Sword and Snow

Cierra and Stena narrowed their eyes, looking around at their opponents. Even working together, they were narrowly surviving this battle, hanging on by a thread. One wrong move would end them here.

Cierra silently believed that Stena was actually making her fare worse overall, and was in fact no ‘help’ at all. All of her incessant mutters and directions hadn’t really helped them at all. If anything, Cierra was pretty sure it made her perform worse.

And then, finally, the damn viper across from her struck the final blow.

“Hu!” Uncle Vale declared happily. “Fully Concealed, All Types, Mixed Triple Chows, Red Dragons, with a Closed Wait and two Flowers.” He grinned widely as he dropped the tiles of his hand to display them with his draw. “That’ll be 31 points all.”

Cierra slumped back in her seat with a huge sigh. “I bust.” She said, throwing the few remaining point sticks she had left onto the table.

Avuri mimicked her, right down to the sigh. “That’s it for me too. Just barely busted there.” She grumbled, as she shoved her tiles into the center of the table. Her hands followed through on the shove as she laid halfway across the table, defeated. “One more game!” She whined, pretending to cry. “I need to win some of my money back.”

Emery laughed, having barely skated by with less than 50 of her starting 300 points remaining. “How many times have I warned you that gambling with this monster is not a good idea?” She pointed at Vale. “I don’t know how he is always this lucky, but he is. Maybe it’s just dragon bullshit?”

Vale just sat there, happily counting his point sticks. “That’s just shy of 1200. Y’all owe me a lot of money at this point…” He smiled, and tapped Cierra on the nose. “Aren’t you lucky I don’t ever collect?”

“Speak for yourself!” Avuri moaned. “Sure, you don’t collect from the kids, but my wallet is screaming! Screaming!” She said a second time for emphasis.

Emery laughed again, shooing Avuri up from the table so she could begin to shuffle the tiles. “Alright, alright. Let’s get the bastard dragon out of here and have a family game without the cheater.”

Avuri, Cierra, and Stena nodded excitedly, while Vale just looked hurt. And played it up like any good actor.

“Merri, you wound me!” He said clutching at his left breast. “How could you accuse me of such devilry?” He cried loudly, all the while vacating the seat for Stena to sit down. “You’ve been scouring my games for years and never found me cheating. And yet you keep bringing it up!”

Emery narrowed her eyes. “Luck as good as yours doesn’t exist, dragon.” She spit out venomously. “Whether you cheat, or dragons are just supernaturally lucky, I can’t prove anything. But you better believe that I’m gonna figure it out. And if it turns out you have been cheating all these years…” She trailed off to drag a finger across her neck threateningly. “I’ll have your head.”

Vale laughed heartily at that as he walked away. “Let’s just say 450 Taels from each of you.” Emery just sighed as he walked away. Splitting the money that the kids lost has always been the deal with her and Avuri, which left them roughly splitting the cost of all three of them pretty evenly from the last game.

“At least it’s just mortal currency?” Cierra said with a shrug, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah…yeah.” Avuri said. “And to be fair, it’s not like we’re hurting for silver or gold these days. And half of what we end up paying to Vale ends up coming back to us in materials and food and such.” As the four women began to build the walls, Avuri sighed again and threw up her hands in frustration. “It’s just my pride that’s hurt! I know that. I thought I was good at mahjong.”

“You are, Ri. He’s just a monster.” Emery said consolingly. “Remember when we went into the city and played in the parlors there? We did well then. And it’s not like we were just picking on mortals or cheating. There were legitimate games.”

“Momri, I once saw you play as well as Vale just did.” Stena said as she finished her wall. “If I recall correctly you got some nonsense hand and busted all three other people.”

Avuri smiled. “I remember that hand, actually. Nine Gates. I was never so excited playing as I was then.”

After it was decided that Avuri would be first dealer, the women all took their tiles and play began. They chatted lightly as the game progressed much more evenly than when Vale was playing. No one was down more than 100 points going into the west round.

As the ninth hand began, Cierra asked, “You know, I’ve never asked you two what breaking through into the Sky Realm was like.”

“I don’t think it’s ever really been pertinent for you.” Emery said, as she chose a discard from among her honors. “You’re still not even at the peak of Earth yet, are you? What’s got you curious?”

“Chow.” Stena called, took the tile, and slid her set to the right side before carefully choosing a discard.

“Well,” Cierra began, “After the talk I had the other day with Uncle Vale about how different techniques work and stuff, I was curious how much a Domain will change things when I get there.”

Avuri eyed her daughter carefully as she discarded. “Considering waiting to practice certain techniques until you have a Domain to back up your skills, are you?”

Cierra flinched. “...No?”

Emery laughed. “It’s okay if you are. That’s valid for some things. Bigger techniques that require a lot of Qi control and output can get a lot easier to control with your Domain. But relying on it gets really dangerous in combat, when enemies can fight back with their own.” She said, watching for Stena’s discard. Emery sighed when she saw the last white dragon.

