"The nature and theory of borders in geomantic terms," Ling Qi said after a long moments thought. "As a practitioner of dreamwalking, I have some instinctive understanding, but I think it would help me improve in many ways to dig deep into what it means to divide things."
"Is that so?" Meng Duyi said evenly, looking out over Snowblossom. "Your qi is one of attraction, acceptance. To me, it seems you have already decided that boundaries are things to be trampled over."
Ling Qi looked down."Community is, at the basest level defined by division, there are other factors, many of them, but… If I cannot come to understand and decide how that stands with my way, then my foundation is a thing of mud."
Meng Duyi was silent for a long moment, and it was not an agreeable silence. There was tension in the air lingering from her earlier gaffe with Huisheng's words.
"My uncle was that sort of man, wasn't he?"
She grimaced, bowing her head. It was true that Meng Delun's battle with the general, the wild venting of his power had lodged this thought in her head like a weed, and she could not dispute it. For there to be an 'Us' there must in turn be a 'them'.
"Is it truly impossible to reach Sovereignty, without trampling others?"
She asked the question that had lingered since her tribulation with the Nightmare of the Emerald Seas. There she had found a work around to the challenge, forced a third option where only two were presented. Take from Sixiang or be taken from by them.
But was that really always an option? It was a solution in the moment, but it left the root question unanswered.
He glanced her way. "It is. I find it strange a girl your age would ask, even moreso one who would speak the words you have. No, every moment a human lives they impose their will on the world. You may, and should try to be kind, to take minimally. But strife and conflict are intrinsic to the imperfect world the Mother and Father created. Beasts hunt and compete for space, grasses and trees strangle out competition with their roots and shade, men disagree over who shall stand where and have what. You have no issue enforcing your will and your sisters will upon the spirits of winter here."
"They can't be allowed to rampage and blow in as they wish across Shenglu, arranging beneficial rites is the most peaceful solution."
"It is, and yet the empty hungering whiteout, the weeping matron of the glacier, they would, given their will, rampage and devour," Meng Duyi said mildly.
"If you reject the notion of achieving oneness, of abandoning desire to reach a better state, and you do. You are no follower of the Dreaming Way… then why even ask this? So long as people are people, you will always trample the will and want of some in favor of others. As you said, the cost of multitude is multitude."
Ling Qi squeezed her eyes shut. He was right, she knew. She did not want to be tyrannical. She wished to achieve through the word rather than the sword.
But she already knew it was pointless folly to pretend that one could live without the sword, if one wished to hold anything, defend anything, advance anything.
"It was a foolish musing," Ling Qi admitted aloud. "I have merely been grappling with thoughts on where the line is."
"Those are fine thoughts to grapple, they are quarrelsome things after all," Meng Duyi said thoughtfully. "But you fall into a false dilemma, treating the question as absolute. Consider, rather what it is you would consider worth defying and defeating other wills in favor of."
"Does that not clash with the Dreaming Way?'
"I will not achieve enlightenment in this life, but my pride is too much," Meng Duyi replied. "I work to winnow my desires every day, in order to achieve more harmonious projects, with which more people can take the time to contemplate their spirits rather than suffering in privation. And for that I will not grasp that crown, my way is unsuited for it. This old man has foolishly pursued two hares, and for that he will capture neither. But, to teach is an Elder's prerogative, whatever mistakes they have made."
Ling Qi frowned, considering his words. Was Sovereignty not doing the impossible though? If one said 'you cannot' it was the prerogative of the ascended to say 'I Can'.
Which fundamentally defied and trampled the desire of the one who said 'you cannot'.
Frustrating, but… he was most likely right.
Even if she intended to get a second opinion soon, to quell and focus these thoughts.
"Thank you, teacher, for indulging my foolish questions," Ling Qi said, clasping her hands and bowing her head.
"It is not onerous," Meng Duyi said. "Borders then, the nature of that which divides, of categorization and… multitude. I will prepare lessons for this, when you return from your journey. Though we have only a few short months before you march to war."
She grimaced. "...Is it even worth it to beg when we will be interrupted so?"
Meng Duying rapped his cane on the ground. "It is the observation of my ancestors that focusing wholly on war twists the spirit. It was the madness of the Strife which made the Xi what they were, and whose bloodthirst saw the rise of the Hui. Contemplations of other things will not dull the blades you are sharpening."
She bowed once again.
***
"You sure about this Qi?"
"It would feel wrong to put this off any longer. He should at least know what I've chosen to do with his teachings," Ling Qi said.
She sat atop the waters of the pond in the floating isle she had made her entrypoint into the dream. The shadow of the moon shrine she had found in the Sect's peaks now drifting above an eerily silent but beautiful lake, surrounded by sky piercing mountains whose peaks burned with angry blood red flame.
Save for one small stretch where golden scales and swarms of crows flashed amidst churning clouds and the stony hide of mountains remained coated in falling snow.
"Besides, I won't be getting any healthier, I think this last little spark… I'll need to smother or process it myself," Ling Qi said, resting a hand on her stomach. The last twinges of pain were well faded from her meridians, but like the dark particules of Huisheng's Qi, that viscous wrathful spark still burned down in the depths of her dantian.
