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

[yrsillar]

"I've long thought of Isolation as my weapon of choice," Ling Qi said thoughtfully. "Through that, sharpening it with a study in ignorance seems the most obvious choice."

"But not the one you're going to make," Sixiang said, looking at her askance.

Ling Qi nodded, stepping out past Shu Yue, sliding around the lazy grasp of one of those pallid hands, peering past it into the bright light behind a distorted window to the wavering shadows beyond, two, maybe three people, even her sight was indistinct here. "You've been saying it more. Telling me off when I call myself greedy."

"I just don't like you talking down about yourself," Sixiang said, frowning. "That doesn't mean you gotta… what try to be better about grasping?"

"No, but it does mean I should understand greed, want, and desire better. I think I'm still more than a bit selfish… grasping, like you say. But you don't think so. So obviously there's a level of want I don't understand well, an…"

"I don't really think you're that ignorant, Qi. You know there are people who want more and give less than you. I think you know dang well the things you want are little things, except when someone's pissed you off enough that you rob them blind."

"It has been a long time since I've done that, hasn't it," Ling Qi said wistfully. "I should see if Ling Nuan will invite me to the Thunder Palace again; that could be a fun game."

She felt that using those skills would soon not be so light-hearted.

Sixiang sighed and scrubbed a hand through the wavering, smoky black stripe that had formed in their hair. "Ahh, I can't even say you're wrong. And… attacking people through what they want and need… yeah, some won't find any purchase with, but its not that many. And It's not like any of these are gonna be fun."

"It won't be, I understand that," Ling Qi said. "Is that a good enough reason, Shu Yue?"

"Your choice is sufficient, whatever your reasoning," her teacher replied, their silent stride carrying them further from the alley they had also emerged from. "But it is interesting. You understand desire most through the lens of need, of lack."

"I do know that this gives me a strange perspective. I have read a few treatises which claim that there is little difference philosophically between what a man needs to not starve, and what a man needs to feel fulfilled in mind and spirit… I can only think that those writers should take a little more time to experience the former."

"Some have, over time," Shu Yue said. "Among those early students of the dreaming way, some would immiserate themselves to understand better desire, who would starve and scourge their bodies to understand pain. Could you do this?"

"...I do not know. The thought frightens me," Ling Qi admitted, resting her hand over her stomach. She had locked those memories in her soul, bound by the blade she had made a part of her, so that she could never, ever forget them, no matter how mighty or wealthy she grew. Could she bring herself to do that again? To lock away the qi she used daily to support her body in good health, make herself lesser, and make her body more mortal again?

"I respect the resolve it must take to do that to yourself when you may end the experience with a thought," Ling Qi said. Any cultivator could do so. "...Though I wonder if having the option to make it stop is a flaw in that understanding itself. It is not something the world is inflicting on you, but a challenge you are setting yourself."

"A fair proposition, and one that has been raised before," Shu Yue said. "Perhaps we should speak of such things at a later time. It is not the thrust of the lesson, but…"

"I would not mind that," Ling Qi said simply. "But yes, it is probably best to focus for now."

Shu Yue pushed the door of the nightmare hovel they lingered outside open. Ling Qi flinched back, enveloped by screams, grasping hands, and twisted faces… but they were all as smoke to her. They pawed and grasped and sought to tear pieces out of her mind, but they were no more capable of doing so than Biyu was of wrestling Ling Qi to the ground. Feeling Shu Yue's eyes on her back, she stepped through the door.

Within was a deep murk, like her own mist in the negative, dark clouds rolling through a dim foyer from which halls with subtly wrong geometry branches in very direction, some of which were not even strictly physically possible, a fractal hub of place and time, it was…

"These are the memories of a home, isn't it? Not conceptually, but the actual building itself."

"Xiangmen's structures never rise to what those outside might call full spirits, but they retain memory and experience in their way," Shu Yue said. "It is useful for demonstration. If problematic for reclamation. Xiangmen's nature is to preserve, both for ill and good."

Around them were shades, so many many shades, moved through and over each other, overlapping, seeming to vibrate and resonate subtly, through a web of connections that actively made her head throb with strain as she examined them, as it had when Snowblossom tried to show her a thousand years of weather conditions at once.

"We will begin with older, more fragile shades. I have selected this building for its history… it served as the district office of the Ministry of Commerce in the lower root districts since the late Xi. It has passed through many hands and consumed many lives," Shu Yue said idly. "I find it poetic.

But first, immerse yourself and tune the qi in your channels. I know you have already meditated much on want and desire. Bring that qi to the surface and find resonation, but be mindful of identity bleed. Immerse yourself, familiarize yourself. I will guide your shaping of the blade."

Sixiang gripped her shoulder; Ling Qi squinted into the reverberating mass of shadows and memories so difficult for her eyes and physical senses to render anything intelligible. So she shut those senses off.

Sight, sound, scent, none were of particular use here, and so she closed them off one by one, opening herself more to the sensations of the spirit. To the vast pool of want.

Scrabbling. Desperation. This was the want she was most familiar with: dusty hands with cracked and broken fingernails scratching in the dirt, pawing for anything, anything at all they could hold onto. The want came in many forms: the body's hunger, fear of threat, and the flinch of a body impacted by pain.

Ling Qi folded her legs beneath her without moving at all, positioning herself to meditate. With her sense of touch, she felt Sixiang positioning themself against her back, mirroring her position.

This kind of want, at its core, boiled down to a single, overriding desire.

I want to live. Just one second longer. Just one minute longer. Just one hour longer. I don't want to disappear.

A million, million voices crowded in her ears, clamoring that sensation, the cold she was so familiar with, and those were the words, the feeling she distilled.

"This was what I didn't understand all when I was made. This feeling… I knew it the way you knew the words in a book," Sixiang said idly. "There was no fear in me then."

"This is the deepest foundation, the most fundamental want a human holds," Shu Yue's voice echoed in her perception like a reverberation reaching her while she was immersed deep underwater. "It is the desire that those who climb to the peaks of cultivation inevitably lose."

Ling Qi stirred at that but didn't rise from her position or restore her physical senses. "How does that…"

"To seek Sovereignty is to seek something beyond yourself, to devote yourself to a purpose larger than living a mortal life in a mortal perspective, with mortal sensations. One whose most fervent wish is more years to live will break themselves upon the gate of wielding Law." Shu Yue intoned

"...Because most people don't really have the dedication to seek that," Ling Qi said quietly. "But there is far more to Want."

"There is. But do not lose sight of this; though it is chipped away as one climbs to higher realms, it remains of great use to tune your eyes too."

"I thought I was sharpening a blade," Ling Qi said. "But I understand… this is not something that can be wielded with brute force; this is still… an exercise of the eye."

"You already know how this Want is used to hurt. Select a shade, demonstrate."

Scraps. These were only the scrap of people, long dead, long broken… like a swordsman practicing their cut on a carcass. Ling Qi breathed out. She focused herself, picked a single bundle of emotion and suffering from the sea around her..

Please, please! They took it, my last coins, my last hope… I will lose my home! Honored sir, I beg you, please investigate these thieves, help me…"

It wasn't like diving into a whole person; it was… airy, incomplete. And not just because she could not afford a full dive. Like looking into a book with seven in ten pages torn out. She did know, though. She did know feeling the pain that came after, the starvation, the bite of beatings, the broken fingers that were the fate of caught thieves.

It was as light as a caress, touching on the veins of Want that ran through it all. 'I don't want to die' so easily became, 'I am going to die.' Panic, desperation, rashness. The shade writhed in the grasp of her spirit, like a desperate cornered animal hurling itself at her, scrabbling, scrabbling, wanting in, wanting to eat, wanting wanting not to die.

Its feeble scratchings broke upon her will, and she heard the sobbing of a starving man being beaten to death for his theft by the very guard he had begged aid from but months before.

She felt a little curdled coil of sickness in her gut.

"Desire is not only this."

Shu Yue's voice was implacable.

"The next step of greed…. My greed is the desire for other people," Ling Qi said quietly. Shu Yue's qi pressed down on hers, but she did not greatly need its guidance yet. This melody was one she knew quite well. The near blackout in her spiritual senses cleared just a little, the forms of the shades growing more apparent, more distinct as she raised the level of her attention above the sea of privation.

"To want to be loved, admired, to have worth in others eyes, to want comfort. These things demand other people in their fulfillment."

"It's hard for a human to survive on your own, but you could do it theoretically," Sixiang said. "Not with these. Vulnerability, built right into their foundation."

Ling Qi frowned, silent. "I know how this Desire becomes cruel too. I faced it in Zeqing. A love that consumes and takes."

It was where her fears were rooted. It was what her nightmare had been about. She was afraid of taking; she was afraid of giving, even as she found herself drawn in, needy of the warmth that was other people.

She conceptualized bonds as burdens willingly taken but feared the touch of the chains. She slid her hand back and grasped Sixiangs in hers, not needing to look.

"Then immerse, and show me." her teacher's voice said.

 

[yrsillar]

This was where where Want brushed against Isolation, Ling Qi thought idly. She squeezed down on Sixiangs hand thoughtfully, running her thumb in a circle along the back of the muse's hand. It felt real and insubstantial at the same time; it was too light for all that it was warm.

More or less, ya think? Their voice imprinted on her thoughts, not bothering with spoken words.

Both. She thought. Too much or too little were both equally poisonous.

She reached for a phantom with her spirit and held it captive. She couldn't help but think of the times when she had seen a spider, mundane or Suyin's, winding up its meals in silk as she felt it struggle to break free from her grip.

Was this really right? Scraps and fragments they might be, but they still felt alive, especially at the higher spiritual frequencies.

…She had to develop her technique, which required practice.

"The first vulnerability in this desire is its lack," Ling Qi said quietly. "Steal a person's hunger, remove a person's fear… they'll be discomfited maybe, but would they even notice in the heat of battle?"

Shu Yue gave no response, merely letting her verbalize her thoughts.

"Steal a person's desire for love, acclaim, community… and would they even remember why they should be fighting?" Ling Qi mused.

I can think of a few reasons, but they are usually still tied to those.

