The Door To All Marvels

The 32nd Precinct’s orphanage looked much the same as it had only half a year prior. Lily had expected that, somewhat. The place had always had a certain aura of timelessness to it that she’d never quite been able to shuffle off, an impression of stability that nowhere in the whole of the other world had ever quite been able to match. Not, perhaps, safety, or comfort, or even sanctuary, but… it was an odd and nameless emotion, writ in the lines of a fortress's immutability and a story’s immortality. As a child…

Avyr prodded her in the back with a paw, and she got the impression of wry amusement from him when she turned to glare. “Are you just going to stand there for the next hour, or are you going to actually go in? Either’s fine to me, but…” she rolled her eyes, but nodded— steeling herself as she stepped forward.

The snow crunched underfoot as they approached, passing by those little things that whispered stories, memories caught up and stabbed into her so sharply— made cruel by so long spent away.

The little path off the road, which would sometimes be blocked by delivery trucks when they came to offload whatever random things the orphanage needed— whether that be paper and ink, or ingredients, or… The rock just off to the side of that, where she’d been playing with Mimi in the days of her youth, both of them pretending to be powerful cultivators from the Bloody Saffron Sect. The Tree, whose shade and gnarled branches, and echo of ancient wisdom— of the mortal, tree kind— still cast its shade over the little space between the street and the building itself, and blocked the view from some of the rooms on the first level. In the space after it rained, little tiny droplets of water would collect on the tip of every leaf, making the whole thing glitter with such splendor that it felt like no work of man could compare. For the moment, it was entirely bare, its leaves having fallen for the winter, and Lily couldn’t help but think that was a little sad.

The door, beyond it all, above it all.

She hesitated again, standing in front of that solid slab of dark wood. The entrance and exit to their own little domain, their little slice of home in a world that so cruelly denied them. Thoroughly mundane. She’d come to and from it every day, sometimes more than once… and yet. Still, it dredged up a faint emotion within her.

One of her earliest memories, she couldn’t help but remember— it was of that door. The thing had been so much more imposing, then— a giant’s gate, slammed into the brickwork floor and seeming to reach fathomlessly high up, so thick and solid that she remembered being struck by the sheer size of it.

Of course, the actual door itself was rather mundane. Yes, it was a little bigger than most of the others on the street, but that was largely because it was built for a gaggle of rowdy, hard to manage orphans. It had simply felt like that, back when she’d first seen it.

Back when she’d been told that her parents were dead, and that it was the door to her new home.

“If you’re just going to stand there, I’ll do it myself.” Avyr shouldered past her— rough, enough to tell her that he was pushing her to the side on purpose. Probably to annoy her. She scowled at him halfheartedly as he reached up and knocked sharply on the door.

Or well, at least he tried to knock sharply. His cute fluffy paws did a good job of preventing sharp noise, and what came out in the end was really more of a dull poof that echoed oddly about them. Lily couldn’t help it— she burst into sudden laughter, her lingering malaise banished by the sheer goofiness of the situation. “Let me— let me help.” Still trying to stifle her giggles, she reached forward and knocked firmly on the door.

It was only after she’d committed to the action that she realized that a cultivator’s firm knock was a little bit more dramatic than a mortal’s.

A comically deep booming noise echoed out from the point of impact, the whole door shuddering for a few seconds. A faint imprint of her knuckles had been left on the door, and she sheepishly held her hands behind her back. That had most certainly never happened. Nope. Nuh up. Not at all.

A few moments later, the door creaked open— a bit tentatively at first, then once more normally they spotted Avyr. “Did you really need to knock that loudly?”

Lily squeaked, a spark of heat rushing up to her cheeks as she looked anywhere but at the Matron’s face. “I, uh, didn’t mean to? Sorry about that. We were just stopping by, and I forgot for a moment that I’m a little stronger than I used to be, and—”

The Matron smiled softly. “Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s all fine, no harm done. It’s good to see you again! It’s always a shame to see the talented ones go… I’m sure some of the younger ones probably wish they could’ve kept you all to themselves, but so life goes, no? Come on in, come on in, I’m sure they’ll all be glad to see you.” The sheer oddity of the Matron’s reaction was so startling that for a long moment she couldn’t help but stand there and blink in mute surprise at the older woman. A second later, she giggled. The Matron herself! Giggling! Lily was half tempted to look up and check if the sky was falling. “I make an effort not to treat my former wards like I treat my current wards. You’re a grown woman now, Lily, and nothing good would come of me holding you back.”

