The Door To All Marvels Departure/Return

Lily could tell sothing was off with Mingtian. It was not so much a mystical sense— Mingtain was as obtuse as ever to her despite her ascension into cultivator-hood, and she doubted that was going to change anyti soon— but… it was just obvious. Avyr was clearly pretending not to see it, and everyone else was avoiding the man as best as they could. Whatever had happened, it had clearly left a rather strong impression on both Guxi and Yuxan, which…

Avyr probably knew more than she did. He always tended to have more of a finger on the pulse of events… or a paw? A pawpad? She wasn’t actually sure of the correct terminology, co to think of it— or if there even was correct terminology. There had to be, no? It wasn’t like the cats hadn’t been around for thousands and thousands of years, even if they’d not been quite as widespread as they were now after their diaspora…

She turned to Avyr, who was curled up on the cold concrete beside her, waiting for the councillor’s car to arrive. “Hey.”

He glanced up, raising his head to et her gaze in his golden eyes. They were very bright today, she couldn’t help but notice. “Yes? Are you worried too? I… would not be. I do not think they will co for us again. Whatever this is, it is above us, for as much as it is around us. We sit at the eye of the storm now. Or perhaps, it is the storm that centers its eye around us…”

Lily blinked, trying to decipher her friend’s words. There was zero chance he wasn’t being deliberately cryptic, but then again, if he was obfuscating whatever it was he was obfuscating , he was probably doing so for a reason. And probably wouldn’t explain to her if asked… she sighed, rolling her eyes. “That’s not what I was asking about anyways. I just wanted to know sothing.”

“Oh? What?” Avyr perked up— which, understandable, if he wanted sothing to distract himself from the… whatever was going on. “Our studies? Geopolitics? Rr’an… the Great One’s position in the inter-city politic, which I suppose will be of much more importance to us going forward, even if he did promise not to interfere overly much…”

“No, I wanted to know what you called your paw… fingers. Pawpads. The digits you have the little beans on.”

Avyr leveled a very unimpressed look at her… which, slowly shifted into a bit of a contemplative one, and then a focused one as he clearly tried to look for an answer that didn’t sound dumb. “That’s… hm. There’s a na for it in our language, but I’ve never actually thought all that much of what the translation would be. I’m sure you have a word for them, but I don’t know it… fingers, perhaps, would be the most accurate, though not entirely so. Physiologically, our paws were never designed to grasp anything.” He raised one of his middle legs, wiggling his fingers? Dexterously. “We’ve learned, because human tools, the human thodology itself is very useful— but they still are not entirely suited for the job.”

“It’s impressive how good you are at it though.” She paused, tilting her head back for a second as she thought. “It’s not like there’s a difference in the fingers on your front legs and your back legs, right?” Avyr nodded. “Then… maybe it would be more accurate to say that they’re all toes, actually? Except that just sounds weird…” then she thought of having to learn to pick up and manipulate… everything… with her feet, and suddenly felt a rather strong bout of sympathy for the big cat.

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“They are toes. On regular cats, at least.” Lily yelped in surprise as Mingtain was just there, behind her. She’d lost track of him in the milling procession of servants and various other little functionaries, and sohow he’d snuck up on her.

A formation, maybe? She couldn’t see the disturbed qi that such a thing would’ve caused, but then again, if her winter break had taught her anything, it was that Master Mingtain was a master of formations in more than one definition of the word. If he wanted to hide that sort of thing, she frankly didn’t really doubt he could.

Not anymore, at least.

Avyr blinked up at Mingtian, clearly not quite as surprised as she was. Sohow, that seed to make Mingtain happier. Not happy, not in the way he’d been for the winter festival or for their return, but… happier. Closer to happy. “I’m glad you could make it,” the big cat said at last, after a long mont of silence.

“As am I.” He crossed his arms behind his back, golden hair— caught up in the breeze, the edge of his clothes, oddly tiless and of a style she did not recognize. He looked… implacable. Immortal, in a way that Lily could not say she’d ever quite associated with the man so strongly before. Like a powerful cultivator rely playing at mortality.

Then, a second later, it was gone, and she wondered if she’d imagined it. He’d always been rather charismatic, and it wasn’t like she’d felt even the inkling of an iota of qi from him, so probably…

“You two will do well back at the University of East Saffron. I’m sure of it.” He certainly sounded sure. “Lily— keep in mind everything you’ve learned, and everything you’ve seen, and I’m sure that your formation abilities will continue to develop apace. I would have suggested you learn one of the other arts— smithing, or artefice— but between your pursuit of the sword and your pursuit of formations mastery—” and her classes, went unsaid— “you’re going to have a full plate. Keep focused.” She nodded. Of course she’d keep focused. She’d co too far to fail now. The last steps…

So close.

So close.

Mingtain turned to Avyr, then. “You’ve co a long way. Probably longer than you know. Keep fast to what you’ve already achieved and continue your ditations. It’ll be good for you. For the soul, if nothing else.” Avyr rolled his eyes, but nodded. “I’m proud of both of you.”

That was… oddly sappy, for him. “You’ll be fine with us gone?”

“Of course.” He tilted his head up imperiously, and Lily could almost not see the emotion behind his eyes. “I’ll be just fine. I have a few small matters to take care of, but my situation should be calm besides those.” Except, that emotion— it was not sadness, like she expected, or even a forlorn quietude, or even a brief ache— but rather a smoldering, a deep and fathomless and boundless, and searingly radiant, rage.

She didn’t know why, but deep within her— deeper than emotion, so atavistic part of her—

It scared her.

Even as they boarded the car and left once more to the University of East Saffron, ready to dive back headfirst once again into the competition—

It scared her.