Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
It is my headcanon that despite her terrifying aura Shenhua has encountered this scenario several times.
Since Shenhua is also a walking lie detector Your headcanon is probably 100% correct
Year 45, Month 13, Arc 4-5
She considered him for a long moment, perched atop the flat-cut mediation stone. There were literal answers. She'd taken nothing, only witnessed it. But whatever differences they had, they were both artists, and she'd not insult him by being obtuse when she understood the actual thrust of the question.
"I took the sound of the waves and the wharves, and the strum of mortal strings and sailors' songs," She said. "There are many shades to those songs, and I sadly only heard a few. Xia Anxi may have nothing to do with those things, but I won't lie and say I cannot see the way they are mortar of his foundations, even if they've been well built over."
He let out a soft, quiet hiss. "You would, wouldn't you? You who so brazenly where's the grime and the dirt on your sleeves."
Qiyi rustled, a bit upset. She was not dirty at all! Ling Qi soothed the spirit with the thought. The words weren't meant that way.
"I do? And where would I hide it if I had not? I don't have such resources, nor the shame to use them. But Xia Anxi, i meant my promise. I will not speak of any things I saw. They belong to you, and you are not an enemy of mine."
She tipped her head to him. "Though I won't say I'm not curious."
She had done some searching, not specifically to expose him, but to understand better the convoluted traditions of a clan as ancient as the Bai. There were no accounts that outright stated things, but…
The Bai were an immense clan, mind-bogglingly so to her. The White Serpents, their leaders… these were closer to what she understood as a ducal clan. Then the other six castes occupied places similar to counts or viscount clans… but the last, the grey was for those mortals who still bore some signs of grandmother serpents decent.
This was most of the population of the Thousand Lakes.
She supposed despite the harsh restrictions on things she saw in their records, that there must be the occasional…. Throwback among the Gray.
"Oh, am I to be the Baroness' little project?" Xia Anxi asked.
"You were the one who brought this all up again. I was content to let it pass," Ling Qi pointed out. "I think, if anything you're the more curious one here."
He closed his mouth, pressing his lips together in a thin line.
"I won't claim I know you, from a few snippets of memory, but, I can speak of myself," Ling Qi said candidly, turning her head to observe the little pond in the center of the sand garden. The air buzzed with their qi here. Xia Anxi's screening techniques whispered wind and waves into the air, overwriting any echo of their words. Ling Qi's merely went to his ears alone. No one else needed to hear them, and so they did not and could not unless some higher realm chose to bend their Law to hearing them.
"I was gutter trash, the sort of dirty and unwanted thing that even kinder men and women avert their eyes from, seeking 'cleaner' cases for their charity," Ling Qi said. "I have no fondness for that, nor shame in it. It is what I was. It's still the root of who I am. I know I am judged for it still. Perhaps if I tried very hard to put on every air, diverted the subject whenever it came up, expressed performative shame, and verbally despised my old position, people would pretend that they didn't know about it."
Ling Qi tilted her head back, observing the great vortex of winds and filthy air in the sky. "Until it was convenient anyway. The 'mud' will never, ever come off, although maybe if I open my third dantian it would become too frightening for anyone to comment on it, I don't doubt histories will carefully scrub it should I ever appear in one."
She laughed at the last, shaking her head.
"I understand that it's different for you. There's something you value in your gutter, that you'd rather not have picked and prodded at by your enemies."
"And now you try to sound the mysterious muse," Xia Anxi said. "As if it were so simple. If you did not have the backing of that lady of yours, I doubt you would be so free and incautious."
"Oh, I'd be in a much worse place for it, but I don't think I would hide," Ling Qi grinned. "I am also not Xia Anxi, and the Emerald Seas are not the Thousand Lakes."
He turned from her walking out over the carefully raked sand, his feet not disturbing it one bit before he found his own rock. "That I will allow."
"I understand that you do not want that past to be public, but why does the idea that those songs are in your foundations offend you?" Ling Qi asked. "...Or no, you don't lie to yourself that well."
It frightened him. She wasn't so rude as to say that out loud though.
"You don't lie to yourself that well…? You are infuriating you know. Saying things like that in that faux-friendly voice."