“But, you’re…” she wrung her hands as she stepped into the warm foyer, Avyr padding in calmly behind her. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see you as not the Matron. It’s just… my entire view of you, you know?”

The Matron nodded quietly. “I’m aware. It’s something a fair few of my former wards have told me over the years… but, in the same way, you could say it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. You’re no longer a child beneath me, Lily. You’re in many ways my peer in this tumbling world— actually, in a few very important categories, you’re my superior.”

“That just feels wrong.”

“I wonder if you’ll still think that when you get into the Bloody Saffron Sect?” Lily couldn’t deny the fuzzy warmth in her chest at hearing her confidence in that outcome. From someone who’d once told her to have realistic expectations…

She grinned broadly. It was for people like her, for Avyr and Mingtian and everyone else that’d supported her in her path, that she would make sure she made it all the way to the end.

Still, though… “I think even if I became a supreme heaven-parting immortal unparalleled in the realm, I’d still be unable to think of you as anything but the woman who forced me to dress up nicely for school.”

The Matron just huffed in amusement. “So. Did you stop by just to say hello? Because we could—”

“Use some help.” Lily completed her sentence for her, folding her arms smugly behind her back. “Of course, we came expecting that.”

Avyr nodded. “We actually came with the intent to help. We’ve plenty of free time over winter break, and after a little deliberation we thought that we could volunteer here for a bit.”

“Oh!” Her eyes widened, if only ever so slightly. “Surely this is a bit… beneath you? As cultivators, don’t you have better things to do with your time?”

“Of course not.” She smiled brightly. “What better thing would there be for us, other than spending time helping out those close to us?” Then she realized that kinda sounded a bit worse than what she’d intended, but, still— “so…” quickly, before anyone caught onto her slip— “what do you need us to do?”

“It’s almost lunchtime, so you could help in the kitchen? I’m sure that they’d appreciate it if you stopped by.” A faint edge of… not a smile, but Lily knew the Matron well enough to recognize that edge of humor as it brushed across her face. “The girl in there right now could certainly use the help.” So, someone who wasn’t great at cooking.

Relatable.

“Sure. Thanks for letting me help.” She nodded to the Matron, stepping further into the orphanage. “It’s been nice to talk to you again.” The Matron just smiled back.

By and large, the space was as empty as it usually was during the day. Most of the younger orphans didn’t like to stay in the orphanage proper— the rooms were kinda cramped, there wasn’t much to do, and— perhaps most of all— you constantly had the Matron glowering down on you, making sure that you were doing everything perfectly and to the best of your ability. By the time they were older, those habits tended to stay true— part of the reason she’d spent so much time in the library. At least, beyond her just being unsocial.

She smiled as she brushed a hand over the smooth tables in all their mismatched glory, remembering all the nights spent relaxing around those very tables. Then, she stepped into the kitchen, hit by a sudden nostalgia— the sort of nostalgia that came from not even realizing that she’d missed something, the echo of that homesickness, returned… it felt crazy to her that it’d been months since she’d last stood there, amongst those metal counters and stoves, and various odds and ends.

The sharp scent of pepper oil filled the room as someone cooked up… something, that was for sure, though not anything that Lily recognized. It was certainly a… unique selection of vegetables, that was for sure. The chef was so engrossed with the various tasks spread out in front of him that they didn’t even notice Lily’s presence until she was practically right behind him.

