Sword and Snow

Emery

It had been four days since they had figured out how to accurately control their connection's strength, and Emery was still astounded by the amount of control they seemed to have over it. Her connection with Avuri had always been a spiritual one that had seemed to work through their Qi, requiring their Domains to be in contact to operate. Given that, they had previously operated the strength of the connection through Qi manipulation.

It had been remarkably simple, but therefore strict. If Emery wanted to essentially 'scream' something at Avuri, she would have pushed more Qi into the connection. If she wanted to 'whisper' something, she'd use less. She had always considered it simple but effective.

But after their Domains had merged, things had gotten far more complicated. While they couldn't control it well at all at first, after they had taken their time to enter their shared Inner World and found the spiritual manifestation of the connection itself, it was like various mental switches and toggles had been put in place.

For the moment, Emery or Avuri could essentially control the connection by mentally picturing the flow of Qi, or the windows, or the doors, closing and opening them as they saw fit. It was functioning like any technique that was formed in a Cultivator's Inner World, able to be used and manipulated within them with a thought. Which also gave Emery confidence that they would both be able to improve their control over time, eventually becoming able to manipulate it instantly through will alone.

Still, it was nice to be able to take a walk around the Basin with a few of the kids without having Avuri's thoughts and emotions clouding her own the entire time, unbidden. And yet, with just a quick thought…

"Hi, you." Avuri's voice sounded in her head when she gently pushed open the mental window. Her wife's voice immediately put a smile on her face.

"Hi." She sent back.

"Aren't you walking with the Willows?"

"I am." Emery confirmed. Kal had been difficult recently, desperately wanting to get out of the Willows' house for a while, and as a five-year-old, he was obstinate and difficult to convince otherwise. He saw the rest of his family unit - Fia, Lia, and Jack - regularly making short trips to the edges of the Basin for their daily chores and desperately wanted to go with them.

The whole family had been being more cautious recently with Bouquet making some kind of move, which meant no one was really going anywhere near the edges of the Basin anymore. They typically stayed well within the barrier Arrays so that anyone approaching the family for any reason would need to cross them. They still had a lot of faith in the barriers, after all - they hadn't ever failed them.

Still, Kal had been carrying on for days, and Emery didn't think there'd really be much danger in letting the family take a walk around the edges of the Basin, especially with her presence. Plus, it was almost time to check on the Arrays. It was a few months early, but with danger lurking so close, she couldn't deny the desire to check them all a bit more frequently.

"How're things looking?"

"Good so far." Emery returned, her hand swinging beside her with Kal's as they all walked together. "The Arrays are still in good shape as we'd expect. I'll still have Talya do the extra check since she's here, but I don't think they need any real work done on them."

"What about the outer ones?" Avuri asked.

That was a more complex question. With all of the excitement in the last several months, the outer Arrays had been bumped lower and lower on their list of concerns. They had only ever been functional alarm Arrays out that far, so they weren't necessary for general life. And with Vale coming and going from the Basin so often with the Bonded group, it was easy to give them a quick glance as they passed.

The outer Arrays had remained in position and functioning, but they would need to actually walk the edges to check for actual holes at some point. And then the Elders had moved in, and that concern went even further down the list, because there was so much power concentrated in the Basin. Even if someone had found a hole in the outer Arrays, they would still need to cross the inner ones, and those were meticulously looked after and maintained.

"We really do need to check them."

"We need to find the time."

"I think we're approaching the point where we need to make the time." Emery sent, projecting her bluntness as much as she could without actual speech.

"Yeah…" Avuri projected a dramatic sigh into Emery's head. "When did this all get so complicated?"

"Ri, things have always been this complicated. We've had these Arrays set up for fifteen years."

"And we're only worried we might need them now. Fifteen years later."

"Does that make it more complicated?"

"Are you really going to be that pedantic right now?"

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"Yep."

Emery felt Avuri slam the metaphorical door in her face after that. She chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Kal asked, looking up at Emery's face.

"Momri is talking to me and being silly." She answered.

"I hope I get to be in a relationship like that some day." Fia said wistfully. "Being so close to someone that you can be connected all day long and never get sick of them sounds so romantic."

Emery chuckled. "Oh, I get sick of her sometimes."

"Really?" Fia and Lia asked in unison. Kal added his own 'really' a second later.

"I do. It's not often, I guess, but it does happen." Her eyes drifted up and away toward the bit of light coming through the foliage of the trees. "And she just slammed the door on me, so to speak, just now. So she probably gets sick of me too."

"Could've fooled me." Lia muttered.

"You all have a little ways to go before you find romantic partners, anyway." Emery said. "At the very least until you leave home for your own lives."

"And what if we don't want to leave?" Lia asked.

"Then where would you find your partner?" Fia asked before Emery could respond.

Lia just shrugged. "Either here or in the city."

Fia gaped at her younger sister. "Here? As in, one of us in the Basin?"

