Ery
It had been four days since they had figured out how to accurately control their connection's strength, and Ery was still astounded by the amount of control they seed to have over it. Her connection with Avuri had always been a spiritual one that had seed to work through their Qi, requiring their Domains to be in contact to operate. Given that, they had previously operated the strength of the connection through Qi manipulation.
It had been remarkably simple, but therefore strict. If Ery wanted to essentially 'scream' sothing at Avuri, she would have pushed more Qi into the connection. If she wanted to 'whisper' sothing, she'd use less. She had always considered it simple but effective.
But after their Domains had rged, things had gotten far more complicated. While they couldn't control it well at all at first, after they had taken their ti to enter their shared Inner World and found the spiritual manifestation of the connection itself, it was like various ntal switches and toggles had been put in place.
For the mont, Ery or Avuri could essentially control the connection by ntally picturing the flow of Qi, or the windows, or the doors, closing and opening them as they saw fit. It was functioning like any technique that was ford in a Cultivator's Inner World, able to be used and manipulated within them with a thought. Which also gave Ery confidence that they would both be able to improve their control over ti, eventually becoming able to manipulate it instantly through will alone.
Still, it was nice to be able to take a walk around the Basin with a few of the kids without having Avuri's thoughts and emotions clouding her own the entire ti, unbidden. And yet, with just a quick thought…
"Hi, you." Avuri's voice sounded in her head when she gently pushed open the ntal window. Her wife's voice imdiately put a smile on her face.
"Hi." She sent back.
"Aren't you walking with the Willows?"
"I am." Ery confird. Kal had been difficult recently, desperately wanting to get out of the Willows' house for a while, and as a five-year-old, he was obstinate and difficult to convince otherwise. He saw the rest of his family unit - Fia, Lia, and Jack - regularly making short trips to the edges of the Basin for their daily chores and desperately wanted to go with them.
The whole family had been being more cautious recently with Bouquet making so kind of move, which ant no one was really going anywhere near the edges of the Basin anymore. They typically stayed well within the barrier Arrays so that anyone approaching the family for any reason would need to cross them. They still had a lot of faith in the barriers, after all - they hadn't ever failed them.
Still, Kal had been carrying on for days, and Ery didn't think there'd really be much danger in letting the family take a walk around the edges of the Basin, especially with her presence. Plus, it was almost ti to check on the Arrays. It was a few months early, but with danger lurking so close, she couldn't deny the desire to check them all a bit more frequently.
"How're things looking?"
"Good so far." Ery returned, her hand swinging beside her with Kal's as they all walked together. "The Arrays are still in good shape as we'd expect. I'll still have Talya do the extra check since she's here, but I don't think they need any real work done on them."
"What about the outer ones?" Avuri asked.
That was a more complex question. With all of the excitent in the last several months, the outer Arrays had been bumped lower and lower on their list of concerns. They had only ever been functional alarm Arrays out that far, so they weren't necessary for general life. And with Vale coming and going from the Basin so often with the Bonded group, it was easy to give them a quick glance as they passed.
The outer Arrays had remained in position and functioning, but they would need to actually walk the edges to check for actual holes at so point. And then the Elders had moved in, and that concern went even further down the list, because there was so much power concentrated in the Basin. Even if soone had found a hole in the outer Arrays, they would still need to cross the inner ones, and those were ticulously looked after and maintained.
"We really do need to check them."
"We need to find the ti."
"I think we're approaching the point where we need to make the ti." Ery sent, projecting her bluntness as much as she could without actual speech.
"Yeah…" Avuri projected a dramatic sigh into Ery's head. "When did this all get so complicated?"
"Ri, things have always been this complicated. We've had these Arrays set up for fifteen years."
"And we're only worried we might need them now. Fifteen years later."
"Does that make it more complicated?"
"Are you really going to be that pedantic right now?"
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
"Yep."
Ery felt Avuri slam the taphorical door in her face after that. She chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Kal asked, looking up at Ery's face.
"Momri is talking to and being silly." She answered.
"I hope I get to be in a relationship like that so day." Fia said wistfully. "Being so close to soone that you can be connected all day long and never get sick of them sounds so romantic."
Ery chuckled. "Oh, I get sick of her sotis."
"Really?" Fia and Lia asked in unison. Kal added his own 'really' a second later.
"I do. It's not often, I guess, but it does happen." Her eyes drifted up and away toward the bit of light coming through the foliage of the trees. "And she just slamd the door on , so to speak, just now. So she probably gets sick of too."
"Could've fooled ." Lia muttered.
"You all have a little ways to go before you find romantic partners, anyway." Ery said. "At the very least until you leave ho for your own lives."
"And what if we don't want to leave?" Lia asked.
"Then where would you find your partner?" Fia asked before Ery could respond.
Lia just shrugged. "Either here or in the city."
Fia gaped at her younger sister. "Here? As in, one of us in the Basin?"
