Goals and methods decided at the strategic and operational levels are (mostly) going to be decided over our heads, anyway. We might be able to put in a word with the higher ups to sway things in a more favorable direction but at they end of the day we will have our orders, and orders are orders. We will be expected to follow them no matter how objectionable we may find them, and if we choose to disobey them (a possibilty I think is likely if voters find them henious enough) we better have a damn good explanation and the results to show for it.
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Colorado
True, but in pretty much every combat operation so far Yrsillar has given us like 3 or 4 options for where, what, and how we want to do things. Unless there's a significant style shift we're probably not going to get a 'go commit war crimes or face a court martial' binary choice. At least not until we're 2-4 choices down a chain that we knew was probably going to lead to that.
That's not to say I think there's any chance we keep our hands clean here, that ship sailed during character creation, but we're not going to be railroaded into the position of 'cruise missile hitting a children's hospital' unless we let it happen.
Yanmei still the best
Redundant.
If we reach the point that ES proper is being turned into a battlefield, thing already are quite bad, any request for help should hopefully come before that point
should things escalate more than I think, then yes the damage to ES could become quite harsh, tho I don't think it will end up like Golden Fields.
The difference between the early operations and now would the position we are in
in early operations we still had a choice if we want to do X or Y, but this was under the sect, and we were not really part of the Sect army just extra's.
While LQ might not be a total nobody anymore in the coming War, she still is just one of many 3. realms. So while we might bring up ideas to Lady Ren, and she then could bring them up to some higher ups, I doubt LQ or Lady Ren will have much choice in the overall strategy of the War.
Of course this is just speculation as I don't know how Yrs will handle the War arc. And maybe Lady Ren get assigned people and is ordered to act semi autonomously.
And that just my opinion, but I do hope we don't always have a choice in what we need to do even if it is something we / LQ would not like because in the War arc we are part of an army, and sometimes you will get orders you don't "like" but said order still need to be done or as @Alzabo said we better have a damn good explanation.
- Location
- Colorado
While I completely agree with you about the lack of influence we have on overall strategy, I think you're overestimating how much leeway we're going to lose when it comes to missions. We're not 'joining the army' in the modern sense, we're a feudal vassal being called upon by our liege, which is a completely different kind of environment? Culture? Not sure how to describe it. This army being gathered* probably looks a lot more like the Sect's mishmash of disciples of different social classes and cultivation types than a more 'modern' military organization like the White Plumes.
*Not the Horned Legion, which are going to be the White Plumes lite. Even once they exist the majority of the Emerald Seas army is still going to be called up from vassals when needed.
This is less of a direct response to anyone in the thread and more me just thinking out loud but I hope Yrsillar does manage to capture the specific kind of gray morality that one encounters in wartime where an individual is forced to make a difficult call with limited information and no obvious "right" answer. Situations like "the enemy has resorted to sending out child suicide bombers, you have a split second to decide between becoming a child murderer or getting you and everyone under your command killed."
Granted that's just an example, and I don't mean to imply it needs to be a strict binary choice, even in the above example you could probably come up with a number of better (if imperfect) solutions beyond the two I gave. Understand, I'm not asking for Yrsillar to make Spec Ops: The Line here but it would be dissapointing if a story that is so obviously anti-war ends up pulling its punches when it comes to depicting the real horrors of war. I think if you choose to write about this kind of stuff you have something of an obligation to do it justice, if only to drive home why war is so goddawful and why it's almost always better to pursue peace whenever possible.
Granted that's just an example, and I don't mean to imply it needs to be a strict binary choice, even in the above example you could probably come up with a number of better (if imperfect) solutions beyond the two I gave. Understand, I'm not asking for Yrsillar to make Spec Ops: The Line here but it would be dissapointing if a story that is so obviously anti-war ends up pulling its punches when it comes to depicting the real horrors of war. I think if you choose to write about this kind of stuff you have something of an obligation to do it justice, if only to drive home why war is so goddawful and why it's almost always better to pursue peace whenever possible.
The thing is our liege is Lady Ren so any orders we get would likely come from the Duchess or the general and I don't think those two like it if we take too much leeway, even more so if we can't provide a solid reason for it.
