- Location
- my house
Tbf, it gets leat conservative as she fights and it unravels
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
- the internet
Lol, it's never gotten as far as in that picture. The farthest is in a fight in Forge when Liming unravels to above her knees and her sleeves as well, up to her shoulders.
Turn 14: Arc 4-13
Ling Qi dove, away from the glittering lights and whirling glitzy dreams that rose to the top of the vast whirlwind, and into the denser darker depths. Here, the blaring, garish color darkened and muted. The kaleidoscope of color shrinking down into warm reds and browns and greens. The shrieking winds resolved themselves into simple beats and clapping hands, a hundred or a thousand voices singing the same song out of tune, but with no less enthusiasm than a master of voice.
The endless light of the bubble-scape became flickering paper lanterns and bright torches. The liquid air became hot and muggy, the ground firm beneath her feet. Before Ling Qi's eyes she saw a sprawling festival.
She stood in what seemed like an overlarge town square, at the center of which was a massive round table of gnarled wood. It was a huge thing, seemingly cut from a single cross section of a huge tree, it must have weighed half a tonne or more on its own. Curved benches surrounded it and it was piled high with platters of food and drink. And at its center was a rearing statue of a stag. It was a funny thing, painted in garish colors, it's antlers were sharp as sword points, prayer tags of fine spun silk hung in a forest from the tines. It was cracked though, deeply cracked and ancient, and something incandescent shone through at the seams. Ling Qi could not tell if the light was holding it together or breaking it apart.
Streets spun off in eight directions from the center where she found herself, and festival spread out into them as well, filled with people and games and parades. There a dancing dragon all paper and silk born on a dozen pairs of legs, there waving stag heads born aloft by revelers. Men in shaggy fur cloaks howling at the moon with laughing children on their shoulders, rivers of mist filled with song, and so many others, too many others to count.
Because there were so many people here. The air smelled of sweat and drink, the air was hot with the press of bodies, and the only things Ling Qi could hear was the cacophony of voices raised in joy and revelry.
She knew they were spirits, spirits and reflections of humans, asleep and dreaming, and yet she couldn't help but be surprised as she was bumped and justled and pulled along with the almost liquid movement of the celebrating crowd, a cup of some golden cider shoved into her hands, a dozen invitations to games or conversations bombarding her at once.
She very nearly fled, old instincts taking hold.
But a familiar hand on her shoulder made the childish panic abate.
"Let yourself unwind a little Ling Qi!" Sixiang laughed, spinning her into an open square where people were dancing.
The rhythm of the festival music was the beating of a heart, thundering and pounding, and although she fumbled at first, she found the steps of the dance came as naturally as breathing. It wasn't complicated after all.
Every person in the world knew this dance, after all. Some forgot it, some skipped or changed a step here and there, but everyone started out with this dance.
"You get it, you get it. Be a shame to bin it before you've really tried it!" Sixiang grinned, keeping hold of her hand during swirls of motion and spinning steps.
Ling Qi blinked and furrowed her brows working to hold her thoughts as her own against the intrusion of the revel and the certainty of its dance. "What is this Sixiang!" she shouted over the music and laughter.
"It's grandmother's revel of course, a layer up, a layer down, call it as you like, direction don't matter much here."
It was noisy and chaotic that was true, but it seemed so different from the clouded gossamer memories of before, there was little elegance here, to inhuman figures of fey grace, even those who bore inhuman frames were somehow both more and less human as they stomped about singing and carousing with the human shades.
"It's the other part of me too, you don't let me indulge it much," Sixiang chuckled
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ling Qi asked. It was hard to focus here, there was simply so much going on. It wasn't like the crowds of an imperial party, here people pressed against each other, flush with alcohol and passion, and though Sixiang and she danced in a bubble of open space now, it still filled her with alarm.
…The other festival goers weren't giving them space, they were repelled from them, and Ling Qi knew it was her own doing, her will acting on the dream.
"You seemed perfectly happy for Su Ling, you know? You react when I tease ya, you look, you're not like Renxiang, that's a girl who skips steps entire, and doesn't feel the lack."
Ling Qi grimaced, her grasp on Sixiang's hand, taking the lead and shifting them closer to the dancing squares edge. "You know why, Sixiang, it's different, Su Ling is fine, Meizhen is fine, I can see they have control."
"Control's the wrong word," Sixiang said, frowning. Sliding closer to her, the muse spun them, and they came to a stop in a whirl of cloth. They stood now in a packed street full of stalls and games, fairies and the shades of children scampered about. "And I think you know it by now."
"Is this really the time for this?" Ling Qi asked.
