Sword and Snow

It had been more than a month - close to two, in fact - since we started training and Cultivating together, but I still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Avuri. The damn woman was confusing. We were spending so much time together, between training, baths, and even sleeping in the same bed with Cierra, that I was beginning to think being together so much was a detriment to my ability to get a read on her.

A few weeks previous, I had thought that she was potentially interested in me as more than a training partner. I caught her following me around a room with her eyes, or even just generally staring when she thought I wasn’t looking. I knew that Paired Cultivation could have that sort of effect on people, making them feel things that weren’t really there while connected like that.

But I was also pretty sure that most of those feelings and urges were relegated to during Cultivation, or maybe for a few hours after. And Avuri was regularly watching me outside of those hours when I thought the Paired Cultivation would be in effect. So, coming up on that month mark, I was pretty sure she was interested in me in at least some other fashion. To be fair, it may not have been a romantic interest.

That line of thinking and a potentially bad decision late at night led me to making some physical contact that I was now, three weeks later, beginning to regret.

I had thought it was benign enough! I had taken her hand, squeezed it, and thanked her, sincerely, for everything she had been doing up until then. Helping with Cultivation was one thing, but she was beginning to feel like she could be a fixture in the basin compound, and even Cierra was taking a good liking to her.

In the moment, she had smiled back and nodded. I had taken that as a positive response, and drifted off to sleep. I believe that I had held on to her hand when I fell asleep, and maybe that was the mistake? I honestly had no idea.

After that night, Avuri seemed to be actively trying to ‘avoid’ me. She wasn’t doing a great job at it, especially when so much of what we were working on was distinctly focused on the two of us as a unit. But I could still tell that she was finding ways - very polite ways - to spend less time with me in general.

At first it was funny, and I thought she was perhaps just embarrassed by whatever bond we had been building toward. She would step out during breaks or down time during the day to do work around the basin. Farming and the like needed to be done, but Avuri was taking it too seriously and spending far more time than necessary in our small fields. She would find some excuse not to bathe together as often as felt natural. A couple of times, she even made an excuse - and had to justify it to Cierra - so she wouldn’t have to sleep in the same bed with us, which was becoming very normal.

After two weeks of following through on all of that, I was beginning to suspect something else; she wasn’t embarrassed, but was actually avoiding me. Throughout those two weeks, I was constantly trying to keep an eye on her, watching for any sign of embarrassment or something similar. I came away with nothing. Not once did she blush, or look away with anything remotely resembling embarrassment, or any such thing.

The worst part of all of this was that we were still regularly working on Paired Cultivation together. Whenever we were connected through our Qi, the expected feelings of attraction and desires were a constant companion. The intense feelings of comfort and safety were just as potent as the first day, too, and often helped to control the other emotions.

But through the connection of Qi, I could feel that Avuri was experiencing the same level of attraction as I was, so I knew she at least wasn’t disgusted by me or anything like that. And I never got any feelings of anger from her, so I didn’t think I had done something wrong, necessarily.

All of this added up to just stump me, and I was starting to get frustrated by how much Avuri seemed to want to avoid me. With a further week gone, and her avoidance of me coming up on three and a half weeks, I was about ready to call her out on it. We were basically required to spend more than ten hours together each day, and that was simply too much for us to remain so awkward around one another.

It was late evening when we finished Cultivating that day. Dinner was probably just about ready, if it wasn’t already. I could hear Cierra playing downstairs when we left our meditation, so dinner wasn’t actually on the table yet at least.

Avuri and I were both scooting out of opposite sides of the bed. As had become unfortunately the norm the last couple weeks, she didn’t seem to want to meet my eyes, and was dutifully looking over the wall on her side of the room. She stretched her arms above her head and bent from left to right at her hips, stretching out after a long time laying still.

“I’m going to go check on the vegetables before dinner. See if there’s any I can bring in for a side dish.” She said, making toward the door.

I took a deep breath, and promptly decided that I was either going to make everything worse or fix it all right now. To hell with this awkward situation.

“Nope.” I said, strolling over to her and grabbing her by the arm. She protested, but not strongly. “We’re going to go take a bath before dinner. I’m sure Talya has already gone and gotten whatever vegetables we’re having with tonight’s dinner.”

Avuri put up weak protests as I pulled her down the hallway and stairs. “Talya!” I called, as we passed the second floor, “Avuri and I are going to go wash up before dinner. Be back in a bit!”

