It was fun, playing with my cousins today. My older cousin, Jing, is nice. She lets me climb on her when we play the racing game. She says I’m sooooo heavy and she falls over and we laugh a lot. Oh yeah, they told me I should start writing down what I see, so I’m trying. I don’t understand why, but Grandma said it’s important for the future.
* Personal Journal
Two hours after Fenghuang Yu left for the Black Dragon Sect – on a flying sword over the wilderness of the Gui Empire:
Fenghuang Yu felt her silver ponytail flapping behind her in the wind as she flew, yes flew, on a gigantic sword no less, to what would be her home for the next who knew how many years. Thinking of her unknown future filled her with an equal mix of fear and excitement. But despite those emotions, Yu had been absolutely silent for the last two hours. Despite her desire, she had not asked her potential madman of a master how long the journey was, or what it would be like, or how they would train, or what she should do when they arrived.
The flying sword was about four paces wide and twelve long, so there was a little space between her and her master. Aside from looking from side to side and watching the various types of wilderness pass by in a blur or down into the basket at her feet, she had not moved. She held her hands behind her, straight-backed, mimicking her master exactly as he stood at the tip of the sword. They were currently flying over an area that was completely barren of anything except tan sand. The reading she had done in her family’s library told her it was called a desert, specifically the Desert Wastes, and that it was a place of desolation and death. Only the strongest cultivators would ever venture there, and when they did, they would be well prepared. Or they would quickly become dried-out corpses amongst the sand.
It was because of the danger of this natural habitat that Yu was shocked to realize they had begun slowing down. The easing of their blurring pace was obvious almost immediately as the world became easier to see. As she looked to her master for an explanation, she found him staring off to the right of their strange transport. Yu looked in that direction as well, wondering what had distracted the unfathomable cultivator, but all she saw were the crests and dips of an ocean of sand. Hot winds blew, causing occasional whirlwinds of tan particles that moved from sand dune to sand dune.
The sword came to a slow stop and Long Bingwen, her master and the leader of the Black Dragon Sect, fully turned his body to face the right, his hands not having moved from behind his back. Yu still didn’t see anything in that direction besides more sand. Given who her master was, she was hesitant to speak. Instead, Yu simply looked out and tried to figure out what might be going on that had caused the man to pause his return to his home and responsibilities.
The answer started low on the horizon but eventually rose enough that she was able to recognize that something was approaching. There was a speedy thumping beat getting progressively closer, faster, and louder. Then, out of nowhere, a shadow blocked out the sun, and Yu looked up and jumped. She grabbed her bonded tiger cub out of his basket at her feet and held him close against her chest. Wind began whipping sand about, and Yu tucked Bai inside one flap of her sect robes while she attempted to hold the other over her face. She felt a drag on her head as her long silver ponytail was whipped behind her and pulled hard enough that it hurt. Her whole body began to be pushed back, her black-booted feet sliding backward, and she feared she was about to be thrown off the sword, but a force she could not see held her in place.
The enormous creature responsible for the localized sandstorm landed with a rumbling thump in the sand below, causing even more to fly into the air and be whipped around. Gradually, its eight transparent wings slowed their beat and settled onto the back of its massive abdomen. On the now stilling sand in front of them, staring with brown eyes the size of her courtyard training center on its gigantic triangular head, was the largest creature Yu had ever seen. The Gusting Desert Mantis tilted its head left and right, all the while clicking its mandibles, themselves the size of a small building. Its four skinny rear legs twitched forward and back while its two front legs, like gigantic serrated scythes, reached out and threatened to poke at the two puny humans before it.
“Why are you here, Shao?” The voice that came from her master was deep and filled with power. And totally sane.
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“I come for her,” a high-pitched voice filled with clicks replied, sounding throughout the area.
Yu’s mind shuddered from it and she gasped, dropping onto the sword while covering Bai’s tiny ears with one hand and her own head with the other. Yu could feel her bonded beast’s pain and terror in her mind – which amplified her own matching emotions. Even through the pain, Yu knew this had to stop or it would turn into a cycle where they destroyed each other’s minds, increasing her fear for both herself and Bai. It was awful and caused her to curl around the cub and shudder in agony.