She nodded faintly. Anger and hatred were both strong motivators, as was the first fear, the simple drive for survival… If she could take that from them, there would be no fight to begin with.

And even if it can't be stolen whole, steal away the desire for support between comrades, corrode the desire to bring pride to their clan or nation, how much of an army formation collapses as the first form of desire reasserts itself?

Ling Qi turned over the phantom in her grasp, examining the currents and veins of Want that ran through it, binding it together. She heard the distant weeping of a woman, driven to the point of breaking her body with labor to provide just one more day of shelter for her children.

Just one diverted trail, one pluck of virulent darkness, and despair overcomes determination, the memory embodied in the phantom ending long before she sold herself into indenture. The phantom crumbled. She felt the cold churning in her gut worsen.

"It is the most straightforward path, but not easily accomplished. To sever, to steal these things… against a peer or any cultivator who has even the foundations of a Name, it will be a difficult task, until and unless you are already well under their defense," Shu Yue said. "The second method, then."

She could see that. Excising things… the mind resisted that far more. Dampening was a little easier, but it was still more noticeable.

Amplification, then, as you did with the hunger.

She nodded, and another phantom fell into her grasp. It writhed around, nearly breaking free. A man who was brought in, the leader of a small cell of criminals stealing and selling from the Hui-run food warehouses and granaries, storing Xiangmen's bounty for export.

The spirit lingered here from its last memories: interrogation… It was not a kind interrogation, and this far in the roadways, for such a minor crime. There were only mundane methods.

She understood well that the keepers of the law were rarely the friends of those who lived at the bottom. He'd broken at the end, sold out his fellows. He'd been released for his troubles and died months later from infections due to the damage taken in interrogation.

This was a spirit of torment, reliving those last days again and again in aching clarity.

…Darkness flowed, pulsed, fortified, black veins running through spiritual matter realigning. Magnify desire, magnify want to community, to comrade.

The memory changed; he died spitting in the interrogator's face, satisfaction in his heart. The spirit crumbled.

It didn't churn her stomach as severely as the last one, but it was still bittersweet. She couldn't help but feel…

"Inspiring a suicidal stand is useful if the target is your mission goal, but less so otherwise," Shu Yue's voice spoke gently. "It was not the best practice piece to choose."

I don't think there's anything wrong with not liking this. I'd dislike it a lot more if you were fine with it.

Ling Qi let out a low, even breath, recentering herself in the web of churning, lingering phantoms

"Transforming love into possessive paranoia, manipulating a web of bonds to create envy between its anchor points, and disrupt cohesion, to inflate or deflate the importance of different communal loyalties to cause friction within larger circles. All of these are within the sphere of this kind of desire," Shu Yue

"...Many ways to manipulate the connections within a group to weaken and disrupt, but this is all most useful before an actual fight starts," Ling Qi said quietly.

She could see, painfully, how effective arts like these might be. So much of her own Way and Domain was tied to benefits for those she loved and harm for those she hated.

…She supposed the easiest one to affect with this art would be herself. She knew her own defenses best of all. It wasn't even truly that far from traditional cultivation… more direct if anything. And once you had come to the notion of… cultivating people this way, was it truly unthinkable to use it to…

Would she ever be tempted to 'snip' something if she felt it was causing Biyu trouble in her cultivation, holding her back from ascending in the Way?

She wouldn't. She absolutely would not, but someone who had not bound the axiom of Choice into their soul… she could see how they would.

"You grasp the thrust of these arts well. These soften and sabotage, rather than striking decisive blows." Shu Yue agreed.

A sidearm, or well, a knife you stick in when you're already in their head.

She made a face; she thought, thank you so much for that image, Sixiang.

Even if it was accurate.

"What you're teaching me wasn't meant as a weapon at all, any more than a rake or a set of shears is," Ling Qi said quietly. "That's the trick in this lesson."

"I would not call it a trick. A machete is made to chop brush and bamboo, and a saber is meant to chop men; there was a point where the tool developed into a weapon," Shu Yue replied. "I am guiding you to do so. I also understand the discomfort in this realization. I thought it better you come upon it yourself."

"But, there is another layer of Desire, perhaps the one most would think of first when mediating upon Want," Shu Yue's voice resumed, cutting short her thoughts. "That texts speak on forfeiting first before they begin to carefully approach discarding or reducing the two you have brought up first."

"Possession. The desire for things. For wealth, for fulfillment, for comfort." Ling Qi said. "Or… no, it's not only tied to physical things. Authority, control… security."

It's hard to tell apart from the last category in that way, but I think you gotta make a distinction. There's things that people understand as coming from other people, and here… things that people understand as being theirs."

Entitlement. 'Deserve'. Shu Yue's discussion with her on Yan Renshu's mindset drifted to the fore. Everything he had was deserved; what others had was illegitimate, by whatever excuse.

"...I'm not sure how to weaponize this… I can turn it over in my mind. I think… this kind of desire is something more complex and finicky. It's what drives when one's basic needs are fulfilled. It is still not an evil thing to me… even if I can see how the excess can cause so much harm.

How many phantoms writhed here, at this still higher layer of the dream she adjusted to? Individual forms were now more apparent, the shades of ministry workers and supplicants, of guard officers, magistrates, and notaries.

What was wrong with insisting that their fingers be greased a little to make the gears of the ministry turn a little quicker? What was a 'forgotten' petition that allowed them to go home to their wife an hour sooner? What was a case decided against all evidence when doing otherwise would ruin the chance for promotion? What was a few dead beggars when it meant the street under their authority could be declared free of vagrants? What was a condemnation of a man for fraud when it meant their friend could gain a new business? What was a few alterations to records to show that the homes in the way of the new construction on the roots outside were fraudulently owned? What was the suffering of a few hundred mortals to better refine an art that would change countless lives? What was the nightmares of a city compared to the ascension of a god? What was? What was What was…

Ling Qi spat a gobbet of blood from her mouth and shuddered, pressing her palms to her currently sightless eyes. She closed her mind like a woman violently slamming the shutters against a storm outside. The desires before were simple things, straightforward things, bits of memories, and self-narrative; each of these numerous phantoms scoured the inside of her skull with a lifetime of context.

"These phantoms are, by necessity, more complex things," Shu Yue said, though she felt something off, an odd twinge to their voice. She could have imagined it, something brought on as she purged the foreign whispers from her mind.

"...This is part of what the Duchess strips away, isn't it," Ling Qi croaked. "The comforting lies, the distance from indirect consequences. That… it burns away the webs we weave ourselves, telling us fulfilling our greed hurts no one who matters and makes all sins clear and stark. This is the layer where her light burns most stark."

"Not the point of the lesson, but correct," Shu Yue said. "That is why her final question was 'What do you most regret?'. What was felt after the full weight of all they had done through every choice was confronted in its fullness, with all rationalization stripped away, was the most telling test of character."

She remembered what the woman who ran the Gold Autumn school had said describing The Duchess' purge of the Ministries; the answer from the head of her ministry office had been many years ago. 'Angering you, your Grace.' He'd been executed by Cai Shenhua, immediately after, annihilated in radiance.

"Now, ending the aside, the question is, how do you make of this a battlefield weapon?"

Ling Qi frowned, letting her vision return, and looked down at her hands. Her eyes flicked up. Sixiang was kneeling in front of her now, looking up at her with concern.

[ ] I would wield it to put them on the defense, to be miserly with their power and resources, and loathe to expend anything that is theirs.
[ ] I would wield it to encourage glory-seeking, to make them willing to sacrifice what they should not for their dreams.

 

[yrsillar]

"I would wield it to put them on the defense, to be miserly with their power and resources, and loathe to expend anything that is theirs." Ling Qi said after a long moment of thought. Her first idea seemed obvious to her: to drive their desire for victory to greater heights. Desire compounded easily, and greed quickly became bottomless.

But the rampage of a higher cultivator pushed them to the point of risking their survival to risk everything to fulfill their dream.

The terrible oppressive might of Still Waters Deeping loomed large in her mind, even through the General's fire. "My Way benefits from time to build and does not necessarily give as much threat in its earlier stages..."

She could certainly make it so. "More than that, it's not even a matter of putting them on the defense… by inflating their sense of possessiveness, I might make them second guess expending resources even to defensive ends… Inspiring passivity through greed."

"Not the destructive end, one might think. But then we are discussing the methods usable on a peer in the heat of battle, something so destructive as the past weavings," Shu Yue said thoughtfully. "I ask this question, though. Do you choose this because your soul cringes from a worse twisting?"

"Hey, now!" Sixiang complained, their voice snapping back into physicality.

"It's a fair question, Sixiang," Ling Qi said. She let her vision return, her mortal senses reasserted fully, and looked at the shadows dancing through the motions of life around her intently. They moved around and through each other, dancing in more dimensions than physical eyes could easily parse.

They all felt so solid, though, so complete. "It is. I've glimpsed something of the Hui clans 'cultivation. It makes me feel ill. Shu Yue, what is this place in now? You implied that it wasn't a ministry building any longer."

Now that she could see them again, Shu Yue crouched spiderlike only a little ways from her, surrounded by the withered, dead remains of nightmare hands… hands that were reaching toward Ling Qi, each and every one. "I did. This place remains an office. Only now related to Commerce; it is where the distribution of Xiangmen's bounty is coordinated between the district kitchens."

Ling Qi inhaled deeply, pulling in with the 'air' the taste of the spirits and the dream. "Not every shade here is a thing of the past."

Shu Yue did not respond.

Sixiang gave her a curious look before swiftly turning her head to look around them, squinting their eyes as if to sharpen their vision. "The heck are you talking about Qi? I don't see any living dreamers here."

"Teacher is disrupting our vision. Maybe yours more strongly than mine since this is my lesson," Ling Qi said. "You intended to select the next test phantom."

"The next phase of the lesson is to test your skill against three phantoms of differing dispositions, selected by myself for difficulty, yes," Shu Yue agreed.

They spoke without answering the question. Ling Qi met their empty black eyes unwaveringly. "Would it have been the second or the third that was an actual person? A sleeping mortal whose dreams are dancing here, ill at ease."

