Sword and Snow

Avuri ran her fingers through Emery’s hair. “You really need to wash up before you go anywhere near the kitchen,” She said, watching the dirt and dust fall from her wife’s shaggy mane. Emery just grinned happily, shaking her head and sending bits of dirt flying about. Avuri just made a face.

“How you manage to walk away from playing with the kids as such a mess every single time is beyond me.” Avuri sighed, and bent down to try to brush out some of the dirt from Astra’s hair as well. As usual, she was attached to Emery’s hip.

“Blame Cruz and Wrynn. They’re the little troublemakers who started throwing dirt, trying to avoid me.” Emery said. She leaned her head forward and roughly mussed up her hair with her hands, trying to get some of the dirt out.

“Yep. And it’s just as much their fault that you saw fit to then tackle them to the ground and roll around in the dirt. Mhm. That tracks.” Avuri said blandly, turning away from Emery to hide a small smile.

“They deserved it.” Emery said, eyeing the two offending siblings, and then she spoke up much louder for them to hear across the field. “Didn’t they?”

In response, the brother and sister looked down sheepishly as they tried entirely in vain to get the dirt and grass stains out of their clothing.

Avuri sighed again, and stood. “Come here, you two.” She motioned to Cruz and Wrynn. “I’ll give you a quick washing up.”

“Oh, you’ll wash them but not us? I see how it is…” Emery crouched down next to Astra. As Emery went cheek-to-cheek with the girl, they pouted in unison.

“I’ll get to you in a minute.” Avuri said, pointing at the two of them as Cruz and Wrynn crossed the field.

“Sorry Momri…” Cruz said, still looking sheepish. “We didn’t -”

Avuri placed a comforting hand on his head, then her other hand on Wrynn’s. She ruffled their hair, giving each a warm smile in turn. “You both did fine. If nothing else, you recognized a threat too great to fight off and did what you could to survive. It may be fighting dirty, but your survival should be your first concern in a situation like that.” She nodded approvingly. “Now then, close your eyes.”

As the two children obeyed, Avuri hovered a hand over each of their heads. A steady stream of water flowed forth over the kids, quickly soaking them from head to toe. Avuri’s Qi couldn’t generate soap or any actual cleaner, but she could scrub most of the normal stains away with just her Qi. And thankfully most of the dirt and grass stains weren’t all that stubborn to remove.

After a minute’s concentration, the cleaning appeared to be mostly done. With another wave of Qi, the water was evaporated from the kids’ clothes leaving them mostly clean and dry. She turned them around by their shoulders and pushed them back toward the other kids still playing in the playground. “Off you go.”

Cruz immediately took off to rejoin the other kids, but Wrynn spun back to give Avuri a hug before joining him in running off. She murmured a ‘Thank you’, accented with a tight squeeze. Avuri patted her head again before she ran off.

Without missing a beat, Avuri stood, turned around back toward Emery and Astra, and immediately drenched them with a blast of water. She made sure the water was warm and comfortable, like nice, toasty bath water.

But she didn’t hold back on the torrential force. Well, at least against Emery.

The woman, caught off-guard as she was chatting happily with Astra, was swept completely off her feet and thrown back a few meters by the force of the surging water. She landed pretty hard on her rear end, sprawled out messily as she was unable to get her arms or legs to cooperate in the water.

By the time Emery managed to regain herself, Astra was drenched, but happily playing in a controlled spray from Avuri as if in a fountain. “Traitor.” Emery muttered toward Astra; and promptly found herself with a second faceful of water. This time the force was mitigated somewhat by the lower density of the spray, though she sputtered as it got in her eyes, nose, and mouth.

Blinking her eyes clear, she saw Avuri smile at her and raise her eyebrows in a small taunt. All the while, she continued to make a light spray for Astra, who was dancing around in the water, enjoying the cleaning.

As Emery clambered up to her feet, Avuri drew the moisture out of Astra’s clothes, leaving her dry and mostly clean. She would get a bath later to better clean her up, same as Cruz and Wrynn.

“My turn?” Emery asked, as she walked up to Avuri, arms spread wide as her clothes visibly dripped water. Some laughter was scattered throughout the group of kids still playing in the field nearby as they took note of Emery looking like a wet cat.

“Good question.” Avuri asked, turning to the kids in the playground. “What does everyone think? Should I dry her off?”

“Get her again!” was the shout from Elise. And then echoed by several of the other children.

Avuri’s grin turned evil in that moment, as she moved to stalk toward Emery, hands raised as if she was casting a hex. “You heard them…” she muttered.

And then, with a flourish of Avuri’s arms, several thick pillars of water emerged from behind her, seemingly from nothing. And with a second flourish, the pillars crashed into Emery from all sides.