She sighed. It was a happy sigh, but also… “You’re doing it wrong.” With barely a thought, she reached forward and took the pot from him, wryly flicking the vegetables off to the side with a twist of her hand. Granted, she, herself wasn’t all that good at cooking either, but this was one of the simplest recipes imaginable. It wasn’t even the sauce he’d messed up, either— he’d followed that part to the letter, which was good, because that was where most went wrong. No, he’d added too much, too soon, threatening to make the vegetables become soggy. “You have an entire wok— use it. The vegetables go on the side, the meat goes in the center. Unlike what he’d been doing before, which was… well, charitably, not that.

For a long moment, the kid just looked up at her, uncomprehendingly— before his eyes widened in recognition. “Lily? You’re— why— I thought you left to become an immortal!”

Lily snorted. “A cultivator, not an immortal.” Clearly someone hadn’t been paying attention in class. “There’s a difference.”

“But why are you here?”

“Why not?” She shrugged, tossing the vegetables with a simple motion before she grabbed the ladle off to the side and really set to work fixing a proper meal for the group. “It’s winter break, and it’s not like there’s much else to do around the 32nd Precinct.”

“That’s true.” He scowled for a moment, a brief expression of a very familiar disgruntlement for a moment curling in his voice before fleeing just as quickly. “Why even come back to the precinct, though? Surely there’s a whole lot of other places you could’ve gone to, now that you’re rich?”

“Not rich—”

The kid pretty much ignored her though, amusingly, continuing— “you could go anywhere in Ca Cao! Anywhere! You probably could have even gone to the mainland, if you wanted…” he sighed wistfully. “I wish I could go to the mainland. Then maybe I’d be able to leave some of all… this behind.”

She shrugged. “It’s not so bad, you know. The precinct. You’ve seen what lies outside of East Saffron, haven’t you?”

“Once or twice.” He glanced down at the sizzling vegetables, clearly reminiscing on a past trip. “Even some of the places outside East Saffron are better than here, though. What’s the point of some… city pride, pride in our condition, when everyone knows we’re East Saffron’s refuse.”

“We have the opportunity to rise beyond our station specifically because we live in the city. Not many can say the same.”

“Some opportunity that is.” He scowled. “When was the last time one of us ever got anywhere?” Then he realized who he was talking to, and blushed furiously. “I, uh, I mean… um, of course…”

Avyr just laughed, and after a second, Lily joined in too. Perhaps it was a little mean to him, but… she could understand where he was coming from. Once, a long time ago, she’d thought the same way. Now, though…

The meal was finished cooking. She stirred the vegetables and meat together, then dropped the whole thing into one of those big metal bowls that they’d serve the kids out of. Hopefully she’d managed to salvage it enough that the poor kids wouldn’t suffer. Then, she turned off the stove, and put the wok in the sink, and leaned against the counter, heavily… silent, for a moment, looking at the sullen kid beside her.

It was odd to look at him and go— once, she’d been just like him. That felt like the sort of thing old people would do when acting all wise and mysterious and giving the same old tired advice to focus on her education, to temper her expectations, to set reasonable goals… except, she was that sort of person now. As even a Shedding stage cultivator, she was literally his elder.

It wasn’t the cultivation, though, that let her know how to deal with him, though. “The soul of the Precinct,” she spoke softly, “is not in ourselves. You wonder why we came back, don’t you, if we’ve moved beyond the opportunities of this place?” Slowly, he nodded his head. “Think about it. If it was not for ourselves… then for who?”

It was mostly a rhetorical question, but, tentatively, he responded… “us?”

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Lily smiled brightly. “Yup! C’mon, we’ve got to get this food out to everyone else. Don’t want to let them starve to death because lunch was a few minutes late!” She could already imagine it— all the kids at their tables, complaining because their food was late, and the Matron telling everyone that when it was their turn to cook, would they want people complaining about them, and turning it into a lecture…

Good times.

She grabbed the big bowl, motioning for the kid to grab the rice and noodles, while Avyr— a bit amusingly, but nonetheless surprisingly effectively— grabbed a pitcher of water and followed them out through the door.

