Ling Qi met Su Ling's eyes. For that single moment, it is as if she can see the thoughts turning in her friend's mind.
"Like-" Ling Qi began.
"-Hell," Su Ling growled.
"Eh?" said the ghost, expression twisted in confusion
It is not often that Qi is in perfect sync with her friends. But then this sort of moment is the stuff of legend and I guess the Liminal's helping it along.
Ling Qi did not need the reminder to run, to flee as fast as her feet could carry her. She tried for her wings, but they did not answer, her dress was still.
Little children couldn't fly, little beggars did not have fine dresses. What fairy tale did she dream?
Ling Qi's heart thundered in her chest, her bare feet cold on the frost touched grass. The trees seemed so tall now, their shadows so deep. Her lungs burned, her breaths rasped, tears filled her eyes. Because she was alone, save for the one who hunted behind. Just a ragged beggar girl who had wandered too far, never to be missed, never to be found.
I imagine a Ling Qi who chose Total Freedom at Yellow would not have been bound so.
But then that Qi would not have been here at all. She would have flown free, without friends already.
Except, except. Wasn't there a hand in hers?
At Ling Qi's core was darkness, a want so deep that she knew in her heart of hearts, would never be filled. It was desperation and hunger and privation, the desolation of the soul, the death of higher thought and all the things that made a person more than a thing. If a single petty human word could be applied, it was Isolation.
But she had wrapped herself in so many other things. Most of all the grasping, yearning wind. Hers was not the open blue sky of limitless freedom, the emptiness that accepted no chains. Hers was the blizzard howl, tugging at shutters, begging to be let in.
Her wind was the wind of Want. A greedy, grasping wind for a greedy, grasping girl.
Desire, the desire for more, the desire for the aching to stop, to be warm by the fire for just a little while. Want was the soul reaching out, the impetus of connection, the abrogation of Isolation, the seed of Community and Home.
Ling Qi is not the little beggar girl. She holds her friend's hand in hers. She does not die alone in the snow, cherishing a warmth she can never hold. Her dream asserts itself.
A blizzard erupts, mist and snow and cold, and a lightless fire burns at the core, rejecting the dream of desolation.
Hmm, I don't think this part is even a deliberate trap, but rather the nature of the place. The Fox is born in Isolation and Want, but has dug deeply, while Qi has started to pull herself from the darkness.
Want advances to III
Want III- Want is the soul reaching out, the impetus of connection, the abrogation of Isolation, the seed of Community and Home.
Home advances to I
Home I: Home is is a binding, woven with each breath
Effect added to Domain
Spiritual Defense Potency is increased by 2 against Isolation effects
Desire is the answer to Isolation. The nature of a vacuum is to fill itself.
The Home is the cure to Isolation. You cannot just grasp at that which is others and stuff it into the void. It never lasts.
You need to nurture it.
Behind her, she hears Su Ling murmuring under her breath, between breaths.
"...no truth but what you carve. No justice but what you hold, no meaning but what you make. Reject oneness, reject enlightenment, be one of many, accept the world's bounty."
Something sparks in her meridians, something heavy and coarse and solid, and Ling Qi can feel its conflict with the realm they now stand in. The qi she is trying to cycle struggles to even maintain form.
Mountain qi's solidity does interact weird with the fuzziness of reality in the Liminal.
I don't think forcing it would work, unless she developed an insight here regarding Mountain qi?
Ling Qi understands at that moment why those shadows frighten her, when she has long been their kin. This darkness does not want to be filled, it is a hunger without end, a stomach with no bottom, it is something beyond her greed, it was born wrong, with a wasting rot in its soul. It suffers and this has made it cruel.
The endless devourer. One who gorges upon food, never to be full, only to taste it.
Was the rot something right becoming twisted, or a deliberately engineered corruption as a work of perverse art?
Ling Qi grimaces, preferring to pretend she hadn't heard the hoarse whisper her friends voice had dropped into. I don't know if i-" she mumbled thoughts racing. Some application of the Opened Vault technique maybe? The concept was there, the theft of a precious thing, no matter the vault, but she had only just begun to master the technique, to do something so far beyond its purview was-
"Not likely to work," Sixiang whispered voice tinged with fear. "I dunno, maybe I can help, I could try to dig my hands in fray the connection, but-"
Time, time, precious time. Did they have time to play and experiment and try?
"Set us down a second," Su Ling said grimly.
She glanced back at her friend, a frantic question in her eyes.
"I may not be good for much, but I know how to Cut," Su Ling said, the last word spat like a curse that splits a branch from a passing tree. "Sometimes that's all you need to solve a problem."
