Threads 24 Winter’s Muse 2

Ling Qi swiftly reached the end of the hall, flitting from shadow to shadow as she raced for the door that lay at its end. The handle turned easily under her hand, and the door flew open, leaving her face to face with a confused looking Hanyi.

“Ling Qi? What’s wrong?” the little spirit asked, her face screwed up in concern. “Papa said that Mama needed to talk to him. Mama never talks to Papa!” she babbled, her words coming out in a rush. “And – and – the house is shaking, and Mama is angry and hurting. It’s like the whole past month but way worse and…”

Ling Qi crouched and rested her hands on Hanyi’s shoulders. She tried her best to keep her voice calm, but she couldn’t help the note of urgency that crept into her voice. “Hanyi, your mom is just… having some problems right now. She’s not angry at you or me. I promise,” Ling Qi tried to reassure her.

“But, why then…?” Hanyi asked, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Why has she been so…?”

Ling Qi winced as the room shook violently and an icy wind ripped through the doorway, sending their hair and gowns fluttering. “She’s just very stressed. Your Mama needs a break. That’s why she asked me to take you for awhile,” Ling Qi replied, knowing she needed to hurry. “Zhengui will be waking up soon, I’m sure. Won’t it be fun to visit him?”

Hanyi eyed her suspiciously and sniffed, still keeping her tears back. “I wanna, but Mama…”

GO, HANYI.

Ling Qi flinched as the entire room shuddered under the force of Zeqing’s voice reverberating through the house and the sharp crack that followed the pronouncement. Hanyi jumped as well, her eyes wide with alarm.

“You’re sure she’s not mad?” Hanyi asked in a trembling voice.

“Not at us,” Ling Qi assured her, holding out a hand as she stood up. “Come on. Let’s go, Hanyi.”

“Okay,” the young spirit mumbled, taking her hand. “Are Mama and Papa fighting? Did I mess up?”

That was one way to put it, Ling Qi thought, given the conflict in Zeqing’s nature that she had seen. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Hanyi,” she said as they reached the end of the hall, the wind blowing against them growing stronger by the moment. “Do you know how to get to the door?” she asked as they reached the end of the hall, worry creeping into her thoughts as Sixiang offered the mental equivalent of an apologetic shrug. There was nothing for their wind to trace the layout of.

Hanyi peered out into the empty darkness. “Kinda. I can’t control the house like Mama, but… the door is really far away right now.” She still sounded like she was holding back tears.

Ling Qi restrained a grimace. She had to get moving as quickly as she could, but she also couldn’t afford to panic Hanyi.

“It looks like I’ll need your help then,” Ling Qi said with false cheer, glancing at the empty dark around them. She looked down at Hanyi, unsure how best to handle this. After a moment’s hesitation, she crouched, bringing herself down to the young spirit’s level. “Hey, since I’ll get lost, why don’t you let Big Sister give you a ride? That way we won’t lose each other by accident.”

She didn’t know what to expect, but driving winds and whited out vistas seemed likely. A connection as tenuous as held hands was unreliable.

Hanyi gave her a confused and suspicious look. “You’re acting really weird, Big Sister. So is everyone else. What’s going on?”

Ling Qi shivered as she felt, deep in her bones, the faint beat of a melody building in the darkness around them. For a moment, her thoughts spun in circles as she tried to come up with another excuse, but would that really help?

“Hanyi…” she began, trying to find the words. “Your Mama needs to be alone for a while. You’ve seen how she’s been acting, right?”

Hanyi frowned, scuffing her bare foot against the ground. “Yeah, but being lonely hurts. How will hurting Mama more help?”

“Because she’s afraid that she’ll hurt us by accident,” Ling Qi replied, finally dispensing with excuses. “Hanyi, being lonely hurts, but don’t you think it would hurt her more if one of us got hurt?”

Hanyi’s lips trembled. “I don’t understand. Why would Mama be afraid of that? She loves me. She loves you. She wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Sometimes, you can hurt people you love without meaning to,” Ling Qi said quietly. “Hanyi, please, your mama wants me to take care of you while she’s away. I don’t want you to get hurt either.”

For a moment, she thought Hanyi was going to argue further, but the young girl hung her head, silver bangs shadowing her eyes. “‘Kay,” she sniffled. “I know Mama wants me to go. I felt it, but…”

“I understand,” Ling Qi said, patting Hanyi’s shoulder. “We need to get going now though.”

Hanyi gave a shallow nod, and finally, she did as she asked. Soon, Hanyi was perched on her back, legs tucked under her arms and arms around Ling Qi’s neck. Taking a deep breath, Ling Qi stood, and the moment she did, she nearly staggered. Hanyi’s weight, which had been like a feather a moment ago, seemed to redouble again and again until it felt as if Ling Qi had a boulder tied to her back.

<It’s gonna get worse,> Sixiang warned. <The weight… It’s connected to this place.>

“Big Sister?” Hanyi asked.

“I’m fine, Hanyi,” Ling Qi replied. “Which way do we go?”

With another sniffle of held back tears, Hanyi began to direct her. With Hanyi on her back, she couldn’t flicker from place to place, not that she thought such techniques would avail her in the not-space that Zeqing’s temple had become. Even so, she moved as quickly as her legs and the weight she bore would allow. Only Hanyi’s direction allowed her to avoid crashing headlong into barriers she could neither see nor sense. No matter how hard she concentrated, there was no direction in this place, save for up and down, and even that twisted oddly at times, leaving Ling Qi to quickly find her balance as her floor became a wall or a ceiling from time to time.

Then the wind began to blow.

She felt Sixiang shiver in her mind, tendrils of awareness withdrawing back into her meridians with a snap. She felt the same cold in her extremities as the blackness began to grow gray and then white, and she felt the first pelting daggers of ice. With a single breath, she activated the Hundred Ring Armament, cloaking herself and Hanyi alike in its viridian glow. It proved prescient as the whiteness howled and a gust of wind struck her like a blow from a giant.

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Though her technique cushioned the blow, she still spun dizzily as the force of the wind flung her through the air. Hanyi cried out something in her ear, clinging tightly to her neck, and Ling Qi kept her grip on the spirit even as she managed to land on her feet in the knee-deep snow. That itself was a surprise. Ling Qi had grown used to being able to walk lightly across snow and ice, but now, she sunk into the cold, wet morass like a stone. The cloak of her gown flared, and she began to rise, only for the wind to howl, slamming her back to the “ground” with a painful crack. She bent her knees to absorb the impact, but it sent a tingle of pain through her joints.

“Everything alright, Hanyi?” she asked through gritted teeth as she straightened up.

“I’m okay,” Hanyi said, her voice trembling. “But, Big Sister, the door is moving.”

Ling Qi restrained the urge to curse. “It’ll be fine, Hanyi. Just keep me going in the right direction.”