Heavenly Shae

Chapter 15: "Hop, Skip, and Jump."

Her short journey started out slowly. She made it to the edge of the sect's formation quickly, but the woods were denser than expected. She had wanted to at least jog down the mountain, if she couldn't run, really test her newfound strength on the way.

From her practice the days previous, she had found a significant difference between the strength of her right and left limbs. The lightning cleansed limbs felt superhumanly strong, but pushing herself to use that strength was difficult, a mental loophole she had to squeeze through. It also meant that to use her full strength, her running became very asymmetrical. To Shae, it felt and probably looked more like a gallop.

Landing hard on her weaker leg would cause it to collapse, and she couldn't push off from it as hard either. So, her fastest running became more like hopping along on one leg, while using her weaker leg to stabilize her landing and help control direction.

With two days of practice, she decided she really needed to cleanse her left leg properly.

After about an hour of slowly working through the dense forest, it started to open up. Shae didn't hesitate to pick up the pace.

The ground fled out from under her as she kicked it away.

The mountain wasn't steep, but she was running downhill, making her progress feel more like falling than running. She experimented with her gallop, shifting to smaller kicks with her weaker left leg, just controlling her body angle and gaining a small bit of height as she fell. Her right leg, rocketed her forwards every time she kicked off, leaning forwards and low as much as possible to kick off at the steepest angle forward.

She tripped a few times, of course. Missing a step or catching herself on a stronger branch. The couple downhill tumbles were softer than she would have thought, or more likely, her body could take a bit more impact now. She still expected to have bruises tomorrow.

The real challenge came a few hours later, when the evening light was fading. She broke through a denser patch of trees to find an approaching drop, a ridge just ahead of her, no treetops visible in the space beyond.

Having fallen into tumbling rolls already, she knew she couldn't stop before it. Causing her to panic. She tried to kick sideways towards a tree. Succeeding, she reached out and grabbed at a branch. However, it was with her left side. That kick with her right leg pushed her that way. Her weaker left hand bounced off the branch, so she reached with the right on instinct. It grabbed the tip of the next branch, and she pulled, snapping the branch off, only shifting her slightly.

The ground rushed at her again, and she landed with both legs far out front, trying to catch herself, her momentum unrelenting. She kicked off again, pushing back and left, trying to redirect her momentum. She was at an angle to the ridge, but still moving towards it. If she had twice the space and noticed it sooner that might have been enough. It wasn't, the ground dropped out from under her, she was past the edge of the ridge, only empty air under her feet.

Yet, she had kicked towards a tree. The branches brushed past her and she grabbed the largest with both hands, correcting her previous mistake. Her left hand slipped and could not find grip, her strong right clamped on. It slid briefly before catching at the point the branch split. It pulled her left, swinging her around to match with the cliff face. The branch snapped off, leaving her holding it in mid air. She was still falling off a cliff, even a short one, but she was no longer flying away from it.

She flailed wildly in mid air, as anyone would. The steep cliff face rushed towards her as she fell. Unfortunately it was again on her left side, her weaker leg would be useless, possibly even twisting or breaking on contact. She flailed her arms a bit harder, the branch still in her hand, she got some extra control out of swinging the branch, but not enough. So she threw the branch at the last second, spinning her around to face the cliff and catch the steep surface under her right foot.

She realized as she landed that she had no plan whatsoever.

She tried to slide, hold her leg steady and ride it down, she tried to brush the cliff with her hands for balance. She looked below, it wasn't a huge drop, the tops of the trees closer to her than to the ground. Her foot skipped along the cliff and pushed her outwards slightly as it caught and lost grip.

She knew it wouldn't work, it was too steep, she couldn't keep up the delicate balance, and worse, she wouldn't really slow down at all.

While it was a cliff, it wasn't vertical, so the treeline at the base was a dozen or two paces out from her. She tucked in, the fall straight down moving her center closer to the cliff face, then kicked off. She pushed herself out as hard as she could, towards the treeline. She hoped to just land near the top of a tree, and have a terrible time falling through the tree instead of grinding down the cliff until she hit the bottom at speed.

She had a magnificent few seconds in mid air. Hanging upside down above the treeline. The evening light washing the scene in reds and purples.

Then she was in the trees. She guarded her head with her right arm and tucked her left in. She didn't think about her legs. The first branches were soft, all leaves and small twigs snapped and went by too fast.

