Mother was not happy today. Stood to reason really, but sucked all the same. She could feel in in the weight of the woman’s blows; it hadn’t changed on her face, still serene as ever, but that was surface. One couldn’t hide the depths when you crossed fists with another. Her Dantain was rampaging around as her Chigong was pushed to it’s absolute limit to keep up with her mother today. Ci was never a woman who took it easy on the field of combat, but today Talia was strained and having to focus more than she had ever had to focus on keeping her breath circling. The hidden troubles of talent, it seemed.

Blissfully, she managed to get to the end, and was allowed to collapse and gasp heartily.

“I heard you intimidated one of the Prefects earlier” Ci would state, after Talia could breath properly again. Not a hair out of place, not a bead of sweat marring her subtle makeup. Truly, she was an icon of the Mountain Sects. The very memory of her was enough for motivation for a thousand score of cultivators.

“Yea” was the simply reply, getting her flow back into proper order and then sitting up. “Fushaka is a good girl, she’s never had anything against her and is opposing Three Mind. Hundred percent getting into the Inner Sect. Who knows where she is going from there, but her advantage might even bring her up here to the Core. So when I saw she had ran all the way up to the Core with no Qingong, I knew something serious was going on. So I hadn’t the time to talk to a Prefect who was honestly getting a little full of himself, trying to beat up an Outer Sect because she was here…”

Ooh, Mother did not like that. Her lips pursed ever so slightly, a sign that was practically blazing with rage were she a normal person.

“That was left out of the report” she’d comment, and pause for a few moments, before letting out a gentle sigh. “I am not forgiving you, but I will acknowledge why you did what you did and the neccecity of it in the sitution you were in. We are overdue an evaulation for the Prefects anyway, so now is a good a time as any to do that”

She would give a gentle nod to Talia, slightly shifting in her pose to indicate that it was now mother and daughter time rather than Sect Leader.

“So, how is Fushaka?” Ci would ask, heading over to pour some tea.

“Doing good. Apparently her place was using Tribute Grass, but they managed to fix that. It helped, even, because the stone was a good place to bounce off my energy to get all the guys out of Breath Deficiency. And on the topic, we need to add sex to the curriculum” Talia would finish, looking to Ci.

That stare. If she wasn’t super confident that she was suggesting it for a noble reason, she would have withered under her mother’s stare. How she managed to exhibit such emotion with such subtle expressions was amazing. She hopes that she’d pick up that talent one day.

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“Ddddddddon’t look at me like that….” Talia muttered, even the defence of her sinercity fading some under that look. “It’s totally legit…”

Ci would go to her desk, and take a seat. Steepling her fingers, she would look forward and be silent. Waiting. As close to permission as anyone was going to get in this situation.

“Fushaka caused some Breath Deficiency by having a unique solution to people trying to harrass her by using her life’s work learning to make sure that they were happy with the end result” Talia exclaimed, all in a rush. Ci would look for a moment as if translating, and then nodded.

“She had sex with them. In a way that caused them to suffer Deficiency. Which means oral. Simple, easy, and effective for a crowd” Ci’s dispassionate dissection of the situation would have made Talia blush if she was a lesser woman, but she just scratched her head awkwardly.

“Yea, she’s good with her tongue. But apparently that’s bad - Oral, not her being bad with her tongue, I like that - and I’ve never heard of that. Which means a lot of people have never heard about it. Fu probably went looking specifically for it only after she stuck her foot in it. It must be a rare enough thing that we haven’t had any notable problems with it yet, but we should add it in anyway just to make sure that it doesn’t happen anymore”

Talia regained her confidence somewhat as she went on, and managed to finish with a definitive edge to her tone. It was good for Ci to see such diligence. Talai would need to be able to keep her spine even in situations where all she wanted to do was shrink away. Not everyone agreed, not everyone in this world was your friend. Sometimes you had to bare fangs to get where you wanted to be in life.

“Hmm. Your wife really is shaking things up, isn’t she?” Ci would ask, a slight smile on her face as she got to paperwork.

“Yea, she is pretty go-wait, wife? I-I thought you said we weren’t getting married till she did the nearly impossible task of mastering Twelve Stars” Talia exclaimed, scowling at her mother for confusing her like that. Ci would look up, and cock her head softly.

“You…don’t know? You just offered to marry her because she was being insulted?” Ci would ask.

“It was the only solution I had left. I wasn’t standing for her getting insults that weren’t even correct insults. So yea, I did what I had to do” Talia would cross her arms, scowling at the whole situation.

“I love your mother” Ci would state suddenly. There was a flicker of movement, and the woman was in front of Talia, holding her face in her hands. Talia could see in her eyes this was not a Sect thing. This was a mother thing. The dividing line was stuck to harshly, but Talia understood why. “Seeing her in you like this, makes my heart soar. You will be the best of both of us when you are grown, my little Talia”

Ci would put a kiss on Talia’s forehead, and then a warm smile.

“You need to go visit her soon. And take Fushaka with you. Introducing your wife to be is important. And it’s been a while since you saw her”

Talia would be caught in a daze at the whole thing, but manage to regain her mental balance at the end.

“And you? When was the last time you saw her?” Talia asked, her heart thumping wildly. And it almost stopped when she saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes. Ci rarely talked about her other mother, and now Talia saw why.

“...A while” she would state, curt and short, as she departed back to the table. Talia watched, and felt her body breaking down, seeing the woman in emotional turmoil. Immortals shouldn’t be like that, they were ascended beyond the mortal concerns. Hence the name. She had to do something about this scar on her mother’s heart.

“I’m, going to go now” Talia choked out, before turning and leaving. She had to get something done about all this. It was unjust, leaving a person in pain like this.