Shu Yue's long, long fingers twitched, drumming on the tiled floor, the sound like raspy leaves rustling. "The first. It would be too easy to tell the difference between the more complex phantoms and a living mortal dream otherwise."

"You asshole." Sixiang snarled, rising to her feet, the expletive hung in the air on rippling wine-scented qi.

"You'd have let me twist, even break an innocent person, just to test a technique?" Ling Qi said, feeling sick. "I… you…"

Sixiang shouted something at Shu Yue, but she didn't quite hear it, sinking into her own thoughts. She remembered the first day she had gone into the Sect Town as a third realm. She remembered how insubstantial the mortals had seemed even then, gray and predictable, almost painfully slow and transparent in their intent.

It wasn't until she met her mother again that she was forced to confront the spark of… realness, the personhood that was undeniable there if she just bothered to really look. Gods and spirits, how easy would it be for many, if not most, cultivators to fail to notice the distinction? How easy would it be to decide the distinction wasn't really there? To rationalize that her mother and her sister were just a categorically different matter than some… random mortal.

"...You wanted me to see the difference and refuse you."

Sixiang's voice died down. They turned back to Ling Qi.

"Did I?" Shu Yue said. "I am the Faceless Killer, the Laughter of the Forgotten, the Weeping Wraith. I am the hands that crush the throats of those whose victims cannot reach them. Do you think these hands are clean of blood that could be called innocent? You go to war soon, student. Do you childishly imagine all of those you slay and hurt will be villains?"

She grimaced harshly. They would be soldiers fighting for a realm that had aided raiders against them, who had sunk whole blocks of a town into poison-choked mist, who had just weeks ago attempted to spread a plague through the Central Valley. But she knew better than to think that only soldiers suffered where cultivators fought.

"Even if you did not intend me to refuse you, that is what will happen," Ling Qi said. "I will find phantoms to practice with on my own… things which threaten my home, beasts and the like, or hostile nightmares in my expeditions," Ling Qi said.

Shu Yue considered her silently. "A student who refuses lesson plans is not worth a teacher's time."

"So be it," Ling Qi replied stubbornly. Even if this were not a test, she would refuse, and she knew a cultivator of Shu Yue's caliber could see the honest truth of that.

"Hah," Shu Yue said. "I would have let you do harm."

The words hung in the air. Ling Qi frowned.

"A test that is impossible to fail is worthless," Shu Yue ground on. "I would only have stopped you short of permanently maiming a man. If you had failed, the victim would have suffered for it."

"Because these arts are cruel things, and if you integrate them without understanding their cruelty, it will taint you in turn," Shu Yue finished.

Sixiang still glowered at them, but half turning, they looked at Ling Qi's expression and sighed.

"I thank teacher for the lesson," Ling Qi said, standing up.

At that height in the dream, she could look the crouching cultivator in the eye. Shu Yue regarded her with a hard gaze now, and Ling Qi felt the elder cultivator's attention piercing through them. It felt like being a gem scrutinized for flaws under a jeweler's glass.

"Such a difficult student. You are not meant to detect the hidden test before it is fully presented," Shu Yue huffed. It was a raspy sound, like dead leaves scraping over each other. "But your resolve was true, that I could see."

"It deflates a little of the drama, but… no, even if it cost me further lessons, I would not deliberately hurt an involved person just for a training exercise. Not purposely."

"And that is why you pass regardless."

"...Should I not still practice on actual phantoms?" Ling Qi asked.

"If you wish, but it need not be here. In truth, you shall get as much good from the mental exercise of mapping out your manipulations while observing a target. I cannot give you true practice at affecting a peer. Given your resolve, you should seek… volunteers from among your companions for that."

Ling Qi frowned. The spars with her fellow retainers could serve that. She could also arrange training exercises with the soldiers of Shenglu, green as they were. Though, was that really volunteering?

She shook her head; today was not one for meditating on the concept of 'consent' and its relation to choice. That was… probably a whole meditation session and delve into the depths of the mind on its own, and she did not have the energy for that now.

Sixiang slung an arm around her shoulder, and gave her a squeeze. It was… well it was definitely improper, but she really didn't care at the moment, she reached up to clasp Sixiangs shoulder as well as they turned for the exit of this place. Shu Yue rose to follow them.

And as the door opened, Ling Qi caught the scent of roses. Out there is the dim, cramped streets, a woman sat by a fountain that had not been there before. It was a humble thing a simple stone stone which rained a trickle of cloudy grey water into the rippling basin below.

Diao Linqin was still clad in her wedding dress, and radiance still crawled along its hems, searing even the idea that the filth of this place could touch her.

"You are too light a taskmaster, Shu Yue," Diao Linqin said absently.

"I did not think the Lady Diao would have a mote of attention to spare, this night of all nights," Shu Yue said quietly.

"Only because we are in the final stages of ceremony," Diao Linqin said, turning from her overlook of the twisted nightmare facsimile of athe rootways which stretched out before her.

Ling Qi's breath hitched as the Sovereign's eyes fell upon her.

"You have continued training those eyes and ears."

"They are vital to me, and what I wish for. I cannot bridge gaps I do not clearly see," Ling Qi said quietly.

"You have at least left room for disparity, cleared yourself a way to dehumanize and dismiss those you wish to make enemies," Diao Linqin said. "So your errors are not irreparable. Do not sand that away from yourself. Not all points of view deserve equal consideration."
Ling Qi frowned. "You say things like these, prime minister, but, I have felt your Way. How can you say things like this? You are couching it wrongly too, I do need to be able to harm my enemies, but I still need to understand them, to know why they are my enemies. You know most of all that enemies are still people."

Diao Linqin smiled mildly. "I do. It is unfortunate. That I must hurt myself as well as my enemy when I kill them. Girl, I am only prodding you to avoid that path. You mistake my chiding for dislike."

Sixiang took half a step forward, as if to say something, only to fall silent as Diao Linqin fixed them with a look. "Love must have limitations to have meaning. An all encompassing understanding understands nothing at all, it is only a cipher for others with the ability to be selective to use, consider well how you shape that selection."

She glanced over to Shu yue. "Are you teaching the three poisons arts suite, or allowing her to reinvent them on her own."

"Can you not tell by looking," Ling Qi grumbled.

Diao Linqin arched an eyebrow, communicating 'would you like me too?' without saying a single word.

"Her own construction. Today we were focusing on a combat useful technique to the perception art she has been learning from me," Shu Yue said.

"I see, the name of the technique?" Diao Linqin asked.

Ling Qi pursed her lips. She had only really just begun to think on it…

[ ] Write in technique name

AN: I will take twenty four hours for proposals, and then put the three I like the most up for vote.

Spoiler: Unnamed technique text

G6
Type: Scry, Compulsion
Duration: Variable

The sharp eyes cultivated by the thief of names may be difficult to wield in battle, but by focusing upon a target you may glean something of the things which bind them to this world. You have chosen to wield greed and desire, and so it is that which you may pluck and manipulate.

You may compel a single target by heightening or lessening their core desires. Against weaker targets these actions may be sudden and dramatic, the stronger the target the more subtle the manipulation must be. These effects operate at a G4 potency, and have a short duration.

The most potent effect you may wield is an installation of a sense of possessiveness and greed which causes the target to be reluctant to expend qi and consumable resources or to take risks beyond the bare minimum. This effect may last for an entire scene if unnoticed.

 

[yrsillar]

Alright folks officially narrowing down from the selections presented. Please vote between the following.

[ ] Plucking the Pursestrings
[ ] Miser's Folly
[ ] Weight of Want
[ ] Riches Unremembered and Unused

 

[yrsillar]

She often came up with whimsical names. Puns, playful things. Even with something as serious as the Summit location…. Well, a little wordplay was just good sport. Ling Qi closed her eyes for a long moment, feeling Sixiang coming up beside her. She didn't really feel like being playful with this one.

"The Weight of Want."

Simple and without flourish. She'd considered something, a reference to thievery like the other techniques in this art of hers, but no, the simple weighty syllables were fitting.

Diao Linqin hummed, and Ling Qi was made uncomfortably aware of something under the pressure of the Sovereign's presence. It was not something she felt often; she was most familiar with it as the aftereffects of some of Sixiang's techniques, but she had drunk a good bit of wine tonight, too.

The curling vines and razor thorns and vibrant petals wavered and hazed across the surface of her perceptions. Diao Linqin was drunk, as much as a high cultivator could be when it was a state that could be dismissed with a bit of concentration.

But that didn't make the examination of her eyes any less piercing. It merely rendered the crushing, suffocating pressure a little softer.

"Mn, that conviction, you will find loopholes in it. You will have to. Neighborliness… not the first time I have seen that conception of enemy and ally. What will you do, I wonder, the first time one you deigned 'protected' turns against your will. You rest on easy platitudes about choice, but that is a fragile foundation. You will infringe on the 'choices' of those you value, best to maintain a frame of justification that will not break you," Diao Linqin said idly, rising to her feet.

"It is nothing such," Ling Qi said, firmly. "If you love someone, then you will respect their decisions, even if you believe them wrong."

"Love…" the elder cultivator mused. "I love my daughter, even as my thorns splintered her organs. But then, I love too the three hundred and seventeen mortals and low cultivators who lived in her accursed gallery of flesh and bone and the hundreds who did not as well. I love the forty-seven soldiers and rebels who died aiding me in her destruction. Just as I love still each of the others I have slain, each was a complete being, a thing of thoughts, wishes, hopes, and dreams, each cruelly broken. Do not speak to me of love, child. You are a cultivator. The day that one you love comes to oppose you in a way you cannot tolerate is inevitable if you dare climb these steps. As you are, that moment will break you, and that girl can ill afford you to crumble."

"I do not like you," Ling Qi said quietly, though it stung her that she had no other rebuttal. It was true she was not exactly ignorant of the idea, and to treasure choice did not mean letting others do as they wished. But… neither could she deny that she had never let her mind dwell on that exact scenario.

