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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Year 45 Month 10 Arc 1-3
Winter went into spring, and the snows became floodwaters.

But this was only the last verse of her song, and one she had fretted over a bit too much. She understood her own thoughts on this. When focused on the oncoming summit, the peace she hoped for in the future, it was an easy thing to do. But, the future did not only include peace.

They were going to war next year. They were going to battle the ith.

It was going to be hideous.

Winter devoured. It consumed. It crushed. The falling snows, so beautiful in their glittering majesty under a newly risen moon, suffocated the last embers of life lingering on from autumn's slow decay.

She supposed that was another difference between her song and master Zeqings. Zeqing's Frozen Soul Serenade was the black heart of eternal cold, a freezing song that, ironically, never ended. The chill of the cloud piercing peak, exposed forever to the cruel stars and blackest sky, slew only what trespassed upon its domain.

In its way, the snow that swept across the world in its season was a much hungrier beast. But, in the end it was a beast that was sated, that retreated, that gave way to warmer things in time. It was not a bottomless and unceasing hunger.

There was a dichotomy she had not grappled with in that.

"Oh, I like how it feels around here," Hanyi said, her pale eyes sparkling as she looked up at the cloud wreathed peaks ahead. They stood on the lowest slope, the foot of the mountain. They had gathered quite a train of lesser fairies, a glittering whirling constellation of icy lights winking among the low clouds as the soft snows fell unceasing.

"The air is very clear," Ling Qi mused. It tasted crisp on her tongue, and soothed her still burnt lungs, circulating a comforting chill through her charred organs and meridians. "I wonder, we didn't discover this when we were surveying…."

"I think it isn't always like this," Hanyi said, planting her chin on her fist. "Yeah this isn't like Momma's house at all."

"A passing, wandering site, interesting, I wonder how that works," she really did need to speak to the geomancer of the Meng they were promised soon. She looked forward to reporting this to Renxiang. "Well no use just standing here, lets climb, little sister, and see who tries to bar our way."

"Oh, I can't wait," Hanyi said, smirking haughtily. She tossed her hair, glaring up at the winking lights overhead. "You better watch closely!"

She gave Hanyi's hand a squeeze, lifted her skirt hem in the other hand, and they began the long rocky climb.

They didn't do so without opposition. The wind picked up, it howled, it ripped at their hair and gowns. The soft snow gradually fell thicker, became a driving sleet, chips of ice that would have battered a mortal sliced their skin, driven them to fleeing panic. But, even reduced as she was Ling Qi was far from a mortal now.

The swarming faeries above multiplied in number, a constellation of shrieking laughter and giggling winds.

They climbed toward the clouds, and the clouds came down to meet them.

But Ling Qi nor her junior sister were mortal supplicants, come to beg for respite. They were peers, here to be respected.

As falling snow turned to slicing sleet, Ling Qi inhaled deeply of the frozen air, feeling the frost crackle in her lungs for the first time in months, and was refreshed. When she let it out, in the strident first verse of her song, in tandem with her sister, the howling wind bearing down upon them broke apart, the driving sleet scattered in all directions

The air crackled with a far more potent cold, needles of driving ice and heavy snow blew outward now.

On the side of the icy mountain, two winter storms met and clashed.

The year's end comes, blowing, blowing, o're high mountain and hill, over still and shining lake. Wings flutter and fly for warmer nests, blue skies fade, a memory for another season. Sing, sing of chilling white, of glittering ice upon the quiet shore, of snow among the mists, lying light o're roof and hearth, where merry fire burns, embers kept live unto the end of the dark. Warm smoke rises unto frozen sky, spiced with faith and hopes.

Wild wild, blows the ice, driving needles, crushing hail. Frozen earth and deadly wind, no walls, no limits, no lingering fire. Riot, wail, and revel, ever and ever. What is death? What is life? There are only nameless winds and frolicking clouds, returning ever, ever when the Great Ones Cycle turns to cold. No limits, never limits, human spark, O poison temptation of want. Flee scatter, huddle pon the shore!


Ling Qi squeezed Hanyi's hand. These were truly wild spirits, things not unlike Sixiang at their creation, bundles of power and fragments of awareness from greater spirits, temporarily spun together, knowing not any real identity of their own.

