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

Ling Qi took a seat on a pale grey shore, on which lapped waves of rippling dream. She breathed in the scent of the colour sea, and it was no one thing. It was the scent of early morning mist in spring, the acrid scent of a painters tools, ink and incense, fresh churned forest loam, trod on by a hundred dancing feet. Beside her sat a tall, thin figure forlorn in expression, their waving rainbow hued hair lying flat and lank against their scalp.

"Sixiang," Ling Qi greeted quietly, smoothing her gown. It was strange, her focus was here, but she could still feel her body, feel the energies churning in her meridians as she took in the shifting tides of the moon and made them hers.

"Ling Qi," her muse greeted, not looking over at her. The spirit's voice was hoarse, and their knees were drawn up to their chest. "Didn't take you as long as I'd thought."

Ling Qi laughed. "I'm pretty tough you know. It takes a lot to keep me down."

"I know," Sixiang said. They fell silent then.

Ling Qi let the silence stretch, she did not really know what to say. Words danced through her mind, she wanted to plead, to cajole, to deny. She did not want Sixiang to go, she thought to appeal to their connection, to the sadness she and her other spirits would feel, but the words died on her lips. That wasn't really fair, it did not address Sixiang's trouble at all. Yet, she couldn't not say it. "We would miss you a lot," she said quietly. "I… promised them you know. I'll work hard with you too."

"You'll work yourself to death twice over before you take a break," Sixiang answered with a chuckle. "What if I don't want that?"

"I…" Ling Qi grimaced, the ache in her dantian sharpening, sending a spike of pain up her spine. "I can't stop Sixiang. I won't stop, the world is still so big, and I'm still so very small," she said, quiet determination in her voice.

"It will never stop you know. The bigger you get, the more of the world you'll see. It will never get any smaller," Sixiang replied.

"Even so," Ling Qi said, unwavering. "I would like if you stayed by my side. Even if things are hard now, can you really say there is nothing more you want to see of the waking world?"


Sixiang smiled wanly. "You know, it's funny. Before I spent all of this time with you, none of this would have bothered me. What is the end of a few dreams? A song of war is as good as a song of peace, if the singer is skilled."

"Sixiang…" Ling Qi said, trailing off, she wasn't sure how to respond.

Sixiang blew an errant strand of lank hair out of her eyes, and finally turned her head to look at Ling Qi. "Will you take a stroll with me, Ling Qi? I think I've spent too much time awake. You don't sleep near enough."

Ling Qi looked down at the muses extended hand, she glanced out to the rippling sea as it drew back from the shore, and took their hand in her own. She felt herself, still cultivating among the Silent Stones. "Of course. I'll find the time, if I need too."

Sixiang smiled as they grasped her hand, a flicker of humor entering their eyes again. "I'm glad."

And then the wave crashed down upon the shore, and they were both no more.




Ling Qi felt her limbs spin back into existence, and found herself on a flat and polished wooden floor. All around her dancers spun and whirled in the flickering shadow of bobbing ghost lights. Merriment and cheer filled the air. She herself now wore a gown of old and strange cut, a billowing cloud of lace and silk almost fit to drown in.

She still grasped Sixiang's hand, who now stood across from her, wearing antiquated gentleman's robes. They, no, his face had taken on a more masculine cast, and other arm was around her waist. They had joined the dance midstep, and only her quick reflexes allowed her to avoid trampling on the spirits toes. Some part of her wanted to shove them away, but it was just Sixiang. Masculine shape or no, it was all the same.

"Good recovery," Sixiang chuckled as they spun through the steps.

Ling Qi's gaze flicked across the room and down at their feet, swiftly analyzing the steps. "I know I don't don't do it in public, but you of all people should know how much I've practiced." Dancing was not so different than any other kind of athletics, not really. Even the simple stretching exercises of her Mother's cultivation art had a certain dance-like quality. It was all a matter of practiced, memorized motion.

Above, or perhaps below them, Ling Qi saw the dance floor mirrored, and a second Ling Qi danced with a second Sixiang. Which was the reflection, she wondered? For a moment, she felt as if she was looking through two sets of eyes, both staring at one another from the other side of the mirror.

"I suppose so," Sixiang mused as their dance carried them around other pairs. The other dancers were not human, not most of them. What could be taken for mask sat a glance resolved into bestial features when looked at directly, and the dancers features changed from one moment to the next. "You wouldn't know just by looking though," Sixiang said with a smile, as if laughing at some private joke.

"You haven't answered my question you know," Ling Qi said quietly as they danced. "Is there really nothing else for you?"

Sixiang's expression grew more somber, and despite herself Ling Qi was aware of the handsome lines of the currently male muses face, not so far from her own. "That's the wrong question I think," he said quietly, and they separated for the next steps.

Another set of hands clasped Ling Qi's as she spun away, and the other dancers features blurred, and became Sixiang's. "There are so many things I want to see… but I have to wonder if staying where I am is the best way to see them. I've changed you know."

