At the tail end of summer, just creeping into autumn, the River’s Scales sect marched a procession into the home of the Serpent's Fang. Two groups of youth glare at each other, one adorned with robes of deep purple, bordering on black; the other graced with vestments of ruby red. At their head is a woman with eyes of crackling embers, pupils pinpoint.
“Welcome!” Says a portly man whose voice sounds like a master artisan carving through bone, ““your journey has surely been long and fraught with perils. Come, rest your weary heads at the hearth of my home.”
“Indeed,” says the crackling bonfire, “my students require rest before they beat yours into the ground.”
The man laughs a joyful tune of calcification, “always the competitive one, well come on then, soon we’ll put those words to task.”
The woman nods and walks beside him, the rest of their conversation being incomprehensible from the distance and lack of boisterous yelling.
-
Tantra sighs as she walks up to the centre of the field, didn’t even take a day for someone to challenge her, despite the fact that they should be resting in preparation for the tournament. Cultivators are dumb.
“Come, honourable disciple,” Says the boy across from her, “I can see your dedication to the path from the many bruises that marr your features, come, show me a cultivator's spirit!”
“I think you’ll be disappointed honourable disciple, this one has obtained these bruises because of her own ineptitude. Not from dedication as you so claim,” Tantra replies.
The boy barks a laugh, “humble as well? Truly you possess many virtues. Come, I will test your worth myself.”
Tantra sighs again and gets into her stance, she stares at the boy examining his movements and-
He is in front of her.
A fist crashes into her guard, sending her rolling as she pushes herself back up and barely avoids a kick that cuts through the air. She throws out a jab but he is no longer there, she makes a guess and ducks.
It was the wrong guess, a foot digs into her side as she is thrown across the field, falling on her back once again.
She gets back up.
He throws a fist into her gut, causing her to double over, then he brings a hammer fist to the back of her skull, sending her crashing to the floor.
She gets back up.
He sweeps his leg and she takes a step back, responding with a front kick, actually managing to hit her target. It doesn’t do much but make him stumble, and in a normal fight this might have been an opening to follow up with another strike. But he’s clearly well into foundation, and cleaned a good chunk of his meridians or possesses a monstrous amount of Qi for the kind of boosting he’s presenting right now.
She’s vindicated by her choice as not even a split second later he is in front of her, throwing another punch that she manages to block. This time tensing her muscles at the right time to prevent the blow from bowling her over. He sends out a jab that rocks her head back, but she still manages to dodge the hook that follows.
He starts speeding up.
At specific moments that tell her where a blow will land he slows down, but otherwise he is a storm of fists and feet. Mostly she doesn’t manage to block. She falls to the floor after the flurry.
She debates staying down but…nah she has an image to maintain, and the sects honour and all that other crap. It’s a shame he wasn’t a local disciple, then she could have given up at this point.
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Truly a shame.
She staggers back to her feet .
The boy smiles wide, hands on his hips, “You have proved me right! Your dedication is beyond even my expectations! Tell me, how long have you journeyed the path?”
Tantra spits out some blood, “four months,” she says with a slur.
Oh, that’s definitely not good.
The boy claps his hands together, “Fabulous, stupendous, glorious!.”
He seems genuinely awed at her. What a weirdo.
“My name is Soma Tellran,” He says with a bow, “may I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”
Tantra blinks, “Tantra Sol,” she says.
“Wonderful, wonderful, I look forward to seeing your performance in the tournament.” Then he turns around and walks away, a crowd of people following him as he leaves.
Tantra just stares at the retreating figure before vomiting on the floor.
Someone rubs her back.
“Merciless cunt,” Etra says, “How are you even supposed to perform after the beating he gave you?.”
“Good question.” Tantra slurs, “I’ll tell you in a moment, once the world stops spinning”
Etra sighs, “C’mon, I’ll carry you home.”
-
At the peak of Mount Ghoma there sits a man.
Simple robes of light blue adorn a lightly muscled frame, a red sash wrapped around his waist. His skin is as pale as the surrounding snow. Locks of black flow down his back and pool around him in waves. He doesn’t sport any facial hair, preferring a clean visage in the presence of company, no matter how rare the occasion. It fascinates him that people would trek up to his little corner of the world, there is nothing to be gained here other than perhaps pleasant conversation, and a few made the journey with that expectation.
They climbed here for the express purpose of his company.
Truly the madness of humanity knows no bounds.
There are even those who hiked Ghoma twice, and one Ghomak Yortide who’s climbed five times. Rambunctious fellow, also likely insane, still it's a nice break from his routine. Most of his time he spends meditating. The practice has long lost its original purpose, but it is…soothing. Breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold, repeat. It's a cycle, like the seasons, like life and death, inevitable.
Hmmm, well, not for him.
Analogy works for most though.
There are a few cities between the mountains surrounding Ghoma, none have yet to make it here but they are close enough where he can see the movements of life, like a tide of bodies between structures of wood and stone. They’re relatively new additions, he’s considered visiting but…no, better that he sits on his mountain, getting involved with worldly affairs has a tendency to end badly.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t lonely, but that's the price and he’s already paid, so might as well persevere. There isn’t much to do besides meditation, he’s attempted ice sculpting, unfortunately he isn’t exactly artistically gifted so they don’t turn out all that great, but it's something to do, and it's a nice soundboard for when he feels like echoing out ideas. There is one sculpture, a sparrow, that he is particularly proud of, capturing the moment just before it soars through the sky.
He’s gone down the mountain a few times, making himself a toboggan and rushing down in a perfect lotus stance, he likes fighting with the wind as it whips through his hair and tries to break his posture, futile, but fun.
The climb up is also grounding, which, concerningly, he finds he needs more and more as time passes. It's hard not to view himself as something grand, even though many experiences he’s had before the mountain is a testament to the contrary. The act of climbing has a tendency to produce thoughts. Mostly about those who depended on him, those he failed, before the mountain.Whenever he feels like he’s become a bit too overconfident, a tad arrogant, he goes down the mountain. The climb usually corrects such foolishness.
He’s stopped counting the years, maintaining a calendar loses its purpose so far from civilised life. Still, he knows it's been long enough where anyone who knew his name is long dead.
Hmmm, no, he doesn't like that thought.
Unto something else then.
The cities are separate entities, he knows this because they often war with one another, between beast tides. Not too long ago the carved city and the city of the glowing tower fielded a few thousand each and saturated the ground between them in the blood of their people. He wonders how they can maintain the violence, surely their populations cannot be so high that they can wage war so wantonly?
He wonders why they don’t stand together against the horrors of the world, there’s so much blood to spill besides that of your fellow man. Yet they war and die to one another's blades. There's probably some profound truth there, something about the human condition, but he can’t be bothered to find it, if they want to kill each other they can go ahead, it doesn’t concern him.
It will never concern him