Threads 21-Duels 1

Seven days and seven nights.

That was the length of time that Ling Qi spent atop White Cloud Mountain in the Outer Sect, cultivating with Zeqing. She rested in the muse’s home, played with her daughter, and drank sweet chilled wine. She immersed herself in darkness and music. She might have resolved to pay the other parts of her nature more mind, but right now, with the medicines she had taken, it was time to master the element at the core of her combat ability.

Cultivating on a mountaintop above the clouds, the lunar qi she drank in each night was clearer and purer than ever, and she felt another layer settle into place around her dantian, another phase complete. The seventh phase was not wholly complete; she would need to seek out an understanding with her lunar patrons to finish it, but its improvement was enough for now, especially since she could now gather up to a green stone’s worth of stellar energy for use in cultivation. In playing with Hanyi, she improved her body, and in practicing with Zeqing, she came to master her songs.

The eighth and final measure of her Forgotten Vale Melody consolidated the improvements she had learned in previous measures with the mist called darker than ever, the phantasms stronger, and the drain of her elegy all the more potent. She even learned how to bring her capstone technique, Traveler’s End, to a finale. If she wished it, she could end her Melody by triggering Traveler’s End, making all those lost in her mist suffer an echo of the traveler’s death in that far away vale, a massive spiritual attack that could even leave them paralyzed.

But it was Frozen Soul Serenade where Ling Qi gained the greatest insights. In the mountains, under the tutelage of the creator of the art and her teacher, Zeqing, she quickly mastered what remained of the art. The Hoarfrost Caress technique evolved into the Hoarfrost Refrain, a cold that lingered and echoed, spreading through the target’s blood and meridians like a frigid poison seeking the heart of the warmth. The chill would cling long after the technique itself ended until dispelled or the target was lulled into the final sleep. She also learned to infuse her Aria with an echo of true winter, stilling the air around herself with freezing chill, granting her attacks greater penetration and stealing the energy from attacks made against her.

The only thing that remained to master was the finale, the Call to Ending. It would be her first real finisher, a technique to bring about the absolute cold that lay at the end of all things and rip all the warmth from an enemy at once as she laid her hands upon them.

She still had a little trouble getting into the mindset for it.

On the eighth morning, Ling Qi opened her eyes and looked out over the flat mountain top. She was seated beneath the odd fruit tree that stood in Zeqing’s yard, and she was surrounded by flowers of ice.

“Big Sister is such a show off.” Her gaze was drawn to her right as Hanyi spoke. The spirit had changed since that day last year when she had met the little brat in the middle of a blizzard. The changes had begun recently and only accelerated with each passing day, but Hanyi was older in appearance now.

She had the same corpse-like pallor and wore the same threadbare child’s dress, but she resembled a young girl of ten or eleven now. Her dark hair was still worn in a child’s pig-tails, but it was longer now as well. Yet that stance, with her hands on her hips and her cheeks puffed out in frustration, was still purely Hanyi.

“Is it really showing off if I can still do more?” Ling Qi teased back with a smile, gesturing to the field of flowers. “I’m only meditating after all.”

The younger-looking girl glowered at her. “Big Sister is getting too cocky.”

“And you’ve been slacking,” Ling Qi replied pointedly. “Just like someone else.”

“Oh, don’t you start! How am I to cultivate in a place like this?” Sixiang grumbled. “What kind of atmosphere is this for a poet?”

“Our house is great and pretty!” Hanyi retorted. “You’re just a dummy!”

Ling Qi sighed. Sixiang and Hanyi got on like a house on fire, not the least because Hanyi really didn’t like being teased and Sixiang was Sixiang.

The wind was stirring as Sixiang formed a retort, but it suddenly fell still and silent as a cold shadow fell over them. Ling Qi looked up to find her teacher looking down at her with blank white eyes. “No squabbling in the yard, children,” the elder spirit said tonelessly. “You are finished, Ling Qi?”

Ling Qi smoothly stood as Hanyi scuffed her foot in the snow and bowed low to her teacher. “I have mastered both arts, teacher,” she replied. “Thank you very much for your instruction.”

She felt the brush of translucent fingers of ice against her cheek and a faint cold pressure on her meridians. “You have, haven’t you?” Zeqing said, a touch of fondness and something else hard to identify in her voice. “What a gifted student.”

Ling Qi felt herself flush with pride even as she glanced over to see Hanyi looking down, her bangs shadowing her eyes. “Teacher is too kind. I am not the only one who has been working hard though.”

