Well, apparently it wasn't enough for Song Terem. He's Jade and not any older than she is. He's been Jade for a few years, in fact. He's somewhat famous up in the highlands, their own home-grown hero, the match of any Jade in the valley they say for all that there's no chance it's true. He's famous, polite but somewhat standoffish according to rumour, and also on the other side of the village square from her. He seems to be speaking with the village headman, their voices quiet enough that Meresankh can't overhear what's being said. Nobody is sure exactly where he came from, Song isn't an uncommon name in the highlands around the valley and no family has ever credibly claimed him.

You wouldn't necessarily guess there was anything extraordinary about him from a distance until you use your copper sight and notice the armour he's wearing is entirely made of scales of forged force madra. It's that, in fact, that tips her off to exactly who she's looking at.

Oh gosh, it's the prodigy Jade. He's kind of handsome, honestly. She's heard about him of course but she can't help taking a longer look because frankly he's nice to look at, he's like her dream boy — 

Wait, no, what is she thinking. She's — the boy in her dreams doesn't have his face, but it's clear to her that the two are the same. The mannerisms are right, and she's sure she's seen him around once or twice before. She's been mooning after this ridiculous prodigy with his Jade-stage core and his tremendous... power... for absolutely far too long.

That's just like her. Always wanting what she can't have. 

Her gaze skates away from him. She's talented, yeah, but the distance between Iron and Jade might as well be the whole length of the valley. The Golden Sword school keeps the powerful peaks for themselves up here, and she's never been invited close. She's strong, but strong for a clanless, school-less child. Not actually strong, for all that her family calls her a prodigy. 

But this boy is the real thing. 

... oh well. 

She goes back to her ice-loading, packing it in with straw, keeping it safe from the noonday sun. 

Some distances are never meant to be crossed.

The similarity really is apparent once she sees him move. He holds himself exactly the same way, shoulders in the same position, the little fast nod he gives at something the village headman says, the cutting gesture he makes with a hand at something else. The face being different makes sense- this is the closest she's ever been to him.

As the conversation with the headman ends he looks around the square and apparently he notices her family. A spark of recognition enters his eyes and he wanders over. "The Xue family, correct? Any news from farther up the mountains?"

Her father relays some minor news, but nothing suggesting he needs to head up to the mountains quickly to handle some dangerous remnant or sacred beast. Oh well. Off he walks to the inn, humming a tune as he goes.

It's a familiar tune. It calls to mind an image of her running her fingers through his hair, soft notes falling from her lips. 

She thinks there were words to this song, but she can't recall them. 

It makes her feel a little oddly sad for some reason.

What is she imagining. Stroking a stranger's hair is just a straight up no-no! Much less a strange boy's, much less a strange prodigy boy's! No way she would ever get away with stroking the hair of a Jade, even if he is her age! 

She shakes her head to clear it and tries to focus on loading the ice. She's moving slowly because she's distracted and that won't do. She's the one in the family who has the easiest time hauling these big blocks around and getting them into the cart, anyway.

She finds the song catching in her mind. Where has she heard it before... In a dream? When she last saw him? It's not a popular song, the tune's all wrong. 

She suppresses her traitorous urge to hum it back, and hauls another heavy block into the cart.

And off he heads, moving on to chat with other people on the other side of the square. Perhaps the rumours of his standoffish nature were exaggerated? But no, they're staying in the same inn (really just a tavern with a few rooms one can rent off to the side usually used for storage) and she can see him on his own on the other side of room, alone. Oh, if people walk up to him to talk he seems willing enough to respond, but he never seeks anyone out the rest of the evening or the following morning before he leaves.

He leaves before her family does- they still have goods to sell. On the other hand, he's walked in, seen no problems present that are best solved by a sword, and determined the next town over is calling his name. He leaves in the direction her family came from.

He's standoffish, huh. She supposes she knows what that's like. The other girls her age are so shallow, by and large. Few of them even really read much other than to learn the odd technique. 

She can relate. 

(Her fingers, running through hair...) 

Why does she keep daydreaming about that? Why is it so clear? 

She takes a steadying breath. There's work to do, after all. 

She doesn't see him again the next morning. She supposes that's good. She has places to be, after all. Another loop down through the hills to deliver food and ice for storehouses. It's summer, after all, and there's only so long you can keep a block of ice cold without ice madra, even a large one.

Xue Meresankh tries to put the implausible Jade boy out of her mind. 

