Chapter Three - Flying Swords

Nie Ruyi

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]

She must have fallen asleep that way, because she woke up over-heated and suffocated in the dark, pulling the blanket off her head. It must still have been dark, because there was no light shining in through the windows any longer and no light from the candles that had been lit. She'd forgotten to put them out. Had someone come and done so? Had it been that boy, Song Fengling? She sighed, her eyes stinging and tired from crying, so she curled up again.

The second time she woke, it was to someone shaking her shoulder. She gasped, jerking away, and the shaking stopped. Her eyes bolted open to stare down the person waking her, and it was Song Fengling's serious little face looking at her.

"You're being summoned by Sect Leader. I'm to teach you how to get dressed, and then Lao-Shixiong is going to guide you there." He intoned, before stepping away from the bed and turning his back.

Nie Ruyi sat up, pushing the quilt off of herself. In the night, her robe had twisted all around her, her body unused to sleeping with that much flowy cloth on it. She pulled it into some semblance of order, and then stood up. She only just realized that she apparently had left a huge mess around her bed, when Song Fengling turned back around.

"Come on, it's time to get you dressed." Song Fengling declared, before guiding Nie Ruyi through the addition of three layers to her clothing. An underrobe of beautiful jade-green, a gauzy, pale and see-through robe just over that, and then another beautiful hanfu robe tied tight over that with a wide, decorative belt. Her sleeves fluttered as she moved them, a bit in awe of his skill.

Then, he forced her sleepy self over in front of a large bronzed mirror leaning against the wall on what was probably meant to be a vanity. She knelt in front of it, and he took the ribbon from her hair, combing the long, still-damp tresses. His hands did complicated things she didn't even recognise, and soon her hair was put up in a style she'd never seen on herself before. Two buns on either side of her head, with the middle portion flowing down her back in a brown river. He put in fresh flowers that made Nie Ruyi wonder where he'd gotten them, and then leaned back. Nodding, he stood up.

"Alright. You're presentable. Let's go."

"Thank you?" Nie Ruyi managed. "But... You didn't show me how to put them on."

The young boy scoffed, crossing his arms, "You mean you weren't paying attention?"

"...I was, but I just woke up. I'm a bit... slow in the mornings, you know?" She tried, but the boy scoffed again, and turned away from her. The two of them exited the bedroom, a chaos of belongings exploded all over her bed-area.

The hallway this time was teeming with others, all dressed in the same hanfu, although some had different cuts and colors involved. Before Nie Ruyi could parse what colors meant what, she was forced to stop unless she wanted to bowl Song Fengling over. He knocked gently on a sliding door in front of him, and she peered over his shoulder.

"Enter."

The two of them did so, Song Fengling hanging back to allow Nie Ruyi inside first. When Song Fengling fell into a bow, once again bringing his hands up in front of his face, Nie Ruyi tried to copy it, assuming it was good manners.

"This one greets Lao-Zhangmen." Song Fengling declared, and then side-eyed Nie Ruyi, until she did the same.

"Thank you, Song-Shidi. Nie-Shimei, this sect leader is pleased to see you again. Did you rest well?" Lao Minghui's lovely gentle smile graced her, and Nie Ruyi felt almost as if some of her stress was cleared from her shoulders.

"Ah, yes. Thank you, Lao-Zhangmen." Nie Ruyi answered, smiling back herself. She felt half-naked, without her makeup on, but... what could she do, she'd been rushed.

"We're simply waiting for my brother and the one in charge of this mission. They should be along shortly, since I sent A-Jun after him."

"Mission?" Nie Ruyi asked, finding her throat quite tight. Song Fengling took that moment to set tea first in front of the Sect Leader, and then in front of herself. She hadn't even noticed him making it.

"Yes. You'll be accompanying A-Jun out to the encampment and meet with the Senior Disciple in charge of the dragon-hunt. From there, you are to give him as much information as you can about the beast. Then, A-Jun will bring you back in time for dinner. Safe and sound, hm?"

A thrill of worry went through her, but Nie Ruyi nodded along with the sentiment, as if that would make the fear go away. "That sounds like a plan."

"Certainly-" A knock interrupted the Sect Leader, and she called out to those outside to come in. Lao Xiaojun stepped inside, along with another young man, this one with red paint around the corners of his eyes, and his hair drawn up in an elaborate, beautiful style. He seemed intimidated by Lao Xiaojun's presence.

"This Guo Ding greets Lao-Zhangmen." He made the same deep bow, even though Lao Xiaojun did not. In fact, the hulking man moved to stand behind and to Nie Ruyi's right. She couldn't help casting a glance over his shoulder, and watch his eyes pass over her and then to his sister, as if looking at a mudpuddle.

"Thank you for coming, Guo-Shidi. If you could do me the favor of escorting Nie-Shimei, A-Jun and Song-Shidi to the outpost outside the Dragon's forest, this Sect Leader would be most grateful." Lao Minghui ordered, smiling as sweetly as a mother asking her children to wash their hands.

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"This Guo Ding will do as you request." Another bow, which made Nie Ruyi wonder if maybe that was how formal contracts were sealed here too.

With that, and an imperious wave from Lao Minghui, who apparently had paperwork to get back to, Guo Ding guided their little group out of the office and through the halls. An oppressive sort of silence overran the corridor, and Nie Ruyi was about to break it, when her stomach did it for her.

"...Ah, Nie-Shimei is hungry?" Guo Ding asked, reaching into his sleeve. He pulled out what looked like a crumpled ball of paper, but when he unwrapped it, it was a bun. Warm, and fresh, it smelled absolutely delicious. The young man in his strange grey-and-teal robes held it out to her. The kind gesture almost made her tear up.

