Laid bare. {Closed}

[thescorpionking]

⌛ Who: Xie Wang (Liu Xie) & Gu Xiang
⌛ What: Her arrival and the dramatic escape from the healers.
⌛ When: Now.
⌛ Where: The hospital and then elsewhere.
⌛ Warnings: Talk of death/murder, mental/emotional grief/anguish, a ton of guilt and maybe violence. Let's be honest, Xie deserves it.

He isn't sure what draws him to the hospital - an instinct, perhaps. It doesn't hurt to check on the patients and see if there are any familiar faces. However when he hears her voice, he freezes mid-step in one of the many hallways, the flowers in his hand dropping to the floor.

Her? A coward would run. He isn't a coward.

Xie gathers the fallen blooms and walks to her room, deducing, rapidly, that she has suffered a great loss. Has she lived through his plan, then?

This was inevitable. When time doesn't matter, every sin can - and will - be revealed. He lays the flowers on a table and sees the healers out. With force if he must.

"Gu Xiang."

Comments

[amethystfiend]

One could say that they barely remembered what happened when first arriving, but how could she forget? She'd been on death's door, in her master's arms. No. Not her master but her elder brother. Of course, she barely had any strength left. From the anger. From the fight.

However, the moment she hears her name from him, despite the weakness she's up almost immediately. She's still in her wedding gown and those eyes narrow on him. Honestly, she shouldn't even be up. It's the last thing that she needs to be.

"You."

The anger is clear in her voice and her eyes. She'd just lost everything and he thought he could just show up? To do what? Make matters worse? How could he possibly make them worse?

[thescorpionking]

He flinches at the anger and the pain, seeing firsthand the horror he had wrought. This is what he had feared encountering. She is innocent and he had torn her life, her soul to pieces. Xie steps forward and kneels at her feet, head bowing.

"Please rest, Mistress." he raises his dark eyes. She is wearing her wedding attire. Xie closes his eyes and clutches the Glazed Armor at his chest. He never goes anywhere without it. Just for safety's sake.

But it is one of the reasons this... This happened.

His grip tightens and he feels the Armor...crack.

"You can take what you wish from me when you are well."

[amethystfiend]

Confusion slips through with her anger and pain. Gu Xiang isn't sure what's going on or if this is some trick. She wasn't anyone's mistress either. That was the Ghosts in far higher standing than herself.

Her strength, or lack of it, is waning more than it already had been. The more she stands there the more her body and the strength of it weakens. She's not even entirely sure how she's meant to function.

"What are you playing at?"

The anger is still there. Confusion, anger, pain, and frustrated tears. This wasn't real. It was a trick.

[thescorpionking]

"This is no trick." Xie speaks softly, watching her for fear that she will collapse. If she does, he will need to catch her and that is problematic as he doesn't know where she is wounded. But he also can't let her hit the floor.

"Rest. You can have your revenge later, I promise. I'm easy to find." he rises and pours her a cup of water, "And if you're not comfortable here, I can take you to Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu."

He has come to know them...well. They will take care of her, he is sure.

[amethystfiend]

Not a trick.

She wasn't sure if she believed him. This couldn't be anything but that. Same as his words. She doesn't collapse as much as slide down to the floor where she'd been standing, those confused eyes watching him.

"Who would be comfortable in a place like this?"

It has a bit of bite to it, but still lacks strength. However, the cup of water has her staring at him.

"You first."

[thescorpionking]

"No one. But it serves a purpose." Xie sets the cup down and hurries to assist her, holding out his hands to lift her back to her feet. If she allows him that freedom.

"The water?" he arches a brow and blows out a breath, "I wasn't the one who left it for you."

All the same, he retrieves the cup and drinks the clear liquid, swallowing it.

"See? It's not poisoned."

Though the worry is understandable. His poisons are well-known and absolutely deadly. But...

"Mistress, I have already killed you. What would be the point of giving you poison now?"

