It had only been a single day since the egg had hatched, and Ling Qi was already feeling harried. Her spirit’s constant hunger and desire for her attention consumed hours of her time. She had run out of grade one cores in short order and had been forced to put off research into his nature in order to get more.

  There was a minor lucky break when she had left him in the garden atop the still warm kiln to retrieve some items from her room, only to return and find that he had gotten into the wood pile. It looked like he enjoyed gnawing on the spiritually infused wood almost as much as the cores given the smoldering end of the log she had found him under.

  So she had the wood as a stopgap at least. It only took a bit of effort to break up one of the larger pieces and store the smaller sticks in her ring for his consumption. She scooped up the little snake turtle.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Ling Qi murmured, resting her hand atop the little spirit’s shell. His eyes, both sets of them, stared up at her……

  She could feel vague sensations from the odd spirit though their connection. There was nothing so coherent as words, or even images, just jumbled and primal sensation. While she already knew that she wouldn’t be dealing with a mere animal, this was something more like a child. Her assumptions about the species of her spirit had been shattered, and now, she didn’t know what to do. She needed to research, but she could hardly leave her spirit alone.

  The only person she might have trusted to watch over him was Bai Meizhen, but her friend was out right now, as she had often been since last week. Ling Qi did her best to ignore the pang of sadness she felt at that. This left bringing him along. She was wary of the idea; her instincts whispered that it was a bad idea to openly advertise her precious spirit to the Sect at large yet.

  Recalling Elder Su’s lectures on the subject, she knew that it was a poor idea to dematerialize newborn spirits because their self and identity was not yet stable. This was the opposite of the problem at the higher end where the greatest of spirit beasts couldn’t be dematerialized at all due to being too concrete in their self-identity.

  The little tortoise let out chirping cry, startling her from her thoughts and bringing a chagrined smile to her lips. She wasn’t going to get anything done just standing here. She would just have to follow old habits and take a more circuitous approach to moving around for a little while. The serpent coiled atop his shell let out a plaintive hiss, and the feeling of hunger projected in her thoughts intensified.

  “Be patient,” she chided, brushing her thumb along cool, black scales. “I need you to hold still now. I’m going to have to go out to get some things.” She paused and grimaced as she realized that he probably couldn’t understand her and that she still hadn’t given him a name. A few moments of contemplation solved at least one of those problems. She furrowed her brows and concentrating her thoughts on the tendril of vigorous, fiery qi tethering them together, doing her best to project her meaning: safety, silence, the promise of food, and of course, affection. Even if she hadn’t thought of a name yet, her spirit was still absolutely precious to her, an irreplaceable treasure.

  That thought made her blink, even as the spirit in her arms let out another chirping cry and withdrew into his shell, huddling inside. The little serpent let out a soft hiss and puff of soot before it followed suit.

  “That’s a good child,” Ling Qi sighed in relief, drawing on observations from her past to project a parental sort of tone. “Just hold on for a bit, okay?” She tried to give a feeling of confidence and assurance.

  Ling Qi felt like she was onto something for a name, but she didn’t want to make a hasty choice. A light leap took her to the top of the wall around her home’s garden, and a second brought her to a narrow alley where she could disappear without being noticed.

  Her first stop was the archive where she acquired a few bestiaries to search through. The second stop was a nice, isolated stream she had found in her quest to find a decent swimming and fishing spot for Meizhen. She still had the fishing gear she had prepared for the event it in her ring.

  Grade one fish weren’t much smarter than normal ones. It seemed her best bet for acquiring cores cheaply and easily. Soon enough, she settled on the bank of the stream with a fishing rod in one hand and a book in the other.

  Her spirit poked his head out of his shell when she stopped moving, and although he eyed the water warily, he soon trundled off of her lap to explore the nearby grass and underbrush. She kept an eye on him, but it seemed safe enough. This wasn’t a dangerous part of the mountain.

  Her efforts to discover exactly what he was were both successful and not. She had thought she had seen something about snake-turtles before, and the bestiary she had borrowed quickly jogged her memory. She had a feeling that she had dismissed the idea subconsciously; after all, it seemed unreal that she had managed to acquire one of the four ‘legendary’ beasts. Dragons and phoenixes were associated with the Imperial house, and the great white tigers of the east had their own fame. She suspected the bond with tiger spirits was one reason why Han Jian’s family had the status it did.