"There's nothing faux about it."
"So all of my senses tell me, which is why you are a dangerous woman," Xia Anxi sniffed. He clapped his hands onto his knees, sitting up straight backed, in a more traditional mediating pose. "No, your words are scalpels. Every one of them is deliberate. That you manage to seem so casual and sincere while you do is all the more frightening."
Ling Qi smiled teasingly. "Xia Anxi, do you mean to court me? This is what a Bai says to a woman they admire, isn't it? I remember reading about this."
He glared at her. "Speaking of yourself as encrusted with mud in one word and then preening like a Queen in the next, its unbecoming, baroness."
"Now that's excessive, you're hardly a king or a prince, Bai or no," Ling Qi shot back. "And I'm not the one sidestepping the question. Tell me it's none of my business if you like, but don't insult these eyes of mine."
He broke eye contact first, looking to the side with a disgruntled huff. "Beyond the obvious?"
"Its not fear of discovery, there are any number of ways to sell why your soul sings of the sea. Given Bai Meizhen's leanings, I'm quite sure they aren't even impolitic with the parts of your clan you've been thrown in with," Ling Qi said. "We did, after all, just purchase a whole batch of spyglasses for sailing ships and their officers."
"It isn't merely the sea, the Bai clan has its naval heroes, far in the past though they may be," Xia Anxi replied. "But there is a difference between the proud captain with one foot on the prow and the men below decks pulling the oars."
"Yes, I expect they would have a much larger and fancier hat."
"And much more well-polished boots. But merely purchasing boot polish and visiting a haberdasher does not make a rower a captain."
Ling Qi hummed. "So even a hint, the catchy twist of a shanty would reveal your face to be a farce? I do not think Bai Meizhen would be so petty as to be concerned."
"Oh yes, I have managed to make myself useful to my Lady, always the first step to an acceptable eccentricity, until it is inconvenient," Xia Anxi scoffed. "I was nearly killed on her little errands you know? I'm well aware of how 'safe' my service is when the White caste is quarreling."
Ling Qi didn't have an answer for that. Bai Meizhen hadn't said anything of the sort.
"But then, you're familiar aren't you, how it feels to be locked in paralysis, your qi sluggish and immobile. A good thing Keung is such a stupidly robust boulder of a man," Xia Anxi grumbled. "You bewilder me, at the ease with which one lives in the Emerald Seas. But I am at least aware of my position. You really do think you are 'friends' with the existences above us, don't you? It's not even an affect."
"Of course it isn't… Existences above us. Honestly, you're being dramatic. I've personally spoken with plenty of 'existences above me'," Ling Qi scoffed in turn. "Spirits that could extinguish me in an eyeblink. My Lady nor yours are on that level."
"They may as well be," Xia Anxi said, tilting his chin back. "You think I've not met minds with the mighty spirits of the currents, the lakes and the winding rivers. Please. My cultivation is not less than yours. It is not the same thing at all."
She rather did think her resume was more impressive here, but she didn't want to deflect him from his point.
"Just because a white serpent is not your superior in cultivation does not mean they may not destroy you just as easily as some mighty spirit. They transcend mere cultivation. Those such as I, such as you, have the task of being. Only mortals and low cultivators have the luxury of unspoiled camaraderie. The moment that world is left behind, such a thing is a dream."
She tilted her head. He didn't even sound bitter, though there was a sarcastic edge as if he was explaining something they both knew and she was merely his better at eliding.
"Mortals are just as capable of cruelty as counts and dukes. Their reach is just smaller. I can't speak for Sovereigns, but cultivators beneath that… they aren't so much different, only stiffer and less flexible," Ling Qi said. "Really… That's the real difference between us. My past is a frozen shard jammed under my skin, a reminder of what life can be reduced to.
Yours though… it is a treasure you know you'll never get back. No wonder we don't see eye to eye."
He stilled and squinted at her again. She could feel his examination. He was so sure she was mocking him.
She met his eyes steadily, refusing to let him see anything but the simple, plain intent of her words.
A part of her had found this nonsensical. Why would he bring this up, push and prod her for her thoughts on it, when he insisted that he didn't want to talk about it? The answer came to her clearly here. Because she knew. Because he'd not ever been able to speak of any of this to anyone. Still couldn't.