"Thank you so much, Guo-Gege." The address felt weird on her tongue. She'd only ever really called her older cousins that. But the weirdness was soon soothed by her first bite of the bun. It tasted amazing. She ate up half of it in three big bites, and groaned at how tasty it was.

"Eat with decorum." Lao Xiaojun snapped, looking at her with a pinched expression. "You're not a child."

The sudden rebuke made Nie Ruyi's cheeks heat, but she felt that perhaps it was unwarranted. She snapped back, "There's nothing wrong with enjoying a meal when one hasn't eaten since the previous morning!"

Lao Xiaojun made a soft snorting noise, as if disbelieving her. She finished off her bun and then sucked the crumbs from her fingers, even as Song Fengling took out a few crunchy stick-looking things and began eating them as well. Pretzels? She guessed they were pretzels anyway.

"It's a bit of a flight to the encampment. Song-Shidi, do you have your own spiritual sword?" Guo Ding asked, in lieu of changing the subject.

"Aye." Song Fengling rattled the sword at his side, to indicate it. "I can ride for an hour at a time, before I need a break."

"I believe our Nie-Shimei will need a break around then as well." Guo Ding nodded, as if this had been expected. "Alright. We'll leave from the Willow courtyard. Come on."

Guo Ding's sure, careful steps took them out into a cobblestoned courtyard, with gently manicured bushes and trees, sparsey-leafed in the autumn weather. A shiver took Nie Ruyi as the three gentlemen she was following unsheathed their swords. But instead of fighting, or worse, skewering her with them, they dropped them.

No clattering ring of metal on stone sounded, and the blades floated lazily just at ankle height, horizontal to the ground, and glittering in the weak autumn sunlight. Guo Ding pushed back the skirt-layers of his hanfu so that he could step onto the sword, and Lao Xiaojun stepped on without any fuss. Song Fengling took a few seconds, wobbling a bit as he stepped onto a wavering sword. Nie Ruyi stood, staring at the three of them floating a foot off the ground.

"Well, come here." Lao Xiaojun reached out a hand, as if to pull Nie Ruyi onto the sword. She immediately shook her head and took a few fearful steps back.

"No! I'll fall off! That's... How are you even doing that?!" She asked, her voice a tiny bit shrill. Magic? Reading about Cultivation and flying swords was a whole seperate thing from being shoved onto a two-inch wide metal blade that would be flying through the sky!

"..." Both Guo Ding and Song Fengling looked disturbed at her reaction, as if this must be common knowledge in this world and she was the one being strange. Nie Ruyi didn't like it.

Lao Xiaojun didn't either, apparently, because he stepped down from the sword (which stayed floating) and took the two long strides he needed to stand in front of her. "The Spiritual Swords are fed with our Qi. They will not fall from the air, unless our Qi is depleted. That is the point of the rest stops along the way. I'll hold onto you, so that you will not fall. Trust this elder martial brother."

Nie Ruyi continued to look at the weapons distrustfully. She'd never heard ofthe sword-flying thing being dangerous, in those novels. Rather, it was often similarly described to parkour or maybe skateboarding, but she'd never done either of those, and the thought of the kind of injuries people who did them regularly got...

The three men watched her shake her head again, and Guo Ding sighed. "We could take a carriage, or horses, but it will take a day and a half to reach them, instead of a few hours by sword."

"Yes! Let's do that!" Nie Ruyi cried, reaching out without really thinking and grabbing Lao Xiaojun's arm through his sleeve and squeezing it. She beamed up at him, "Please. I... I've only ever flown in an airplane. I'm scared."

Puzzlement warred with frustration on Lao Xiaojun's handsome face. Eventually it set in stone, and instead of backing away, he snapped a hand around the wrist of the hand on his arm. Using it, he drew her resisting form into his arms, and picked her up with a steel-bar arm around her waist.

"H-Hey! Put me down!"

She cried, loud and shrill. She struggled, pushing against his hold the same way someone might push against a mountainside. A frisson of fear and embarrassment had her clawing at his neck and face before he adjusted his hold and pinned her arms to her sides. Then, he stood on the sword, as if it were a floor wide and solid. The lack of anything solid under her own feet wasn't something she could really comment on or worry about, since technically, she was close to a head shorter than he was and her feet dangled from the way he was holding her.

Nie Ruyi had a front row seat to the world drifting out from under them, and she screamed, clinging to the only solid thing there. If Lao Xiaojun was bothered by it, he didn't show it. As time passed, the cold bracing wind drew her from her terror. The steel-core arms around her reassured her (just a little) that she wasn't going to just randomly fall. And she was pretty sure if Lao Xiaojun tried to drop her, she could just koala onto his chest and stick around until he landed.

With the fear at bay, she found her eyes drawn to the sky around them, filled with pastel blues and purples so gorgeous she wished she could paint just to be able to express them to someone else. The whisps of cloud around them lent just enough pale white and gold to the tableau, that the world beneath seemed an oddly shaped green and brown blur that ran through with streaks of grey and blue. A precious stone jewel, laid out beneath their feet.

Ahead of them, Guo Ding and Song Fengling flew, their long hair flying behind them in elegant archs of black, despite the different hairstyles. Fear near completely gone, she let her knees slowly fall, allowing the tips of her toes to touch the metal of the sword. It still felt flimsy, but just having something semi-solid beneath them felt better, somehow. She turned, trying to turn around in the circle of Lao Xiaojun's arms, and he let her, relieving the pressure just a little bit.

With her back pressed to his solid chest, and his arms linked around her waist, she almost felt like that ridiculous scene from The Titanic. She had to fight the silly urge to lift her arms and laugh. A smile managed to break through though. Then, she did laugh, just for the hell of it, all fear gone. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, and felt strangely light, as if the whole of her worries were left beneath them, unable to reach her.

https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png [https://i.imgur.com/xzisjky.png]