Twin Cultivation: Sisters of Sword and Fan

[azatol]

Lucille
~~~

It was only chance that I was bored and looking at various sailing ships with the spyglass. I was shocked as I recognized the Sword of Regal Waters.

The first family I thought to contact was out of town and the second had important family business that week. I didn't know the Smiths that well.

We were tacking against the wind, but the Sword was going mostly downwind, angled enough to keep their sails full of air.

Mr. Smith gave me the control of the wheel the first day, and I proceeded to go straight upwind. I've learned more since then.

But I gave Mr. Smith control now in hopes of catching the ship that was either helmed by a thief or my definitely not dead husband.

We turned the Not Your Grandfather's Smith around and tried to follow David's ship.

The Smith family were constantly hounded, sure they had an ancestor in the business but they didn't know anything about smithing these days. Hence the silly ship name.

"I'm afraid that ships just hauling the mail better than we can," Mr. Smith said.

We lost sight of the ship that afternoon, but we were following much the same route. Mr. Smith went to bed with his family but he trusted me enough to run the ship. We didn't have a lot of wind late that evening, but it was just enough to spot David's ship anchored close to the coastline.

I didn't trust myself to come in close to the Sword of the Regal Sea.

I took Smith's spyglass, my fan and the old rowboat Mr. Smith used to get to land.

I was glad he showed me how to lower the anchor.

The sea was calm close to shore that night. The orange qi surrounding my fan made for a dim light to guide me by.

After I tied off the rowboat, I saw David's servant standing on the edge looking down at me. "James! May I come onboard?"

"He's asleep and so is your sister in the guest room."

I was shocked. I never would have expected Anna to meet David at the Capital. But I guess it wasn't so surprising that she had volunteered.

"Well that is great news. The ship over there is where I sailed in from. I've been looking for David but I didn't expect to find him at sea."

I climbed up the nets and onboard.

"Perhaps we can surprise my husband?"

"Perhaps."

***
Anna
~~~

David was excited to get home, and I missed Lucille and I wanted to spoil those kids. So we sailed from dawn to dusk for two days. We both were tired that second night and got some sleep early.

We'd spent hours talking about swords and cultivation. He was finally almost ready to breakthrough to Iron Sword. Lucille didn't even know what the next stage of Fan Cultivation was called by her sect, but she was almost ready to break through as well.

"We'd like to go away for a few months to reach these goals. We'll wait a few weeks, so you can catch up with Lucy," he had told me.

When I woke up the next morning, I noticed David wasn't on deck yet.

There was another ship anchored close by. I stretched and walked around the ship, trying to keep active and recover from my injury. My right side sometimes still hurt but it was less often and less intense.

During battle it had seemed minor, but the injury was caused by some third stage cultivator's construct. As a Shimmering Sword cultivator I would be able to create sword formations and latent sword spirits would respond to my will.

But I was still barely into mid-Iron stage, I had years to go along that path before reaching Shimmering Sword.

I sat down in the lounge area on deck, contemplating how the Sword Dao Sect would describe the transition to Shimmering Sword. In Shadow Sword, my dao was still fragmentary and not fully formed.

Then entering into Iron Sword my Dao was formed and now continuing to be refined. So Shadow Sword felt more like a stage 0 with Iron Sword as the first real stage.

But David had been stuck in Shadow Sword for fifteen years. Would he be inspired and find his Dao in seclusion?

I was awakened from these daydreamed thoughts by David's arrival, with Lucille and some other guests!

"Good morning. It's good to see you sister," I said. She must have been looking for us.

"Anna, this is Mr. and Mrs Smith. They helped Lucy go searching for me. She has heard about the situation with sixth army," David said.

"Julia, James, this is Anna, Lucy's sister. Turns out, we were in different units in Sixth army."

Mrs. Smith asked, "Oh what sect were you with, honey?"

"I had some friends in the Blades of Illyria sect. Im not in a sect anymore," I said, awkwardly.

"Anna is an outstanding swordswoman. I know some people still find women who choose the sword to be questionable, but since it was her sword that saved my life, I don't mind at all."

"Well that's nice. I'm sure you gave a lot of tales to tell." Mr. Smith asked.

We had breakfast together and I told our guests some of our stories, and about Arielle and about the unnamed Chosen who rescued us.

Finally, Lucille thanked the family and promised to stop by when they were back home and we started sailing again.

"Here I was worried about David, and I had no idea you were in the same situation," she said.

"I went back to the Sect for my breakthrough. And then they expelled me, and I've been traveling and helping out where I can since then. Made a few contacts who told me the Imperials weren't having much luck with volunteers from the sects, so I went and volunteered. I didn't expect it was going to lead to war," I said

"I've been working steadily cultivating whenever I can. I spend a lot of time with the kids and David of course. We spend some time training together."

"Well do you want to train together like old times?" I asked.