But even as her and her family make their rounds through the lowlands, it feels like a switch has been flipped in her brain. She listens to the rumors about Song Terem more carefully now. 

They say he talks to everyone once...

So if she wants to impress him she'll only get one try.

Ugh, she keeps slipping into daydreaming about him... 

So many fantasies of his smile, his voice, his gentle hands. His hands in her hair as he croons to her that song he was humming. The words are foggy, indistinct.

Come on, Meres, you have to focus. 

He's a Jade and you're an Iron.

They say he's ruined his spirit. That he uses Forging and Enforcement almost equally, so much that he must be weak in both of them from the imbalance. That's what they whisper about him when they don't think he's listening. A broken Jade, they say. 

Strangely enough, that gives her a little flutter of hope. 

If he's a weak enough Jade, maybe he's close enough. Maybe she can reach him. Maybe it's not impossible. He's not Clan. He's not part of a School. Maybe... Maybe she can catch up. Just maybe.

Oh who is she trying to fool. 

She's head over heels. She keeps seeing him in her dreams, that damn smile of his, that bouncy humming, firm hands, warmth, not being alone —

She should get over it. She really should. 

It's hard to let go, though. 

... Maybe she'll see him again when this round of deliveries is over. Until then, she should put him out of her mind, and train. Train hard. Just in case. 

Near the end of the loop the rumours shift. He's absent, a longer stretch between visits than normal. He has a circuit, you see, if not a perfectly stable one. Still, it's not usual for him to go quite this long without passing through this village, and then the next says the same thing. It's usually a visit every couple months, and now it's been four. Nothing tremendously worrying, and this has happened a couple times before, but it's still a bit odd.

She was going to ask, when she saw him again. 

She was going to try to get to know him. 

But he isn't there, when her family return to the mountains to gather their fall ice. 

She won't be back again until after the winter. No need to return to the mountains for ice when the valley's river is frozen. 

It hurts. It hurts, and she doesn't know why. It's not as if she knows him through anything but stories. 

It's just... there is an emptiness inside her, and he would fit there. He would fit there so neatly.

She goes back to her training, but her heart falters a little. 

She's chasing a fantasy. A pretty little dream in her head. 

She knows that. She knows that, but...

She hasn't gotten this far by not trying.

And her instincts say... her heart says... 

It's hard to hear. Hard to listen, over the fear of rejection. But her heart seems set on this impossible goal. That's what it says. 

So she trains, and she works, and she hopes.

Fall passes into winter.

She'll see him again soon... 

She's being a damn fool. She's seen him what, three times. Mooning over the clanless Jade. She's not the only girl afflicted so. She's met others. Others who fantasize about being his. And none of them are.

She should really cut her losses and try some other boy...

But she just can't seem to let go. 

The dreams won't fade. She sees his face, hears his voice, too many times a day. Even though he's somewhere up in the mountains, and she's here, down on the plains. 

She hopes she sees him again soon. 

It's spring by the time she sees him again. On the way up into the highlands he's just there in a large town, on the other side of the inn's common room. A real inn this time, this river is at the end of the navigable waters of one of the Sacred River's main tributaries and so quite a bit of overland trade goes through here. 

He looks the same, but his scaled armour covers more of him now, a shorter hauberk almost shaped like a breastplate over scale leggings rather than just the knee-length hauberk of before. He's even got boots and gloves of incredibly small interlocking scales. Surely he has to be a Forger by inclination to have that much forged madra? He can't be forging it frequently, there's simply too much of it.

She finally gets to see him again... 

Finally, finally. 

Okay breathe, breathe girl, you are only going to get one shot at this. You have to draw his attention and do your best. You had a plan, right? What was the plan? Oh god what was the plan — 

Just breathe. Breathe and listen to your heart.

She gets up, comes over to Terem's chair, self-conciously adjusts the Iron badge that hangs from her neck, puts her fists together and bows low. 

"Excuse me, honored Jade — I — I'm Xue Meresankh, and I wanted to ask — I wanted to ask if I could speak to you?"

Honoured Jade, that's formal. He looks up at her, mouth opening, ready to tell her she certainly can, to try to salve that nervousness he can hear-

And then he notices her badge. Iron. Not, perhaps, as impressive as Jade but- yes, she just said Xue. Not a clan member out away from their usual lands but someone who managed Iron at what, seventeen or eighteen on her own? That's impressive. Oh, yes, that exact thought is one he's had before! He remembers her, if barely. He ran into her family last year. The ice merchants.

