Her hand enveloped my paw. The water was very, very cold, which was not surprising as I could see sections of ice forming on the slower moving sections of her body. It felt strange, but not unpleasant. River’s face, so close to mine, was a glittering, sparkling mass, a rosette of ice on one cheek. A small fish swam in circles around her cheek.

“I thought you had forgotten me,” she said.

“No,” I said, swallowing. “Never. Thank you for … saving me. Saving us.”

She pulled away, swishing, and swaying backwards. A big, watery grin appeared on her face.

“You are welcome,” she said.

And just like that I had a new friend.

River invited me to swim, which I declined as politely as possible.

“Perhaps in the summer,” I lied. She seemed disappointed so I slipped and slid down her banks to stand gingerly at the icy edges. Now I wasn’t as scared of getting my feet wet it was a lot easier.

After casting about for inspiration my eye landed on the banks once more. I complimented her on her rocks. River’s delight was contagious, she immediately fetched up her favourite pebbles from deep under the water for me to admire, laying them out one at a time, and telling me the origins of them all. Each one had a story, and they were all remarkably attractive - whorls of colour, worn smooth by her passage or sparkling like precious stones.

Something silver flitted past my nose.

I jumped back, my whole body tensing up in excitement. My nose hovered over the rippling surface. “What was that?” I asked eagerly.

“Just a little fish,” said River. “A minnow. Do you like minnows?”

My paws twitched. “Fish?” I asked, trying to keep the yearning out of my voice, my eyes already searching the surface for more. “Fish?” Maud had shared her fish with me, once or twice. It was quite my favourite dish. I had seen fish in River many times, but somehow I had forgotten about them.

River giggled and sank back into her body up to her chin.

Her eyes moved rapidly, tracing the movement of something I couldn’t see beneath the surface.

“Here comes another,” she whispered. “Get ready…here it comes!”

I plunged my paws into the water. Silvery scales flashed through the air…

I was so surprised that it got away. River fell about laughing but seemed more than happy to help me find another one. Before I knew what was what she was teaching me how to fish. It was so much fun I didn’t even mind the cold or how wet I got!

If I crouched down low, and waited, and was fast enough (and I was very fast), I could scoop them out of the water with my paws. Scoooop! The trick was to make sure they landed on the bank and then pounce on them before they flip-flopped back into the water to escape.

I learned the names of all the different kinds of fish that lived in River - sticklebacks, and carp, and gudgeon, and pretty, pretty perch (perch were my favourite because they had stripes just like my tabby siblings).

Then I met some of the mean toad girls’ friendlier, dumber cousins (if this was possible), and a gossipy, wading heron. River also told me about salmon, which were big, energetic fish, which, during the winter months leapt her falls to return to their breeding grounds. We made a date to go there because they sounded absolutely delicious and I definitely liked the sound of eating those.

Before I knew it I was cultivating water qi, albeit only from River’s vicinity. That was okay, it was a start.

After much contemplation, I decided that maybe winter wasn’t so bad after all. The water qi felt lovely when I drew it in to swim around my body. Clean. Sometimes icy. I wondered if the temperature would change with the seasons? I expected so. Perhaps I would also be able to warm it with my fire qi as a Radiant? It was surely possible but to my surprise I was not even sure if I wanted to change it. There was something incredibly refreshing about the ice-cold water. I could feel it energising my veins as it powered along.

I was not quite ready to love water like Moon did, but I was certainly becoming more appreciative. It had such a completely different feel to fire qi, although just as cleansing in an utterly different manner.

Emotionally it had an awe inspiring range. While fire could warm or scald, water could sooth or rage and the difference was healing or tempest. For now, with River my only ally, I could see it would take me a great deal of time to plumb those depths.

And so I fished, and played and cultivated, all the while keeping a careful eye on my next meridian, not wanting to open it too soon.

