Threads 296-Identity 1

Ling Qi crouched by the overgrown pond that sat among the ruins of the old temple, looking down into the murky waters.

The old stones were swept and cleaned. The broken structure had been grown anew from Zhengui’s roots. A new mirror of polished silver was placed inside in a case of polished wood, anointed with the proper oils. The faint scent of incense drifted out to her.

Here was the place where she had first truly entered the Dream, though she’d not understood it then, guided by the chosen faces of the Moon’s spirits. She didn’t need this place to cross over now, but it seemed respectful to clean it up, as she prepared for the next step in her life. Her time in the Sect, of shelter from the wider world, was over.

Ling Qi dipped a finger into the murky pool and whistled softly. A cold breeze blew, and silt and muck fled from her touch, leaving the water cool and clear, and the seeds of the lilies she had planted were strengthened against cold and death.

“An interesting choice.”

Ling Qi gave no reaction as she stood up and turned to face Shu Yue, who loomed over her in the shadow of the scraggly cherry blossom tree that clung to the thin soil up here on the high cliffside.

“Hey, Ling Qi! Got done clearing the last of the spook outta the air. Will get some—” Sixiang’s voice echoed on the wind, a playful gust that ruffled her hair and tugged at her gown, only to die down, whirling around her protectively. “… Well, I guess I got most of the spook.”

“By proportion, you have removed very little,” Shu Yue said mildly.

“Rude,” Sixiang grumbled, a puff of wind gusting behind Ling Qi as her muse settled back in her head.

“I didn’t expect you to respond so promptly, Shu Yue.” Ling Qi bowed her head. She had sent a message earlier today that she would have some brief freedom.

“While my charges are under such an aegis as this, my time is more free,” Shu Yue said, nodding to the cloudy sky.

Ling Qi lowered her head in acknowledgement. “Your timing is impeccable then because I have just finished my task here.”

“Yes. Why this, if I may ask?” Shu Yue scanned the small cliffside temple. “Worship or repayment of patronage?”

Ling Qi turned to look at the restored shrine. Raising the new structure with Zhengui, the simple mortal effort of painting and decoration, and the planting of flowers and trees was cultivation, too, in its own way. As a human who spoke to and translated the will of greater beings, she was, by most measures, a priestess.

But if there was anything she had learned from studying the old ways, it was that there was little difference between a small god and a big human. It was a gradient, rather than a hard division. “It’s appropriate to leave something new here.”

“Will you arrange any care for it?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Others will find it. What they do with it is up to them. So, too, are the consequences.” This place belonged to the Moon. What the moon did with it or with those who might come with good intention or ill was up to it.

“Interesting. Do you object to beginning the lesson then?”

“What is this technique of yours anyway?” Sixiang asked on the wind.

“It is a method for understanding other beings, a tool with which one may come to know others,” Shu Yue answered.

“You made it sound pretty scary, like learning it was dangerous,” Sixiang commented.

“Sixiang,” Ling Qi chided.

“I did.” Shu Yue raised a long, long finger to tap on their chin. “Perhaps a demonstration is in order.”

“That would be appreciated,” Ling Qi said warily.

“Not on you, student. That would be inappropriate.”

Ling Qi bowed her head. Shu Yue panned their gaze around, eyes alighting on something further up the cliff. Ling Qi followed their gaze and saw there a nesting bird, a second realm beast by her measure.

“Yes, a demonstration.” Shu Yue cupped their chin. “I will perform this slowly and without subtlety so that you might comprehend it properly, my student.”

Ling Qi felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Shu Yue grasped their chin and pulled down. There was an awful sucking, ripping sound like tearing flesh as their pale face came away from their head, left connected solely by gristly strands of darkness. At this angle, turned away from her, Ling Qi could not see what lay behind their face.

She heard the sobs and laughter of children, so blended that she couldn’t tell one from the other.

The eagle startled in its nest, wings spreading, and inky strings of darkness shot out from whatever lay behind Shu Yue’s face, and their whole body melted into those strings, even as they plunged into the eagle’s eyes and flowed behind them into the beast’s sockets.

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Shu Yue was gone.

The eagle let out a confused cry, fluffed its spread wings, and then settled back down into the nest.

Ling Qi stared.

“Interesting. I have not been a beast for some time.”

This time, she did startle.

“Hells, do you have to do that?” Sixiang complained.