#celestialkiri

This is the conclusion to my fanfic. This was really fun and I hope all y'all enjoy it. Maybe I'll write some more stuff later on. Something shorter and more lighthearted.

Once again, All credit to @jttw-monkeybusiness for her AU story.

********

CHAPTER 3- Hired

            The only sound Sophie could focus on was that of her heavy footsteps drumming on the forest floor in tandem with her racing heart. Her mad sprint had tempered into a steady pace as she continued to run as straight as the terrain would allow her. Her legs ached and her chest felt like it was on fire. No matter how heavy she breathed, she never seemed to get enough air. Still, she had to keep running. At that moment, it did not matter to her where she was going; anywhere but there.

            She tripped over a tree root but did not lose her balance. What the fuck had just happened to her? How the hell did she wind up in a forest? That woman in the shop. Was this her fault? Was she a witch? A mare? More likely, she drugged that cup of tea, and this is all a hallucination, a bad trip. A nightmare.

            She should have fallen onto the wet pavement of her hometown. A street bustling with vehicles and foot traffic. The smell of concrete, rubber, unemptied garbage bins; all overpowered by the sweet perfume of flowering tree blossoms. Someone should have helped her up to her feet and brushed away the dirt from her scratched up face. A human; not a pig-man. And what was that thing she fell on? Some grotesque talking monkey monster? It looked like it wanted to tear her apart with its fangs. Jesus Christ! It talked. He talked. The monkey monster and the pig-man talked. None of this could be real.

            When she thought she had put enough space between her and her would-be assailant, and when she finally ran out of breath, Sophie stopped and leaned her back against the trunk of a mossy tree. The air was cool and humid, making her sweat stick to her body rather than evaporating. Now her legs hurt, her head throbbed, her chest burned, and she was shivering. With her eyes closed, Sophie managed to regain control of her breathing and rummaged through her pocket for her cell phone. She pulled it out of her sweater and opened her eyes so she could unlock it.

            Sophie dialed 112 and waited for the call to connect. Nothing. There was no signal. No data. No Wi-Fi. No matter how many times she tried, her calls were not going through.

            Unable to hold back whimpers anymore, Sophie held her phone in front of her with both hands wishing she had the strength to snap the useless piece of junk in half. All out of options, she cried out to the heavens.

            “Help! Somebody please help me!”

            To her dismay, the heavens answered.

            “Yeah, I can help you girly.”

            Sophie turned to her right to see the monkey monster standing no less than five meters away. Her heart sank.

********

            Was it fair to think that all humans were stupid, or was it this woman in particular? To be fair, Wukong acknowledged that he held a personal bias, what with this woman crashing onto him and then running off without so much as an apology for her insolence. Tracking her down was not hard, it was actually quite funny to watch her run herself to exhaustion. The distance was impressive, for a human, and he doubted that his master could do any better than her.

            Wukong observed the woman as he stalked her from the canopy above. She obviously posed no real threat. There was nothing demonic about her, though her foreign attire made her suspect. She could be a part of a demon plot; a patsy to be used as bait to lure him and his master. If she was smart, she would answer his questions and return with him to his master; then the monk will see that Sun Wukong, the great sage equal to heaven, is the fastest, smartest, fiercest, bravest, patient, loyal, and most merciful of all on heaven and earth.

            The woman below Wukong began crying for help. The chase had gone on long enough. It was time to get some answers.

            “Yeah, I can help you girly.”

            The woman looked up at him and froze. She was like a frail little deer staring down a tiger.

            “Of course, you’re gonna have to answer some questions of mine. First off, who are you and whose dumb ass idea was it for you to assault me and my master? I’m pretty sure you’re too stupid to sabotage the monk’s mission on your own, so start naming names and I promise I won’t hurt you.”

            She stood, still frozen in place, her lips quivering. Her eyes darting between him and a clearing in the forest floor, the remnants of some old animal trail. There was no way she would be stupid enough to run again.

            “Just answer my questions,” Wukong was no longer asking, he was ordering.

            The woman stared him down, regaining the slightest semblance of composure. Then, she ran off again into the forest.

