With the arrival of winter I was forced out of my comfort zone. While I was now an expert at cultivating the tiniest thread of light, it would slow my progression immensely if this is all I was left to work with. My lessons at the hollow log frequently took place beneath the heavy gloom of cloudy skies. I had not seen the moon properly in weeks, and the sun was an infrequent visitor. Worse still, I was in danger of falling behind for the first time in my young life. Nadders had developed an affinity for earth qi, which was annoyingly plentiful, Lavellan for water (unsurprising for a water-vole), Skol for snow, and Wuot for air.

This state of affairs was simply not acceptable, so I set out to rectify it before the next turning of the moon. It was very difficult though. White frost covered my beloved flower beds. Webs of ice coated the glass of the windows. The ground outside was hard and unyielding. There were no longer any glorious, vision-inducing drifts of mints growing in my garden. All my favourite plants had withered away. The flowers were gone. The night was long, it was so very long. Everything was subdued.

I snacked on some of Maud’s dried herbs, but it wasn’t the same. The short days were dull, cloud covered affairs that pinched at my bones with cruel, frosty fingers. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I was bereft of sun and flowers both.

All I had left was the fire. It roared in the hearth, fed by my Maud’s precious hands, and the warmth felt all the more potent for the biting cold it chased back. It was the only place I felt safe and I luxuriated in front of the flames while the wind howled at the shutters, and rain hammered against the roof. I was aware that it was possible that the lack of light had made me a little depressed …but I did not want to think about it too hard, I was too busy being sad.

Part of me wanted to stop in front of the hearth and sleep there, warm and cosy until the spring flowers poked their way through the earth. Everyone told me the summer would come again, but I was not sure I believed them. My memories of those days suddenly felt precious and fragile, as if I had imagined them. Life had been so easy. So pleasant, tripping through fields of flowers, exploring hither and thither while a sweet breeze caressed my nose! Why had I not appreciated how good life had been?

Winter felt like punishment.

Once or twice I had nightmares that the sunshine would never return, that my world would grow darker and darker till all was extinguished in endless, freezing, pitch-black night.

I lay, morose, on Maud’s lap, letting her scratch my belly, an activity I only allowed when she was particularly sad and needy.

“Jenkins, my love, are you feeling a little melodramatic?” She tickled behind my ears. It was nice. I supposed. I lifted my chin since she seemed to like it. “You know winter is only temporary don’t you? It will be warm again before you can shake your whiskers.”

I grumbled at her, and bit her hand half-heartedly, but she only laughed and tickled me again.

She was right. Occasionally she is, even if she is a two-legger, and her hunting skills have not improved one whit. Everyone said summer would come again. Montadie, Wuot, Moth, Mama, Maud. Everyone. I had no reason not to believe them. Light would return, one day, many moons away. I repeated it to myself, like a mantra.

So, with a great deal of effort, I picked myself up and continued my work. Despite my sadness I was not built to be an idle cat. In the sullen dusk of the early evening I stretched, washed, then patrolled the house, checking for vermin. I felt better after a wash. There were no vermin, and no ghosties, so I climbed the gloomy trees, sharpened my claws on the frosty bark, before settling myself before the hearth once more to groom. This time I felt better still. So I washed myself a third time, until my breathing was nice and peaceful, and my heart less heavy. Once my body was spotless, again, I turned my attention inwards.

Quieting my mind I thought still thoughts until I was deep in my cultivation. My next targeted meridian was the longest pathway yet, the one connected to my bladder. What blessings would it impart once unblocked? I could not think of any particularly useful ones, apart from the bonus of increasing the distress I caused the murderous giant when next I visited.

Smoking hot fire qi coursed through my veins, warming my mind, body and soul. Round and round it went, scouring me clean, picking away at the blockage, insistent and warm.

The breakthrough when it came, was almost anticlimactic, the last impurities crumbling away into nothing. I blinked in surprise, I had been closer than I realised, all this time, distracted by the sadness of winter. I stretched, and welcomed the new flood of energy as it washed over me.

