Threads 496-Reception 5

“It is a rare sort of hobby,” Luo Yaling said. “There’s been rumors you had a dancer’s sway for a while.”

Ling Qi smiled. “I’ve not been practicing seriously for too long, but yes, my graduating tournament probably told on me to a degree.”

“Less than you’d think!” Luo Yaling grinned. The sharp edges of her canines glinted like burnished silver. “Plenty of nobles go to a moon revel and come to the next morning with their pants flying from a flagpole and dirty scribbles on their bums. Among those, a decent few get an art out of it. Most don’t do much with ’em beyond a dabble.”

Meng Dan sighed. “Speaking from experience, Lady Luo?”

“Nah, I don’t go getting attached to the party. Just gotta have your fun and move on. No reason to let it stick to ya,” Luo Yaling dismissed. “But I’ve seen cousins and juniors who get caught up. It’s not an art that gives you much guidance, is it?”

“No, I suppose not, but then again, it is fundamentally my memory of the revel, written into an art. How could something like that have a clear meaning beyond my own interpretation?”

“And there’s the difference.” The other woman nodded sagely. “I can see why you learned to dance properly.”

“How did you come by it, Lady Luo?” Ling Qi asked. “If you find the revels too much?”

Luo Yaling cupped her chin. “The yearning to be lighter, faster, and freer. I sought to run and run in the open plains of my home, and when even those proved too small, the laughing moon reached out to me to offer the secret of wider plains still, if I could but catch her.”

Ling Qi tilted her head. “And?”

“I did not, but in trying, I learned a new way to run. After that, it was off to the Blue Mountain, the respectable place to send your troublemakers.”

“That doesn’t sound like the introduction the honorable, scholarly Blue Mountain Sect would like at all,” Ling Qi said, amused.

“They’re great temples. They cater to all of us. Have you met me?” Sixiang whispered, amused themself.

“Our elders would be cross to hear a disciple saying so,” Meng Dan agreed dryly. “However, it is true that the Blue Mountain has long been a place of learning for those with difficult circumstances.”

Ling Qi nodded slowly, picking up on the meaning. Before the establishment of the Great Sect system, sects were often research groups under the patronage of single large clans, temples that did not strictly answer to anything but ducal or imperial authority, or other edge-case institutions.

Becoming a priest or a champion of a Great Spirit was also generally considered honorable for noble children of talent who were not well suited to ruling, leading troops, or otherwise inheritance impaired.

Sixiang snorted. “Inheritance impaired? You’ve been hanging around the wrong crowd too much, Ling Qi.”

“I admit some of our patrons are more difficult to appease than others without a little…” Ling Qi trailed off.

“Space to explore,” Meng Dan finished diplomatically.

“Good enough if you all want to play coy. I get it; you both have so many eyes on you now. How like you to amuse yourself with a scandal, Meng Dan.”

“I’m sure I do not know what you are talking about.”

Ling Qi would have been mortified once, but this was all in the court games. Little bits of gossip like this were the lifeblood of keeping contacts for more serious information brokering. Besides, she would be doing whatever this was openly from now on.

“We’re getting sidetracked. Baroness Ling, share a tale of your courses. What’s the farthest out you’ve gone?”

She looked back up at Luo Yaling, who was observing her expectantly. She didn’t need to ask; she could tell the other woman intended to reciprocate.

“Mm, I was lost in the deep liminal once, beyond the point where it reflects anything recognizable. Does that count?”

“The deeps?” Luo Yaling asked. “I’ve seen them briefly last time I tried my chase of the moon. I am mostly looking for something vivid and interesting though, and unless you have tread in the court of a Great Spirit, the deeps are not that.”

“Agreed,” Ling Qi said, thinking of the formless, shifting chaos, with no up or down or left or right, just seething nothing. “I have traveled far, far to the south with my brother Zhengui and Xuan Shi, and I’ve seen the crow-shrouded tower of the southern people’s gods and the crone’s hut that lives in its shadow. I was invited to tell stories by the avatar of death and winter that resides there. You, Luo Yaling?”

