Her head was killing her. It pulsed something fierce, feeling like she had been bonked several times by one of her Shaolin's staff. Hard.
Her torso also felt like it was on fire. Her legs also felt like jelly. Her wrists were no better. Basically, not a single part of her body was spared from the agony.
One of her eyes cracked open, seeing the unfamiliar ceiling above her. A grunt of pain almost escaped her lips, but she bit it down, knowing better than to make noises in a possibly hostile environment. She had several question, raging from where she was, with who and how did she get there, not even mentioning trying to understand if and how fucked she was.
Judging by the foreign language that she was hearing (Latin, she believed it was called), her answers to those last two questions are respectively "yes" and "a lot".
Ying the Tiandi closed her eye once more, feigning sleep, while her mind rewinded back to her last memories. She remembered assaulting a reasonably fortified Knight keep with her unit, in an attempt to strike the decisive blow that would finally make the three factions bend the knee to their emperor once and for all, after several long years of war and surprising resistance.
She hated to admit, but she believed in giving credits where they were due. The Knights, Vikings and Samurai fought back with the pride and ferocity of seasoned warriors. No other population since the Cataclysm managed to make the Chinese Empire sweat so much as the defenders of Heatmoor. So, she begrudgingly respected her opponents, even if they were starting to get on her last nerves.
The assault started as planned, but things were made much more difficult by the presence on the field of the Knight's Queen and the Samurai's Champion. Two women who, on their own, were worth more than twenty of their own warriors. Their mere existence on the battlefield rallied their troops, causing what was supposed to be a quick and effortless conquest to turn into a bloodbath.
The fighting continued for close to three consecutive hours, from what she remembered, up until she spotted the Queen relatively isolated, having recently finished dealing with a pair of Nuxias. That alone had given her pause. The other woman was tired. Alone.
Vulnerable.
It was a chance that she couldn't miss. So, she took it, sprinting towards the raven haired Knight and swinging her trusty Dao blade.
The element of surprise allowed for her strike to hit home, carving a bloody path through her armor from shoulder to hip. Her opponent fell before her, and it finally started feeling like they could pull through…
Only for an angry shout to attract her attention. The Champion had seen everything… and she was not pleased about it.
Ying liked to call herself a pretty skilled warrior. Even among the elite which she belonged to, she was considered one of the best, only second behind her brother Shidou… but even she was no match for the renowned Orochi's skill. She was disarmed and cut down in seconds, her opponent's rage unyielding.
She was supposed to be dead. She certainly felt like she was, with the way her body was protesting. So… why wasn't she?
The voices filtered through her ears once more, prompting her to turn her head slightly and peek through one of her eyes.
The first thing that she saw was a blonde man, leaning over a bed, right in front of her (or to her left, technically), and upon said bed…
The woman that she had supposedly killed. She was in pretty terrible shape… but she was alive and breathing, probably on her way to recovering. She was smiling lightly and talking to the person in front of her, the two holding hands over the blankets.
Her lover, perhaps? Or a sibling?
The answer came right after, when the man bent over to plant a gentle kiss on the woman's lips, who grinned so widely that her face basically split apart, before closing her eyes, likely to rest.
She was asleep in seconds.
The man watched her sleep for a couple of minutes, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles… before sighing and turning towards Ying.
"You can stop pretending to be asleep now. I know you're awake".
He spoke in Chinese. A bit of an accent, perhaps… but that was undoubtedly her language that flew out of his lips.
Knowing that there was no point in pretending, she opened her eyes fully, finally able to check a couple more of her questions. She was a medical tent, in Knight territory, if the Latin was meant to be anything. Which meant that she was in the presence of the owner of said tent… the healer that patched her up. Now, the issues that remained were only the why…
And the how. The Samurai's Champion had struck a killing blow, she was sure of it. But then again, she believed she did the same with the Queen… but there they both were, still alive and breathing. She tried to move her body, to at least sit up and try to feel less vulnerable. Her arms were uncooperative with her wishes.
"I suggest you do not move. It's a miracle that you even survived, you are still not ready to do anything but lie down".
His voice was colder than a freezing tundra, but the emotion behind it was clear: anger. A deep, freezing anger… the kind that almost every sane person in the world feared, to an extent.
A couple of seconds passed, before Ying decided to finally speak.
"Why… am I still alive…?"
It was an all encompassing question. Why was she alive, when she was sure that her wounds were too severe? Why was she alive…
Even though she was an enemy?
The blonde man exhaled through his nose, bringing a hand down towards his lover's hair, gently brushing them out of her face.
"Do you know who I am?"
