Now all the watery ladies are coming out and giving Li Lianhua his assignment. Midsummer is the right time for Rusalki, telling the living women on the Kupala night who they are destined for; so of course, I had to write this today.
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He turned to look at her. Her hair was unbound and wild, and she wore a shift; timeless, five hundred years old or one hundred. One hundred years old would make the garment a nightie, though, his mind supplied superfluously.
Her hair was still dark, and wet, and the green was strong in it, as if water-ferns had been woven into it.
"What do you need me for?"
"Someone needs to hold your A-Fei when he remembers," she said. "And someone needs to get his story out without pointing a finger at him. That's what we need you for."
"Also, we are soppy and sentimental," came another voice, with a giggle. Li Lianhua knew that voice; it was Carmen.
"After all that happened, you want him to be happy?" Li Lianhua guessed.
Gepard hopped off his shoulder to greet Carmen; apparently, the cat had decided she wouldn't harm cats. He was such an optimist.
She bent down to rub the cat's ears.
"I couldn't help that boy back then," she said softly, "but I can help him to land softly now, when his wild story is done. If it's you he wants, then it will be you he gets."
Li Lianhua was about to protest about free will again, but then he realised something else, and for once in a long, long while, he just shut up and nodded.-
