Forge of Destiny

Threads 549-Fantasia 12

Ling Qi hummed to herself before the gathered crowd. It was a boon that the denizens of the liminal, or at least this pocket of it, never got tired or worn out. Ling Qi thought she might start to feel ragged about an endless autumn festival over time.

Although the trickle back of the audience was curious this time, rather than the fervent excitement of before, the many-legged villagers ambled out in twos and threes with their cider and snacks best not looked at too closely. The squirming bundles were held up to lazily wriggling fangs the way humans might hold a drink with a straw.

Ling Qi held the glittering facsimile of a flute to her lips with half-closed eyes. She reflected on the hollowness of it. She had gotten used to having no instrument talisman to boost her performance. For simple sounds, her skill made it moot, mostly, but she couldn't stay this way. She could have gotten a new instrument at any time. After all, with the backing of the heiress, the stones were now flowing into her accounts.

There was no reason at all not to get one, except that she didn't want to. There weren't even splinters to build off of this time. There was no way to pretend at continuity with her original flute.

The slick ice in her hands was familiar in its shape. It mimicked the contours of the flute she'd taken from her mother’s home, all those years ago.

Last time, she'd played into the mood Hongpao had set. She had a different idea for her composition this time.

She heard Bao Qian's voice rising outside the curtain of fog and mist she had raised, hyping up the crowd with an introduction of the performance. She let a beat of silence pass as his final words fell over the hushed murmur of the crowd.

Ling Qi had enjoyed her time here in autumn. She would not tweak Honpao's nose by bringing an intrusion of winter into her concert this time. Contemplation of past labor, and the fruits it had borne, was more than enough to hang the weight of a composition on.

Ling Qi stepped forward through the mist, offered a slow, soft bow to the milling crowd, and began to play.

Her first bar wasn't a stirring rise, but a serene invitation. Morning fog crawled across grass that was yet green and shrouded the world in a blanket that was to fade all too soon. The dull whispers and sounds that crowds always made slowed then stilled entirely, falling silent as Ling Qi played through her opening stanza.

Falling leaves, like so much rain. Red, orange, and palest yellow, the final flare of life before its fading, born in the same moment as their green blooming in long past spring.

Labors began, and labors ended, and in the fallen leaves carried by the crisp cold breeze, the seeds of dreams and labors yet undreamt would bloom.

What had come before would not come again. What had fallen would not rise. And so the world spun, on and on and on forevermore, turning, always turning.

She observed Bao Qian near the back of the crowd. He had let his exhortations fall off, and had turned to watch her now. Time could not be refunded. Labor could not be refunded. Choices made were choices made. Leaves that bloomed must fall. But there was value still, and futures yet, beyond the crumbling.

He met her eyes, but looked thoughtful, rather than melancholy. She didn't hate the determination that set in his eyes. He brushed off fallen leaves clinging to his ragged, torn sleeve, and casually flexed, the cheeky man.

She looked away. She supposed she had asked for that, after earlier.

Labors done meant dreams of labors new, of goals and ambitions and harvests fresh. After the fall, came rest. After the rest, came awakening, and with awakening, the bloom of fresh leaves that, too, would fall in time.

The crowd was not raucous and chittering this time, and she left no pause and negative space for cheers and applause. It was not that kind of performance. Her song rang out, as ephemeral as the breeze, washing over the silent village and rebounding back from trees and the streets of web strung among them. The sound swelled and rose, peaking at the highest register before crumbling down, down, down like the falling leaves.

Ling Qi lowered her flute, scattering it into so many snowflakes and bowed to the crowd.

Noise erupted. The stoppered silence of the audience flooded out all at once, and the scrape of chitin over chitin and the cheers from part-human throats rose to match and overtake the fading echoes of her melody. The noise was such that the endlessly falling leaves were buoyed up, twirling and dancing in the air for long minutes.

Ling Qi turned to Hongpao, who waited near to the back of the stage, out of sight among the mist while Ling Qi had her turn. She pretended not to notice the anxiety that flashed in crimson eyes under the thunderous cheers. The young spirit puffed out her chest and tilted her chin back as she advanced and Ling Qi drifted back, changing places, her grip on the zither white-knuckled.

"A master's instrument is a wonderful artifact, but it cannot replace your own mastery, only amplify it," Ling Qi commented. “Crowds respond well to sincerity."

Hongpao turned her head to look at Ling Qi sharply. "Yeah, what do you know? Huh?"

"A few things," Ling Qi replied blandly before continuing toward the back.

"Hmph. I guess it is beneath me to use Grandma's artifact against someone who doesn't even have an instrument…"

Those grumbles were not meant for her ears, Ling Qi could tell, but she heard them all the same. Hongpao was only convincing herself. Even Ling Qi's words had just been a nudge for the thoughts she knew were already bouncing around in the girl's head.

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The sound of the crowd was receding, dulling back to the low susurrus of whispering voices as Hongpao reached the front of the stage. At Bao Qian's command, the lights above focused, casting a bright beam down on the young spirit.

Hongpao set the zither onto her back, hanging from its strap, and threw out her hands. Fires flared, bright orange and red, and two sticks of molten glass flashed into existence, spinning between her fingers before striking the open air with a sound like the crash of a temple gong. It hushed the crowd as powerfully as Ling Qi's own opening bar did.

Hongpao’s song was the opposite of Ling Qi's song in many ways. The harsh clash of gongs and bells and deep thumping beats was energetic and bright. There was no exploration of fall as a time of fading or winding down, but instead, a time of celebration, reflecting the completion of labor and the exultation in its reward.