“… Indeed not,” Zeqing said, an uneasy edge to her voice. Ling Qi knew without looking that Zeqing was not looking at Hanyi. She had noticed over the last week that the spirit had seemed to almost be avoiding her daughter. It worried her. “You as well, Hanyi,” she said nonetheless.

Even that brightened the younger spirit up, and for a moment, it looked as if Hanyi was going to rush forward to hug her mother, but Ling Qi saw her hesitate.

“Can I consider this month’s lessons complete, teacher?” Ling Qi asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“Yes,” Zeqing replied after a moment, and with the appropriate time lapsed, Ling Qi raised her head to meet the spirit’s eyes. “Your lessons are, in fact, wholly complete for the moment.”

Ling Qi restrained a frown. “What do you mean, teacher?”

Zeqing met her gaze steadily, and her face was without expression. “I have taught you all that I can as you are. To go further… there would be tribulation. You asked that I warn you, did you not?”

Ling Qi’s eyes widened, and she nodded hastily. Zeqing did not need to spell it out. A tribulation from the icy spirit would be a deadly thing.

“Hmph. Big Sister can do it,” Hanyi huffed, not quite looking at her.

Ling Qi gave the younger spirit a sidelong look. “Would I need to make any preparations, teacher?”

“You are as prepared as you can be. It is only your choice that remains,” Zeqing answered simply. “But… not this day. I tire, and you should spend time with your kin.”

Ling Qi nodded, not willing to gainsay her teacher. “Thank you again,” she said instead.

“Might I ask if you found any insights in your time here, Ling Qi?” Zeqing asked.

Could simple words express the insights she had found in her arts? Mastering music as she was, it was becoming ever more clear how limited and prone to distortion language could be. However, meeting Zeqing’s featureless eyes, she knew that the ice spirit would understand the meaning beneath her words.

“Though a path might be hard and lonely, it has worth if I can present something of beauty to those I care for at the end of it.” She spoke the lesson of the Forgotten Vale Melody first, feeling the words resonate with her spirit. It was the beginning of an ethos for action, the acknowledgement of the purpose toward which power was to be bent.

“I see,” Zeqing acknowledged without emotion. “A worthy lesson, but not the only one.”

Ling Qi nodded before silently closing her eyes. She had to wonder what Zeqing would think of her other insight. “There are endings and Endings. Only the very last one is final. Just as winter ends in spring, small endings are new beginnings.” It sounded trite when said aloud, but the meaning rang clear to Ling Qi. To her, it was the absolute conviction that failures and losses could not and would not end her Path.

When she opened her eyes though, she beheld her tutor’s face looking even more like a blank and lifeless mask than usual. The spirit stared at her with empty white eyes, and in that moment, Ling Qi, who stood atop a mountain peak above the clouds ankle deep in snow without discomfort, felt a chill.

“Acceptable,” her mentor said. Zeqing did not even pretend that the words came from her lips, which remained as still and unmoving as a corpse’s. “You should be on your way then. These days have tired me.”

Before Ling Qi could respond to those terse words, Zeqing dissolved into a flurry of ice and snow, and a howling wind carried her presence away, leaving Ling Qi alone with her muse and Hanyi.

<… And you wonder why I’m on edge up here,> Sixiang whispered.

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Ling Qi didn’t respond, turning her eyes to Hanyi, who stood there with her head down.

“I’m making Momma sick,” Hanyi said quietly. “Every time I get bigger or learn a new song, Momma gets sicker. You’re doing it too.”

Ling Qi grimaced, looking away from the ice child. “I know. But she doesn’t want to stop teaching us either.”

“I liked how things were before. I could always play, and Momma would always wait for me. It was like that forever,” Hanyi said, looking up at Ling Qi with sad eyes. “I liked learning Momma’s songs even more though,” she confessed.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Ling Qi replied. “Hanyi…” She wanted to say that things would get better, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to the spirit. She didn’t know what was going to happen.

Hanyi scuffed her bare foot in the snow, looking back down. “You should go, Big Sister. Momma will get better soon if we go.”

She could feel Sixiang’s own discomfort pressing against her thoughts and magnifying her own. “Hanyi, just… don’t do anything hasty, okay? Big Sister will figure something out,” she said with confidence she didn’t feel. “Besides, Zhengui will be awake soon. He’d be sad if you weren’t around to tease him.”