Letting out a sigh of relaxation, Ling Qi sat down in the soft grass and leaned back against Zhengui's side. Just beyond where she sat, the soft earth crumbled away into a deep pool of opaque water that hissed and bubbled with boiling heat, sending streamers of steam up into the darkening evening sky.
"Hm, you might want some stones poking out of the pool, it'd let you have somethings growing there, for a few spots of color," Sixiang said. They sat on her shoulder projecting a fairy sized body garbed in robes the color of the evening sky.
"Hm, the fire qi in the water means only a few of the plants will work, what do you think Zhengui?"
"Red, and yellow and orange," Zhen hissed. "Those should be the colors of the center, like a merry fire burning bright.I, Zhen do not know what plants will achieve this."
"Gui agrees with Zhen for once," Gui said sleepily. "In the trees and the paths pale and soft colors are okay, but here in the middle it should be bright."
"Hm, you know might not be a bad idea to crack open a few other little vents throughout," Sixiang mused. "Little springs of warmth and fire in the dark. I bet we can do some interesting stuff with the weird air from underground if you let me blend in a little dream qi too."
"Hm, maybe the Ironsign Vines for the pond stones," Ling Qi wondered. "There's a lot of metal in the waters here so that should give the blooms a nice dark orange color."
She cast a glance at the young trees that sprouted up around them, picturing their trunks wrapped in the faintly gleaming vines. If they planted flowers in the clear space around the pond properly, they could probably make something that looked a little like a flame or a volcanic vent without having to delve too deeply into the earth.
"Has Big sister's cultivation been going well?" Gui asked, shifting his head from atop the low flat stone it had been resting on. "Gui thinks he has been doing good with practicing his growing."
"It is," Ling Qi said, patting his shell. She knew he didn't want to feel like he was slowing her down. She frowned a little, the fact that he felt the need to ask was a little bit of a problem. She hummed thoughtfully to herself. "Zhengui, what were you cultivating while we did this?"
"Smoke and rain," Zhen hissed, his sinuous body shifted carrying him out over the steaming waters, black scales skimming the bubbling surface as he luxuriated in the heat. "I, Zhen do not control the rain, but it comes after the burning anyway, this is the spring. Fire burns away the rotted and the stagnant, ash joins the soil, and the smoke brings the rain."
"Gui thinks about the stuff we saw in the many cold places," Gui chirped, though at his size even that was a deep rumble. "Gui thinks it is not bad for needley trees to sleep in the winter and the cold. This is not stagnation. It is like the tough trees that are scorched on the outside, but live on the inside. Growing new is good, but so is being very tough! Gui appreciates the needley trees more now!"
Ling Qi leaned her head back and inhaled taking in the rich pine scent of the new growth around them and watched their branches sway in the breeze.
"Look at you workaholics, you're gonna make me feel bad for just playing coordinator here," Sixiang drawled.
"Not all of us can be lazy," Ling Qi teased, considering her own arts. "Zhengui, what did you think of the glacial valley we passed through at the end?"
"It was very lonely," Gui said. "Too cold and frozen to change."
"Too slow and sleepy. Even Gui and the Sixiang are not so lazy," Zhen said. "But, there were others we passed."
Ling Qi hummed, she supposed that was so, smaller glacial paths existed further north, partitioning wide valleys and plugging passes, surrounded by more fertile growth in soil left behind by their passage.
"Mm, Gui liked those ones better. You could see where they changed things, and you could see where they were going to change things."
"Hm, I suppose you're right," Ling Qi mused.
Rather than motion and advancement, perhaps simple implacability was the path.
"Big sister might be thinking too much. Gui is just glad that we can do things like this."
"I, Zhen am pleased to work Sister's melodies into reality," his other half agreed, curling around her.
Ling Qi rested her hand on his head, and looked up at the night sky, even if that was true, was it good enough?
No, perhaps she was thinking too hard about this. Already many would call her willful, stubborn, implacable. That maybe, was the thing she most shared with her little brother, and could be the vessel by which she could complement him. The Winter Hearth Resounding Art wasn't perfect for that purpose, but it held the potential to be more.
"Gui likes it most when Sister is near, but knows that Sister cannot always stay close," Gui said suddenly. "So it makes Gui happy to make things with Sister."
Ling Qi hummed to herself, maybe that in itself was was something too look to. The Hearth's arts protected her music, but not others constructs. Could she do something with that? Infuse her little brother's constructs, his walls and his spikes with a little bit of her song?
...Why did it seem she never had time to do everything she wished to do?
[] Modify Unstoppable Glacier's March (Invert the arts themes of advancement and motion. Making it an art which drives targets away from a fixed location, and enhances fortifications)
[] Modify Winter Hearth Resounding (Modify the art away from enhancing just music, to enhancing qi constructs in general and narrow its focus to resilience and revitalization.)
AN: Sorry this one is a bit short, but it is just an extension