"Yes! It's odd but part of my training is actually socializing and helping people, but I still do physical training as well."

 

[azatol]

There are multiple ways of naming cultivation stages depending on the type of cultivation, although there are a few groups with the same naming.

I haven't really identified stage names for archery cultivators or other groups beyond melee weapons and I'm still deciding what Lucille's fan cultivation stages will be named.

There are a lot of commonalities in stage 1,2,3 and 4 between different weapons or disciplines. Stage 5 is kinda brushing up against the limits of the world's power, there are multiple truly different Stage 5s, but only Divine Cultivation is known in the Empire.

The Imperial naming system is just an generic set of stage names, but it doesn't encompass alternative Stage 5 cultivation methods.


Imperial System

1. Flickering
2. Condensing
3. Opening
4. Manifesting (alt: Elemental)
5. Divine

Melee Weapon Cultivation

1. Shadow <weapon>
2. Iron <weapon>
3. Shimmering <weapon>
4. Elemental <weapon>
5. Divine <weapon>

Rose / Fan Cultivation

TBD

 

[azatol]

Anna
~~~~

There's something exhausting about taking care of kids. After three weeks of David and Anna in seclusion, I need to break up my day.

Luckily the nanny they David and Anna hired was the kid's favorite, so I could go off in the morning and feel ok about it. I spent evenings and weekends with the two of them. They were like little sponges interested in everything.

David was obsessed with swords, and he started by playing with sticks and David Sr and I helped him make a real blunted wooden sword, just before David left for seclusion.

Anna thought David was being silly, but she loved dress up and she pretended she was a knight in between being a princess and a pirate.

David Sr was going to start teaching David about finances and family admin stuff once he got back from seclusion.

As a side business and to keep myself sane, I started tutoring sword wielders in tue area.

I was only able to afford renting a basement from one of the merchants off the main Merchant row.

For the first week, a few people visited but no one signed up for training.

The first day of week 2, I was wearing some comfortable workout clothes. I was happy to wear men or woman's clothes depending on the day and whet felt good. I hated the box that clothes had to fit in.

Maybe it was the fact that I was wearing some workout clothes from a men's store in town, but my first client thought I was a man.

"Sir, how much does the training cost?" He asked.

"For now I only offer one on one training. If I get some more interest there could be group rates. It'll be 85 an hour."

"I'll pay for an hour. What's your availability?"

"Now works, or tomorrow morning perhaps."

"Now," the man says, throwing off his coat. He counted out 85 silver. As far as I knew, dedicated trainers of the sects took payment in more valuable currencies for this kind of training, but it was mostly a hobby for me."

I stored the payment in my new coin box and went to get my sword.

The client, Jason, was certainly strong, but showing signs of aging, and still a mortal practitioner of the sword.

He was a forceful striker but slow. I spent most of that first hour teaching and showing how I would respond to his preferred power strikes.

Start with a repertoire of quick testing strikes. Then make your power strikes attacks you use when you get an advantage, practice movement and defensive sword movements for when you are disadvantaged.

The first session ended up running 3 hours long before he had to take a break. I had only another hour before heading back to see my niece and nephew.

I learned some basic teaching methods with David Jr as I spent a half hour a day tutoring him a bit. As the weeks went by I ended up with three clients, none of them were cultivators but it was an enjoyable hobby for them.

The side business became more, when a young saber wielder returned home, retiring from his sect when he couldn't break into Iron Saber Cultivation.

While I had only trained people who used the sword, I agreed to practice and spar with the cultivator and provide whatever help in cultivation wisdom and advice.

Nathan was quite skilled with the saber, and Jason watched as we practiced, as his scheduled time was just after Nathan's time block.

Jason said he had picked up some insight from watching us actually fighting, even though he couldn't use Shadow Sword cultivation.

Eventually I agreed to let my students observe these fights, as it really did help motivate them, as long as they put in their practice time.

Often breakthroughs happen at momentous moments, but not always. After years in his sect, being unable to advance, Nathan broke into the Iron Saber stage, during one of our spars.

He insisted on trying a full Iron level fight to solidify his foundation.

"Stand back a bit further in case one of our weapons go flying," I told the crowd.

Nathan's attack was much more forceful now that had broke through.

I deflected the attack and dodged his next strike completely. My replying strike took him by surprise knocking him to the ground, sprawling.

"So fast!"

"One of the things you have to do in Iron, overcome that feeling that you are using a slow heavy weapon. Be fast as a bee, and as crushing as a greathammer," I said.

The collisions of our weapons were loud and kicked up sparks and dust. Naturally I settled into a counter-attacking style, but for our last bout, I went on the offensive, forcing him to desperately defend, but my third attack hit.

"Wow I guess my defense against a barrage like that needs a lot of work."

"I'll be here," I said.

***
Lucille
~~~

"I can't quite pin down my Dao," David said.

