Sword and Snow

Avuri

Avuri slept remarkably well. The thunderstorm that the family had gathered around the previous day had tapered off into the evening, but the rain had continued through the night. The constant thrum of the rain on the roof was a pleasant noise, and her and Emery had decided to take the rainy night to sleep for once.

Given how little Emery and Avuri actually slept, the nights that they chose to actually rest were usually quiet affairs. These days, Avuri's sleep was usually dreamless, leaving her waking up feeling rested and refreshed. The addition of the pitter-patter of the rain seemed to improve that feeling even more, leaving her feeling particularly great when she woke up the next morning.

Emery woke up shortly after she did, and they went through their daily routines lazily, still reveling in the previous night's sleep.

Avuri had to admit, the change to the way their family handled chores had fundamentally changed the way they all did things, and for the better. Before, they would have spent such a lovely morning jumping between tasks in an attempt to help their kids skip some of the day's work. Now though, with the work all assigned and well known in advance, they didn't feel the need to jump around from task to task as much to keep things fair. Instead, they just helped out where they felt like, only making sure they didn't favor one team over the others too much.

Unfortunately, Emery did tend to favor the culinary team, often helping out in the kitchen. On the other hand, though, the culinary team was also the one that had the most work by far - at least most of the time. There were certainly times where the farming and husbandry teams had it particularly rough for a few days. But that work disparity was also why the teams were sized the way they were, with the culinary group being the largest.

When Emery and Avuri went out to check on things after a hot cup of tea, they found that the culinary team seemed to have things well in hand, while the two other teams were the ones with more work than usual. After a thunderstorm, it wasn't really a surprise. Even with the climate Array, winds and rain still blew through the Basin pretty roughly, leaving all sorts of mess around.

There were leaves everywhere, blown off the plants all around the Basin. Thankfully, no trees had been blown down, but Avuri honestly couldn't remember that ever happening - most of the plants in the Basin were far too well rooted for that to truly be a concern. But with the downed leaves and all the other detritus that got blown around, the farming team had plenty of cleanup to work on.

The husbandry team, meanwhile, had plenty on their plate as well. The animals had taken shelter in the barn as expected, but after the rain let up, they had gone out to check the sodden pastures, and tracked mud back everywhere. The pigs were clearly chuffed, more than happy to be completely coated in the dirt, but the other animals were far less so. Mila and Tulo, the cow and bull they kept, had somehow ended up coated in the mud as well, despite not being known for getting dirty. In the same vein, several of the younger cattle had ended up caked with mud.

While no one could tell exactly how it happened, Avuri secretly suspected it was the dogs' fault. They had managed to gather a few dogs over the years after their first dog, Yaya, had passed. Pie, Bella, Suu, and Cherry were their current farm dogs, all four of them some form of mutt. And they were all similarly dirt-caked, and looking pleased about it.

Watching Kord struggle, trying to stop the dogs from shaking the mud everywhere, had put a smile on Avuri's face. The older boy rarely looked so distraught, and the way he frantically bounced between the dogs, especially Suu and Pie, trying to keep them calm was entertaining.

Ultimately, it didn't really matter where the mud had come from, though. The animals clearly all needed to be washed and groomed, not to mention fed. They were even reaching the point where they needed a trip into the city for more animal feed soon because their back-up stock was running low.

By the time midday rolled around, the animals had been taken care of. Avuri's presence had made a lot of the process go much faster than it would have otherwise. She could soak the animals with a small amount of Qi, and even keep them wet while they were scrubbed free of the mud. Once they were clear of mud, she could also control the level of wetness while the team brushed the animals out, speeding up the whole drying process, too.

It was during the family's lunch that the day took a strange turn. The culinary team was still in the kitchen, starting the prep on dinner, while the farming and husbandry teams finally sat down to a late lunch. Talya and Gray had even brought out Mylo to join everyone for lunch. As was normal for them now, Avuri and Emery had let their combined Qi linger around the entire Basin. They weren't actively stretching their boundaries to reach too far beyond it, but they both still perked up when they felt Vale cross the boundary, with the Dragon-Kin group in tow.

That group returning early was strange, and Avuri was curious what had happened that made them return early, but it wasn't a huge cause for concern.

She and Emery both stood up immediately, however, when they felt the rest of the Elders cross the boundary not far behind Vale.

"Em?" Talya asked, concerned by the sudden movement.

"Vale's team is back." Avuri said, answering the unspoken question.

"And the Elders are with him." Emery added. And that seemed to draw the attention of everyone at the table.

"What?"

"Why?"

"Dunno." Emery said, tracking the dragons' location with her Qi based senses, watching where they would be if her vision wasn't blocked by trees.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Everyone riding with Vale feels in good health. It must be something else." Avuri said.

Emery sighed, shook her head, then aimed a shaky smile at Avuri. "I know I told you to be careful about wishing for some excitement the other day, but I didn't expect it to come back to bite us so soon."

"Hey, we don't know what it is yet." Avuri said.

"Ri, they're moving fast." Emery said, pointing up. She wasn't lying; Vale and the others had crossed the distance from the edge of the Basin to overhead far too quickly for a normal flight. And as Vale took the time to descend carefully, the Elders leapt out of the treeline in their human forms, landing near where everyone had gathered to eat.