The moment they stepped out of the kitchen, all the conversations that’d been running amok amongst the various orphans stuttered and crashed into silence. For a long second they all stared at her, and she stared back at all of them, the faintest edge of a smile pulling at her. A surprising glee, even to her—

It felt better than she’d expected to walk into a room and surprise everyone. Carefully, she put the bowl down on the central table, the light clack of metal against wood startlingly loud in the silence. “Lunch is ready!” Nobody got up to grab their portion, which compared to their usual ravenous appetites…

Finally, someone broke the silence. “Lily?” It was a familiar voice, and a bit of a surprise to her— “what are you doing here?”

Her gaze sliced through the crowd until it settled on a very familiar face. “Mimi? I could ask the same thing. I thought you left the orphanage.” She knew that she’d graduated.

She shrugged. “I work here now. Unlike, I might add, you, who’s supposed to be off doing cool cultivator things in cool cultivator land.” Lily snorted at that… particularly lurid description, and that seemed to be enough to break the rest of the kids out of their shock. They all swarmed forward— at first for the food, but then, as soon as one of them decided that food was less important than cultivators and cute cats they ended up swarming towards them instead.

It was a marked difference from the usual way Avyr was treated, and he looked profoundly uncomfortable, stuck amidst a crowd of little kids clamoring to talk to him and pet him and climb on him and—

“Alright! Enough! Everyone, we do not bother the esteemed guests! Where are your manners?” The Matron’s glowering face swept over the entire room, for a moment pinning each and every one of the orphans beneath its immense power. “Back to your seats, all of you. Form an orderly line for the food, and nothing else.”

Lily breathed a sigh of relief as— reluctantly— the kids peeled away from her and made their way back to where they were supposed to be. “Thanks.” It was weird to be on the other side of the Matron’s ire. “That was…”

“You’re famous, you know?” Mimi stepped up, a wide smile on her face. “I didn’t think I’d get to see you again for a long time! It’s been a while, Lily. You’ve got to tell me what you got up to in the University of East Saffron— any awesome secret cultivation techniques? Hidden masters? Arrogant young masters? Duels to the death?”

Lily rolled her eyes, then paused as she realized— “yes, no, yes, yes.” She blinked in a bit of surprise as Mimi stared at her in mute, stunned shock. “Huh. I didn’t realize how much of the classic cultivator checkbox I’d already ticked off.”

“You—” she managed to regain a little bit of control over herself, but it was clearly a near thing, if the way her voice wavered was any indication. “You got in a duel to the death? How did— I thought— what? How was that even allowed!”

She huffed in amusement. “It’s a long story. Suffice to say, there were some people who had a grudge with me for a while before, and they decided that a duel would be the best way to settle that. It’s not a usual thing, but…” she shook her head, dislodging those old worries. She’d be fine.

Probably.

Mimi glanced at her, then at the Matron, then back to her, clearly debating something for a long moment. Luckily for her, though the Matron spoke up before she even had to ask. “You two can spend a moment catching up, if you want.”

“Thanks! I’ll stay late to make it up to you, promise!”

A touch of a smile danced across the Matron’s face. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but there’s no need. I’ve handled this place on my own for years— I’ll be well enough able to get everything done all by my lonesome.” She waved a hand, dismissing them— and before Lily could so much as respond, Mimi was already pulling her along with her. Or at least she was trying too. It took a couple of seconds of futile tugging before Lily remembered that she had to let herself be dragged away.

“You’ve gotten stronger.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was an observation. Stepping out into one of the back halls— the one that led to the upper floor bedrooms, the place most of the older orphans stayed, she leaned against the wall, looking a bit tired but happy— a beaming smile on her face. Joy, unleashed. “It really is good to see you again. Things have been… rough, but, I think… every time something gets hard, I try and remember you and everything you accomplished. I mean, if you of all people were able to get into the University of East Saffron— and perhaps even more astonishingly, make friends— then what can’t I do?”

Lily rolled her eyes, lightly shoving Mimi. It felt… right, in some subtle, quintessential way, to mess around with her like they had so long ago, back when they’d been merely acquaintances by proximity more than anything. “You’re insufferable.” She said it with a smile. “How did you even get this job? I would’ve thought that you’d try and get out of the precinct.”

