Heavenly Shae

Chapter 13: "Marbles and Mementos."

The campfire reminded Shae of the mirror shard. She had that memory too, but from a different angle. She reached into the sleeve she had stored the shard, impulsively imagining it was there again, but different, hers. She pulled out a shard, this time it was just glass, etched with an image of the memory. A weak copy, but still she was quite surprised it had worked.

She just stared at it for a while before inspecting it closely. It held a little qi, or was made of it, she thought. Yet, it was mainly a ghost of a thing, like a vivid hallucination. She knew it shouldn't exist. She looked up from the fire to the clearing around her, still littered with floating shards of mirror and gemstone. The old monster's qi infused the area. Still leaking from him, but much slower now.

She could feel the reality in the space. She had a small sense of it ever since the old man's Dao shattered. She focused on it. It was a weak spot, injured like someone had bruised spacetime, or maybe more like a dented sheet of metal. Still whole yet clearly damaged and in need of repair. She didn't think she could fix it, she knew she shouldn't even try to. It should heal on its own, it might take time, or just until after the old monster's mess was gone.

She looked at the shard she made again. The others existed because reality was broken, or damaged just a little. This probably existed for the same reason. Maybe she could do something here that she never could anywhere else.

She ran her hand over it, pivoting the perspective. Twisting it around and pulling back to where she was when she saw the old man gain his enlightenment. She zoomed the image out, making small twitches with her hand, like zooming and panning through an image on a touchscreen, but her motions were gibberish, just instinctual twitches of thought.

It was still fuzzy, the piece of glass only wafer thin. She shrunk the whole shard down, it would be stronger this way. The image sharpened a bit, darkened at the edges. She had only glanced at the old man, a silhouette in a beam of light beside a fire. No, she thought, I yelled at him too. I called him an ass and then the light flickered.

She added that in too. The feeling of yelling a curse and a flicker of light. The scrap of image solidified in her hand. A small postage stamp sized image. Its edges frayed just like a perforated stamp.

She heard an abrupt curse behind her from the old monster, and the tinkling of falling glass. He had broken one of his shards. "That will happen to the smaller ones." She called out to him, not looking away from her own. "I broke a few as well. Do try to catch them all." A part of her wanted to reassure him more, maybe snarkily say 'don't cry over spilled milk' or something, but he was an adult who didn't need that, and she had already forgotten his plight.

Her little postage stamp needed something more, stamps needed to be stuck to something so she created a postcard. An image of the mountain with script that read "Pilgrim's Temper". She flipped it over and attached the stamp. Then she saw the lines for the address and message.

She frowned at it, postcards were meant to be sent away, but this was hers, something she wanted to keep. Not a memento for another. She had seen this with her own eyes. The card rippled and fell away from the stamp, it wobbled, trying to fall apart, then snapped into a new shape, an eye.

Eyes were kind of gross, the back especially so. Instead of that she gave it two sides, she had two eyes after all, and with the sides opposite each other she wanted to be able to look through it. The iris became clear, with a glassy gem-like interior. But the image still needed to be there, she thought, so it appeared in the pupil. She remembered a different kind of eye-like trinket, and it changed again, the image became a slitted pupil, and the white of the eye fell away to reveal a cat's eye marble. She smiled, it was perfect.

She clasped her hands around the little gem of memory and held it to her chest. Just as simply she dropped it into her Dantian where it fell through the clouds, the golden light glimmering through it beautifully.

She frowned slightly as it exited out the bottom of the clouds. She nudged it back, a little push to correct its fall. Gravity was such a hassle, she thought. She rolled her mind over, tilting the image of her Dantian. Why was there a down? There was no ground, this was its own little space. With another thought the marble began arcing around the clouds. She had not needed to correct its fall again, she had just decided there was no down, but the clouds could have their own little bit of gravity. So that the marble streaked lazily through them. Punching through the clouds when necessary, like a tiny little comet.

She smiled and pulled her senses back out to the campfire. She looked around at the bruised reality. There was more here, more memories, and more opportunity. She really had made memories here. The tribulation was the biggest one, perhaps. She looked to where the bolts of divine lightning had landed and imagined them there, one at a time.