Now I could cultivate with water, I began to see far more water spirits than I had ever noticed before. They must have always been there, just hidden beneath my limited perception. Now suddenly the puddles spoke, mist crept by on little cat feet (I complimented them immediately) and I discovered an unexpected affinity with the fog spirits. Their hulking, hazy bodies phased in and out of my sight, always indistinct, faces coming and going. They were vast. Bent over with hunched shoulders, dragging their cloudy feet.

Sometimes the fog spirits were like a shuffling, cantankerous crowd of bears, slouching along on all fours, occasionally rearing up on their hind legs. Their manner of movement was endearingly like my Maud, when she woke first thing in the morning, and before the fire was lit for her tea.

Sometimes the fog spirits appeared, creeping along like scores of enormous cloudy caterpillars, rolling low, rows and rows of dour legs not quite touching the ground. I could never clearly see the fog spirits’ faces but their grouchy, sullenness matched my worst moods.

Now, when the fog rolled in, instead of hiding in my warm cottage I would go out to share their grumbles. Curled on the ground, the fog spirits would wander around me, as I cultivated in peace with their comfortable, cantankerous foggy qi. It was like huffing clouds through my veins - puffy, damp, but light.

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After all these adventures I was close to opening my fifth meridian.

I could feel it. This joyful infusion of new qi had washed nearly all the impurities away, and I needed to be careful now, so as not to accidentally trigger my tribulation. My breakthrough to the next realm was something I was looking forward to intensely.

I intended to keep my promise to mama to only break through at my next lesson, even though I was conflicted about it. I knew the tribulation would be difficult, possibly even life threatening but I was going into it with confidence - knowing full well that I could now cultivate with aspects of two foundation elements, if not with all their variations.

I could think of very few situations where one or the other were not present, and Montadie’s glade was always slightly damp, even in midsummer due to the proximity of the marshes. Things were looking up indeed. If the severity of the tribulation matched the power and potential of the cultivator, well then, I was also expecting it to be difficult indeed.

It should be difficult to match my skill. On the other hand the tribulation was for the cultivator alone. No one could help me, not even Montadie, so the only appeal of waiting was that I would have help if I was badly wounded.

On the other hand, waiting was not a huge bind - the next full moon took place in only two days. I could go two full days and nights without cultivating, no problem. I could practise fishing and leaping in the meantime.

It was late one night, and it was raining lightly.

A mist had flowed in, and the forest ground was full of puddles, each very chatty. Little mouths formed on the wet surfaces as I passed, each one with lots to say. It was strange to think that only a month ago, I had not known that puddles liked to talk.

“The rain feels like tickles!”

“Step on me, Jenkins!”

“Jenkins, Jenkins!”

“Gloop. Shhhhhhh.”

“Dance with me, Jenkins!”

I danced through them, and with them, to make them happy, then swirled with the mist back to my cottage. Mist was less sullen than the fog but more clingy.

While I enjoyed gossiping with River, hearing the tales of all the happenings along her banks and in her waters, I got the sense that Mist was not one for idle chatter, however he clung to my fur. Whatever spirit governed it ignored my compliments but that was fine. I could tell he enjoyed them in silence. Silence could be nice. I, too, liked the quiet sometimes.

Together we drifted away from the noisy puddles, and crept up the garden path. Softly, softly. Mist coated everything, muffling sounds and saturating the air with white. He was very pretty but…Something crunched beneath my feet, drawing away my attention.

I looked down at shards of broken glass.

Why did a bits of a shattered bottle of… I bent my nose to sniff… of sour wine, lay scattered across the path? If the skin of my paws was not toughened by cultivation that would have split my pads easily.

Someone was in my garden. Someone uninvited.

Someone was in my garden who had no business in my garden.

Someone who smelt foul and familiar.

Eyes narrowed, ears pricked forward, I stepped delicately over the glass shards. The scent of sour wine nearly made me sneeze but I kept it in, eyes fastened on the looming shape ahead. A familiar, broad shouldered outline. I swallowed a growl, keeping that in too, stalking forwards, my hackles rising from my shoulders.