  The “xuanwu,” or serpent tortoises, were not referred to nearly as often in tales, mostly because she lived in the far south of the Empire. They were apparently native to the far north. Xuan Shi’s family might be associated with them given his family name and the fact that the bestiary noted that “Savage Seas” was the province where they were most common. As a constantly raining, storm-wracked archipelago of volcanic islands comprised mostly of sheer, wave-worn cliffs, the province didn’t sound very hospitable to her.

  This was also where the bestiary grew less useful. Xuanwu were supposed to be creatures of earth and water with a few listed subspecies of mountain and heaven instead. There was nothing on fiery subtypes in the books she had taken from the archive.

  Ling Qi pondered that even as she went through the rest of the books, pausing to clean the occasional catch and offer their cores to her unnamed spirit whenever he came trundling back to demand attention and pats. He gobbled up the cores and sticks of wood greedily, sometimes with a bit of squabbling between his two heads. By the time the sun was reaching its zenith, he had crawled into the embers of the campfire she had built to roast the rest of the fish she caught and fallen asleep.

  The research hadn’t been fruitless, she supposed, even if much of the information she had gotten was useless for her particular variant of xuanwu. Still, she knew, for example, that although their heads might bicker and behave in separate ways, they weren’t really separate entities, just two sides of the same mind. She could probably use some of the notes on their care too.

  Ling Qi stretched her arms over her head and arched her back, working out the stiffness of several hours spent sitting still. She would have to move on soon. She had quite a few other things to do today after all. She just had to figure out what she was going to do with her spirit before she could keep him dematerialized.

  She heard a creak then and the rustling of leaves. A knife was in her hand in an instant as she jerked her head around to look at the treeline behind her. She blinked in surprise when Gu Xiulan landed lightly on the ground a half dozen meters downstream, giving her a peevish look. The hot-tempered girl had changed her look with her hair no longer in a single braid, but instead, a number of more elaborate smaller ones held in place with bright red clasps and pins. Her spirit had also grown, reaching Mid-Yellow.

  “What in the world are you doing out here?” her friend asked irritably as she strode up, hands on her hips. “You left me waiting,” she added with a sniff and a toss of her hair. “You are lucky I bothered to look for you.”


  Ling Qi grimaced sheepishly. She had agreed to meet Xiulan over lunch, hadn’t she? She hadn’t thought she was that late. “I’m sorry. I lost track of the time,” she said apologetically. “How did you find me though?” she asked. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going.

  Gu Xiulan huffed and dropped herself elegantly down next to Ling Qi, hands resting in the grass. Ling Qi caught sight of the other girl’s bare calves for an instant before Xiulan folded her legs to sit more properly. Ling Qi tried to feel interest or attraction at the sight but there was nothing.

  “I am more than capable of tracking down a friend I know well by their qi,” Xiulan said haughtily. “What are you doing out here?” she repeated her question, wrinkling her nose as she studied Ling Qi’s face and glanced down at the small pile of fishbones sitting by the campfire.

  Ling Qi could feel the other girl’s disapproval, and she glanced away, flushing, all too aware of the grease and soot spotting her lips and chin from her casual meal. She had meant to clean up before leaving. Ling Qi coughed into one hand awkwardly and dipped her other into the water, using the cool stream water to wipe her chin clean.

  “I needed some small grade one cores, and it seemed wasteful to leave the rest,” she replied. “Since I needed to do some reading at the same time……” Ling Qi gestured to the books sitting in the grass beside her.

  Gu Xiulan leaned forward to glance across the titles and raised an eyebrow, a smirk starting to grow on her lips. “Oh? Looking into spirit beasts? I-” Her increasingly smug expression froze as she narrowed her eyes, looking Ling Qi over more closely. “No, you already found one, didn’t you?”


  Ling Qi cocked her head to the side curiously. “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

  “Unless you have mastered a new fire art in the last day or so,” Xiulan said dryly. “Now that I think about it, I suppose it is rather obvious given the source of qi that appeared in your yard a month back. An egg – or did you discover some old ritual while hiding in the bookshelves at night?”


