Sword and Snow

After the purge of whatever demonic Qi was left in her system, Cierra slowly became an almost entirely new person over the following several hours. Her face and tongue seemed to loosen up, and there was a new light in her eyes. It took a couple hours for her body to adjust to the healthier state, but by hour three, she was talking more normally, without fractured sentences and at more normal volumes.

Everyone ate dinner together. Talya had prepared a lovely dish of fried rice with a multitude of fresh vegetables, as well as some pork, and we all enjoyed it immensely. Cierra seemed to attack the food with new life, as though she was only now able to taste anything. Avuri and I went after the food like wolves, ravenous after our long day of training and lack of breaks for meals.

Some relaxing time followed dinner. Avuri went to her own room to read, while Cierra followed me to my room. She seemed to be particularly attached to me now, which was fine. I sat with her on my bed to read some material Vale had given me that covered some of the nuance of Paired Cultivation. That plan was quickly thrown out the window, however, when Cierra gave me a pout and big sad eyes while asking to read her a story.

So, instead, I spent my evening reading to my daughter. I still wasn’t used to this new and expressive Cierra, but I couldn’t get enough. I spent three hours reading various stories to her and talking about what we read. We vaguely broached the topic of how she was feeling, but it was brief and simple.

She remembered the entire time that she was subdued. She knew who we all were, who she was, and remembered everything I had taught her up until now. It really seemed like whatever effect the demonic Qi had had was entirely focused on suppressing Cierra’s emotions and ability to express herself. How any of that had felt in her head or similar more serious topics were not touched on.

Ultimately, Cierra seemed happy to be able to be herself now, and that was enough for me for now. It also helped that she wanted nothing more than to snuggle and listen while I read which immediately became my number one priority for the night. She certainly deserved my undivided attention for a while after what she had gone through.

By the time bed time rolled around, Cierra was nodding off in my lap. I had put her books down in favor of once again trying to read some of the Cultivation materials, but let her remain where she was.

Avuri arriving at my door and knocking on the jamb eventually drew my attention out of the book. She had worn simple robes for sleeping, and was smiling warmly down at Cierra on my lap.

“I know Vale had said spending the night in close proximity may be useful for us to attune to one another, but I don’t want to get in the way of bonding time.” She motioned toward Cierra. “Should I just sleep in my own room?”

I shook my head, and gently patted Cierra out of her half-sleep. “Cierra? How do you feel about Avuri sleeping here with us? Is that okay?”

She blinked her eyes up at me and nodded. “Yeah, ‘s fine.” She said sleepily. When I asked if she was sure, she nodded again and rolled off my lap to lay more toward the center of the bed.

I looked back up to Avuri. “You heard the girl.” I patted the other side of the bed in welcome, which would place Cierra between us. I set up extra pillows to give us each our own, including Cierra, who quickly cuddled up on hers.

Avuri and I both spent the next few hours reading quietly. I absently had one hand on Cierra’s back, tracing gentle, calming circles most of the late evening. More than once I had caught Avuri glancing at us with a small smile. She looked contemplative, but content.

Eventually, I felt like the day’s stresses had worn me down to a point where even if I didn’t physically require it, I wanted to sleep. A quick glance at Avuri suggested that she may feel the same, as she didn’t look at all focused on what she was reading.

I placed my reading material on the bedside table. “Shall we actually try to sleep? I’m exhausted.”

“Sure, that’s fine by me.” Avuri responded, placing her own book to the side. We both rummaged through our respective blankets to get comfortable before a brief flex of Qi from Avuri snuffed the candles we had been using to read.

It had been a little over an hour after that when I felt Cierra beginning to stir. I did my best to comfort her in her sleep, same as always. Light circles and patting on her back, and as much reassurance as I could offer with gentle distance. A few minutes of her tossing and turning also got Avuri’s attention. I wasn’t sure if she had been asleep or not, but she was now looking on in worry, though hesitant to make any moves on her own.

Shortly thereafter, Cierra suddenly thrashed violently, and sat up with a scream. It momentarily startled Avuri, who looked around panicked, searching for something to do. I tried to give Avuri a look to tell her it was alright, while continuing to comfort Cierra where I could, following our unfortunately regularly nightly procedure.

Cierra surprised me then, as she laid back down. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she wasn’t crying the way she usually did. I could hear her muttering simple reassurances to herself; things like ‘you’ll be fine’ and ‘it’s alright’. When she settled back on the bed she cuddled up to me a little, but not quite the same way she would usually jam herself against me looking for comfort.

“Thank you, Mom. I’m okay.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but she didn’t sound nearly as in distress as usual.

I took the chance to move closer to the center of the bed where she was and drew her into a big hug, and kissed the top of her head. “If you’re not okay, I want you to say so. But if you really are alright, that’s okay too.” I said gently.