If we would just be a normal baroness I would complete agree that we would have quite a lot of leeway, but with that much attention on us and expectations we have to fulfil I just don't see us having all that much freedom.
Of course, I could be wrong, or maybe the orders we get will be more open-ended as a test for our little group to see how we deal with it.
- Location
- Colorado
I guess I'm not getting my point across here? Let's use the Caldera fight as an example. First we had to pick between going there and going underground. Then we picked between being direct attackers or part of the encirclement. Then we got to pick out the alpha-strike artillery targets, followed by our own target. And then of course there were a whole bunch of mid-combat choices including the stuff with the White Sky, which we had to justify, but did so successfully.
We're not going to suddenly change format to Shenhua (yrsillar) telling us we have to take this particular mission and commit this particular warcrime or suffer the consequences. Even in cases where Shenhua is giving us a specific mission in universe, we're probably going to be given a choice as questers as to what order she's giving us. Again, I'm not saying our hands are going to be clean, but we're not going to get strongarmed into Anakin Skywalkering some kids unless we walk straight into it.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, even if Emerald Seas was commiting a My Lai every single day... and frankly it wouldn't be beyond the Empire, they wouldn't be asking a young, promising retainer of the Duchess' heir, one known for her own sense of morality and empathy and yada yada (even if she's also sneaky and underhanded) to do it.
That's how you get people headed towards Heart Demons, frankly.
That's how you get people headed towards Heart Demons, frankly.
I think if Renxiang wanted to make strategic decisions Shenhua would give her enough decision making power to have a real impact. She already did for the summit, since the Polar Gate peoples getting involved one way or another dramatically impacts logistical and strategic considerations for the Cloud Nomads.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
The plan right now is for white vs prism(?) combat in the caves underneath the emerald seas, which will definitely have impacts on the land above. And given the way the underground interferes with communications, I'm not sure how much warning there might be before hundred-kilometer wide sinkholes start swallowing baronies.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
That sounds both terrible to play as a quest and wildly divergent from the story's tone. There are ways to communicate that war is one of the worst things people can do without going "alright here's your flamethrower go burn down a civilian village".
This is a setting where not listening to someone's moral objections will either cripple them or force them to betray you; assuming that the budding diplomat will forced into war crimes requires a lot of people who know better to make awful choices up and down the chain of command.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
It's also a setting where the more powerful you are, the more likely it is that you've cut away large chunks of humanity and empathy. So my bet is that it is rife with supernatural organizers sending each major cultivator to fight the sort of battle they are comfortable fighting, and that means the pure get to stay pure but the generals still have willing tools for awfulness.
I wonder if a communication focused way is going to give a ton of the emerald sea military heart demons when 'what is ok in war' suddenly ceases to be an unspoken (and therefore variable) code and the actual actions taken become fully known. After all, the duchess reveals truth, but she does not share it.
It honestly might be a thing to aim for? It lets us take out a chunk of the Duchess's supporters through way breaks and infighting, with personal nonviolence, schadenfreude about karma, and plausible deniability as our watchwords.
I wonder if a communication focused way is going to give a ton of the emerald sea military heart demons when 'what is ok in war' suddenly ceases to be an unspoken (and therefore variable) code and the actual actions taken become fully known. After all, the duchess reveals truth, but she does not share it.
It honestly might be a thing to aim for? It lets us take out a chunk of the Duchess's supporters through way breaks and infighting, with personal nonviolence, schadenfreude about karma, and plausible deniability as our watchwords.
You're misrepresenting what I said. This is not at all what I was suggesting. I specifically referred to a morally gray sotuation where we were forced into making a difficult choice with limited information. Something more akin to the nightmare of the Mason's War we encountered near the beginning of the quest, but this time with real world consequences. Ideally it would be a chance both to show how LQ has grown when confronted with such a situation a second time and a chance to have things turn out for the better, even if it's not perfect, especially since this time we don't have a Great Spirit reshaping reality so we "lose" no matter what.
As far as straight up evil goes, that's not Ling Qi. The Duchess knows better than to give orders to people they cannot follow and might stunt their Way.