He didn't trust her one bit, and yet, she knew, so these words couldn't make things worse, couldn't reveal anything hidden. Without that holding him back, he couldn't restrain the need to speak them.
"Hmph, there really isn't any fear in you is there?"
AN: Apologies for the need to split again, we'll be heading into the finish of the arc in the next update
"I took the sound of the waves and the wharves, and the strum of mortal strings and sailors' songs," She said. "There are many shades to those songs, and I sadly only heard a few. Xia Anxi may have nothing to do with those things, but I won't lie and say I cannot see the way they are mortar of his foundations, even if they've been well built over."
He let out a soft, quiet hiss. "You would, wouldn't you? You who so brazenly where's the grime and the dirt on your sleeves."
Qiyi rustled, a bit upset. She was not dirty at all! Ling Qi soothed the spirit with the thought. The words weren't meant that way.
"I do? And where would I hide it if I had not? I don't have such resources, nor the shame to use them. But Xia Anxi, i meant my promise. I will not speak of any things I saw. They belong to you, and you are not an enemy of mine."
She tipped her head to him. "Though I won't say I'm not curious."
She had done some searching, not specifically to expose him, but to understand better the convoluted traditions of a clan as ancient as the Bai. There were no accounts that outright stated things, but…
The Bai were an immense clan, mind-bogglingly so to her. The White Serpents, their leaders… these were closer to what she understood as a ducal clan. Then the other six castes occupied places similar to counts or viscount clans… but the last, the grey was for those mortals who still bore some signs of grandmother serpents decent.
This was most of the population of the Thousand Lakes.
She supposed despite the harsh restrictions on things she saw in their records, that there must be the occasional…. Throwback among the Gray.
"Oh, am I to be the Baroness' little project?" Xia Anxi asked.
"You were the one who brought this all up again. I was content to let it pass," Ling Qi pointed out. "I think, if anything you're the more curious one here."
He closed his mouth, pressing his lips together in a thin line.
"I won't claim I know you, from a few snippets of memory, but, I can speak of myself," Ling Qi said candidly, turning her head to observe the little pond in the center of the sand garden. The air buzzed with their qi here. Xia Anxi's screening techniques whispered wind and waves into the air, overwriting any echo of their words. Ling Qi's merely went to his ears alone. No one else needed to hear them, and so they did not and could not unless some higher realm chose to bend their Law to hearing them.
"I was gutter trash, the sort of dirty and unwanted thing that even kinder men and women avert their eyes from, seeking 'cleaner' cases for their charity," Ling Qi said. "I have no fondness for that, nor shame in it. It is what I was. It's still the root of who I am. I know I am judged for it still. Perhaps if I tried very hard to put on every air, diverted the subject whenever it came up, expressed performative shame, and verbally despised my old position, people would pretend that they didn't know about it."
Ling Qi tilted her head back, observing the great vortex of winds and filthy air in the sky. "Until it was convenient anyway. The 'mud' will never, ever come off, although maybe if I open my third dantian it would become too frightening for anyone to comment on it, I don't doubt histories will carefully scrub it should I ever appear in one."
She laughed at the last, shaking her head.
"I understand that it's different for you. There's something you value in your gutter, that you'd rather not have picked and prodded at by your enemies."
"And now you try to sound the mysterious muse," Xia Anxi said. "As if it were so simple. If you did not have the backing of that lady of yours, I doubt you would be so free and incautious."
"Oh, I'd be in a much worse place for it, but I don't think I would hide," Ling Qi grinned. "I am also not Xia Anxi, and the Emerald Seas are not the Thousand Lakes."
He turned from her walking out over the carefully raked sand, his feet not disturbing it one bit before he found his own rock. "That I will allow."
"I understand that you do not want that past to be public, but why does the idea that those songs are in your foundations offend you?" Ling Qi asked. "...Or no, you don't lie to yourself that well."
It frightened him. She wasn't so rude as to say that out loud though.
"You don't lie to yourself that well…? You are infuriating you know. Saying things like that in that faux-friendly voice."
"There's nothing faux about it."