I shook out my damp hair as I climbed up out of the bath. Even now, as we were getting deeper into the winter months, the air up here in the basin was pleasant. I wouldn’t have described it as ‘warm’, so much as ‘mild’. After the first few months of days full of hard labor, the basics of a compound was coming together beautifully.

The first thing we did was get the land set up with some basic Arrays. With Talya’s help, we set up one that would keep the temperature mild and temperate throughout the year to assist with living in the mountains. Following that, we set up several that would help the already surprisingly fertile land be more palatable to a wide array of flora, as well as keep it fertile through the use of ambient wood Qi even without the use of techniques for farming like crop rotations.

Following that, we needed more material. And indeed, as he had said, Uncle Vale had gotten in touch with a wood Qi master that he knew - whom I expected was actually another dragon in disguise - and asked for assistance in getting things started.

While it was very likely somewhat of a drain on the land, the man had obliged. At my behest, he had riddled the landscape with trees. It was one of the most awe-inspiring sights I had ever witnessed; I’m fairly positive my sister and I watched, mouths agape, as the man masterfully wove his Qi into the land. Trees sprouted, slowly at first, and then grew into full size trunks, replete with beautiful foliage.

Many of the trees were sturdy woods, all produced for us to use as lumber sources and buildings, at least for now. I would be sure to save seeds and add saplings back wherever possible.

However, I had requested that many of the trees be useful as visual cover for hiding from whatever may fly overhead. When the stunningly beautiful wisteria trees began to spread out and flourish in the area, I was once again awestruck.

I had seen wisteria trees before, and was already enamored with their beauty. But seeing the landscape fill with such vibrant lavender shades was something altogether different. As they were engineered with Qi, these wisteria were taller than any others I had seen, and their foliage seemed thicker as well. They did wonders for blocking sight from above as their wide stretching branches crossed with each other, creating a solid canopy of purple.

When the man had first arrived, he had produced a wisteria tree from a storage ring. The thing was already fully grown and quite large. His first act was to plant it dead center in the basin. I had assumed that he was somehow using it as a focus for growing the others or some such. Techniques this impressive often needed a focus or something to channel through or from.

However, as the rest of the trees seemed to finish growing, the wisteria he had physically planted began to grow - and fast. It quickly dominated the space, growing to at least five meters across at its trunk. The canopy grew up and out, draping over a huge portion of the center of the basin. I would have guessed at least 50% of the total space was covered by it, but it was probably even more than that.

We were told that the central tree was an incredibly old wisteria that had grown suffuse with wood and water Qi. It would likely eventually grow a tree spirit if cultivated long enough, and being in a space like this would be very healthy for it - thus why it was brought. I vehemently agreed to take care of it.

And after that, the man left. Or, rather, rode Uncle Vale away.

The day after, we were able to get several small houses put up. They were cozy, sized to house between four and six people each. In the meantime, as we continued building up the space, Uncle Vale and Natalya took up residence in one house each, while I began to live with Cierra in another.

The following few weeks were busy and the most physically demanding. We began to harvest many of the hardwood trees for lumber. Those all went into further buildings. The first of which was a large mansion-like building in the center of the basin, directly under the elder wisteria. Uncle Vale insisted on future proofing wherever possible, and under his direction we built the house to be unnecessarily large. The ground floor was basically one large room, designed to be large enough to hold town meetings. The second and third floors were, together, a sprawling family home with far more rooms than Cierra and I needed.

In the process of all our work, we struck accidental gold. As it turned out, the basin had many veins of Qi running through the ground, coming from each of the peaks. A little ways off to one side of the basin, but still under the elder wisteria tree, was a point where fire Qi and water Qi veins met - and it created a fantastic spot for a hot spring. There wasn’t any naturally occurring water there, however the mix of Qi would keep any water placed there hot, pure, and perfect for a bath.

And so, up went the bathhouse. We dug a little ways into the ground to create a lovely stone bath and enclosed it with wooden walls and partitions, complete with different sections for boys and girls.

In the course of a few weeks, we had put up the main house, four smaller houses, the bathhouse, and four large open pavilion-like buildings, even though they had no designated purpose yet.

Once the buildings were finished, we began to work on preparing the land for farming, which was absolutely back-breaking work. It took weeks for us to decide what would be going where and then tilling the land accordingly. The only area that went up quickly were the rice paddies, as they were always going to go next to the Flowing Dragon Peak and its water Qi as it would be easiest to flood the fields from there.

Today, some two and a half months after beginning to settle the basin - and some five months after deciding to live here - was the first time I had truly been able to relax in the bath after a hard day’s work and not have to get up bright and early the next day just to do more.

Tomorrow I could finally sleep in. Hopefully.