The first thicker branches were on par with someone swinging at her with them as hard as they could. A mortal someone, not a cultivator. They stung a bit more just because she remembered them. The real branches hit hard and spun her, not just breaking away with the impact. She bounced between a few, before there was a sudden gap. She opened her eyes to see the drop between the lowest branches and the ground.

A few dozen paces in the air, adrenaline maxed out, she had a thin sliver of time to act. She was close enough to the tree trunk she could get half a kick in, so she did. Launching herself out from the tree. She caught the ground with a mess of uncontrolled limbs, the kick having spun her as well. Landing in the roll soaked up some impact. She tumbled for dozens of paces, rolling downhill. Her leg finally caught a tree trunk, spinning her sideways and bringing her to a stop.

She tasted something warm in her mouth, fluffy and golden like a cloud. No, that was blood. She turned her head and let it leak out, so she wouldn't choke on it when she passed out. Her body vibrated with energy, real energy, it was the golden light and calm clouds of her divine qi. She was packed full of the stuff now. She didn't know when she had drawn so much of it out.

Maybe when I first saw the cliff, maybe as late as when I hit the ground? She considered the question, but it was a blur of memory and too fraught with emotions to see clearly. She pushed the qi back inside her Dantian, most of it, she could feel darkness approaching before it was all gone.

Those emotions were not gone, they still warred within her. Fear of the fall was slowly losing ground to the joy of still being alive. Panic was still riding her adrenaline and waiting for the shock to wear off, when she would really feel the fall. A little remaining clouds of divine calm floated through those and more.

She stayed still, not wanting to move for fear of the pain starting. She could see her left hand was bloody, and her right seemingly unharmed. She felt no other wounds, but moisture from sweat could feel the same as blood, and she did feel sweaty, so she was unsure. She assumed she wouldn't feel broken bones until after the shock wore off or if she moved around more. A heat burned her skin in a few places where she remembered being hit, suggesting bruises, at the least.

She focused on the calm divine qi within herself, letting it drift and spread around her qi channels as it wished, just nudging it with barely a thought as it slowed. She rode the little clouds down through her adrenaline high and into meditation. Once under, her mental space was chaos, her heart still pounded, the shock and adrenaline not fully dampened. Her fear and joy still pulled her in opposite directions, both trying to drag her back out.

She went back to her classic meditation techniques, she hadn't needed them in weeks, but they were still needed occasionally, still all useful now. She tried to accept what had happened, what she was trapped thinking about. It sort of worked, none of the urgency really falling away, it was still too fresh.

She pushed the little cloud of divine qi into the corners of her system, the thinner channels and furthest points. The qi had its own plan for what to do, as the old monster had said. Maybe it would push out toxins, maybe it would relax her frayed nerves, maybe it would keep her alive.

She searched her mental impression of her body for damage. That is when the pain started. Looking for it, seeking out its specific source broke through the barrier that trauma and shock had created. She started at her left hand, where she knew there were cuts and bruises. The cuts were all small, and maybe caused by that first grab at the branch, or the second. Definitely more the second, she thought, when her hand had slid along the branch.

She then began finding the bruises, all over her arms and legs. One large one on her hip, and a few along her ribs and shoulder. Overextended joints, bruised bone, then blisters on her feet and worn out muscles from the run downhill. She couldn't tell where they all came from, but she cataloged them diligently. Nearly breaking out of meditation every time she found one that was too painful to fully ignore. The little divine clouds acting to buffer the pain sometimes.

Cracking an eye open, she found it was dark out. She felt like this was as good a place as any to sleep for the night. Now she found she did need to move. She was lying on something uncomfortable, a large root. She moved slowly, cautious of her injuries. She rolled over, pushing herself up with her stronger arm, it wavered a bit, too bruised to be steady. She moved her pack off her back and set it down as a pillow. Then lay down to sleep.

Sleep came slowly, the pain and soreness keeping her awake. She considered what she would do tomorrow. Could she still walk with these injuries? A few stood out as more painful, so she summoned up more little divine clouds, the rest having dissipated into her qi channels. She urged the thing into the problem locations, asking it to heal her, to soak into her flesh and rebuild. It did soak in, but she was uncertain of the 'healing' part, she felt no different, just tired.

Mental exhaustion finally took her deep enough to fall asleep.

The morning was an intense reminder to not fall off cliffs. Shae was sore all over. Technically an exaggeration, but once enough bruises form and enough muscles or joints are strained there isn't much distinction between them.