Mist swirled questioningly, but I shushed him, all my attention focused on the red-faced, ham-fisted murder-man hammering on MY door. What was he doing here? In MY garden? In MY forest? The booming knocks split the night, crashing through the glade and bouncing back as an echo. Beside me, I felt Mist flinch.

“Witch!” the murder-man bellowed.

I saw a candle flicker to life in the loft window.

It had been only a few days since I had last stopped by his abode in the orchards, to piss in his bedding and… rearrange his things a little. Tormenting the murder-man was the least he deserved. It delighted me greatly to bury his items in the orchard, to rip holes in his soft furnishings, and to move perishable foods to hard to find locations. I made sure to do all of this unseen of course.

Was it petty? Yes, of course. But I was not yet sure enough of my strength to take him on directly.

It looked like fate was about to force my hand. I flexed my claws, rolling my shoulders in preparation.

“Witch!” he pounded on the stout oaken door. “Witch!”

It creaked open.

My Maud peered through the crack, her eyes widening at the sight of her ‘guest’.

“Farmer Nel,” she said, primly. “What can I do for you this evening?”

I could see her holding something behind her back. Probably the fat cast iron frying pan. It was very, very heavy.

Maud might be an inadequate hunter of mice but, strangely, in other areas she is not lacking in courage. I had once seen her take down a boar with her bow and arrow. Even I have not killed a boar yet. Still, she is so pink and soft all over, with silly, patchy hair, and I worried for her safety. For all I knew the murder-man liked to murder people as well as kittens.

He roared something incomprehensible.

My Maud flinched. He threw something on the ground between them. What was it? I couldn’t see. My ears were having trouble deciphering his drunken ranting. I drew closer, ghosting on silent feet. As I crept I was gathering mist qi into my body, sending it coursing through my veins, and hardening my claws.

I was right behind him now.

What did he throw? A small straw dolly. Knotted bits of string looped through it, from which hung hollowed out stones, an iron bead and a couple of feathers - one of the charms Maud sold to the villagers to discourage ‘poltergeists’.

I didn’t know what a poltergeist was but we didn’t have any so I knew they worked.

“You are unsatisfied with your purchase?” said Maud.

“You damn snake-oil selling, scheming, money grubbing bitch,” the murder-man spat, stumbling to one side. Flecks of spittle landed on the doorframe, and his fist made contact with her jaw.

I sprang.

One neat flick of my qi-enhanced claws sliced clean through cloth, skin and hamstrings alike. Blood spurted. The murder-man bellowed, a satisfying cry loud enough to be heard in the village. Meaty fists flailed but I was already wending between his ankles, confounding him with my quickness. I pushed against his legs, sending him toppling, quick as shadow in the night. His arms pinwheeled as he toppled backwards. His fat, meaty head struck a stone with a sickening crunch.

The murder-man lay still, a pool of crimson puddling beneath him.

His eyes were open wide, blank and surprised as Mist coiled above, the spirit inspecting the corpse with great interest.

Maud appeared in the doorway, clutching her frying pan, an enormous bruise blooming on her cheek, her eyes wide.

I chirruped at her, and pranced a little, poking the horrible man.

“Jenkins! What-”

She stared blankly at the still body laid out on her garden path.

I lifted a paw, to lick clean a speck of blood that had fallen on my fur, righteousness filling my heart. I felt wonderful. All the small things would be safe from him now. Now that the murder-man was dead the world would be a better place.

I had my vengeance. I had done a good thing. I felt… I felt good.. I felt energised…I felt like I did when I opened a meridian. Oh no-

My fifth meridian was open.

Mist was banished, puffed away by a storm surge of wind.

Clouds gathered directly above, ink-black heaps, growing, growing, growing, with supernatural speed. The air tasted of metal.

Something was coming.

Something big was coming. I could feel it in my bones.

The hair once again rose on the back of my neck as I stared up into the eye of the storm.