Sword and Snow

Cierra, Avuri, and Vale had gathered in the main house’s meditation room after breakfast to work on Cierra’s technique as promised. Emery had volunteered to take the other kids out into the basin for a bit of play time, and to check in with each of the other family units, which left their house blissfully quiet for a while.

“Ok, so let’s see what you can do so far..” Avuri said, as each of the three stood in a lazy circle in the center of the room. “It’s been a while since you’ve shown Merri or me what you’ve been working on.”

“I know.” Cierra muttered. “I can only have the two of you breathing over my shoulder for so long before I have to work on some of my own techniques. Otherwise I’d just end up a mini copy of one of you. Or both, and that would be terrifying.”

After a beat, Vale laughed. “True, the last thing we need are a bunch of mini-Merri’s running around.”

With a smile, Cierra began to take a stance before stopping and looking around. “If I’m going to be throwing techniques around, shouldn’t we go outside?”

“Ah.” Avuri turned on a heel toward the door. “Right you are. Off we go, then.” She motioned Vale and Cierra to follow. They quickly made their way out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the Basin. The sun shone brightly overhead, even filtered through the Wisteria tree’s branches.

Cierra wrinkled her nose and sneezed as the sunlight hit her eyes. Avuri chuckled as Cierra muttered a curse under her breath.

“One of these days, I swear.” Cierra mumbled, “Surely Cultivation will eventually stop me from sneezing when I see the sun.”

“You’ve got a ways to go for that one, Cici.” Vale said, clapping her on the shoulder as they ambled to an empty sparring ground. “Cultivation does wonders for the body, sure. But it’s not until the Sky Realm that your body really begins to change. And even then, you’ll need to eat, drink, and sleep into the Heavenly Realm. Maybe around then…?”

Cierra took in a deep breath and let out a huge, exaggerated sigh. “Curses.”

“Well, you can worry about that after you show us what you’ve got.” Avuri pushed her forward gently toward the center of the sparring field. “And we’ll see what we can do about helping you out.”

With a serious nod, Cierra put herself in work mode. She took a deep breath to steady herself and begin circulating her Qi. As she pulled from her Core, she could feel the ambient temperature around her dip somewhat - not into freezing levels, but still noticeably colder than the day had been naturally. Licks of frost even formed on her skin and clothing.

Avuri nodded in approval. “That’s a pretty good showing for doing nothing more than a basic cycle.”

Spurred on by Avuri’s light praise, Cierra took a stance and readied herself. She pushed and pulled the Qi throughout her body in different ways to summon a large amount of it to the surface and out into the air. Immediately, under her control, snow, wind, and ice began to form and coalesce into a writhing storm of energy.

Cierra had seen Avuri do this technique so many times. Enough that much of it was so ingrained into her, that the process was near automated. Her body knew the steps it had to take to draw up the Qi, manipulate it, and form the technique. Beyond that, though, she hadn’t figured out control.

As she began to direct the Qi outward as an attack, the shape and cohesion of the dragon broke down. The tightly wound storm still surged forward, but it was as if Cierra had called up a small blizzard and directed it forward. Snow and ice pelted the ground for twenty meters ahead of her. There was a large cone of ice slick coating the ground before her, too. And she was sure that whoever was standing there beforehand would have had a very bad day; between the cutting ice and wind, someone without protection would have been in really bad shape.

But the technique was uncontrolled and messy. It was so unsubstantial like this that she wouldn’t even want to call it a technique. It was really just embarrassing. Cierra sighed aloud. “And that’s what happens. I can follow your cycling patterns and Qi control until the dragon is formed, so that’s not a problem.” She said, turning to face Avuri. “The problem is that I can’t really follow how you contain and control it after you let it go.”

Avuri nodded along, appearing in thought. However, before she replied, Vale stepped into the field.

“Have you tried using any technique that requires control at a range like that?” He asked as he approached.

Cierra nodded once. “Yeah. I’ve learned the basics of mom’s weapon manipulation techniques. I can control ten knives if I’m really concentrating,” she said, excited.

Vale continued to nod along. “That might actually be your problem. If you’ve been trying to apply Merri’s Qi strand technique to control that dragon technique, you aren’t going to have nearly enough control.”

“I know that,” Cierra muttered petulantly, “I’ve been using a stronger cord of Qi than what I use for knives.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Vale corrected. “The issue isn’t the amount of Qi, nor your strength when it comes to the ranged manipulation. I do, literally, mean that technique won’t work.” He smiled as he reached Cierra and placed a hand consolingly on her shoulder.

“Merri’s technique is an absolute marvel. It’s designed to use as little Qi as possible while keeping your control over whatever you’re tethered to as precisely as possible. There’s even shortcuts built into the Qi through cycling patterns that make whatever you’re manipulating work more by instinct than actual thought.” He continued to elaborate. “However, that entire technique is built upon the idea that the weapons you’ll be manipulating only need simple instructions. It’s the equivalent of picking up a knife and throwing it - just doing so continuously without ever ‘putting it down’.”

Cierra frowned, but considered what he was saying. And it did make sense - controlling the knives was a simple thing. What made it impressive was the ease at which you could expand and improve the technique through several layers. It was designed to be as streamlined as possible.

“So.” Vale said, “What you actually need to work on is an entirely different kind of manipulation technique. One designed to contain, control, and direct masses of Qi.” As he spoke, Vale looked back at Avuri questioningly. She just motioned him on. With a nod, he turned back toward Cierra and began cycling his own Qi.

