Sword and Snow

Emery

It had been about two weeks since my sisters had arrived at the house, and things were going about as well as they could have. Their treatment was progressing at a solid pace, and there was marked improvement in their bodies. While it was likely to still take another few weeks before the poisons were actually removed, they were healing, and that was good enough.

In addition, my sisters, Avuri, and I were taking care of the procedures late at night after the children were all in bed. It was ostensibly to keep the injuries under wraps around the kids, at least physically. The injuries were gruesome, and Avuri and I had agreed that not allowing the kids to see them was probably for the best.

That decision had meant that basically every day since Rylie and Demi had arrived, the family spent all day in entertainment mode. We had been more active than usual, trying to keep everyone entertained through games and activities. We tried to keep things from being too physical to avoid aggravating my sisters' injuries but they were being obstinate about it and pushing themselves anyway. We ended up settling on making sure the kids understood that the two of them were hurt and to avoid touching, bumping into, or hitting where the injuries were - which was particularly difficult with Demi's injury being on her arm.

For the most part, things went by without a hitch. There were a few close calls, but we had kept everyone busy and doing stuff together for two weeks.

Then, finally, we ran out of new activities.

I honestly couldn't tell why I felt like it had suddenly fallen on me to be an entertainer, keeping everyone busy while they were visiting, but it had. I hadn't felt that way when everyone had visited for our wedding, but I idly wondered if that was because it was a much larger group visiting. With only Rylie and Demi there, it felt like I was responsible for keeping them busy.

I had managed to keep the morning interesting with a short foray out into the Verdant Peak for some herb gathering. There were some high-altitude plants that grew on the Verdant Peak that were high in nutrients and Qi alike that made for fantastic ingredients, or even light snacking once they were dried. There were even a few plants that I liked to dry out to make tea leaves, too.

But after that, I was at a loss. We ate lunch together as a big family, had a lengthy meditation session in the afternoon that didn't include any actual physical exercise, and then relaxed for a bit before a somewhat early dinner. After that…I had nothing. I even pestered Avuri for ideas, but she came up empty, too.

I took all of the dishes into the kitchen to clean up after eating, as well as store the leftovers for a snack later. My mind wandered from idea to idea while I washed plates and cups, but still came up blank.

I sighed as I put the last plate away, fully dry after my idle wiping with a dry towel. I removed and hung up my apron on the hook by the door and walked into an unexpectedly heart-warming scene in our main living space on the second floor.

I had assumed that everyone had gone outside or something because it had been relatively quiet after the boisterous chatter during the meal, but the entire family was in the large room together doing their own things.

Cierra, Stena, and Karn were seated up against a wall with Rylie, who had taken out a favorite picture book of theirs that wasn't exactly made for children. They had become enamored with an illustrated bestiary that catalogued all sorts of wild creatures, ranging from common animals to mythical beasts that might have only been stories. It was honestly a very useful and entertaining book to flip through, that I enjoyed as much as they did, and it had become a common request to read at night.

Demi, meanwhile, had Enrik, Kord, and Briar completely engrossed in art. They had slid the table that typically rested in the middle of the space to the side of the room and spread out all sorts of paper and various drawing tools all over the floor. It wasn't just the kids' tools, either; brushes and ink for calligraphy was out by Demi, along with colored paints and the thicker papers designed to hold such ink. Thankfully, it seemed the kids were more interested in the colored charcoal pencils that were bought for them and the less expensive paper that went with them.

While the kids were all busy with their own drawings, I watched Demi struggle to use her right hand to do calligraphy. Like most Cultivators, she had unnatural levels of control over her body when it came to most tasks. Higher Realms offered a much greater sense of your own body and heightened control when it came to most activities, which significantly lessened the importance of a dominant hand for most things. But Demi had been left-handed as a child, and apparently writing or drawing was not an easily transferable skill, even with increased bodily control.

Her characters looked like a child trying to copy a parent. Messy, undefined, and hesitant. All of which were not great qualities for calligraphy, unless they were done on purpose. Which was clearly not the case given Demi's expression. But each time, she simply set the piece aside and tried again.

I was, at least, thankful that she was using a finer brush and keeping the characters small to use less paper while she practiced.

Finally, my eyes settled on Avuri, who had sat down on the smaller couch with a book. She settled into the corner of what had been deemed her side of the sofa, stretching her legs out across the length of the seat comfortably. The sight made me smile and bee-line straight to her. I hopped over some of the papers and paints scattered on the floor to reach the couch, where Avuri lazily lifted her legs up so I could slip in under them before she put them back down across my lap and offered me the book I had been reading.

I took a pleasantly deep breath and settled in.

"Demi, why is your writing so bad?"

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My sister looked up and into Enrik's face, who had gotten close to look over her shoulder at her practicing, and laughed. "Because this," she said, and showed him her bandaged left arm, "is my main hand. So I have to practice with this one," she then motioned with her unbandaged right.

"Ohh." Enrik said.