Besides, war crimes are what the Heron General is for. Part of why we escorted her into the Liminal was her AOE attacks and her tolerance for 'acceptable level of civilian casualties'. The more I go back to pieces where she is prominent, like The Crucible, the more I realize General Xia is the most evil member of the Cai Adventuring Party. She gets her own content warnings.
Besides, war crimes are what the Heron General is for. Part of why we escorted her into the Liminal was her AOE attacks and her tolerance for 'acceptable level of civilian casualties'. The more I go back to pieces where she is prominent, like The Crucible, the more I realize General Xia is the most evil member of the Cai Adventuring Party. She gets her own content warnings.
That sounds counterproductive to making them stop fighting and a strong encouragement to go to Super Voltron damn the costs.
I think Post-Summit CRX will have enough influence and trust to make decisions on her own deployment and some level of influence over the whole war. She is the ducal heir and even though she is young and low realm for her position she already has the achievement of stopping this war from going two-front war to three-front.
We need the ith to survive so they can beat the Sun's "sublime" underground while we beat them on land
Why Emperor An made Ran Fen's family viscounts:
Yrsillar said:
Bevier said:
Nonsense Renxiang's parents got up to as teenagers:Yrsillar said:
What the founders would think of the state of their realms:Yrsillar said:
Funeral for the big boss:Yrsillar said:
Best high realm mentors in the Empire, historical characters included:Yrsillar said:
Cultivator fucking:Yrsillar said:
Post-White entities in the Emerald Isle:Yrsillar said:
Yrsillar said:
Finally. Asking the important questions.
This is like watching a dubbed anime replace firearms with invisible guns. Only instead of raunchy sweaty primate sex it's ethereal shadowy handholding and metaphors.Yrsillar said:
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Mr.Error
The Clock-Hand that Tampers with Time
- Location
- Loen Kingdom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Really Celestial Peaks, what were you thinking, holding the funeral at a place with such poor visibility, especially for the nobles smh
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- Location
- Finland
It's to provide privacy for the grieving family.Really Celestial Peaks, what were you thinking, holding the funeral at a place with such poor visibility, especially for the nobles smh
Nobody is allowed to see the proceedings.
Year 45 Month 12 Arc 4-3
He didn't respond, simply looking up at the lights playing through the distorted air. Despite their attempt to be subtle, she could feel Kongyou buried down in the bottom of his mind, clearly whispering something. It was deeply tempting to slip into the channel and rebut whatever it was, but she held her peace, letting him decide how to answer on his own.
"When Xuan Shi was very young, his father came to him in the depth of night, and told him he would be going on a voyage. He never cleanly stated that he would return, but twisted his words in a circle around the notion," Xuan Shi began thoughtfully. "It convinced a child."
She saw the shadow of a man not too unlike Xuan Shi, taller, lankier, an ugly scar dragging up the corner of his lip. His eyes were haunted and sunken, deep bags beneath them. But nonetheless the ghost of the embrace she felt in that memory was strong and warm.
"The docks were in an uproar when day dawned. A patrol ship had been taken from the clan yards without a word. This, Xuan Shi awoke too. No one explains these things to a child, but father had taken it, sailed away into the night without hesitation."
Ling Qi frowned, memories of Xuan voices rose, whispered words and accusations, the placid tones she was used to hearing Xuan Shi himself and his kin, becoming rapid and sharp to a child's uncomprehending ears.
Xuan Shi frowned himself, tugging back his collar thoughtfully. "A child does not understand. He merely knows that he is not wanted. Children do not understand things, but they recognize even the subtle distaste or concern of their parents."
"And why did they direct that against a child?"
"I was brought to the Slumbering Isles in swaddling. Returned from the voyage, a sea child. Not the strangest thing, some voyages last a decade or more. But, my Father was bewitched, or so they say. Captive and broken by a witch of the sea folk during his last journey, rescued, but… obviously not in mind, for he fled back to sea," Xuan Shi said plainly. "I do not believe this is true, at least not in the spirit it was spoken."
"Yes, but the truth is irrelevant to this story, isn't it?" Because if it was believed, it was true, at least in consequence."
"It is. Pity may cut as deep as hate, for it still marks the target as outside."