  “The first one,” Ling Qi said happily. She reached into the embers of the campfire where her xuanwu was napping and scooped him up, unmindful of the still hot embers. He awoke at her touch, blinking up at her as his stubby little legs pawed at the air. The serpent part remained asleep and coiled on his back. “See? He just hatched. Isn’t he adorable?” She couldn’t help but gush a little as she presented her spirit to her friend, cradling him in her arms.

  Gu Xiulan peered down at him with furrowed brows, expression going from surprise to an almost ugly expression of envy before smoothing over into resigned irritation. “.…… Hmph. I am never going to surpass you in anything of meaning, am I?”


  Ling Qi blinked at the bitterness in her friend’s tone.

  “Really. A xuanwu. Of course you would manage to find something like that.” The bitterness was gone by the time Gu Xiulan was finished speaking.

  Ling Qi shrugged, not really sure what to say as she settled him on her lap. “I think I’m going to call him Zhengui,” she said instead. The name’s characters would be read as “Precious” – an adorable name for an adorable spirit – but amusingly, the sounds that comprised the name could also be pronounced as “True Tortoise,” a call back to when she met his “father,” or “Really Expensive,” which she hoped wasn’t prophetic. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to take care of him.” She glanced down in surprise as the little tortoise let out a chirp and clambered down off of her lap, his snake “tail” hissing irritably as the jostling woke it up.

  Zhengui made another curious sound as he crossed the distance between Ling Qi and Gu Xiulan, letting out a plaintive squeak as he butted his tiny head against the other girl’s leg. “I suppose he is rather cute,” Gu Xiulan said ruefully. “That name may be a tad ill-fitting as he grows though,” she added as she reached down, running her fingers along his knobby shell. Ling Qi felt a flash of something like jealousy as he chirped happily and tried to climb into Xiulan’s lap. “Oh? Are you cold, little one? I suppose Ling Qi isn’t the warmest girl……” Some of her humor seemed to return as Zhengui nuzzled her hand.

  “I can be plenty warm,” Ling Qi grumbled, giving her xuanwu a betrayed look as he snuggled into Xiulan’s lap and his serpent head swayed, following the sparks dancing on Xiulan’s fingers.

  “Hardly, Ling Qi,” Gu Xiulan sniffed. She glanced to the side as if distracted by something. “Well, in any case, I suppose it is not as impressive now, but I did want to show you something,” she said after a moment’s quiet thought. “Ling Qi, meet Linhuo.” The air between them distorted, and actinic sparks erupted from the suddenly heated air. A marble-sized sphere of blue-white fire appeared and quickly swelled, taking on a vague humanoid shape some fifteen centimetres high. Snapping, sparking strands of electricity spread from its back into wings as it crackled like a campfire, somehow managing to convey a curiosity and cheerfulness with the sound.

  Ling Qi studied the spirit with surprise as it fluttered closer, hovering a few inches from her face. Looking closer, she thought she could see the vague contours of eyes in the wisp of flame that made up its face. No, the spirit’s qi had a feminine tinge to it.

  “Hello,” Ling Qi said curiously, raising a hand unconsciously, the winged flame landed in her upraised palm like a butterfly, tickling her palm. Linhuo was rather pretty given the colorful embers that made her form. “What is she, Gu Xiulan?”


  “A Heaven Spark Fairy,” Gu Xiulan replied with a tinge of pride. “My Elder Sister was able to get me a pass to leave the Sect grounds for a day. We went north where a forest fire had been sparked. It was beautiful. Fairies like her are born when lightning sparks great fires, although they rarely outlive the blaze they are born in. Elder Sister Yanmei said that Linhuo would have great potential for future growth.”


  “She’s cute,” Ling Qi mused as the fairy wandered across her palm before buzzing back into the air to hover over Zhengui, flitting from side to side curiously, only to jerk back as the tortoise tried to take a nibble at her. “Hey, no biting,” Ling Qi chided, reaching over to take her own spirit back, doing her best to convey disapproval even as she tucked him back into her own lap and ignored the little spirit’s plaintive squeak.

  “She is quite a pretty little flame, is she not?” Gu Xiulan said with a laugh, seemingly mollified for the moment as her own spirit alit on her shoulder and let out an unhappy crackle. Linhuo gave off the impression of glaring at Zhengui. “In any case, shall we get going? I do believe you still owe me a meal.”