This is the moment where Su Ling Quest had the option for:
[] Let Ling Qi take the risk and Open the Vault
[] Face it yourself. Cut the ties that bind.
Su Ling's saber appears in her hand, unsheathed, the crimson cloth tassel that hangs from its hilt flutters in the wind. "Look… Xisheng, just hold still, alright, we'll get going againin a second."
The ghosts head tilts blood welling up around her neck to stain dirty clothes. "Oh. I don't like this part. But I like you better than Momma, okay!"
Su Ling grits her teeth so hard Ling Qi swears she hears something crack, but there is no time for a back and forth and she knows it.
On one hand, being killed like that is horrible to inflict upon a child.
On the other hand, Xisheng has personally experienced many worse deaths.
On the third tail, she's not wrong, as we see later. Cutting the bond kills the spirit. Just more slowly than directly doing so.
"You don't belong here, or to her," Su Ling says, and her qi surges, sharp edged, metallic. Ling Qi sees her eyes mist over, becoming pools of liquid steel. "My blade is Truth."
Air parts around the edge with a soft sigh, the earth splits, and Ling Qi feels an invisible chain sever with an angry shriek.
Xisheng blinks, looking down at themselves in curious wonder, their features a blur of a dozen faces.
Hmm, the last time we saw this technique it was Mountain based, but now its Metal or Sword qi?
Quiet wind blew through the nocturnal forest, playing a song of leaf and branch and moaning lonely wind. Ling Qi could sense the writhing of the threads of the liminal, the reshaping of the reality that lay beneath the skein that was visible under the eyes.
Su Ling stiffened, sensing Ling Qi's distress and quickly following her gaze. She went still when she saw those eyes.
The trees bent away from the shadows, twisting and moaning like mourners as the forest began to melt and run like watercolor paints splashed by rain. Yet, what emerged from the darkness didn't seem monstrous. It wholly shredded expectations. No padding fox and whipping tails and frothy hungry maw, no sumptuous temptress of dark silks and painted beauty. None of the images that this creature's legend had conjured in her mind appeared.
Dramatic...and all too pat.
An entrance befitting a master of glamors.
A gnarled cane tapped the ground, the shuffle and drag of elderly feet, made uneven by age and injury. Fraying sandals, a shapeless roughspun dress and slightly hunched back covered by a pale grey shawl. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, and her skin as rough as old boot-leather, thin white hair clung to her head,wispy and dry, pulled back in a tight bun.
She had the air of one whom life had chewed up over and over, until naught but sinew, gristle and spite remained, a woman whose age had robbed her of fear and propriety alike.
"Don't you fucking dare," Su Ling whispered, it was a strangeled, hateful noise, shaky with rage.
Gimlet eyes squinted in the melting darkness, firelight growing as a hearth was painted from nothing. Dirt and grass molded into rough wooden planks and woven straw mats, the night sky began to bleed into rafters and straw. But on the wall forming behind the old woman, the twisting shadows of tails appear, they weave through and among each other, too swiftly and chaotically to count.
"Damn rude way to greet your grandmother isn't it," said the fox. "Coming unannounced, and stealing the gristle from the trash. Fool girl. I always told you, if you're hungry just ask."
Oh man, this form is chosen to maximize pain. Its dramatic as hell, but its chosen for pure emotional pain infliction rather than likelihood of success.
"Don't even try it," Su Ling said, pointing her saber. Ling Qi winced, knowing this wasn't something that could be opposed by force. "Think I'm supposed to fall for this shit, are you gonna say you were Gran all along?"
"If'n I was," considered the thing wearing the face of an old woman. "How do you figure you'd know, girl? Think a blind kit's eyes can pierce past her mother's arts?"
For one, spirits find it incredibly hard to disguise their nature. If they behave other than their nature, they will become so in truth, at least in a fraction of them.
The fox smiled, and the teeth were black and rotten. "I taught you didn't I, how humans are. Keep 'em scared else they run out on the bill. You can't let 'em push you around, think they can dictate terms. If you can't make yourself too big a bone to swallow, you hide and you wait. Heh, you didn't turn out bad, 'till that Sect filled your head with nonsense."
For the second, the Fox knew Sects, but she did not know the Argent Sect which Su Ling found herself in.
The Sect offered no justice. Her friend was maimed. The high nobles had a war game that fucked over all the weaks as they were deprived of opportunities based on the side they were on. Yan Renshu ran a slave racket.
