It was a frightening thing, reaching out. But this was a frightening place and a frightening time. Ling Qi had no doubt that the greater nightmare still stalked in her shadow, ready to fall upon them if her resolve wavered, if she proved that her words really were only air and nothing more. And so she looked through and into Sixiang.
Immediately, she felt a dull throbbing ache. She looked out through her own eyes, but it was as if she peered from behind a double layer of glass. She looking through Sixiang, and Sixiang looking through her, staring into a mirror, where their reflection smirked back. It wore an uncharacteristically cocky expression, her hair was wild and unbound, and shimmering colors ran through her eyes, pools of liminal light
"You see, isn't this just perfect?" the not-her said. It's voice held a subtle echo, a reverb. It was her own voice underlain by Sixiangs. "What we can have, if you only got over yourself? She's already let you in so far. You can be real, and she can be free. Truly free, not the way she deludes herself. It'd only be for the better."
"We'd both be alone then, so what'd be the point?" Another voice echoed around and through Ling Qi, coming from the reflection she saw in the mirror. It's shining eyes screwed up, it's silhouette wavered, bands of color flashing in the hair, skin strobing between tones.
"You don't care about being alone,," the not-her said harshly. "You're just using her words, and why not, you barely exist outside of her skin, her thoughts. You decided to live, and you're nothing. An extension of her thoughts, an extra pair of hands and eyes for work."
"I exist," the reflection said. "As much as anyone. So what if I spend all my time with her? It's fine, she's around plenty of people. I can-"
"Watch," the eyes Ling Qi looked through narrowed. "Watch and make little comments that only she can hear, unless some bigwig is feeling saucy. It's pathetic yanno? You even got the ability to speak, to paint, to make yourself known. How often do you use it, you coward?"
"I'm practicing, manifesting isn't super easy you know," snapped the reflection.
"Liaaaar," mocked the not-her, or really, Ling Qi realized, another facet of Sixiang. "You don't want it to work, cause that's your excuse. You've been practicing for what, a year? You think that's flys in the Ling Qi squad? Might work for the kids, but that ain't us, ain't Ling Qi and her kickass muse. Quit messing around you weepy will-o-wisp."
"We're not-"
"We are," the facet hissed. There is nothing between us. "Nothing that could stop us. We're already in, past any defense. There's nothing, nothing keeping us from getting what we want. Nothin but you."
"I want to keep her, I don't want to be her," the reflection hissed.
"Liaaaar," the facet mocked, childishly drawing out the word again. "Else you'd have warned her, else you'd have tried harder to be you. Don't give me that alone crap either. You don't give a spit about those other fleshbags she hangs around with. When was the last time you even initiated a conversation outside of her head huh?"
The reflection was silent, stewing.
"Thought so. We love her, of course we do, but you know what we hate? What pisses us off? The way she keeps tryin to throw herself away. Every time she trashes herself, us in her thoughts. We want to to want, the both of us do. But all this weepy bullshit is holding us back. There ain't enough of us to exist without her, and she's got all sorts of gaps to be patched."
"It'd go bad, we'd get us both killed, that spook would notice, or one of those craggy old elders. We wouldn't last a week."
Ling Qi felt startled by the reflection, the real Sixiang's response. That wasn't the rebuttal she expected. Sixiang didn't…
…No she'd already realized it hadn't she. The reflection wasn't the 'real' Sixiang. Neither was the figment. It was all them, every last bit of it. It was one thing to acknowledge that she'd let herself be vulnerable in her own head. That she had lowered her defenses. It was another to be faced with the fact that the one she had made herself vulnerable too had really considered taking advantage.
The facet who wore her face, whose eyes she looked through, smiled at the reflection, it was too wide for her face, unnaturally curling the corners of her lips.
"C'mon now, gramps is here, he'd give us some help I bet. Can you imagine it, can you imagine this whole crazy scheme falling to bits with us out of the way, with us pushing it that way? The chaos that'd bring. Everyone building up this big moment and then…. It all falls to dust. The fists and blades come out. The little broken doll she's stringing along falling to bits, and that crazy monster self destructing. Wouldn't that be a scene, a whole new generation of nightmares and dashed hopes."
"I don't want that!."
"You already decided to accept pain when you decided to stick around and help her kill people sometimes," the facet said sweetly. "You want it a little. We want it a little, things coming apart is just so pretty."
The imagery of the mirror spun away, and Ling Qi saw images, images of roaring arguments and drawn blades, of smoke and radiance, of tears and drama and tragedy. A great and terrible epic, scrolling out into the future, and herself singing merrily among the ashes.
"Do you know how rare this is, an opportunity to do so much with so little? Don't tell me you're not bored playing house!"