"So all of my senses tell me, which is why you are a dangerous woman," Xia Anxi sniffed. He clapped his hands onto his knees, sitting up straight backed, in a more traditional mediating pose. "No, your words are scalpels. Every one of them is deliberate. That you manage to seem so casual and sincere while you do is all the more frightening."
Ling Qi smiled teasingly. "Xia Anxi, do you mean to court me? This is what a Bai says to a woman they admire, isn't it? I remember reading about this."
He glared at her. "Speaking of yourself as encrusted with mud in one word and then preening like a Queen in the next, its unbecoming, baroness."
"Now that's excessive, you're hardly a king or a prince, Bai or no," Ling Qi shot back. "And I'm not the one sidestepping the question. Tell me it's none of my business if you like, but don't insult these eyes of mine."
He broke eye contact first, looking to the side with a disgruntled huff. "Beyond the obvious?"
"Its not fear of discovery, there are any number of ways to sell why your soul sings of the sea. Given Bai Meizhen's leanings, I'm quite sure they aren't even impolitic with the parts of your clan you've been thrown in with," Ling Qi said. "We did, after all, just purchase a whole batch of spyglasses for sailing ships and their officers."
"It isn't merely the sea, the Bai clan has its naval heroes, far in the past though they may be," Xia Anxi replied. "But there is a difference between the proud captain with one foot on the prow and the men below decks pulling the oars."
"Yes, I expect they would have a much larger and fancier hat."
"And much more well-polished boots. But merely purchasing boot polish and visiting a haberdasher does not make a rower a captain."
Ling Qi hummed. "So even a hint, the catchy twist of a shanty would reveal your face to be a farce? I do not think Bai Meizhen would be so petty as to be concerned."
"Oh yes, I have managed to make myself useful to my Lady, always the first step to an acceptable eccentricity, until it is inconvenient," Xia Anxi scoffed. "I was nearly killed on her little errands you know? I'm well aware of how 'safe' my service is when the White caste is quarreling."
Ling Qi didn't have an answer for that. Bai Meizhen hadn't said anything of the sort.
"But then, you're familiar aren't you, how it feels to be locked in paralysis, your qi sluggish and immobile. A good thing Keung is such a stupidly robust boulder of a man," Xia Anxi grumbled. "You bewilder me, at the ease with which one lives in the Emerald Seas. But I am at least aware of my position. You really do think you are 'friends' with the existences above us, don't you? It's not even an affect."
"Of course it isn't… Existences above us. Honestly, you're being dramatic. I've personally spoken with plenty of 'existences above me'," Ling Qi scoffed in turn. "Spirits that could extinguish me in an eyeblink. My Lady nor yours are on that level."
"They may as well be," Xia Anxi said, tilting his chin back. "You think I've not met minds with the mighty spirits of the currents, the lakes and the winding rivers. Please. My cultivation is not less than yours. It is not the same thing at all."
She rather did think her resume was more impressive here, but she didn't want to deflect him from his point.
"Just because a white serpent is not your superior in cultivation does not mean they may not destroy you just as easily as some mighty spirit. They transcend mere cultivation. Those such as I, such as you, have the task of being. Only mortals and low cultivators have the luxury of unspoiled camaraderie. The moment that world is left behind, such a thing is a dream."
She tilted her head. He didn't even sound bitter, though there was a sarcastic edge as if he was explaining something they both knew and she was merely his better at eliding.
"Mortals are just as capable of cruelty as counts and dukes. Their reach is just smaller. I can't speak for Sovereigns, but cultivators beneath that… they aren't so much different, only stiffer and less flexible," Ling Qi said. "Really… That's the real difference between us. My past is a frozen shard jammed under my skin, a reminder of what life can be reduced to.
Yours though… it is a treasure you know you'll never get back. No wonder we don't see eye to eye."
He stilled and squinted at her again. She could feel his examination. He was so sure she was mocking him.
She met his eyes steadily, refusing to let him see anything but the simple, plain intent of her words.
A part of her had found this nonsensical. Why would he bring this up, push and prod her for her thoughts on it, when he insisted that he didn't want to talk about it? The answer came to her clearly here. Because she knew. Because he'd not ever been able to speak of any of this to anyone. Still couldn't.
