Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

280 Years Ago, the 118th Year of Emperor An's Reign.

An aged man, and across from him his grown daughter, sat in what used to be the back room of a moderately sized home in the western section of Dayuanpendi surrounded by smaller houses and new growth. Like their home, the town had grown some, filling out and adding more winding streets to itself as the years went by. Like her now white haired father the daughter had her own desk, though the tools on it were arranged in a way that set them distinctly apart. There were more square shadows on the walls now. The fire beside them was the same as always however.

To the woman's left where there was once a window over her pallet there was a door leading into a hall and doorways leading into three new rooms. One at the far end and two across from each other on either side of the hall. From the far room the sound of two sleeping breaths, one much smaller than the other, joined the breathing of the two cultivator scribes. The front room was quieter than it used to be a decade ago. Behind the woman there was a new window, high on the wall and letting in fading starlight.

The man sighed and ran his wrinkled and spotted hands over the bronze embossing of his desk as his daughter inhaled. With the grace of long repetition they each reached for their own books, the daughter's being thinner but bound with finely painted metal instead of wood and her father's thicker after decades of use.

Opening to the section for spring floods their qi began to cycle and spin, rising around both of them. Stronger around the daughter than the father, and with the combination adding a distinct feel of ink to the air. That feeling sank into the fibers of the talismans on the wall, and one in particular drank it up in peaceful silence while smelling very faintly of water.

Qi cycled down their arms, heading for the fingers of the father and the palms of the daughter. The father's hum was weaker than it was years ago, but still as satisfied as he found what he wanted. They each had different tasks so they chose different inks. Veined ink for the father, as his friend still liked it, as spirits are wont. Hearth burned ink for the daughter, because her friend had expressed interest yesterday while she recited poetry to him about it.

Moving swiftly but smoothly they closed their books and set them back in their places before reaching over and setting up their tools. The rushing river of tiny clacks marked to their sleeping family that it was time to wake up, the day was coming. Both cultivators grabbed their right arms with their left and age had not taken anything from the wizened grandfather's steady hands.

Setting brush to ink and ink to talisman parchment they gracefully dragged their brushes across it, yin water qi following the father in miniature spires and yin wood following the daughter in crawling roots. They each scribed a slip, placed their brush over the inkstone, moved the slip to dry and then returned to their grip on their arm. The daughter's circles were not of a water wheel, but the pinwheel loved by her young daughter.

The Sun beaming into the back of Gong Bingqing's head told her it was time to get ready. Her father glared halfheartedly at the window as the light heated the top of his head as they relaxed and set aside their tools, packing them up. While doing so the father looked at Bingqing and snorted.

"I still hate that window." He grumbled good naturedly. Bingqing didn't look up, quirking an eyebrow at her father's grumblings.

"It was your idea Dad." Her voice was giggling at his expense. The elderly man just made a face at her and cackled.

"And that gives me all the right to complain!" He said cheerily as a thump and the quiet pit-pat of little feet toddled down the hall. Emerging from the shadows was a tiny girl of four winters at best, blanket wrapped around her waist and held up by a pudgy fist as the other rubbed at her mouth.

"Momma? Grampa?" The little girl was clearly still mostly asleep as she sat next to her mother, legs out beneath the blanket.

"Good morning Shui. Did you sleep well?" Bingqing asked gently as she rubbed her daughter's shoulders.

The little girl nodded. "Yep!" She seemed more awake now.

Gong Sho looked on with complete and utter satisfaction in his expression, long white beard nearly quivering with happiness.

"Shall we make breakfast then?" His tone was teasing. Bingqing giggled, and his granddaughter nodded rapidly, setting her braids to flopping in her face.

The talisman behind the little girl which always smelled of water presided over this event serenely.

---

Gong Bingqing was walking through the main street outside their home with her partner at her side, He Chang lending her shade against the sun with his height and the tall case he carried on his back which matched her own. Though it was less shade than it could be considering how much like a whip he was.

Turning from musing on her lover's form she refocused on their goal, a small glade of trees outside Dayuanpendi which the River Song passed through on it's way west. To her senses the glade was whispering quietly as they passed beneath the boughs of three entwined trees, one of them home to a sentinel of sorts if she wasn't mistaken. While she did not quite catch what they said, she expected it was a message to their mother tree. Chang was not aware of this interplay, but was calm anyway, his demeanor usually unflappable after four years raising an energetic daughter who insisted on going on adventures with him in tow.