  “Sure thing. Sorry for making you look for me, Gu Xiulan,” Ling Qi replied as she pushed herself to her feet. At least she could still talk to Xiulan normally. The other girl was obviously bothered by her good fortune, but it didn’t get in the way of their relationship. She was glad for that; she wasn’t sure what she would do otherwise.

  It was nice to relax a bit and simply chat about idle things with the other girl over a meal, but soon enough, they parted ways with a promise to meet the next day. Ling Qi began to get back into her routine of cultivation, now with the addition of Zhengui either at her heels or in her arms. She continued to train with Meizhen as well, despite the awkward distance between them and her friend’s renewed aloofness.

  It made her sad, but there wasn’t really anything she could do about it. Meditating at the vent remained peaceful – more silent really – given that Su Ling had secluded herself for her breakthrough attempt and Li Suyin was keeping odd hours. As a result, Ling Qi was often alone at the vent, but it didn’t worry her as it would have mere months ago. She was not an easy target anymore.

  Threads 78-Normalcy 6

  Ling Qi’s thoughts whirled, and she began to open her mouth to respond. She felt a sharp pain then, like someone grinding their heel into the top of her foot. She shot Meizhen a sharp look, but the girl merely sipped her tea serenely, eyes down. Ling Qi held back a grimace and sipped from her cup as well. It gave her a moment to organize her thoughts.

  “You were always going to diverge at least a little from your mother’s path. We’ve spoken of that, haven’t we?” Ling Qi ventured.

  “A divergent insight is different from nothing at all,” Cai Renxiang noted. She took a sip herself, and Ling Qi noticed her wrinkle her nose in disatisfaction. Hopefully, it was just the tea.

  “That is true enough,” Meizhen agreed, glancing up. “However, I believe it is not as problematic as you think. I cultivated several of my family’s earth arts before I found one which truly suited me. In the longer term, it is important for the health of a clan for its members to follow a reasonably wide array of Ways. The Cai are young yet.”


  Cai Renxiang let out a sound of consideration but still seemed dissatisfied. That unreasonable, illogical response…… It actually made Ling Qi feel better somehow.

  “And I don’t think it’s really so bad,” Ling Qi added, drawing a sharp look from her liege. “The Duchess Cai is incomparable, of course, but…… I did give my oath to follow you. We had a big, dramatic heart-to-heart and everything, if you remember,” she said cheekily.

  “Still too shameless, Ling Qi,” Meizhen grumbled. She looked back to Cai Renxiang, her expression softening. “Cai Renxiang, our situations do not compare. However, I attempted to step into the role of my aunt and even…… even my mother. This failed. It is only in stepping out of their shadows that I have begun to grow properly again.”


  “I’ve been feeling my Way along more by luck than education,” Ling Qi offered gingerly, feeling the ache still resonating in her core. “But I can’t help but feel like Meizhen’s right. One person alone can’t build a clan, no matter how powerful and talented they are.” Ling Qi shifted in her seat with a frown as she felt a knot of tension that she hadn’t noticed fade away.

  “The Grandmother Serpent and the Fisher founded the Bai clan, but it was the Eight Daughters who created its foundation,” Bai Meizhen agreed.

  Cai Renxiang looked at them both and closed her eyes. The fabric of her gown roiled in discontent, but a sharp flare of her qi put it to rest. “It is true that my view might yet be too narrow. My apologies. It is unlike me to be so melancholy.”


  “I am informed that it is appropriate for young ladies to spend their tea time making complaints,” Meizhen said airily. “Think nothing of it.”


  Cai Renxiang shook her head, swirling the contents of her cup thoughtfully. “Then allow me to make another one. I miss Gan Guangli,” she sighed, setting the cup down with a clink.

  Ling Qi winced. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not as devoted in action, but—”


  Her liege waved a hand in dismissal. “I mean no slight toward your service. You are reliable in your way, and I knew your nature when I made my offer. Although it may sometimes be impolitic, your brusqueness has its uses.”


  Ling Qi frowned, trying to work out if she had been complimented or not.

  “You miss his counsel then?” Meizhen asked to clarify, peering over the rim of her teacup.

