RQL chapter 4

-(Kateri)-

Lee’am set up the wooden bathtub on the blue grass near his blackboard where Shiwan was still studying it. Her eyes didn’t leave it since her father went into the house and came back with the tub. Mayhap seeing how she ranked compared to us was having adverse effect on her? However she stood tall and looked straight at the board as if it was an enemy. Her eyes were hard and… was it determination I saw in there? I felt arms around me, the familiar scent of fresh wind and lightning informed me that it is my husband. I melded myself against him, his head between the hollow of my shoulder and my neck. He inspired and expired in relish and in my ear said.

“What is Shiwan doing?” Lee’am whispered.

“I think she is finding her resolve. Look at her hands.” I felt his head move a bit.

“Her fists clenching and unclenching, this is a key moment of her life!” Lee’am said excited.

One day mayhap I will remember this moment in a good light, but I am about to train my only daughter for a Goddess who might throw her at unworldly problems or never give her back to us when she is finished. Nostalgia hit me, suddenly. I cannot imagine what Shiwan’s life would have been if she could be accepted in my family, her potential is the greatest I have ever seen, dwarfing her father’s and of my own sister, a recognized genius. Sigh. Wishful thinking this is, Kateri. Kahreenah would kill Shiwan before she could even grow up to be a danger to her. I frowned, this thought unleashed the anger at my own sister trying to kill me I had bottled  7 years earlier. That woman is not family I decided, she would kill anyone in her way to get what she wants. I now understood, I cannot protect Shiwan! She must be able to defend herself! But! I will kill Kahreenah myself.

“Your grinning face is really seductive and scary at the same time, my love. Did you find your resolve too?” The voice of my husband stir me out of my contemplation and hindsight.

Placing my hands on his that were on my abdomen and caressed them, feeling him shiver in pleasure I answered him.

“Lee’am let’s get stronger, we have unfinished business in Eqalyra. Let’s wait for our daughter to reach the Sky Rank to get back, what say you?” I proposed.

He didn’t answer apace, but I felt him think about it. Lee’am is an overprotective oaf, but he is my oaf.

“We will train.” Lee’am said noncommittally.

He hugged me more tightly, as if he was afraid of something. I guess it is not yet time to speak about going back, but sooner than later, he will come around my idea. Lee’am suddenly let go of me and went toward the wooden tub, checked it and looked at me.

“It need no scrubbing, Kat. Would you be kind enough to fill it with pure water, I have the cleansing solution.” He said while making a lazy smile. He sounded relaxed and not at all worried by my earlier proposition.

I focused on my inner Chi and pushed at my awareness and felt the particle of water in the air respond to my will and let them coalesce in one big ball of water. It only took two seconds to gather the water, it is still too slow. I clicked my tongue. More training was needed. The ball of pure water follow my will and I guided it into the wooden tube, I wasn’t even straining. The water splashed inside the tub and Lee’am who glared at me. I grinned at him, amused.

Turning toward the place where Shiwan was earlier I am surprised to already see her disrobe of her training outfit, I reacted promptly and went toward her and pulled a white colored bathrobe out of my ring to cover her nakedness. There are things that even fathers shouldn’t be able to see from their young daughters.

“Shiwan don’t be so immodest next time around, wait for me to undress you when we are outdoor.”

“Why?” She tilted her head cutely, that gesture always seemed to makes me want to hug her.

“You can’t show your skin this way. Even to your own father, do you understand?”

“Mmhm.” She said, sign that she doesn’t want to bother.

I took her face in my right hand and made her look me in the eyes, she didn’t fight me.

“I said do you understand?” I repeated with a hint of steel in my voice.

Defiance where in her eyes, nevertheless she mollified forthwith. The girl is so stubborn, just like her father. Shiwan lowered her eyes and then said. “Yes, mommy.”

“Good, now put on this bathrobe  and wait for your father to prepare the bath.”

We went to meet Lee’am who took a vial from his shirt inner pocket and versed exactly three drop of green fluid. In the tub the clear water gained a greenish tinge until it became opaque and green. Shiwan made a surprised squeak and stepped back from the tub, I caught her by the shoulder and made her approach again.

“I never saw alchemic fluid act this way before, are you sure that’s arthur’s?” I questioned Lee’am.