The path was winding, and after around half of an hour they found their goal, or at least the preceding sign of their goal if the voices coming from the clearing up ahead were any indication.

"Carefully honey!" A man's voice rang out from the trees and was answered by a gleeful feminine cackle.

"I'll be fine! Quit worrying Laozi!" Was the woman's delighted response.

When Bingqing emerged with Chang beside her they saw her old friend Dequan Laozi carefully supporting his partner Ah Ren as she sat on top of his shoulders to paint the top of a clay pillar inscribed with formations set besides the rushing course of the river, her long brown hair messily mixing with her husbands. Unlike her friend Bingqing, Ren's hair was beginning to go grey at the roots, though she was as lively as ever.

Both the newcomers couldn't help but grin at the antics of the painter and her sculptor.

"I see you two are having fun." Chang's voice was highly amused.

Laozi glanced over. "Chang my friend, we are. Almost done though and then we have to go home for dinner. Want to come over? Ren here misses your daughter."

Bingqing broke out in full-hearted laughter. "You joker, you just want to spoil her!" She got out between laughs, soon joined by Ren as she messed with Laozi's hair.

"He really does. Don't you 'Uncle Laozi'?" Her voice was merciless with it's teasing.

Laozi crushed a hand to his chest, expression melodramatic. "You wound me, all of you. Terrible friends. Just, utterly, utterly, terrible." Shaking his head solemnly he couldn't help the grin on his face.

Then he looked back at his friends. They both nod.

"Excellent. We'll see you tonight then!" Laozi says, waving as he helped Ren off his shoulders and then down another path, laughing all the way.

Chang and Bingqing hold it in for a moment, before they just burst into giggles.

Eventually, after several minutes of merriment the giggles go away and they continue to their goal, which is found at the end of a little side path through the other side of the clearing. It lets out close to the rushing river but is dominated by a massive willow tree.

It is a tree spirit, the mother tree, gifts of pottery strewn at her feet and little lanterns and incense. The tree utterly dwarfs these gifts however, rising several men high in the air and so thick that four people couldn't touch hands around its trunk. The roots are as thick as Bingqing's torso, and some crawl out to hang in the river like steps or hands.

Both people knelt as the attention of the tree landed on them, Chang following his partner's lead. The attention is curious and gleeful to Bingqing's senses. Removing the cases they opened them to reveal stacks of talismans in reddish hearth burned ink for happiness and good luck.

Oh, how kind of you Bingqing.

The tree's voice is soft in Bingqing's ears, but so full of joy it feels several times louder.

The woman bowed her head. "You do me honor Mother Lian. We would not have good lives without your care and love and no homes without your children. You provide for us from yourself."

"Thank you." Both humans said in sync, kowtowing before the willow tree, which creaked softly, the shade shifting above them as it moved.

You are welcome Bingqing. Is your seedling well?

The woman rose slightly and noded. "Gong Shui is well indeed. Full of energy and life."

Good, this pleases me. Come, hang your gifts on my branches.

Smiling happily at the spirit's acceptance Bingqing waited while the branches lower to head height in a great cascade of creaks and groans. The work "decorating" the tree goes swiftly with her assistance.

---

When the spring floods came a month later, the Mother Lian was quite satisfied with the gifts given. She got to show off her new hair arrangement to her lover the River Song, and he loved it almost beyond words. He shared with her all the little gifts the humans gave to him, the knots of painted string, tiny wooden boats, and fruit and drink and oh so much else.

Everything came together to make this year's celebrations as great and lively and fun as they were last year, as they should be. Though Mother Lian thought privately that they were even better this time around and hoped that they would be as good next year.

All of these things came together to give the village a good flood and a good year, the satisfaction of the spirits traveling on currents of qi through the town. Said currents often passed through a particular talisman on the wall of a particular scribe family's home, and it drank that qi greedily, finally tipping over a critical point. While not anything solid, the qi it drank lingered in the talisman now for a time before passing through it, flavored by its passage. This change would provide the basis for all of it's future growth.

---

@yrsillar Omake for the throne!

Hmm, well I said this was about the talisman, but this omake really just came out to be about the Gong family. Which you know what, is totally okay, because when that talisman awakens it basically will be a Gong family member.