"Yes, you certainly can," he says, eyes flicking up from her badge to her face, his tone warm and the fact that he considers her a bit impressive audible in his words. It's true, but also she sounds nervous and he can't help wanting to put her at ease a bit.

Some of the tension goes from her. She gets a chance, at least. Now how to approach this...

She takes a moment to compose her thoughts, then forges ahead. 

"You're somewhat famous among the clanless, as I'm sure you're aware. I don't recall when I first heard your name, as a shadow on the horizon. I think I thought you were made up. But then I saw you last year, up in the peaks, and I knew at once from your forged armour that you were the real thing."

"Ever since I saw you then, my mind's been occupied with thoughts of you. For a clanless I'm generally considered a prodigy, but looking up at you I suddenly had a sense of someone who surpassed me entirely. Someone who, without the help of a clan or a school, had managed to make Jade when I had only made Iron. You felt... formidable. And I couldn't help but notice that you were handsome as well." 

"I know I am merely an Iron and cannot expect to beg favours even from a clanless Jade..."

"But I deeply desire to know you better, both as a person and as a challenge to my skills. I want to keep learning, keep training, keep building, and you have been my target to compare to for the past year, as I try to push further on my self-made path and build something worth calling a Madra style of my own."

"Thank you for considering my humble request."

She's brave. He's not entirely sure whether she's effectively walked up to him and asked to start courting him or whether she just wants help on her path and is flattering him, but if he doesn't miss his mark that exact level of indirectness is something she's doing deliberately. So he can just pretend not to notice, if he'd rather.

He would, in fact, rather. He has a lot of things to do, and he just doesn't have the time for a proper relationship. Not with someone who couldn't keep up with him, who he'd have difficultly bringing on his circuit, who he'd have to keep secrets from.

But he can help her. It's interesting that her path is self made, and he admires her bravery and the skill she must have to have managed what she has at her age. She doesn't have his advantages. And if she does... well, then he definitely wants to interact with her some more and find out.

"Self made, you said? Not the one your family follows? Mine is too, I can perhaps offer some advice regarding that, or consult if you have a half-finished technique. I can't imagine your family's techniques work perfectly with a different madra aspect. And I'm always willing to make a new friend, even if my travel tends to mean I see my friends less often than I'd like."

He likes friends, and he also likes having dry places to sleep. These two facts synergize pleasantly. In truth he mostly has acquaintances rather than friends, but it's close enough for the time being.

She schools her face to neutrality, but if Song Terem is good at reading expressions he may have caught a hint of disappointment.

It's okay though. She hasn't been rejected entirely. She'll have more chances.

She's just got to be honest.

She clears her throat. The words are sticking for some reason.

"Yes, that is the case, Honored Jade. My family is originally Ice madra, as you might imagine, but as I've grown I've become increasingly attached to Sword madra as well. I think my cycling technique is better than most students my age, and I've made a bit of a preoccupation with dabbling in Sword and Ice techniques to study madra flows as best I can as we travel. I cycle my madra using the blocks of ice my family gathers with their ice-saws still present, and have been trying from both the Ice side and from the Sword side to build a proper madra technique, but I feel that my path is still missing something..." 

Something like you.

"As for points of improvement, my cycling technique has always been a little unusual. I have different instincts for what helps grow one's core than many people, I think. It seems to work well but the rhythm of it is somehow off, and I don't know what's causing it. If you would be willing to offer advice..."

He's not going to ask her to stop calling him Honored Jade so soon, for all that he finds himself wanting to. Something about her manner is soothing. But no, he has a role to play that's expected of him, and if he insists on informality too quickly that's liable to be make people nervous. He learned that a long time ago, he's not going to shift from what people expect of him now. 

"Dabbling in techniques? My, that's actually very impressive while travelling like your family does. You can't have more than a few days to pick up the basics and learn the madra flows."

He pauses for a moment.

"Hmm, cycling... could you perform the cycling technique for a few cycles and then describe what you're doing for me?" That order because then he sees what she's actually doing before hearing what she's trying to do. His Jade sense aren't so sharp that he can be sure hearing what he's supposed to be seeing won't blind him to what's actually there. 

"Of course, Honored Jade." 

She sits (at the table since she is apparently invited) and tries to focus. 

She settles herself as best she can, closes her eyes, and cycles madra, her breath rising and falling slowly. 