She moved slowly, working through the constant discomfort and the spikes of pain. Some joints and muscles were already stiff and she knew staying still would only make them worse.

She checked herself over slowly, assessing the damage she hadn't sensed clearly while meditating last night. The blood was mainly on her left hand, the thick travel clothes soaking most of the light damage and getting visibly torn and frayed from it. Somehow she didn't find any broken bones, but she wondered if a rib or two was cracked, it was hard to tell.

She was missing a shoe, her right foot was bare save for a scrap of cloth that served as a sock. She didn't remember when she had lost it, probably the last kick off the tree, she would have noticed if she was barefoot for that.

Her travel pack had marks from snags, but no major damage save a broken shoulder strap. Awkwardly, it was the right strap that broke. Since that side of her was stronger, she would have been more comfortable carrying it on her right side only. The bag had no metal hardware, just fixed stitching, so she couldn't adjust it or switch which side the strap was on. She settled on letting it hang in front of her just so she could use her less sore right shoulder. She didn't investigate its contents, she was too sore to bother.

She gradually dragged herself back uphill to the tree she had fallen through, just to look for her shoe. Moving was painful, but she needed to, and pushed through the pain, knowing her joints would calm down the more she pushed. She knew the added blood flow would lessen the swelling, and thus lower the pain.

The sight that greeted her was shocking. Maybe not as shocking as the fall itself, but the damage to the tree was far outside what she expected.

Shae stared up at the tree, through the large hole her freefall had cut through it. The lower half of the trunk left an empty gap under the branches, and now an arc of those branches had been shorn away by her fall, revealing the cliff above.

She was surprised by the tree itself. It stuck out of the forest around it like the sun on water. It was a golden larch, a blot of gold in a sea of green. With winter approaching its fine brush-like leaves had turned a beautiful yellow gold. It seemed to be the only one within sight, making it a beacon that drew the eye.

Shae wondered if she had kicked towards it subconsciously. She had looked down during the fall, maybe seeing the bright gold tree acted as a target to her subconscious. She sighed and shook her head, thanking pure luck, if nothing else.

High on the trunk, just out of reach, was a large gouge in the bark. Right away she knew what it must be from, but couldn't believe what she was seeing. It could have been cause by a lumberjack taking a dull ax to it for an hour, but she knew it was from her single kick. Her last chance to change her angle of descent. Even now, she didn't think she could replicate it, and not just because of her injured state. She simply didn't consider herself capable of generating the force and power needed for that kind of impact.

Seeing all the damage to the tree, she lamented its fate. She wondered if it would survive the winter. She thanked it in her mind. Then more directly by placing her forehead against the trunk and mentally praising it for its hard work. Wishing it good fortune to survive the winter ahead. She stayed there a few minutes, falling apart then gathering herself back together as thankful tears of joy overwhelmed her.

She let the tears come, and reflexively let a little cloud of calming qi escape her Dantian. She moved it within herself, and putting all the thankfulness and good will into it, she forced it through her forehead and into the tree. She had no way of knowing if it had worked, if she could even move her qi outside her body. It had likely just burned itself away cleansing some of her skull or skin on its way. Yet, she felt it was the thought that counted most of all right now.

She made a small pledge to the tree. To return in a later year to check if it was still alive, and to make good use of its wood if it was not. To that end she gathered all the shorn and shattered branches she could. Even keeping the soft feathery leaves. If nothing else, the lot would make a soft bed, and excellent kindling once dried.

The broken strap of her backpack was not enough to bind the bundle to her bag, so she used the small length of rope she did have. Back when she had free time in the camp, she had made the iron blood creeper rope with her future travel in mind, it was good to have a piece of rope, however long. The old monster confirmed her handmade rope had been obliterated during her tribulation. He had provided a short length of high quality rope as a replacement, tucking it into the bottom of her pack.

She found her shoe shortly after collecting the branches. She looked it over, shoe was a misnomer, she thought. It was more like a slipper, a long-soled leather slipper, with the extended sole pulled up and tied at the ankle. She had added extra lacing to keep it in place during travel, most of that lacing had snapped. Her memories jumped back to home, it was another piece remaining from that time. She had almost outgrown it now, her toe nearly too wide to fit comfortably.

She struggled to get it back on her foot, mainly from her injuries restricting free and flexible movement. She tied it slowly, the last of the lacing, and some stolen from her left shoe, just enough to wrap her ankle. She hoped it would last the journey ahead.