A Great Escape

Chapter 11: Clarity

"And you didn't tell her that you aren't actually planning to marry her?"

Xun rolled his eye, exasperated. Shen had just finished telling him about why he'd run off and about his brief encounter with Lanying. The wolf wondered why it was that his friend always had to entangle himself in something that was overly complicated to begin with and just make it more and more complex.

"Oh, as if you have all the answers," muttered Shen, glowering. "Would you have honestly told her right then if you were in that situation?"

"Yes," Xun responded immediately.

"Hmmph. Easy for you to say." Shen flopped down on his bed, unwilling to admit that he was feeling flustered and slightly guilty about what he'd said…or rather, hadn't said.

"I mean, it's bad enough that you're lying to the Xifengs about marrying their daughter," Xun continued to rant. "But now you keep lying to the daughter, too? Not being able to talk because her parents are looking over your shoulder is understandable – having the opportunity and not taking it is just sheer stupidity!"

"Look, she had a bad day, all right? I was only trying to comfort her!"

"Just keep digging that ditch deeper, Shen. Just keep digging…"

Shen snarled, losing his temper as every emotional strain of the day seemed to pounce on him at once. "Cut it out, Xun!" he snapped, springing to his feet again. "In case you hadn't noticed, this is none of your business! If all you're going to do is chastise me when you have barely any idea of what's actually going on, then just shut up and leave me alone!"

Xun's ears flattened, his tail going slack with surprise. Shen exhaled roughly. "Look, Xun, I…"

"Oh, you've made your point," Xun interrupted coldly. "Excuse me for trying to help. You're going to treat me as an equal, yeah, right. I should have known that you were headed for disaster the second we came here!"

With that, the wolf bolted from the room, making sure to slam the door behind him. Shen groaned in frustration and sank down on his bed mat. Arguing with Xun was nothing new; it had happened several times since their reunion, but like falling off of a rickshaw, it was something that would always hurt and could never really be gotten used to. It wasn't as if Shen wanted one of the only two people that he could actually talk to right now to get mad at him, but Xun just…didn't get it sometimes. He could be a real pup at times and was almost always acting considerably more immature than Shen. And yet he had the audacity to act like he was an expert on honesty in relationships?

There's no relationship, Shen reminded himself as he rubbed his temples. His head was throbbing with pain, indicating that he needed to calm himself down a bit unless he was in the mood for a migraine. So he took a deep breath and shifted himself into lotus position, beginning the meditations that he had overlooked for several nights now. It was several minutes before he was able to ease the turmoil in his mind completely, but when the tranquility fell over him, it was heavenly.

It was so nice to not have to think about anything for once, to let time escape him and forget all about the fireworks factory, Xun, and Lanying. He breathed easily now that he was able to temporarily get rid of the urgency of his current job and nagging sense of guilt. Nothing mattered in this state of serenity; he didn't have to do anything except keep breathing, in, out, in, out...

…

"This is the right thing to do. We'll give him what he deserves. He deserves it…"

"No one is going to stop us..."

"Why would they? He deserves it…"

"He deserves it…"

Shen was sprawled out in an ungainly tangle of limbs, paralyzed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move at all. His eyes were locked wide open, fixed on the shadowed figures hovering around him. Their movements made whispering sounds, and the whispers always repeated the same urgent chant: "He deserves it, he deserves it, he deserves it…"

And then, from within the swirling oblivion of blacks, blues, and grays, a gleam of silver flashed as brightly and abruptly as a firework. And with no warning whatsoever, a lady draped in elaborate finery was standing over him, completely decked out in red and gold except for the silver dagger clutched in her hands. She leered at him, and he could see that she was a small, falcon-like bird, her feathers almost all muted and white except for the vibrant black patches around her eyes and shoulders. Her eyes were two crimson lakes that sought to greedily gobble him up.

She raised her dagger. "Sweet dreams, Lord Shen…"

The blade plunged down towards his chest.

…

Shen jerked awake, insensible for a moment until the nightmare grudgingly released its hold on him. He exhaled shakily, looking around his room in visible relief. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually fallen asleep during meditations. That and the dream were probably just signs that he was overly tired and stressed.