Lia scrunched up her nose. "Ew, no! We all grew up together, Fia, you really think I'd go after one of our brothers?"

"Then what did you mean?"

"Mom keeps bringing in more visitors. Sure, they've mostly been family, but it wouldn't surprise me to start seeing random people start popping in on occasion."

Emery let the girls bicker without saying anything herself. In her own mind, she had to admit that Lia might have had a point; with everything that was going on now, it wasn't too far-fetched that they would consider opening their house to other trusted Cultivators. The main problem was that she didn't really have any of those that weren't family, so the only real options were others that the Elders had connections with, or perhaps some people from Avuri's time at the Frozen Mountain Sect. Emery had heard some stories from Avuri about her friends there, but none of them seemed like they had lasted.

Something on the edges of Emery's perception drew her attention. She had been walking with her Domain expanded well beyond the edges of the Basin's cliff-like wall; it was that perception that she had been using to inspect the outer Array's state.

There was a gap in the protection. Not a large one, and it had been poorly repaired. Emery's first thought was that she'd need to thank Natalya for her excellent, masterful work because whoever had broken through the Array simply didn't have the skills to repair it to its proper level of expertise, leaving the patchwork standing out.

Emery's focus immediately shifted. She tried not to make any obvious moves with the children with her to avoid spooking them, but she still sharpened her senses and her Domain. None of the Willow kids were in the Sky Realm, so none of them were likely to notice the change in her Qi. That was a small blessing, at least.

Emery wasn't sure whether she should be relieved or more worried when her Qi swept through the area around them and found nothing. She tried to remember where the Array had been broken through previously, and whether this spot could have just weakened naturally over time after a genuine repair, but none of the incidents she could recall lined up.

She mentally reached out to Avuri, essentially knocking on the 'door' that had been shut in her face only minutes ago. Unlike with an actual door, though, Avuri was likely able to feel Emery's emotional state and the connection surged immediately.

"What's wrong?" Avuri asked, clearly concerned by Emery's unease.

"There's a gap in the outer Array. It's been poorly repaired, and I don't think it was by any of us."

"What are the chances some of the kids have been sneaking out?"

"Why would they damage the Array to do so?"

"Good point. I'll get everyone together."

"Be careful." Emery said, pressing the emotion of the words through as well.

"You too. Come back toward the center. Be careful. I love you."

"We're on our way. I love you too." Emery scanned her surroundings more deliberately, looking for anything else out of place, with both her eyes and her Domain. She turned up nothing of note.

"Alright, I think it's time for us to head back. Lia, it's almost time for you to help with dinner." Emery said, hoping they wouldn't argue with her over it.

"Is it?" Lia asked, looking up at the sky as if to divine the time by the sun's position behind the leafy canopy. "I feel like we still have some time…"

"I wanted to walk all the way," Kal whined, "and you said we could!"

"We've almost made it all the way." Emery said, despite them really only making it about two-thirds of the way around the whole basin. "And one of the paths back to the house is right here, so we should just -"

There was a loud cracking sound that not only cut Emery off, but completely drowned out her voice. The kids all slapped their hands over their ears in response to the overwhelming sound. Emery's first thought was that there was an enemy attack coming right for her or the kids. She went into high alert immediately, only taking a moment to lock onto the source of the sound.

Two large trees that were beside their walking path, overgrown with Wisteria, were leaning, their trunks breaking apart as they began to fall. Directly toward her and the kids, almost as if guided.

Emery took just a moment to close her eyes and draw from her now extensive well of Qi. It answered her call immediately, taking shape at her whims. Shard of metal formed into multiple crude blades hanging in the air. They were unfinished, missing handles and hilts, but they were still deadly sharp all the same. They whirled around the area, cutting into branches and bark, making sure that nothing of any real weight would land on her or her children.

Then Avuri's ice answered her call, freezing the trunks of the trees to hold them together. When the shattering of ice joined the sound of the breaking wood, Emery pushed more Qi at the problem, creating thicker reinforcements of ice to hold the trees together. Beyond that, she even shoved more Qi at the currently unbroken trees to reinforce their trunks, just in case they decided to join their fellows.

Meanwhile, Emery's body quickly drew her kids in close. She gathered everyone into a huddle, making sure she would be able to protect them if someone or something did appear. Kal was cowering and crying under the cover of her arms. Jak looked ashen and stared at one of the trees that had its fall halted by the ice. Lia huddled protectively over her little brothers, while Fia crouched beside them all, half under Emery's protection and half prepared to act if something else went wrong.

The group stayed together like that for a long couple moments before Avuri's mildly panicked voice sounded in Emery's head.

"Em? What's going on? Are you alright?"

Emery's entire body was on high alert. She still didn't know if there were enemies nearby, but there were too many coincidences clustered together here for her to dismiss as nothing.

"We're alright," she returned, knowing full well that Avuri would feel her combination of worry and anger, "but we may have been attacked."