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

Rixiong, Bear of the Zenith Sun, by Ms. Tsuu.
Yrs was consulted for accuracy.

They left the palace lights behind, skipping distance like a flung pebble skating over the water's surface. Flashes of the street and flashes of the riot of colors on the other side intertwined.

It wasn't so different from one side to the other. On one side, streets thronged, filled with celebration; they were winding down compared to what Ling Qi had seen since arriving. But still, the streets were full with laughter and streamers and performances. On the other side, spirits spun and danced, airy creatures pirouetting in the air between shimmering bubbles of contentment and good feeling and the fuzzy happiness of inebriation.

"What side we feel like walking on?" Sixiang asked casually as they emerged from a side street in a shimmer of rippling light, joining the small parade proceeding down twigward to the city's edge.

"Your side. It's probably the best for this conversation. Less chance of interruption, I think… and I want to remember the good of Xiangmen's dream before I leave," Ling Qi said.

"Well, if you like it loud, I guess so. Hard to overhear us when all the music is blaring, huh?" Sixiang said. "You mind if I choose a spot?"

She glanced at her muse in surprise. "If you have one in mind, go ahead."

Sixiang hummed, giving her hand a squeeze, as they stopped at the edge of a thoroughfare. A small procession of musicians was trailing through, an impromptu, half-organized walking orchestra bringing music to the nighttime streets.

"I got something."

Ling Qi inclined her head in agreement. Sixiang tugged at her hand, and they stepped back through the veil. Colors and noises rushed by, and thoughts and feelings scattered before them like schools of frightened fish.

And they emerged in a hall of silver and glass, overlooking the riot of spirits below. The grand revel she had witnessed on her last journey to Xiangmen was now swollen like a river in the midst of a spring flood, a riot of shapes and bodies crashing through phantasmal streets.

But the cacophony was muted, its dull roar seeming far away. Ling Qi pressed her hand to the seemingly pane of glass beside her and found it slightly soft, her fingers sinking into it like mud.

"I remembered. There was a previous part of me, whose human kept a little… viewing platform around Xiangmen. It's busted, thoug,h as ya can see, falling apart. It'll do though," Sixiang said.

Ling qi tilted her head.It was a bit like a birdcage… or the bottom of one, with thin little bars of silver rising into the sky overhead and melting away into the glassy 'dome' of permeable dreamstuff overhead. Beneath her feet, the bars all came back together from around the radius, creating the 'floor' they stood on.

..She could feel a tiny bit of the echo from the person who had made it. This was to them what her little 'island' moon shrine was to her. An entry point, a cultivation chamber… but mostly faded now. Only a whisper of poetry remained on the wind.

"It's still quite pretty. Do you remember anything else about that dream?" Ling Qi said. She brushed her hands against the 'glass,' and it parted smoothly like a curtain, unleashing a riot of noise and scents, the bubbling good feeling of a city mid-festival.

But it didn't leave their words to each other any less clear.

"Not really. I don't really have much more than light impressions of past dreams. Permanence ain't exactly what the Dreaming Moon is about," Sixiang laughed, coming up beside her to lean against the silver frame. "So. This conversation."

"This conversation." Ling Qi agreed.

Silence stretched between them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ling Qi saw Sixiang's hair flick in a phantom breeze, growing a little shorter, their faces and shoulders a little broader.

"I do still feel it, even now that I've been away from ya. I honestly don't know love, that kind of permanent love, not just the fleeting infatuation of a tryst or a dream… I don't know how that works. I just know I don't want to leave you, and I don't want to let you go." Their voice was a few tones deeper, and th-he looked over at her with a longing look.

Ling Qi felt a skip in her heartbeat, a slight heat that wanted to rise in her cheeks. It wasn't quite what she'd felt around meng Dan when he started laying on the charm, but she wouldn't lie and say there was nothing there. But it was stifled by the… confusion around…

"But… I know that you feel something like that with your fam too, yeah? I've felt it, looking at them out of your eyes."

Around that.

"Maybe. I haven't dug as deep into your emotions as you have into mine," Ling Qi said. She turned around, letting the wild music outside wash over her as rested her elbows on the 'pane' of the glass wall behind her. She caught Sixiang opening his mouth and shook her head. "That's not an accusation. I know I could have, but I'd probably have panicked if you let me."

"Yeah," Sixiang said after a quiet pause.

Ling Qi sighed. "I don't… know how to resolve that for us. But I want to. I don't like this… awkward in between."

"This liminal thing ya mean?" Sixiang asked, waggling his eyebrows.

She snorted. "Yes, sure."

