing you never told me you're a fox!" Sara hisses plunging her hands deeper as if trying to steal her heart once again.
"I know, babe," Mimi sobs, pressing kisses to Sara's head, begging her to understand, "But you make me so much better. I wanted to be that for you!"
"Why are you lying to me again?" Sara whimpers, her mouth dripping with blood and chocolate eyes burning.
Familiar voices rise to Mimi's ears. Pleading voices. The sound of stringed music lightly presses against her. Swallowed in her grief, Mimi cannot hear them at first. But the music is insistent, pushing against her to fight back.
"You . . . you're hurting me," Mimi gasps, pulling her wife's fingers from her chest and weakly scooting across the floor, "you would never hurt me like this."
"It lies," a small voice whispers to her.
"Fear. It eats fear," another voice calls to her.
Reaching into her pocket, Mimi pulls out the wrinkled heads of the apples. They wriggle in her hands, impatiently. Seeing her attention has been diverted, Sara drags herself across the floor.
"Eat us. Clarity."
Not knowing what else to do, Mimi swallows her bile and pushes the apple heads into her mouth. Wincing at the sound of their crunch. Warmth fills her body. Sara finally reaches her, and Mimi doesn't fight as her wife pulls herself to her lap, so they face each other. Looking over her wife's left shoulder, she finally can see the withered bogart, operating her wife's movements like a puppet.
"Get away from my wife, you fucking bastard," Mimi growls, grabbing the creature by the neck with her claws.
Green fire emerges from the screaming creature's throat as Mimi cooks it alive. Eyes shining malevolently as the bogart is reduced to ashes. The life in her wife's eyes fades as her body slowly begins to crack. Sobbing into her wife's neck, Mimi is soon left with nothing but her ashes.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Mimi buries her hands into her wife's remains.
Knowing her time is nearly up, Mimi slowly gets to her feet and kicks down the door of the pagoda. Now that the creature's power is gone, it held no sway over the pagoda. Mimi holds her claws in front of her and ignites the house in a swirling tornado of green flame. When it is nothing more than an addition to the black sand, Mimi strides over and kicks the sand until she notices a gold glitter within the sand. Examining it, Mimi realizes that she would know the shape and cut of this ring anywhere. It is her wife's wedding ring. Feeling suddenly very tired, Mimi slips it upon her finger.
"The task has been completed," she hears faintly, still staring at the ring.
Slowly regaining consciousness, Mimi struggles to open her eyes. When she does the tears, don't seem to stop. The soft music that she had heard within the pagoda suddenly stops.
"Lady Shen? Are you well?"
Staring up at the clan leader blearily, Mimi lets out a sob as she sees her wife's beautiful features staring back at her. Was she well? Mimi touches his face and arms. Reassuring herself that at least some part of her wife is here with her.
Hesitantly the clan leader begins administering spiritual energy to her. His face is anxious.
"I am sorry," Mimi cries, "I am so sorry."
He takes a handkerchief from his sleeve and gently wipes her face, "What do you have to be sorry for? What did you see?"
Mimi grabs on to his wrist. She could not take her eyes from him. He notices then she is bleeding from her chest.
"Can you heal yourself?" he asks gently, "or would you like me to do it?"
Mimi opens and closes her mouth, unable to answer, and this decides him.
"May I examine this? I will need to cut part of your dress," he is apologetic and worried.
She slowly nods but is unable to release him entirely. Using her other hand, she pries her hand from him. This frees him to collect the supplies he needed quickly.
"No matter what you saw . . . there can't have been any truth to it," he says softly, "Lord Shen is trying to break you. Or make you more malleable. At least that is how I perceive it."
"Thank you," Mimi finally says after he has cut through her dress and begins cleaning her wounds.
He smiles at her and continues to work, "What did you face? I heard you crying while you were in your trance and . . ." he looks toward his guqin.
"I heard you," Mimi smiles, "I think you may have distracted me enough to pull me through."
His ears flush a little, but he decidedly waits for her to continue as he applies an antibiotic.
"It was a bogart, I think," Mimi confesses, wanting nothing more than to hover next to him for the next several hours.
"I don't believe I am familiar with that beast. Can you describe it to me?" he wants her to continue talking. The silent creature that had awakened scared him. It was as if something had been broken in her eyes. She hadn't wanted to let him go.
"It's. . .," she clears her throat and coughs.
"Would you like tea?" he asks, already pouring out a cup.
"Yes, please," Mimi takes the cup from him and doesn't realize until the heat is soaking through her hands that she is freezing.
He waits for her to take a sip, and she wrinkles her nose at him, causing him to laugh.
"I did not get your recipe right, did I?"
Mimi swallows and shakes her head, "No. It is still good, though."
"Lady Shen is too kind," he sets the tea tray aside and begins unrolling bandages.
"It, it feeds on fear," Mimi finally says, sipping once more at her tea.
"Do not all spirits feed on fear?" the clan leader asks conversationally as if they were merely discussing the weather.
Placing the bandages on her chest, he looks over his handiwork. If he isn't mistaken, the marks were consistent with creatures that habitually prey on spiritual energy.
"These are different," Mimi sets the cup down as her hands begin to shake, "the bogarts . . . the bogarts," Mimi struggles to find the words as images of her wife's broken body fills her mind.
Seeing this, the clan leader leans over and holds her hands within his own, which gives her strength. Knowing that this man, her wife's reincarnation, did not hate her, did not hurt himself.
"The bogarts feed primarily on fear. They take on that which we fear the most and devour us whole," Mimi puts a hand on her chest, over his bandages.
"Someone I . . . love dearly," Mimi meets his eyes before looking away, "I couldn't heal them, I . . . couldn't use any of my abilities to assist. I let the bogart feed on me, and I was . . . content to hold them in my arms as it dug in me. I heard your music somehow, and it distracted me enough to kill it. I burned the whole pagoda to the ground."
Not able to go on, Mimi stares into her lap, at her claws that no longer bore her wife's blood.
Finally caving in, Lan Xichen gathers her in his arms. To his surprise, she wraps her arms around him in a stranglehold as if refusing to let go. He lightly threads his hands through her hair. Burying her face in his chest, he decides that he does not wish to let go either and begins to hum a soft, meaningless tune.
"Shh, I'm here now. You have nothing to fear from me," he lays his head on top of hers, "I will not go anywhere."