Ling Qi grimaced. She did know that well enough. Even those who did not look at a ragged child on a street corner with disgust and suspicion still did not really see them the same way they did the clean child tagging along at their mothers heel. Even if you were pitiable, you were different, outside the circle of the fire, outside of the community.
"That is Xuan Shi's beginning, a child left behind, a child pitied, one who none in the clan quite knew what they wished to do with," Xuan Shi said thoughtfully. "One encouraged to puzzles and books just to make sense of his life, and for the sake of kind company, if only on the page. One does not wish to plead pity to one such as Miss Ling. It was not a life of privation, nor the closed fist, not as you have lived."
She frowned at the self consciousness creeping into his voice. "Do not dilute your story by comparing it to mine. Suffering is not a competition."
They strolled out further under the waterfall, through the thundering mists, the pouring water striking the idly deflecting air above their heads to scatter away as they walked.
He nodded faintly, toying with his collar, the only external sign she saw of the anxiety she could feel under his facade.
"It is… difficult to put into words what it is to always stand at the edge. No voice rejects, but no gaze welcomes. That… is Xuan Shi, who is accepted but not wanted, this is the core of the tale, one thinks. To be alone even among kin, to be cold before the hearth, to find nothing where one lays their head, and so yearns to seek what lies beyond the horizon."
He spoke slowly and thoughtfully. "A child cannot articulate this. One merely knows that they are happy when immersed in worlds, not this one. Seeking without knowing, the emotion which is embedded in a page."
There were different types of privation, she had long internalized that. What she had undergone was the most primal and basic one, the privation of the body, which in turn led to the starvation of mind and soul by circumstance. But one could easily starve the soul even if the belly was well fed, and the mind well used.
She saw shades of this in many places and many times, in those who isolated themselves or were isolated by the choices of their kin, and in time the built up walls which they crafted for themselves to keep out that killing spiritual cold.
She couldn't even call it the wrong reaction to close off, to shed the vector from which the hurt came. But, she could not help but find it sad.
"That feeling IS not false either. Even if it comes by an illusion, inspiration, the striving lit in a soul by words is not false."
"No, it is not," Ling Qi agreed. They were emerging from the other side of the waterfall now, the deafening thunder fading behind them. "I think that was my mistake before, I did not really see the stories which people tell themselves to drive them forward in the proper light. Or… well I didn't properly respect storytelling in general, and how vital it is to the identities of people."
"That is not the path one treads himself," Xuan Shi admitted. "To this one the power of fiction is in creating a vision of what could be, a place to explore ideas a step separate from reality, and inspire to the future."
"And I prefer to think of how they inform perception of the past, and connect people in the present. But both are needed, I think," Ling Qi said thoughtfully. "So much of my recent thoughts and journeys have been invested in trying to untangle the how and why of how people see themselves and pull on this to find what will make them accept change."
Here out on the yet undeveloped side of the falls, they walked through the rushes which grew from the mud, strolling along the natural paths formed by wind and rain and beasts, following the curve of the lakeside.
"One must believe in the truth of reasoned debate, it was on this that the Hermit King built his following, the circle, the discussion, the push and pull of merits… but it is true that people are never wholly animated by this. Reason and logic are built on the foundations of want."
"What you want will always find its way to be the most logical thing, should you be inclined to that sort of argument," Ling Qi said wryly. "...Look at how the support changed, in the course of a month. The Clans which hardly cared for my summit saw the profit in it, and suddenly Lady Cai and I are wise prodigies, guiding the course of the southern Emerald Seas. And the arguments they construct to convince those that doubt… as they use them again and again, they come to believe them, even if it is cynical now."
That was another take away from negotiations. Rhetoric was a dangerous thing. It is difficult to argue a thing well and not come to believe it by inches.
She wondered how much of what they knew about the Weilu, about Tsu, came to them that way.
"I think of that sometimes and it frightens me a little. Once you've put your words out there, you have so little control of how they spread, how they're heard, how they're used…"
"It is a good problem to have, to be so widely heard," Xuan Shi chuckled. They stopped by a bend in shore, looking back now on the town rising on the other side of the falls.
"I suppose it is," Ling Qi said, shaking her head. "..>Well I say it frightens me, but I don't think it's a bad thing really. I don't think that a world where everyone's thoughts repeat mine would be better either."
