Sword and Snow

Emery

Once we had actually decided on a true plan going forward, our days became very rote. Not for the first time, the family fell into a fairly normal daily routine, with only an occasional break from the everyday activities.

Or, perhaps it was more correct to say our days followed very similar checklists. Avuri and I never bothered with setting up something as structured as a schedule for all of us. We generally favored certain things around similar times, but even that was all predicated on other things. Instead, we just focused on making sure we managed to hit all of our goals each day.

It worked for us incredibly well. Over time, we grew more and more accustomed to our new family dynamic with Kord, Karn, Briar, and Enrik, and they grew more and more comfortable with the rest of us. As expected, it took some time, but one of the genuine perks of living essentially in the middle of nowhere was that we had the chance to just be.

We didn't have visitors often, if ever. We didn't have a village or city of people breathing down our necks policing how we chose to raise our kids. It was one of the sticking points I had when I had first decided to adopt Cierra years before. Prejudices against anyone that had been 'demon-touched' or whatever other nonsense words people chose to use were real and dangerous. And it was something that I refused to let near any of us.

Thankfully, living apart from the city made that fairly easy. The truth was, except in the most dire of situations, most people that had a close brush with demonic Qi were not greatly affected by it in the long run. If there was one thing my own life had taught me, it was exactly that.

I had been about as twisted and messed up with demonic Qi as anyone could have been at my age. It left both literal and figurative scars in physical, spiritual, and mental ways. When Vale had first taken me in, it would've been obvious to anyone who saw me. While it wasn't something I remembered all that well, between being young and blocking out much of my memory of that time, Vale had told us stories over the years.

My siblings and I had all been so affected by the demonic Qi that it had literally leaked from us. Even putting aside Ieji's literal aura, myself and Kota had apparently bled demonic Qi so thick that it would be easy for even a Human Realm non-Cultivator to notice with an underdeveloped Qi-sense.

All of those stories helped me to put it all into perspective. When I first started traveling with Vale when we all left home, the two of us had started tracking down demonic sects to do much the same as what Avuri and I had ended up doing. At the time, I was far more of a hanger-on while Vale did all of the work. We would arrive in a town, he'd set us up with an Inn room, and I would mostly stay there for a day or two while he did the leg work. Then we'd plan together and go do whatever it was we'd do for the given target.

Oftentimes, we'd come back with a captive or two. Because they were easier to affect with demonic Qi, children were more often than not the target for those sects. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we'd find the demonic sect before they were able to do anything noticeable, and a family would take their child back as if they had only been kidnapped.

Most of the time, those we rescued were turned away by their own parents to their faces. Then Vale and I would take them to another town or city a few provinces away and bring them to an orphanage there with some made up story about their family falling to beasts on the road or something similar. After that, it was up to them, because the truth was that no one would know they ever had a brush with the demonic unless they said something.

Looking back, it was probably all of that nonsense building up over the years that had eventually turned into my desire to adopt Cierra myself. After I had turned 21, Vale let me start going out on my own. I was adamant that we'd have a better track record by splitting up, and I was old enough to do it on my own. He wasn't as sure as I was, but seemed open to the idea.

I wouldn't admit it at the time, but it was a terrible idea. I don't think it was that I wasn't ready, necessarily. Truthfully, I think the more correct answer is that I would never have been ready to do it all alone. Vale made me promise to stay in the lower strength areas, where I would be unlikely to run into anyone too powerful for me to deal with, so I stuck mostly to the Floral Hills.

The Floral Hills were a strange place that operated on two great opposites. Because the entire province was fairly weak when it came to Qi, it was generally more safe than other places. Beasts were fewer, and traveling was generally 'safer' in that regard. However, the dark side to it all was that people who were hungry for more weren't dealt with as quickly or as brutally. It led to the creation of numerous but weak demonic sects, full of people who weren't satisfied with their level of power in a low-powered location.

It meant that in a fairly short period of time, I was able to get a lot of experience. I found my first demonic sect within two weeks of starting to search. I went about everything the same way I had with Vale. Planning and prepping went as usual. I scouted, and walked away knowing how many people they had taken prisoner, mostly children, and that I was stronger than everyone in that camp.

When I made my move, it was a disaster. Whether it was because I only had myself to cover multiple jobs, or something else, my plan fell apart. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" is a true enough statement. In the process of trying to cleanse the demonic sect, they used their captives as power sources, killing them in the process of trying to fight me off. I finished the battle as the sole survivor, but had failed in my mission to rescue anyone.

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My second and third attempts went no better. In the second, the last couple demonic Cultivators slew their prisoners in retribution for my attempt to rescue them out of spite. That group had been all adults, but it didn't give me much solace when I was haunted by their screams for weeks. The two failures had made me more and more desperate for success, which led me to my third attempt.