“I thought about it for a while, after I graduated. The others are all gone, already. I think… if I remember correctly, Jedda managed to get a job working at a cafe over two Precincts, and Pogua… I don’t even know, maybe he’s doing work in the precinct somewhere? I didn’t want to do that, though…” she sighed. “A lot of the students from Instructor Leng’s class were hired by the Fleet to work on their big airships, which is pretty cool, but I was never part of that class, so… I considered asking Mingtian to help me get better at formations, but I’ve seen how much work you put into, and it just… wasn’t my path, I don’t think. Too much math.” Lily snorted. She certainly got that right, at least. “I kinda drifted around a bit, did some odds and ends, but I ended up helping the Matron out so much that she offered me a job here. I think she’s trying to train me into her replacement.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “Replacement?”

“Well, she’s not immortal, is she? There needs to be someone to take care of all these kids, and now that things are… well, you know. She’s worried that she’s going to have to deal with a lot more kids, and she’s not as old as she used to be.” It was a stark reminder that for some of them, they’d already reached as high as they were going to go. There was little further, for them. For Mimi.

Mortals. She’d heard it said derogatorily, before, but never before had it so deeply sunk in just why…

She wondered if Mingtian had a point, about what he’d said. That when she became a powerful cultivator she’d look down on those beneath them and see them as some inherently lesser thing, merely by the nature of their existence. It was a disconcerting thought.

It was an almost terrifying thought, in many ways. That she might one day be so far divorced from mortality…

When they were all dead and gone, and she alone remained.

She shook her head, trying her best to clear it of all those grim thoughts. “That’s… I’m glad I came to help, then. If there’s going to be more of us…”

“Heavens, I hope not.” Lily grimaced. It was one of those things shared between them, soul deep, that wound— even if it had come in different ways. She wasn’t aware of all the details, but she knew that Mimi had been older when she’d lost the rest of her family, and in turn she knew she’d been a young child when the war had taken hers. A shared solidarity, sewn together by the thread of that piercing loss. “If there’s a war, though…”

“There’ll be one eventually, one way or the other. I’ll probably get swept up in it, but hopefully you’ll be old and gray by that time.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I should have studied harder. Then I’d have at least been able to try.”

“The die is cast. Perhaps you will find better fate in the future. You still have plenty of time to improve your standing beneath the heavens.”

“You sound like a monk.”

“I was trying to sound suitably mysterious.” She smirked. “Did I ever tell you about my monk friend?”

Mimi raised an eyebrow in incredulous doubt. “You have a monk friend? I thought you were all tapped out of friendship when it came to Avyr?”

“Ouch.” She clutched a hand to her chest, pretending to be grievously wounded— only allowing herself to smile a little as Mimi giggled. “No, I did actually manage to make one friend over the course of the semester. Or two, if you count my Senior Martial Brother Hsu— which I don’t, of course. He’s more of a… mentor figure.”

“Mentor figure. Like you and Instructor Leng?” There was a tone to Mimi’s voice that she wasn’t sure if she could quite place, some mix of exasperated humor and amusement— the sort of thing someone who wasn’t in on an in-joke might encounter. She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, lay off, it was just a joke.”

“Master Mingtian is…” beyond you. She didn’t actually say the words, though, even though she couldn’t help but feel them— beyond Mimi, and beyond her, too, still… somehow, somehow she could not help but feel that. Ultimately, she just huffed and looked away. “Only because you’re a friend.”

“We’re friends now?”

“I think…” she’d thought they were acquaintances, at best, but looking back on it— on all the moments spent together, on everything… “we probably always were. I was just being… stubborn.”

“Well, your stubbornness managed to make you a cultivator, so I’d say it was well worth it. Now, tell me a bit about that monk friend of yours…”

They spent the next few minutes, long moments, stolen moments ripped from those cruel clawed hands of time, or fate, or whatever else lay inviolate and indestructible above them— just… talking. Catching up, on all the little silly things that’d been going on in the 32nd Precinct, and all the awesome cultivator things that’d happened over in the University of East Saffron.

It was good, even if they both knew it couldn’t last.