They were right in their way, like this, they were wild and free, unknowing of fear, or death, of loss or want, nothing but the faintest wisp of thought wrapped around a mechanical purpose.
But there was something here, this driving wind and blizzard howl, this was the face of winter's violence, not the ceaseless cold and crackling ice. Even with all of her effort, she had clung too tightly to her master's aesthetic, even after being certain of the path she wished to walk. There was a place for sentimentality, but it was not here.

They strode over the mountain rock, climbing, almost climbing, and among the snow buried boulders and scrub, and the rattling branches of trees bearing frozen needles. In a way, Ling Qi could feel, it was no longer completely a thing of physical distance. Her own stride, corrected such impediments.

She looked up into the whorling cloud met eyes that were chips of ice, that were spinning flakes of dizzying beauty, that were black pits of churning cloud. She tilted her chin up, let her Mist flood out, joining Hanyi's whirling wall of pure white snow, and let the faeries above see her, without restraint.

And beside her Hanyi's song rose in answer to the taunt delivered back in their face.

Wasted. Wasted is the song none hear, the fiel;d painted in glittering white none see! Beauty is in hearts, beauty is in minds. Boring empty flecks and flakes that tumble and spin wanting nothing and being nothing, so much is missed! Be welcome, be beautiful, be known!

…Or be scattered.


Her sister was always the blunt sort. Though there was no use lying about it. It was not as if they would accept their home being ravaged by wild thoughtless storms if they could prevent it. No people would do so, unless they lacked the force to manage it.

That too was the Wall in miniature. No one would accept violence and injury done upon themselves if they had the strength to make it stop. Neither Cloud, nor Ice, nor Dragon Banner changed something so simple.

These however, were not men, nor even beasts they did not have enough self to fear death, and so her Sister was not using the best argument here.

Her song was met with cackling and wind, with renewed sleet upon the slope and hurled hail, with screaming winds that clawed at their mist and snow.

Beloved snows, festivals upon the frozen shore, light and smoke and laughter, calling calling for end of year. Welcome and want and hope, feasts of meat and fish for mortal mouths, and song and adoration for the spirit kin.

Her voice as much as the pressure of her hand, guided Hanyi in the right direction, retaliating against the wild identity less freedom with the promise of meaning and faith and want, the promise to make winters coming a thing of meaning and festivity.

And the number of fairies whirling around them was growing. Even high above, one of the three greater faeries a figure like glass filled with whirling snowflakes, with hypnotic eyes of spinning fractal patterns drifted lowerer and lower, their voice ceasing to be so strident as their kin…

Well, even among things like these defectors weren't well liked.

The fairies' kin descended upon it-her with a shriek.

And Ling Qi decided to raise her voice.

Howl.

O Song of Snow, Aria of Endings.

Howl. Consume. I Sweep the Sky and the Earth alike clear.

Wither the old unto dust and soil, to be toiled over and tilled

Blacken the sky, that the next rise be brighter.

End the year, that the next be better.

All things born are buried in time. No cycle is the same as the last.

No mountain stands forever before the wind.

Crumble.


She was not Xia Ren. She was not the pitiless titan of steel and fire. But she would be a fool, if she did not recognize why the flames of the crucible had been able to spare her, even as much as they did. She was more than this, more than a weapon.

But pretending that she did not have this within her would do no more good than paring herself down to just that. And Most of all, even in her emptiness, Xia Ren made the same mistake as Elder Jiao…

Each turn of the wheel slays the old and births the new. Permanence is stagnation by another name.

Cycles II->III

Though she was no Sovereign, right at that moment, as the feelings she had been turning over in her head came together in acceptance and conviction…

Her shadow stretched over the peak, in defiance of the weak light shining through the cloud cover, and she felt herself in every flake of snow, as the storm turned in her grip, battering the still defiant faeries as boulders and clods of earth rumbled free, and the earth shook, with the tumble of snow and stone down the mountainsides.
One faerie shattered, the other hung limp in the grip of her voice, as submissive as a kitten in its mother's mouth.

The early defector cackled in a voice of freezing ice, zipping around her head before settling in her hair.

And then she was only herself again, standing beside Hanyi, who looked up at her with wide eyes.

Ling Qi swayed and leaned heavily on Hanyi's shoulder, reaching up to hold her now burning throat.

"Big Sis?"

"It's alright, Hanyi," she croaked, offering a crooked smile. She rested heavily on her sisters shoulder, a mote of silver qi rising to observe the faerie resting on her hair. "Just threw out my voice a little. I'll leave the rest to you, okay?"