Most importantly, Hong Pao was responding to her song without getting drawn into trying to copy and match her. Her performance, unlike the clumsy response Ling Qi had tricked her into before, was fully on her own terms.

Flames roared up, sparking in bright yellow arcs that followed the motion of the spirit’s sticks as she played off the reverberating air.

Solemnity, contentment, contemplation? Toss it out! The music roared. Stamp your feet and raise your hands! Another year had passed, the long work was over, and now was the reward for all that was done. Steaming plates and sloshing cups, clapping hands and stamping feet, a roaring flame that warded away the cold for one more day!

The audience was not Hongpao’s silent thrall, listening with entranced wonder. Every sharp beat held a rumbling echo from a hundred, hundred stamping legs and clapping hands.

Ling Qi smiled to herself. She couldn't do this kind of folk song. Not well, anyway. Her pieces were too solitary to call on the audience this way.

She was a little worried, though. The beat picked up and up. There was no complexity in the message, only a roar of joy in the face of the encroaching cold. It was even possible that she might lose this contest, coming down to the opinion of this rustic audience, as it were.

Ling Qi rolled that thought around in her head. Was she becoming arrogant? A real young miss looking down on the commoners?

She didn't like to lose. But she wasn't going to cheat against a little girl either; she wasn't that bad.

The crescendo reached its climax. Hongpao's song finished with one last roar of the gong, and the patterned echo of her beats dissolved into more chaotic sounds and cheers as Hongpao half-turned to face her with a smirk.

This cocky girl!

The sound of the crowd raged out of control as she strode up to the front of her stage to stand beside Hongpao and offer a joined bow.

"A grand performance indeed, for the people of autumn. A concert more memorable will not come soon!" Bao Qian's voice boomed cheerfully over the chatter of the crowd. "The intoxicating beauty of fading, the visiting lady of winter! The vibrant young miss, daughter of your own palace! The time has come to show your appreciation. Though it will be difficult, I ask you to choose which performance you thought the best."

He moved down a lane cleared in the center of the crowd, swiveling his head to meet as many eyes as he could as he passed. "At the beginning, I handed each of you two scarves. For your Lady Hongpao, raise the red. For Miss Ling Qi, the black!"

He was very good at rapidly fabricating basic goods.

The murmur of the crowd rose again. In fits and starts, little swatches of black and red colored cloths appeared, like flowers blooming among the crowd.

Ling Qi smiled serenely, though she couldn’t help but notice that there was quite a bit of red. Hongpao, on the other hand, couldn't stop herself from puffing up in outrage at each new outbreak of black.

Soon, the movement stopped, and the mix of colors spread out over the crowd under Bao Qian's watch. Ling Qi counted, too, of course, and restrained the smug smile that wanted to spread across her face.

"Hoh, what a close deliberation, but Ling Qi takes it by a smattering of seventeen scarves!” Bao Qian announced.

"Gah!" Hongpao rounded on her, only to force a gritted smile under the eyes of the crowd. "A good match!"

"A good match,” Ling Qi agreed.

"A good match," Madam Autumn repeated pleasantly.

Only long practice with Shu Yue kept Ling Qi from leaping out of her skin, when between one eyeblink and the next, she found herself standing on a much more traditional stage before an empty auditorium. The spirit of autumn's hand rested heavy on her shoulder.

The three young spirits were not so poised. Hongpao physically jumped, only to be snatched out of the air and pulled casually in and cuddled under the towering madam's arm. The other two sprawled onto the stage with affronted yelps.

"Madam, we thank you for saving us the return trip," Bao Qian said carefully, down in what seemed like an empty orchestra pit. She offered him a hand, pulling him up onto the stage with them.

"You did so well in collecting these girls that there was no need to stretch the quest out further," Madam Autumn praised, eyes bright behind her mask of leaves.

"Grandmama, gerrofff!" Hongpao whined. Ling Qi noticed that the young spirit wasn't struggling too hard in the madam’s grasp.

Ling Qi and Bao Qian shared a swift look before the two of them bowed to their host. Ling Qi produced the sickle, and Bao Qian, the mirror, holding them out in offering. Both treasures vanished in a whisper of wind that smelled of fresh earth and rich foods.

"My explosive Hongpao, my lazy Lanchi, and my gloomy Jinli, you all had quite an adventure, didn't you?"

Jinli scoffed, helping Jinli to her feet. "Like it meant anything."

"It did, child, and you know better than to say that. Your heart trembles and seeks an excuse to give up only because you fear its conclusion," the Madam replied firmly, but gently. "Go, make your elixir. You will not be impeded."

"Guh!"

Lanchi was already trying to hide behind Ling Qi, shrinking in on herself. "I was gonna bring the mirror back later!"

"Later, when your belly had started to rumble. You would do anything to watch the lives outside your reach, save suffering from an empty belly." The madam shook her head, amused. "... and Hongpao."

"Mgh?"

"Such a good girl. Adorable beyond words."

Hongpao slumped, red-faced, not even pretending she was trying to get away anymore.

Ling Qi couldn't help but laugh, drawing the spirit's eye back to her.

"I shall not further stretch your time, young lady, young sir. You have proven you have the right to make your request. And I do believe you have discerned my intention."

"You believe these three are the best options," Bao Qian concluded.

Jinli looked unsurprised, although the other two were much less so.

"Of course. And now, you've still the task of convincing them."