Her nerves hummed with it, the jagged riot of currents stark in black and white. The path of the charge, mortality encapsulated in a spark. Countless ways all reaching toward the end, a hundred choices and all but one discarded, irreversible.
Lightning was certainty. The strike did not turn back on itself.
"Hey! Quit spacing out!"
Ling Nuan. Not Yu Nuan, not anymore, shot the brat tugging at her sleeve an unimpressed look. "I'm not spacing out, I'm cultivating you drippy snowflake."
"Nah, you're totally spacing out, I can tell the difference," Hanyi sniffed. "And quit calling me that! I'm the senior sister here!"
"Nope," Ling Nuan drawled. It was a familiar dance at this point, weirdly enough. The runt that had gotten her involved with Ling Qi in the first place was… well, she was a bullying brat. She played nice around Ling Qi, but she could put some of the most insecure noble daughters in the Sect to shame.
"What kind of reply is that?" Hanyi sniffed, crossing her arms. "I should kick you into the trough you zap head!"
"Hey if you want a little friendly tussle, you're welcome Sis, but I think we both know who's going in the trough," Ling Nuan replied.
At least until you actually stood up to her. Brat was all bluster. Although Ling Qi had made some offhand comments about plans to tame the land's winter fairies that made her think there were probably some real teeth under there…
As long as the brat was sure she was stronger than you anyway.
Which was why she met Hanyi's dead white eyes the same way she'd stare down an uppity bear or wolf or drunk ogre until it backed off.
"Hmph! I can't believe Big Sis adopted someone so ill-mannered," her new brat sister huffed, turning on a dime from thug to affronted noblewoman… which being fair was generally just a difference in tone and word choice.
"What's got you out here anyway?" Ling Nuan asked, stretching her arms overhead. She rose to her feet, a sizzling current flash-drying her pants from where the damp thatch of the sheering barn had gotten them wet. The weirder thing, she realized was how even the snowflake's taunts and posturing still felt friendlier than her old cousin's spew.
"I need background music for my rehearsal and Big Sis is busy with the Boss Lady's stuff!" Hanyi announced imperiously. "Be good sister and help me!"
"You serious?" Ling Nuan asked incredulously. "You telling me you can't do a second channel for your own background. At your cultivation?"
"Of course I can!" Hanyi returned, following her down as she lept down from the rooftop, casting one last glance at the wandering clumps of sheep grazing on the hill. "But junior sisters should make themselves useful."
"I ain't your junior," Ling Nuan said. "Bu… ah whatever, not doing anything else anyway."
Brat. But… she could just about muddle out what Hanyi was doing, under all the bluster. She wondered idly if Ling Qi had put her up to it.
"And Big Sis' Mama wants you to come to dinner tonight too," Hanyi sniffed.
"Yeah, yeah."
She still didn't know how to… deal with Ling Qingge.
The woman was nothing but polite and even friendly, which was the problem. She could deal with the formalities if that was all it was. No, Ling Qingge seemed determined to make her feel at home here, and that was scarier than any bluster from the brat.
Ling Qi was friendly, and pushily determined to make this sibling thing work but also like… easily distracted and busy. Ling Qingge was not. To Ling Nuan's eyes, she was the kind of woman that kids who weren't even from town would reflexively call auntie. Most of the time. She was only first realm though, and so Ling Nuan could still see those moments when she locked up, hesitated, and got in her own head.
It ended up making her feel even worse when she too quickly blew something off and left the woman feeling like she'd overstepped. Ling Nuan scrubbed her hand through her hair irritably. That sinking guilty feeling… stirred up dead and buried things.
"Dinner huh, guess I can do that after," she said, slouching and stuffing her hands in her pockets. "You know I don't do that soft ethereal kinda stuff right, Hanyi?"
Her… sister huffed, crossing her arms. "Are you telling me one of your cultivation can only play in one style?"
Throwing that back in her face…. Brat. She scowled and rolled her eyes. "Course I can doesn't mean it's not dull as dishwater."
"You mean it doesn't sound like a bunch of rocks tumbling down the side of a mountain," Hanyi said turning up her nose as she lept away, alighting on a distant fencepost.
Ling nuan lept after, despite her annoyance. Making her the one to follow… she had a feeling Ling Qi didn't even notice the constant petty power games this little gremlin girl got up to. "Better than sounding like the wind randomly howling around the peak."
"Nuh Uh!"
Course, she was still a kid, despite everything.
"Eh, I'll show you, bet I can pep up whatever composition you've put together, and make people pay attention instead of falling asleep."
"Pfft, like you can improve something I composed. Besides, I gotta stick to the ritual-y stuff so none of the big grumbly spirits get all worked up. If I do your music there will be blizzards and floods everywhere!"
They both landed atop a hill after a long leap, within a few jumps of the hill set aside for winter performances.
Theater of Frost… well she'd gotten a glance at the plans. She guessed it wouldn't sound absurdly pretentious when it was done. Ling Nuan had to concede that was actually a good point she'd wandered into with the banter there.
"Fine, we can keep it mellow," she said with a put upon sigh.
"Hmph, you should be super honored that I'm giving you a chance to practice with me, Junior Sister. So just play the background as I've composed it!"
One last leap carried them to the top of the hill, the wind pulling at the hems of her clothes as she left the muffled boom of her jump behind in the dust, and struck down on the hilltop with a crack. She had to admit, they'd chosen the spot well. The air here was crisp and sharp beyond the mortal sense of things. It wasn't a proper cultivation site, not yet, but the power was there, just waiting to be gathered and shaped.
Her fingers twitched, and her lute materialized with a low sizzling crackling frizzing into existence in her waiting hands as she plucked a few strings. She frowned a little as she focused in on the waves of sound vibrating the air, and changed their tenor from a lute twang to a woodwind whistle.
"Feels weird."
"Looks weird," Hanyi said, springing away practically gliding across the grass. "Now get ready!"
"Yeah, yeah. Where's the jade with the composition on it?" Ling Nuan asked.
Hanyi stopped, back to her, and went still.
Ling Nuan sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "...Paper notation?"
Silence.
"...Did you carve it in ice?"
"A-anyway! I'll perform the piece, and show you how. One performance should be enough, right!"
"Sure." Ling Nuan said dully, giving the back of her sister's head an unimpressed look.
The thunder had already cracked, and the bolt had struck.
Least the Ling were never boring.