"You have, but I don't think it's so bad, you used to be pretty feckless," Ling Qi teased gently, not missing a beat at the 'new' partner.

"Mm, I'm not so sure," Sixiang mused, moving in time to the phantom music that rang over tha dancers. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, sending the curved and mirrored walls around the dance floor rippling. "I don't regret coming to care about you, but… my fear has made me less I think. It seems so much clearer here, immersed in dream."

"There is nothing wrong with wanting to live," Ling Qi replied, meeting his eyes. "Spirit or no. I understand though, it's not easy seeing so much…" she trailed off, thinking of bodies lying still in the fields, and faces covered in creeping frost. She shivered, despite the warmth of the room.

"It's because of my own fear that I feel theirs so acutely you know," Sixiang said with a sad smile. "I'm a muse, you know. I can feel what people are feeling, even when they try to throw up a mask, in combat, when they aren't even trying…"

Ling Qi was silent, lowering her eyes.

"Your world is so rigid and limited you know," Sixiang said softly. "No one knows what happens when you humans leave it, except for those who won't answer. How can you not be afraid, when you don't know if this is your last dream? So many little sparks, all clashing, none of them want to die, but they're driven to bring death to others anyway, riding on the currents of causality, old actions sending ripples downstream again and again…"

Sixiang's voice started to drift off, and Ling Qi gave his hand a sharp squeeze, drawing him back from whatever dreamlike tangent he was going off on. "I don't know about any of that," Ling Qi said. "But… even if you can understand your enemies. They're still your enemies. People want things, and sometimes what they want just can't be reconciled with what you want."

"Like I said, rigid and limited," Sixiang chuckled sadly. "But I get it, I wonder if that's the argument that you want to make right now."

Ling Qi flushed slightly and glanced away. "We aren't enemies Sixiang, we're friends. I want you to be happy, and I want you to stay, but if one precludes the other…"

Sixiang grinned in amusement and Ling Qi huffed at the obvious teasing as their dance carried them to the edge of the floor and through the curved and gleaming wall. The glasslike exterior rippled as they stepped through, then shattered, reducing their previous venue to a thousand falling sparks of color and light.

Now, they walked on a snowy path that wound through a dense forest. They were clad in mourners white, their gowns unembellished, just two in a stream of humanity that wound out of sight both ahead and behind. A soft mourning song rang through the air, punctuated by sobs from amidst the line. On the murners shoulders were countless biers, smelling of incense and oils that only just masked the scent of death.

"It might be hard for you to understand, as a human," Sixiang mused beside her. The handles of their bier rested heavily on Ling Qi's shoulders. The muse had shifted to a female aspect now, slighter and softer than the face they had worn a moment ago. "It's not like I'm unfamiliar with the bad stuff you know? Nightmares are dreams too, and more than one artist has poured their fear and anxiety onto the page or canvas."

"Then why? I want to understand," Ling Qi asked, her voice muffled and quiet. The very air of this place seemed to disallow loudness.

"It's like…" Sixiang paused, searching for her words. "Like before I could think this is fear-of-death, and this is pain-of-loss, but it was like describing what the color something was, there wasn't really any understanding to it."

Ling Qi was silent, her qi thrumming in her meridians. It really struck her then, the inhumanity of her companion. As a human, she could reconcile the things Sixiang had spoken of, but… she couldn't not really. Sixiang was a muse, a creature of thought and feeling, a conflict like this could discomfit or depress her, but to Sixiang, it was really more like a wasting illness.


"But you've spent enough time to have that context now. They aren't just colors on the pallet anymore," Ling Qi said. The mourning song rang out so much more clearly now. The singers poured out the laments of the dead and the hopes of the living, and though the language they sang in was foreign, she understood.

"Heh, looks like you were paying attention to the art stuff after all," Sixiang chuckled. "But, yes Ling Qi, I understand people, I can feel what they feel. Do you understand?"

Ling Qi had difficulty imagining it, she had trouble enough with her own emotions, the thought of having the feelings of others flooding her head at all times was… unpleasant. She knew intuitively that Sixiang was not just speaking of their allies, and it fed certain threads of unease that had wound through her thoughts since the day when she had killed the Bai traitor and the bandits. She lowered her eyes as the dirge rose higher. "I stand by what I said earlier. You should save your understanding for the people you care about. You have to choose what to value more and less."

"I think I get it, I really do. It's just not so easy to get the spirit back into the bottle," Sixiang chuckled. "I'm afraid Ling Qi. I don't know how to handle that."

Ling Qi walked in silence next to the muse, her sandaled feet churning the cold muddy road. Outside of the dream, she felt herself considering what exercise to begin next.

[] Melodies of the Spirit Seekers (Lean in to the problem of empathy and how to solve it. Improves Sixiang's Wind affinity. Lower Chance of Positive result)
[] Playful Muse Rapport (Try to help Sixiang reclaim their nature as a muse. Increases Sixiang's Moon affinity. Higher chance of positive result)