Fatherly Asura

Oftentimes you’ll come across a clan of the Clear Sky Empire with just one child, and that’s just how it should be.

Forget fostering competition between siblings, forget equal distribution of resources, forget the over-abundance of self-righteous paper tigers that tote feigned superiority over their peers because they’re some fortieth-in-line bastard to the City Lord.

Put in your eyes, readers.

What I’d propose is restraint.

Oh sure, we’ve got the usual methods of dumping unwanted bastards, embarrassments to the clan or potential threats to the inheritance of your darling little son.

The shadow sects, the [Demon]-tides, imprisonment in a [Mystic Realm], none are really better than the other, are they?

Problem is, any of these and we don’t know the bastards are dead. Did they truly die? Did they pass initiation? Has a [Demon] sucked dry their Qi and embalmed their empty skulls to use for incense?

Hopefully, but we can’t say once they’re there. Can we?

Why have I written this? Well, instead of perpetuating this landscape of arrogant young mistresses and masters, how about you educate the ones you already have? Better yet, next time you have a burning desire for yang energy- women, go sit on something cold.

Maybe that way they’ll be less bastards about, and maybe that way, I’ll be able to leave the scroll hall with my tomes unmuddied by the perceived slight of one of you.

- “The Righteous Counter to Procreation,” - Author Unknown A foolish, former disciple of the Clouded Serpent Sect

Fu took a lungful of air, but it was lacking. Circumstance, or the Heavens, had allowed him to navigate much of [Autumn’s Tyranny] in the past. But he struggled now, near a week into its growth.

Cold sweat and the ache of his muscles were relieved in no part by the suffocation of [Air Qi], untouchable to him. There to be felt, but unable to be accessed. But one could not move forward if they did not leave the shore.

And the sufferance of complaint was a treacherous shore indeed.

“Are you well, Hushi?” he asked.

The octopus’s body was, as ever, limber, and showed no obvious pains from their morning’s training. He, as a [Spirit Beast], did not follow the [Stifling Streams Revolutions] or [Wind Phantom Strides], despite how each teal arm reflected a chain in their own right. His practice was movement, and interactions with Qi, boltering, suppression, [Intent].

But here he impressed his thoughts to the [Dao], aligning with Fu’s own.

They adopted their lotus position, and gazed from their usual perch above the Clouded Court Squad’s building. “Brother,” he asked, one eye open. “Are we to ponder, or to ruminate?”

Hushi wobbled, as if shrugging.

Their gaze went inward- further, as their breathing regulated. Draws of stifling air, unpleasantly mortal in taste.

He traced his [Dantian], and [Channels]. Upwards, and along, taking finger’s breadths at a time until the circuit was known to him. A calming exercise, nothing more.

Fu then searched for his [Dao].

This- Well, he pondered on their location. But he found no golden characters inscribed on his [Dantian],

Are the [Dao] a thing to be confined?

Absent talk had revealed certain things, topics to be weighed against idle speech and idiom, wisdom and culture. Shaping the [Dao]. The shape of one’s [Dao]. Separate things, perhaps, riddled with meaning.

Adhrit’s words on understanding, and his warnings of shared insight.

For a fisherman, such things appeared as a bag of eels.

His own question faded. The [Dao] were not a thing to be searched for, but a thing to know without asking.

Then, it is not what I know of a thing. But how I know it to be.

A tension released in his limbs, one he had not realised to be mounting. Thus, his shoulders sagged, and his rear sunk lower to the roof in comfort. Small breaths followed, undirected, and a true rhythm was found.

The scene of his first [Dao Treasure] flocked back in moments. Of the nameless cultivator, and her astral-sailing [Spirit Whale]. Of how she put a palm to the firmament, weeping as stars folded in her palm.

He was there, formless, in this starscape. Untethered by all but his mind at the rear of such majesty he could not fathom. Fu whispered an apology, knowing she could not hear. “It is too profound, master cultivator,” he sounded without lips. “The stars of the sky have little use, when I have three beneath the Heavens.”

A comforting warmth set upon his forehead then. Even as the scene reduced to rid itself of constellations and vaunted hues, simplifying, to show his mountaintop.

The taijitu crawled slowly before him, in the waters of the [First Pool]. Fu found himself sitting at its shore, his thirst slaked and with no need to drink. “Our [Dao of Reach] comes first, Hushi,” he said, hearing his voice quake the very air. “We may be profound in our… ponderance of [Suffocation]- but until we can be no more, let us be men of [Reach] and reaching. Our shaded path will lead us there soon enough, no?”

Hushi affirmed this, showing once more his understanding of all things.

The warmth sprouting on his forehead felt as touch might . A finger of the [Dao], and on this he focused. “Were the [Dao] a fishwife, we might prevail. Or a wisdom that feels right to me.”

Reach.

His net had reach. His chain. His arm. Such things had length, and to reach was to extend further.

Simple thoughts.

But this had Fu truly ponder, for his Path was not. It demanded more, and equating [Reach] with a base increase to distance… Specks rose from the earth of his mountain. Golden things, and formless. Pleasant enough, yet a sense told him they were of no significance.

“To reach beyond [Reach],” he said, a chuckle in his chest. “It is no mystery why the daoists speak as they do. Words pass their lips that only they might understand.”

Hushi slackened, casting an eye towards his cultivator.

“Our reach is no longer simple, then. It is how we push towards our goal. To free our children, how we act to arrive where we must by the means that we must. So- Thus-” The warmth on his forehead grew to such an extent that Fu took off his douli.

Which had him smile, seeing Mei’s in hand. It tilted as Hushi slid within, and nestled with an ease far greater than with the Clouded Court’s black affair.

“Mei would make short work of this, for all she did was as floating clouds. Ease,” he mused. “And another meaning. Natural and fluid, where ours is blown aft and fro.”

To aid this point, Hushi swept the air above. The golden specks swayed in return, blown by motion and set adrift.

“I would be lost without your wisdom, brother,” he smiled. “Our path has us… is to reach through a sea of squalls, myriad, relentless, and we… we are a breeze, ever blowing to where we must go despite them. Where we will go, for such a breeze cannot vanish. Only sway, for a time.”

The [Dao] had him wake to an inscription of [Ink] and a gentle warmth.

But a voice beyond them stole his attention first. A fellow Disciple upon his knee, with one hand upon Fu’s shoulder. “Brother!” he exclaimed.

“Brother?” he returned, seeing a queer grin upon this man’s features. “Did I disturb your cultivation? This junior offers his apologies.”

“It is no junior that releases such Qi! Three streets ahead would have felt this!” he exclaimed. “Profundity lingers here, your insight must have been deep indeed. I would congratulate you, Brother.”

Fu accepted the words, and rose to bow. “Kind words, senior,” he said, defaulting to propriety where unknowns were concerned.

“A bottleneck suddenly undone, was it? I saw your approach, and your meditation has lasted less than the hour. Regardless, the Heavens smile on our Clouded Court Squads this day.” The man gave distance, and shared a kindness of smile Fu had not yet attributed to his fellows. “Once more brother, I congratulate you!”

Wasting no time but that needed to bow once more, Fu’s [Ink] was conjured.