The wind howled, blowing through the clouds of mists and smoke that surrounded and buffeted her, and the riotous song of cruel and merry revelry that called to their soul and…
Ling Qi breathed out, and opened her eyes.
"Backing out huh?"
She looked up into the shifting colors. "I've seen enough."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"You didn't do it," Ling Qi said quietly. "You're here stewing."
And, Ling Qi looked down, the shadowed threads were still there reaching into the colorful sea.
"It's like you didn't learn any lesson at all," Sixiang chuckled, some of the tension and harshness leaking out of their voice. "You just gonna pretend it doesn't matter that I can."
"It scares me. Its absolutely terrifying," Ling Qi said frankly. "I don't think things can be the same after this, Sixiang. You… lied. It was by omission, but still-"
"That's-thats what you're going to complain about?!"
Ling Qi felt her shadow swell, felt the ice crackle and spread.
[YES]
It wasn't a word really, it was will, impressed on the world, on Sixiang. It was a truth, however tiny and fleeting. That was absolutely what she wanted to complain about.
She felt and saw the sea of colors shrink in on itself, saw it flinch, a ripple of monochrome through the shifting colors.
"...It was after you almost dissolved yourself. After I… held you together. We got closer than we should have and you… didn't notice. It was gradual."
Ling Qi frowned. It was right, there was no one moment where she could pick out when Sixiang had become fully integrated into her perceptions.
"You were afraid."
"Yeah, I was," Sixiang whispered.
The colors shifted and spun, something coalesced in their depths. A rough shape and then a silhouette. Sixiang formed a body, seated on a cloud of sickly color. Thin, but a little wider shouldered than usual. A shimmery black robe. Their hair was white and lank, hanging partially over their face. Their features were a little harder and sharper, a little more masculine. "You gonna say you forgive me and have us do a little happy jig?"
Ling Qi regarded them silently letting the flippant words wash over her. "No, because I don't think I do yet."
"Ah hells, the one thing I never even had the urge to poke and prod and break apart, and that's the one I managed? What a joke," Sixiang chuckled.
"Do you really want to see me fail that badly?"
Sixiang flinched. "No, no, it ain't it ain't like that. I like getting a rise outta people, you know that. I like poking them and making them squirm when they're acting all stiff and haughty. Poking the foundations of that whole ridiculous show you humans put on and seeing where it wobbles. Gramps is…. Grand. He does big scale stuff. Takes it all way outta proportion. Of course I'm gonna get a little weird when he's sticking his eyes in my head."
They-He seemed to struggle for a moment, clenching their fists atop their knees and hunching their shoulders, a bit of color bled back into their hair, it drifted up. "I ain't all bubbles and cheer, that's true, you need bubbles and cheer though you gloomy beanpole."
"I probably do," Ling Qi admitted, she remained standing herself grasping her hands together as she allowed her eyes to wander the dreamscape. "...I expected something more like Kongyou, if I'm being honest."
"Feh," Sixiang made a face. "That's low, real low."
Ling Qi chuckled, looking down. "I don't know how long we have. I can sense him out there, this is just too easy so far."
"Masochist," Sixiang snorted.
"I don't know what that means, but it sounds dirty," Ling Qi said, narrowing her eyes.
"It means only you would think getting backed into a corner by gramps until you either found a conclusion or dissolved was easy," Sixiang shot back.
"If I can't even do that I don't have any business cultivating further. And I won't stop."
Sixiang's head drooped a little, some of the flickering color in his hair flaring up, spreading further through the whitened locks. "What now?"
"I don't forgive you," Ling Qi said. "But…"
She closed her eyes, searching her feelings. "I do still trust you."
Sixiang's head jerked up. Ling Qi extended her hand. There was only one unwanted connection here. The one thing she was sure of was that such things could be broken.
"Will you let me steal you away?"
Sixiang laughed, there was little hiccup in it, their voice cracking. "Do you even need to ask?"
"Yes."
Sixiang reached out and took her hand. In the roiling color Ling Qi felt the attention of an old and terrible things. She had seen him, and knew his name now. The rotted dream of a better future. Brother Darksong, the Emerald Mourner. The Dirge of Futures Lost.
The other half of the Dreaming Moon of the Emerald Seas.
She was going to steal his grandchild, once and for all.
It is not enough to wield the power of the Dreaming Moon here, to Dance the Dreamlit path, but you are not only the disciple of one moon. To wield their power separately is not enough.
[ ] Wind and laughter, the steps of the great thief will guide you. Your treasure is in hand, and now you must make haste from beneath the hoof of an angry god.
[ ] Darkness and secrets, let the black moon occlude you, it is not enough to merely seek, a true master of secrets must be able to hide from the keenest eye as well.