The doctor is in

They weren’t real words, of course, since he had no tongue to utter them; but he formed the thoughts in his heart, hoping they would reach them against all odds. 

He talked to his best friend most of all.

I wish we had more time, XingChen. I wish I hadn’t been so harsh at Baixue’s temple. You didn’t deserve my words and still you gave me your eyes. I wish you hadn’t taken those words to heart and left immediately after. I wish the first thing I saw after opening my new eyes was your face, and not that of your teacher.

Sometimes he thought it was an exercise in futility. Could he even hear him? But during long nights spent alone he didn’t have much else to do except think, and regret, and hope.

It took almost a year of wandering before he felt the difference. Song Lan had lost count of the corpses he had put to rest, the beasts the had fought and the spirits he had exorcised; somewhere along the line everything had fallen into a sort of dull routine. A-Qing’s soul had not stirred anymore the way it did with the cow but still, somehow, after some months it felt a little bit more whole. Song Lan was not surprised that Xiao XingChen’s was far too broken to be mended by just a few, random night hunts.

Except that morning, when Song Lan was inspecting the pouches to make sure nothing was amiss and they were still in perfect conditions, something felt different. His best friend’s soul felt more present, somehow. If before it was a jumbled mess of pain and splinters, now it felt… more orderly.

A tremendous surge of hope and happiness almost knocked Song Lan out of his feet, and he had to kneel on the ground, too overwhelmed for anything else.

Xiao XingChen!