The first warning strike, next to the fire. Then the others, their exact position a mystery to her, except the last which was burned into her memory. She looked at the empty air around her, the sky behind was clear and blue instead of cloudy and angry gray. Still, if she focused, she could almost pick out the exact shapes the bolts had made.

She stood and walked to the site of the last bolt, circling where it had been, she didn't even realize she knew it so precisely until just now. She imagined the bolt flashing down with a bright flash and ear splitting crack, replaying it in her mind. As the light from the flash faded she really could see it, what was left, a faint scar on reality.

The tribulation had damaged reality here too. Scarring the space with the intensity of its power. Perhaps that was what made the old monster's ordeal and recovery possible?

Shae found the image within herself too. The memory of that final strike seared into her soul. It hummed with empathy for the scar. She drew it out of herself, slowly. Almost the reverse of what she did with the marble, but it was much larger than the sight of the campfire. It held more power that she needed to be cautious of.

Or was it just an image? Just a brilliant picture of golden light. She decided to draw it out of herself as ribbons of yellow-gold and wrap it around the scar, carefully stitching the memory into the scar, maybe like bandaging an injured limb. It would be hollow like this, the inside just being empty scarred reality, so she added just a whiff of her divine clouds, just enough to fill the center and support the shape. Too much and it would become lightning again, she guessed.

It took a while, but she couldn't tell. She just fell into a rhythm of pulling the ribbon out and wrapping it around the lightning. When it got above her head she stepped back for a better view, but it became more difficult. She frowned and stepped forward again. Then stepped around it in a small circle until she found just the right spot where it clicked. Exactly where the point of view matched her memory and it suddenly became so easy. The ribbons flowing out of her and wrapping up the scar, almost of their own will.

Then she was done. The canvas of reality hummed faintly as it healed before her. The ribbon desperately strained to become light and electricity and judgment again, but she pushed back, mentally saying 'No!' to it. She leaned in to inspect it closer and pushed on it with her will. The flat yellow texture contoured and became woven fibers of cloth, long seams and edges forming to prove that it was still made of ribbon. A glowing ethereally-divine lightning ribbon, but ribbon still.

Smiling, extraordinarily pleased with herself and her work, she reached out and grabbed it. With her hands, her will, her qi, and her Dao. If she even had the last, she was uncertain, but no sense in not trying. Then she pulled with everything, it rushed into her as fast as the real lightning had and uncoiled into her Dantian. Not as true lightning, just the memory of it. Her ribbons of light playing at being lightning, they fluttered through the divine clouds in her Dantian, and she felt she couldn't be happier with the results.

The scar in reality gone, she moved onto the two others. She had much less ceremony for them, much less memory to build from. So, she just traced their forms with her existing ribbons and quickly pulled them back into herself. These scars were not removed, just a light balm to them rather than complete healing. They would heal on their own, and faster now.

She returned to the campfire to find the first strike as well. The warning strike wasn't a deep scar like the others had been, and it was much less clear. Just the faint edges and lines not completely connected. Yet, she still had a memory of this, so she made some effort, and made more marbles. Little ones that each held the memory of the strike, and she flew them out to catch an edge, a faint line of white, or even the echo of the thunder. When she had a dozen or so, the scratch on reality was nearly gone, so she stopped. Looking at the little things she had made. Not all were stable, not quite enough of this or that, so she squeezed a few sets of them together. Making a handful of small memories of the warning strike.

She wondered why she got so many, but only one of the old man's enlightenment. Perhaps she had been too far away, or again, simply because that wasn't hers. This strike had been for both of them, so it was partly hers. The other three bolts had been hers, and the last was now completely hers. She cast the marbles into her Dantian and watched as they soared through the clouds, making sparks and small cracks of thunder when they brushed past a bolt of ribbon, warning of their power.

Shae sat down at the fire. Suddenly exhausted, she nearly tipped over. Space flexed slightly as reality healed just a bit more. She was pushed back, or something left her behind, she couldn't say. A hand grabbed her shoulder, supporting her.

"That, Miss Shae, oh Heavenly Shae. Was an amazing display." The old monster said, now standing beside her.

"Hmm? Uh, what happened, exactly?"

"Heh! Not surprising you are unsure. I've not seen many walk around during an Enlightenment. And fewer still, bend so many laws at once."

