Sword and Snow

Cierra

Cierra was having trouble focusing. She had kept herself busy since early in the morning with relatively pointless busy work, like deep cleaning her room, then the family's shared living spaces when she couldn't sleep. She had gone so far as to spot clean old stains in the wood, and even that level of work only took her to a bit before sunrise.

She had done quite literally everything she could think of to burn through the time, but it left her with a couple hours left before the trip to the Elders' compound and her Bonding ceremony. So she was laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, already fully dressed and ready for the day.

The thing that bugged her most was that she couldn't even pinpoint why she was so restless.

She didn't think it was just nerves. She had always been able to sleep fine before other big events in her life if she wanted to, but more than that, she didn't feel particularly nervous over the Bond. She wasn't exactly so arrogant that her thought process was 'Others have done it, so I can too,' but she did feel that with both her mothers and brother having gone through the process, it was safe enough.

She didn't think it was excitement either. While she was looking forward to see what sort of new abilities the Bond brought in addition to her Sky Realm Domain, she didn't feel the sort of dramatic excitement for new levels of power that some of her family did.

Unfortunately, Cierra imagined most of that feeling all stemmed from the same place; she was indecisive when it came to important things.

When she was younger and just starting to Cultivate, she couldn't decide if she wanted to follow in Mom's or Momri's footsteps, so she split the difference and tried to do both. She was even encouraged to do so, because choosing to be flexible in one's Cultivation was a genuine option. Many Cultivators, even powerful ones, didn't follow a single style, but pulled from two or three to make their own unique group of techniques, sometimes with multiple elemental styles utilized to do so.

She had been told time and again that focusing on a combination of water and metal Qi would be a strong combination. In the end, she had a better natural affinity for water Qi, so had focused primarily on water and ice techniques with the occasional support from metal techniques. And it had, as planned, created a style uniquely her own.

When their family had gotten involved with the whole Dragon-Kin Bond situation, that half-assed decision came back to bite her. She was picked to Bond with Cyril, who had acted like her Uncle for many years at this point - and she was more than happy with that. She trusted him more than some of the other Elders, and beyond that, found him to be a likeable and genuinely good person.

But right from the start their Qi compatibility was lower than some of the others. Not only did her water Qi focus make her generally opposed to Cyril's fire based Qi, but her dabbling in metal Qi had made her uniquely bad when it came to facing the introduction of the fire Qi to her system.

When it had been explained to her, she did her best to understand, but it was difficult. At the very least, she could accept the basics of it; because she had spent time nurturing two different elements of Qi, it had made her foundations flexible. That was an observable detail for her, even in everyday life. When her siblings that had focused on one element tried to pick up simple techniques that used other elements as a base, it often took them a while. In her case, she would often pick up the new techniques quickly.

Evidently, that was because her body and Foundation was more flexible in how it handled Qi than others that focused on one element.

However, if she understood things correctly, that also meant that her Foundation was more malleable. And a sudden influx of a large amount of a single type of Qi - like the mass of fire Qi during the Bonding - could alter, warp, damage, or generally affect her Foundation. Cyril had likened it to workable clay suddenly receiving too much heat and hardening into pottery.

The last several months of her life had been spent predominantly on preparing her Foundation for that influx of fire Qi. She had spent literal weeks worth of time using more fire Qi than she ever had before, trying to inure her meridians and Foundation to the use of large amounts of fire Qi. And when she wasn't doing that, she was focused on reinforcing her water and metal Qi bases to hopefully prevent them from warping under the strain of the new Qi.

At this point, Cyril seemed sure that she was ready. If Cierra was honest with herself, she believed she was as well. Her Foundation had never felt so resilient. It was still malleable and able to work with a wide variety of techniques, but if she were to describe the changes, she might say it was less permeable. Less vulnerable to change. It felt strong and steady, which she supposed was the goal.

But there was a part of her that felt like something small stuck in her throat that she couldn't dislodge. She had spent her entire life as a Cultivator being unable to commit herself to one thing. She had been told by everyone from her mothers to Vale and even the Elders that such flexibility was a strength - and she did believe that. But Cierra was also positive that she derived that 'strength' from a weakness, and it bothered her. She was so sure that whatever her Sky Realm trial turned out to be, it would be focused on that feeling.

And she still didn't know how to fight against it.

As she lay in bed contemplating everything, she wondered whether that was why she was so disquieted. Everyone and everything around her had said she was ready for this. Largely, she felt ready for this.

But maybe she wasn't.

That couldn't be right, though, could it? She had prepared and everything was in order for her Bond and Breakthrough. If anything, the only thing she had left to do was figure out how to stop that scratching feeling that she…didn't deserve this? Wasn't ready?

Cierra groaned aloud. The fact that she couldn't even name the emotion buried there pissed her off even more.

"Cierra?" Her mother called through the door as she knocked. "Are you ready to go?"

With a groan, Cierra kicked off the blanket that she had draped over her legs and feet, using the action to let out some of the annoyance that had built up within her.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah, I'm coming." She said, her tone light and airy. When she opened the door, she came face to face with Emery, who grinned widely.

"We're coming with you all today." Her mother said, and gave her a hug. "However it all shakes out, we're proud of you for getting this far."

"Thanks, Mom." Cierra said, returning the hug. A thought flashed across her mind briefly - would they still be proud of her if she failed here? But that thought was pushed away as quickly as it had come.