[amethystfiend]

This place served no purpose. Though, the moment he goes for her hands she jerks them back. Why would she let him touch her? She would stay right in the spot she was in on the floor, or strain herself to get back up and onto the bed again. Which wasn't bound to happen.

He might not have been the one to leave it for her, but he'd poured the cup. A part of her, but only the tiniest, relaxes when she sees him drink it. That it wasn't poisoned.

"What would be the poi... What was the point of killing him?!?" It's screamed out practically in anguish and pain, tears clouding her vision. "He wasn't one of us."

[thescorpionking]

She must be referring to her husband-to-be, he presumes. Xie sets the cup of water beside her and then crouches down so they are eye to eye.

"Men can make petty slights into reasons for revenge. The one who chose to kill him must have done so for the sake of honor or loyalty." his lips tug bitterly to the side, "I gave him the key, that is all. The hatred was his own."

The world is filled with hatred and when you are in the spotlight, it is all directed at you. Xie frowns at her agony, face colorless.

"Who knew such a gentle sect could be so bloodthirsty."

[amethystfiend]

There's a pained laugh at his reasoning. After all, Scorpion gave him the key. So, how wasn't it his fault? No one would have known who they were without help. A lot of them stayed under the radar, herself included. She'd only ever gone where her master, no... elder brother, had gone.

The floor was not going to help with her recovery, but she didn't trust Scorpion either. Which means she attempts to get up herself. She won't allow healers to come anywhere near her. She needed to... actually, she didn't know what she needed to do. Not anymore.

She needed to get out of there. Rest wasn't bound to happen, not any time soon. Not in his presence.

"They would have stayed perfect if they'd been left alone."

Or, as perfect as she can see any human anyway. Sorry, Xie, but she's tired both physically and emotionally as well as still in pain.

[thescorpionking]

"No, they would have lashed out at you eventually." Xie gazes at her efforts sadly, "I will contact Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu for you, Mistress. They will surely come."

Because they, unlike many others he has met and known, are honest, just and loyal. She is dear to them and they won't allow her to suffer in so foreign a place.

"Please get back into your bed until then?" he keeps his voice quiet, soothing, "I will go if you do. The floor is no place for you."

[amethystfiend]

"They would've had to know about me first."

If they didn't know about the Ghosts of Ghost Valley then they would've had no reason to lash out. Well enough would have been left alone. Or maybe she's deluding herself. Humans were weird and strange compared to the Ghosts. To those that she'd grown up knowing. Brother Zhou was different, but maybe that's because he was her brother's soulmate.

"I'm not staying here."

She won't be trapped in the hospital with strangers she doesn't know. Even not trusting Scorpion, he was the lesser of evils in that place. As for getting back in the bed, that was proving to be a harder feat than it should've been.

[thescorpionking]

"And you think the Ghosts were unknown?" Xie shakes his head to correct her on that point, "Do you remember those pamphlets? That was the work of Zhao Jing."

It had been a way to reveal the elusive Ghost Valley and to blame its occupants for crimes they may or may not have committed. Politics were foul and often cruel Xie had discovered. The innocent were branded as the worst and made to suffer the ultimate price.

"Just for a little while." he approaches her carefully, "I can lift you. I promise you, I am not armed."

Peeling back the front layers of his robe, he shows her that there are no daggers.

[amethystfiend]

Gu Xiang could easily blame him for something that his step-father pulled, but she won't. That would be like someone blaming Kexing for her stunts. So, no matter how much she wants to put the blame on him for the Ghosts being revealed, she couldn't. Even if he didn't stop it. One can't always stop family.

Her eyes trail over him and the lack of daggers, to a point, is reassuring. Even if she doubts anything in life would be reassuring anymore. She'd always been told that Ghosts and humans didn't belong together. The events of what had happened cemented that fact.

"Fine."

Though, she wanted nothing to do with this hospital or the doctors.