“You have a little less than an hour. The potatoes and carrots are being finicky and don’t want to cook.” Came the reply. I turned to Avuri with a look that said ‘See? Vegetables are in hand’. She just sighed and started to pad after me, her excuse dust in the wind.

“You need to be clean for dinner, Mom. Ri. Bet you both stink.” I heard Cierra say from the kitchen with a giggle. While I couldn’t smell anything from us at the moment, I was willing to bet she was right, given we were both rather sweaty after the long meditation.

I continued to basically drag Avuri toward the bathhouse. She didn’t really resist the rest of the way, but when we arrived, gave me a whiny ‘Do we have to?’.

“Get your sorry butt changed. I’ll meet you in the bath.” I said, and half shoved her into the changing room.

She laughed at me then. “Yes, Mom.” She said snarkily before moving off to change.

When we both entered the bath area moments later, that smile and snark was gone, replaced by the same blank face that I had seen over the past few weeks. I was almost certain it was a carefully crafted facade at this point. And as we both sat down to wipe ourselves down, I decided now was as good a time as any to just crack the thing wide open.

I knew I was a pretty awkward person. May as well lean into it.

“Why are you spending so much of your energy avoiding me?” I asked, straight, as I began to wipe down my legs with a washcloth.

Avuri had been wiping herself down as well, but stopped and turned to face me. She looked less upset or shocked than I may have expected. “Ah. You noticed?”

“No shit.” I said, continuing to go about washing up. “You’re not exactly masking it very well by just running away to the fields every chance you get, or outright avoiding looking at me whenever we’re in the same room.”

Avuri sighed. “You know, I didn’t exactly think I was doing a great job with it, but I was hoping-”

“Even I’m not that dense, Avuri.” I said with a self derisive snort, then reconsidered. “Well, I’m not really dense at all, to be fair. But you still did a fantastically bad job hiding it.”

Avuri looked down at her toes as she wiped the sweat away. “Yeah, s’pose I deserve that.”

“So? Why?” I said, finally stopping to look at her seriously. She also stopped moving, but hesitated to answer.

“I know that the…feelings caused by the Paired Cultivation are a lot to deal with, and if I did something that made you feel uncomfortable, I’m sorry. But I’d really prefer you tell me instead of-”

“Nope, that’s not it.” Avuri interrupted me, but continued to look down.

“Then…?” I prompted.

Avuri and I sat in awkward silence for almost a minute before she finally looked up at me and our eyes locked on one another. Avuri was clearly studying my face, maybe looking for some sort of reaction. All I gave her was a questioning look, but I did keep our eyes locked.

After a solid fifteen seconds passed of her scouring my face with her eyes, I turned to face her properly and leaned in toward her. “What are you looking for, Avuri?”

The sound seemed to knock her out of whatever trance she had been in, and she sat up straight and blinked. She once again fell quiet.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Avuri, what is going on?” I said, trying not to shout. “I thought everything was going so well a couple weeks ago and then suddenly you’re trying to avoid even looking at me? When we’re spending several hours a day connected at a soul-deep level?”

“I - uh…”

I just plowed right on, ignoring that she had said anything. “This whole thing is ridiculous. If you want to leave, or whatever, be my guest. I’m not one for holding people against their will. You had better say goodbye to Cierra before you go, though, because that girl very clearly likes you. You make her cry and you won’t live to regret it.”

Avuri had turned to look at me half way through my mini-tirade. “What?” I spat. “I’m tired of all this walking on eggshells crap. I told you the day you first got here. I’m an open book. For the most part, I pride myself on that. I don’t try to be sneaky or subtle. I know I’m bad at that and pretty awkward to boot when it comes down to it. I’m not going to sit here while you try to avoid me for some reason you refuse to say. Get your nerves together to talk or just leave.”

Having said my piece, I finished wiping myself down while Avuri just watched me. She looked a little stunned. I internally shrugged, just moving on. Either she would or wouldn’t explain. Either way, it was in her hands now. As I stood from the stool to go get into the actual bath to rinse off and relax for a moment, Avuri stood as well. Her movement caught my attention and I turned to her with an unspoken question.

She looked at me, steadied herself, and muttered. “Right. Open book. No bullshit. I can get behind that.” She finally appeared steady and looked me in the eye when she asked, “Emery, would you like to have dinner - just the two of us - sometime?”

I sat back down and struggled not to laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, we could do that.”