"I've got a start, I'm just trying to refine it. This Dao business, is it any different by tradition?" I said.

"I keep getting a feeling that I should switch to sword and shield, my dao isn't quite right for the sword. I don't know anything about the shield," David said.

"Let's distract ourselves with a spar, and then talk about it," I said.

David and I were both unable to defend against each other. He struggled with my daggers, and I struggled with all the shadow fragments he could throw around.

After we were both bruised and battered, we sat on the floor of the remote cabin and pondered.

"I want to protect my family. With a sword if I have to," David said.

I pondered that. His Dao was a little off, certainly I wanted my family safe, but I felt like the idea was a little too reductive. I think we both wanted more.

My dao should have something to do with my profession. David was firstly a family leader, and secondly a cultivator, so it was a bit harder.

"My Dao is to be the light in the community. In the daytime I will be a ray shining to all, and at night I will be the moonlight undoing the wicked dark. When the day is bright, those who are in twilight will recover and return to the sun."

"You're there Lucy, you've got it! I think I need to spent some time alone anyway, just to sit and reflect."

"Anna said there was the feeling of having the right key to unlock the safe, and then woosh, you break through," I said.

"Anna is really gifted. It's like she was made to be a sword cultivator. Since we first met, I went from Late Shadow Sword to Peak Shadow Sword and she went from Mid Shadow to Mid Iron. I've talked to people, they say getting to mid iron can take 10 years, or more if you don't have a ton of time. Anyway, give it some thought. You can press forward with that Dao, and hopefully, break into second stage. How does condensing work with your beautiful discipline?"

"Whatever signs of my cultivation you saw before, that was just fake magic compared to what I will be soon. But I need to take a trip to my sect once I decide to move forward. I need advice from the Headmistress."

"I'm going to go hibernate."

"David, think about adding more details. What kind of protector are you? There's one thing to start with. Here's what I think: Your wisdom and financial acumen protect us. Make it specific to you."

"It sounds weird, but I hope I don't see you when I come back out. You're ready."

I wrapped my arms around him, and we stood there for a while. "Don't be too long," I said.

David was right, I spent hours trying to adjust my way, but fundamentally, I was a woman of words, and the description in my head was good, it was true to the little Lucy in my head too.

I didn't want to disappoint the kids by leaving right away after seeing them so I just found another way across country.

Emily was having a hard time lately. She was one of the eligible ladies in my social group. At 25 she'd started to panic that she would become a spinster or something. I convinced her to go on a little adventure to the the Sect and back.

Emily cared for horses for several families in the city, and she had a few of her own on her ranch.

We took her favorite two horses, Sable and Betsy, and set off. I'd never traveled very far by horse, and I was therapy for Emily, and time for both of us to reflect.

Helping out a friend really helped to bring my cultivation to the forefront as well.

The pace was slow compared to sailing, and we had to give the horses extra time to recover.

I started to suspect I was actually causing our horses to be soothed as they were near me. The stable masters along the way were impressed by how far we had come in a short while, and how happy and healthy they were.

One morning though, Sable and Betsy only wanted to amble at a slow pace. We stopped and pondered whether we would have to find another option for the last part of our trip.

As I was standing there, frustrated, I suddenly realized there was a community right here. Emily and I and the horses. We weren't treating Sable and Betsy right, as friends.

Another insight followed: Communities are everywhere, when the sun and moon pass by, they light up each community.

Emily wasn't a cultivator but she looked at me and said, "you've changed, just now. What did you do?"

I broke through to the Second Stage. The term fan cultivation did not seem appropriate. Hopefully the Headmistress would have some insight.

Now that I had broken through, I could understand what our group was feeling. Sable and Betsy needed to stop and rest for the day and eat extra food. They were just exhausted.

We took a day to rest. The purple glow of my fan was gone, and I may have looked like I wasn't a cultivator at all, but I knew I had pressed on into an unknown future.

The next day we continued our journey. Sable wanted to go fast, so I pushed ahead of Emily for a while, rushing forward until the horse was ready to slow down.

How many hours can a horse crave an apple? All of them, except when they were very thirsty.

The last afternoon before we reached the sect, I established what I think was a standard for second stage. I could project calm and peace before, but now I was able to stir up the desire to do more and seek more in Emily,

She shouldn't just settle and get married to get married. I managed to convey the challenge of marriage, even to a wonderful man. People are different, which means every marriage has to overcome that. And if you aren't happy with that person, or you started on a wrong foot, it's so much harder.

I encouraged her to pursue her best path. Both in words and in the power of my cultivation I lifted her up and hopefully helped her walk a better path.

After that, I could tell she wasn't obsessing about getting married or afraid of not finding someone..

When we got to the Sect, I went to the office to check in and find out when the Headmistress had some time.

Maybe I could help out here and stay for a little while, I thought. It fit my insight about the communities we pass through.