Out, out far to the edges of her fingertips, almost far enough to form her madra claws, then hold it there for a long moment, then draw it in and compress it into her core. Out, then hold, then in. She's been told by some people she's pushing the madra out too far and for too long, but that just seems wrong to her. This way feels natural. And she's not going to argue with results. 

She does a dozen slow cycles like that, trying to give Terem a good look at her technique, and then at last opens her eyes. 

"So there's my technique," she says. "It feels to me that — the further out I can push the madra while being able to return it to my core, the better it feels instinctually as training. The longer distance the madra travels seems to matter somehow. I've been told that I'm risking losing madra through my fingertips, but I'm good at the technique and have very little bleed when I do it properly. It's like... the further distance is a heavier weight to lift than most people are training with, or something like that."

Hmm. That's a little familiar, actually. It's not so similar, but a bit of the movement in her madra is faintly reminiscent of how she did it, how he does it, how they would cycle together when they were young, holding hands just to be close-

He clears his mind of the memories and pays close attention.

"I would agree on the risk of madra loss, but as far as I can tell you really are losing none which just makes it into an excellent way to train control. From what I know of things it isn't so much the distance itself that's helping your cycling technique work better than most, although the analogy of heavier weight is a very good one. Rather, it's the amount of time you have a large portion of your madra out of your core, and the fact that you're moving such a large portion at all. I could of course be wrong, I don't know everything, but I expect the distance is primarily useful for training your control and for- making the movement of that much madra and the time it spends away from your core natural."

He pauses for a moment and thinks, treating her cycling technique and the Enforcer's shield in the centre of her badge as a puzzle. How to combine those, what would be best as the foundation for an Enforcement-focused technique set...

Meresankh nods, and waits patiently, allowing him the time to think. It would just be rude to interject when he's clearly working the problem. 

"I think the most obvious thing is to extend it, actually. Move it out to nearly in your skin, all along your hands like gloves, and see if you can make it work to eventually perhaps cover all of your skin. That would help your practice your control even more, and make it more natural to move even more of your madra from your core. Moving that much away and then stuffing it back in is likely training your core for capacity quite well. Although to be clear trying for full-body coverage like that immediately is likely a bit unwise and may end up taking more time than just cycling to more of your body with each cycle."

Another, much briefer pause.

"If I had to guess, your current enforcement technique involves your hands acting like icy claws, and perhaps something like gauntlets? I think a cycling technique like I suggest would help you expand that to making your skin act a little like armour. The madra motion to do that wouldn't be so different from your standard cycling technique, and a similarity like that can help support techniques and make them quick and natural to use."

"Thank you, Honored Jade. I will try your suggestions, for certain. Extending the cycling technique so it is almost one with Enforcement seems like an obviously good idea, and I thank you for your insight."

Should she ask or should she not ask, it's tremendously rude of her but she is deeply curious.

"I have another question. Please feel free not to answer, as I believe it to be somewhat nosy. I've heard rumors that you are a Forger, and rumors that you are an Enforcer, and... the occasional rumor that you've ruined your spirit by doing too much of both. But from the armor you wear today, it seems unlikely that you are anything but Forger, given the density, fineness and extensiveness of your armor. Do you have some — way of emulating Enforcement techniques with Forging? Is that even possible? Or are the rumours I've been hearing mere hearsay?" 

"Ah, I do not, I'm simply incredibly reckless. I have the assuredly brilliant and certainly not staggeringly unwise plan of mapping out exactly when the degradation sets in and stopping there, thus allowing myself more general capability than allowed to those more cautious. I focus nearly half as much on my Enforcement as I do my Forging. I would not, strictly speaking, recommend you try the same thing. The Heaven's Glory elder I met seemed certain the degradation had already set in and I was simply failing to notice. I consider that unlikely, as if he were correct his Forger techniques should have been noticeably better than mine rather than simply a hair greater than their equal. I consider the rumours I've ruined my spirit to be helpful, frankly, they keep any school from finding me a threat and barring me from their territory."

What he's saying is even mostly true.

She can't help it, she stifles a little laugh. That's just so ridiculous and yet it seems to be paying off for him. Clearly he's got some advantage or some knowledge — a master from one of the schools who knows the boundary better? A clever trick to be able to notice the degradation sooner? Something like that. But it would just be rude not to play along, so she nods and smiles. 

"Thank you for the information, Honored Jade. I promise not to follow your reckless example until I figure out how precisely you're getting that boundary so accurately. And of course, if you would like to tell me more about your Enforcement techniques I'd love to hear it."

