Tantra is running.
One foot in front of the other to the cruel tune of Jalia’s humming. How is she humming!?! Does she not feel the burning in her lungs, or the ache in her legs, or lightheadedness of her…she thinks it’s brain? Yes, brain. Tantra’s so smart.
“C’mon sweetheart, pick up the pace!” Jalia says exuberantly, not at all winded, “you’ll never become a cultivator at this rate!.”
“I’m…going…to…be…a…merchant” Tantra manages through desperate breathes of air. She hates Jalia’s sessions! Why can’t they do something fun, like study Rikidan tax law? It’s actually quite interesting, you see it uses a kind of bracketing system-
“Tantra! Hurry it up girl, I'm gonna lap you at this rate!”
-
Erick is riding on Yorin’s shoulders, much to the village's horror.
They’ve spent the last week in abject terror that their resident forsaken wonder child would incur their wrath. Tantra, little devil that she is, finds this immensely amusing. A little payback back for what they’ve done to him, though it isn’t nearly enough. That’s something that kind of scares her, the rage. It comes up now whenever these bumkins act all kind and proper, like they didn’t spend months starving and beating an orphan. She knows not all of them are guilty, but she can’t help it. Can’t help the anger. She has moments where she genuinely considers just beating the shit out of one of them, to give them a taste. That is not normal, for general human decency and for Tantra. She’s never had anger issues, always in control, always proper. She needs to get out of this place before she caves to the desire for retribution.
“Hey squirt.” Etra says, “catch”
She throws a peach into his arms, clean and ripe. He looks at it, then looks back at her in confusion. Making a weird face between scrutiny and intrigue.
“Eat. You’re practically just bone.” Etra says.
“People usually eat meat to gain weight,” Kisrin says, “fruits are just an indulgence.”
“Did anybody ask you?” Etra snaps at him, Kisrin puts his hands up in surrender, “yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Etra’s sharp gaze turns back to Erick, “go ahead, I ain’t charging,”
Erick nods hesitantly, “thank you,” he says, which gets a grunt from Etra. He bites into the peach and his eyes go wide with surprise, what proceeds is a crime against etiquette, and peaches.
“I think there's peach juice in my hair,” Yorin says.
“Gonna have to teach him manners” Tantra muses.
Yorin snorts, “good luck with that, kids are an absolute menace.”
Tantra raises a brow, “and you would know this how?”
Yorin shrugs, “I’m the second oldest of five, seen plenty of my brothers and sisters cause trouble for ma and pa. Absolute hellions. The youngest, Rasalam, just learned how to crawl when I left. He’s probably moved onto walking by now.”
“I didn’t know you had siblings.” Tantra says.
“I don’t really like to talk about them, makes me miss ‘em, but it’s fine now that we’re headed their way.” Yorin says.
“Second oldest of five,” Kisrin muses, “could’ve fooled me, you don’t exactly radiate ‘responsible older brother.’”
Yorin smiles devilishly, “never said I was responsible.”
Tantra shudders, “your poor parents.”
-
“And so, in the darkness of her gaze, in the grasp of her will, we find absolution! Join us fellow cultivators and walk the true path that has been kept secret from us by those too greedy to share such wonders, too afraid to spread the truth, and too complacent to pursue true greatness! Come! Join the Cackling Daemon!”
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Ranya points at two disciples as they preach their gospel to the newly initiated.
“Go Pinia, beat them black and blue!”
Pinia just looks nervously at the crowd, then at Ranya, then back at the crowd.
“Senior?”
“Yes?”
“Are you trying to get me killed?”
-
Just a step, light as a feather and swift as a fox.
Making sure to stay downwind as she stalks her prey.
It’s a boar, slightly larger than a normal boar, but that’s not what's interesting about it. It has no head, replaced instead with a myriad of writhing and wriggling tentacles dotted with what might be teeth or what might be bone. She’s starting to see more of them out on the periphery, proper spirit beasts. While that is concerning, the elders have said nothing, so she’s just been hunting as usual.
As the tentacles are grabbing from the vegetation and feeding the maw at its centre, she sees an opening.
A serrated dagger almost as long as her forearm digs its way into the boar's side as something that perhaps might be a squeal, but sounds more like an amplified chitter, escapes the thing that has become of its head.
-
Soma is so bored.
After that bandit raid everything has just felt so…bland. Like the world’s lost its color, for once in his life he could feel the thrill of danger, could fight to bring death and to be brought to death. Like a true cultivator, not whatever this is. He kowtows in front of his father as propriety demands and waits for him to speak.
“They tell me you’ve gone out to the wilds again.” Says the point of a needle balanced on thin waters, “despite my explicit orders for you not to leave the sect.”
He takes a sip of tea from a cup offered by an inner disciple, one of father’s greatest actually, he places the tea back in the girls hands. “What am I to make of this Soma? Disobedience is only natural, for one at your age, but there are limits to my mercy.”
The room vibrates as Qi blankets the room. Soma feels the pressure on his soul, as though it were trapped in a vice. But he’s gotten used to it, get exposed to a higher cultivation like his father’s. enough and you start to acclimate to the pressure.
“Forgiveness father, but I do not need your mercy,” Soma says, “what I need is to walk the path like a proper cultivator, rather than a pampered scion.”
His father sighs as the pressure relents, “you aren’t even anchored boy, I cannot accept this foolishness that has grown in your heart. Either you learn or you will be made to learn”
Soma shivers, he does not want to go into the room, not again.
“So be it,” he says, “I will keep fighting until you recognize my conviction.”
“I will recognize nothing boy,” says the slight disturbance of water from a smooth stone of perfect curves.
-
He knows what he is, it isn’t a requirement for anchoring, but it lessens the burden to invest in some self-enlightenment. So he knows a lot about himself, he knows his favorite food is sausage, knows that the kata’s they train to the inner disciples fascinate him, he knows that he’s fairly awkward and can’t seem to ask Morek the question.
But above all else, he knows that he is a coward.
Everyone calls him a prodigy, advancing through the initial realms like one might a brisk walk, but the truth is he’s just scared. From the day Fathom understood the concept of death he’s been living his whole life in fear, it pushed him to touch his Qi much younger than what is healthy, It gave him the willpower to anchor his soul before he even completed foundation. It’s what guides him when he is being beaten into the ground.
He must get stronger, he must further his cultivation like how a flower needs water.
He advances not for glory nor recognition, but for fear.
-
There is silence.
There is always silence where he sleeps, the things of the forest both terrified and awed by what he is. He knows he is a he, known for a long time when concepts beyond the digging and hunting entered its head.
But that was ages ago.
It is dreaming of the days of its youth, when it would burrow and hide from things that could have easily turned him into dinner. He remembers his mother, but not his father.
His mother was strong of spirit but weak of body, it was little wonder that he ate her once he grew enough from the life/change. He regrets it a bit, but not by much.
While he is dreaming, the world around him seems to shudder.
Hmmmm. One of the others is waking up, not just yet however, it can feel it in the ground you see and smell it in the air. The vibrations aren’t strong enough, and blood hasn’t overwhelmed his senses, so it isn’t time yet.
Soon though.
