I had never been unconscious in an Inner World before, but I supposed there was a first time for everything. When Avuri and I decided to tear open that rift, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but whiting out wasn’t it.

In retrospect, maybe I actually should have seen passing out like that coming given what we were doing, though neither of us really knew it at the time.

Either way, all I remembered was the feeling of Avuri adding her Qi to mine to open the rift, a strange tearing sensation, then everything went white. My first thought was that it was a sudden blast of Avuri’s snow, but that was evidently incorrect as I found myself waking up on the ground of my Inner World.

I also noticed pretty quickly that our Dual Cultivation must have been cut off when whatever happened had happened. I still felt a connection to Avuri, but our Qi was no longer circulating between us.

As I blinked and tried to reorient myself, I second guessed myself all over again. There was snow everywhere.

Before, I had wandered to the center building of my village where I found the strange rift and the ground lightly dusted with snow. Now I slowly sat up in the same building taking in my surroundings. The rift was gone, but the ground was snow covered and a little grassy. Very different from the dust and dirt I was used to in my little village.

When my gaze swept to the door, I paused, not quite prepared for the heavy snowfall taking place just outside. It wasn’t heavy enough to be blinding or invasive, but the snowfall was significant. The ground was already covered in a few centimeters of it outside the building. Seeing that made me do a double take at the ground underneath me - which was underneath a roof. And inside walls.

From my seated position, I looked around again trying to figure out exactly where the snow had gotten in - which turned out to be pretty easy, considering there was still falling snow in the room.

Originally, these buildings had enclosed ventilation in the style of simple chimneys and the like. Apparently now there was more open ventilation in the form of short but wide windows around the whole roof, which was built in an upper and lower section to accommodate the new ventilation.

While I was contemplating why, exactly, the ventilation on the buildings changed I heard rustling from a few meters away. The sound came from behind a nearby forge, so I couldn’t see the source. But when I heard the accompanying cute little groan, I was instantly both at ease and mildly confused.

“Avuri?” I asked, slowly working my way to my feet. I was fighting a dizzy spell as I stood, which felt entirely out of place in a spiritual body like the one used to enter an Inner World. I needed to use the nearby forge as a crutch to stand without tumbling over from the dizziness, and that concerned me. Though not as much as Avuri groaning in the corner.

I made my way around the forge equipment to try to see Avuri’s current state. I kept a hand on the forge the whole way as I hurried to make sure she was alright. When I finally made it around the edge of the thing and saw Avuri, I was also hit with another dizzy spell from turning too quickly.

A moment later, I found myself on my back staring at the ceiling. I wanted very badly to vomit and my head was pounding. “Ri?” I called again from the ground, unwilling to try to sit up again.

“Merri?” I breathed a sigh of relief at the response. There was the rustle of clothing and another groan from Avuri. “Oh wow, I feel sick.”

“Dizzy?”

“Yeah. Very.”

“Don’t stand. You won’t like it.” I said flatly, throwing an arm over my eyes. “I feel like I’m going to be sick. Or maybe faint again.” I tried to control my breathing and calm down my body. My spiritual body. Which shouldn’t even be capable of getting sick like this.

“What happened?” Avuri asked in awe. “Why are we together?”

“Great questions.” I said lamely. “I’m a bit more concerned with why I feel so ill. How are you holding up?”

“Other than being a little dizzy, I think I’m alright.” She went quiet as she checked over herself, presumably for injuries. I was too busy trying to keep myself together to see.

“...Emery? I have new clothes. And hair.”

That got my attention enough for me to try to raise my head a little to see. When I peaked out from under my arm my jaw went slack. Sure enough, Avuri was sitting up in a beautiful full regalia. She was in multilayered, immaculate robes that seemed to be producing snow around them. There were snowflake designs moving around on the clothing that would occasionally just drift off of the material and to the ground.

Her hair wasn’t the normal gray-ish silver color either. It was a brilliant white that looked almost as if it disappeared into the snow. It was also far longer than her normal hair and entirely loose. Her eyes, too, were different; though in comparison it was a somewhat minor change. The lovely violet color softly glowed, giving off something of an intoxicating gaze.

If it wasn’t so clearly Avuri’s face staring back at me, I would almost have said it was someone else entirely.

“Shit, Ri. You look like a literal snow fairy.” I said, stunned.

She smiled at me, and I nearly fell over dead right then. “Sweet talker.” She said, hiding a bit of embarrassment.

“I’m not kidding.” I said, staring at the ceiling again. I reached out with my Qi for the nearest reflective surface. I nearly laughed when my Qi touched a literal mirror. That wasn’t something I usually had around in here, but I wasn’t about to complain.

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The mirror hovered up off the ground and floated over in front of Avuri who nearly screamed. “You’re right! I really do look like a snow fairy! How?”

“I don’t know, but I told you I wasn’t kidding.”

I could hear the rustle of cloth again as Avuri no doubt twisted in place to see her new look in the mirror. After a minute, she asked, “I know we’ve never been into each other’s Inner Worlds before, but do you always look like that?”

I raised an eyebrow she couldn’t see in question. “Like what?”

“You may want to hover that mirror back over to yourself.” She said, smiling.

I took a deep breath and tried to sit up. The vertigo was finally leaving, and I didn’t feel quite as sick. It took longer than I would have liked to steady myself before I waved the mirror over.