"My theory is that I'm simply innately better than nearly anyone else at noticing the exact point something begins to change in my spirit, a belief which is certainly not suspect at all or the sort of thing a proverbial fool would say moments before receiving his deserved comeuppance."

A momentary pause again. And then, "You know, I think ice and sword madra in fact might get along somewhat with my Enforcer technique. Not well but enough to perhaps give you a few ideas. Why don't we head outside, it will be easier to demonstrate with a bit of space to move."

"Of course, Master Terem. You are beyond a doubt the most skilled sacred artist in this whole valley." 

She puts a teasing lilt into her tone, so anyone who overhears can tell she doesn't mean it seriously. One has to be careful as an unclanned artist. 

"But yes, I would love to see a demonstration!"

She gets to see a real life Jade in action! Not only that, she gets to see Terem in action! 

(And she might also learn something but that's honestly kind of a footnote.)

She takes a moment to center herself, and then stands and walks to the door at a normal and dignified pace rather than skipping, bouncing, or otherwise giving any sign of excessive excitement. 

(She knows she's not really fooling anyone after how excitedly she said yes, but it matters to her that she does not make a massive nuisance of herself to Terem. And a sacred artist must have her dignity.)

She's really cute but he absolutely does continue to have too much to do. Leaving her behind would be sad.

He thinks Yu would have liked her.

Would like her if they met. Not would have liked her. She's not gone, she can't be gone. He just has to keep looking.

He follows behind her, the little surge of emotion kept off his face. Outside the door is the village green, an area of fresh grass in the centre of town. He calls up his enforcer technique. In Meresankh's copper sight it extends a good few inches past his body, a diffuse cloud. But it's thick like a layer of thin water around his skin and armour. That's a bit more complicated than is typical even for an actual Enforcer, but then again he is a Jade.

"I think the way it works is best demonstrated rather than explained." He holds up an arm. "Try to punch my forearm?"

"Gladly!" 

And she settles into horse stance and throws a proper punch at Terem's forearm. He's a Jade, if she can punch him and have it actually hurt him that's probably because he messed up.

And the strike starts to deflect away inches from his armour as soon as it impacts the edge of that few inches of haze, a light touch shifting the direction of her fist just enough that the punch strikes his armour at a bit of an angle. When her fist comes into contact with the thicker madra surrounding his armour it deflects like it's hit something hard and slippery.

"And that's what it does defensively. Offensively it speeds my motions and reinforces my strikes. I don't know how well your madra will serve for speed or for the subtle deflection my technique provides farther out, but that harder deflection is likely something you can imitate. Ice is slippery and hard, after all, and what does one do with a sword defensively if not parry?"

Xue catches herself rather than overbalancing, but it's still clear to her that she'd be wide open for a counter-strike in a real fight. That deflection is intense. 

"Wow, it's like my fist completely bounced off. Every strike against you is glancing even before it hits the inner armour, and then it goes completely wild when it hits the harder surface beneath. That's amazing." 

Meresankh shakes out the glancing blow on her fist, and tries to push her own Madra out into a layer around her hand, trying her best to copy the thicker inner layer of Terem's armour. Not a claw but a — spiked gauntlet —

She's met simpler armour techniques not too different from each layer on their own before, but replicating the double layers would be incredibly difficult, especially with her own differently-aspected Madra...

She knows well before she gets there that the technique's too far a reach from her existing ice claws. It's slow and she has to clumsily shove Madra around to get it to go where she wants to, rather than having it work properly from the outset. But testing carefully with her other hand - there's a kinda sorta slippery-sharp surface there. She's not sure how to make it more or less slippery or more or less sharp but it feels like it could maybe be the beginning of something. Maybe if she drilled it for long enough... 

She lets go the technique and shakes her head. No use wasting her instructor's time. "Thank you for the insight, Honored Jade. I think I will have to think seriously and perhaps perform some experiments regarding how to make my techniques produce a similar deflection using my own Madra."

He raises an eyebrow as he watches her shape her madra into something almost like a glove, a bit of surprise on his face. My, that was fast.

"I suspect you don't quite want the same thing, your aspects perhaps lean more to harder deflection and could have quite a bit more difficulty with something like the outer layer of my technique. Sword madra is often considered a subtype of force, but it's rather specialized in the cut. And the ice aspect of your madra means it is likely going to work better than force for reinforcing your body all the way through- I have armour of force madra twice over and can augment the power of my movements, but the flesh beneath is not much more durable than if I had no Enforcer technique running at all."