            Why? WHY! Why was she making this harder than it needed to be? He was tired of playing cat and mouse. He barely had to walk briskly to catch sight of her again. This time he was going to make sure she stayed put. He extended his jingu bang out before her. He could have hit her with it, but he didn’t. She ran right into it on her own. Wukong grinned cheek to cheek as he watched the woman tumble over the staff and face plant into dirt. He laughed aloud as he made his way to her feet. His staff rested on her back in case she tried to run again.

            “I guess you are a stupid as you look, but I am in a forgiving mood so answer my questions and I will make sure you don’t hurt yourself any more than you have already.”

            The woman on the ground grabbed a fist full of dirt and debris, then with impressive precision managed to throw the filth in Wukong’s face, hitting him in the eye with a rather sharp pebble. She squirmed under the weight of his staff but could not free herself.

            “GET AWAY FROM ME YOU DISGUSTING CREATURE!” Her voice conveyed all the fear and malice Wukong knew to expect from every god and mortal alike that crossed his path.

            This was the end of his patience. He was the one who was accosted. He was the one showing mercy. He was not the perpetrator in this attack. He did nothing wrong. And yet this insolent little mortal woman thinks she can attack and insult the great Sun Wukong? He was going to get the answers he wanted from the woman and then drag her ass back to his master. But first, he was going to teach her a lesson she would never forget.

            “You think I’m a disgusting creature? You think I’m a monster? You’re the one who attacked me. But that just makes what I’m about to do you all the more justified.”

            His fur stood up on end. the knuckles in his right hand cracked. The woman beneath him cowered as he readied his strike.

********

            Sophie braced for whatever blow that monster was about release unto her. Huddled on the damp forest floor trembling in a fetal position, her eye clenched shut; she prayed for this nightmare to end. But no strike came.

            She opened her eyes to see that her prayer was only halfway answered: she was still in this strange forest, but the monster that was attacking her was now seemingly incapacitated. He was doubled over on himself, clenching the golden band around his head. He looked to be in agony. Behind the monster was the pig-man and the human who were with her when she fell.

            Sophie hardly registered the man back then. Now, riding on a white horse, with elegant robes, he looked like a prince out of a far away fairy tale. He was in deep concentration; muttering words Sophie could hardly hear. Pig-man looked on at Sophie and the monster with a seeming sense of shock. A third man was with them. A large blue man, with a not-unfriendly appearance. Sophie couldn’t remember if he was there all along or not. It didn’t matter. They were here now, and whatever that meant, their presence kept the monster at bay.

            Blue-man walked to her side and helped her up slowly. “Please, little sister, accept this apology for the behaviour of my brother.” Sophie found his baritone voice to be assuring. “We do not mean you any harm. Our master, the monk Tripitaka, simply wants to know how it came to be that you have happened upon our company.”

            Sophie looked to the man on the horse, this Tripitaka monk, and then back to the monster still reeling in pain. If she had any chance of surviving, it was with the monk. Guided by blue-man’s gentle hand, she began to follow the strangers through the forest.

            Pig-man held her backpack in front of himself, “Little sister, you dropped this when you fell. I will carry it for you until we are back at our camp.” Sophie could tell he was trying to cheer her up, make her feel better. She simply nodded in silence and continued to stare blankly ahead, hoping the second half of her prayer would come true and she could leave this wretched place.

********

            Hours had passed and Sophie was warming herself by a fire prepared by pig-man. Bajie, she had come to learn, or Pigsy as his friends called him. She held in her hand a cup of tea prepared by Wujing, who told her to call him Sandy. The cup was warm in her hands and the tea was bitter and earthy. Sophie would take sips and let the tea sit in her mouth awhile before swallowing. To her it seemed it was the only part of her existence she had any control over. She had finally stopped crying, but every now and then tears would well up and pour down her cheeks.

            Once they had arrived at camp, Sophie had told Tripitaka all about the events of her day leading up to her being shoved out a store front door and onto the monkey monster, Sun Wukong. Wukong had more titles to his name, but Sophie didn’t care to learn them. Once Sophie and the monk had gone back and forth trying to puzzle out her story, he excused himself from her presence to sit in quiet contemplation.  Sophie sat alone staring into the flames of the campfire.