That was the trouble with multitudes. It was admitting your power was limited, your reach finite, that your will would never be absolute… and that was a contradiction toward the nature of Sovereignty.
"A story told is passed on, changed, this is…" Xuan Shi paused, looking down at the lake shore. "...What is this?"
Ling Qi blinked, looking down as well, and met the blank eyes of one of those strange soft shelled turtles that had turned up after the ceremony. "...They showed up after Zhengui and Snowblossom Lake entered into a pact together. They're…"
They were such weird awkward looking things.
Xuan Shi crouched down, reaching out. The turtle raised its pointed snout from the water, peering at him and then dove back into the muddy rushes with a splash.
"As friendly as expected," Xuan Shi sighed.
Somehow his expression made a laugh bubble up in her throat. She covered her mouth with her hand, tried to silence it, but it emerged anyway, her shoulders shaking. "Ah, I'm sorry, it's rude-I know you…"
He'd just shared his fears of rejection and…
"It is only a base beast, with a base beast's fears," Xuan Shi said, cracking a small smile himself. "Such a fascinating thing, to see a new spiritual ecosystem developing in real time… At your behest. You walk, and the world ripples. Even now one finds it difficult not to be pulled under in your wake."
I'm only a small part of things, and I'm nearly always flying by the seat of my gown," Ling Qi laughed. "You have been around me long enough to know this… Though I appreciate the words."
That someone other than Renxiang seemed to comprehend the magnitude of things she saw, stemming from their actions.
"Improvised or not, it changes nothing."
He looked out over the lake and she felt his hesitation, rippling unnaturally through his aura as clear as ripples from a thrown stone.
"Lady Ling…"
"Ling Qi is fine," she said.
"Lady Ling," he repeated, and the emphasis brought her up short. "One wishes to present their suit. This place is inappropriate, the official request to be made at the right time, but… You have said that I do not need to be reticent."
She didn't answer immediately.
"With you, one feels like the horizon is not so far away. With you, one feels as if his eyes gaze upon a bright night, to inspire song and poetry. One… I do not wish to be a coward any longer."
She pulled in a deep breath, hid her hands in her sleeves to hide their tremble, averting her gaze from his. "Are our clans not too far apart? Even if I…"
But she already knew the answer to that.
"Sir Zhengui's existence opens this door."
"...I have treated you poorly before. I can't say I know where I am going to go, is that really fine?"
"I only ask to know if you look at this one with any interest at all. If it be not so… one would know, so that this feeling can be put to rest," he said firmly. "No good comes from endless pining."
"You are a reliable man, Xuan Shi, that at least has never been in doubt," she said, looking out over the water herself. She still had so little experience with any of this.
"I would not mind being courted by you. So that we can see how this path ahead of us can accommodate our dreams."
She did not draw any attention to the slight sag of relief in his shoulders. "Then let it be so. It seems one will need to open a new project."
"Xuan Shi I would not ask for such gifts, after everything…"
"Ling Qi, this one would not be able to face himself if a suit was made with no gift for you."
She sighed, glancing away.
She didn't dislike the conviction in his eyes.
"May one ask, what would you like?"
She bit her lip, she should…
[ ] Ask him to craft something to get them through the coming war
[ ] Ask him to craft something for the peace that came after
"When Xuan Shi was very young, his father came to him in the depth of night, and told him he would be going on a voyage. He never cleanly stated that he would return, but twisted his words in a circle around the notion," Xuan Shi began thoughtfully. "It convinced a child."
She saw the shadow of a man not too unlike Xuan Shi, taller, lankier, an ugly scar dragging up the corner of his lip. His eyes were haunted and sunken, deep bags beneath them. But nonetheless the ghost of the embrace she felt in that memory was strong and warm.
"The docks were in an uproar when day dawned. A patrol ship had been taken from the clan yards without a word. This, Xuan Shi awoke too. No one explains these things to a child, but father had taken it, sailed away into the night without hesitation."
Ling Qi frowned, memories of Xuan voices rose, whispered words and accusations, the placid tones she was used to hearing Xuan Shi himself and his kin, becoming rapid and sharp to a child's uncomprehending ears.