“Please lower your power when you speak, Shao. I do not need my new apprentice’s head exploding,” her master said in exasperation.
With a slightly lower mental impact that hardly helped, the clicking voice ordered, “Give them to me.”
“No. They are mine,” her master said as Yu continued writhing on the sword.
Through the pounding in her head, Yu watched helplessly as one of the demonic beast’s massive raptor-like front legs darted toward the man in gold robes. In response, he raised his hand, and a mostly transparent silver globe surrounded the sword. A vibrating boom sounded as the foreleg slammed into the shield, which rippled like fluid.
The clicking was speeding up, and the voice said at the same painful volume, “Fine. Give me the girl. You keep the tiger. It is fair.”
After a few breaths, her master said, “If you keep this up, both will die and neither of us will have them. And they are both mine now. How is giving one up fair?”
Another slam followed his refusal and the shield rippled even more.
“We must have her!” the creature declared in a tone just soft enough that it was barely manageable for Yu and her bond.
Thanks to the softer words, Yu was able to focus more, but she quickly wondered if that was better. She saw the creature raise both its forelegs and slam them into the shield with a crash like thunder. It rippled, and Yu found to her shock and terror that the barrier had cracked. Like lightning, the creature struck again, and as their protection shattered with the sound of breaking glass, its massive legs were already heading for the sword. Terrified, Yu wondered if even her master, the leader of one of the most respected sects in the Empire, could stop such a terrifying demonic beast.
Just as the scythe-like legs reached for them and Yu felt she would die before even reaching her new home, something odd happened. Time seemed to slow. The legs, which had been so fast as to be a blur, were visible once more, languidly moving toward them. Then, all of a sudden, the sword the three of them were riding on shifted positions. Yu blinked, realizing they had moved backward about twenty paces. Then time returned to normal, and sand billowed up and fell around the creature.
“Shao, stop this,” her master called out firmly.
The gigantic brown insect moved on the sand like the shifting surface was solid ground and skittered forward, snapping its mandibles and waving its forelegs. With a sigh, her master held out both of his hands, palm down, and looked like he was pressing on an invisible table. The mantis’s whole body slowed and lowered closer to the sand.
But that didn’t stop it. It glowed brown and pushed back up against the force, and Yu’s master looked like he was pushing back down against an invisible rising force. Able to see her master now, and finally able to focus on his face, Yu wondered if he was even trying to fight the creature. Concentration was evident, but not exertion. Was he intentionally attempting to avoid crushing the beast?
Then the voice returned, but softer now. Perhaps as somewhat of a request more than demand.
“Timekeeper, she has responsibilities to us.”
That name.
Yu had been told her master had the Spatial affinity by her parents, but was not really clear what that meant, never having had the affinity explained to her.
“She has responsibilities to me, Shao,” her master responded, still holding his hands out.
The mantis glowed brightly and shoved upward violently, and her master let his hands fall after taking a controlled step back and moving the sword backward again.
“Shao, if I promise to return and discuss it, will you allow us to pass in peace? I will hear you out, but you cannot have her now.”
Wait. What does he mean now?
“We have only so long before it will be too late, Timekeeper. We need her.”
Yu heard desperation in those last three words.
Her master nodded. “I will return before the rains return to the desert to discuss what exactly you need. Perhaps we can find a solution.”
The creature tilted its head again, clicking and twitching like before.
“You have my word,” her master intoned. Even one as young and inexperienced as Yu could tell there was power in his promise. Qi was flooding the area around him.
After another few breaths of silence, the voice said, “Acceptable.”
Then the eight massive wings spread from the mantis’s back and began their beat, blowing sand in all directions. This time, her master placed a barrier around the sword, so thankfully Yu and Bai didn’t get hit with the sand or nearly thrown off like when it had arrived. With a press of its four rear legs, the titanic creature lifted off and flew into the desert.
Then, as if nothing had happened, Yu watched as her master returned to the front of the sword with his hands behind his back and they once again sped toward their destination.