Diao Linqin let out an inelegant snort of laughter. "Regardless. I am certain you will not make the same mistakes that were enacted here.

And she was gone, as if she had never been, leaving only the trickling of the dingy fountain behind.

***​

The dawn of the next day came rather late the next day, all things told. Of course, the sun still rose on its mark, but there were very few in Xiangmen to rise with him. The whole of the city lay in the throes of the recovery from the riotous celebration of the wedding day, from the lowest fieldhand out on the root hills to the highest nobles up in the Cloud District.

And she did mean the highest. She did not think there was any person in the Emerald Seas who would dare intrude on the Duchess' chambers before the new brides were ready to leave of their own accord. The planners for the day had known this and so had gone with something of a 'flex schedule', as Cai Renxiang had explained to her with just a little disgruntlement.

"You are all looking very spry today," Ling Qi said lightly, entering the dining room where her fellow retainers were gathered. It wasn't even that much of a jab. Gan Guangli was holding his head, rubbing his temple a little, and Cai Renxiang's eyes were a touch narrower than usual.

Xia Lin was impeccable, of course, and she was pretty sure that Meng Dan had probably purposely disheveled his hair like that. Her suspicion, she felt, was confirmed when he caught her looking and smiled like that.

"Indulging like this is sometimes necessary to fulfill expectations," Cai Renxiang sighed, rubbing her temple. "Though, I see you had your own less conventional indulgences."

Ling Qi's smile faded a touch as she swept her way to the last open seat at the table, sliding in between Meng Dan and Xia Lin. "Well, training can be a little rough sometimes, but the lesson took," she shrugged.

"As expected of lady ling, to cultivate through the night and not show a spot of exhaustion in the morning," Gan Guangli laughed.

Cai Renxiang glanced over her one more time, clearly noting the slightly strained nature of her smile, and simply nodded.

The scent of the simple breakfast fare was rich and tempting to her nose, the various buns and pastries set out for early refreshment each tantalizing in their own way. She plucked a plum dumpling from the plate, dusted in some light brown seasoning, and bit in, humming happily.

"Oh, what is this?" Ling Qi wondered, blinking after swallowing the first bite.

Meng Dan glanced over to the bun in her hand. "Hm? The seasoning? Cinnamon, I believe, there are a few places it grows in the Meng Lands, though it mostly comes from the Thousand Lakes."

"Ish good," Ling Qi said. Xia Lin leaned forward in her seat and took one of the dumplings as well.

"So we're on call for the temple tour today?" She asked after a moment, polishing off the snack. She considered her slightly sticky fingers but used the provided cloth to wipe them off. They could be informal here, but not that informal.

"Correct," Xia Lin said, around a mouthful of her own dumpling.

"The diviners estimate we will begin in no more than four hours," meng Dan said.

"There are diviners at work on that?" Gan Guangli asked, chuckling.

"Of course there are," Meng Dan said lightly.

"As Baroness Ling is now here, I do have some business to discuss. While it was not high priority in the lead up to the ceremony, now that we are merely waiting for the second day's tour to begin, I should share the reports from Shenglu regarding progress of projects there."

They all made sounds to the affirmative, though Gan Guangli poured himself a cup of fresh water, and Xia Lin and Meng Dan idly filled their plates.

"Temple construction, as I recall," Xia Lin said.

"The structures for Snowblossom Lake and the geyser… 'Boiling Deep, '" Cai Renxiang agreed. "The latter is mostly in improving accessibility to the site. Your spirit's regular route has driven away most hostile spirits along the route… The priests tell me that his authority is strong where he walks with such regularity, but paving a path, installing stairs along the steeper slopes, and providing some outbuildings at the site for ritual supplies is going well."

"That is good to hear. I am glad Zhengui is finding things to help with we are all away. I take it there were no unexpected problems with the Lake shrine?"

"Nothing of note. Some minor exoricisms needed to be done, corrections in some rites for the priests being trained, but nothing which has altered the schedule, it will all be ready by the time we return," Cai Renxiang said.

"The last item was refilling our local supply of construction materials, I believe?" Meng Dan said. "There's not yet enough local production of wood and stone to keep up with all of the projects being enacted, or so I understand."

"The workers are doing their utmost, but a properly built wall is material hungry, let alone everything else. There are not really enough people yet, despite the enthusiasm of those who have arrived," Xia Lin agreed.
"My allowance as an heir does allow us to skip many steps and achieve efficiences that a more normally funded settlement could not," Cai Renxiang said. "The bottleneck is the supply lines and roads in the south. But going by my clerks reports, we should have enough to see through several more projects.

"What of Meng Duyi?" Ling Qi asked. "I don't think we heard back from him last time."

"Yes, how is my kinsman doing?" Meng Dan asked. "I recall hearing good things in correspondence."

"Meng Duyi has continued to monitor the situation at our quarry location and the special methods being used… the workmen have adjusted well to the requirements, and several have been identified as minor cultivation potentials," Cai Renxiang replied, shuffling through the documents in front of her. "It seems he was able to aid in an initiative by our subordinates as well. Some additional time and material was found and a reliable method for harvesting the cold-aspected clay from the lakeside found. Little can be done with it yet, but the raw material is being dug, cut and stored now."

"It is good that the ones we left behind were wise enough to seek the advice of such an expert… and more fortunate that Sir Meng was willing to indulge outside the bounds of his contract," Xia Lin said, cupping her chin thoughtfully. "It is… generous."

"Uncle has been enjoying his time, or so I hear," Meng Dan said. "I admit, I am more surprised by the note on cultivation talents, how was that discovered? What is this 'special method?'"

"Weaving work songs into rites for the spirits of earth and water active at the quarry site and the small channel dug to allow the stone to be floated down to the lakeside for use," Ling Qi said. "Its very beneficial… as long as everyone can perform their part correctly."

"A small number among the foreman, who showed the most aptitude for the work-rite have attracted some minor spiritual attention," Cai Renxiang said. "That is the indication of talent spoken of."

"Interesting. It will lose some effect once the spirits settle into the new routine, but quite a useful little side effect," Meng Dan mused.

"Indeed! It would do us well to be able to bolster our home grown cultivation pool," Gan Guangli agreed. "How have our soldiers been doing?"

"With the sect forces guarding the borders, they have been focused on spirit management.. Nothing like the fires has occurred, there have been some minor injuries… and one major injury in an altercation with a second realm bear, but nothing irrecoverable," Cai Renxiang said, scanning the last of the letter in her hands. "The question then, is what instruction we are to give as the current projects finish."

[ ] Select a plan with two projects to complete alongside the second month of boiling deeps shrine

Spoiler: Geomancer Bonus roll effects

Chillgrasp Harvesting Building added for free. +20 bonus to cultivation pop generation until the next successful roll.

 

[yrsillar]

"After the fires that resulted from that pocket of bad air raised by our other geomantic projects, we should not put off local forestry further," Xia Lin said, contemplating the inside of a half-eaten meat bun.

"Agreed," Gan Guangli said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "We do need further local jobs if we are to attract more people. Keeping the local forests managed and cut back is a good way to do so. We may be able to get good regents as well. I recognize several types of resin-producing trees in the region."

Ling Qi mirrored what her friend had done a few moments ago, snatching one of the buns Xia Lin had taken. The dough was very crisp and airy. Biting into it, she let out a happy hum, such a rich flavor… chicken meat soaked in a sauce and spices she didn't recognize. "It would be good to have better eyes in the woods.. I don't think such fires are going to be unheard of, and getting a better idea of the hierarchy of bests in the region will be useful too. Zhengui has told me some things but… he doesn't necessarily think of things in the right way.."

Her little brother tended to take a broader view of the region rather than identify individual beasts, packs, and trails.

They all glanced at Meng Dan, who bowed his head deferentially. "I appreciate the inclusion, but not having been on site, I do not think my advice here is meaningful."

Cai Renxiang nodded crisply. "Investing in forestry infrastructure then. There has always been a small amount at the initial campsite. It will be expanded while work at the geyser shrine continues. Other items?"

"Well, we put together some things ad hoc for the temple boat, but assembling a workshop on the docks for boat building could be useful to the fisherman?" Ling Qi wondered.

"Locally sourced iron for tools would enable our citizens to develop themselves more independently of our central efforts, metal is the soul of industry," Xia Lin said.

"I believe outfitting the farmlands with the full suite of modern tools would be better. Good plows and the animals to pull them, grinding querns, poultry to improve diets, and a supply of the many hand tools households need to function well… Along with supply caches to enable them to make repairs and other small things," Gan Guangli said. "Self-sufficiency is good, but I think it is our duty to provide the seeds for that first."

"A fair point," Xia Lin allowed. "I suppose, I would wish more time to review the mining sites for patrol adjustments."

"Most of our people remain on the fields, which will likely remain so for some time. I concur, space and infrastructure for a mill should also be considered at this point, given growth," Cai Renxiang said, making a note.
"Ah, well, boats later, I suppose," Ling Qi said easily. Her specialty was in the shrines' infrastructure; those more down-to-earth things were more Gan Guangli's field. She was, after all, a city girl, even if one that the city hadn't particularly wanted.

She began to reach for a pastry this time, covered in some kind of delicious-looking glaze—honey-based, maybe? She could smell the fruit jam filling, too. Naturally, a paper messenger bird fluttered through the hall's open window at that point, unfolding elegantly in front of Cai Renxiang.

"It seems we should be getting to our places," Cai Renxiang announced, glancing at the paper. "The tour begins at the Temple of the Bountiful Earth."

Ling Qi huffed and took the pastry. It was good. It was too bad it would be the last one, though.

***​

The temple of the bountiful earth was a vast, verdant pagoda and massive garden, taking up the full breadth of a greater branch of the Heavenly pillar. It was a riot of color and life, blooming from every tier of the rooftop and all across the sprawling grounds. But unlike most gardens, there were few flowers. Instead, there were crops. Every grain known to the empire was here, every fruit and every vegetable represented, in rolling fields of green and dense orchards, heavy with fruit.