  Cai Renxiang nodded slightly, the corner of her mouth quirking down in a faint frown. “Indeed. Ling Qi is not one to hold deeper discussions on matters philosophical. You yourself do not hold much interest in the subject either.”


  Ling Qi took a deeper sip from her cup. She was not going to object to that; it was entirely correct. Meizhen dipped her head in acknowledgment as well.

  “It won’t be long until he’s back with us, I’m sure. Have you heard about what happened in the Outer Sect while the attack was happening?” Ling Qi asked.

  Cai Renxiang raised an eyebrow. “I had heard there was fighting, but I have not had time to review matters more closely.”


  Ling Qi grinned. “Do I have a story for you then.” She had pulled the events out of Su Ling at her own tea time, and if it would lighten the mood, she would be happy to share.

  After all, they would all soon be hard at work.

  ***

  In the days that followed, Ling Qi spent her time in cultivation and thought. She and Zhengui both required rest, and he needed time to stabilize his sudden breakthrough. While she rested, Ling Qi focused on cultivating the most restful art that she had.

  Argent Genesis, the Sect’s cultivation art, was harmonious and serene in its exercises. Over the next week, while her meridians recovered from their scorching, she mastered the remaining exercises of the art. The argent qi that had settled in her dantian grew more robust and flexible, and with every breath she spent cultivating, she felt a little less qi lost to inefficiency and a little more qi flowing into her burgeoning domain. It would never be her primary cultivation art, but she did not regret mastering it. Through settling and congealing argent qi throughout her channels and dantian, she had increased her cultivation efficiency and strengthened and refined the bond with her spirits.

  Recovered from her wounds, save for a small white scar across her collarbone, Ling Qi turned her attention to her base cultivation. Here, she spent time with Hanyi. The young ice spirit was glad to return to the high peaks and snow, and Ling Qi refined her physical cultivation by chasing and seeking Hanyi through the snowy shadows and high cliffs without the use of arts, a reminder of the time they had first met.

  Ling Qi spent less time cultivating her spiritual cultivation, or rather, just cultivating her spirit. When she played music with her mother in the garden as the sun set, she cultivated. When she sat with Zhengui on his hill and meditated together with her little brother, she cultivated. When she slipped through the shadows to find Hanyi in whatever crevice she had snuck through, she cultivated.

  It was only deep in the night when the moon was high in the sky that she perched on a high cliff and consolidated that cultivation, steadily expanding her dantian. Soon, she reached the foundation stage of bronze, qi solidifying in her bones and muscles to strengthen them further for the rigors of greater cultivation.

  It struck her again how great the gulf between realms was. Even without arts, her flesh was stronger than steel or stone. She could crumble rock by merely clenching her fist and with some effort, even warp or break mundane steel. She could bound across impassable cliffs as light as a feather and learn at a ferocious rate. The Sect had bumped up their training plans for Inner disciples, and even now, she was learning the most common dialect of the Cloud tribes. It had been less than a week, and already she could understand what her teachers said, more often than not.

  Yet in her mind’s eye, she saw a mountain break, and a perfect city clashing with an endless lake of black. She was still so very small, and she had so many people to think of besides herself now. Her own words to Cai Renxiang echoed back to her. She couldn’t be satisfied just strengthening herself.

  And so as one week turned to the next, Ling Qi had a quiet word with her family and friends. Xiulan was still curiously absent, squirreled away with her sister on some training ground, but she managed to notify everyone else. With everyone reassured, Ling Qi flitted away in the depth of the night, off to the silent stones that stood in the mountain vale, both gravemarkers for a people long dead and anchor for a nightmare. It was also the site of an important lesson and a place where the veil between the material and spirit realm were thin. The chaotic energies of the moon were strong here, soaked into the very stones.

  Ling Qi found her favorite stone and sat down to cultivate the Songseeker’s Ceremony.

  She just hoped she could talk Sixiang around.

  ***

  Ling Qi took a seat on a pale grey shore. She breathed in the scent of the colour sea, and it was no one thing. It was the scent of early morning mist in spring, the acrid scent of a painter’s tools, ink and incense, and fresh churned forest loam trod on by a hundred dancing feet. Beside her sat a tall, thin figure, forlorn in expression, their waving rainbow hued hair lying flat and lank against their scalp.