“Oh? Passengers? I admit I am not so good at those kinds of steps. For me, I have run the burning lands where the souls of cities still blaze and heave, overtaken by the dead. There, every piece of ground is seething combat without end, and the wind is a war cry. From its furthest edge, I have seen the great pit where the sun died and the world bleeds. I’m not one to get too fixated on a project, but it would be fun to circle it, to see it from every side one day.”

“Not to seek its bottom?” Ling Qi asked.

“Maybe when I am ready to pass from the world and dissolve into the wind!” She laughed. “But no, especially now with you speaking of foreign gods… I do remember seeing glittering storms of starlight in the sky as I ran the burning lands. I itch to see what lies beyond those horizons.”

“It’s a fine way to see things where the physical world is constrained,” Ling Qi said. “Assuming…”

“That you do not make any mistakes,” Meng Dan said. “Dreamwalking is a dangerous art.”

“You can come with me next time, if it settles your worries,” Ling Qi INVITED.

“Who said I was worried?” Meng Dan retorted.

“He finds it queasy, those bits of the library which have lost cohesion,” Luo Yaling corrected. “Did you tell her about the first time when you threw up and nearly teared up because you thought you’d ruined that tome?”

“I did not. And there is nothing wrong with being distraught at the destruction of knowledge.”

“Oops.”

That expression was actively unconvincing of mistaken intent, but then again, Meng Dan was not upset. This might be how an outsider would see some of her conversations with Meizhen and Renxiang. Her eyes flicked to the side, sensing another presence.

She felt Meng Dan’s attention shift at almost the same time.

It was the younger of the Guo pair, the ducal clan of the Golden Fields, that she had noted earlier during the wedding. She was a statuesque woman with a sharp face, long, silky red hair, and a well-fitted glittering green gown.

“I don’t know if I’ve just been using your eyes too long, but Moons, I kinda want to feel those biceps.”

Ling Qi very carefully controlled the twitch that wanted to go through her eye.

“Hey! I wanted till we were away from the folks who might pick me up. There’s a ton of pretty people here, Qi. I got a limit!”

“I caught a portion of your conversation. Rare to see one on the Carefree Way with a bit of sense,” the woman said, looking at Luo Yaling.

“I know, right? Holding me back, it is,” she joked. “Lady Guo…”

“Guo Xinyan, daughter of Guo Xinhua, Ambassador to Great Xiangmen,” she introduced herself formally. “I will not interrupt your conversation for long.”

“Oh? And what brings you to interrupt at all, Lady Guo?” Meng Dan asked.

She felt the other woman’s intent, and a suspicion bloomed in the back of her mind.

“Only bearing a message, as a favor to a friend,” Guo Xinyan said evenly. There was a faint pop, and a relatively thick scroll case appeared in her hand. “Gu Xiulan sends her regards, Baroness Ling Qi. The Ministry of Communication in our province is still overloaded with official traffic.”

Ling Qi took the scroll and bowed deeply. “I am most honored that a lady of the great Guo clan would deign to perform such a favor.”

“For a worthy vassal and commander, such a favor is small. I intended to pass it along to the Argent Peak Sect, but this works just as well.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ling Qi straightened up at her gesture. “I am curious what Lady Guo will be doing in the south. Will you be observing the war efforts for your mother?”

“That is a part of it, but I must also familiarize myself with my fiancé, Han Jian. I will likely contact your lady as well from time to time, but let official business come later. Have a good evening, Baroness.”

Ling Qi nodded, bowing again, only to blink as she fully processed the words.

Luo Yaling tilted her head. “Is she marrying someone you know?”

“Yes.”

Small world. She weighed the scroll in her hands, and then sent it into her storage ring. This message was a long one. She knew what she would be doing on the way back south.

Luo Yaling peered closely at her.

Ling Qi raised an eyebrow.

“No, there’s nothing fun to pick at there.”

Well, that was true.

“We really will be getting quite a few visitors,” Meng Dan mused. “It’s good boon that Shenglu has such a charming profile.”