He didn't trust her one bit, and yet, she knew, so these words couldn't make things worse, couldn't reveal anything hidden. Without that holding him back, he couldn't restrain the need to speak them.
"Hmph, there really isn't any fear in you is there?"
AN: Apologies for the need to split again, we'll be heading into the finish of the arc in the next update
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- Location
- Staring into the void
Of course not, I had Meizhen train it out of me.
- Location
- Space between realms
- Pronouns
- He
She really understands the Bai just a little. Man, the Bai kink of "I love a lady who can kick/kill my ass!" is so pervasive.
Considering the multiple GS avatar level entities she has run into... yeah. She even went on an outing with three of them.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well you're giving Anxi an admirably strong shot at becoming a suitor that isn't instantly laughed out of the competition. I'm liking this a lot
Also am I dumb, because I can't parse what she means. Is she saying that she agrees with him and that she would be more cautious about displaying any hint of her low origins, or that she disagrees with him and that she would act the same even with less political backing? I would think the first, but then this makes the "but no" confusing because that usually indicates disagreement.
Also am I dumb, because I can't parse what she means. Is she saying that she agrees with him and that she would be more cautious about displaying any hint of her low origins, or that she disagrees with him and that she would act the same even with less political backing? I would think the first, but then this makes the "but no" confusing because that usually indicates disagreement.
So anxi is the "I can fix him" option I see 
- Location
- Finland
If he ever manages to meet Granny Snek and actually hold her attention, i will accept him as a peer.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
My read is that Ling Qi would not hide her origins even without CRX's backing, but that without CRX the not hiding her origins would turn out much worse for her.
Basically she's agreeing that she get away with a lot thanks to CRX but also pointing out that the Emeral Seas aren't quite as bad as the Bai when it comes to such matters
In LQs case it is also a bit harder to throw shade on her origin considering the multiple incidents she gotten into. Her few military stunts during the sect time, the city she saved and recently the whole summit deal where she carried Xia Ren into battle with a sovereign.
The empire for all it other failings do honor those that goes above duty.
The empire for all it other failings do honor those that goes above duty.
Brother Darksong, Prism nightmare avatar of the Emerald Seas: "GIVE IN TO MY PARADIGM!"
Ling Qi: "Nah, fuck you. Instead I'll mantle the remnants of a man you hate, style on you and get out of here."
Brother Darksong: "REEEEEEEEEEE!"
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
First statement is her agreeing with his assertion that she'd be in a worse place socially and politically for so openly embracing her past, but then disagreeing with the assertion that she would have tried to hide it in such a case.
Triggers Brother Darksong into striking to kill, and survives.
Gets called precocious by an avatar of the Crone, scariest deity of the Polar Nation.
Helps kill Still Waters Deeping, a mad Violet who's not holding back.
Amusingly pre-signing up with Renxiang she wasn't even the most offensive person in the cast to snooty nobles. Yrs said that it went 1. Ji Rong 2. Rixiong 3. Ling Qi.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay it is changed now to remove the "but no". She's now saying "but I don't think I would [be so free and incautious]", since that was what he said she'd be.
Does this mean that she agrees with him? That feels incorrect. If the "don't" was replaced with "actually", then it would be very straightforwardly read as her disagreeing because she wouldn't actually hide it, before restating that they are different people in different environments so it doesn't truly matter what she is doing.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
It's more accurate to remind people
"Courage is not the absence of fear, it's the willingness to advance in spite of it."
Ling Qi is very much not fearless, she's just willing to set that aside when the stakes are high or it's important enough to her.
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NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
- Location
- Places
I find this line very funny considering how Meizhen won the finals against Liling.
Good to have privacy.
She's being pretty open about her origins and experiences.
They're very different places.
They're both making some good point.
That really sums up their differences with their pasts.
More that she's stop letting fear hold her back.
Congrats.
People are weirded out by the shit LQ does and the creatures she's met for a reason.
CharlieKing
Pure of Heart, Dumb of Ass
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh he's like a spicy kitten 😭🥺 he just needs more consistent interactions with Ling Qi to get used to her...Ling Qi-ness.