Similarly to with Avuri, I wasn’t sure I was looking at myself when it stopped in front of me. I started at the top and scanned down. My hair was normal. The first things that caught my attention were my eyes - they were the normal steel-gray color, but gave off a glow similarly to Avuri’s. But more importantly, they held vertical pupils like a cat. Or more likely in this case, a dragon.

My spiritual body within my Inner World had always been only lightly decorated. It was common for you to take on a representation of your spiritual self while there. Avuri had often said she always appeared in crisp, white and light blue robes, similar to what she wore at our wedding. But she had never mentioned a hair change or anything like that.

As for myself, I usually appeared in simple smithy work clothes. Sometimes an apron would appear, but not always. But it was typically some kind of stained open shirt and pants that would do well in the heat of the forge.

That was still somewhat the case, actually. I did indeed have on a sleeveless shirt with a fairly deep cut neck. It was loose and comfortable and would perform very well in the heat of a forge. It was not stained like usual, though, and was actually an unusually clean white. I had a leather apron tied around my waist, but the upper portion of it hung down instead of being secured around my neck. The pants were pretty standard work attire.

But I barely noticed my clothing. My eyes were on my hands, forearms, shoulders, and neck which were all coated in dragon scales that looked remarkably similar to Vale’s.

“I’d heard before that people often gain inhuman attributes in their spiritual forms, and that they often reflect integral parts of how they see themselves.” Avuri said, smiling warmly. “Even if you never call him Dad, You really are Vale’s daughter, aren’t you?”

I had to clear my throat before responding, “Yeah. There’s a reason I don’t call him Dad often. Remind me to tell you the story some time.” I turned my hands over this way and that, staring at the black scales. “I’ll need to see if these are functional. If they’re heat resistant, it would make the forge work so easy.” I muttered.

Avuri’s full belly laughter pulled me back to the present as I waved the mirror away and it floated off.

“Now what?” I asked, unable to help the smile spreading on my face. “Putting our physical alterations aside, what did we do?”

Avuri was still trying to reign in her giggles when she asked, “Have you checked on your physical body yet?”

“Oh. No, not yet.” I said, realizing I hadn’t considered to do so.

“I’ve honestly been a little scared to check, given how off my spiritual body feels. We shouldn’t be able to feel sick like this, right?”

“I don’t think so. Not unless there’s something wrong with…ah.” I said as I was led to her conclusion.

“Yeah. I’m worried we may have done something really stupid.”

I took a deep breath. “You stay here. I’ll check.” I said resolutely. It was my idea to push through with whatever it was we did, so I felt like I should be the one to check on things.

Before Avuri could voice any objection I closed my eyes and drew my consciousness back to the surface with my body. Once I felt myself slip into place, my thoughts moved around quickly.

I couldn’t feel any bodily pain. We were still cuddled up in our bed, entangled just as before. There were no obvious injuries on either of us - physically at least. I breathed a sigh of relief at that. We were both definitely still alive if nothing else.

When I accessed my Qi, though, everything slammed to a halt. It moved and responded as I had expected it would - even quicker, actually - but it felt wrong. It wasn’t anything so obvious as an injury, but just a strong feeling that something wasn’t right. My Qi, which usually felt warm and malleable like liquid metal in my meridians gave off an additional impression that I couldn’t place. It made everything feel altogether wrong.

I dove back into my Inner World before I did anything with my Qi that might make things worse. My spiritual eyes opened back in the same place as before - the snowy smithing village building, with Avuri sitting across from me.

“So?”

“I’m not sure.” I said honestly. “My Qi felt strange, so I didn’t want to try anything.”

“Let’s both go back and see what happens. We’re not going to learn anything in here.” Avuri said, half a frown on her face.

I nodded. “Okay. Neither of us were notably injured, so we should be safe.”

After another moment of silence, I was back in my body again. As I blinked to clear the blurry vision, I saw Avuri opening her eyes just a few inches away from me. We both slowly moved around and tried to sit up while untangling ourselves from one another.

I took a breath to steady myself as apprehension seemed to flood my thoughts. I wasn’t usually one to hesitate, but I had also always been able to trust my own Qi. It was one of the few constants in my life that had never betrayed me. And here I was now, doubting it.

Before I could spiral any further, I just locked myself in and took the step. I pulled on my Qi - which still felt weird even as it moved through me - and tried to conjure a simple short sword to my hand.

“Uh, Emery?” Avuri said, sounding confused and a bit concerned. When I turned to look at her, I noticed she wasn’t actually looking at me, but had a distant stare as if she was looking at something else entirely.

Before I could comprehend what she was looking at, I felt my Qi begin to leave my body to coalesce into the weapon I wanted. As the weapon settled into my hand, the physical sensation of it made my thoughts spiral.

The handle was so cold to the touch that I was sure it would give me frostbite. But my hand adjusted to it quickly, leaving the sudden trail of frost crawling over my hand from the intense cold feeling pleasantly cool. I looked down at my hand to see a beautiful short sword crafted entirely out of ice. The whole thing was as well crafted as any of my swords with sharp lines and clean angles, which left the clear ice looking more like crystal than anything else.

“Avuri.” I said, causing her head to snap around. Her eyes fell on the weapon immediately.

“...Since when could you make your weapons out of ice?”

“I can’t.” I said, staring blankly at the weapon clearly made of ice. “We might have a problem.”