"Enlightenment? I... I hadn't even noticed, there was no beam of light?" She mumbled, still somewhat confused.

"Most don't, the first time. You'll notice it next time, probably." He sat down beside her. "It's like a vague feeling of opportunity. Hard to describe."

"Hmmm." She hummed, stuck in thought. "Do I- Do I need to do anything? Meditate on it?"

"Haha!" He laughed abruptly. "Only if you want to, you've already done what you needed to, far more than most would, perhaps. Can't say I've seen much like that before."

She grinned, "Heh, yea I guess I did do a lot. Didn't I?"

He smiled wryly, "The stories of young Heavenly Shae: stealing the memory of lightning from reality itself. That will race around the globe, shocking cultivators and amazing mortals."

"Ehhh? Stories?" She blushed.

"Well, only if we tell them, and only if they believe us." He bumped her side with his elbow.

She swayed too far away from the elbow strike, and came back smiling again. "Hmmm, I think that was just for us. Oh! You should make a mirror shard of that too!" She reached out as if to pluck it from the air but came back empty, not even the ghost of a memory, or a whisper of qi. Her face switched to confusion.

"It will not be nearly that easy again, I think. Enlightenment qi makes the impossible: possible, and the improbable: simple. But fear not, I got mine." His palm tapped his heart and he smiled warmly, something she had seen so little from him.

"Did you get them all?"

"Most. I need to rest now, and maybe eat something."

"Mmmm." Shae moaned. "Food! What do we have?" She got up to walk away but swayed and had to sit again.

"Rest first."

"Yep." She agreed. After quite a few breaths, she burst out, "I can't believe you did that! I could have died!"

"Pah! You were never at risk, I was careful." He replied. "I can't believe you stabbed me with my own Dao! That shouldn't be possible. I could have died."

"Yea, but I was angry." She said, Then after a beat they both burst into laughter. The old monster cringing in pain from his injured cultivation, which made Shae pause briefly, then laugh more. Covering her mouth and looking away from him, trying to hold back.

An hour or two of mostly companionable silence later, when Shae had some strength again, she got up to see what they had to eat.

The eggs were chilled in the bottom drawer so she grabbed two. Then checked for herbs, all the copperfur was gone, reminding her again of what she had done.

"You didn't restock the herbs?" She called.

"Hmm?" The old monster broke from his trance of staring into the fire. "Oh, the copperfur? Ever since that concoction you made I can't stand the stuff."

"Well you shouldn't have tasted it!"

He shrugged. "Try the ember cherry petals."

It was something like cinnamon, with a bit more heat like wasabi. Shae didn't like it. "Ugh." She growled but got it out anyway.

"Oh, but before you crack those. There is a snared rabbit about one hundred paces that way." He pointed off into the forest.

Her shoulders sagged, "Ugh. I'm tired and hungry now, can it wait?" She knew it could but asked anyway.

"Yes, I suppose. Try to grab it before nightfall, it could attract more dangerous spirit beasts."

She knew that already, but had never seen signs of any other beasts around here. She didn't argue, though. Instead grabbing the salt and another herb that she thought might cut down the ember cherry spice a bit. She whipped the eggs into the seasonings and let it sit.

She grabbed the only small cast iron pan they had and brought it to the fire. She woefully wished for some butter. They only had a little bit of fat from the rabbits and a weird tasting oil that the old man said was from a tree-nut of some kind. The pan was still oily from the last rabbit, so she resigned herself to that being enough. It would add some flavor, but might not work with the spices, it probably had its own seasoning still in it.

She scratched her head and went to get some rice flour and a bit of the egg yolk. She thinned the yolk with water, then threw the flour into the greasy pan. In the heart of the coals it browned quickly and she hoped it would work how she wanted it to. She quickly removed the pan from the heat. It would be far too hot for the egg now.

As the pan cooled the smell of grease and browned rice drew the attention of the old monster. After watching her wait for the pan to cool, he raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Just need it to cool off more." She said, then tested the pan with a flick of water, it boiled off right away. She could probably add much more to cool it quickly, but she was fairly sure that was bad for the cast iron.

When she finally grew impatient, and the water didn't sizzle and boil off quite as fast, she withdrew the greasy rue from the pan. A challenging task with just chopsticks. She would have given a finger for a proper rubber spatula. She had months to think about it, definitely just a finger.