Sixiang chuckled, but it trailed off, back into an awkward quiet. After a few seconds of its lingering, while Ling Qi cast about for how to approach the conversation they needed to have, Sixiang scuffed his foot against the floor, and the platform lurched beneath them and began to move. Trailing a rain of sparkling motes, he began to fly over the thronging spirit filled streets of Xiangmen's dream.

Now that she was aware of them, she could see them even here, Ling Qi noted, the strangling hands of nightmares pawing at the edges of her senses, snaking through the alleyways. But they were withered, unhealthy things here, covered in sores and burns. But honestly, she wasn't interested in nightmares, not right now. Her eyes wandered to the fantastical things that danced in the streets.

Potent dream wines flowed, glittering wings of butterfly scale and bright feathered plumes passed in the air, their owners caught in dance. Muses, spirits that were little more than ephemeral clouds of glittering bubbles filled with human emotions, danced and swirled in the streets, and they raised their cups to the colorless radiant sun in its clasping cage of thorns so far above.

It was chaos, but a good chaos, the riot of choice and human experience. But… it wasn't simple, was it? It never was.

"I liked hanging out with Suyin," Sixiang said, breaking the relative quiet. "She's such a fun little ball of nerves. I like seeing how those machine things work, and I liked showing her how to imbue lil spirits, my baby cousins, into formations and stuff."

"Should I worry about that," Ling Qi wondered aloud.

"Nah, nah, I mean probably anyway. It's probably fine," Sixiang grinned.

Ling Qi laughed.

"But… I do think there are things I might like to stick around for… I just don't know if they'd be enough without you as my anchor," Sixiang said. "I was kinda… made for you, even if I've grown past that a little."

And there is was, a thing that caused her some discomfort. She knew Sixiang could see it on her face, too, the way his expression dropped.
"You were strange to me at first," Ling Qi said slowly. "A disruptive force, shaking things up around me… You made me indulge my worse instincts sometimes, like that very first party Cai Renxiang got me an invitation to."

"Ah yeah, you probably shouldn't take my advice about politics stuff still," Sixiang said, smiling humorlessly.

She gave a little nod. "But… once I bound you, you were… a confidant that was always there. You understood me very well, and I could always talk to you. You became one of my best friends very quickly, and thats saying something with how rapidly I was forming friendships back then, like a beggar stuffing food into her pockets at a public feast."

Sixiang snorted, and Ling Qi smiled, amused by the imagery her own words conjured. Her smile faded, though. "I came to rely on you, more than that, I came to be… expectant of you. I didn't want to let you go either. I convinced you to stay even when you were thinking about fading. That first time we danced… it's when you started feeling like this, wasn't it?"

Sixiang was silent for a long moment. "It was the first time I really thought of you as beautiful, yeah. I felt how much you wanted me to stay… and it made me want to stay too. You understand, right? I was upset, fraying because feeling so much from those bandits you killed hurt me, like having splinters jammed under my fingernails… it still kinda does."

Ling Qi thought of Diao Linqin and didn't say a word.

Sixiang frowned, pressing his lips together in a thin line. "But I don't… didn't care about them. I was upset at my pain. You were still the only real thing that mattered… well I was grateful to the little Cai for talking you out of a bad spot too."

"I think getting out of your head for a while was the right answer," Sixiang said. "I think having a body was the right answer. "But I hate the distance. I do wanna goof off in my silly mannequin, but I also want to come back to ya after… not after months like this, but like.. Maybe after a day or two, you know?"

"I don't like being alone in my own head anymore. She diverted a soothing thought to Qiyi, who responded with something like a cat's purr. She did love her dress, but it wasn't the same. Qiyi was still more like… a very small child, and was much more passive beside, being a dress. She could and would go silent for days until something roused a powerful enough interest.

"I miss my friend, and I don't like this… brittleness between us. I don't like how quick you are to apologize and back off," Ling Qi said, voicing the discontent that had been dogging her. "I think…"

"One way or the other, we need to decide what we want to be," Sixiang said, shaking his head. "I'm not gonna compete with those guys, you know? That feels weird to me… nightmare-y. I know humans might think it strange, but I think you're cute with them. I don't know how any one of 'em would react to a plus one, though."

Even with how far she had come, Ling Qi felt very uncertain around the idea herself. She certainly couldn't even imagine entertaining the idea with anyone but Sixiang. But, all the same…

"But… I'm not going anywhere either way. If you just want to be friends… be family, that's fine. I do… I got other things," Sixiang said. "So. What do we want to do?"

[ ] Sixiang the confidant, the friend, the fun older cousin to her other spirits. Things might not be the same, but that was the path she wanted to walk.

[ ] Sixiang the companion, the friend… and perhaps something more, it would make her already tricky situation trickier, but… she felt she could try.