"Don't lie to me girl, even if you've not inherited my hunger, you've inherited my hate," the gentle tap of the cane and the drag of elderly feet were far too loud, the shrunken old woman loomed. "Or…well are you even that different? Think I can't smell the man on you child? Oh but he's a strong one ain't he. Won't even notice if you take a sip. Lucky little kit."
"It's not like that, I didn't- It was just-" Su Ling's own tails snapped and waved wildly in agitation, and her blade wavered, only the ghost at her feet stopped her from taking a step back.
Hell, the Fox can discern the desire, but not WHY.
She just fixates upon the base aspects, when Gan's appeal stems more from his sense of justice and his insight into philosophy.
Not everyone just wants sex out of a relationship.
"Maybe you didn't want to eat that, but you wanted to take it from me. It was spite, not some pretty nonsense that moved your hand. What foolishness these people have filled your head with."
She hated the verbal assault her friend was under, but if the beast could just remain distracted… Perhaps here, Ling Qi thought, if she could just work her will into the miniscule gaps between the weaves of this illusion world, she could pry open something, just a little crack…
"And you, quit pawing at the shutters girl," Ling Qi froze as the old woman's eyes fell on her. "You're one of the ones who went and confused my girl. Made her forget how things are, when you should damn well know better."
And this here tears it apart.
Su Ling was ALWAYS the one who sought to do the right thing.
Ling Qi learned from her to care.
"Not a bad meal, not for a girl at your stage. You thought to get one over me?" the monster said, pursing wrinkled lips. "But… no you cut it off, can't even use it to nip at my power."
"I didn't take her for some shitty reason like that. I took her because they all deserve better than you, they've already suffered enough," Su Ling said flatly.
"You've killed it though," said the fox, cocking her elderly head, birdlike. "Look, buncha scraps like that, course they'd start falling apart without the only thing that binds them.
This part actually does seem true for once. The reaction is somewhat natural, she's curious whats going on because it doesn't make any sense at all.
Ling Qi swallowed, pins and needles on her skin. Some part of her wanted to deflect and talk around, to try and desperately go for more time. But… could she really beat this creature with words and misdirection? No, obviously not. She felt Sixiang's arms embrace her without form. "All your power, and it's still not perfect, huh?"
"Hm?" wondered the fox, raising an eyebrow.
"It was like that with Black Skies Yearning too," Ling Qi said, steadily meeting her gaze. "A cruel old monster that preys on the week, so powerful, but there were holes in her illusion, because she lacked understanding too."
She smiled in reminiscence."You know I think my teacher's illusions were the only really perfect ones, she only tripped up because she was fighting herself."
Ling Qi is really quite good at finding the words to really piss someone the hell off hah.
"Yeah, illusions and art don't make you elegant or smart, they're as blunt or graceful as their maker," Ling Qi said steadily. "Su Ling is the righteous one, the one who remembers peoples names and hurts. No one has filled her head with anything, she came on it honestly. Me, I'm only a thief. And you're a poor liar and a brute."
This is what you get for judging people by their elemental natures.
The Moon fairy of cold desire is but a petty thief who barely remembers anyone, not a righteous force.
The thing about cruelty Ling Qi found, is that it made you sloppy. Inattentive. It was something to be inflicted on one helpless before you. Combine this with the pride of a beast who by all indication wished to break rather than kill. A beast who, most importantly, she could feel was not entirely here, connections reaching out into the waking world in three directions.
And, if you are caught in one act, so often the catcher will be less attentive for others.
Four clones, and this one is this strong.
...though I'm not sure its JUST cruelty. The Fox cannot make sense of what she sees, everything is strange.
And most predators are probing when they find something strange.
A wounded hunter cannot hunt.
Subtly gathered, Dream Qi surged, Sixiang slammed the full weight of their qi, the full weight of their existence into the the thinnest most unstable part of the illusions, a wash of chaotic and unraveling qi.
Dreamwalker Trait Increases by one
The tiniest split appeared in the weave, and Ling Qi grasped Su Ling's hand. The world erupted in a kaleidoscope of light as Ling Qi reached for the image of power, far more expansive than her littlegate. Her mind dreamed of golden scales, coiling kilometers into the sky.
The world flew, or they did, Ling Qi could not tell in the chaos.She threw every ounce of her will and her speed into this jump, Sixiang expended the entirety of their qi in a single tremendous burst of dissolution to leave the path behind unknowable.
It was not enough.
Just not, quite enough skill.
Practice makes perfect.
...maybe we should update our escape talismans for Liminal shenanigans.