            Wukong sat at the outskirts of their camp. Sulking, arms crossed, and staring daggers at Sophie. She could sense him from the periphery of her vision but refused to make eye contact.

She didn’t know if she was more afraid of him than she was angry. She was angry at him and knew he was angry at her, which made her more afraid. When Pigsy assured her that Tripitaka had ways to make sure Wukong would behave himself, that seemed to make the monkey even angrier at her. No matter what, she could not allow herself to be alone with that monkey demon.

            The sounds of Pigsy and Sandy setting up camp and preparing a meal, melded with the sounds of the forest: distant birds, chirping insects, and wind through the tree leaves. All the sounds blended together into a silence Sophie was able to ignore. She was tired of thinking, tired of existing; she wished for no more than to slip into nothingness. The only thing that seemed to keep her tethered to the reality was the crackling of the fire and the cup in her hand.

            Finally, the silence was shattered by Tripitaka’s voice. “I have come to a decision.” The pilgrims halted whatever task they were performing to look at their master. Sophie slowly turned to meet his gaze as well.

            “It seems to me that it is the wish of Buddha, as well as the wish of the Bodhisattva, that Sophie accompanies this party on our holy mission. Therefore, she shall act as my servant and assist us on our journey.”

            The monk’s declaration was met with mixed reviews. Sandy accepted the news at face value, Pigsy seemed happy. Wukong was taken aback. Sophie shook her head in denial of the monk’s words.

            “No. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.”

            “Master, I beg you to reconsider,” Wukong interjected. “Our journey is hard enough already. If we take her on, she is just going to be another liability.”

            Despite the protests of Sophie and Wukong, Tripitaka stuck to his conviction. “Sophie was offered a job by Guanyin to act as my assistant. I had told Wukong that whatever challenges should befall us, we must face; and you just so happened to fall upon Wukong. I don’t think it could be any clearer that you have been brought here to help keep my disciple in line, though how you might achieve that is a mystery to me.”

            Sophie looked across at Wukong, who again stared back at her. If he was angry at her before, heaven knows what he was feeling now.

            “My disciples shall assist you in your chores, until you find your own footing in this world. And then, you shall be able to carry your own weight on this journey so that you are not a burden or a liability.” The monk stared down Wukong as he finished his sentence.

            “Tripitaka, please, I just want to go home,” Sophie pleaded to the monk.

            “If it was in my ability to send you home I would do so in a heartbeat dear Sophie. Alas, the only one I know of who could perform such a miracle is Buddha and he is not here. As it were, we are on our journey to reach Buddha ourselves, if you wish to ask him to send you home you are more than welcome to accompany us.”

The mere thought of @celestialkiri 's suggestion of their Reader meeting baby Wukong possessed me. I also threw in their Wukong because I love his shape.

It's like a group photo 🤭

I've been gushing over @celestialkiri @sixteenthchapel and @kaijufluffs 's Sun WuKongs for the past few days bc their arts so good, it's almost like a Monkey King buffet! So many lore and exquisite character writings!!

@celestialkiri is so new to JTTW but they're already doing so well! I'm not one for x readers but I gotta admit this one is very much an exception bc the reader herself is great and her character is very interesting, and it's refreshing to see one that isn't an instant romance. @sixteenthchapel 's WuKong is so feral and lanky I love him <3 He is so sharp and embodies the absolute wildness SWK has whenever an opportunity strikes itself, from pranks and to utter ultimate violence. He is so scrunkly.

And @kaijufluffs 's WuKong???? SO GOOD AND DELECTABLE he is just so cute and the way she draws him is like the embodiment of monkey plushies. I would pick him up and throw him if I had the power. Her AUs are so nice too :D I adore every one of em.

I also wanted to do this bc I got inspired by their works lol, and Huānlè is one of my Sun WuKong variants btw! He's from my Festival Sun AU and I'll do more of him in the future.

❤️ I've missed drawing them! ♥️

Runo and Enkhsaikhan in the modern AU.

She's just trying to enjoy some quiet reading..

Enkha 😩 leave her alone..