Lia scrunched up her nose. "Ew, no! We all grew up together, Fia, you really think I'd go after one of our brothers?"
"Then what did you an?"
"Mom keeps bringing in more visitors. Sure, they've mostly been family, but it wouldn't surprise to start seeing random people start popping in on occasion."
Ery let the girls bicker without saying anything herself. In her own mind, she had to admit that Lia might have had a point; with everything that was going on now, it wasn't too far-fetched that they would consider opening their house to other trusted Cultivators. The main problem was that she didn't really have any of those that weren't family, so the only real options were others that the Elders had connections with, or perhaps so people from Avuri's ti at the Frozen Mountain Sect. Ery had heard so stories from Avuri about her friends there, but none of them seed like they had lasted.
Sothing on the edges of Ery's perception drew her attention. She had been walking with her Domain expanded well beyond the edges of the Basin's cliff-like wall; it was that perception that she had been using to inspect the outer Array's state.
There was a gap in the protection. Not a large one, and it had been poorly repaired. Ery's first thought was that she'd need to thank Natalya for her excellent, masterful work because whoever had broken through the Array simply didn't have the skills to repair it to its proper level of expertise, leaving the patchwork standing out.
Ery's focus imdiately shifted. She tried not to make any obvious moves with the children with her to avoid spooking them, but she still sharpened her senses and her Domain. None of the Willow kids were in the Sky Realm, so none of them were likely to notice the change in her Qi. That was a small blessing, at least.
Ery wasn't sure whether she should be relieved or more worried when her Qi swept through the area around them and found nothing. She tried to rember where the Array had been broken through previously, and whether this spot could have just weakened naturally over ti after a genuine repair, but none of the incidents she could recall lined up.
She ntally reached out to Avuri, essentially knocking on the 'door' that had been shut in her face only minutes ago. Unlike with an actual door, though, Avuri was likely able to feel Ery's emotional state and the connection surged imdiately.
"What's wrong?" Avuri asked, clearly concerned by Ery's unease.
"There's a gap in the outer Array. It's been poorly repaired, and I don't think it was by any of us."
"What are the chances so of the kids have been sneaking out?"
"Why would they damage the Array to do so?"
"Good point. I'll get everyone together."
"Be careful." Ery said, pressing the emotion of the words through as well.
"You too. Co back toward the center. Be careful. I love you."
"We're on our way. I love you too." Ery scanned her surroundings more deliberately, looking for anything else out of place, with both her eyes and her Domain. She turned up nothing of note.
"Alright, I think it's ti for us to head back. Lia, it's almost ti for you to help with dinner." Ery said, hoping they wouldn't argue with her over it.
"Is it?" Lia asked, looking up at the sky as if to divine the ti by the sun's position behind the leafy canopy. "I feel like we still have so ti…"
"I wanted to walk all the way," Kal whined, "and you said we could!"
"We've almost made it all the way." Ery said, despite them really only making it about two-thirds of the way around the whole basin. "And one of the paths back to the house is right here, so we should just -"
There was a loud cracking sound that not only cut Ery off, but completely drowned out her voice. The kids all slapped their hands over their ears in response to the overwhelming sound. Ery's first thought was that there was an enemy attack coming right for her or the kids. She went into high alert imdiately, only taking a mont to lock onto the source of the sound.
Two large trees that were beside their walking path, overgrown with Wisteria, were leaning, their trunks breaking apart as they began to fall. Directly toward her and the kids, almost as if guided.
Ery took just a mont to close her eyes and draw from her now extensive well of Qi. It answered her call imdiately, taking shape at her whims. Shard of tal ford into multiple crude blades hanging in the air. They were unfinished, missing handles and hilts, but they were still deadly sharp all the sa. They whirled around the area, cutting into branches and bark, making sure that nothing of any real weight would land on her or her children.
Then Avuri's ice answered her call, freezing the trunks of the trees to hold them together. When the shattering of ice joined the sound of the breaking wood, Ery pushed more Qi at the problem, creating thicker reinforcents of ice to hold the trees together. Beyond that, she even shoved more Qi at the currently unbroken trees to reinforce their trunks, just in case they decided to join their fellows.
anwhile, Ery's body quickly drew her kids in close. She gathered everyone into a huddle, making sure she would be able to protect them if soone or sothing did appear. Kal was cowering and crying under the cover of her arms. Jak looked ashen and stared at one of the trees that had its fall halted by the ice. Lia huddled protectively over her little brothers, while Fia crouched beside them all, half under Ery's protection and half prepared to act if sothing else went wrong.
The group stayed together like that for a long couple monts before Avuri's mildly panicked voice sounded in Ery's head.
"Em? What's going on? Are you alright?"
Ery's entire body was on high alert. She still didn't know if there were enemies nearby, but there were too many coincidences clustered together here for her to dismiss as nothing.
"We're alright," she returned, knowing full well that Avuri would feel her combination of worry and anger, "but we may have been attacked."
Reviews
All reviews (0)