Demi smiled and ruffled the boy's hair. "What about you, hm? How's your writing?"

"Not good." He said, shaking his head. "Mom and Momri are still teaching us the characters, but they're hard. And confusing."

"Could you show me what you learned?"

Enrik's face lit up as he nodded emphatically. "Yeah!"

Demi scooted over on the floor so Enrik could join her. He settled in beside her and she slid a clean sheet of paper and a small brush over to him. Apparently, Enrik sliding his other art materials away was enough to get Briar and Kord's attention because they suddenly saddled up and asked to show Demi too.

Suddenly, Demi was holding court over calligraphy and writing practice, assaulted from every front with various child-written scripts that looked as messy as hers did.

"Hey, that one looks really good." She said, pointing to a particularly neat rendition of the character for 'Hello'. Kord grinned wide at the compliment, then tried to knock Demi's hand away when she offered him the same hair-ruffling that she had given Enrik before, embarrassed by it.

I just sat on the couch watching the scene unfold over the top of my book with a smile on my face. I couldn't help it.

"Isn't this nice?" Avuri asked me mentally.

"Hm?"

"You've been so adamant about keeping everyone busy, but I don't think you need to do that."

I nodded. "You're right. This is lovely," I sent, then added, "Or at least it will be until someone inevitably spills ink all over the floor."

The snark earned me a solid poke in the side courtesy of Avuri's foot. "Who cares if they make a little mess?"

"I suppose it doesn't matter." I allowed, because it really didn't. "Honestly, I'd be more worried about the waste of money because ink and paper isn't exactly cheap."

"If we were worried about that, we would've stopped their practice and fooling around to begin with." Avuri sent.

"True." I agreed, watching my sister mess with the kids around her on the floor. I had to use a little Qi to slide an inkwell out of the way when Enrik playfully knocked Kord over, who almost rolled into it. The slightly older boy did roll over a sheet of fresh calligraphy, ending up with a solid imprint of his messy characters across his back.

Briar laughed at the mess, which set Kord to spinning around trying to see his back. After a few spins, he gave up and looked teary eyed in frustration.

"Kord." I said, getting the boy's attention. "If you're worried about getting in trouble for the mess, don't. And you can take your shirt off to see what you did."

"Oh! Right!" The boy quickly pulled the shirt over his head and fluffed it out so it laid flat on the floor so the whole group there could look over the characters.

"You know," Demi said, pointing to a particular character, "this one actually looks better on your shirt than it did on the paper."

"We keep telling Kord that he has a bit of a heavy hand." Avuri said, watching over them all with a soft smile. "If he made his strokes a little less thick, I think his handwriting would actually be quite nice."

"Not better than mine!" Cierra chirped from the far side of the room, barely looking up from the bestiary that Rylie was reading to her group.

Avuri chuckled. "No, not better than yours. Maybe you'll have some competition though…"

Cierra had taken great pride in her calligraphy. Putting aside that she was the oldest and more coordinated of the kids by a bit, her writing was genuinely worth being proud of, especially for a child. I think Cierra had caught Avuri doing formal calligraphy one time, and the sight had gotten her interested.

I could relate. It wasn't a common activity, but every now and then Avuri would dress in full traditional clothing, set out all of her calligraphy tools, and spend some time working on the skill. Watching her sit at the small table, holding her sleeve back while working on her art was breathtaking, like a painting.

And unlike her siblings, Cierra had often tried to imitate the pose when writing, even at the kitchen table on a chair. It was adorable, but her desire to follow through with it had also led her to practice enough that her calligraphy was probably on the level of the average middle-teen despite only being nine.

Kord was apparently spurred on by what Avuri had said, and was suddenly completely focused on a new paper trying his best at rewriting some of the characters. Enrik and Briar huddled around him, pointing out what looked like mistakes or what looked good to their untrained eyes.

All but ignored, Demi shuffled around them to lean her back against the couch that Avuri and I had sat on, and the three of us watched the kids go over the calligraphy.

"This is really nice." Demi muttered, just loud enough for us to hear.

"Yeah, it is." I chuckled, thinking back to what Avuri had said moments before.

Demi leaned her head back on the couch so she could meet my eyes. "Honestly, Em, we could do with more nights like this. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you trying to keep us busy, but it's not necessary. Slow nights like this are nice too."

"If you say so." I said, internally wondering if I'd be willing to just accept that. Something said that, no, I should still entertain - and that bugged me.

"I do say so. And look at Rylie." Demi pointed at their sister, who had as big a smile as I had ever seen on her face, laughing with Stena, Cierra, and Karn over something in the bestiary.

Then Demi dramatically flopped her left arm back over my lap, beside Avuri's legs and shot me a grin. "And remember we're injured, would you? Let us relax."

"Wow. Never thought I'd hear those words from either or you."

"Hey. Even we get tired."

"Just takes a near fatal injury, followed by a several day trek, and a mountain climb." Avuri interjected with a shrug.