Once upon a midnight dreary, while I brooded, weak and weary

Over many a dark and tragic scroll of cultivation lore-

While I sat there, darkly sighing, suddenly my bird stopped flying,

Choked upon my candles, dying - dying as six times before-

Then burst into flames and rose up with eight heads, not like before-

"COURTING DEATH!" and nothing more.

...

The next morning dawned like a funeral shroud cast across the heavens, which was totally appropriate given Ai Baoni's mood. She sat in her meditation chamber, which she had personally decorated to meet the exact specifications of tragic feng shui - black silk hangings at precisely 69.42 degrees from the floor, crystal skulls arranged in a formation that spelled 'WHATEVER' in ancient ge-de Script, and exactly seventeen black candles - sixteen would be inadequate for proper brooding, while eighteen would be trying too hard. The Sect's Interior Decoration Committee had issued her three citations for "Excessive Ruination of Sacred Spaces" and one warning for 'Unauthorized Installation of Heretical Ambiance.'"

Her raven, Shadows-Upon-Shadows-Darknight-Void, perched on a skull-shaped incense holder, looking particularly ge-de and mysterious. That is, until it tried to eat one of her ritual candles and promptly choked to death.

"No!!! NO!!!!" Ai Baoni's cry of anguish shattered several nearby spirit stones and caused three junior disciples, ten crickets, and three swallows to faint from the sheer concentration of angst. "Not again! This is like the fifteenth time this week!"

But before she could properly mourn, her beloved raven burst into flames and reformed, now sporting an extra head and glowing red eyes. "Whatever," Ai Baoni muttered, already used to her pet's tendency toward dramatic deaths and rebirths. "At least you understand my pain, unlike SOME PEOPLE in this sect!"

A knock at her door interrupted her brooding. "Ai Baoni," came Ma Fen's voice, smooth as jade and twice as expensive-sounding. "The sparring matches are about to begin."

Ai Baoni's heart did a inward heelflip with a twist - her binary emotional state oscillated between 0x0DEAD and 0xDECAF. She quickly applied another layer of black gloss onto her lips, enhanced with crushed spirit herbs for that extra ghostly pallor.

At the training grounds, Ha Li stood in his perfect white robes, surrounded by his orthodoxy cultivation clique. "Oh look," he sneered, his jade pendant tinkling disapprovingly, "it's the girl who thinks she can revolutionize cultivation with the power of FEELINGS."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Actually," Ai Baoni corrected, pulling out her sword, which she had personally engraved with ancient runes of angst, "it's called being emotionally in tune with the dao, you orthodox."

"ENOUGH!" Elder Deng appeared in a flash of light that Ai Baoni thought was totally unnecessary and attention-seeking. "Begin the matches. And Ai Baoni, please refrain from summoning any more vengeful spirits. The last batch is still haunting the dining hall."

Ma Fen stepped forward, his crimson robes catching the light in a way that made Ai Baoni's meridians tingle. "I will face Ai Baoni," he declared.

As they took their stances, Ai Baoni felt her darkness-attuned spiritual energy surge. Ma Fen moved like a crimson shadow, his sword technique flawless and completely orthodox, which made him even more attractive in an irritating way.

"Your form is good," he commented, parrying one of her strikes, "but your energy is unstable. Like a storm of-"

"RAWR!" The sound escaped Ai Baoni's lips before she could stop it, accompanied by an explosion of black spiritual energy that knocked everyone back. Even her raven, who had been watching from nearby, died again from shock.

Silence fell over the training ground. Ha Li's perfect mouth hung open in a most unorthodoxy way. Elder Deng's beard had been blown sideways. And Ma Fen... Ma Fen was looking at her with an expression that seemed to contain equal parts confusion, interest, and a growing realization that he might be dealing with the cultivation world's first ever ge-de cultivator.

"That..." Elder Deng finally spoke, his beard still askew, "that was not any technique I recognize."

"It's MY technique," Ai Baoni declared, darkness swirling around her like a convenient special effect. "I call it the Ancient Roar of the Dark Phoenix!"

"That's not a real-" Ha Li began, but was interrupted by Ma Fen.

"Good, good, good!" he said, and was that a smile playing at the corners of his perfectly shaped lips? "Though perhaps we should work on refining it. Together."

Ai Baoni's heart did another gymnastics routine - Yurchenko double pike. But before she could respond, her raven exploded back to life, now sporting three heads and what appeared to be a tiny spiked collar.

"Whatever," she said, trying to maintain her aura of mysterious darkness. But inside, her spiritual energy was doing the cultivation equivalent of a happy dance. Maybe, just maybe, someone finally understood her unique path of darkness.

"YOU'RE ALL COURTING DEATH!" she added quickly, just to maintain her image. But she said it with slightly less conviction than usual, and if anyone noticed the small smile that crept across her black-painted lips, they wisely chose not to mention it.

The storm clouds overhead rumbled their approval, and somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed dramatically - B-A-G-F, then the F held for a full measure with a tasteful minor trill, followed by a sixteenth-note run F-G-A-B to a sustained off-B that quavered with exactly two hundred forty-two and seven thirds vibrations per second, the precise frequency of pure spiritual angst.

To be continued in F Lydian.