  “Sixiang,” Ling Qi greeted, smoothing her gown. It was strange. Her focus was here, but she could still feel her body and the energies churning in her meridians as she took in the shifting tides of the moon and made them hers.

  “Ling Qi,” her muse greeted, not looking over at her. The spirit’s voice was hoarse, and their knees were drawn up to their chest. “Didn’t take you as long as I’d thought.”


  Ling Qi laughed. “I’m pretty tough. It takes a lot to keep me down.”


  “I know,” Sixiang said. They fell silent then.

  Ling Qi let the silence stretch. Words danced through her mind. She wanted to plead, to cajole, to deny. She did not want Sixiang to go. She thought to appeal to their connection, to the sadness she and her other spirits would feel, but the words died on her lips. That wasn’t really fair. It did not address Sixiang’s trouble at all. Yet she couldn’t not say it at all.

  “We would miss you a lot,” she said quietly. “I promised them, you know? I’ll work hard with you, too.”


  “You’ll work yourself to death twice over before you take a break,” Sixiang answered with a weak chuckle. “What if I don’t want that?”


  Ling Qi grimaced, the ache in her dantian sharpening, sending a spike of pain up her spine. “I can’t stop, Sixiang. I won’t stop. The world is still so big, and I’m still so very small,” she pleaded.

  “It will never stop. The bigger you get, the more of the world you’ll see. It will never get any smaller,” Sixiang replied.

  “Even so,” Ling Qi said, unwavering. “I would like it if you stayed by my side. Even if things are hard now, can you really say there is nothing more you want to see of the waking world?”


  Sixiang smiled wanly. “Before I spent all of this time with you, none of this would have bothered me. What is the end of a few dreams? A song of war is as good as a song of peace, if the singer is skilled.”


  “Sixiang……” Ling Qi said, trailing off.

  Sixiang blew an errant strand of lank hair out of their eyes and finally turned their head to look at Ling Qi. “Will you take a stroll with me, Ling Qi? I think I’ve spent too much time awake. You don’t sleep near enough.”


  Ling Qi looked down at the muse’s extended hand. She glanced out to the rippling sea as it drew back from the shore and took their hand in her own. “Of course. I’ll find the time if I need to.”


  Sixiang smiled as they grasped her hand, a flicker of humor entering their eyes again. “I’m glad.”


  And then the wave crashed down upon the shore, and they were both no more.

  ***

  Ling Qi felt her limbs spin back into existence and found herself on a flat and polished wooden floor. All around her, dancers spun and whirled in the flickering shadow of bobbing ghost lights. Merriment and cheer filled the air. She herself now wore a gown of old and strange cut, a billowing cloud of lace and silk almost fit to drown in.

  She still grasped Sixiang’s hand, who now stood across from her wearing antiquated gentleman’s robes. Their face had taken on a more masculine cast, and their other arm was around her waist. They had joined the dance midstep, and only her quick reflexes allowed her to avoid trampling on the spirit’s toes. Some part of her wanted to shove them away, but it was just Sixiang. Masculine shape or no, they were the same person.

  “Good recovery,” Sixiang chuckled as they spun through the steps.

  Ling Qi’s gaze flicked across the room and down at their feet, swiftly analyzing the steps. “I know I don’t don’t do it in public, but you, of all people, should know how much I’ve practiced.” Dancing was not so different from any other kind of athletics. Even the simple stretching exercises of her mother’s cultivation art had a certain dance-like quality. It was all a matter of practiced, memorized motion.

  Above, or perhaps below them, Ling Qi saw the dance floor mirrored, and a second Ling Qi danced with a second Sixiang. Which was the reflection, she wondered? For a moment, she felt as if she was looking through two sets of eyes, both staring at one another from the other side of the mirror.

  “I suppose so,” Sixiang mused as their dance carried them around other pairs. The other dancers were mostly not human. What could be taken for masks at a glance resolved into bestial features when looked at directly, and the dancers’ features changed from one moment to the next. “You wouldn’t know just by looking though,” Sixiang said with a smile, as if laughing at some private joke.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Ling Qi said as they danced. “Is there really nothing else for you?”