The temple's interior was strangely cozy despite its size, the thick pillars twined with grapevines. It was here that the first respects of the bridal pair were made, led by the head of Spiritual affairs. Incense was burnt, sacred wine was poured, prayers and blessings were made… and the long, slow movement of the procession was begun again, when the altar of fertile black soil bloomed with a riot of healthy golden grain.

But this, too, was where the other part of this day came into effect. The absolute tide of betrothals and marriage offers being exchanged between the many noble clans of the Emerald Seas on this most fortuitous day.

There were no true surprises, really; even the Bao had sent her a missive in the morning indicating they would advance their suite, even knowing of the others that would be made. She wasn't the only woman, or even person, who would be taking multiple offers today. She understood that it was as much about the advertisement of good relations as the actual contracts for many, that this was all a vast web of politics and business dealings in which betrothed individuals were only… pieces in.

It still felt deeply strange to her.

But she smiled all the same, bowing deeply to the richly dressed representative of the Bao, beaming down at her with his own practiced affect. With glittering jewels woven into his headscarf, cloth of shimmering silver cloth swishing on long hanging sleeves as they presented to her a scroll.

"It is my pleasure to extend our hand to the rising and ambitious house of Ling on this joyous day," the tall Bao man said, he actually matched her height, and was twice as wide beside, a well groomed beard bound in jeweled threads falling across his chest. "The Bao clan is always pleased to see and aid the growth of new ambitions."

"You honor me greatly, Sir Bao," Ling Qi said, bowing low and respectfully. Playing up her deference for the many people around the whispering observers and rumormongers of the court. "To have so small a house as mine receive the notice of a great clan and have my achievements receive your praise."

"Ah, there is no need to be so humble. You are quite a deal closer, young miss! Be proud of that," he grinned, stroking his jewel rings fingers through his beard. "Why, I know you have closed a few more already."

He said the last far more quietly and beneath the sound of clinking coins.

Ling Qi straightened, holding the scroll with the official notice close to her chest. "I have… my accomplishments have attracted many eyes."

"They have indeed, were it not for the quality of the three, I would imagine you would be fielding a dozen more," he chuckled. "Well, to the best negotiator goes the contract, eh?"

What an uncomfortable way to put it, Ling Qi mused, and yet, she understood implicitly the good intention. There was no offense at entertaining other options, given the stated… quality.

You're doing good Qi. I know this stuff is hard for ya.

Sixiang's reassurance did help. Ling Qi bowed her head more shallowly this time. "To the best, sir Bao."

Two more to go.

Walking the wedding procession, she and her fellow retainers were still close to the front, gathered among the households close to the Cai but not as close to Cai Renxiang as yesterday. Today, her liege walked side by side with her new fiancee at the very forefront of the procession, situated more with the peaks delegation. It was a show of honor, she knew.

The next temple was Xiangmen's itself, where the heavenly pillar was communed with. The ceremonies here were shorter and a matter of thanks rather than asking for blessings, as those had already been received when the bridal procession passed through the wards.

It helped her nerves a little, seeing the numerous nuptials announced, whether people were nervous, anxious, poised, confident, happy or anything else… the strongest reactions to any, even to people she knew had received multiple prospects was interest and a bit of rumormongering. There was some murmured sniping she could just barely detect, trough the various screening techniques, but those seemed more a matter of personal grudges and feelings than anything else.

…She wondered if there had been any others with eyes on Meng Dan.

Not Xuan Shi?

She huffed at Sixiang's tease, that was unkind and not her intention… he wasn't native here and hardly made himself known.

The next temple in the procession was the House of the Sun, a temple complex dedicated to his five aspects. This building blazed with color and light, with numerous mirrored surfaces catching the light that fell through the canopy to catch the sun's beams and glow like their patron in miniature. Five pagodas surrounded a central garden, each dedicated to an aspect of the sun. The procession moved through each one in the order of a day.

…She was a little surprised to see Gan Guangli on the receiving end of an offer. Su Ling would be growling. She supposed these must have been the ones he couldn't outright refuse to consider without insulting the other party.

Considering the offer was from the Jia anyway. That was something she'd definitely have to poke her nose into, for her friend's sake.

Is it really, though? She'd probably tell you to mind your business.

Not if she didn't say anything first!

Hmm, that was probably a potential snarl in her cultivation if she really thought about it. Was it removing choice if you acted without another's knowledge, but knowing they would object if they knew?

She'd not chosen an easy path to walk. She sometimes understood why some people preferred to just make themselves into swords and be done with it.

Butterflies were rising in her stomach as the procession neared its next destination, though. The Cycle of Nights was a far more subdued place, especially with one of its eight shrines, the most colorful and vibrant of them in the pst, she assumed, left bare and empty, its entrance boarded up, disallowed to receive all but the most minimal propitiation.

I still don't like it; you're throwing things outta wack, scoffing at grandmother like that. Sixiang grumbled. I mean, I get it. But it's still no good.

Ling Qi had to lower her head in agreement there, but she wouldn't be voicing that, even if they agreed, she sincerely doubted anyone present would say so without the Duchess' eyes upon them.

She felt the air tingle on her skin, suffused with familiar lunar energies as she passed under its midnight blue gates.

AN: Need to split this one, vote options next time.

 

[yrsillar]

The shrine of the full moon, the Guiding Moon, was only marginally dimmer than the great complex dedicated to the sun. Round, perfect mirrors of silvered glass were affixed at every corner, catching filtered light from further up in the pagoda to cast their ethereally luminous rays down on the core of the shrine, a raised platform of midnight blue wood, against the temple's rear wall. A wall set with a massive slab of solid silver some five meters high, shaped into a frieze depicting numerous legends, the feats of the many students the Guiding Moon was said to have mentored since times immemorial. From the base where the stylized and simple art shaped by the raw strength of cultivators molding metal like clay to the intricate scenes of more modern art… and above plenty of blank space in shimmering silver still.

The ceremony here had been simple enough. The head priest of the pagoda spoke the blessing of the guiding moon over the kneeling bridal duo–a good thing, as the elderly man would certainly not have been able to reach the Duchess' head to sprinkle moon-blessed dew on her hair if she had been standing. Most of the ceremonies were relatively brief, a necessity given how many there were going to be.

But Ling Qi had a reason to linger here herself, looking up at the wall of sculpture. Down here at the base of the platform, the light was dim, and the filtering light cast through the beams of the shrine platform was almost like starlight. Down here, she could look at the very earliest carvings.

Well, carvings, the imprints of human fingers in the meta,l were clear, shaping the relatively crude outlines of both leaping deer and men. Even across the ages, she could read its intent, a son of Tsu leading processions of their brethren and kin back out into the devastated province under the moon's guidance, reclaiming the lands in the wake of the Beast Gods.

She felt the approach of the ones she was here to meet long before she felt their shadows fall across her back, not just from their own weighty presences, like the prows of ships parting silent seas in an onrushing rumble of moving waters, but in the whispers that rippled out as more and more people noticed their intent and direction.

The faint tap of a staff against the floor behind her was just the punctuation on it. She turned politely, clasped her hands, and bowed almost horizontally from her waist. "Admiral Xuan, Admiral Xuan. What can this humble baroness do for our esteemed guests of the far flung north?" She asked politely.

The two men looked much the same as she had seen them last, broad shouldered beneath their heavy woven robes adorned with geometric embroidery, wide brimmed turtleshell hats shadowing their faces. The twin admirals of the Xuan inclined their heads slightly, and the one on the left gestured for her to raise her head.

"Wraith of the Moon, this one named after the last words were traded. A role taken too with great eagerness."

"Herald rather, silver singer flying proud before the prow, guiding to calmer waters," his brother said. "We are well welcome on Emerald shores."

"Your praise humbles me, great lords," Ling Qi said. "Shall I ask if your question is the same one you presented when last we met."

"Well seen, indeed, or hatcling, far from homely shores…"

"... presents a difficulty, though the nest stifles the young, those left behind might yearn for news."

"Young Sir Xuan Shi has been in excellent humor and of great aid to me. Though it has taken some time for us to understand each other properly, he is always stalwart," Ling Qi replied, fully straightening up. "In my Summit and in the times before, he has always been quick to aid me and help me in guarding my kin."

"And so one sets sail, even among mountains high," one Admiral said. It was a testament to their ability and the intertwined nature of their cultivation that even now she had a very difficult time discerning which was which. "From the shell the hatchling emerges with confidence anew?"

"I would say so, yes," She had her disagreements with him… Kongyou was definitely a bad influence.

The worst influence.

But she was hardly going to say that here. And… even if she disliked it, she did trust Xuan Shi to handle it. If he felt he needed to be able to change a nightmare to grow, she'd only wish him fortune.

"A fine thing, a fine thing. The words of the baroness explain and confirm the whispers that have reached these ears…

"...and the fall of the coins upon the table. A missive was received, a most shocking request."

"But one we are inclined to consider, for the sake of many, for shared heritage, for a seeker of shores far from ours."

"To the lady Ling the hand of our scion, our nephew, the steady Xuan Shi, who has carved a nest in cold lands far from any sea,"

They spoke, one voice rising as another fell. Ling Qi felt a ripple of shock go out through the other attendees, and one or two ongoing conversations and proposals even faltered mid-word.

She inhaled deeply, steeling her nerves. The rumor mills really were going to be insufferable.
Can't wait to help you write dozens and dozens of letters deflecting requests for you to spill the tea! Sixiang chirped in her head.

"I can hardly know how to respond to such a greatly generous offer," Ling Qi said, extending her hands out her head bowed to accept the scroll that the Admiral on the right had extracted from his sleeve. "Only that I accept. The young sir Xuan is already a good friend of mine. With your blessing we will see if there is yet more to be explored."

"Fewer words are oft stronger than more, this is known. Let root and wave weave together, through generations and more," one said gravely. "And see fresh charts of stone and ice be delivered unto the sleeping sanctum, a saga of the south."

"Compass and fair wind the Xuan clan grants to thy vessel, though the mapping be yours to do," One admiral said, amused. 'Fortune and calm seas to thee, Wraith of the Moon."

They were definitely entertained by the mild furor they had caused, that much she could read.

