Ling Qi peered into the distance at the smoking crater in the ground, the glassy glimmer of the melted dirt and the shattered stone around. Then she shook her head. "Sorry little brother, you still missed."
"Ugh, stupid Zhen," Gui grumbled. The giant tortoise lowered his head and swallowed another massive mouthful of dirt, stones and plant matter from the miniature mountain of 'ammunition' they had prepared.
"Silence, foolish Gui," Zhen hissed as the air around him rippled with heat. "I Zhen, merely need a little more practice!"
Ling Qi watched with a critical eye, flickers of silver marking the use of her arts as she examined the processes of the technique Zhengui was trying to develop. He was not actually very good at taking in earth qi, so for now they were using this crude method, but once he had mastered the more mundane aspects, they would have to work on the internal ones. Perhaps she could ask Xuan Shi? He had much more experience with earth arts.
"You ready with the target Sixiang?" She asked absently, resting her hand on Gui's scaly head as he swallowed the 'fuel'. Dribbling lines of molten glass dripped from the corners of his mouth, it was cute in a way.
"Got ya covered boss," Sixiang said, and in the distance, Ling Qi saw the spinning clay target, a simple unadorned disc, spinning and floating in midair. The wind coiled around the disc, preparing to fling it into the distance. Sixiang was getting better at manipulating the wind, though so far they had not really come up with anything that could be called a technique.
"Alright, fire when ready," Ling Qi said with a grin. Zhen's throat bulged as the missile formed and traveled up toward his mouth gathering fiery qi along the way and the disc flew out, spinning wildly. A moment later, he rose to his full height and spat, and a burning mass of molten earth and ash erupted. The missile was the size roughly a meter across and arced high through the air trailing ash and rippling heat. It arced down a hundred meters distant, and the qi contained within churned. In a flash of fiery light and molten shrapnel it exploded.
"Give the boy a prize!" Sixiang announced cheerfully and Ling Qi grinned as well, the disc was gone, blasted into burnt fragments.
"Ha! It is done!" Zhen crowed proudly.
"Hmph, Zhen should not be so proud, Sixiang is taking it easy." Gui grumbled, even as he eyed the pile of dirt and stones with distaste.
"It's a good first step," Ling Qi soothed as Zhen turned outraged eyes on his other half. "We'll work on consistency, and then we can move onto harder targets."
However, before they could continue, Ling Qi found her attention drawn away. She turned to look to her right as she felt Hanyi's qi approaching. Even from here, she could feel the spirits anger and embarrassment, long before she spotted her trudging up the hill where Zhengui practiced his techniques. Hanyi was soaked to the bone, her dress hung heavy from her shoulders, stiff and covered in frost and ice. Icicles dangled from the hems, clinking musically as she walked, and her hair was muddy and full of water weeds.
Ling Qi was at her side in the blink of an eye, crossing the intervening distance as little more than a blur. "Hanyi, what happened?" Ling Qi asked, crouching down to look at her. Ling Qi could see the fading remains of bruises and scrapes on the young spirit's arms and legs.
"I was just playing and this stupid jerk knocked me off the side of the waterfall, and then this spirit got mad cause I froze his dumb pond," Hanyi sniffled. "Then I had to walk all the way out here cause I can't get into the cave without you.
Ling Qi grimaced. "Sorry about that," she apologized. The locks on the disciples homes were not something she could modify. "But who knocked you off a cliff, and why?"
"I dunno," Hanyi pouted. "I was just playing and singing by the stream and they got mad at me for making noise and kicked me off the cliffside."
Ling Qi frowned, she sensed something a little evasive in Hanyi's tone, but…
"What?! Big Sister, we need to go beat them up!" Zhengui announced, apparently having caught her words as he trundled over. "We can't just let people mess with family."
"Doofus," Hanyi muttered under her breath, looking away briefly. She quickly brightened up though, looking pleadingly up at Ling Qi. "Yeah, you should beat them up Big Sister!"
"Methinks we're missing some context here," Sixiang whispered dryly in her thoughts.
"I still need to know who it was," Ling Qi pointed out.
"Well…" Hanyi began, sounding a little sheepish.
