The End of a Season
Avyr could never get used to the way the seasons shifted in East Saffron. It was so very different to how it’d been, back in the jungles of Refuge— instead of sometimes raining and always raining, there was a varied and abrupt way the seasons of the north leapt through their cyclical revolution, bursting forth in spring and racing to summer, then collapsing back into autumn and crouching again come the bitter winds of winter.He was lucky his cultivation ensured he’d never get too cold— else, he’d have a much worse time, come the winter.
Snowflakes twinkled in the morning air, dim, aglitter as they fell from heaven. A gentle benediction, or the tears of a year’s dying breath, or both? He could not tell. For however much he studied the culture and works of humans, it was not truly his. Not in any way that mattered.
Save one. He glanced up at Lily as she walked beside him, and though she didn’t glance back, he could tell she’d seen. A strange and small and real comfort, somehow…
“It feels odd,” he murmured, quiet enough that none of the other students walking around them could hear. They were the only amongst the Elite Cohort here; by and far most of the others wouldn't need to take their breaks via public transport. “To have spent the whole year in a single place. More or less.”
Lily chuckled. “Time really flies. For me…” she glanced around them, gaze lingering meaningfully on each and every little tiny bit of the otherwise rather unremarkable subway station. “It’s odd, to have spent so much time away from everything I’ve ever known. I grew up in the 32nd Precinct, spent my entire life there, and now…” she sighed. It felt… not limiting, but it had never been her dream to go anywhere but the Bloody Saffron Sect, great and glorious as it was. “Honestly, if Mingtian wasn’t there, then I’d probably not have even bothered returning.”
The subway slid into the station with a screech and hydraulic hiss, and clamor of bells and chimes and noise as a great disgorgement of humanity burst out and in. They were all but swept up in the tide— spared from the worst of it only by Avyr’s natural tendency to repulse the average pedestrian. Then, as the world was ever wont to do, without any regard to the bugs that infested its hollow corpse, the subway trundled out of the station and slunk away into the dark tunnels beneath East Saffron.
It was a curious inverse of their journey to the University in the first place. For one, there was no Zhihu; people were only dissuaded from approaching by Avyr’s presence, and even then, not so much as was typical. No Xinshi, either, but Lily counted that as a small blessing.
They were returning to someplace familiar, this time… and yet, for that, foreign. Or maybe they were the foreigners washing up on the shores of a strange land, their perspective fundamentally altered; broadened, caught up in the enormity that was the locus of East Saffron’s talent…
“It’s going to feel small, isn’t it?” Avyr didn’t respond, but for a flicked ear of acknowledgement. “I mean… across everyone in the entirety of the precinct, only a scant few have advanced even to Shedding. You’re one of the two that managed to get to Opening.”
This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Avyr shifted a little, lifting a paw to trace the loop of a makeshift bag slung across his shoulder, almost pensively. “The materials and methods of ascension are no small thing. This pill…” the one yet unused, that he’d been given at the start of the semester— “It represents the first step on the path to something greater. One of the greatest steps, I think. Back in the forest, my tribe only had a scant few cultivators at all, and that was with all the myriad natural resources we had available to us as the masters of Refuge.”
Lily opened her mouth to speak, then, hesitated, instead threading her hand through Avyr’s fur, feeling the warmth of him… a placid, steady thing. Always steady. “The Empire of Nine Sunlights won’t get away with what they did.” He didn’t need a commentary on cultivation— she’d known him for long enough that she could at least read the subtle undertones of what he was actually talking about.
Avyr snorted beside her. “A little early to be talking about punishing the Empire when we’ve not even been accepted into the Bloody Saffron Sect, no?”
“Gotta dream big?” She only managed not to laugh for a second. “Well, so long as we’re together, we’ve the world in our hands, no?”
Avyr held up a paw. “I don’t have those.”
Lily just laughed.
………
Leng Mingtian,
32nd Library of East Saffron City,
1183 Academy St. 32nd Precinct,
East Saffron, BSS10000,
Ca Cao
“It’s crazy how fast the year’s come and gone. And how eventfully, too! I’ve accomplished so much, and suffered so much, and… I can scarcely put into words the whole of it. I don’t know if you’re aware (though it’s not unlikely that you’ve heard of it) but I got into a duel with Song Banwei. That went… uh. Well. I think saying that is the best I can put it, here. As for what happened afterwards…
“I made an awesome spiritual implement! It’s a lot like the giant qi gathering formation I made for Avyr that one time, up in the mountains, but better, because I actually used the three-dimensional runes this time, and not the ones mapped to flat paper either. It’s incredibly powerful— it’s like this giant laser that can burst out and BAM, vaporize anything that it hits. Sure, it guzzles my qi like nothing else, but it’s very much worth it to have a reusable, controllable talisman of such power…
“I have so many questions to ask you! And my thoughts are all over the place, and— well, you could probably tell that with how much this letter has been jumping around the place. Basically, Qinfu— I told you about Qinfu already, right? Qinfu took care of me after the duel. I think the Song clan has had its fill for now, too, because even after I returned to class for the short bit before winter break, they didn’t bother me. They didn’t so much as look in my direction, really… hopefully that lasts! But even if it doesn’t, I have this new spiritual implement of mine— that’s why I started working on it, anyways…
“I digress. I made a breakthrough in my perception, too, but that’s all a bunch of boring stuff that I don’t feel like getting into at the moment. I’ll talk to you more when I get back. Winter break is so close! I bet you’ll be getting this letter not long before we leave for home, what with how slow the post can be…
See you soon!
“Sincerely, Ever Your Humble Servant,
Lily Ward.”