"Good fortune and calm seas. I only hope that the time Xuan Shi and I spend together here ties the isles and the forests together well and long," Ling Qi replied, bowing a final time.

The big feast at the end of this gonna be a free for all. Sixiang laughed.

It was. Ling Qi agreed, holding in her groan.

***​

Around the shrines the procession went, from the flower bedecked interior of the Mother Moon's shrine, to the perfect symmetry of the hall of gates in the reflecting moon's sanctum. Some were far different than the others; the Grinning Moon's shrine was almost bare and spartan enough for her to think it proscribed as well, but open halls and labyrinthine halls that channeled the winds to howling speeds were really all her patron needed. The Bloody Moons was a dark tower of tired roofs, black on red, where a grim faced priestess in an iron mask daubed blessed blood on the cheeks of the brides, warding away retributions.

And the hall of secrets, the shrine of the Hidden Moon, was utterly lightless, filled with a darkness that devoured light and dampened sound, even to senses like hers. To mortals, it would indeed have been utterly impenetrable… but this was the Cloud district, where a mortal could not even breathe unassisted.

To her, to the procession, the contours of the temple halls appeared in their senses as something like lines of white chalk drawn on a board. Likewise, those who surrounded her were outlined in stark, harsh lines, like they were all existing within something like an inverted ink painting.

The procession came through whispering halls filled with the suggestion of towering shelves of tomes and coyly hidden vault doors, until at last they came to the center of the shrine, where four bridges crossed over what sounded like a gently lapping pool of unseen water. At its center, the brides vanished, stepping through the unseen doors with the temple's priest to its innermost sanctum, where the rites would be performed.

Which left the rest of the procession to proceed with their own business, of course. While she did not know precisely when she would receive the last out her suits, simple logic said it would be here. If the Dreaming Temple were open, the Meng would make their case there, among the trappings of the pure way. But as it was, the Hidden Moon was where the best connection was laid. She was a patron to both Meng Dan and herself, and the Meng were hardly averse to secrets.

Grandmother still woulda been way better, gonna be all dour and formal and stuff. You could done something cute like share a drink from the same cup or something with us!

Sixiang! She thought. Honestly, her spirit was just too shameless.

She had taken up a station by the edge of the pool to wait, assured that it would come here. If she listened closely, the unseen waters below seemed to whisper, soft and breathy things, the promise of knowledge lost, but she knew better than to be tempted. Even if the offer was real, going off on an adventure right now would be very rude.

You're so jittery you're thinking of it.

She was not- not seriously anyway.

In the strange perception of the Hidden Moon's temple, Meng Diu stood out starkly, more white than black, the inky lines that differentiated her robes and intricate cosmetics shifting constantly, painting chaotic patterns across her silhouette. And unlike with the others, her actual suitor was here as well, walking behind his grandmother, a jittering outline of white strokes.

"Baroness Ling."

"Lady Meng," ling Qi greeted respectfully, bowing low once again, drifting sparks of light dripped from the hems of her gown like fireflies before winking out. "It is pleasing to see you yet in good health."

"I am not to be worn down by dealing with miscreants," Meng Diu replied. "But, it is appreciated."

"However, this humble one is here to make a request of you, Lady Ling," Meng Dan said, his smile a flashing crescent of white in the dark.

 

[yrsillar]

"I do not think you need to be so self-effacing, sir Meng. Without your integrity, my accomplishments would not have been possible," Ling Qi replied. Please, Lady Meng, speak as you will. I will always have time to hear your words."

"The Baroness is herself too humble. Without her investigations, a much worse tragedy may not have been averted. It is clear to the Meng clan that we are in your debt," Meng Diu said.

And that brought Ling Qi up a little short, and from the rippling fluctuations of qi out in the temple's dark, she was not the only one. A public statement of debt to her was very different than a private one. And… Meng Diu would not have been able to say it, if she did not have the approval of her brother, the clan's head.

…Given the precariousness of their situation with the internal traitors, it wasn't totally unexpected, but Ling Qi hadn't expected that degree of public contrition directed at her. She let those thoughts flow out of her head.

"And it is in that vein that I must propose my suit, Lady Ling."

Meng Dan bowed his head, lower than was strictly necessary, even given everything. "Your decisiveness, your skill, and your bravery are without match. Your beauty leaves this one breathless; your ambitions stir the soul. If you would have this humble scholar, I would gladly join myself to your clan."

Ling Qi made a small noise in the back of her throat. She did not want to call it a squeak, but that was probably the only thing you could call it.

"My grandson shows the air for the theatric that sleeps in the hearts of our clan," Meng Diu said dryly. "But yes, it is my belief that the Meng clan would benefit greatly from being bound to the foundation of your Ling clan. There is a way forward, and it does not lie in stillness and fading groves."

"I am honored to accept," Ling Qi said, just a little too quickly for her own taste.

You sound fine; relax Qi.

"Please, raise your head, Sir Meng. I accept without any doubts… But please, there is no need to be so effusive with your praise."

There were outright whispers this time. She was never quite so glad for the bodily control that came with cultivation, letting her ensure that heat didn't flood her cheeks the way it wanted too.

"Whatever the outcome, the Meng clan is pleased to continue working with you, into the future Baroness," Meng Diu said. She was just the faintest bit amused, at least visibly.

"Though I will not pretend that I do not prefer one outcome over the other," Meng Dan said lightly, straightening up.

"No doubts there," Ling Qi said, a bit too casually, only catching Meng Diu's eye afterward as she looked at them with unimpressed eyes, causing them both to hunch their shoulders a bit.

The ripple of energy from the center of the shrine, the parting of the curtain of darkness as the Duchess' light reemerged, saved her from any further awkwardness. From whatever inner sanctum the priests had led her and Diao Linqin, too.

"My thanks again, Lady meng… I, too, hope our clans may remain in good stead for long years to come," She said formally, bowing her head down.

That was the last one, at least.

***​

Through many more temples their paths wound, slowly decreasing in grandeur, from the harmonious precision of Immaculate Angles Everlasting and the Jade Archivist's temple workshop, to the sharp edged barracks-like atmosphere of the great hall of the Unity of Blades, where the officers who would lead the nascent Horned Legion were even now housed. Down to the more minor shrines to still-embodied spirits, such as the Patriarch of the South, who commanded the provinces' weather courts, or the Strider of Groves, the ancient deer spirit which still blessed the provinces' road networks.

They passed through a dozen temples and more as the sun reached its zenith and began to descend. At last, the procession reached its end, dissolving apart into another feast and revel in the palace gardens as it had the night before.

There, Ling Qi rejoined her companions fully, including the widely smiling Meng Dan. But also her liege, Cai Renxiang, and her own new fiancee.

Ling Qi wondered what it said about her, that she was almost a little disappointed not to see any traces of awkwardness or discomfort between them as they next to each other. They were neither very far apart nor very close. There wasn't really any tension there as they spoke quietly about the plans after all the ceremonies were done.

She knew Cai Renxiang just… didn't have the same hang ups as her, but it still left her feeling like she was the weird one.

Your both weird Qi, c'mon now. Pretty sure Big G over there is the guy you want to look at for 'normal'.

She almost snorted aloud. 'Big G'?

Perfectly good nickname!

"Hello, everyone. I apologize for my lateness. I was caught up in talking with some of my correspondents," Ling Qi said as she arrived at a polite speaking distance.

All around them, the scents of the burgeoning feast being served out on the massive buffet tables set out across the gardens was beginning to grow mouthwatering. The sun was setting, and the faint fairy lights were rising, being released by the garden attendants to light the darkening sky. She wasn't lying either. She'd almost found herself mobbed by her little penpal network members, all but demanding details about the agreements she'd accepted today. It was amusing; it was mortifying. But that was the life she'd stepped into, she supposed.

"This is hardly a hard appointment," Gan Guangli laughed. "And you have had quite a weighty day."

"To which I contributed," Meng Dan chuckled.

"I set no hard appointment," Cai Renxiang replied simply.

"You are only performing your role. if you were not answering to the gossips, they would fall upon us," Xia Lin said.

"And how terrible that would be," Ling Qi said dryly.

"It is good for one to have a member of their retinue who… keeps an ear to the ground," Mu Wuye said slowly. He at least, was a little awkward, unlike Cai Renxiang. Though, more due to being out of place in an unfamiliar social group than any nerves around the betrothals. " I admit, I had guessed something was between Sir Meng and the Baroness, but the rest was surprising.

"I am somewhat inexplicably popular, it seems," Ling Qi agreed.

"It is not inexplicable at all," Meng Dan chuckled. "But then, i was already aware that the challenge was a harsh one."

Mu Wuye looked a little mystified by their words.

"Meng Dan and I had conversed on it already. The real surprise is you, Gan Guangli. I had no idea your contacts in the Jia clan had borne such fruit," she said casually.

He rubbed the back of his head, his bright smile taking on a more awkward edge. "Aha, there have been some talks, but I had not imagined they would put forward a proposal until a short time ago."

"Is it someone you know?" Ling Qi asked.

"I am familiar," Cai Renxiang said. "She is a highly placed member of the Argent PeaksCore Sect. It is quite the honorable offer."

…Wasn't there a commander who had been too reckless in ordering Cai Renxiang and other inner disciples forward?

Hm, seemed more like a show of contrition… but she supposed from a count clan even those could be forceful.

"A consequence of you surrounding yourself with mostly lower ranking individuals, meaning no offenses," Mu Wuye said. "The great clans will have their due, though. They will begin at one remove if they cannot be direct in inserting influence."

"It is true," Cai Renxiang agreed.

"Though I give them hope they can be direct yet," Meng Dan said.

"I suppose you will need to watch out then, Xia Lin, only you remain," Ling Qi chuckled.

"My Aunt fields all such external requests for the Xia clan. It has a way of deflecting most," Xia lin said dryly.

There was a moment's awkward pause as they worked out whether she was joking. She was not.

"Mm, I have heard that your Heron General is known to be a meticulous manager, but truly… all of them, personally?" Mu Wuye asked.

"My aunt has a clear vision for the clan's direction," Xia Lin shrugged. "Any marriage in or out must match it."