***
Ling Qi did not know what she had expected, but it was not this. Standing before the perpetrator, she looked into Yu Nuan's eyes and saw stubborn determination mixed with fear. The girl looked much the same as she had when Ling Qi had challenged her last. She had a new set of piercings in her right ear, and some of the others had been changed for studs of other colors, but that was the extent of her physical changes.
"What is this I hear about you knocking my spirit off this cliff?" LIng Qi asked cooly, gesturing to her right, where the clear waters tumbled over the cliffside, churning up the pond below. Chunks of slow melting ice still floated on its weedy surface. Hanyi peered out from behind her, and Ling Qi did not miss the way she pulled a face and stuck out her tongue at the other disciple.
"I lost my temper," Yu Nuan replied defensively. "But that little… your spirit has been bugging me all month, interrupting my practice and trying to challenge me, and when she scared off the spirit I was trying to bind..."
Left unsaid was what Ling Qi read between the lines. Yu Nuan had assumed Ling Qi was trying to mess with her, and was now preparing herself for the consequences of rising to the bait. Ling QI shot a frown at Hanyi, who huffed.
"Like that's a good excuse for attacking me like a big jerk. You knocked me off a cliff!"
Yu Nuan's pierced eyebrow twitched violently. "We're all third realm here," she growled. "Don't pretend you're made of glass." She crossed her arms and looked defiantly at Ling Qi. "I'm not gonna apologize."
Ling Qi frowned, she had her suspicions but… "Hanyi, why have you been following her around and challenging her?"
The young spirit looked briefly furtive, but a hard look from Ling Qi made her darting eyes still. "...I wanted to beat her, everyone says Big Sister crushed her so easily, so I thought I should be able to win too." She scuffed her foot in the dirt. "I kept losing."
There was another violent eye twitch from Yu Nuan, Ling Qi felt bad for the other girl. On the other hand, Hanyi had actually caused the both of them some trouble. If, or rather when it got around that Ling Qi had allowed one of her spirits to get attacked by a lower ranked disciple it would give her detractors even more ammunition if she didn't do anything about it. Ling Qi rubbed her forehead in frustration before she caught herself.
Straightening up, she looked the other girl in the eye, and measured her wary stance. "I will need an apology," she said, causing the other girls shoulders to stiffen. "However, Hanyi you need to stop…"
"No!" Hanyi replied stubbornly, stamping her foot. "I'm gonna beat her. She's a cheater, and she made fun of Momma's song."
"I said you're bad at it you little snot," Yu Nuan shot back. "If you're just copying someone else, of course you're bad."
Hanyi puffed her cheeks out angrily, and Ling Qi grimaced internally.
"You can just make her stop," Sixiang pointed out.
'I could,' Ling Qi thought. 'But it's my fault for not paying attention to what she was doing in the first place. I'm supposed to be her guardian'. It was a weird and unwelcome thought, but not one Ling Qi could avoid having. "Yu Nuan, I will repeat. I will need an apology, but I am willing to give you some recompense for lost time and trouble," she held up a hand to quiet Hanyi. "If you want to challenge someone, ask me and I'll help you arrange it."
"Then I wanna challenge her now, she's a cheater," Hanyi said pointing to Yu Nuan.
"And why should I accept?" The other Disciple replied, crossing her arms. "I've already lost enough time on this."
"...If you win, I'll add on helping you wrangle a spirit," Ling Qi said after a moment. "Since you're having some trouble on that front."
The other girl stared her down, only briefly looking at Hanyi, which seemed to infuriate the young spirit even more. "...I'm guessing the deal is only good if it comes with that apology, huh?" She asked.
"Yes," Ling Qi replied bluntly.
"Fine," Yu Nuan replied. "You got a deal. What's the time frame?"
Ling Qi sighed, the annoying political bits were worked out, but as she watched Hanyi out of the corner of her eye, she knew that there were other things she had been neglecting. She would have her chance she supposed, since she would certainly be helping Hanyi with her composition, since Hanyi admitted later that she had never really made her own piece before.
The piece she helped Hanyi create was…
[] A bombastic and overbearing piece (Damaging, Yang, Presence)
[] A beautiful and alluring piece (Control, Balanced, Manipulation)
[] A quiet and melancholic piece (Defensive, Yin, Composure)