There was a lot of cheering after Yorins match. Both sects seeming to approve of the display of two children beating each other half to death, Tantra doesn’t think she’ll ever be qualified to understand the thoughts of cultivators. All she’s capable of doing after watching that is to pace in front of the medicine hall waiting for Yorin.
“I’m sure he’s fine, honourable Tantra.” Kisrin says, “He won after all.”
“He passed out on his feet, you don’t do that if you’re fine.” Tantra retorts
Kisrin shrugs, “It’s very cultivatory though, I think I caught approval from Master Jorin’s gaze as they were taking away Yorin.”
Tantra huffs, “massive brain damage doesn’t care about how ‘cultivatory’ you are honourable Kisrin.”
Kisrin raises a brow, “forgiveness, but are you really one to talk. Not even a week ago you fought a cultivator in purification, and wouldn’t stay down.”
“That was just to maintain an image.” Tantra defends, “not because of anything so banal as a cultivators spirit.”
Kisrin scoffs and takes a bite out of his apple, “well you certainly maintained something, from how the others in the Serpent’s Fang are talking about you, you’d think you were the second coming of Talium himself.”
“I intended for no such thing,” Tantra blushes, “I simply didn’t want to be seen as a coward.”
Kisrin shrugs and continues with his apple, giving her a rather telling look of skepticism. She ignores him to the best of her ability. What, does he think she’s secretly actually trying to be a cultivator? Preposterous!
-
Etra checks a kick rather easily, feeling the reverberations of force as it travels through her leg.
This is boring.
She strikes out a jab stopping just before it would hit her opponent and pulling back. He turns red with fury as he continues to try and break her guard unsuccessfully. A cross here, an uppercut there, even a spinning backfist. He tries a few kicks but those are about as successful as the punches. This kid doesn’t even understand the basics of combat, trying all his big flashy moves before any proper set up, just hoping the very telegraphed strikes hit their mark.
Even Tantra understands the need for simple hits, and that’s saying a lot.
She wonders who, exactly, taught him how to fight, because they failed him spectacularly. He tries a flying knee that Etra just sidesteps, letting out an involuntary yawn. The boy's temper flares.
“Fight me!” he yells.
“Are we fighting?” Etra tilts her head. “Because this doesn’t feel like fighting, it feels like the tantrum of a child.”
The boy bellows and charges her, and she honestly couldn’t care less about what comes next because she rocked him with a blow to his temple as he was winding up a kick, disorienting him enough for her to put him in a rear naked choke.
He flails, but eventually goes limp as his consciousness leaves him.
The crowd doesn’t exactly seem pleased with her, playing with your food is frowned upon fairly heavily.
But she doesn’t particularly care.
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If he didn’t want to get humiliated he shouldn’t have been so shit.
-
Karaz,
There it is, written in plain english, surrounded by so many other names. It took her a while to muster the courage to come here. To acknowledge what has become her new reality. She thought she’d feel something like catharsis, or anger. Instead she just feels sad.
“Hey,” she says to nobody, “It’s been a while hasn’t it? Sorry for not visiting sooner, Ranya just…couldn’t.”
She sits down on the dirt and hugs her knees, “It hurts for you to be gone. Hurts in a way Ranya can’t describe.”
The leaves rustle to the autumn wind, it’s a little chilly but that's okay. She stopped caring about such things a while ago. She sits in front of the stone and takes a deep breath.
“Ranya knows who it was,” she says, “call themselves the Rakkaja clan, it didn’t take long to find out, they’re pretty common around the Darkwoods and the Boreal Pass.”
She clenches her fists and squeezes her knees to her chest.
“Don’t worry Karaz,” she whispers, “Ranya won’t do anything crazy, but…she has to kill at least a few. She owes you that much.”
-
The thing she misses the most about merchant life is her family, second most is the food. She remembers the variety of meats and fruits that would grace her tongue daily. The delectable noodles and well seasoned rice. Whenever her birthday came around the harem would hold a celebration to commemorate the year, it was always a grand thing, a festival event. She remembers the joyous smiles and heartfelt congratulations.
It is only now that she realizes they never did the same for any of the harem, as she stares at the ceiling, sweetroll balanced on her stomach.
It took only three merits, enough that she isn’t worried about her remaining balance, a little treat for a day that used to be so very loud. Now it’s just her, all alone in a place she never wanted to be but…she has to admit, she’s starting to like it here. Not for the cultivation, but for the people. She has real connections with people in her age group now, not the silly ones that precipitated tea parties and practiced words. She hated those, if she were being completely honest.
She wonders if this is how the harem spent their birthdays, staring at the ceiling and just contemplating life. Ranya is no fool, she knows many of them didn’t want to be there, used as a piece in a game of politics they have no say in. If her father hadn’t favoured her then maybe she would be the same.
An altogether worse fate than being a cultivator.
To have no say in your future? That feels…wrong.
The librarians words come back to her then.
‘Do you think the peasant chooses to be a farmer, or the soldier chooses to fight for his liege?’
She never really gave credence to those words, but now that she really thinks about it she finds it kind of horrifying. Their only choice is to continue with their meager lives or try and break the cycle of ancestral legacy and become a cultivator. She’s starting to see why so many people find this path attractive.
But she would have been happy as a merchant.
Happier than she would be as a cultivator?
She doesn’t know. She’s never really considered it, considering the connection to her soul.
Tantra takes a bite out of her sweet roll.
Hmmmm, unbalanced.
-
There are five corpses hanging off a tree, they are naked and beaten to the point of barely being considered human, there is a gaping hole where each ones heart should be.
“You know I have this theory.” The woman says as she paces back and forth, “I think the gods made cultivation. I know, I know, why would they make the means to defy them? But think about it, really take a moment. No cultivator is strong enough to truly defy the divine, all playing at strength in their little playground. No, I think they use it to raise us, like how a farmer might raise cattle. Do you follow?”
The corpses say nothing.
“Of course, of course. Ever so smart you are, it could indeed be that cultivation was just a happy accident, or the imperfect tool of a man with the desire for change, but that just seems too convenient. Why is there a means to break the laws of reality in the heart of every soul? Animal, insect, and man. It seems ridiculous when you really think about it, tell me, are you thinking?”
The corpses swing side to side.
“That is a marvelous idea! Thank you ever so much my friends, how would I ever sort out all the thoughts in this little head of mine if it weren’t for you pretty little things? You’re ever so helpful as you are now than before, making up for all that annoying screaming hmmm?”
A bug lands on the eye of one of the bodies.
“Well you have my gratitude, now I think I know what I’ll do next, yes, yes I do. I think I’ll visit your home little puppets, see who's got those strings all wrapped around those limbs of yours and show them why we are things to be feared and not to be hunted. Oh it’ll be ever so fun! Imagine it, me coming for tea, sharing rice, and ripping out hearts! Such fun, such fun indeed.”