Sen had a lot to think about when he took Liu Ai back to the town to get her new clothes. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that Ai had to poke his cheek to get his attention. He blinked and looked at her. He had a dim recollection that she might have asked him something.

“I’m sorry,” said Sen. “What did you ask me?”

“Can I see Dai Bao?” asked Liu Ai.

Sen had to rack his memory. Dai Bao? Then, he remembered the grizzled man at the inn that the little girl had somehow befriended. Sen had mixed feelings about her spending time with the man. He was quite sure that Dai Bao had decided that Ai was part of his extended family and wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. On the other hand, he thought that she’d be better served by spending more time with other children and less time with yet another adult. She was already getting plenty of time with adults of varying species. That was to say nothing of the abnormality of spending all of her time with cultivators and spirit beasts. He wanted her to at least get a few glimpses of normalcy. The thing that gave him pause was the question of whether or not he would recognize normalcy if he saw it. Sen ultimately caved. In the end, what was one more adult in the mix?

“After we get your clothes, we’ll see if we can find him.”

She beamed at him and hugged his neck, which made him feel decidedly warm and loved. Yeah, he thought, I’m not a pushover. Not at all. He kept his focus on what he was doing until they got into town and knocked on the door of the stern woman who made clothes. She opened the door, gave Sen a decidedly neutral look, and then smiled at Ai. The woman ushered the little girl inside, leaving Sen to follow on his own and close the door behind them. Sen settled in a corner out of the way and summoned what he needed to make tea from a storage ring. He kept half an eye on what was happening, but his thoughts drifted back to the… He wasn’t sure if he wanted to call it a fight, a confrontation, or a very indirect discussion with Falling Leaf. There had been some surface talk, but that hadn’t been the point she was trying to make. The discussion had never really been about protection. It had been about behavior and hypocrisy.

He'd been angry and frustrated that Falling Leaf had gone off into what he had assumed was a dangerous situation without telling him anything about it. He’d expected to be informed, but mostly because he’d concluded that she was no match for Laughing River. And she wasn’t. Of course, neither was he. All of which painted his reaction in a not particularly good light, because he’d done similar things over and over and over again. He’d gone off into the world and just expected everyone to accept that he would be fine. Even when he was traveling with others, he routinely went off by himself without a word to do things that could only be described as monumentally stupid and dangerous.

He did those things and just expected people to go along with it because… And that’s where it all fell apart. Sure, he’d survived those experiences but not because he was just that good. He might be just that lucky, but definitely not just that good. The cold truth was that he applied two sets of expectations to the world. He expected everyone else to treat him as though he was capable enough to handle any situation he might find himself in. An expectation that even he could recognize was patently absurd because it was patently untrue. However, he expected everyone else to recognize their limitations and keep him in the know when they exceeded them. All in the service of him being around to intervene if things went terribly wrong. Except, the people around him weren’t incompetent. There might be a bit of power gap now between him and most of the people he’d traveled with, but not enough of one that he could serve as a one-man rescue service in any situation. That was more in line with what Master Feng could bring to the table.

The point Falling Leaf had been making wasn’t that she never wanted his help or protection, but that she didn’t want it on those terms. And I can’t really blame her for that, thought Sen. It was condescending, and doubly so because of the kinds of out-of-his-depth solo risks he made a habit of taking. He couldn’t have it both ways. He either needed to tell people what was going on the way he expected to be, or he needed to assume that his companions were capable of handling any situation in which they found themselves. Since option two was so wildly impractical, because almost no one was capable of that, he needed to stop treating his entire life like it was a solo venture. When he actually was off on his own or traveling with relative strangers, it was fine to behave that way because he owed them nothing. When with people he loved and respected, he owed them better than that. A woman’s voice jarred him from his thoughts.

“Your daughter is very well-behaved,” said the stern woman.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Sen’s eyes shot up to the woman from where he was sitting on the floor with the tea set. He gestured at an empty cup he’d set out and the woman nodded. Sen poured her a cup of tea and rose to hand it to her.

“She’s not my daughter,” said Sen.

“No?” asked the woman, her eyes narrowing a little. “Sister?”

“Her parents were killed by bandits in a raid. I’m just,” Sen hesitated, “looking after her for now.”

“And why would you, a mighty cultivator, deign to look after a mortal child?” asked the woman.

Sen did his best to push thoughts of the burned-out village from his mind.

