Fucking Taurus.

Fucking bastard man son of a whore.

Of course he interfered. Of course he’s part of the reason they haven’t been bothered.

She didn’t tell anyone where she was going, not even Maen. That she’d go to Hisheng wasn’t too much of a stretch, but there’s no way to guarantee she’d be here, and there’s no way that Taurus wouldn’t have threatened her old sect if he didn’t know for a fact where she was.

She removed the tracker months ago, back during the final few moments in the Dungeon beneath Cragend. Down in the dark, where she couldn’t be tracked in the first place.

But of course he knew where she was already. Fuck keeping Maen in the dark, or tracking their letters through the degrees of separation they used, somehow he just knew. Hisheng said they got a letter from a researcher from the Imperial Division a week after they arrived. Before any of the letters, when they hadn’t interacted with anyone besides Hisheng, miles from the sect.

Fucking Taurus.

It’s been a full day and there’s still a part of her fuming about it.

Jin is acting like a great outlet for that stress though.

He throws himself out of the way as another projectile launches past him and embeds itself into the earth behind him.

“Keep your stance!” she yells at him. “If you have to over-commit to every dodge, you’re gonna end up trapped!”

He has just enough time to give her a snarky look and begin to say something before he yelps and has to duck almost flat to avoid her next shot.

Hmm. That one was a bit faster.

As Jin scrambles back to his feet, she tweaks one of the muscle fibers along the new channel she’s made and sends another shard of bone flying at him.

This one actually scratches his tunic, and he yelps as he starts running as fast as he can towards the trees.

Making the bone shards feels weird. The pages on Biological Projectiles: Ranged applications of biological aggression had a few ideas, but none that fit easily. Some snakes spit venom, some insects or small mammals use their legs to throw debris or their own hairs with their back legs, and there’s a few animals that spit water, but actual projectiles are rare as hen’s teeth. Sure, finding ways to projectile vomit Flame is gonna be useful, but it’s a lot easier and less convenient at the same time.

Currently, she’s working on two different systems.

On the one hand, there’s a sort of compressed limb-muscle meant to catapult projectiles forward. It only really works for projectiles with a rounded back, which makes it take a few seconds longer to create them, and it takes more space, but it’s technically the method that’s more reliable. Jin, for example, has a much harder time dodging shots she can actually aim.

On the other hand (or forearm, to speak literally), she’s trying out her own idea. Li Shu mentioned that her idea looks a lot like a pimple popping, which earned her burnt dough and under-spiced chicken.

A compressed spike, which takes a lot less time to make and a lot less detailing, squeezed out through muscle pressure rather than actual limb movement. Much harder to aim, though. Every time she’s shot it towards Jin, it’s gone wide, but the force with which it’s punched into the earth or stray tree in the valley has certainly left an impression.

She’s working on both side by side, one arm with the piston system and the other with the pressure launcher, and Jin makes for phenomenal target practice. With Li Shu around, the few that hit him (if they do, she’s not evil enough to try to hurt the kid) can be healed easily enough, and she’s making sure to keep the force down. Makes aiming even harder, but what’s training without some difficulty to it?

Jin gives a surprisingly high-pitched war cry as he picks up a chunk of dirt from one of her earlier and throws it back at her.

“That’s the spirit, kid!” she laughs, taking a break from shooting at him to shoot at the clod of dirt.

First shot from the pressure-launcher goes wide, second shot from it goes wide, her piston-launcher shoots and-

The clump of dirt lands, about ten feet short of Raika’s position, completely unharmed by any counter-projectile.

Jin barks a short laugh, which gets him a couple of closer shots that he has to sprint away from.

“Yeah, you better run ya little shit! And work on your aim!”

“I’m not sure you should be saying that, dear,” Hao Nera says, manifesting out of fucking nothing right next to her.

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He has to duck a lot faster than Jin did to dodge her next shot.

“Don’t- I fucking told you not do to that to me.”

Hao Nera puts his hands up in surrender, stepping back with a smile- only to lose that same smile when he sees her face.

“Alright. Sorry. The whole memory-thing, right? My bad.”

“I don’t mind you improving your powers, just… tell me first. What do you want?”

The smile crawls back on his face bit by bit. “I have good news.”

She quirks an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

“Ok, well, this is the part where you say ‘oh, Hao Nera! That’s so interesting! Please do tell me, for I am ever beholden to you for the glorious news of the outside world!’”

She snorts, and keeps her eyebrow raised.

“Ugh, you never let me have any fun.”

“Leaving the house whenever you want to get some fresh cultivator ass doesn’t count? I suppose I might as well not bother then.”

“Hey, if you want to listen, that’s a conversation between you and my partners. When it comes to me, all you gotta do is ask, gorgeous.”

She shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know how they stand you sometimes.”

He shrugs. “Eh. I assume at least part of it is the novelty of a relationship mixed with my boldness, and the unexpected freedom of not having sects or masters. Now that they’re out of their shells, so to speak, I’m sure we’ll gradually drift apart as immortality calls to them, and I’ll become a funky little footnote on the way. Just means I need to get all the joy and benefits out of the relationship while I still can.”