“Hu!” Cierra called. “Knitted, Greater Honors, Last Tile with 4 Flowers. 40 and 8, please.” She said with a big grin.

“Nice hand.” Avuri said, as point sticks were tossed on the table. “Emery is right though. Relying on reaching the Sky Realm and using your Domain to solidify techniques you aren’t good at can get you hurt later.”

“I know, Momri. That’s not my intention.” Cierra said as they all shuffled the tiles. “Your Domain is like, based on who you are as a person right? I want to see what mine looks like, and see if I get any ideas from it. See if it can show me which path to take.”

“Ah, I see.” Emery said, as she flipped up her tiles as the round began. “But you’ve got it backwards. Your Domain is based on who you are, yes, but it’s more…hm.” She circled her hands in the air, searching for the right words to explain.

“What Mom is trying to say is that your Domain shows a reflection of who you are in that moment. It’s not a great divining tool to see who you should be.” Avuri said, picking up the explanation. “If you feel stuck between following my path and Merri’s path…well, given you’ve been practicing both styles fairly regularly and evenly, it’s likely that your Domain would display that duality. I can’t say what it would actually look like, but it’s not going to show you your best path forward.”

“Really? I thought there would at least be some kind of detail that would show which side I’m better at or something.” Cierra said with a frown as she stared at her tiles.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way.” Emery said, as she drew a tile and discarded. “When I first opened my Domain, it looked like a small village of blacksmiths. Weapons were littered about everywhere, but they were almost entirely swords with little to no variation.”

Cierra took her turn and kept listening. “I was confused at the time, wondering if that meant that I was destined to use swords, and that all my time spent with other weapons was pointless.”

Avuri nodded along, knowing this story. “And what did you do, Merri?” She said, with a small chuckle.

Emery smiled, fondly. “I spent the next few days of our training creating nothing but swords. Vale caught on and got mad at me. I spent the next day entirely working only with spears - Hu.” With a sudden feral grin, Emery called her win and displayed her hand. “Four Pure Shifted Chows, Full Flush, All Chows, with a Closed Wait. 67 and 8, please.”

Avuri blanched. “I knew you were collecting bamboo, but that hand is insane. I was thinking it’d be around 32 at most…” She sighed and handed over the 67 points worth of sticks as their daughters paid their 8s, and they began shuffling again, Avuri now solidly down in the scores.

“So, you were saying, Mom?” Cierra said, prompting Emery to continue.

“Right. Vale made me spend the following day entirely practicing my spear work. Guess what happened afterward?” She asked, leading, as they stacked the walls.

“What?” Stena asked, now also interested.

“When I checked my Domain that night? All of the weapons around were spears. Barely any swords in sight.” Cierra and Stena both looked mildly disappointed with such a simple story. “Point being,” Emery said, emphasizing her words with the clack of a discarded tile, “Your Domain can, and will, change pretty dramatically with fairly little effort. It’s far more a window into who you are at that moment than anything else.”

“It’s worth noting too,” Avuri picked up, “That while details and parts will often change, the overall appearance and atmosphere is pretty standard and unlikely to change without significant effort. It’s just details that will change frequently. For example, my Domain has always appeared to me as a snowy mountain top. Smaller details may change, but that never has.”

Cierra nodded absently as she stared at her tiles, trying to figure out which way to take her hand. “Okay. So my Domain is useless when it comes to telling me where to focus my training.”

“Right.” Emery said, as she pitched a two of bamboo.

“Pung.” Avuri called, slid her set to the side and discarded. “If you’re really stumped or worried about something, we can help. You know that - Pung.” She called again, this time on the three of bamboo.

All of the other women at the table eyed her calls warily. Avuri’s mouth twisted into an absolutely devilish grin after her draw. “Kong.” She declared, showing the four four of bamboo’s. Her replacement tile was immediately discarded. The table grew silent as each of the others very carefully avoided throwing anything that may finish Avuri’s potential All Green.

When Emery finally drew a green dragon, she looked over the discards on the table, considering. There weren’t any in the discards yet. She looked over at Avuri who just smiled back serenely.

Emery decided to call her bluff, and pitched the green dragon. Avuri’s smile grew wider. Predatory. “Don’t worry, it’s not All Green. But - Hu.” She displayed the rest of her hand; a concealed pung of fives of bamboo, waiting on the dragon pair. “Four Pure Shifted Pungs, Half Flush, Two Concealed Pungs, One Concealed Kong, with a Pair Wait and one Flower. 68 and 8, please.”

Emery chuckled, handing over the points. “Just had to one up me, didn’t you?” She pushed her tiles into the center for shuffling.

“I do believe I literally one upped you, if I’m not mistaken.”

Emery blinked, putting it together. Then she laughed. “That damn Flower tile!”

Cierra and Stena glanced at one another, and silently vowed to not let their mothers win any more hands that night.

Surely with only five hands to go, they could manage that much? Right?