He could develop something that worked like that for him, but it would simply be less efficient. Different madra types have different strengths. And as far as he's concerned it's better to take no damage at all than to take reduced damage.

"Better not to take damage if you can avoid it, though, even if you have an armour technique. I fought a spirit cougar remnant three years ago and it managed to claw my right forearm as it died. Defensive wound. My armour-technique took the worst of the blow, but I still had a nasty set of scratches that took weeks to heal. Over a career as a monster hunter or warrior, those kinds of injuries can slowly add up until you're no longer able to advance. Your technique has the right idea." 

"In fact, I'm a little annoyed at not having thought of the idea to deflect blows away with my armour rather than relying on evasion and parries. It's a relatively straightforward idea, and clearly better in the long run if you have a compatible madra type."

She supposes that's what being a Jade is about, in part: having the insight to make the right call on a thousand little things like that, to squeeze every little advantage for everything it's worth... 

"Thank you for your time and insight, Honored Jade. You've given me a lot to consider. May I ask how long you're likely to be in town for? I want to take some time to try and develop these ideas, and would love to be able to share my progress with you." 

(She'd probably be pushing it to extend this conversation even further, even though he does seem interested. And risking a foray into a topic other than sacred artistry would be entirely too forward. It's not fair, but she should back off to make sure Terem doesn't feel threatened. She doesn't want to act as if she's hopeless over him, even if she is, so... best to wrap things up and try to meet him again soon.)

"A woman after my own heart," he says when she mentions avoiding rather than taking damage.

Then, at the end "I was planning to leave on the morrow, in fact. I tend to move quickly."

But- that skill. It's impressive. It would almost be a shame to leave her to forge on alone without any help at all. He doesn't want to make her more sad than she has to be, he finds himself enjoying her company already. Yu really would like her. Most of all he's curious. He checked once already, but what if something went wrong?

"But I can add a day or two to my stay, and travel with your family to the next village and go my own separate way there. If I don't miss my mark, you'll be heading farther into the valley, yes? We'd be taking the same road. Ending up in all the same places a few days later isn't such a grand sacrifice. I really can't emphasize enough that that little experiment you just did was very impressive, it's honestly not much slower than I could try something new like that myself. It's not all that often I get to play the role of mentor to anyone who can learn quite so quickly that I can actually help them in just a few days. I'm afraid I don't have the requisite beard, however. I never could grow one, but I can purchase a wig and wear it on my chin if need be."

That gets a small smile, and a deep bow of appreciation, fists pressed together.

"You are correct, Honored Jade. Thank you for your time and all your praise. I will do my utmost not to disappoint you."

(YES YES YES YES YES YES YES)

Meresankh's inner rejoicing can perhaps be detected by a faint rosy hue on her cheeks, but little more than that shows through. 

(She is trying so hard not to laugh at the joke because she can just tell that if she were to start laughing she'd probably start babbling like an idiot too and that would look so, so bad.)

He pauses, then, "You know, in all of my excitement I completely forgot I need to eat. I have yet to invent a technique to avoid this, although I assure you I am trying. Some day, I will eat the madra. In the meantime, I do believe I'll depart and avail myself of more mortal foods. Don't hesitate to interrupt me if you make any progress, or find yourself stuck. Or, ah, simply come back with me, I presume you are also not yet capable of subsisting on madra and perhaps were also in the inn's common area for that reason."

"As much as I'd like to start making progress this instant, I too need to eat. I simply couldn't hesitate to take the opportunity."

"... My family will likely be wondering where I am as well since they would have been expecting me back after lunch, and it's been what, fifteen minutes what with the demonstration and all?" 

"There shouldn't be anything urgent, deliveries out to village houses usually don't happen until later in the evening, but it would likely be good if I filled them in on your travel plans and maybe introduced you, since we'll be traveling together over the next few days."

"In any case I need the ice to cycle, so I should be heading that direction anyway."

"That is, after lunch, I mean. I'm sure they'd spare me a few moments more." 

Especially if I'm talking up a eligible Jade and getting technique tips. 

"I do suppose it isn't every day you get a Jade to give you some tips. Or, well, for me it is, all I need to do is give myself tips, but that's cheating."

He orders some rather fancy food for himself, he can more than afford it. Well, fancy for a town inn, it's really nothing more than good meat prepared well with some greens on the side.

Xue orders a fish dish, which is tasty enough but noticeably less expensive; the ice business is doing well, but not that well, and while it's worth making Terem feel like her meal is basically comparable it's silly to try to keep up the appearance of being as wealthy as a Jade when she'd have to maintain that for an unknown period. 