Ying blinked, not really understanding why that bit of information was supposed to be important… but something in her head clicked.
Through the years, the Chinese Empire learned a lot about its opponents. It learned their stories, myths, legends and religions, all in an effort to understand the enemy and gain an advantage that way. Inevitably, stories of singular individuals also trickled in, allowing everyone in the army to know the greatest names of the three opposing factions.
Such as Amane of the Dawn Empire, more or less agreed to be the greatest warrior of their time. Her skill with the blade were unmatched by all.
Dagur of the Warborn, a man whose strength was only eclipsed by his charisma and bloodlust. The man protagonist of at least three different legends.
Skye of the Iron Legion, the woman who brought their enemies together under one banner and the de facto leader of those that opposed the Empire. The central figure of the entire alliance…
… and her husband…
"Oathkeeper Corvo…"
The newly named healer didn't react to his name, merely continuing to brush and caress his wife's locks, occasionally checking on her breathing and heartbeat.
"Then… you probably also know the stories. The level headed, slightly emotionless but still kind and caring healer, who stopped the Great War by just uttering one singular word. I believe that the exact term to describe was 'placid', wasn't it?"
Ying was getting more and more confused the more the man before her spoke. What did that had to do with her question?
The Knight seemingly was ignorant of her confusion.
"The things that those stories say are… true, to an extent. But they ignore one singular detail. I was emotionless back then… with one exception. For the longest time, since I could remember, the only emotion that I remember feeling… was hatred".
The Tiandi blinked, finding it hard to reconcile those words with everything that she hard about him. But he was not lying… she could tell.
"I hated my teacher, with all my heart. I hated the war that seemingly could never stop. And I hated my mother, for fanning the flames of conflict. Hatred was almost everything that I knew… until I met my now wife. She allowed me to… grow. In simple terms. If now I can feel affection, attachment… love, it is all thanks to her. But that hatred that I felt, all those years, pales when compared to the one I harbor… for you".
Finally, Corvo properly looked at her, and the Tiandi felt a chill crawl down her back.
"So… when I say that you are lucky to have survived… I did not mean your fight with Amane. If you still breathe… you owe it to everyone else in this camp… and to the woman that you almost killed. Because, if it had been up to me… we would not be having this conversation".
Ying never thought that she would ever feel murder intent coming from someone who had sworn to save lives… nor that she would ever feel intimidated by it.
But here she was anyway.
"What… are you… going to do… with me…?"
Corvo eyed her with contempt.
"That will be up to Skye to decide, when she'll wake up. But most likely, you'll be interrogated and then thrown behind bars. The condition that you'll live in from now on will depend on how cooperative you will be".
Of course. They couldn't just kill her and end it all there, couldn't they? She was more useful alive, rather than dead.
The Oathkeeper moved his attention back to his other half, the conversation having apparently ended there, on that ominous note.
It's kind of funny… the stories that had those two as protagonists were different, but the dynamic was always the same. The brash, greatsword happy Warden and her placid, kind healer. It was obvious, but it worked well. It couldn't be anything else. But now…
Now, Ying the Tiandi was reminded of the one thing everybody else seemed to have forgotten. Even throughout everything that was said or left unsaid, Oathkeeper Corvo, the greatest healer of the Iron Legion…
Was still the son of Apollyon, the Goddess of War.
Hello?! Is this thing on?! It is?! Noice.
Welcome back, dudes and gentleladies, to another episode of AHO, the show where everyone has a dark side.
What lesson have we learned today, you may ask? Never touch Corvo's waifu, or you might regret it. Not much healing going on in this one, but I don't think that I'd be able to make some decent out of Tiandi to be honest. They're just so bland and uninteresting in every possible way...
As I said in my previous updates on other stories, I am currently in the middle of exams season at my university, so the majority of my time is spent studying and trying not to have mental breakdowns every five seconds. Which means that updates in general will be slower. I apologize, but that's how it's gonna be. Hopefully it won't be for too long…
On a more positive note, next week on the eight of February will also mark the second anniversary of the story! Man… it's already been two years, huh? Where does time go…
Review Responses!
LiterateSaint: That is some very high praise, wow. Thank you so much for the kind words, I'm happy to know that I'm giving justice to these characters! Here's to another year of cooking, ahahaha.
Yup, Corvo is blessed, just like Lachlan. You didn't really think that a normal, everyday healer could accomplish half of the things that he managed to do, did you? The rest will come later, but I have plans, and they're gonna be glorious.
Next time on A Healer's Oath: Lin Yao, The Nuxia
That's all folks! Ta-ta for now!