She plucked the shrunken snow fairy from her head, and cast a gimlet look up into the cloud where the other, the one composed of dark clouds still hung. Then she placed the snow fairy in Hanyi's hands. "But… I do think I'll need a bit of rest back at camp."

That was one step, she thought. Her Final Frost Serenade had its first proper verse now.

Year's End Aria
Potency: G4
Type: Bind, Cold, Drain, Song
Duration: Scene

The beginnings of a song of endings, sharp as an arctic wind, eerie as a forest canopy wreathed in glittering ice. With the progression of the melody comes the winter cold. Frost and ice crystalizing in a spreading wave, it encrusts and encases all, even the wind itself may become a driving sleet which further freezes and slows. Within, heat and motion dies and the world slowly grows still, and flowers of frost bloom from cold cracked flesh, a-glitter with lost life. Reduce the Movement Trait of enemies in the scene by one. Enemies in the vicinity are slowly drained of qi.

You may choose to focus the effect of the Aria on a single target. For the focused target, their movement trait will be continually reduced, until it reaches zero, rendering them helpless until dispelled.

Becomes

Aria of Endings
Potency: G5
Type: Bind, Cold, Drain, Song
Duration: Scene

The beginnings of a song of endings. A howl, a shriek, the blistering cutting wind of the first storm of winter sweeping across the land, burying the world in its frozen embrace, ending the dregs of the old year and consigning it to dust. Heat and Motion die within and those without place in the next year are buried and forgotten. Fills a large and growing area with driving snow and sleet, to the limits of the scene. Enemies in the area of effect have their Movement Trait gradually reduced, by up to half their starting trait value, and their qi sapped. Enemies reduced to zero qi receive damage unless deliberately spared.

AN: Alright bit short but this is the best split point I think and gotta ease back in after the sick!
 
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Really interesting to see LQ first few interactions with Law. She sees herself in every falling snow near her. That fits and the imagery is awesome together with her bringing ending to motion and her enemies. by taking their energies. The slow- but inevitable- death of a season.
 
Popping out of the ether to say Ling Qi is slowly growing into what I like to call Turner of the Wheel, and it is both lovely and terrifying to see.
 
Winter devoured. It consumed. It crushed. The falling snows, so beautiful in their glittering majesty under a newly risen moon, suffocated the last embers of life lingering on from autumn's slow decay.

She supposed that was another difference between her song and master Zeqings. Zeqing's Frozen Soul Serenade was the black heart of eternal cold, a freezing song that, ironically, never ended. The chill of the cloud piercing peak, exposed forever to the cruel stars and blackest sky, slew only what trespassed upon its domain.

In its way, the snow that swept across the world in its season was a much hungrier beast. But, in the end it was a beast that was sated, that retreated, that gave way to warmer things in time. It was not a bottomless and unceasing hunger.

There was a dichotomy she had not grappled with in that.
Ling Qi's Winter and Song is different from Zeqing's and that's been know for a while but Ling Qi's being hungrier but also have it possible to be sated is an interesting observation.

Howl.

O Song of Snow, Aria of Endings.

Howl. Consume. I Sweep the Sky and the Earth alike clear.

Wither the old unto dust and soil, to be toiled over and tilled

Blacken the sky, that the next rise be brighter.

End the year, that the next be better.

All things born are buried in time. No cycle is the same as the last.

No mountain stands forever before the wind.

Crumble.
Okay holy shit that is so awesome and deserves a name like Aria of Endings.

She was not Xia Ren. She was not the pitiless titan of steel and fire. But she would be a fool, if she did not recognize why the flames of the crucible had been able to spare her, even as much as they did. She was more than this, more than a weapon.

But pretending that she did not have this within her would do no more good than paring herself down to just that. And Most of all, even in her emptiness, Xia Ren made the same mistake as Elder Jiao…

Each turn of the wheel slays the old and births the new. Permanence is stagnation by another name.

Cycles II->III
This cycle insight is slightly violent but I'm all for it since violence is needed sometimes and this is a case where it's fitting.

Aria of Endings
Potency: G5
Type: Bind, Cold, Drain, Song
Duration: Scene

The beginnings of a song of endings. A howl, a shriek, the blistering cutting wind of the first storm of winter sweeping across the land, burying the world in its frozen embrace, ending the dregs of the old year and consigning it to dust. Heat and Motion die within and those without place in the next year are buried and forgotten. Fills a large and growing area with driving snow and sleet, to the limits of the scene. Enemies in the area of effect have their Movement Trait gradually reduced, by up to half their starting trait value, and their qi sapped. Enemies reduced to zero qi receive damage unless deliberately spared.
This is a good change and a potent weapon that's going to see a lot of use.
 