Eventually, though, Mimi begged off— saying that she really did need to get back to work, lest she betray the Matron’s generosity. Lily got the impression that the Matron was sacrificing more than a little to give Mimi a job, and that Mimi knew that.

She smiled softly to herself as they meandered back to the common room. She’d never expected Mimi of all people to be so responsible, but… well, she supposed everyone changed eventually. It was good path, she couldn’t help but think—

The moment they stepped into the common room, though, all her thoughts fled her, and it took everything she had in her to not immediately double over in laughter. A second later, even that failed, and she burst, all but wheezing with laughter as she met Avyr’s unimpressed stare.

His stare, and all the kids that were clambering over him, treating him more like playground equipment than the powerful Opening cultivator he was. “Not a word,” he hissed, aggrieved— but it was clear that he didn’t actually care all that much. “They’re… unbothered by the typical reputation my kind elicits. I couldn’t but allow them to have some fun. They remind me a little of kittens— endlessly eager and endlessly annoying.”

Lily smirked as Mimi ran around, wrangling up the kids and slowly getting them to settle down. Notably, though, she didn’t stop them from huddling around Avyr, just making sure they weren’t jumping on him or tugging his fur or anything. “I never thought I’d see you roleplaying a therapy animal.”

“It’s demeaning,” he mewled petulantly. “I’m not a trampoline, no matter how much those kids might think I am.”

“It’s good for them, probably.” She very pointedly ignored his complaints. “They’ve each and every one lost a great deal, and to have even just a small moment of innocent fun… sometimes, it's easy to forget that sort of stuff exists, here—” the orphanage, or the precinct, or East Saffron; there was little distinction between the three of them when it came to those constant reminders of what they’d lost. Perhaps even across the whole of Aurelia… anyways, she just looked over at the kids, who’d transitioned their attention to her— the powerful and beautiful and clearly quite awesome cultivator in front of them. “Having fun, everyone?”

A chorus of yeah! And yes! And various other little affirmations were her response, all eager. A second later, and after a particularly hard stare, Avyr just rolled his eyes and nodded, too. She knew him too well to not know that he was enjoying himself.

“I’m glad. Now, be nice, alright? I know he’s cute—” another grumble from the big cat, for that, and a giggle from Mimi— “but he’s being quite forbearing by allowing you all to pet him. Not many other Opening cultivators would allow that sort of thing, so don’t be mean to him.” The kids chorused out hasty agreements, before turning back to whatever they were doing before, and Mimi sent her a brief, thankful look.

“Unexpected, but not unappreciated." Lily squeaked in surprise at the new voice, familiar, glancing up at the Matron beside her. “I still have trouble believing that he’s an Opening cultivator, sometimes. It beggars belief, that he might be one of them… gods amongst mortals.”

“He’s just Avyr.”

“And that’s the part that astonishes me the most.” She sighed. “Perhaps… I have spent too long with Councillor Guxi and her ilk as my only representative of that vaunted stage. The outer disciple is, of course, a much more pleasant person to be around, but even then… I’m sure you’re better aware of this than me, how far apart they are from the mortal existence. The disciples of the Bloody Saffron Sect are more a force of nature than men.”

Lily frowned, then shrugged. “I dunno. I guess, but I think that’s more of a… affectation, they adopt to make themselves more… ‘cultivator-y?’ I’m sure they have good reasons, but I think a lot of those reasons are tied up in the sort of… cultivator culture? I don’t know how to put it—”

“Their society,” the Matron said softly, and Lily just nodded in helpless agreement. “Remember this, please. If you take any one thing out of here, on your long path— whether that leads to the Bloody Saffron Sect or elsewhere, or some higher heaven beyond even them… Remember these shallow mortal lives of ours, and that even a sea is made of a million drops of rain.”

“Of course,” she whispered— for a long moment, silent amongst those tables and memories, and the excited chatter of kids climbing over Avyr, and— beyond it all, the cold of East Saffron, winter. A vast and cruel world.

A vast and— by the workings of not immortals but the mortals beneath them, so many untold millions— beautiful world.

“I won’t forget,” she promised. So long as she and Avyr continued their ascension…

She would never forget where she’d come from.

She refused.