"There's probably never a good time," Sixiang shrugged. "But you keep thinking about family and community, keep cultivating stuff in that direction, and if you keep ignoring such a big part of those things, you're thinking is gonna be flawed."
Ling Qi frowned, seeing out of the corner of her eye the many many pairings among the people and shades here. People walking side by side, hand in hand, fathers and mothers, parents and children. She thought of branching roses growing entwined with incandescent light. "...And if I don't want that to be part of things? Hanyi and Zhengui are family, Yu Nuan might get there. You can make a family just fine without having to involve that… muck, even if the Empire makes it hard."
"That's fine, but I'd like you to reject it properly, consciously if that's what you're gonna do, not cut out out of yourself without consideration. You didn't let Su Ling do that to herself with the fox bits, am I supposed to be a worse friend?" Sixiang said, squeezing her hand. "And you know, I feel like you don't necessarily want that either. You're just still afraid."
Ling Qi didn't reply verbally, she pulled on Sixiang's hand, took a step, and their next footfall fell on a hardwood floor. Noise immediately struck her ears again, a different noise, the clink of mugs and drag of wood across the floor, and the singing, oh the singing.
Ling Qi settled herself into a rickety chair in the corner just as the chorus rose, dozen's of rough voices belting out 'The wine was not strong enough!"
Sixing settled beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "Serious though, this is what community looks like on the ground. I'm glad you dove, cause you, your boss? I worry you guys learned to fly so early you'll forget that the things your trying to build aren't just lines and dots on the ground."
"You think I should try to convince Renxiang to come down to a bar?" Ling Qi said dryly. Somehow she still held the cup of golden cider, and now took a sip, it was rich and sweet, she rolled it on her tongue, tasting it even as she cycled her qi, cultivating the chaotic energies in the dream stuff she'd ingested.
"I will totally clap you on the back if you can manage it," Sixiang said seriously. "But nah, this is for you. 'Cause you never got this, any of this did ya? You started outside, in the cold and unwelcome, but you jumped right up to be above it all didn't you?"
Ling Qi didn't answer, scanning the room, the people singing, or stomping their feet with the beat. The shades of workers chatting and laughing, despite the wear and slump of fatigue in their shoulders. These were the same sort of folk she knew from the streets of Tonghou, trudging miserably through life, or at least, that is what she saw, didn't she? It wasn't as if she actually knew what happened behind locked doors, before warm hearths. Festivals were just the best opportunity to cut purses, you couldn't linger around the festivities.
Ling Qi took a deep drink from her cup, the level of the cool cider didn't drop a bit. She met someone's eyes then, across the room. They were tall, as tall as her, wearing a grey travelers cloak and a conical straw hat, but she saw a shock of dark, nearly black red hair, and a square jaw, looking back at her with equal surprise.
It was a cultivator, not a spirit, not a shade or a dreamer. Before she could do more than open her mouth, they raised their cup in a toast and vanished, she felt the way they grasped the skein of dream and pulled, 'walking' elsewhere.
"What's up?" Sixiang asked.
"I saw someone," Ling Qi said slowly, shaking her head. "...Well something for later, they weren't hostile, I suppose I shouldn't be that shocked that I'm not the only one here in Xiangmen."
"Probably, bit of a big place," Sixiang said. "You must like that stuff?"
"Oh yes, it's sweet," Ling Qi said, glancing down at her cup. She supposed that was why it wasn't running out.
"Well then we don't need to huddle in here, eh?" Sixiang said, reaching out again for her hand. "C'mon Ling Qi, let's go enjoy the festival."
Ling Qi regarded their hand silently for a moment. Then she reached out to clasp it, standing in time with another rise of the chorus. "Alright, I'll be in your care."
AN: No vote this time! Next time though.
The endless light of the bubble-scape became flickering paper lanterns and bright torches. The liquid air became hot and muggy, the ground firm beneath her feet. Before Ling Qi's eyes she saw a sprawling festival.
She stood in what seemed like an overlarge town square, at the center of which was a massive round table of gnarled wood. It was a huge thing, seemingly cut from a single cross section of a huge tree, it must have weighed half a tonne or more on its own. Curved benches surrounded it and it was piled high with platters of food and drink. And at its center was a rearing statue of a stag. It was a funny thing, painted in garish colors, it's antlers were sharp as sword points, prayer tags of fine spun silk hung in a forest from the tines. It was cracked though, deeply cracked and ancient, and something incandescent shone through at the seams. Ling Qi could not tell if the light was holding it together or breaking it apart.
Streets spun off in eight directions from the center where she found herself, and festival spread out into them as well, filled with people and games and parades. There a dancing dragon all paper and silk born on a dozen pairs of legs, there waving stag heads born aloft by revelers. Men in shaggy fur cloaks howling at the moon with laughing children on their shoulders, rivers of mist filled with song, and so many others, too many others to count.