Cai Renxiang nodded, as if that were entirely reasonable, and Ling Qi supposed, from a purely legal standpoint, it was. The leeway to determine matches was ultimately something that clan heads, Matriarchs, and patriarchs usually delegated… but that was just custom.

I take it back; you're weird, you're all weird. Sixiang joked.

It was relaxing to spend time with her friends now that the day was past. Celebrations would go on for the rest of the week, but the grand ceremonies were all winding down now. They remained together for the night. Going off with just Meng Dan a second time might really give people the wrong idea, and besides, she really was a bit worn down on that kind of atmosphere.

And so, as the sun sank, they spoke, they feasted, and ultimately, they parted as dark night overtook the palace.
But she did have one more promise to keep, didn't she. One more conversation to have, before she turned her mind to the task of arranging meetings with the subjugated ith.

We got a few nights left; doesn't have to be tonight.

No, she didn't think this should be put off any longer. They were both probably avoiding it in certain ways.

"…Yeah, suppose we are." Beside her, at the exit of the palace gardens, where she'd gone to linger looking out over the constellation of lower branches stretching in the yawning depth of the sky below, Sixiang shimmered into existence, a hollow shell of refracted light. It was a thin projection to Ling Qi's senses, barely there.

"Whatcha thinking then?"

"I think we need to just… talk, without getting sidetracked or deflected," Ling Qi said quietly. "How about we just take a walk?"

Sixiang made a show of heaving a sigh, putting their arms up behind their head. "A walk, huh? Yeah, that sounds nice. Where to, ya think?"

[ ] A walk through the outer twigs, the hanging gardens at the district's edge.
[ ] A walk through the dreams of the glittering city, glutted on celebration.

 

[yrsillar]

They left the palace lights behind, skipping distance like a flung pebble skating over the water's surface. Flashes of the street and flashes of the riot of colors on the other side intertwined.

It wasn't so different from one side to the other. On one side, streets thronged, filled with celebration; they were winding down compared to what Ling Qi had seen since arriving. But still, the streets were full with laughter and streamers and performances. On the other side, spirits spun and danced, airy creatures pirouetting in the air between shimmering bubbles of contentment and good feeling and the fuzzy happiness of inebriation.

"What side we feel like walking on?" Sixiang asked casually as they emerged from a side street in a shimmer of rippling light, joining the small parade proceeding down twigward to the city's edge.

"Your side. It's probably the best for this conversation. Less chance of interruption, I think… and I want to remember the good of Xiangmen's dream before I leave," Ling Qi said.

"Well, if you like it loud, I guess so. Hard to overhear us when all the music is blaring, huh?" Sixiang said. "You mind if I choose a spot?"

She glanced at her muse in surprise. "If you have one in mind, go ahead."

Sixiang hummed, giving her hand a squeeze, as they stopped at the edge of a thoroughfare. A small procession of musicians was trailing through, an impromptu, half-organized walking orchestra bringing music to the nighttime streets.

"I got something."

Ling Qi inclined her head in agreement. Sixiang tugged at her hand, and they stepped back through the veil. Colors and noises rushed by, and thoughts and feelings scattered before them like schools of frightened fish.

And they emerged in a hall of silver and glass, overlooking the riot of spirits below. The grand revel she had witnessed on her last journey to Xiangmen was now swollen like a river in the midst of a spring flood, a riot of shapes and bodies crashing through phantasmal streets.

But the cacophony was muted, its dull roar seeming far away. Ling Qi pressed her hand to the seemingly pane of glass beside her and found it slightly soft, her fingers sinking into it like mud.

"I remembered. There was a previous part of me, whose human kept a little… viewing platform around Xiangmen. It's busted, thoug,h as ya can see, falling apart. It'll do though," Sixiang said.

Ling qi tilted her head.It was a bit like a birdcage… or the bottom of one, with thin little bars of silver rising into the sky overhead and melting away into the glassy 'dome' of permeable dreamstuff overhead. Beneath her feet, the bars all came back together from around the radius, creating the 'floor' they stood on.

..She could feel a tiny bit of the echo from the person who had made it. This was to them what her little 'island' moon shrine was to her. An entry point, a cultivation chamber… but mostly faded now. Only a whisper of poetry remained on the wind.

"It's still quite pretty. Do you remember anything else about that dream?" Ling Qi said. She brushed her hands against the 'glass,' and it parted smoothly like a curtain, unleashing a riot of noise and scents, the bubbling good feeling of a city mid-festival.

But it didn't leave their words to each other any less clear.

"Not really. I don't really have much more than light impressions of past dreams. Permanence ain't exactly what the Dreaming Moon is about," Sixiang laughed, coming up beside her to lean against the silver frame. "So. This conversation."

"This conversation." Ling Qi agreed.

Silence stretched between them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ling Qi saw Sixiang's hair flick in a phantom breeze, growing a little shorter, their faces and shoulders a little broader.

"I do still feel it, even now that I've been away from ya. I honestly don't know love, that kind of permanent love, not just the fleeting infatuation of a tryst or a dream… I don't know how that works. I just know I don't want to leave you, and I don't want to let you go." Their voice was a few tones deeper, and th-he looked over at her with a longing look.

Ling Qi felt a skip in her heartbeat, a slight heat that wanted to rise in her cheeks. It wasn't quite what she'd felt around meng Dan when he started laying on the charm, but she wouldn't lie and say there was nothing there. But it was stifled by the… confusion around…

"But… I know that you feel something like that with your fam too, yeah? I've felt it, looking at them out of your eyes."

Around that.

"Maybe. I haven't dug as deep into your emotions as you have into mine," Ling Qi said. She turned around, letting the wild music outside wash over her as rested her elbows on the 'pane' of the glass wall behind her. She caught Sixiang opening his mouth and shook her head. "That's not an accusation. I know I could have, but I'd probably have panicked if you let me."

"Yeah," Sixiang said after a quiet pause.

Ling Qi sighed. "I don't… know how to resolve that for us. But I want to. I don't like this… awkward in between."

"This liminal thing ya mean?" Sixiang asked, waggling his eyebrows.

She snorted. "Yes, sure."

Sixiang chuckled, but it trailed off, back into an awkward quiet. After a few seconds of its lingering, while Ling Qi cast about for how to approach the conversation they needed to have, Sixiang scuffed his foot against the floor, and the platform lurched beneath them and began to move. Trailing a rain of sparkling motes, he began to fly over the thronging spirit filled streets of Xiangmen's dream.

Now that she was aware of them, she could see them even here, Ling Qi noted, the strangling hands of nightmares pawing at the edges of her senses, snaking through the alleyways. But they were withered, unhealthy things here, covered in sores and burns. But honestly, she wasn't interested in nightmares, not right now. Her eyes wandered to the fantastical things that danced in the streets.

Potent dream wines flowed, glittering wings of butterfly scale and bright feathered plumes passed in the air, their owners caught in dance. Muses, spirits that were little more than ephemeral clouds of glittering bubbles filled with human emotions, danced and swirled in the streets, and they raised their cups to the colorless radiant sun in its clasping cage of thorns so far above.

It was chaos, but a good chaos, the riot of choice and human experience. But… it wasn't simple, was it? It never was.

"I liked hanging out with Suyin," Sixiang said, breaking the relative quiet. "She's such a fun little ball of nerves. I like seeing how those machine things work, and I liked showing her how to imbue lil spirits, my baby cousins, into formations and stuff."

"Should I worry about that," Ling Qi wondered aloud.

"Nah, nah, I mean probably anyway. It's probably fine," Sixiang grinned.

Ling Qi laughed.

"But… I do think there are things I might like to stick around for… I just don't know if they'd be enough without you as my anchor," Sixiang said. "I was kinda… made for you, even if I've grown past that a little."

And there is was, a thing that caused her some discomfort. She knew Sixiang could see it on her face, too, the way his expression dropped.
"You were strange to me at first," Ling Qi said slowly. "A disruptive force, shaking things up around me… You made me indulge my worse instincts sometimes, like that very first party Cai Renxiang got me an invitation to."

"Ah yeah, you probably shouldn't take my advice about politics stuff still," Sixiang said, smiling humorlessly.

She gave a little nod. "But… once I bound you, you were… a confidant that was always there. You understood me very well, and I could always talk to you. You became one of my best friends very quickly, and thats saying something with how rapidly I was forming friendships back then, like a beggar stuffing food into her pockets at a public feast."

Sixiang snorted, and Ling Qi smiled, amused by the imagery her own words conjured. Her smile faded, though. "I came to rely on you, more than that, I came to be… expectant of you. I didn't want to let you go either. I convinced you to stay even when you were thinking about fading. That first time we danced… it's when you started feeling like this, wasn't it?"

Sixiang was silent for a long moment. "It was the first time I really thought of you as beautiful, yeah. I felt how much you wanted me to stay… and it made me want to stay too. You understand, right? I was upset, fraying because feeling so much from those bandits you killed hurt me, like having splinters jammed under my fingernails… it still kinda does."

Ling Qi thought of Diao Linqin and didn't say a word.

Sixiang frowned, pressing his lips together in a thin line. "But I don't… didn't care about them. I was upset at my pain. You were still the only real thing that mattered… well I was grateful to the little Cai for talking you out of a bad spot too."

"I think getting out of your head for a while was the right answer," Sixiang said. "I think having a body was the right answer. "But I hate the distance. I do wanna goof off in my silly mannequin, but I also want to come back to ya after… not after months like this, but like.. Maybe after a day or two, you know?"

"I don't like being alone in my own head anymore. She diverted a soothing thought to Qiyi, who responded with something like a cat's purr. She did love her dress, but it wasn't the same. Qiyi was still more like… a very small child, and was much more passive beside, being a dress. She could and would go silent for days until something roused a powerful enough interest.

"I miss my friend, and I don't like this… brittleness between us. I don't like how quick you are to apologize and back off," Ling Qi said, voicing the discontent that had been dogging her. "I think…"

"One way or the other, we need to decide what we want to be," Sixiang said, shaking his head. "I'm not gonna compete with those guys, you know? That feels weird to me… nightmare-y. I know humans might think it strange, but I think you're cute with them. I don't know how any one of 'em would react to a plus one, though."