With the rue in the watered down yolk, she mixed it thoroughly. The yolk helped the water mix into the grease and absorb into the rice, turning the whole mixture into a lumpy gravy. The lumps from some of the egg that had cooked from the heat instead of mixing in. There were probably other leftover bits from the rabbit too, but she didn't mind, it was the best she could do at the moment.

Setting that aside she fetched the rest of the egg and fried it up. Because they only had chopsticks she needed to keep it in larger chunks. Without already having the proper experience, it had taken her weeks of trial and error to work out a method, and she still thought she had the technique wrong. The end result was still something like soft scrambled eggs, so she was happy.

She used a pause in cooking the eggs to split half the gravy onto their only plate. When she found that the eggs had cooked enough, she split those between the plate and the bowl she had mixed the gravy in. She considered using the pan instead of the plate, just to clean one less dish, but the egg would overcook quite fast in the hot cast iron.

The old monster spoke up as she handed him the plate. "I'm not sure about the blister-root." It was the other herb she added. The name was a warning against using the roots for anything. The leaves were fine to eat, and had some flavor.

"Try it with the gravy."

He did. "Hmm. Alright, it's edible." He shrugged. She agreed, it was passable, she might try it again with less ember cherry, maybe some milk in the gravy if she could get any. They ate in silence.

After the meal he had a question. "You like to experiment with cooking? Have you considered... getting training?" He caught his own slip before she could say something. "I mean cultivator training, immortal chefs are quite popular."

She snickered at his slip up and waved it off. "Nah, I cook to eat, and experiment just enough to not eat trash I don't like. I've no interest in cooking a meal that makes someone's loins explode." She would have used a different idiom, but most didn't translate well.

"Bff-- ack!" He choked on a laugh, surprised by the bawdy comment. Shae thought he might spit up blood from embarrassment, he had nearly spat out some food.

Once he got control of himself, he tried again. "Ah, well. That is a very decisive answer. Knowing what you want will serve you well as a cultivator." He took a controlled breath. "Are you planning on leaving today?"

"Hmmm, no. I'll see you inside and into a bed before I bail. And, the morning is a much better time to start traveling."

"Heh?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Considering what I did, you've no need to stay."

She shrugged. "Should I still deliver that second letter?"

"Hmmm." He thought, creases forming on his forehead. "I believe so. I should send another myself. But I expect someone from the sect will be here sooner, rather than later."

"Oh?"

"Mhm. I'm somewhat surprised it has taken them so long, perhaps the harvest festival delayed them." He paused for another mouthful, then continued when Shae just gave him a questioning look. "Because of the tribulation. Someone nearby must have seen it, and news like that will travel to the sect, eventually. But especially since it was on this mountain."

She slowly nodded, her understanding unfolding itself. "I suppose a tribulation would be news. And on Sect property, right, yea I can see why word would make it there. So, would they send someone to check on you?"

He nodded with closed eyes. "If I had broken through to nascent soul, I would have experienced a much stronger tribulation, each strike stronger than all of yours together. If I had failed that..." he gestured to the scene around them. "Similar final results."

Shae looked down the mountain, towards the nearby town and the sect mountains in the distance beyond. She almost expected someone in fluttering robes to appear in the sky on a sword. No one came.

They sat around a bit longer before the old monster asked to be helped inside.

Shae was unsure when she had decided to stay longer. The old monster had reached the same bed she stayed in and went to sleep immediately. She stayed with him for a few minutes to make sure he kept breathing then went back outside.

The next morning she checked on him. He appeared to be peacefully resting, but she thought his pose was more 'slide me into a casket', flat on his back with wrists crossed on his chest. She was fairly certain he was cultivating, the qi in the room was shifting slowly. So she waited briefly, then walked out to the small library and selected a book at random. She returned to the room and read.

At first she had mainly enjoyed the irony of their swapped roles. The books were about as dense and useless as reading physics textbooks to her. She never got on well with physics.

When lunch rolled around she made him a bowl of the rice soup, like he had her, aiming to tease him with it. She cooked the rabbit for herself but found it was slightly too much for her. So, she dropped the last piece into his cold soup when she came back inside.

