“No, no, no. I would never say that.”

Avuri sighed again, slumping forward over the table. Lunch had long since been cleared, and she was now in a rather intensive rehearsal with Lyn, practicing to act like the woman.

Now collapsed on the table, she looked at Emery who was watching from the other end of the large room. Emery smiled and waved despite the crocodile tears collecting in the corners of Avuri’s eyes.

“This is payback, isn’t it?” Avuri muttered to herself. And despite being on the other side of this room, Emery nodded with a vengeful little smile.

“Hm?” Lyn said, turning back toward Avuri. “If you’ve got time to whine, girl, you better get to practicing.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Avuri said, the whiny tone still present in her voice.

Lyn sighed. “Well, come on then.” She said, making circles with her hand to urge Avuri back into action. “We’re going to need all of you to be as perfect as you can be in your imitations.”

Avuri sat back up and responded in a very similar tone to the one Lyn was talking in, doing her best to match it. “That’s great and all, but why am I the one sitting here getting driven to practice like this?”

All things considered, her acting ability wasn’t too bad. Emery was pretty sure she could act as Lyn to anyone that didn’t know her well, though she wouldn’t be able to fool anyone close to the woman the way Ieji could.

“Well,” Lyn said, nodding approval for the last line, “Ieji is about as good at impersonating someone as anyone can get, for starters.”

“Yeah, I know that.” Avuri said, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t roll my eyes.” Lyn corrected.

“You do.” Avuri insisted, and looked over to Emery for confirmation. Lyn followed her gaze and gave Emery a questioning look.

Emery smiled sheepishly. “You do, Lyn, sorry. Mostly at Cyril though, so Avuri, you shouldn’t do it much.”

“Huh.” Lyn looked mildly puzzled. “I never noticed.”

“Anyway, I understand why Ieji isn’t practicing. They don’t need it. But what about Eiry’s stand in? Don’t they need practice?” Avuri asked petulantly.

“She will. But she doesn’t live in the city here, so Eiry had to go fetch her. Apparently.” Lyn said, once again honed in on Avuri’s impersonation attempt.

“Who is she, anyway? Did Eiry say?” Avuri asked, keeping a firm hold on her impression.

“Only that the girl has been working as her assistant for several years. She’s a part of the Stone Breaker Sect that lives in the Amber Valley to the West.”

“Oh, interesting. Eiry pretty regularly uses the Amber Valley for Cultivation, doesn’t she?” Avuri asked.

“She does.” Lyn confirmed. “She is an earth Cultivator originally, after all.”

“Isn’t she focused on wind and flight techniques?” Avuri asked, curious.

Emery laughed from her spot near the wall. “You never asked her about it? According to Eiry, the only reason she can separate herself from the land as easily as she does is because she understands it so well.”

Avuri and Lyn made the exact same motion of breathing in and shaking their heads. It was the most accurate movement Avuri had made so far, and a grin split her face.

“It’s not exactly obvious logic, but it’s hard to argue with her results.” Lyn said wryly. “Eiry has some of the best command over the air that I’ve ever seen. Most high Realm Cultivators can manage some form of flight, but only a few can sustain it indefinitely without effort.”

“She’s known as the ‘Sky Dragon’ for a reason. And, I imagine, she took the name Eiry to reflect that as well?” Emery said.

“Obviously.” Lyn said. “Some of the older dragons were actually very angry with her over it. We can all fly naturally, after all, so one of us claiming the sky over the others wasn’t exactly taken well.”

Lyn smiled wistfully as she looked up at the ceiling recalling something. “Then she - quite literally - pulled the air out from under the other dragons’ wings to assert her reason for taking the name; most of the dissent ended right there. Some are still angry over it, not to mention the stunt she pulled.”

“I imagine it was considered a great offense.” Avuri said.

“It was. She was actually sent here before the rest of us as a punishment of sorts.” Lyn said. “Instead, she built this place up to her liking so well that she’s been asked to take over other outposts and repeat the process. But she keeps refusing to leave because she’s comfortable here.”

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“...She’s actually just being petty, isn’t she?” Emery asked with a chuckle. “I recognize pettiness when I hear it.”

Lyn laughed, then made a show of checking her surroundings to be sure they were alone. The trio was in a private room in the Celestial Dragon Pavilion; there was really no need for her to check like that.

“Don’t tell her I told you both this, but you should see her when she gets one of those missives. She’ll lock herself in her room and throw a bit of a tantrum and scream about how annoying those old dragons are.” Lyn smiled a predatory little grin at sharing this little bit of blackmail material. “She even threw one of Vyne’s vases once. It was so expensive, he didn’t talk to her for a week until she found a suitable replacement.”

Emery snorted, while Avuri fought to keep her composure as practice. She did admirably well. “You all sound like so much fun.” Emery said.

“Despite the outward appearance we keep as Elders, I assure you; we enjoy ourselves.” Lyn said slyly. “If you both stick around here long enough, you might even find yourselves among our little circle. You wouldn’t be the first humans to do so.”

Avuri tilted her head. “Really?”