“It’s not Arthur’s, it’s Liira’s gift.” My husband said without looking into my eyes.

I bite the inside of my cheek, worried that Lee’am may have done a mistake. I don’t trust Liira at all, meeting her caused me to have a crisis of faith. She’s really different from the benevolent deity the church is preaching about.

“Lili! If it’s from her, then I don’t need to be scared!” Shiwan happily gushed.

Shiwan jumped into the tub, splashing all of us, there was no reaction when this happened. But I suddenly felt my skin burning and a black liquid being slowly being released by my  skin. I saw the same result on Lee’am who wiped it away with his hand, but it was still coming.

“It burns!” Shiwan screamed as she tried to come out of the wooden bathtub.

But Her father caught her and didn’t let her escape from the bath.

“It hurts!” She screamed and thrashed against the grip of Lee’am.

I looked at him and was seeing him in distress for the first time since we didn’t have to flee for our lives. 

“Shiwan close your eyes and grit your teeth.” I ordered her.

I saw her do her best but she began crying and struggle more, she closed her eyes. Then Lee’am put her head under the greenish water that suddenly became a bit more darker. The impurities in her bodies were expelled little by little. Lee’am let her surface again, and she took a good lungful of air.

“Shiwan you know how to swim, take a good breath, you are going underwater again.” I told her. 

She turned her head in my direction, my daughter couldn’t open her eyes. Her skin became red and black because of the burning and oozing of impurities. She listened and took a breath; Lee’am made her dip into the water. This operation lasted for one hour until the bathtub became black and Shiwan stopped crying because her skin didn’t burn anymore. Lee’am took her from the tub. Shiwan hit him on the head repeatedly and made him lower her on the ground. To calm her I gathered cold water splashing her with it. My poor daughter looked miserable, but I steeled my heart. Lee’am this big oaf was grinning at her, Oni people are weird like that.

“I felt like dying.” Shiwan said sadly.

“Oh darling.” I went to her and hugged her.

Normally she would prefer that her father hug her, but I think he is in the wolf house for a while with her.

“Don’t cry, ok? And don’t let it ruin this day, because you will have to do it in two days again.”

“WHAT?!” She looked at me in fear and about to flee my embrace, her body stiffened.

“Don’t worry, you are used to it now. We will now pass the time to see if you can perceive Chi and gather it in your Dantian.” Shiwan, for the first time doubted us. I could see it on her face. “There will be no pain, I promise.” I said to reassure her.

I felt Shiwan’s muscle loosen and give into my hug, she smelled bad though.

“Shiwan, you’ll have to get clean first. Let me summon more water for you! We cannot let impurities in the canalization of the house, so we will do it here in the garden.”

My daughter nodded and was about to take of her dirty bathrobe, I will have to burn it later.

*** 

-(Shiwan)-

*I feel so sore and dirty, I remember that black substance seeping from my skin! Yuck. It smelled so bad too. * I thought.

We were in the garden and mommy sat with her feet crossed before me on the blue grass, daddy decided to go clean the bathtub and let mom explain to me how to cultivate. I was back into my training outfit, it’s comfortable.

“Shiwan I want you to focus, look at mommy.” I heard my mother say.

I listened, she was harder on me since she woke up. She looked more scary than usual in her black leather outfit? What is it called already? Under-something. I give up, I don’t remember.

“Now, cross your feet. Sit like me and then close your eyes.”

“I want you to focus and look inside yourself. To the part of you that isn’t flesh, but to your spiritual self tethered to your body.”

Lili, showed me this before! But, it is more difficult than in my dreams. I struggled to focus a bit, then I got it. It’s like being half asleep! I felt myself sink, everything was blue around me and black the farther I saw. A bright yellow light shined, and I realized that it was inside of me; I followed the light and saw what it was. This was the inside of my body, I could see my blood circulating in my veins and being pumped by my heart. There was like a big ball of light superposed to my heart and it was pretty! Thousands of threads branched out of it. with my awareness on them I noticed that a lot of those threads where attached to the meaty things inside of my body. 

“I see everything, mommy. There is this ball of light with lot of tiny threads attached to fleshy things in me.” I said, but not losing focus.

