Complacency was a foul den of creatures to rest in the bones. It corroded the soul, manipulated the very strings of the heart, until all life lived was a pit of indolence, uniformity, parity, gnawing idly at the heels as a hound upon a bone. No being should live such a way, Bai Hu thought, yet it seemed without his knowledge, the vines of negligence had wound their way about him, rooted his very soul to the spot.
Never before had he questioned his existence, the very manner of his being. Yet, with Ashe’s pursuing questions, a thousand or more crowding upon her tongue in the later hours of the evening when they came to her, the spirit’s eyes had opened to his own neglectful sense of self.
It was with an honest gaze, though she could not truly see beyond the snarling frame of his helm, Bái Hǔ gave what answers he could. “You do not need to worry for me, Ashe; I do not feel the heat. Truthfully--” There, a breath of chilled air plumed from the snarl of his helm to brush like a lover’s hand about her face; a mote of respite in the sticky southern heat. “--I run rather cold.”