It ended no better than the previous two. The tracking and planning portion of my hunt had taken longer than normal, as that third sect had been more prudent and cautious than the others. By the time I actually managed to track down their camp, they had already experimented on their captives, turning them into twisted, inhuman demonic beasts. I have no idea how late I was in my attempt to rescue them, but at least one of their captives was still capable of speech. I've always assumed that, had I managed to get there a bit sooner, I may have been able to save that one child.

My fourth attempt, and the one that ended with me cradling Cierra's dying body, would have likely been my last ever solo attempt at rescuing anyone had it not been for Avuri. In fact, it was my last ever solo attempt at it, just in a different way.

Because the truth was that, without Avuri, Cierra would have died. I may have turned around and learned some healing techniques in a desperate bid to never allow that sort of thing to happen again, but I also never would have gone alone again. I would've gone back to Vale and continued our two-person crusade instead. Those failures would have broken me, and I am positive of that.

Instead, the too-close-call with Cierra, coupled with my years with Vale ended up flipping a different switch I hadn't even known was there. Avuri managing to pull Cierra back from the brink of death in my arms triggered an intense and personal desire to protect her in the same way Vale had when I was a child.

Then, of course, that desire managed to bloom out of control in a way I couldn't have foreseen. Not to mention Avuri showing up and changing my life even further. But all of those things added up to something that I was proud of, even if they had been shaped just as much by those around me, and not something I could claim was entirely of my own making.

"What're you staring off into the sky about, hm?"

I blinked, all of my recollections and daydreams puffing away like the clouds I had been staring at. Avuri leaned over me, interrupting my view of the cloud-filled sky with a comically raised eyebrow.

"Just thinking about how I ended up here."

"As in, 'here', laying on the ground, taking a nap?"

"'Here', as in, here with you and the kids. In the cozy little basin between four of the most well-known and well-guarded mountains in the world. And all of that." I said without moving.

Avuri let out a little sigh, a look of fondness overcoming her face. She slowly lowered herself onto the grass beside me, trying her best to minimize the grass stains that would surely end up on her clean clothing. "You know, I've thought a lot about that sort of thing too. There were a lot of little choices that got us here."

"I'm not going to argue, but I think there are three big ones that are mostly the culprit. Maybe four."

"Oh yeah?" Avuri asked as she cuddled into me on the ground, laying her head on my shoulder. "And exactly which are those?"

"First, you choosing to save Cierra with me. Second, me choosing to take Cierra home with me. Third, you choosing to come to visit us." I said matter-of-factly. "The potential fourth being some combination of the two of us choosing to Cultivate together, or get married."

"And why is that just a potential fourth, and not as important as the others, hm?" Avuri teased.

"Because I think even if we had done neither of those things, there is still a world in which we chose to live together platonically and do the same things we do now. Just with less…this." I said, motioning with my head toward Avuri as she laid half-way on top of me.

"I never really thought too hard about it, but you're probably right." Avuri said after a moment. "Even before we got tangled up with feelings, you intrigued me, Emery. And I think your anti-demon crusade is one I would have joined in either case." She took a small breath. "Not that you don't already know this, but I was really lost when I came to find you. Disappointed with the way the Frozen Mountain Sect was going, and my family was already a non-starter, even then. Had I chosen not to stay here, I have no idea where I would have gone."

"I would've asked you to stay. Point blank." I chuckled. Avuri looked at me questioningly. "If you had started preparing to leave. I would've asked you to stay."

Avuri scrunched up her nose, wordlessly casting doubt on my statement. It was cute. "Em, you literally told me to leave at one point."

"I told you to leave when we were both pussyfooting around one another and weren't being honest with our feelings. Well. I actually thought you were disgusted with me for…some reason? I don't remember." My short tirade had started indignant but quickly ran out of energy. "Anyway. Without all of that, I would've asked you to stay."

"Really?" Avuri asked, still not quite believing me. I nodded. "Why, though?"

I tried and failed to shrug with Avuri laying on my shoulder. "Hard to explain. My first thought was that I was tired of being alone, but that's not quite right. I think I was lonely for someone that wasn't my family? I wanted a friend, maybe." I snorted. "I dunno."

Avuri's answer was a flat stare and a nod to our current position. "You wanted a friend, huh? Sorry to say, you kinda screwed that one up, Em. You just ended up with more family."

I laughed at that. "I guess I did, didn't I?" Avuri rubbed her cheek against me, snuggling up a little tighter, then flashed a bright, warm smile. I folded over to the side she was on, putting my arms fully around her and kissed her gently. "To be fair," I said, pushing my forehead against hers, "I ended up with a reliable partner, and I think that's just as good."

"Just as good?"

"Fine. Better." I smiled.