Xuan Shi frowned himself, tugging back his collar thoughtfully. "A child does not understand. He merely knows that he is not wanted. Children do not understand things, but they recognize even the subtle distaste or concern of their parents."
"And why did they direct that against a child?"
"I was brought to the Slumbering Isles in swaddling. Returned from the voyage, a sea child. Not the strangest thing, some voyages last a decade or more. But, my Father was bewitched, or so they say. Captive and broken by a witch of the sea folk during his last journey, rescued, but… obviously not in mind, for he fled back to sea," Xuan Shi said plainly. "I do not believe this is true, at least not in the spirit it was spoken."
"Yes, but the truth is irrelevant to this story, isn't it?" Because if it was believed, it was true, at least in consequence."
"It is. Pity may cut as deep as hate, for it still marks the target as outside."
Ling Qi grimaced. She did know that well enough. Even those who did not look at a ragged child on a street corner with disgust and suspicion still did not really see them the same way they did the clean child tagging along at their mothers heel. Even if you were pitiable, you were different, outside the circle of the fire, outside of the community.
"That is Xuan Shi's beginning, a child left behind, a child pitied, one who none in the clan quite knew what they wished to do with," Xuan Shi said thoughtfully. "One encouraged to puzzles and books just to make sense of his life, and for the sake of kind company, if only on the page. One does not wish to plead pity to one such as Miss Ling. It was not a life of privation, nor the closed fist, not as you have lived."
She frowned at the self consciousness creeping into his voice. "Do not dilute your story by comparing it to mine. Suffering is not a competition."
They strolled out further under the waterfall, through the thundering mists, the pouring water striking the idly deflecting air above their heads to scatter away as they walked.
He nodded faintly, toying with his collar, the only external sign she saw of the anxiety she could feel under his facade.
"It is… difficult to put into words what it is to always stand at the edge. No voice rejects, but no gaze welcomes. That… is Xuan Shi, who is accepted but not wanted, this is the core of the tale, one thinks. To be alone even among kin, to be cold before the hearth, to find nothing where one lays their head, and so yearns to seek what lies beyond the horizon."
He spoke slowly and thoughtfully. "A child cannot articulate this. One merely knows that they are happy when immersed in worlds, not this one. Seeking without knowing, the emotion which is embedded in a page."
There were different types of privation, she had long internalized that. What she had undergone was the most primal and basic one, the privation of the body, which in turn led to the starvation of mind and soul by circumstance. But one could easily starve the soul even if the belly was well fed, and the mind well used.
She saw shades of this in many places and many times, in those who isolated themselves or were isolated by the choices of their kin, and in time the built up walls which they crafted for themselves to keep out that killing spiritual cold.
She couldn't even call it the wrong reaction to close off, to shed the vector from which the hurt came. But, she could not help but find it sad.
"That feeling IS not false either. Even if it comes by an illusion, inspiration, the striving lit in a soul by words is not false."
"No, it is not," Ling Qi agreed. They were emerging from the other side of the waterfall now, the deafening thunder fading behind them. "I think that was my mistake before, I did not really see the stories which people tell themselves to drive them forward in the proper light. Or… well I didn't properly respect storytelling in general, and how vital it is to the identities of people."
"That is not the path one treads himself," Xuan Shi admitted. "To this one the power of fiction is in creating a vision of what could be, a place to explore ideas a step separate from reality, and inspire to the future."
"And I prefer to think of how they inform perception of the past, and connect people in the present. But both are needed, I think," Ling Qi said thoughtfully. "So much of my recent thoughts and journeys have been invested in trying to untangle the how and why of how people see themselves and pull on this to find what will make them accept change."
Here out on the yet undeveloped side of the falls, they walked through the rushes which grew from the mud, strolling along the natural paths formed by wind and rain and beasts, following the curve of the lakeside.
"One must believe in the truth of reasoned debate, it was on this that the Hermit King built his following, the circle, the discussion, the push and pull of merits… but it is true that people are never wholly animated by this. Reason and logic are built on the foundations of want."