“Which, of course, includes keeping them happy?”

“Obviously. Otherwise I’ll mysteriously find that my entire bandit clan got wiped out on the whim of some newfound sect elder off in the second ring somewhere.”

There’s an awkward moment as the joke doesn’t quite land, and she feels the note of tension in him. It’s hidden well, true, but she can literally hear the sound of the tendons in his jaw twitch when they’re this close.

“I think you underestimate them both,” she says quietly.

“Hmm. You’re right. Since they had the good taste to get all up on this hunk of burnin’ love, they’ll surely found their own sects in the future as is.”

He actively refuses to look at her, even as she turns from where she’s sitting to look him right in the face.

“I can’t fault you being cynical,” she says, “but if you disrespect either of them by thinking so little of their characters again, you and I will have a problem.”

He shrugs. “Not trying to be disrespectful. Ain’t ever been great at the other end I suppose, but it’s not my intent. It’s just realistic. They’re going places I’m not invited to. They’re just starting to grow, while I’m an old bastard by twenty seven. It is what it is.”

“Then change it.”

He gives her a weird look, like he’s about to laugh at a joke, and stops when he sees how serious she looks.

“Start growing again. Take this whole spy-network idea seriously, maybe. You’re getting a lot stronger than you think, and they both value you in their own way. The relationship will change, all of them do, but it doesn’t have to change for the worst. Unless it hurts you or them to stay together, there’s plenty of steps to take in between. Get stronger. Change your outlook. Take yourself seriously, maybe.”

He does laugh this time, though the pulse of his heart doesn’t match the sound. “Oh yeah? Take myself seriously? I met them in an ambush. I signed up alongside them because I needed extra muscle for a plan of mine. I’m a great gambler, and even better at pushing my luck, but I know what I am.”

“So change what you are.”

He looks away. “It’s not that simple.”

Very lightly, she reaches out. She touches his chin, and gently pulls his head back.

“I never said it was easy, Nera. But it is that simple.”

He scoffs, and pulls out of her grasp easily enough, flickering in and out of her perception a few feet away.

But she hears him take a breath, and hears it shake just a touch.

“Anyways,” he sighs, “what I was originally coming to you to talk about is that I got some new connections. Not much yet, just some guys helping me case out an area, but the funds from those monster-parts are still nice and juicy and people respond to nice and juicy. I’ve got a guy and his sister who run security on a little tax caravan heading in and out of the second ring, so… if you ever wanted to cross rings with those letters, I might be able to set something up. Maybe.”

“...Thank you. That’s really generous of you.”

“Yeah, it’s… ah, bless me for my generosity or whatever. I just… you looked pissed last night, after that Hisheng asshole left. If you wanted to try sending your letters another way, it’s an option, s’all.”

This time it’s her turn to laugh, causing just the slightest tint of color to come to Hao Nera’s cheeks.

“You think too little of yourself, former bandit.”

“Yeah, fuck you too.”

They sit like that a while, companionable silence broken up by the yelping and desperate breathing of Jin as he dodges Raika’s occasional (and visibly improving) projectile shot.

“You thought of a way to keep in contact when we split?” she asks.

“I’ll set up some kind of signal. You pass it to somebody or paint it somewhere, and one of my folks’ll find it. Unless you’ve got a sending stone somewhere I haven’t heard about.”

“...Apparently I’m visiting my old sect to talk to one of the elders, so I’ll let you know, I guess.”

“Well shit, you been holding out on me? Could I have been wooing a sect princess all along?”

She laughs. “Nothing quite so dramatic. I just figure I can make some demands and see what happens.”

“Fair enough, fair enough. And… what about the kid?”

“What about him?”

“You gonna bring him along? Towards the fourth? That doesn’t sound like some kind of recipe for disaster to you?”

She sighs, shooting out another projectile. Already the kid’s improved a bit, not using his entire body to throw himself away from the danger zones, but… he is still just a kid. Maybe twelve? And for all that his cultivation seems unique, and for all that the Cold Sun seemed to like him (what a thought), Hao Nera has a point. The kid, by all rights, would be safer in the third ring, maybe even with Hao Nera himself, maybe with Hisheng at the Hungering Roots sect.

“I put him in the situation he’s in. His weird cultivation is on my head, at least most of it. If I leave him, chances are that the Division of Altered Cultivation will scoop him up. I certainly wouldn’t put it past Taurus, ‘For his own good’, most likely. I’ll tell the kid what his options are, as clearly and honestly as I can, and I’ll let him make his own choice, and support what he chooses as best I can. I can’t do much else.”

“It is what it is?” Hao Nera asks, his voice only slightly mocking.

She turns to face him fully again, looking him over. The rugged appearance, the furs, the beard, the bright eyes… and beneath it, the thumping heart. The twitching sweat glands and tweaking tendons. The scent of unease, of tension, masked ever so well by the lake of calm, quiet control and sardonic grin overlaying them.

“It is what it is… until it isn’t.”