Unlike the way that Cierra’s ice- and water-aspected Qi chilled the air around her, Vale’s Qi warped his body. Normally, the man was a strange combination of tall and imposing, while also being a bit paunchy and jovial. It was as if he had an internal switch that he could set wherever he wanted between the two extremes at any given moment. His skin was darker, with a reddish tint to it, and his pitch black hair cascaded in wild waves down his back.

As he began to cycle his Qi, his body began to change to be much closer to his actual appearance, though Cierra had never seen it herself. Even through his robes, she could tell his body was heavily muscled and imperious, with none of his paunch to be seen. Instead, he was covered in dark black scales that looked almost as if they were smoldering. While his body was human in shape, his head looked far more like the dragon he truly was.

With the sharper features and the ridges of scales and spikes contouring his head, Cierra nearly took a step back involuntarily in awe. The crown of his head bore two antler-like horns that looked both menacing and regal. It had been a while since she had seen him like this, and a pair of glowing, golden reptilian eyes stared back at her as she marveled at his appearance.

“Ha. Sorry, I forgot you’re not used to this.” Vale said with a small chuckle and a shrug. He actively took a less imposing posture and slumped a bit.

“Sorry for staring.” Cierra said, “Even knowing what to expect, it’s so rare that you actually use your Qi while you’re here that I never have the chance to get used to this.” She looked him up and down once. “And that’s not even including your clothing changes to fit your body when your Qi touches it.”

Vale looked down with a slight smirk, running his - now clawed - fingers over the edges of his robes. They did, indeed, tighten in response to his Qi, conforming to his more tightly muscled body after losing the belly that he adopted to look less dangerous.

“You were still really little at the time, so you may not remember, but you have seen his true form, at least once. This look isn’t half as impressive as his actual dragon form.” Avuri said with a warm smile. “Though, I suppose it’s better if he never needs to use that here.”

“Anyway,” Vale said, dragging them back on track. His voice held a strange, inhuman texture to it now, sounding like a deep, raspy voice with some shifting coals behind it. “I’ll show you the technique. Do your best to copy me, hm?”

Cierra nodded seriously, and copied her uncle’s stance. As he ran through the cycling patterns, he slowed everything down to allow Cierra to follow as best she could. After running through it several times, Vale stopped to watch as Cierra carried on alone. He corrected her here and there, explaining some of the intricacies of the technique as she altered and adjusted to the corrections. Within twenty minutes, she had the basics down solidly enough that he felt comfortable letting her practice on her own.

“Right then. You’ve got the basics. Now you just need to apply that to the control part of your dragon technique. Watch.” Vale once again took up a stance, slightly different this time. In a show of similar yet opposite techniques, Vale fashioned his Qi into a brilliant, burning fire dragon. The technique looked almost identical to Avuri’s, just composed of fire Qi instead.

Vale made a show of using the control technique he had demonstrated earlier to control and contain the fire dragon. As he launched the mass of Qi away, the dragon remained intact, and rampaged around the field. Unlike the way Cierra’s earlier attempt spun out into a cone of danger, Vale’s technique didn’t so much as scorch the ground. The destructive power of it remained contained in the shape of the dragon, the same way Avuri’s technique was used.

Cierra did her best to commit the whole thing to memory, and began to test the technique on a much smaller scale to get it right. Vale nodded as he let his Qi disperse into the air harmlessly. As his cycling slowed, then stopped, his body also readjusted to his more human appearance.

“I think I’ve given you plenty to work on?” He asked.

“Yeah. I think I can take it from here.” Cierra responded, already half-lost in her new experimentation. With a jolt, she looked up, her eyes bouncing between Avuri and Vale. “Thanks Momri. Uncle.” Cierra’s cycling quickly died out as she moved to give each of them a side hug. “I’m going to get right to work.”

“Of course,” Avuri said, as she dipped slightly to kiss Cierra’s forehead. “Good luck. You’ve got this.”

Vale, for his part, clapped Cierra on the shoulder with a grin and winked. “You’ve got this, Cici.”

And then they both turned and walked away, leaving Cierra to her newly reenergized practice.

Vale and Avuri made their way back to the house at a relaxed pace. Once they were out of earshot from Cierra, they glanced at one another and Vale sighed and shook his head. “I almost can’t believe that’s the same girl Merri picked up sixteen years ago.”

Avuri smiled warmly as she stretched out her limbs. “She’s done a lot of growing. I suppose we all have, to be fair.”

Vale did some small stretches himself as Avuri began rolling her neck. “When Merri first returned with a half-dead girl who was more or less catatonic, I never would have guessed that this is how things would have turned out.”

Avuri had a wide grin on her face as she turned to look out the window at their sprawling basin. “If someone had told me when we first saved Cierra where we’d end up I would have called them insane.” She chuckled. “Well, mostly. I already had a bit of interest in Merri at the time because she was strangely…captivating. But all this? No way.”

“That girl really is something.” Vale said, turning in the direction of the main area in the center of the Basin, where Emery was likely playing with the other children. “Though, don’t sell yourself short, Av. You may not have been here immediately at the beginning, but the Wiria Family wouldn’t exist without you, either.”

“I know. And I’m incredibly proud of my hand in all this. But we all know it’s because of Merri we ended up here.”

“Won’t argue that point.” Vale rolled and popped a shoulder once more before rubbing his hands together hungrily. “But now I’m going to steal a bit of food and nap for a bit before we check back in with Cici later.”

Avuri nodded. “You do that. I’m going to go pester my wife and see if she needs any help with chores today.”

“Perfect. You make for such a lovely distraction, dear.”