"I have to admit that I've never actually spoken with a Jade before until today. While the mountains are the Schools' territory, it's not as if my family talks to them regularly. Some people think that since I come up here I must know important people, but..." 

She shakes her head.

"Have you met many other Jades yourself? You mentioned meeting with a Heaven's Glory elder at one point. Do the schools mostly leave you alone, or do you find yourself having to handle politics a lot?" 

"They haven't tried to ban you from giving yourself tips, or something like that, have they? From what I've seen already maybe they should." 

"I've met a fair number. Golden Sword sent a Jade who wasn't an Elder to meet with me and talk about joining their school back when I was an Iron but was visibly on the cusp of advancement. I declined, which she seemed insulted by until I explained that it was because my Path was too entrenched for me to retrain to their madra types. Not entirely true and not the actual reason I turned down the offer, but she didn't need to know that. I've met an Elder of all three clans to negotiate freedom to move through their lands in exchange for gifts and tribute. And I met who I believe was plausibly the only other clanless Jade at the time, an incredibly old man who lived outside the valley proper and was trying to cycle his way to Gold in a cave. He had a theory the remnant absorption was a myth and in reality advancement to gold simply caused your own remnant to partially manifest itself in your body, turning you a kind of half-remnant. A fascinating theory. He wasn't there the next time I visited- I hope he succeeded and is out exploring the wilds as he dreamed, but I fear he fell to the spirit beasts of the deep wilderness."

It's relatively common knowledge that the far wilderness away from Sacred Valley is filled with Spirit Beasts and Remnants of Jade power, and many of them hunt in packs. The school elders sometimes go on hunting trips, or the patriarch of a clan to prove his might. Every once in a while someone gets the bright idea to try to start up a village far from the valley and gather up a group of people to try it and all of them die.

"Wow, sounds exciting and not a little bit tense. I hope that old master made Gold as well."

She pauses, trying to marshal her conversational acumen. Her mind is whirling; for whatever reason, Terem already seems to be making really surprisingly unguarded remarks. Rejecting a School's offer to join for unspecified personal reasons sure does suggest he has some personal plan, doesn't it? But what could it be? She doesn't dare ask this soon, but from what she's seen so far he has greater ambitions...

"This is a foolish question maybe, but now you have me thinking. Your advancement's this fast even outside a school, and you're turning down alliances... Do you really believe you can make Gold? No-one's done that for hundreds of years, but you seem the type to try from what little I've seen of you."

He grins. "Now, you'd think that that might touch on something a bit private, but in fact every Jade I've had a long conversation with thinks they might be the one to make Gold. Jades are just rare enough that being the first in a few hundred years really only means you need to be, what, the one in a thousand? And every Jade has been one in a thousand since they started comparing themselves to their peers. Rarer than that, in fact, the Valley has a million people or more in it and a bare few hundred Jades. It breeds a certain sense that you can do the impossible. And I've done more impossible than most, haven't I, getting this far on my own? I'm sensible enough to know I probably won't actually manage it, the raw power necessary to hold the remnant seems to slip away from everyone who grasps for it, but why not try?"

"One in a thousand out of one in a thousand, huh..." 

She takes another bite of her fish. "If you can overcome the odds once, maybe you can do it again. I'm sure all the clanless will be cheering for you. And I know I will be." 

"I do wonder if maybe that elder had the right idea. Or one of the right ideas. Maybe it's not raw power, but something more complex. Maybe the remnant idea is wrong somehow. There's been so few Golds that it's very possible that the 'common wisdom' isn't right; it's not as if anyone's witnessed a Gold breakthrough for hundreds of years."

Knowledge is power. If you were a gold, would you tell everyone how you did it....?  

Well of course he would if it wouldn't get him killed somehow, but he's well aware he's odd.

"Longer than that, actually. Did you know none of the credible histories describe any ascensions? In the few cases specific Golds are mentioned by name they even tend to disagree on where they came from. There's notable disagreement about whether Vorias was from Heaven's Glory, Fallen Leaf, or perhaps one of the clans. There's even disagreement about whether Vorias was his name or a title. It certainly has an odd shape to it."

"Huh."

She chews on that along with her fish for a long few minutes. 

"If that's the case, does that mean there's a chance that Gold wasn't even from the valley? I have no idea where they would have come from, but if they were a Gold they wouldn't be threatened by most of the beasts of the wilderness, and they'd be able to move even faster than a Jade going at full speed..." 

