"So he offered to send out a shipment of our best lumber, strongly infused with wood and wind qi. Figure you'll need something to develop shrines or sites, even if building a theater or music hall is not exactly top priority for awhile."
"I thought you said some of your family was upset?" Ling Qi asked.
"Some are, some aren't. And my old man… he's a bit of a troublemaker," Ruan Shen chuckled.
"It runs in the family," BIan Ya said dryly.
"Hey now you can't just say that kinda thing. What happened to the prim and proper?" Ruan Shen complained.
"We are not in public," Bian Ya said with a haughty sniff. "Here I speak candidly."
"No respect," Ruan Shen sighed. "From my juniors or my girl."
"I respect you, when you're being respectable, senior brother," Ling Qi said impishly. Her depression smoothed as she rose from her chair and bowed to both of them. "Being serious though. I am most thankful for everything you have done for me, and the advice you have both given me these last two years. Please, accept my full gratitude."
"Of course, I don't regret it at all," Ruan Shen said breezily.
"I do wish we could have found more time, but I am glad to know you, junior sister," Bian Ya said. "And I wish you a happy future."
"I wish you the same," Ling Qi said. "Ma Jun, sorry I'll be leaving right as you get here."
"You do not owe me any such apology," Ma Jun said. "And… we may be following you in Lord Gan's service, eventually."
"Snowblossom is beautiful, I don't think you'll regret it," Ling Qi said. She turned to Yu Nuan.
"I'm going to see you often enough. Not like you're not gonna keep visiting your Mom's place," Yu Nuan said.
"True," Ling Qi said, letting it stay at that. Yu Nuan was just awkward about this kind of thing.
She gathered the container with the silver, and the receipt for order offered by Ruan Shen, and placed them into her storage ring as she sat back down.
"Well then, if we've said what needs to be said, why not one last session of our little club," Bian Ya said, clapping her hands. "I have been working on a piece about fresh fields and the western winds. An improvement upon my recovery arts and…"
Ling Qi smiled to herself and settled into her seat. She was glad to do this, one more time.
***
But, all things come to their end. She knew that better than most. With the others needing to return to duties or other appointments, Ling Qi was left to walk the Sect in thought , her steps brought her back to White Cloud Peak, the Outer Sect mountain, where she found herself wandering the upper peak. Following the path she'd taken so long ago now, up toward the icy peak. She could have simply flown to the top, but walking again, feeling the icy bite of the wind and the slick icy cliffside paths under her feet felt right. It brought back memories, fond ones, sad ones. And of course.
"Heya Big Sis, wanna play tag? I'll let ya pass if you do!"
Ling Qi raised an eyebrow, looking up through the falling snow to see a young girl perched on an icy ledge, kicking her bare feet back and forth.
"That depends, are you going to try and welch on your end of the deal again?" Ling Qi said, chuckling at Hanyi.
Her spirit huffed, crossing her arms. "Hey don't drag up the past, I was super immature back then. A Lady has to keep her word, you now."
Ling Qi dissolved between steps and materialized beside her junior sister on the ledge, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "You having fun?"
"...Yeah, wish Zhengui coulda come so we could have gone sledding one more time," Hanyi said. "Gonna miss this place."
"It won't be the same, but we have plenty of mountains for you to explore," Ling Qi said. She fell silent, considering. "...If you go sledding with Zhengui, please be aware of what's downslope from you."
He was so much bigger now, they didn't need uncontrolled avalanches happening near anything important.
"Yes Big Sis," Hanyi said, rolling her eyes.
Ling Qi narrowed her eyes at the ice spirit. She didn't like that tone.
"Hey, is Sixiang okay?"
She blinked at the question, surprised Hanyi would ask. "We just need a break. Besides, they want to try out having legs.
Hanyi pouted at her. "I'm not a dumb kid, you two had a fight, right?"
Ling Qi allowed her smile to fade. "We had a talk, if it was a fight… then it's resolved."
Hanyi huffed out a sigh that sent the snowfall skirling and twisting around them. "Are they gonna leave."
She pursed her lips. "I… don't think so. But if they want to, they can."
"Hmph no wonder they've been dodging me," Hanyi sniffed. "Probably don't want to here me tell them how dumb they are for thinking about it!"