“Really.” Lyn confirmed. “There was a married couple, much like the two of you, around…three hundred years ago, I think. They were good friends of ours for a while and lived in the city for a long time.”

Lyn’s voice hadn’t taken on any sort of melancholic timbre, so Avuri asked, “And what happened to them?”

“Well, we met the two of them when they were Heavenly Realm Cultivators. And they had already been at that level for some time by then. They stuck around for fifty or sixty years, and then broke through to the Celestial Realm.”

That got Emery and Avuri’s attention. Stories of those who reached such a level were typically urban legends. It was incredibly rare to hear any sort of first or second hand account of the Celestial Realm.

Lyn’s smile turned wistful again. “They stuck around for a year or two after that, but vanished shortly thereafter as Celestial Realm Cultivators tend to do. And even in those two years they stuck around, they were subtly different.”

“Different how?” Avuri asked, enthralled with the potential of information.

Lyn’s face scrunched up as if she was trying to find the right words. “It was as if they could see something that no one else could. Or, I suppose as the stories always put it, they could just see more. Like they had inhuman knowledge, or something. And whenever we asked about it, they just shrugged it off and said they couldn’t explain it. But it made them distant. I’d even use the word ‘ephemeral’.”

“That’s unusually poetic of you.” Emery said.

“Yes, well, seeing friends change like that puts you in a poetic mood. It’s strange and difficult to explain well, so venturing into feeling is all you can do.” Lyn said, still looking up. When she brought her gaze down to land on Avuri, she looked refreshed and refocused. “Anyway. You’re doing well.”

“Am I really?” Avuri said, still keeping the same copied timbre in her voice.

“As far as general sound, yes.” Lyn nodded. “Ieji said that their technique would cover the ability to make your voice sound like mine, so the actual imitation itself is already taken care of. We just need to get your speech pattern and inflection to sound like mine, and you’ve done that pretty well.”

“It helps that I’ve known you for more than ten years.” Avuri said, affecting a smile similar to Lyn’s. “And you’re easily the most approachable of the Elders.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that.” Emery said lightly. “Eiry is definitely the most difficult, I don’t imagine anyone would argue that. But Cyril is just as friends as Lyn, and Ray and Vyne are easy to approach in their own way.”

Lyn nodded agreement. “If you walked up to Ray and offered him a decent fight, you’d have a new best friend so fast your head would spin.”

“The opposite is true, too, I suspect.” Emery said with a wry chuckle. “He’s been trying to get me to fight him for years and I keep turning him down. I’m pretty sure he hates me at this point.”

“I doubt it. Hasn’t stopped asking, has he?” Lyn asked, and Emery shook her head in reply. “He won’t hate you for turning down the fights, only if you accept one and then disrespect the fight afterward. So if you ever agree, just don’t run away or let him win.”

Avuri snorted. “She’d never let anyone win.”

“That’s not true. I let the kids win all the time.” Emery said defensively.

Avuri stopped imitating Lyn long enough to give her wife a deadpan stare. “Emery, you literally fought seven of our kids at once the other day and put them to shame. So much so that they broke the damn floor trying to not die.”

“What?” Lyn abruptly shouted as she did a double take.

“I didn’t try to hurt them at all!” Emery said, glaring at Avuri for the misunderstanding. “I was trying to drive home a point about fighting Sky Realm Cultivators. Mostly how they shouldn't, because they would be entirely outclassed, even in a group.”

Lyn relaxed. “I see.”

“Don’t let her undersell you here, Lyn.” Avuri continued, trying to get Emery in trouble as payback for earlier. “She scared them enough that one of the kids created a stone wall from the ground and pulled in from the floor to block an attack aimed at Stena’s back. He was so afraid at that moment that he pulled up the stone on instinct.”

Lyn’s eyes traveled slowly back to Emery again, full of judgment.

“Avuri.” Emery said, her voice full of warning. “I know you’re trying to get me in trouble. Please stop.”

Avuri stuck her tongue out at Emery. “That’s what you get. But you really did scare Enrik.”

“I didn’t scare him. The whole point was to teach them that they can’t approach a Sky Cultivator like they normally would. And the lesson, may I remind you, was very effective at that. And Enrik allowed me to make a point about acting fast instead of thoughtfully can save lives. It was a good lesson.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Avuri said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “I wonder if they fixed the floor yet?”

“Probably not.” Emery said, considering it. “It’s not been long and we only got the wood a few days ago.”

“Avuri.” Lyn said, her voice suddenly heavy and serious. It made both other women turn to her immediately, alert. She simply smiled. “You let your impression slip. You’re going to be here until dinner at this rate.”

Avuri let out a huge, defeated sigh. “Didn’t we need to go meet with Eiry and her assistant at some point to get briefed on the actual information we need to know.”

“Yes.” Lyn said sweetly, “Tomorrow. For today, you’re staying here until I’m confident that you won’t break character randomly like that.”

Her sweet smile slowly turned almost violent. “Even if it takes right up until the meeting tomorrow.”

Avuri turned toward Emery, who was slowly creeping toward the door.

“Save me.”