Cierra spun around in my arms, to face more toward Avuri. “Thank you too, Ri. I didn’t say it right, before.”

Avuri smiled, warm and wide. “I think you did, sweetie. But all the same, you’re very welcome.”

Cierra reached out one of her hands to grab onto Avuri’s sleeve before once again drifting off to sleep. We stayed like that for a while, but eventually I released Cierra from my hug and once again resumed tracing the gentle circles on her back.

I was finally beginning to drift off myself after that, but was once more shocked by Avuri placing her hand gently over mine on Cierra’s back.

“You’re a wonderful mother, Emery. Cierra is a lucky girl.” She said quietly.

I responded with a quiet “Thank you,” before we both drifted off to sleep for the rest of the night.

All three of us awoke the next morning feeling well-rested and generally good.

That lasted all of an hour before Vale had Avuri and I back on the training floor. Cierra didn’t seem to want to leave the room, so she was sitting on the sidelines entertaining herself with various toys and art supplies. Occasionally, Vale would stand by her while barking orders at us and play with her too.

By the time mid-afternoon arrived, Avuri and I were both running on empty. Neither of us had any Qi remaining within our Cores, and while not as physically exhausted as the previous evening, we were both beginning to feel the tiredness begin to creep in.

After one final sparring match between us, which ended up being purely hand-to-hand with no Qi to back us up, Vale nodded. “I think you’re ready to begin. Once you both find your connection, do your best to strengthen it as much as possible. Without any other Qi in your systems, it should be fairly easy. But remember how it feels, because we’re not going to exhaust your Qi reserves again after today. You’ll need to reforge that bond each time yourselves.” He cautioned.

Avuri and I looked at each other, a fervor lit within both of us. I felt like I could see excitement to try this in Avuri’s eyes, matching my own. Trying new skills like this was always exciting.

“You’re welcome to Cultivate in here, but you may consider using one of the bedrooms, just in case.” Vale said, a wry grin on his face. “I’ll keep Cierra entertained for the rest of the day while you two do what you need to do.”

Cierra’s head shot up to look at him at that. “But I want to stay with Mom.”

I felt a quick jolt through the heart at that. I looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry, Cierra, I need to spend some time with Avuri now. I promise I’ll see you later, and we can all sleep together tonight again, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Of course.” I said, her big blue eyes staring into the depths of my soul. “I promise.” I said again.

She didn’t look happy about it, but Cierra and Vale vacated the room then. Vale was excitedly trying to get her interested in deciding what to do the rest of the day. I turned to Avuri. “I guess that’s it then. It’s time to do this.”

Avuri nodded. “Do you think we should take his advice and go to a bedroom just in case?”

I considered this and looked away from her. “I have no intentions to do anything physical to you, especially since you already said we’re drawing the line at only necessary physical contact.” Then I added, tentatively, “But I think a bedroom may be good for privacy anyway.”

Avuri and I both seemed to be struggling to look one another in the eye at that point, but she nodded. “Right.”

And with that decided, we ambled off to one of the extra bedrooms. If something weird or unexpected happened - like Qi running wild or the like - I didn’t want to ruin the bedrooms we slept in.

We each wordlessly followed the instructions we had been reading separately. We stripped to simple underclothes and clambered up onto the bed. We sat back to back, as much of our backs touching as we could manage while keeping good posture on the bed for meditation.

And then we started. With no Qi in our cores, it was easy to find and manipulate the natural Qi of our bodies. That was, apparently, what we needed to begin with to form the strongest bond for the whole process. I gathered several strands of my inherent Qi and braided them together into a cord before reaching out to Avuri with them.

I could feel the moment our Qi touched. It was a strange feeling. Not unpleasant, but not something I had ever felt before. The two separate cords of Qi seemed to want to twist around one another and get tangled up in itself. It took concentration from us both to avoid letting it do that, and instead unfurl the braided threads at the ends to try to meld the two together.

In the course of several attempts, we kept braiding the disparate threads together, but that was apparently not the best way to do this. With effort, we each took one small thread of Qi apart from the others and frayed the edges of both strands. Finally, when those two threads touched, the frayed edges seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces. The threads smoothed out, and looked whole once more.

As soon as that thread connected fully, I felt a change. It was as if I was no longer alone on such a deep, fundamental level that I was left dazed for a moment. I could feel Avuri being struck dumb in the same way for a moment, before we both seemed to gather ourselves and begin working on connecting the rest of the threads that way.

It seemed to take hours. No connection had the same profound effect as the first one, but the bond was very clearly strengthening with each connected thread. Eventually, we had a strong combined cord of Qi flowing between us.

Now we just had to split that cord, cycle it back to each of us, and begin to actually Cultivate.

In all honesty, that should’ve been the easy part.