"I'm sure that's it," Ling Qi said, ruffling her hair. More likely Sixiang was trying not to be tempted by sticking to the familiar in their time apart. "You want to finish walking up?"
"...Yeah," Hanyi said, taking her hand
They hopped down from the ledge, and resumed walking up to the peak. It didn't take so long as they were, even sticking to the ground. They were soon in front of the crumbled cairn of rocks that served as Zeqing's grave, giving their respects. Hanyi blew out a breath, growing blooms of frost from the cracks between the stones, and Ling Qi placed the cold burning sticks of incense into the little burner set out on the altar of clear blue ice set up before it, letting the soft blue-white smoke be carried away into the storm, and the slowly, slowly reforming entity that she could sense within it.
She knew intellectually that the spirit which came into existence here would not be Zeqing, not in any meaningful way.
…She still hoped that it might remember them, at least a little fondly.
They remained at the grave in silence for awhile, Hanyi and she both contemplating the one laid to rest here. The wind whipped and tore at their gowns, but neither of them was moved by something so paltry.
When she was done, Ling Qi clapped her hands twice and bowed. Straightening up, she looked back over her shoulder. "Senior Brother, you can come out now."
"I was merely being polite."
"I know, or I probably wouldn't have noticed you at all," Ling Qi said.
It had been quite a long time since she had seen Liao Zhu. The initial stages of the war had not been kind to her former tutor, but it seemed that he had come out of his encounter with whatever it was that had arrived at the end of the Caldera battle intact. He had a few more scars visible on his chest. And for once he was not wearing the fanged demon mask over his face. The crimson crescent tattoo under his eye had deepened in color though, the red outlined in stark black. It was joined by a matching mark, perfectly symmetrical with the first under his other eye. But most of all…
"That isn't your spirit filling in anymore, is it?"
He looked down, flexing his hand, the one he'd lost to Ith-ia artifice. The muscle and flesh flexed realistically, but the shimmering liquid silver color of it was anything but. He flexed his fingers and they became barbed knives, flowed into a long, thin blade, and then shifted back to human fingers.
"Elder Jiao was quite bored in his own recovery," he said with a shrug. "It is good to feel whole again, to have my magnificence tarnished so could not be good for the morale of the Sect."
"Senior Brother's recovery is vital, no doubt," Ling Qi said.
"Hey, whose this guy?" Hanyi asked, looking him up and down.
"This is Liao Zhu he accompanied us on our mission underground, remember?" Ling Qi said.
Her junior sister frowned, putting her hands on her hips. "Oh! You feel different!"
She considered him, his qi was, was all but undetectable to her, but she supposed Hanyi saw the world differently.
"Even one such as I does not emerge from the crucible unforged," he chuckled. "But Junior sister, I have heard you have been very busy indeed."
"I choose not to leash my ambitions," Ling Qi said. "I can't seek the peak with small desires."
"And you will drag the whole of the Empire a finger length or two, if you have your way," he chuckled. "I am so proud of my junior sister, finally finding her sovereign's appetite."
"Big Sis is just too shy sometimes, " Hanyi said with an imperious nod. "But she's getting better! You should come hang out at her new place with the big snake guy and the turtle guy she's got hanging around."
She dropped a hand onto the top of Hanyi's head, ruffling her hair a bit harder than necessary. "Please excuse my junior sister. She lets her mouth run sometimes."
"Siiiiis, you gotta go for it!"
"I have to do no such thing," Ling Qi snapped. "Hanyi, that's too much."
"What a lively girl," Liao Zhu laughed. "Truly I fear for your nerves in the future!"
…She was very glad Hanyi was still childish in some ways for sure.
"I have some appointments to keep, so do you mind if we talk and walk, senior brother?"
Hanyi gave her a rebellious look, but relented when Ling Qi squeezed her fingers down.
"Of course, where might you be off too, Junior Sister?"
[ ] Going to my friend, Li Suyin's Inner Sect home, to visit her and Su Ling
[ ] Going to the main square of the Inner Sect Mountain, to meet Han Jian, her one time friend.
. But seriously, without him, we wouldn't have met Xiulan. We wouldn't have met Xin and started our current Moon path. He's helped us a lot, and I'd like to acknowledge that and thank him before leaving the Sect.