Because there were so many people here. The air smelled of sweat and drink, the air was hot with the press of bodies, and the only things Ling Qi could hear was the cacophony of voices raised in joy and revelry.
She knew they were spirits, spirits and reflections of humans, asleep and dreaming, and yet she couldn't help but be surprised as she was bumped and justled and pulled along with the almost liquid movement of the celebrating crowd, a cup of some golden cider shoved into her hands, a dozen invitations to games or conversations bombarding her at once.
She very nearly fled, old instincts taking hold.
But a familiar hand on her shoulder made the childish panic abate.
"Let yourself unwind a little Ling Qi!" Sixiang laughed, spinning her into an open square where people were dancing.
The rhythm of the festival music was the beating of a heart, thundering and pounding, and although she fumbled at first, she found the steps of the dance came as naturally as breathing. It wasn't complicated after all.
Every person in the world knew this dance, after all. Some forgot it, some skipped or changed a step here and there, but everyone started out with this dance.
"You get it, you get it. Be a shame to bin it before you've really tried it!" Sixiang grinned, keeping hold of her hand during swirls of motion and spinning steps.
Ling Qi blinked and furrowed her brows working to hold her thoughts as her own against the intrusion of the revel and the certainty of its dance. "What is this Sixiang!" she shouted over the music and laughter.
"It's grandmother's revel of course, a layer up, a layer down, call it as you like, direction don't matter much here."
It was noisy and chaotic that was true, but it seemed so different from the clouded gossamer memories of before, there was little elegance here, to inhuman figures of fey grace, even those who bore inhuman frames were somehow both more and less human as they stomped about singing and carousing with the human shades.
"It's the other part of me too, you don't let me indulge it much," Sixiang chuckled
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ling Qi asked. It was hard to focus here, there was simply so much going on. It wasn't like the crowds of an imperial party, here people pressed against each other, flush with alcohol and passion, and though Sixiang and she danced in a bubble of open space now, it still filled her with alarm.
…The other festival goers weren't giving them space, they were repelled from them, and Ling Qi knew it was her own doing, her will acting on the dream.
"You seemed perfectly happy for Su Ling, you know? You react when I tease ya, you look, you're not like Renxiang, that's a girl who skips steps entire, and doesn't feel the lack."
Ling Qi grimaced, her grasp on Sixiang's hand, taking the lead and shifting them closer to the dancing squares edge. "You know why, Sixiang, it's different, Su Ling is fine, Meizhen is fine, I can see they have control."
"Control's the wrong word," Sixiang said, frowning. Sliding closer to her, the muse spun them, and they came to a stop in a whirl of cloth. They stood now in a packed street full of stalls and games, fairies and the shades of children scampered about. "And I think you know it by now."
"Is this really the time for this?" Ling Qi asked.
"There's probably never a good time," Sixiang shrugged. "But you keep thinking about family and community, keep cultivating stuff in that direction, and if you keep ignoring such a big part of those things, you're thinking is gonna be flawed."
Ling Qi frowned, seeing out of the corner of her eye the many many pairings among the people and shades here. People walking side by side, hand in hand, fathers and mothers, parents and children. She thought of branching roses growing entwined with incandescent light. "...And if I don't want that to be part of things? Hanyi and Zhengui are family, Yu Nuan might get there. You can make a family just fine without having to involve that… muck, even if the Empire makes it hard."
"That's fine, but I'd like you to reject it properly, consciously if that's what you're gonna do, not cut out out of yourself without consideration. You didn't let Su Ling do that to herself with the fox bits, am I supposed to be a worse friend?" Sixiang said, squeezing her hand. "And you know, I feel like you don't necessarily want that either. You're just still afraid."
Ling Qi didn't reply verbally, she pulled on Sixiang's hand, took a step, and their next footfall fell on a hardwood floor. Noise immediately struck her ears again, a different noise, the clink of mugs and drag of wood across the floor, and the singing, oh the singing.
Ling Qi settled herself into a rickety chair in the corner just as the chorus rose, dozen's of rough voices belting out 'The wine was not strong enough!"
Sixing settled beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "Serious though, this is what community looks like on the ground. I'm glad you dove, cause you, your boss? I worry you guys learned to fly so early you'll forget that the things your trying to build aren't just lines and dots on the ground."
"You think I should try to convince Renxiang to come down to a bar?" Ling Qi said dryly. Somehow she still held the cup of golden cider, and now took a sip, it was rich and sweet, she rolled it on her tongue, tasting it even as she cycled her qi, cultivating the chaotic energies in the dream stuff she'd ingested.
