Ling Qi looked down at the table, losing herself in thought for a moment. How would she go about describing her mentors music to someone who had never, could never listen to it? Her own compositions held shades of it and in the Frozen Soul Serenade, she aped Zeqing's fury and deadliness, but it wasn't the same thing. "If you wouldn't mind, could you begin? It might give me a better framework to speak in."
Things had become awkward enough and her ignorance was already clear at this point. Ling Qi felt the phantom sensation of Sixiang's hand on her shoulder, and breathed out. With that breath came the Carefree Mantle. It seemed that she still had to get used to the idea of casually using such things.
"Reasonable enough," Bao Qian mused, and she could tell that he meant it. She had a feeling that she wasn't just seeing an act, that he was out of his depth in some ways as well, though not as badly as her. "Well, I shall explain from the basics.Please inform me if I am saying something you already know Miss Ling."
An out, an unsaid assurance that he wasn't trying to insult her intelligence. That was fine. She nodded and gestured for him to continue.
"In the emerald Seas there are considered to be three primary schools of musical style. Only two if you ask some," he harrumphed. "I do not truck with it, but certain types do not consider Grandmaster Fu's style a school of the Emerald Seas. He achieved his greatest works in the Imperial capital you see."
"The more traditional clans then," Ling Qi replied carefully.
"Not just the clans, you would be amazed at the snobbery found among the small circle of those who follow musical trends," Bao Qian said wryly. "But regardless, I will begin with Grandmistress Lei. She was a musician of the early Xi period. Her original home lay in the west of the province, the name and location are no longer precisely known, lost in the chaos. She was a lone cultivator, preferring hermitage to society. Her style was raw and some say uncivilized, emphasizing the elements in their more primal form and often carried themes of the inevitability of natural processes and the fundamental beauty and ugliness of the world. Her preferred instruments were woodwind."
Ling Qi supposed that she could understand the comparison. Someone from so long ago… well Zeqing or some incarnation of her had been around for a very long time. Idly, she wondered if this GrandMistress Lei had learned her early songs from some spirit of a remote and lonely fen. "You said she was a hermit cultivator. How does anyone even know about her then?"
"Oh, she married into the Meng eventually," he chuckled. "It is a bit hard to call tales from that period history, but it is said that Patriarch Meng Hao heard her songs while on a journey to the south and wooed her for thirty days and nights, offering gift after gift until he was left in naught but rags. It was only his final gift, a poem written from his own lifeblood and shen that she acquiesced."
Ling Qi smiled politely that did sound a little ridiculous. She quashed the part of her that wanted to think it was merely a cover for a less pleasant story. The patriarch of a clan would after all have a great deal of power over a mere hermit musician
"Dunno if it's all true, but Grandmother still has that poem," Sixiang whispered.
Well, maybe she was letting her own cynicism put blinders on her. Still it was difficult to match the recalcitrant and xenophobic Meng she had read of with that kind of thing. "I suppose I won't be able to find any recordings of her songs lying around."
"Not unless you intend to marry into the Meng," he joked, "And even then it seems unlikely. But many arts descend from the teaching of her disciples. Your song, the Forgotten Vale Melody was it? I have heard others say that there are strong elements of her teachings in that. A dozen odd generations removed, but still."
"And the others?" Ling Qi asked curiously. It was easier to talk when it was something like this, the Carefree Mantle helped, blunting the edge of her anxiety, but it wouldn't have mattered if the subject were less comfortable.
Bao drummed his fingers on the table, the flashy rings adorning them glittering in the lantern light. "Well there is Grandmaster Fu, who was born in Xiangmen during the second dynasty. He was able to sign on with a sect in the Celestial Peaks and grew to prominence there, being called upon to perform for the Emperor more than once. He pioneered the combination of multiple disparate regional instruments and developed some of the earliest orchestral scores. The last was the somewhat unfortunate Grandmaster Jiang."
"Unfortunate huh? What happened to him?" Ling Qi asked dryly. She felt like she had an idea.
"He ran afoul of Hui internal politics. A member of a branch clan, his music which focused on passionate string and percussion performances and tended to emphasize the human element over nature or grand scores, it was considered too radical. He had an unfortunate overdose of cultivation elixirs that lead to his early death," Bao Qian replied gravely.
"He was definitely killed wasn't he," Ling Qi said, reading his expression.
"It seems highly likely, considering the efforts to quash his disciples in the aftermath," bao Qian replied spreading his hands. "Alas, there is no proof, but happily our benevolent duchess lifted the ban on his style shortly after her ascension to the provincial throne. Which is a good thing, as I quite like his tenet of spreading one's music to as many listeners as possible."
Well, he was still trying to sell her on the recording idea. He was certainly persistent. She supposed she would be happy that he wasn't going to be pushy about it. Over the next several minutes in attentive silence as Bao went on about interactions between styles, and the emerging divides between more modern musicians, filing away a few names into memory. She even caught some hints of the influences that arose from other provinces, though they were never the focus.