"What you want will always find its way to be the most logical thing, should you be inclined to that sort of argument," Ling Qi said wryly. "...Look at how the support changed, in the course of a month. The Clans which hardly cared for my summit saw the profit in it, and suddenly Lady Cai and I are wise prodigies, guiding the course of the southern Emerald Seas. And the arguments they construct to convince those that doubt… as they use them again and again, they come to believe them, even if it is cynical now."
That was another take away from negotiations. Rhetoric was a dangerous thing. It is difficult to argue a thing well and not come to believe it by inches.
She wondered how much of what they knew about the Weilu, about Tsu, came to them that way.
"I think of that sometimes and it frightens me a little. Once you've put your words out there, you have so little control of how they spread, how they're heard, how they're used…"
"It is a good problem to have, to be so widely heard," Xuan Shi chuckled. They stopped by a bend in shore, looking back now on the town rising on the other side of the falls.
"I suppose it is," Ling Qi said, shaking her head. "..>Well I say it frightens me, but I don't think it's a bad thing really. I don't think that a world where everyone's thoughts repeat mine would be better either."
That was the trouble with multitudes. It was admitting your power was limited, your reach finite, that your will would never be absolute… and that was a contradiction toward the nature of Sovereignty.
"A story told is passed on, changed, this is…" Xuan Shi paused, looking down at the lake shore. "...What is this?"
Ling Qi blinked, looking down as well, and met the blank eyes of one of those strange soft shelled turtles that had turned up after the ceremony. "...They showed up after Zhengui and Snowblossom Lake entered into a pact together. They're…"
They were such weird awkward looking things.
Xuan Shi crouched down, reaching out. The turtle raised its pointed snout from the water, peering at him and then dove back into the muddy rushes with a splash.
"As friendly as expected," Xuan Shi sighed.
Somehow his expression made a laugh bubble up in her throat. She covered her mouth with her hand, tried to silence it, but it emerged anyway, her shoulders shaking. "Ah, I'm sorry, it's rude-I know you…"
He'd just shared his fears of rejection and…
"It is only a base beast, with a base beast's fears," Xuan Shi said, cracking a small smile himself. "Such a fascinating thing, to see a new spiritual ecosystem developing in real time… At your behest. You walk, and the world ripples. Even now one finds it difficult not to be pulled under in your wake."
I'm only a small part of things, and I'm nearly always flying by the seat of my gown," Ling Qi laughed. "You have been around me long enough to know this… Though I appreciate the words."
That someone other than Renxiang seemed to comprehend the magnitude of things she saw, stemming from their actions.
"Improvised or not, it changes nothing."
He looked out over the lake and she felt his hesitation, rippling unnaturally through his aura as clear as ripples from a thrown stone.
"Lady Ling…"
"Ling Qi is fine," she said.
"Lady Ling," he repeated, and the emphasis brought her up short. "One wishes to present their suit. This place is inappropriate, the official request to be made at the right time, but… You have said that I do not need to be reticent."
She didn't answer immediately.
"With you, one feels like the horizon is not so far away. With you, one feels as if his eyes gaze upon a bright night, to inspire song and poetry. One… I do not wish to be a coward any longer."
She pulled in a deep breath, hid her hands in her sleeves to hide their tremble, averting her gaze from his. "Are our clans not too far apart? Even if I…"
But she already knew the answer to that.
"Sir Zhengui's existence opens this door."
"...I have treated you poorly before. I can't say I know where I am going to go, is that really fine?"
"I only ask to know if you look at this one with any interest at all. If it be not so… one would know, so that this feeling can be put to rest," he said firmly. "No good comes from endless pining."
"You are a reliable man, Xuan Shi, that at least has never been in doubt," she said, looking out over the water herself. She still had so little experience with any of this.
"I would not mind being courted by you. So that we can see how this path ahead of us can accommodate our dreams."
She did not draw any attention to the slight sag of relief in his shoulders. "Then let it be so. It seems one will need to open a new project."
"Xuan Shi I would not ask for such gifts, after everything…"
"Ling Qi, this one would not be able to face himself if a suit was made with no gift for you."
She sighed, glancing away.
She didn't dislike the conviction in his eyes.
"May one ask, what would you like?"
She bit her lip, she should…
[ ] Ask him to craft something to get them through the coming war
[ ] Ask him to craft something for the peace that came after
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