“Yes, Shiwan you got it on the first try! I am proud of you, but now you need to go deeper and see things under the big light, there is a big part of you that form a spiral, this is where you stock all your Chi.” I heard the smile in the voice of my mother.

Following the instructions of mommy I follow the threads like Lili showed me before and I see the big spiral she said was there. Wow, it’s different from the dream, it’s not big and doesn’t shine. Wait, no. I can see a part of it shining and stop doing it, and do it again.

“I found it!” I said to mommy.

“Good, Shishi. You are a fast learner. Now I want you to use the way you use to look inside yourself but to do it outside of you. You should see lot of different colored lights around you, do you see them?”

I reverse my internal view and look ‘outside’  and I get back to the blue space of before. And yes I see different colored light! Yellow, blue, red, purple, brown, green, white and grey. They were pretty and gravitating around me like shiny little stars. I tried to catch them but they didn’t want to be caught and fled my hands.

“I see that you detect them, Shiwan. Now I want you to…”

I stopped listening to her, and used the technique Lili showed me in my dreams and went back inside myself and connected my spiral to my big ball of light in the center of my body and all the fleshy things that are in my body into a bird shape. Just like Lili told me! As in my dreams my body began to attract the colored lights, they passed through my skin and followed the threads I connected earlier. They passed through the fleshy bits in me and then in the big ball of light; finally to the thread connecting the ball to the spiral. The spiral began to lit up all over with the different colored light. I don’t know how much time I passed watching the spiral lightening up with all those different colored lights. The spiral has seven arms and so far only one arm seemed to light up more brightly than the others. Then something changed, the arm shone with golden light and another began lighting up. 

Interesting! Maybe I can make it do the same for the others! I decided to wait till all the arms are shining gold too.

*** 

GRRRRLLL.

My tummy growled, it was time to eat! I hope mommy will do some ‘acon for me, cultivating is too easy. All the arms in my spiral lit up with a golden light, something happened though. A big vortex thingy appeared in the center of my spiral and began swallowing the colored light. I didn’t have to do anything anymore, the colored light ended up in my spiral without my help. But I noticed that if I took control of the vortex, it swallowed the colored lights faster. I relinquished control to the vortex and pushed my awareness to the outside and opened my eyes.

I was still in the garden.

My eyes found mommy. I smiled at her and she smiled back; I tried to stand up but my legs felt numb. Mommy was looking at me with concern, she was clothed differently from before. She wore a white dress with big brown boots and leather wristbands on her arm. Her long blue hair were free and wild. Then I noticed that it was night, I remember that it was morning the last time I opened my eyes. What is going on! My outfit smelt rank and my hair were a bit in disarray.

“Shiwan finally! You are awake, you have been cultivating for two days…” Mommy cried, and she engulfed me in a big hug. She smells like  wild flowers and of the sun.

She sounded worried. Wait! Two days?! How can this be?

“Huh, no… it was barely five minutes!” Was it?

“No, darling. It’s been two days and you became Earth Ranked. What did you do?”

“Hum… I connected everything like Lili showed me in my dreams and now the big spiral inside me is all lit up. Then there was this big white vortex inside it that began to swallow all the pretty colored lights around me and continued to make the spiral light up. It is still doing it without me doing anything!”

“I see… Shiwan what is the name of the technique our Goddess friend taught you?” Mommy asked, she seemed curious about it and a bit scared.

“I can’t say it.” I said, lowering my eyes.

Mommy shook her head and took me by the shoulder to hug me while we sat. Mommy massaged my legs for a bit and I finally was able to feel them. Ah, it feels good. Lili told me to never say the name of the technique she taught me, she said it is dangerous. But that I can write it and show it to my parents.

“ But I can write it!” I said while on her thigh.

I stood up from her, and she followed me I was not surprised to see that the blackboard of doom was still there with chalk, near the sponge to clean it. Daddy didn’t erase any of the explanation he did the last time he was there. Taking the white chalk between my fingers, I took my time to write the letters and each words. In big bold letter it was there on the board.

Empyrean Celestial Ascension.

“Heavens Forfend.” I hear mommy says. 

I turned, and for the first time I saw what my mother looks like when she is terrified.

END OF CHAPTER 4