Death came as fire, purple and smoky, a haze in the shape of a lashing tail, it's bone white tip far sharper than mortal steel. Ling Qi felt a lance of terror in the bare instant she had, and pulled deep upon the dark qi that ran through her body, forming the pattern of the Black Mirror technique in the bare instant she had. Her form became the void, a bottomless hole in the world that would absorb any attack.
The void filled with fire and overflowed. Ling Qi heard a crack like breaking porcelain and her technique shattered.
She hit the ground rolling, bile and blood in her throat, something sharp and pinching in her chest. Smoke trailed from the burned hem of her dress, and distantly, she heard Sixiang cry out in pain. Her flute materialized in her hands as she rolled to her feet, already beginning the steps of her dance, to summon mirror copies or speed herself on the wind.
A tail the size of a tree trunk smashed into her, she felt her right arm snap like so much kindling and her flute shatter, splinters digging into her lips and neck. She struck something hard, and nearly blacked out, slumping down to the base of a tree.
And as Sun Liling had once found out.
Ling Qi is still stupidly durable.
Even against a higher realm attack she can take a few hits, and thats when she's denied the time to raise more defenses.
She's so annoying.
All Ling Qi could see was a shadow, a looming thing, of lashing tails and bony limbs. She was thin, the fox, Ling Qi thought, for all her greed. Fur clung tightly to bones, a nightmare of starvation and murder in half formed blackness of a wooden clearing they had landed in.
...you know, for all that the sacrifices seem to be working, she's also being conceptually starved.
How many hunts had to be aborted because of increased patrols and surveillance I wonder?
How many halfblood children were taken in by the Ministries before they met their end?
Su Ling appeared before her, in a burst of speed, the side of her saber held up like a shield, braced on one arm. That dull gray qi from before snapped and hummed. It filled her meridians, crawled on her skin and around her the stuff of dream stiffened and froze, the ground turning gray, the air turning to choking dust. But in that cloud, Ling Qi saw a string of formations burning black on her blade. She recognized them from that time so long ago that she had seen Su Ling working with Xuan Shi.
Oh she was working on this in the RR chapter!
The time sword!
The sound of impact could not be described, it was simply a deafening noise. With all her strength, Ling Qi exhaled her mist from every poor, gathering it in a protective cocoon around them as she had in the caldera.
Su Ling slammed into a stone to her right and bounced, blood erupting from a pair of deep cuts across her body and chest. Her sword had shattered into shards, and she clutched now only the hilt and stump of a blade in her hand.
And Ling Qi continues being annoying, preventing what should be a oneshot from oneshotting.
That said, what can a broken blade do?
"Stop, stop! I'll go back, I promise, please stop!" Xisheng was running across pale green grass, the dreamscape showed no sign of ruin. Ling Qi pushed herself up, forcing herself to sit up.
"Pitiful thing, imagining that you had a choice," the voice emanated from the shadows, near to the gigantic fox's skull like head, and she hears it inhale a torrent of air and qi.
For that choice, you must live.
She hears Su Ling scream something unintelligible, a curse or a wordless roar of anger she knows not. She feels a stinging pain in the corner of her eyes. Still not enough. But she catches crimson in the corner of her eyes.
There is a clearing in the cloudy sky, and in it hangs a baleful red sickle.
Su Ling has staggered to her feet, the child is wailing, their limbs breaking apart into light and mist. Su Ling stumbles forward, half blind with blood, and stiffens her posture into a high attacking stance. The meridians in her arms burn, writhing visibly under her skin. And at her back, for less than an eyeblink, an iron haired matron whose face is a skull reaches up, sniffs and adjusts the angle of her broken blade like an instructor.
The red is blinding, and she hears the echoing scream of a fox, more in shock and outrage than hurt. She sees, in the fading flash a bead of blood from a thin cut across its muzzle
I wonder if we reenacted the Bloody Moon's origin story by accident here.
Resolving to fight against that which you cannot defeat, to protect those you must.
To do what is right even when your blade and body has been broken.
To Cut, even without a blade.
In the name of the Moon, be punished.
Su Ling collapses to the ground, her own blood soaking her arms, meridians ruptured.
And Ling Qi feels something cold on her palm. The foxes' enraged gaze whirls onto her wayward daughter. Ling Qi sees a crack in the ground, from which black flower petals blow.
There is a time for suspicion and wariness, this is not it. With her will, she seizes Su Ling, what is left of the child, and dives down the crevice in a slick of shadow.
...you know I suppose a prison IS a pretty good place to take refuge.
Its hard to get in after all.
Or out, for the matter.