My body no longer excreted the thick, disgusting paste it had at the beginning but there was still enough discharge to make the process unpleasant. And the scent was no less foul. I washed myself, pondering what other changes this newly opened meridian would bring? What gifts would it impart? It was a mystery.

I was now only one meridian away from breaking through to the next realm.

As a Radiant I would start forming a core, and take my place on the other side of the glade with the others of that rank. Forming a core sounded wonderful. I would be able to carry qi inside me, stored up until I needed it, instead of only being able to use what was available as I currently did. Just one more meridian to go. Soon! This thought would have delighted me, only a month before, but now I was still having some difficulty being excited.

I stared up at the last sparks of the dying fire. The next meridian would probably take ages, if I did not befriend another source of qi quickly.

Still, over the next few days I observed myself carefully but was unable to figure out any concrete benefits from the breakthrough. In the end I swallowed my pride. On my next sojourn to the village I asked Wuot. The silly goose had opened two meridians, but in a different order, so I thought it was plausible she might know.

“The bladder meridian?”

I nodded.

“It governs fear,” she said, at once.

“You have opened yours?” I asked. Wuot shook her head.

“Lavellan told me,” she said. “She was very keen to open that particular one, I think it was her first and she spoke of it muchly.”

“I didn’t think Lavellan Vollj was afraid of anything,” I said in surprise.

“That’s because you are very young,” said the silly goose, twisting her head to leer down at me beadily. “When you are older and wiser you will realise that no one is truly without fear, however they might act. Sometimes those that fight it the most, feel its effects most keenly. It is a complex emotion. I feel fear when I hear a fox in the night, I fear for my charges, for my family. Likewise, fear is a gift. It sharpens your senses. You feel it for a reason. Be careful, little friend.”

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“How old are you anyway?” I demanded, annoyed by all this wisdom from a bird.

“I am four years old,” Wuot said, drawing herself up to her full, fluffy height.

She did look rather magnificent. I supposed, but still I was irate. Bothered by the darkness, and by her aged condescension. Afterall, I was practically an adult myself at six months old.

“Imagine being four years old and only having two meridians open,” I scoffed. “Do you think you will open a third before you die of old age?”

I had to duck hurriedly, as a qi infused foot whistled past my head. I sprang for Wuot, my slapping paw at the ready, but the simple black rooster came rushing over clucking up a storm. His noisy distress provoking the attention of the entire village.

“It’s fine,” soothed Wuot, “it’s fine.” And he backed off, glaring at me suspiciously as he went.

On my way home I contemplated the nature of fear.

I cultivated as I went, with what little, dribbly grey light qi was available. It wasn’t much. One meridian to go till I would be Radiant.

Perhaps my breakthrough did in fact aid my ability to regulate my fear? Perhaps not.

The night was a rare, clear one, so I went up to the roof to think.

My breath made a smokey-ghosty-hazy cloud before me, and I huddled close to the heat of the stone chimney, cultivating gently to keep myself from freezing. Somewhere below my Maud was knitting next to the fire. I was sure she was missing me, but I kept my resolve and stayed on the icy roof.

I stared up at the clear night sky.

Somehow there being no clouds made the cold even more bone scouring intense. The air was so thin and clear I felt like I could reach the heavens. Could I? I stretched out a paw. I could not. Moon was rising in the east, and a few pale stars bloomed in the darker patches of her shadow.

I breathed out a big ghosty sigh.

“I need to befriend another qi element,” I told all of them.

The wind moaned through the bare branches a little. The sound was as mournful as my paws were cold. The stars twinkled at me, bathing me in their light, but silent.

I was just about to give up and go down to the warm when one of them spoke. It was so quiet I almost missed the question.

“How many elements are there?” it whispered.

“Montadie says there are five basic elements, that are the foundations,” I told them. “The most commonly used are water, wood, air, metal and fire. They are the building blocks, the beginners. But there are many, many more elements and associated qi, in truth no one knows how many. I know of lightning, cold, death, wind, shadow and mist, as well.”