Still…even though the nightmare had been a mess of dark nonsense, one thing seemed too vivid and detailed, still nagging him even though now he was back in reality. He frowned, realizing that the raptor he had seen at the end of the dream was Lady Xuilan. But he'd only seen her once, and the Xifengs had said that she'd already left Gongmen City; as impolite as she had been, he doubted that she would ever try to kill him.

Would she?

There was still no sign of Xun, even though the barest bit of light feebly shining through the window informed Shen that it was already quite late. He sighed and lay down on his bed mat, clutching the blankets close. "I need some real sleep," he murmured to himself. "Can't let myself get anxious like this."

Fortunately, he was able to spend the rest of the night nightmare-free.

…

In the morning, Shen found that Xun was still insistent on not speaking to him. The soothsayer threw both of her "children" pointed, questioning glances from time to time, but neither decided to enlighten her on the argument between them. Shen decided to focus on his full schedule for the day, which included work in the fireworks factory in the morning and a meeting with Lanying in the afternoon.

The factory didn't grate on him nearly as much today, perhaps because he was getting acclimated with it again, or maybe just because he had steeled himself for the flood of memories beforehand. That day he had his crew begin smelting the scrap metal gathered for this project. They would be making four cannons in all, one to be posted at each major entrance to the city, so the irregular materials would suffice...unlike the time that Shen had gathered a fleet of cannons and had needed to steal metal from all over the country in order to complete them.

Supervising the crew was mindless work, and Shen's job was only made difficult by Xun's continued refusal to talk to him. He finally decided that all he could do was ignore the wolf; he had bigger and better things to do than beg for forgiveness.

Just before noon, Shen instructed Xun to take over the supervisions (interpreting the lack of response as an affirmation) and hurried back to the palace, where he scrubbed the soot and excretions of the factory from his white feathers and changed into his silk dress robe. No matter what he said or didn't say to Lanying today, he wanted to look a little something more than presentable.

When he headed outside to await the arrival of the Xifengs, the soothsayer followed him, smirking as she once again observed his attire. "Why Shen," she commented lazily, "you're wearing silk again? How considerate of you."

He rolled his eyes. "Nana, you never pressed me to form a romantic connection before, so what's inspired you to start playing matchmaker all of a sudden?"

"Well, for one thing, I never thought you were ready for romance before. You've been through a lot of emotional turbulence, dear, but you've come a long way. I think that letting someone else in would be good for you…"

"Nana, I've taken on a pure charity case here, just out of the goodness of my heart. Isn't that good enough for you?"

"Of course it is. It shows that progress that I was just talking about."

"Then why have you decided that I need a girlfriend as well?"

The soothsayer smiled, gazing at him knowingly. "It's not what I decided, darling." And with that, she trotted smugly back into the dormitory.

Shen watched her go, his eyebrows crinkling thoughtfully. So he was right, then; she'd been looking into her bowl again. But what did that mean? That the fates who had previously decided that he would have his tail feathers handed to him by a big flabby panda had now decreed that he was to end up romantically involved with Miss Xifeng? Was that what he wanted? Did he have a choice?

And was there any point in resisting what the universe had planned for him? He'd already made that mistake once, after all…

Just then, one of the antelope guards scampered up to him and announced, "Master Shen, the Xifengs have arrived!"

Shen didn't even have the time to take a single step forward before the three Java green peafowl beat him to the punch. Yue came forward and greeted him as enthusiastically as always, while Jie hung back somewhat and Lanying trailed behind her parents, glowering.

"Master Shen, good to see you!" Yue pumped Shen's wing as if she was meeting him for the first time all over again. "Don't be surprised if Lanying is a little cranky today." The peahen leaned forward and said in a mock whisper, "She got a rejection letter yesterday!"

"Oh," said Shen, not wanting to reveal that he already knew all about that little incident.

"But I think that she will stop with her silly fantasies of getting famous now and behave like a lady. She finally understands that you are her only hope of staying out of the asylum," Yue continued, fanning herself vigorously.

