Threads 459-Roadtrip 1

Ling Qi glanced out the window as they rounded a bend in the road. The dense growth was thinner here, allowing a glimpse of the northern sky through the window.

“Biyu, look, you can see Xiangmen.” She defused the impending sulk by drawing the younger girl’s attention to the shadow which rose on the horizon, strangely still compared to the blurring speed of the rest of the landscape. At this distance, it was only a dark pillar rising into the sky with a haze of green, like a cloud around it. Since Xiangmen’s leaves blocked no light, they looked strange.

“Oh, big tree. Sis-y is going?”

“All the way to the top.”

Biyu squinted at the silhouette rising from the horizon. “Doesn’t look big.”

“It is, though,” Ling Qi corrected. “It’s just very far away. “It’s even taller than the mountains back home.”

“No! Trees aren’t mountains!”

“This one is, and people live on and in it, like beasts and birds do in normal trees. Xiangmen holds them all. More people live there than Shenglu, or White Cloud, or Tonghou, or even all of them put together.”

“Really?” Biyu asked, her suspicions breaking down easily under the cadence of Ling Qi’s voice. “Can I go?”

“Not yet.” Ling Qi raised her finger to point toward the crown. “Like I said, your sister is going all the way up there to the top. There isn’t air for little girls to breathe up there, so Biyu will have to wait for now.”

“And your sister is going there on official business. Her work is very important,” Mother added. “It would be better to wait until she is able to show us around.”

“Yes. I won’t have much time outside the wedding and all the meetings Lady Cai has set up. She had already heard of the guest list, and it was intimidating.”

Mother nodded, a nervous tic in her cheek. Ling Qingge still worried over her too much.

Not that there was no basis for it. The empress was attending the wedding, if only in simulacrum form. That was one meeting she was thankful she’d have no part in, being far, far above her head. She felt for Renxiang, who was required to participate in that level of social circles during the official ceremonies.

“Oh, yes, your sister will be talking about lots of boring things,” she said, wisely leaving out the glamor and magnificence likely to be on display for the wedding ceremony and the city-wide festivities which would occur in its wake.

Biyu pouted, but snuggled up to her. “Sis-y bring presents?”

She met her mother’s eyes over Biyu’s head and smiled. “Of course. Hmm… I remember I visited an apiary last time. There were men being carried in harnesses by the bees, out on the farthest branches. Your sister was so far in the sky she couldn’t even see the ground beneath them. Does my sister like honey? I’ve heard the kind they make is some of the best.”

“Umm.” Biyu was wide eyed as she turned to look at Mother.

“You do. The ‘yellow sauce’, remember?” Mother reminded her.

“Oh! Sweet! Yes, Biyu likes honey!”

Ling Qi chuckled indulgently. She’d have to try a little herself while she was at Xiangmen. Cai Renxiang had some in her belongings, but a thief knew which treasures were not to be touched.

“Hey, Sis, tell Biyu more about the mountain tree?”

She gave her sister a curious look.

“Well, Xiangmen is the biggest tree. It was where everyone’s greatest ancestor, Tsu, hid his family when he fought the bad beasts which ruled the forests a long time ago.”

Her sister’s head bobbled. Even a child heard the basics of that story. “Strongest Grandpa!”

“That’s right, Strongest Grandpa Tsu.” Ling Qi chuckled, though her mother winced at the disrespectful title. “Xiangmen is the heavenly pillar in the story. It holds up the sky and shelters everyone in it. That’s why it’s so big, and why all of the cultivators like your sister gather there.”

“I’ll be a pretty faerie and go there, too.” Biyu yawned, blinking rapidly and trying to fight off drowsiness.

Ling Qi considered her next words. What would be the best way to draw Biyu’s attention away from that resistance and let nature take its course?

“Its roots go all the way down into the earth, beyond anyone’s sight. Its trunk is wider than a mountain. People live in the big halls winding through it, in homes grown and sung from the living wood. And up at the peak, past the clouds, there are palaces in every shape and color.”

She let just a mote of qi work its way into her words, enhancing them. Biyu nodded absently, eyes distant, clearly seeing the picture painted with her words on the back of half-closed eyelids.

“And up there in the wide blue sky on branches bigger than roads, you’ll see Tsu’s great palace, a manor like no other, built around a single branch. It’s made from all living wood, shining marble, and clear glass,” Ling Qi murmured, resting a hand on Biyu’s head and listening to her breath grow more even and shallow. “There are gardens there as sprawling as forests, countless cultivators, faeries like your sister and greater lights still, with beautiful dresses and magnificent robes, and a thousand years of painting and tapestries. All the gathered beauty of the province has been brought together in one shining place.”

She wove the vision of the capital as it could be, as it maybe should be, in soothing whispers. A place of achievement and beauty.

She kept speaking, the low and soothing tone just as important as the words, until at last, she was merely humming, stroking Biyu’s hair as the child settled into sleep.

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“I shall only hope she is so amenable on the journey back,” Mother said quietly.

“If you will allow it, I’ll take her out to play in the snow with Hanyi and I in the morning, so that she is tired out before the trip begins,” Ling Qi offered.

“Should you really be behaving so informally as a guest in a viscount’s house?”

Ling Qi smirked. “From our discussions, Viscount Shan is permissive toward children. I think I can restrain my wildness enough for it to improve his impression of me.”

Ling Qingge sighed. “Then, I won’t object. I apologize for still being so on edge.”