Threads 193-Liminal 2

Ling Qi looked out over crumbling foundations and a single standing cherry tree. Here was the place where the three moons, or their avatars at least, had come to her nearly a year ago now to take her forth on a quest to examine her own past.

It was here that she would start her own explorations of the Dream.

“Done moping around?” Sixiang asked, looking up from where they crouched over the three rings of bronze and jade which made up the ancient scrying device and gate she had pulled from the dead Hui’s storage ring. The rings were placed carefully among the browning grass to line up with the faint lines of energy in the area.

“I wasn’t moping,” Ling Qi retorted. “We needed to wait for the rings to charge. How’s your manifestation holding up?”

“Easy peasy,” Sixiang said with a smirk, puffing out their slim chest. Sixiang had chosen to look more masculine today, keeping their hair shorter and their features sharper. “Told you that thing would be useful.”

Ling Qi glanced toward the golden idol which they had placed in the center point between the rings. It did seem to make the rings power up faster, as well as ease the effort it took for Sixiang to manifest.

“Let’s see what we can do with this.”

“Onward to adventure,” Sixiang drawled, tracing their finger around the rim of the closest ring. It spat luminous sparks, and the air inside wavered.

“So, what are we doing today that’s different from what we’ve done before?”

“Before, when I taught you how to dance, I was teaching you how to skim along the edges,” Sixiang lectured, leaning an elbow on her shoulder. “You were good at that since you already knew the trick of moving without moving.”

Ling Qi nodded, giving the spirit a gentle nudge to push them off her. Her very first movement art, the Sable Crescent Step, had been a lengthy lesson on the nature of darkness. Darkness was a state. Fade into it, and it was easy to simply appear wherever there was a lack of light. Of course, she was still limited by her human mind. She could only move to places that she could perceive, and she couldn’t disperse herself completely for very long. Doing so felt a bit like trying to hold her breath for too long as a mortal.

“Yes, but I’ve also done more. You’ve taken me into Dream before.”

Sixiang was already shaking their head. “Nah. I’ve let you experience my memories, but that’s not the same. Today, I’m gonna show you how to intentionally enter into Dream.”

Ling Qi averted her eyes at the reminder of the desperate jump she had pulled herself and her fellow disciples into during their escape from underground, the one that had almost broken her open like a shattered vessel. “How do we get started on that?”

“It’ll be easier because of our setup here, but if you’re gonna physically enter, the important thing is getting into the right state of mind,” Sixiang instructed. Ling Qi held back a snort as a small pair of spectacles materialized on their nose. “You have to sleep while waking.”

Ling Qi stared at Sixiang. Sixiang stared back.

Ling Qi raised an eyebrow. “Is that it?”

“Can you explain how to breathe?” Sixiang retorted.

“No,” Ling Qi agreed grudgingly. “Then what good is this?”

“It’s not like I’m totally useless,” Sixiang drawled. “For you solid folks, it’s about state of mind. Even when you’re calm, your mind is still going on about a bunch of stuff in the background. You’re not ever really not thinking about something.”

“Are you about to tell me I need to clear my mind?” Ling Qi asked sarcastically.

“That’s the opposite of what you need to do. If anything, you need to fill your mind. Dream is ideas,inspiration, and thoughts. It’s everything that goes on under the hood. That’s why dreams are usually just weird mishmashes of thoughts and experiences from the waking world. So no, don’t clear your mind. Lose your restraint entirely. Let yourself dream. I’ll be careful not to let you float away.”

Ling Qi frowned as she stepped into the closest ring, feeling the hum of qi on her skin. Inside the ring looking out, the view of the grounds of the Outer Sect was hazy. It was like looking outside on a hot summer day. Her eyes drifted over the town at the foot of the Outer Sect mountain where her family was to the faint curl of smoke that marked Zhengui’s hill. Her eyes then wandered up to the cloudy sky where the immense coils of the Sect Head’s dragon companion still loomed in the sky. She craned her neck, spying the endless mountain peaks to the south.

If there was one thing that she had come to learn recently, it was that she was ignorant of so much still.

… And she wasn’t satisfied with staying so anymore.

Ling Qi closed her eyes. She let her mind wander, a hundred, a thousand thoughts boiling over one another, unrestrained by any attempt at focus. The rest of the world faded away as she let herself grow lost in the cauldron of her own mind. The last thing she heard as she reached a hand out and pressed it against something like the skin of a soap bubble was a chuckle from her muse.

“Knew you’d get it, Ling Qi.”

She felt her stomach lurch, and even the touch of ground vanished under her feet. Ling Qi felt a rising alarm as a sense of lightheadedness overtook her, and she felt her fingers begin to dissolve.

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Arms wrapped around her waist, and her weight snapped back. Ling Qi took in a sharp breath through lungs that no longer felt half-liquid.

“Told you I’d stop you floating away,” Sixiang said, voice tickling her ear.

Ling Qi shot them a dirty look over her shoulder as she opened her eyes and peered at their surroundings.

They now stood in a bamboo grove before a humble shrine. The sound of a burbling spring reached her ears, and she turned to see a clear spring that had taken the place of the overgrown muddy pool which had been there in reality.