The stars twinkled as they considered.

The moon was properly up now, and shining fondly. I wrapped her radiance around myself like a hug. She was listening too, I could tell.

“I only know light, and fire of the foundation,” I confessed. “I am scared. It is so dark. I cannot carry the fire with me.”

“You carry it in your heart,” whispered a brighter star, its voice cinders and ash. Distant, ancient ashes.

“If only that were true,” I said. “It will be true once I am Radiant, I hope.”

“It is true,” whispered another, the pale one so soft I can only just hear. “You are just young.”

“Young,” said another. “So young. You carry our light in your veins. It is part of you now. You are a cat made of starlight, and moonlight and flame.”

“What is your hurry?” whispered the pale one. “Everything in its time.”

For some reason I do not mind when the stars call me young.

Perhaps because everything was young to them? I could feel the crushing weight of their age in my blood.

“I am scared,” I said, voicing the fear. “The world is bigger than me, I must grow or take my chances with fate. I worry…something will hurt me. Or mine. My family, my Maud, my garden. I do not want to take my chance, I want to be in control.”

The stars said nothing, but I could feel their understanding.

“Control is an illusion,” said one softly.

“Some things are controllable though,” said another.

There was silence as we all contemplated.

“The earth is a cradle of life,” said one, after a while. “Seek the soil that you might grow. Put down roots. Thrive.”

“To know us properly you must know the void,” said another, harsh, cold. “You must understand the darkness. The space between. The absence of light is darkness. They are two sides of the same. This is the cycle.”

I shuddered, I was not ready.

“Air is all around us,” said another. “If you will fly, air must be your friend.”

This was wisdom I liked. But I knew of no air spirits…not yet.

“The water!” sang Moon, her voice loud and bold in my ears after the gentle, ethereal whisperings of the stars. “Water is life, water is love! Without water there is nothing. Befriend the water. You are already halfway there.”

“I am?”

“You are,” crooned Moon. “There is no malice in your River, although the same cannot be said of some of the creatures that dwell in her body. Of those you should be more wary. But the River’s heart is pure. She knows you already, and is fond of you. Master the element of water, and you will soon master ice. Then the winter will no longer be something to be endured.”

Moon sang to me then of her love, not just of River but of all her watery kind. She sang of her delight in oceans and streams and pools and brooks and tarns, waxing lyrical as she sailed slowly across the cloud tattered skies. The whole world stopped, listening with breathless stillness. Moon’s shimmering voice echoed out across the land, bouncing back from rock and listening tree as she sang of glittering white places far away, where the sea was frozen, and she bathed the ice in blue and mauve and silver. She sang of whales, and monsters, and fountains and falls, and beautiful spirits made of dew and rain and tempest. Moon was amorous of the water indeed, and her words moved me.

Still, I was uneasy.

I sang back, then, detailing my youthful experiences. I sang about drowning, of how I knew this was a fear that must be conquered. I sang that I did not drown. That I was alive and practically an adult. That it was time to put foolish fears behind me. Moon was right. Water was a good option, versatile, and emotional.

Montadie’s glade lay near the marshes, the soil there was always muddy, or as it was now, icy. Drops or icicles coated the trees, condensation hung in the air in hotter months. Moon beamed down on me, and went on her way.

Staring up, I considered how I had come to know the stars and Moon, even just a little, and it occurred to me that cultivation was just me, learning about myself. To be able to cycle qi through my body I had to understand it. I had to understand my own body and the qi I was cycling. The stars were correct. I was inviting qi to become part of me. To strengthen me. Of course it was important to not only know, to truly know, but to love, as I must love myself.

This revelation felt important.

I bid my celestial friends farewell, and slipped down off the roof.

My head was very full of thoughts. Water was the pathway to ice and frost and snow qi. Could I love the water? I slipped off the roof and down into the garden, where I patted some frost experimentally. It was deathly cold on my pads. I withdrew the paw hastily and padded across the garden to slip inside. Where it was nice and warm.

I would embrace water tomorrow.