The book 'History, Rules, & Guidelines of the Honorable Dragon's Entreaty Sect' was actually a very useful and informative read. However, on checking the date it was copied, she found it to be nearly a hundred years old. She made a mental note to get an updated copy, preferably with a change log.

As she picked over his small library, she was quite certain that some books had been removed when compared to the previous days. She didn't ask him about it directly, and he didn't mention why, because they did not talk at all. Not out of coldness, she thought. He was probably expecting her to leave already, and didn't want to give her reason to stay. He did a great job with it too, always seeming to be sleeping or cultivating while she was there.

The food she left would be gone in the morning, or afternoon if she stayed out. She only brought a single meal a day, mostly the rice soup, she was quite sure he didn't need much, or maybe had pills if he did need more.

She did find other things to do while she waited. She added a bit more experimentation to her exercise routine, to get to know the strength of her new limbs. She also decided to repack for her upcoming trip.

When she looked over her travel pack, she found a few unexpected things. Firstly a filled notebook titled "Annotations for 'Formations and Talismans, an Introduction' 3rd ED." She checked over his library and found the 'Advanced' version of the same series, which was nigh incomprehensible to her. The first page of the notebook explained that it was to go with the standard formation class and textbook taught at the sect. Given the age of his sect rulebook, she wondered if she could even find the 3rd edition, or if it would be an invaluable collectors item at this point.

The second thing of note in her travel pack was a set of hairpins. Three silver wires that seemed vaguely familiar when she first saw them. It had taken her nearly two days to figure out why. The texture on them looked to be corroded, like rusty wire that had been polished until it was mostly shiny, with some pitting left for visual interest. She realized it when she was checking the snares. They were iron blood creeper wire. Missing all their vine and rust coating, just the metal left, and stronger and thicker than the ones used in the snares. It would take her much longer to find out why he had given them to her.

Lastly was another hair care item. She had shaken her head at it the first time she saw it, the man was nothing if not old and disconnected. Yet, this held a bit more immediate meaning to her. It was a hairbrush, but one in the style of earth, instead of the flat combs that were used here. She remembered complaining to him one day, many weeks ago. She had really just wanted a curved paddle brush, because that is what she was used to from her more distant past. The culture here almost exclusively favored hard tooth combs, and also displayed them as hair ornaments. She preferred her hair shorter, no longer than shoulder length, which made large hair ornamentation impractical.

With some thought she remembered their conversation, mainly because he had asked so many questions. She thought he was just making small talk before her tempering, a common rhythm they had fallen into. He had also asked for recommendations for his own hair, thinning and gray. She had said to use a soft bristle brush, perhaps from boar bristles, to spread the oils and not damage the hair as much. She suspected specific hair care was not a common thing for cultivators, they probably had spiritual tools for that. During their talk he had pointed out that the current style was to grow it long, and that had been the style for decades, but he didn't state his own preference, and she was silently thankful he was self aware enough to not give her any direct instruction on the matter.

The brush she held now looked like it had been made by a carpenter that only heard it described to him over a poor quality phone call. It was roughly the correct shape, a bit smaller than she would have liked. Its bristles could have been made from the same iron blood vine, but were missing the patina of rust like her hairpins. The ends had been rounded somehow, looking like little beads of steel had been forged onto the tips. Their arrangement was both completely incorrect, but would probably still work. Three rows of bristles lengthwise instead of a more staggered pattern. It was a serviceable brush that she would probably get some good use out of, especially if she let her hair grow out more since she didn't really need it now.

However, the real impressive part of it was the brilliant white lightning bolt carved expertly into the back of the brush. Shae recognised it immediately, it was the third direct strike she had survived. A different angle on it, from his perspective rather than hers. Yet still, she would know it from any angle. The carving was filled with a bright white enamel that might have had just a hint of gold in it, only showing under the right light. She would have loved to see it with a black enamel on the rest of the brush, but the darker wood worked well too. Save for the odd form factor and showy bolt, it would have looked like a peasant's brush. It still did, but the carving and enamel gave it a surreal quality, a bit too well done. She was completely confident in saying he had carved it himself, it would be impossible otherwise.

A small part of her was glad they were not talking, it would be quite hard to thank him properly for this.