If there was one thing that Cierra was rock solid on, it was her belief in her two mothers. Short of committing horrible atrocities, they would always be on her side.

Honestly, she believed that even if she had committed some kind of horrible atrocity, her mothers would check her reasons before anything else. They were on her side, and nothing could shake that belief.

Emery slid to the side and put an arm around Cierra's shoulders. Which looked a little funny, given Cierra was a bit taller than her mother.

"Let's get moving."

In Cierra's opinion, things moved both too slowly and too fast. Every moment, from gathering near the playground to take flight with Vale to landing at the Elders' compound and preparing for the ceremony seemed to drag on. She was still dealing with that persistent itchy feeling in the back of her mind, and it made every little thing a minor annoyance that felt like it took forever.

At the same time, though, she felt like she blinked and it was suddenly time for her ceremony. Somewhere along the way, she had changed clothes into plain robes that were disposable because of her expected Breakthrough, and everyone had gathered outside of the tangle of hallways that led to the chambers where everyone else had gone through their own ceremonies.

And Cyril was already standing in front of her, ready to go, with his hand outstretched.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

"Yeah. I am." Cierra said, taking his hand. And despite that one singular doubt that just would not leave, she felt like she was ready.

Cyril pulled her up from the seat she had taken while waiting, and gave her an approving nod. "Alright. You're up first, so let's go get this done."

"Right." She said, returning the nod, trying to put forth an air of determination. But as she received hugs and wishes of luck from her family members on the way to the ceremonial rooms, she felt vaguely numb.

She only finally snapped out of it when Cyril took her by the shoulders and sat her on a very nice cushion in a mostly metal room. As she lowered neatly onto the cushion, she caught the soft look in Cyril's eyes and the man crouched down to be level with her.

"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked.

That irritating voice in the back of her head wanted her to second guess moving forward. Wanted her to question whether she was ready. Or good enough. But she was. She knew she was.

"Yeah." She said, finally. "Yeah, I'm ready."

Cyril stared her down for a minute more, searching her eyes for something. Probably trying to see her resolve, she imagined. Eventually he seemed satisfied and stood to move to the cushion behind her. Once he was in place, he asked her the question she had been ruminating on for weeks.

"Where did you want the Marks?"

Cierra hadn't really decided. She had narrowed it down to a few options. She had considered having the Mark decorate a single leg or arm, covering the entire thing, to give her body a little bit of dissymmetry. She thought it would look really great. But the far more thematic location for the fire Qi Mark would be her chest or stomach.

She took a breath to answer, but found that she struggled to just decide, even when she had to.

"Cierra?"

"Sorry, I'm still stuck between two." She murmured.

Cyril, thankfully, just chuckled. "That's alright. Did you want help deciding?"

"I'm between my right arm, shoulder to hand, or my chest."

Given Cyril was sitting behind her, she couldn't see him, but the answering silence felt like a thoughtful one.

"Are you planning on getting any tattoos or other markings down the line?" He asked.

"I hadn't planned on it." She said, "But I'm not exactly against it."

"You could go with the arm, and then have your left arm tattooed with images that evoke ice to lean into the whole balance of the two elements. Then maybe add metal themed ones elsewhere, too?" Cyril offered.

Cierra tried to picture it. It was a solid idea, but as she tried to imagine it, she felt it might be a little too much. She was proud of the way she looked; her stature and figure gave her a very stately, graceful appearance. And while the Marks covering one whole arm might be a solid accent for her look, more than that might overpower the rest of her.

"Do you know what the Marks will end up looking like for me?" She asked, hoping for a clearer picture of what it would look like in the end.

"It's not entirely up to us." Cyril said. "But, I think it's fairly likely that you'll end up with Marks that look similar to your mother's. Mine likely won't have the dark, underlight glow of molten lava that Vale's has, but you can expect it to carry the reds and yellows of a bonfire."

As Cierra tried to picture it, she got stuck on the design of her mother's mark. While it was striking and beautiful, it was also somewhat wild and vicious looking. If her Mark had those qualities, then the idea of a graceful design that covered her arm wouldn't work.

"Let's go with my chest. I think having an image of an inner fire on my torso would look good."

Cyril let out a small sigh. "Very well. I can do that, so long as you're comfortable showing me your skin where you want the Mark."

This, at least, Cierra had prepared for. She pulled her arms free of her cheap, plain robes to let them fall at her waist. She wasn't wearing an undershirt, but did have a chestwrap in place. She had spent some of her abundant time that morning getting it just right; it covered all of her important bits, but also left a fairly large canvas of porcelain white skin bare.

She turned around to face Cyril, who seemed entirely uninterested in her body, which was a little relieving. Not that she expected he would be either way. "I think you can cover any or all of this space." She said, tracing a finger around her bare skin. She included the front of her shoulders, swept the upper limit just below her collarbones, then covered the majority of her chest, even dipping a bit into her cleavage."

Cyril's eyes tracked her motion to note the area he'd be working with. "Alright. When you're ready, we will begin."

Cierra took a deep breath, and then another. On the second exhale, she closed her eyes. "I am ready."

"Very well. Try to relax and meditate. As we move along, I'll guide you through the steps."

Cierra nodded, firming her resolve as she let herself fall into meditation.