Lyn was in the lead, so Avuri stepped up to talk first. "Is something wrong, Lyn?"

The woman's expression darkened, and Avuri felt a swirl of worry start to churn in her stomach. Emery was giving off a similar sense of worry, and the emotion was beginning the feedback loop. "Avuri…"

"It's your family, Avuri." Eiry said, stepping up alongside Lyn. "We don't know all of the specifics yet, but we received a message from Bouquet. We believe your family is threatening Flowing Dragon City with a declaration of war."

Avuri's legs felt weak and she half-fell back onto the bench behind her. While the shock took her off her feet, the worry that had begun to fester burned away in an instant, replaced with indignant anger. "They…what?"

Distantly, she noticed a few of the kids take a step back from her. Her voice had gone soft and deadly, the anger bubbling underneath that softer tone. Most of her family hadn't ever seen Avuri truly angry before. It took an astronomical amount of poking and prodding to make her angry in most cases.

But her abandoned family declaring war on her new one? That kindled her anger faster than even she had believed possible.

"We have the missive, if you'd like to read it." Ray offered, stepping forward. Avuri forced the anger down as the man held out the official-looking scroll. She nodded to him and accepted the scroll with a smile, but wasn't sure she'd be able to sound normal if she spoke.

All of the nearby eyes were on her as she unfurled the message. Distantly, she recognized that Vale had touched down and his whole group was approaching as well, including her cousins.

Her first impression was that the message was long. It was several paragraphs of politicking and merchant-speak that she had no interest in. More than that, she recognized the writing of her father's hand immediately which soured her mood even further.

"It is with a heavy heart that I address this message to the illustrious Elders of Flowing Dragon City. As Head of the Council of Bouquet, I am perfectly aware of the long and storied history of trade and cooperation between our two cities. Due to this shared history, I wanted to personally write this missive in my own hand, to be sure the message is conveyed precisely and succinctly as possible, and to avoid any potential missteps along the way."

Avuri wrinkled her nose at the opening. 'Succinctly' was a word that she'd never use to describe anything her father did. The man was as twisted and obtuse as any snake, and his writing matched that perfectly. She decided quickly that rather than read all of his bullshitting through, it would be better for her mood to skim it.

Not that doing that kept her anger in check, either. As her eyes scanned the letter, all of the warring feelings in her gut slowly grew into a single coiled ball of anger.

"He's probably working directly with Aysol in some way." Vyne explained to everyone as she read. "We know that Leon was, too, when he was here. And that whole fiasco is mentioned in the letter as well."

It was. The letter had directly referred to the attack on Flowing Dragon City as an 'unfortunate misunderstanding', then went on to try to excuse the people of The Deposits as if they were all in league together. He even directly mentioned Leon's death in an off-hand remark, saying it was nothing more than an unlucky incident, then going beyond that to imply it didn't even really matter.

More than anything else in the letter, those two short paragraphs set Avuri's anger ablaze. Not only had her father implied threats throughout the entire thing, but even after everything Leon had done, the callous way that her father had chosen to toss him away like this made her vibrate with anger.

At that point, she stopped reading and shoved the scroll back to Ray. She hadn't even gotten through half of it. "All his platitudes in there sound nice enough, but he will attack. Even if you somehow miraculously meet all of his bullshit demands." She said, her voice so full of venom and disgust it surprised even her.

"We know." Ray said.

"For what it's worth," Cyril added, "in the latter half of the letter, he puts forth literally impossible demands."

"Even if you ignore his request to hand over the city to his control, which is no doubt a request from Aysol, he asked for nonsense like tax exemptions on all Bouquet products, and free access to the Peaks for Bouquet Cultivators. Things he knows full well that we wouldn't be able to grant." Eiry said.

"It is, unfortunately, nothing more than a flimsy excuse to drag both cities into a conflict." Avuri said. "Knowing my - No, knowing Dain, this is just the first step to draw us all into a political war."

"Unfortunately, Bouquet has a lot of allies, too." Vale said. "For all of the city's faults, it conducts its business very well, and is generally considered to be respectful. Plenty of wealthy merchants and traders are aware of the city's vicious underbelly, but outwardly…"

"It has the potential to draw many allies into this, yes." Vyne continued the thought. "This is likely to get complicated. And fast."

"Does Flowing Dragon City have any allies of its own to turn to?" Emery asked. "I know the city as a whole is widely respected as well. Surely we have friends, too."

"We do." Eiry said. "Famously so, even. We are well known among Cultivators around the land and many would likely come to our aid."

"Which is one of the reasons this is so concerning." Ray said. "There is almost certainly no doubt that under normal circumstances, if this came to blows between us and Bouquet, we would destroy them on the battlefield. And that's before you factor in us, or even you all."

"Which means there's something else going on here." Avuri said, with a sigh. "Or, at least, Bouquet has a backing that is enough to embolden them enough to move against us."

"Aysol." Emery said flatly.

"Almost certainly." Eiry said.

Avuri rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. Even if her father had started this whole mess with a veiled declaration through a political channel, the situation was bound to escalate quickly. She just hoped that they would be able to act quickly enough to fight against it.