“No one is born a cultivator,” said Sen. “We all start out as mortals, and I happen to know from experience that life is very hard for an orphan child. I would spare her that.”

Some complicated things happened to the woman’s expression that Sen had trouble sorting out, but she finally settled on something that looked almost friendly.

“I suppose there are worse motives than that,” she said. “I guess you wandering cultivators are a different breed.”

“Out of idle curiosity, how did you know I was a cultivator, and a wandering cultivator at that?”

“Everyone in the town knows. After you lifted a tree off a man and gave him elixirs, it was pretty obvious. To say nothing of what your wife did at the inn.”

Sen reached up and rubbed at his eyes with his fingers. “Why does everyone think she’s my wife?”

“She isn’t?” asked the surprised woman. “I’m sorry. That was just how everyone described her.”

Sen waved it off. “It’s fine. It’s not like that’s the first time someone made the assumption.”

The woman sipped her tea, although Sen got the impression that it was mostly meant to buy her some time to think. He didn’t press the issue.

“Well, all of that aside, she’s a well-behaved girl. You should encourage that,” said the woman.

“I’ll do my best,” said Sen.

Liu Ai spared Sen more awkward conversation by coming out from behind some folding panels. She was happily trying to adjust a robe and not doing a terribly good job of it. Sen set his cup down and went over to help her, gently tying the knots and settling the folds of blue and black fabric around her. She held out her arms to each side.

“I’m a flower,” she announced.

“You certainly are,” agreed Sen. “A beautiful orchid.”

A look of hesitant uncertainty crossed the little girl’s face. “What’s an orchid?”

“It’s a very lovely flower,” said the woman from behind Sen.

Reassured, Ai smiled at Sen. “I’m an orchid!”

Before Sen could reply, he heard a dull roar from some kind of beast. Based on the way that Ai’s head jerked and started swinging around, she heard it too. Sen had been keeping his spiritual sense reined in, mostly to limit the distractions in his world for a little while. At that noise, though, he let it spread out over the whole town. He heard several more roars at about the same time that he sensed the small pack of beasts on the far side of town. Not far from the home of that man he’d helped before because, naturally, they would be there. Sen looked back at Ai and his first instinct was to sweep her up into his arms and carry her far from away from those beasts. He didn’t get a chance to act on that instinct. The woman who had made Ai’s new clothes grabbed his arm.

“You’re a cultivator. Will you help us?” she pleaded.

Sen wanted to slap her hand away and get on with taking Ai to safety, but he forced himself to calm down. This close to town, on a road, any spirit beasts were likely things he could handle without even really trying. He could keep Ai safe by simply going to where the spirit beasts were and cutting them down. It likely wouldn’t even take that long if he put a little effort into it. However, he couldn’t take her with him for that. No matter how confident he might be that could win, anything could happen in the heat of a fight. She could get hit by a stray bit of qi or die from a glancing blow that wouldn’t even disrupt one of his punches. That meant leaving her somewhere with people he barely knew. More importantly, it meant leaving her with people he didn’t trust could protect her if the worst happened. No, he thought, my priority has to be getting Ai somewhere safe. The woman clearly saw the decision in his eyes because she took hold of his arm with her other hand.

“Please,” she begged and looked at Ai. “She isn’t the only child here.”

Damn it, thought Sen. Way to hit me where I’m weak.

“What’s that noise?” asked Ai, her eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears.

“There are some bad things outside the town,” said Sen.

Ai’s lip started to quiver and a tear slid down her cheek. Sen knew he’d probably said the wrong thing. Sadly, he didn’t know the right thing to say, so he just took a guess and went with it. He wiped the tear from her cheek and gave her a confident smile.

“Don’t worry. They won’t get you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I am because I won’t let them get you. I’m an expert at dealing with monsters. But I need you to do something for me. I need you to help,” Sen glanced at the woman and tried to remember if he’d ever asked her name, “the pretty lady here to be brave. Can you do that? Can you help her be brave?”

Ai looked from Sen to the woman. He could see that she wasn’t sure about this whole thing, but she nodded at him. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to ignore the roars that were growing louder and fiercer.

“That’s my brave girl. You help her, and I’ll go send those monsters running.”

Sen shot the woman a look that communicated with utter clarity how violently upset he was going to be if anything at all happened to Ai. Then he was out the door, activating his qinggong technique, and all but flying through town.