Even with how far she had come, Ling Qi felt very uncertain around the idea herself. She certainly couldn't even imagine entertaining the idea with anyone but Sixiang. But, all the same…

"But… I'm not going anywhere either way. If you just want to be friends… be family, that's fine. I do… I got other things," Sixiang said. "So. What do we want to do?"

[ ] Sixiang the confidant, the friend, the fun older cousin to her other spirits. Things might not be the same, but that was the path she wanted to walk.

[ ] Sixiang the companion, the friend… and perhaps something more, it would make her already tricky situation trickier, but… she felt she could try.

 

[yrsillar]

"What do we want to do?" Ling Qi said wryly, looking down at the wild dream avenues. The sound of groaning wood and breaking stone echoed upward, a building caved in, and laughing spirits spun out, carried on a flood of glittering gushing from some broken source within. A horrible accident in reality was nothing but an amusing jape in the dream. But that was how dream spirits were in their base states, wasn't it? Dreams didn't have consequences, not direct ones.

"I am always the one who decides what 'we' want to do, aren't I?" Ling Qi said. "What do you want to do, Sixiang?"

"I can't exactly decide that; kinda a two-way street," Sixiang said. "But I guess I get what you're trying to get at."

She let out a breath. "I am sorry, Sixiang, for letting things linger too long, for avoiding conversations when we could have had it. So let me ask you this. What do you want, what is the most important thing for you, what do you not want to lose, no matter what?"

"There's an obvious answer there," Sixiang said. "It's you. It's always been you. But…you're not the only one whose senses have gotten sharper. I get when you're using one word to stand in for a bunch more."

They went quiet for a minute, looking out. "Fuck it."

The vulgarity made Ling Qi blink.

"Fuck it," Sixiang repeated. "I was going for this big serious talk time, but that's just not how I work, is it. C'mon Qi, I see a food stands I want to stop at."

She blinked owlishly and reached out to take Sixiang's extended hand. Her muse stamped their foot, and the platform they had been standing on shattered into glittering motes. They fell, the wind whipping at Qiyi's hems until Ling Qi managed to right herself and land in a quickly scattered clearing in the street. Sixiang was beside her, landing light as air. He immediately threw out a hand to gesture toward the streetside, where a massive bulky deer-headed spirit was squeezed impossibly an otherwise normally sized streetside festival grill, wearing a tiny chef's apron over its bulging barrel chest.

"Two skewers!" Sixiang announced cheerfully.

"You wanted to try those yourself, huh?" Ling Qi said dryly as the giant passed Sixiang's order over, pinched between two thick fingers.

"Yep!" Sixiang agreed, taking them and passing one over, giving her hand a tug as they began to walk. They took a bite and paused, their hair comically standing on end as tears prickled in the corners of his eyes. "...Damn, its a bit different directly."
"It is," Ling Qi said, nibbling at her own. The fire qi was just as potent as it had been in reality, but it was subtly different. It was only an idea, seasoned by memory, after all.

"You said that we was usually you," Sixiang said, chewing thoughtfully as they brushed the crowd, bumping shoulders with the menagerie of revelers, surrounded by the kind of humid heat that only an immense crowd generated.

She didn't object even if she hadn't said those words exactly.

"It's true. The thing I want most is to inspire you, you know? I'm a muse. Even that ass Kongyou is like that, in their way. I want to inspire you… and somewhere along the way, I decided I wanted to inspire you to be happy. But I wasn't very good at it; you're real resistant to being nudged out of bein' gloomy," Sixiang chuckled.

Ling Qi huffed, stepping around an impromptu dance off between two spirits who flared their glittering moth-like wings as they postured at each other through the beginning of their contest. "Well, I will admit to being reserved, probably more than I need to be."

"You have gotten a lot better," Sixiang said fondly. "Though I dunno if I can take any credit. I did make myself kind of a doormat."

"You asked what I want most, what I won't let go of. I think if I dig down, the thing I absolutely can't accept losing is making you smile. Relaxing with you, joking with you, teasing you about being a gloomy dork, and... I want you to make art more, I feel like you're leaving that behind or letting it become just a tool. I... don't want that," Sixiang said.

The fire qi burning on her tongue was a good cover for her thoughts, leaving her an excuse to let those words tumble around in her head, letting her clear up her own thoughts and…

"What I most want to keep, what I can't accept losing, is the Sixiang who I can freely confer with about anything, who teases me and prods me when I get too wound up in my own head, to focused on utility... I've seen the end of treating everything as a tool to advance your goal… I can probably use a harder knock or two on that," Ling Qi said, only to frown, hunching her shoulders.

"...And I want to be better, not just to trample over your wants and advice, whether you let me or not."

"It seems like we both have some matches there," Sixiang said, their bright smile dimming just a little, a little sad, a little thoughtful. "Oh! Look over there. There's some kind of street show. Let's check it out!"

Bumping into passersby and pushing through a crowd was almost nostalgic. She didn't do that anymore, not in reality. She could move through and around people with such ease, without ever being so crass as to use an active movement technique. But, she had to admit, it did have its charm.

A rickety stage, erected from stray musings and discarded ideas and the idle scraps of discarded art rose above the whirling crowds, the components of it flashing and glinted, seeming from moment to moment to shift between hastily hammered scrap wood, haphazardly stitched cloth and half-carved stones Spirits capered on stage, an ephemerally beautiful fairy woman with silver hair wearing a gown of swarming bees and a small rotund, frog mouthed spirit wearing a pair of tiny spectacles acted out the grand drama of a fruit merchant navigating the Ministry of commerce for a lost shipment manifest and finding love with the diligent clerk assisting them… They watched from among the chortling, jostling crowd of admiring dream spirits as the story unfolded.

"Most dreams ain't so grand when you get down to it," Sixiang chuckled. "But if you say things with the right cadence and tone, a trip down to market can sound like an epic quest, huh?"

"I think it would be better to say, every person sees their own trials as a great struggle, worthy of song," Ling Qi said, observing the dramatics on stage, nibbling a little more at her skewer. "Well, maybe that's a little exaggerated, but…"

"Nah, I getcha, a little dramatic exaggeration, but you're right at the base. Jeez, this is surprisingly cute as a story, isn't it?"

"It is," Ling Qi said, but despite the absurd spectacle of dream spirits enacting such a mundane 'drama, ' her thoughts were elsewhere. "Can I ask you something, Sixiang?"

"Go ahead!"

"What do you understand romantic love to be?" She asked.

Sixiang looked away from the show, focusing on her face. The lights of the lanterns and torches lighting the street glinted off of his black eyes. "Huh. That is actually a pretty good question."

He turned back to the sage, watching the waddling frog man take a comical pratfall, upending a cabinet full of papers that rained down like snow. "Its hm… intimacy, total trust, confidence that your partner will always have your back, and you'll always have theirs. That you want to spend the rest of your lives together. It's well, being a bit crazy for the other people, willing to go beyond, and changing yourself for them. That's the part that scares you, right? Feeling like you'll BE changed rather than deciding to change?"

Ling Qi listened, only half of her attention on the play. "Yes. Though I understand a bit better… people don't actively choose to change most of the time, they just do, bit by bit."

She supposed that was why cultivation appealed so much. It was much more deliberate. "When you tease me about attractive men, is that all it is, or do you actually… like looking too."

She felt like she wanted to wither up on the spot, only the rather bawdy shouting of the reveling dreams around her kept her from sinking herself into the street and disappearing, for asking such an explicit question.

Sixiang laughed out loud, high and clear, shoulders hunching as she glared at them, until at last they managed to stifle it a bit. He tossed his empty skewer aside, and it dissolved into drifting rainbow dust. "The look on your face. I'm sorry, Qi. I know you're no good with this stuff."

"I am fine and normal about 'this stuff, '" Ling Qi huffed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a few spirits looking toward them. She fixed the rowdy revellers with a look frigid enough to put frost in their fur. They looked away. Good.

"You know, sad part is you're not wrong depending on which part of the real you're standing in," Sixiang said, wiping a tear from his eye. "But… I like looking, yeah. I think you're really pretty; I think Gan Guangli is hot as hell, too."

"Sixiang!" she hissed.

"What! He is. Su Ling's a lucky gal, so's this… Jia lady, I guess?" Sixiang said, before shaking his head. "But like… I don't…"

They paused, scratching the back of his head as his features wavered from a more androgynous look back to a more masculine one. "But like, I don't feel the… fleshy stuff, no?"

They spoke haltingly, hesitating.

"Fleshy stuff?" Ling Qi said blandly.

"I mean I can be explicit if the ladies ears can handle it," Sixiang drawled. Ling Qi grimaced and shook her head.

"What I mean is… I like this face, you know? But I like it the same way you like your earrings, if you get me?" Sixiang said.

Ling Qi nodded; she understood what Sixiang was saying. Physicality was… mutable to them, instinctively foundationally so.

"But like, even then, I appreciate your eyes, your hair… there's art to that. I like the look of your spirit even more; it just makes me want to hug you all the time and warm you up even a little," Sixiang rambled.

Ling Qi shifted from foot to foot. It was hard not to react to such words.

"But like… the … reproductive' bits, nah. I don't really like… get that, I just know you like being teased about it… within limits," Sixiang said. "Heck, it's hard to talk about this stuff with all the limitations put on it…"

"I think that's the point of them," Ling Qi huffed. "But.. I admit, to me… those things… those things are tied deeply into romantic love."

"Yeah, I do get that. It's why you couldn't return Meizhen's feelings, right?" Sixiang said. "I thought about trying to look more like the kind of guys you oggle too but… I dunno, felt manipulative. Not what I wanted to go for," Sixiang said wistfully.

"I appreciate that," Ling Qi said. "How about the tea shop up there next?"

"Mm, deal. I wanna scare up some festival games, but I don't mind taking a minute to sit."

AN: Alright, probably at least two more of these, there's a ton to unpack yet as people have pointed out.

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