"I will totally clap you on the back if you can manage it," Sixiang said seriously. "But nah, this is for you. 'Cause you never got this, any of this did ya? You started outside, in the cold and unwelcome, but you jumped right up to be above it all didn't you?"
Ling Qi didn't answer, scanning the room, the people singing, or stomping their feet with the beat. The shades of workers chatting and laughing, despite the wear and slump of fatigue in their shoulders. These were the same sort of folk she knew from the streets of Tonghou, trudging miserably through life, or at least, that is what she saw, didn't she? It wasn't as if she actually knew what happened behind locked doors, before warm hearths. Festivals were just the best opportunity to cut purses, you couldn't linger around the festivities.
Ling Qi took a deep drink from her cup, the level of the cool cider didn't drop a bit. She met someone's eyes then, across the room. They were tall, as tall as her, wearing a grey travelers cloak and a conical straw hat, but she saw a shock of dark, nearly black red hair, and a square jaw, looking back at her with equal surprise.
It was a cultivator, not a spirit, not a shade or a dreamer. Before she could do more than open her mouth, they raised their cup in a toast and vanished, she felt the way they grasped the skein of dream and pulled, 'walking' elsewhere.
"What's up?" Sixiang asked.
"I saw someone," Ling Qi said slowly, shaking her head. "...Well something for later, they weren't hostile, I suppose I shouldn't be that shocked that I'm not the only one here in Xiangmen."
"Probably, bit of a big place," Sixiang said. "You must like that stuff?"
"Oh yes, it's sweet," Ling Qi said, glancing down at her cup. She supposed that was why it wasn't running out.
"Well then we don't need to huddle in here, eh?" Sixiang said, reaching out again for her hand. "C'mon Ling Qi, let's go enjoy the festival."
Ling Qi regarded their hand silently for a moment. Then she reached out to clasp it, standing in time with another rise of the chorus. "Alright, I'll be in your care."
AN: No vote this time! Next time though.
Zheng alert! Hide your boys and girls a Zheng is out!
- Location
- United States
Sixiang just rolled a nat 100 on making their argument. It is utterly impossible for Qi to argue against that.
- Location
- Spain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, no!! Zheng... Horny alert!!
Awesome chapter! I'm looking forward to seeing Zheng Boy eventually.
Lol @ApeofLight it looks like your drinking song omake is canon afterall
Lol @ApeofLight it looks like your drinking song omake is canon afterall
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is that a ZHENG I SPY!
Hooray! Finally the Problem has been acknowledged! Now we can start poking and prodding at that wound and see all of the hurt and fright and hopefully start healing!
Our mission is now clear. Renxiang bar crawl. Meizhen to. Fen Fen can be DD
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah nah, LQ is DD JUST so she can have perfect memory of laughing her butt off at her friends.
Also so she can show them with ice, mist and phantasms.
My reaction for this chapter: Sqeeeeee!
This just.... Ties together sooooo many things!!!!
And the bit about community.... *Chef kiss*
Truly, Yrs outdid themselves.
i'd stan an Ace Ling Qi, 100%. Though i agree with Sixi that she has to actually think about and realise whether or not she want intimate relationships.
- Location
- USA
Zheng Husbando option get?
Might be, but thinking about the possibility a bit, while I'm not sure how I'd feel about that for Ling Qi, I kinda suspect her mom might just outright die from how many alerts any Zheng husbando option would ring.
kfrar
Aspiring Encyclopedia
Can't let a little thing like the direct confrontation of a foundational trauma get in the way of the grind.
- Location
- Somewhere
A bar? No, Ling Qi, you must aim higher. A double date.
- Location
- US
I, for one, am definitely interested in Ling Qi finding romance. I just want them to actually be interesting, for both the reader and Ling Qi. I think Ling Qi needs someone who makes her want to adventure, to sing and dance and make mischief. Not a merchant who will bring x, y and z to her barony. Ya know?
- Location
- Location: Location!
Go go Sixiang! Hit her in the cultivation, where it hurts the most!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The inclusion of Ape's song is so great, thanks for doing that Yrs!
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
So Sixiang then? No need to bother with silly human cultivators when best Muse is right there being their best Enby self
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
You can still have intimate relationships even if you are ace. What you can't/don't tend to have when you're ace is the sexual shit. Which is a type of intimacy, yes, but it's not all that being intimate is.
*Pats muse*
TimEd
Meteor maker
Yeah, this was the better choice. Even if it was only for Sixiang's benefit, it would still.be worth it.
Deer Uncle on his stag do? Or at least this is confirmation that Deer Uncle's style of being is still a thing in Xiangmen's dream.