Sixiang's chosen avatar faded into existence, seated in front of her, a frown on their lips. Their own hair was more flamelike than misty here, and in patches their robe smoked, tongues black and white fire clinging to their robes. "...I guess so. I dunno even if he helped us… I can;t help but be uneasy around this guy."
Ling Qi inclined her head. "I understand."
"Not even gonna ask if I don't wanna go?" Sixiang laughed.
"No point in asking a question I know the answer too, not with you," Ling Qi said, smiling.
"Fair, fair. Shall we go then?"
Ling QI nodded silently, standing up, the water rippled under her feet as she turned to the frameless door, standing to one side of the little garden. That was enough for it to drift open, black petals whispering as they stirred on the cold stone that lay on the other side of the threshold.
Sixiang lay a hand on her shoulder and they descended, down into the shattered gaol of Huisheng, the remnant shade of the Arch Heretic of the Dreaming Way.
She scanned his chamber carefully as they reached the bottom of the shallow rough cut stair, and felt a tingle of concern. Because the chamber had changed. The dark stone of the ceiling glittered like starlight, the same way her hair did when her qi was active, and the bare damp rock and mud of the floor was now blooming in patches, the lush black lotus flowers which infested Huisheng's bones now spread across the whole chamber.
Only the pool of liquid darkness and the isle itself were much the same. The bronze spear struck into the moldering loam of the isle burning with eerie green light.
And there was Huisheng himself, a bare skeleton threaded through with thorny vines, bound to a pillar of stone, black flowers blooming from ribs and jaw and eye sockets, the proud rack of bleached white antlers sweeping back from the temples of his skull.
Student. Long its been.
His raspy, grandfatherly voice bounced around the inside of her skull, having not disturbed a single mote of air.
She inclined her head. And responded the same, merely impressing meaning onto the world without a word.
My teacher sensed the searing, unless that was only the figment you left from our games.
Nothing about the skeleton moved, only a single flower petal broke off drifting down to settle on the fathomless black pool without a ripple. She still felt the
impression of an indulgent smile.
A choice was made. This one felt the flame.
Ling Qi stopped a few footsteps from the edge of the pool and respectfully knelt, Qiyi's fabric pooling around her in the rustling flowers. He was right, cowling herself in the mantle of his power to escape the Emerald Mourner had been her choice.
Its consequences were hers too.
What are your thoughts on the Crucible of Peoples, teacher, the student is curious.
Sixiang cast her a surprised look, but didn't say anything, kneeling at her side. Their qi was coiled tightly, ready to scatter, to fly them from this place with all haste.
When the world groans for change, when traditions become shackles, it births such engines. It names itself the Crucible today. In the past it bore other names. In the future, it will bear still more. I am beyond fear, but I am not beyond pity, for the person who hollowed themselves and filled what was left with the hells purging fires.
Study your foe, and pray that you need not give rise to its successor to claw your future into being.
Ling Qi took a deep breath, those words echoed through the gaol, through her head, stirring even her dantian.
You know my next question teacher.
The student has forgotten, has chosen to forget. You have earned the answer, you merely hesitate at its implication.
Choice is pain. Choice is strife. Choice is disunity. Choice is life, the grand dream of the Nameless.
As they had under his mantle, facing Brother Darksong, Ling Qi, Sixiang, and Huisheng spoke as one. She did know. She did, so why…
The sword is unkind. Its cruelty is difficult to bear. You have been immersed in the flame of surety, a Sovereign's annihilating intent. What child would not shy away from what caused them such pain.
She grimaced, looking down. He was right. She had turned her thoughts toward peace toward harmonizing peoples and spirits with such abandon… but she had already chosen the path of Choice, when she defied the Nightmares conundrum.
And there were consequences to that. They too were hers.
Meng Duyi's words itched in her ears. He was right. She had rejected the fundamental premise of the Dreaming Way, that the path to transcendence via the sublimation of desire was worth pursuing.
No, that really wasn't something she could countenance.
Thank you for helping me order my thoughts, teacher.
This is the least one might do for a student, however sporadic. Peace is a worthy goal. It will be assailed by spear and fire at every turn.
She understood that. She still thought it was possible to do more, to be more, to spread the notion of community much further than it stood in the world today.
Perhaps one community could not contain everyone, but the thing was different circles could overlap. There was a notion there, one she needed to tease at further.
Hoh, plotting again, with so little push, the little thief makes the Elder proud. But, you have not come only for this.
She nodded faintly.
"The student wished to update you, but it seems this was not necessary.
The teacher shall have an assignment or two, but now, I would hear your questions.
The qi of the room swirled and bubbled. She could sense the plucking threads, a new game would be afoot, a game she could lose. Sixiang's grip on her shoulder tightened.
As always there was a choice. The door was open. She did not rise.
The student would hear…
[ ] The teachers meditations on Exclusion and Isolation and their interaction with Community
[ ] The teachers meditations on Choice and Sincerity, and their interactions with Truth
*****
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*****
), but it is perfectly possible to make a non-hierarchical organisation.