Their meal arrived partway through, it was a roast duck dish, slathered in sauce and stuffed with fragrant herbs. It seemed a terrible indulgence to her, but she had to admit that it was good, the rich flavor burned on her tongue and the wind and water qi in her channels danced, making her feel almost as if she were drifting along on a gentle river current with a clear sky overhead.
It was only as they were finishing their meal that she finally decided on her words.
"I think the comparison to Grandmistress Lei was not entirely wrong," Ling Qi said slowly, picking at a spot of leftover herb in the sauce that marked her plate. "My mentor Zeqing… she was inevitability. She was not kind, nor human, though she could act it pretty well, sometimes."
"She sounds formidable to be sure," Bao Qian replied, he was studying her again, but that was fine.
"Well, that might be putting it too simply. She was more like a force, an aspect of nature, with a woman inexpertly perched atop it," Ling Qi said dryly. "She was her music. The howl of a blizzard through cold mountain peaks and the sound of wind blowing across snow drifts, the warmth that calls a man freezing to death to his rest." She was after all, a spirit.
Bao Qian didn't reply, listening intently. Even when she paused, he didn't interrupt.
"Her songs were harsh and stark," Ling Qi mused. "But they could also be gentle in their way, like the peace of a well kept graveyard. I originally took her offer of teaching because I didn't have anyone else, but… it spoke to me, I guess. The winter is cruel, but it's just the world at its most honest."
The cold of winter would kill you, but it didn't deceive you, didn't pretend to be safe. There were no pretensions to kindness or charity in the winds of winter, only the death of a year, and all those without the luck or ability to stay warm, all preparing the world to be born again in spring. She wanted the warmth, but in the end, she knew she belonged in the cold.
That was Zeqing's voice and song, the ice, cold and final that would consume all things in the end, that said that nothing was forever, so you must cherish what is yours.
She blinked as she realized that she had said that part aloud. That was the Carefree Mantle at work, loosening her lips as she mused on philosophy.
"I cannot say I wholly agree," Bao Qian said slowly. "But it is interesting to hear all the same."
Ling Qi smiled sheepishly, and for once it wasn't particularly forced. "My apologies, you must think I'm a little mad."
He chuckled. "Miss Ling, we are both practitioners of the third realm, if we were not a little mad we would not have gotten this far."
She raised the cup of cider she had been served in a mock toast. "Well at least you're honest about it," she said wryly. "What madness is yours then?"
"The gold madness, Bao-sickness," he said wryly. "No matter how masterful our works, or how great our success, it will never be enough. This I know, but I will chase the elation of success regardless."
Well, she could hardly chastise him for that.
***
The rest of dinner had gone well enough. They had parted amicably only a quarter hour later. It had been…. Not terrible, once she had managed to stop flailing it had even been a bit educational. She still had no desire to even think of matters regarding marriage but… she could see herself working with that young man, for business. Maybe, if his clan didn't press, they could even manage being friends.
She could always use more people to talk music with. She had been so busy that it slipped her mind, but she
could probably do something about that. She couldn't just coast along doing the bare minimum to interact with her peers anymore.
"Big Sis?" Hanyi looked up as Ling Qi approached her under the moon. The young spirit leaned against Zhengui's shell. Her little brother was asleep, rumbling like a steelworkers forge. "What are you doing here so late?"
"Just thinking," Ling Qi laughed. "You don't mind if I cultivate here for tonight do you?"
Hanyi grinned. "No way! I was just thinking about what kind of song I wanna compose first but this big doof fell asleep while I was thinking!"
He'll do that," Ling Qi said, smiling. She sat down on the hard packed dirt, leaning against Zhengui's shell. He was warm. Not like Hanyi, nor like her. She supposed he had to make up for the both of them> "Hanyi? Do you want to try one or two of Zeqings songs? You shouldn't copy your mother, but you should still learn from her."
Hanyi nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Will you sing too Big Sis?"
"Of course," she replied, reaching over to tousle the young spirit's hair. She might not really be ready for the games of nobles or courting, but… she could take care of her family. Everything else could be built too. She could do what really mattered.
She stayed with Hanyi until morning, and that night snow and fog gathered around the little hilltop, save for the circle of warmth at its center.
Bao Qian Bond Increased to 1
Vocals: B gained
Music C Resets
AN: Please Vote now for which part of the training arc you would like to come first. Names in parenthesis are characters involved in the section and the scene idea
[] Harmony of Dancing Winds, Arts research, (Yu Nuan, Ruan Shen, Sect archive)
[] Roaming Moon's Eye (Xuan Shi, Various Nobles, Cai Gathering)
[] Phantasmagoria of Lunar Revelry (Bai Meizhen, Sixiang, Silent Stones)
[] Base Cultivation, Meridians (Wang Chao, Liang He, Alingge, Sect Training Ground)