Shen cleared his throat, looking around for a way to excuse himself from his wannabe in-laws. He noticed that it happened to be an unseasonably warm day, probably the last fling of nice weather before late fall and winter closed in. "It's lovely today," he commented in a manner that he hoped was offhanded. "Lanying, would you care to accompany me on a walk around the grounds?"

"Oh, of course," Lanying answered quickly, immediately realizing his intentions.

He hurried over to her, took her wing in what was meant to be a gentlemanly way, and escorted her behind the dormitory and into the courtyard. Fortunately, Jie and Yue didn't try to detain them this time.

Lanying cleared her throat, glancing uncomfortably at her arm threaded through Shen's, and he withdrew immediately. "Sorry, sorry," he apologized. "I just wanted to keep up the pretense – that is, look proper so that your parents would let us go," he corrected himself quickly.

"I don't blame you," responded Lanying. "They're irritating, aren't they?"

"Well, I wouldn't go that for…"

"Oh, you don't have to be so polite. I know how annoying they are." She smoothed a hand along her partial crest tentatively. "So...we have a lot to catch up on, don't we?"

"Yes, I suppose we do." Shen motioned for her to sit down on one of the courtyard's stone benches, and she did so carefully, smoothing out her drab dress robe. He took a seat beside her and continued, "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

"Well…what do you want to know about me?" she asked carefully.

He took a deep breath. "Tell me about your panic attacks. When did you first start having them?"

Lanying was silent for a moment; her long feathered fingers absently brushed the embroidered edges of her sleeves. "I remember my first attack clearly," she finally replied. "I was very young…my parents were visiting a friend of theirs, for some political meeting or something. They brought me along because there were other children of my age meant to be there. Well, there were other children, but they were all older than me. Nevertheless, my parents went off somewhere and left me to 'play with my new friends.'

"The children were kind enough to me. One girl, a lamb, invited me to come play with them, saying that they were going to tell ghost stories. I eagerly joined in. Then a little boy, a piglet, told a story about a ghost that he claimed he had seen in his house once. I don't remember the exact details – as I said, I was only a few years old at the time – but I remember how much the story frightened me. And it wasn't good fear, either. I had heard a few ghost stories before, and I'd rather enjoyed the sensations of 'ooh, spooky' that came with them. But this time, for whatever reason, I was terrified.

"Throughout the entire day, that fear clung to me and wouldn't go away. I couldn't stop thinking about the scary story. I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed me immediately, of course. And then that night, when we went home and they put me to bed...I fell asleep for an hour or two, but when I woke up…"

"You don't have to describe the symptoms to me," Shen interrupted at this point. "Trust me, I know what it's like."

Lanying nodded gratefully and continued. "I went to go get my parents, crying and frightened. They were horrified and immediately called a physician to come and deal with me. The physician told them that I was having a fit and that it was best for me to be by myself for a while, so they put me in my room…in the dark…by myself."

As she said the last, a trace of the childlike fear that she had once felt seemed to flicker over her face. Shen tilted his head worriedly. "And how old were you?"

"I was five."

Five! Shen had admittedly had his share of emotional breakdowns when he was five, but at least then, he'd had his nanny to cling to. What sort of quack physician would advise leaving a scared, crying child by themselves for a while?

"I kept begging my parents not to leave, but they were intent on carrying out the physician's advice," said Lanying softly. "I had three other panic attacks shortly after, and every time they just shut me in my room for a while. Eventually, they called in a second doctor, who diagnosed me as having chronic panic attacks. And from then on they were on a desperate search for the cure to my 'disease,' importing dozens of miracle medicines, some of which made me even sicker. But they never found anything that helped. So they figured that the best course of action was to force me to be a shut-in forever."

Shen shook his head in disbelief and disgust with her parents. "Lanying…I don't know what to say. That's just awful."

"Surely not more awful than whatever happened to you…"

He sighed. "Well…no, maybe not…but it's because I've been through awful things that I empathize with you. Trust me, when my parents saw that I was a bad color, bad omen, they decided to just put me where they didn't have to look at me…"

Lanying leaned forward curiously. "Why don't you tell me your story, Shen?"

"That will take a while…but if you insist." Shen shut his eyes, calling up the most distant memories from his past. "Well, it all started when the soothsayer made a prediction…"