Threads 255-Capital 7

The revel was noisy and chaotic, but it seemed so different from the clouded gossamer memories of before. There was little elegance here. Even those who bore inhuman frames were somehow both more and less human as they stomped about, singing and carousing with the human shades.

“It’s the other part of me, too. You don’t let me indulge in it much.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

It was hard to focus here. There was simply so much going on. People pressed against each other, flush with alcohol and passion, and though Sixiang and she danced in a bubble of open space now, it still filled her with alarm. Ling Qi realized that it wasn’t the other festival goers deliberately giving them space. Instead, they were repelled from them, and Ling Qi knew it was her own doing, her will acting on the dream.

“You seemed perfectly happy for Su Ling. You react when I tease ya, and you look. You’re not like Renxiang; that’s a girl who skips steps entirely and doesn’t feel the lack.”

Ling Qi grimaced. She shifted her grasp on Sixiang’s hand, taking the lead and moving them closer to the dancing square’s edge. “You know why, Sixiang. It’s different. Su Ling is fine. Meizhen is fine. I can see they have control.”

“Control’s the wrong word,” Sixiang disagreed. Sliding closer to her, the muse spun them, and they came to a stop in a whirl of cloth. They stood now in a packed street full of stalls and games, and fairies and the shades of children scampered about. “And I think you know it by now.”

“Is this really the time for this?”

“There’s probably never a good time.” Sixiang shrugged. “But you keep thinking about family and community, and you keep cultivating in that direction. If you keep ignoring such a big part of family and community, your thinking is gonna be flawed.”

Ling Qi frowned, seeing out of the corner of her eye the many, many pairings among the people and shades here. People walked side by side, hand in hand. They were fathers and mothers, parents and children. She thought of branching roses growing entwined with incandescent light.

“… And if I don’t want that to be part of that aspect of family? Hanyi and Zhengui are family. Yu Nuan might get there. You can make a family just fine without having to involve that… muck, even if the Empire makes it hard to do so.”

“That’s fine, but I’d like you to reject it properly and consciously if that’s what you’re gonna do, not cut it out of yourself without consideration. You didn’t let Su Ling do that to herself with the fox bits. Am I supposed to be a worse friend?” Sixiang squeezed her hand. “And I feel like you don’t necessarily want to do that either. You’re just still afraid.”

Ling Qi didn’t reply verbally. She pulled on Sixiang’s hand and took a step, and their next footfall fell on a hardwood floor. Noise immediately struck her ears again. This time, it was the clink of mugs, the drag of wood across the floor, and the singing. Oh, the singing.

Ling Qi settled herself into a rickety chair in the corner just as the chorus rose, dozens of rough voices belting out, “The wine was not strong enough!”

Sixing settled beside her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. “This is what community looks like on the streets. I’m glad you dove, cause you, your boss? I worry you learned to fly so early that you’ll forget that the structures you’re trying to build aren’t just lines and dots on the ground.”

“You think I should try to convince Renxiang to come down to a bar?” Ling Qi joked.

Somehow, she still held the cup of golden cider, and now, she took a sip. It was rich and sweet. She rolled it on her tongue, tasting it even as she cycled her qi, cultivating the chaotic energies in the dream stuff she’d ingested.

“I will totally clap you on the back if you can manage it,” Sixiang said seriously. “But nah, this is for you. ‘Cause you never got this, any of this, did ya? You started outside in the cold and unwelcome, and you jumped right up to be above it all.”

Ling Qi scanned the room. The shades of workers chatted and laughed despite the wear and slump of fatigue in their shoulders. These were the same sort of folk she knew from the streets of Tonghou, trudging miserably through life. Or at least, that’s what she saw, didn’t she? It wasn’t as if she actually knew what happened behind locked doors before warm hearths. Festivals were just the best opportunity to cut purses, but street rats couldn’t linger around the festivities.

Ling Qi took a deep drink from her cup, and as she did, she met someone’s eyes across the room. They were tall, as tall as her, wearing a gray traveler’s cloak and a conical straw hat, but she saw a shock of dark red hair framing a face with a square jaw, looking back at her with equal surprise.

A cultivator! Before she could do more than open her mouth, they raised their cup in a toast and vanished. She felt the way they grasped the skein of dream and pulled, “walking” elsewhere.

“What’s up?” Sixiang asked.

“I saw someone,” Ling Qi said slowly, shaking her head. “Never mind. They weren’t hostile. I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not the only one here in the dreams of Xiangmen.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Probably. Bit of a big place,” Sixiang said. They changed the subject. “You must like that stuff.”

Ling Qi glanced down at her cup. “Oh, yes. It’s sweet.” She supposed that her liking of it was why her cup wasn’t running out.

“Well, then, we don’t need to huddle in here, eh?” Sixiang reached out again for her hand. “C’mon, Ling Qi. Let’s go enjoy the festival.”

Ling Qi regarded their hand for a moment. Then, she reached out to clasp it, standing in time with another rise of the chorus. “Alright, I’ll be in your care.”

They left the raucous pub behind, the noise of crude merriment vanishing like a single drop of water in a lake as they rejoined the generalized chaos outside. Ling Qi hooked her arm through Sixiang’s, and they joined the festival.

The radiating pathways weren’t the same mad scramble like the center. Processions and parades took the center of the street, dancing spirits in the garb of priests, costumes less gaudy than the inhuman forms beneath them. Laughter abounded. Children, adults, it was a great storm of merriment.

Sixiang tugged her along, pointing to new attractions and sights, and Ling Qi let herself be carried along by the muse’s enthusiasm. It felt strange, and often enough, she could feel her attention pulling in different directions, her feet carrying her left and right at once. It was only when she found herself trying to play two festival games on opposite sides of a street at once that the dissonance crashed down, and she found herself standing in front of only one, holding her temples from a pounding headache.