Can we talk about the movement debuff? By up to half their starting movement Trait value? Halved?! That's insane, completely utter ridiculous. Can you imagine a cultivator fight between equal realms that are evenly matched and the opposition just. cannot. Move. Like what?
 
I really dig the new direction FFS is taking. This is much more in line with what I had envisioned the art as.
While Zeqing is the eternal cold and Hanyi is Winter's first snow, Ling Qi is Winter's blizzard at its coldest.

This trip seems to have been quite a success.
Ling Qi accomplished her primary goal of making contact and establishing dominance over the winter spirits of the sorrounding land.
On that note, it was quite brutal how LQ just straight up murdered one of the three top fairies. I know that she didn't "die" as we understand it, with all that thing of being partial incarnations of bigger spirits.
But damn, that was still ruthless. Not that I disapprove.

Even so, she got one of them on board, and subjugated the other. So now LQ is in charge here.
If we can properly tame the minor winter fairies we may have a good pool of potential winter spirit companions for future Ling clan's members.
 
So, looking at the changes, it sounds like the qi drain is faster and the group movement debuff is stronger, in exchange for not being able to focus on one person in particular to freeze them in place. Pretty solid. We *also* drain qi from our mist, right? So that's pretty rough on people. God, LQ is just so brutal at punching down against masses of enemies.
 
Can we talk about the movement debuff? By up to half their starting movement Trait value? Halved?! That's insane, completely utter ridiculous. Can you imagine a cultivator fight between equal realms that are evenly matched and the opposition just. cannot. Move. Like what?
Yeah, that would mean that we'd reduce green 4 cultivators to mid yellow when it comes to movement. That's insanely good. Imagine Qi holding a mountain pass against an army with this. Would be nuts.
 
I really dig the new direction FFS is taking. This is much more in line with what I had envisioned the art as.
While Zeqing is the eternal cold and Hanyi is Winter's first snow, Ling Qi is Winter's blizzard at its coldest.

This trip seems to have been quite a success.
Ling Qi accomplished her primary goal of making contact and establishing dominance over the winter spirits of the sorrounding land.
On that note, it was quite brutal how LQ just straight up murdered one of the three top fairies. I know that she didn't "die" as we understand it, with all that thing of being partial incarnations of bigger spirits.
But damn, that was still ruthless. Not that I disapprove.

Even so, she got one of them on board, and subjugated the other. So now LQ is in charge here.
If we can properly tame the minor winter fairies we may have a good pool of potential winter spirit companions for future Ling clan's members.
Trip is not over yet. This walk with Hanyi is supposed to be the longest arc since the summit and is supposed to cover the last few projects of FFS before the we need to get to G6 to proceed.
 
Looks like it lost the ability to focus on a single target though. This adds another point to the Villain Ling Qi being beaten/beatable by a single or small band of heroes.

That will probably make a return on the last verses though.
 
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It's funny how despite being completely opposite in her aesthetics, Ling Qi is becoming Shenhua's truest ideological heir. The focus on churning change, on Progress, softened to be about diplomacy and connection rather than the forward motion of the state; that forward motion, softened so that it's more willing to pull what was useful from the past and make it part of a new future; the focus on Truth, softened to be a Truth that illuminates but does not cut or sear; an expansion of her scope of concern to be beyond merely the Empire, that the world all around can be pulled in a forward march together into tomorrow. It's all of the same ideas, iterated into something better and kinder.

Good thing Ling Qi works for her daughter or else that'd all be very awkward.
 
This was a great chapter. I liked the insight we got, the interaction between the spirits and the contemplation on what Ling Qi wants to be, or rather, what she needs to be.

All in all, a lovely chapter.
 
So, looking at the changes, it sounds like the qi drain is faster and the group movement debuff is stronger, in exchange for not being able to focus on one person in particular to freeze them in place. Pretty solid. We *also* drain qi from our mist, right? So that's pretty rough on people. God, LQ is just so brutal at punching down against masses of enemies.
I'm sure our postings in the ongoing wars will be very fun and definitely not horrific. We're a great raider; sneaky enough to get behind front lines and very good at killing an almost arbitrary number of opponents weaker than us.

If not for our diplomatic role and general nature, we'd be an excellent choice to lead retaliation strikes at smaller cloud tribe settlements.
 
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