"Maybe it's like an Iron body and becoming Gold makes you stop aging entirely. Then all the historical Golds could just be one individual who mostly lives out in the wilderness and only drops by the valley from time to time. I've certainly heard of eccentric elders like that." 

"If there was a historical Gold, what happened to them? Did they die? Leave the valley? You'd think either of those things would be noticed..."

"I never really expected I'd make Gold, and I don't have access to the history books, so I can't say I've really thought about any of this before. But it's interesting, isn't it? If there's a Gold every thousand years or so, what happened to them?"

"The histories, of course, also disagree on what happened to Vorias. One claims he was killed by a small child with a halfsilver dagger- that one I consider rather unlikely. Another that an alliance of the schools put paid to him. And a third that he simply vanished. Which is probably why you didn't know, the story they tell varied from village to village and I think eventually mostly stopped being told at all. For the older tales, we only have names and some claimed feats of strength, nothing about their fates. It could just be one person, provided they're willing to appear as a woman sometimes and a man others. In one breath you'll see an old Gold praised for defeating a raven Remnant that was apparently rather frightening, and in another you'll see tale of a Gold knocking down a mountain. Perhaps they've just been slowly gathering power for ten thousand years, but it seems the older tales are the ones that claim more impressive acts. Perhaps all the power is slowly leaking out of the world and we're just all that's left, and the beasts claimed the rest of the world as we diminished."

A short pause.

"Something that nobody tends to mention is that if you go too far from the valley, more than a few weeks of travel at Jade speeds, the beasts become- wrong. Strange things of monstrous power, rotting alive. If you do hit Jade some day- be careful. Don't stray too far from Sacred Valley unless you have a large party of Jades with you, and even then, if the beasts become wrong, turn around."

"Whoa."

"Maybe that's what happens to you if you advance for a thousand years like a spirit beast can, but don't hit Gold. Maybe taking in too much aura is — toxic, somehow, over the very long term, changes your spirit..." 

"It does make me less confused about where all the Gold spirit beasts are, though. Maybe the remnant rumor is true, and if you don't do it in a controlled fashion..."

"I don't know. All of this is speculation. Maybe some of it is somewhere near the truth. All I know for sure right now is that there's a lot more uncertainty around how to get to Gold and what it even does than I expected. Maybe getting to Gold is somehow a bad thing just in general? All we seem to have is legends, and that not very corroborated..."

"My instincts say that Gold exists, because there must be something generating the legends, and I don't see a principled reason for why madra manipulation would just stop having stages. Maybe there's even something after Gold and we just don't know because there have been too few Golds in the valley. But how to get there... is very, very up in the air."

She's very clever and he finds himself quite appreciating this about her. It's a shame about the everything else in his life.

"Mine say something similar. There must be something generating the legends and the histories. But really, the more you learn the more confused you get. Presumably it reverses at some point. If not I suppose we know where all the Golds went, they got so confused they decided to wash their hands of the world and go live in caves where the confusing nature of the world couldn't bother them."

"Maybe that's where gold the metal comes from. Golds make it from rocks with earth madra and trade it for all the nice comforts of home. This would be a secret organization of literally underground Golds, you understand." 

"More seriously, I think it's likely that if Golds live a long time there's at least one in the Valley somewhere living a quiet life and not showing off. There's nothing else for thousands of miles and living in the wilderness with twisted wrong creatures sounds tantamount to suicide, or at least unpleasant enough that it's unlikely you'd want to do it for thousands of years. They'd have to be lying low."

He chuckles at "literally underground Golds," visibly holding himself back from barking out a laugh.

"You know, it wouldn't surprise me that much if there were a Gold in hiding somewhere. They'd have to keep their core veiled at all times lest a passing Jade happen to notice they had far more power than they should, but who's to say a Gold can't do such a thing?"

Meresankh finishes off the last of her fish and nods to Terem, conceding the point. "Or they could simply live somewhere where Jades don't go. In unclanned lands, or something like that. Like I said, I'd never spoken to a Jade before I met you."

"For all we know my dad could be one."

She barely manages to conceal her smile at that. Her father is really, really not the type.

"Well, now that I've valiantly defeated my food, we should likely go to talk with your family. Hearing from you that I plan to join you without discussing it with them myself- it'd rather be like inviting myself into your house. Something nobody would dare to begrudge a Jade, but frankly I desire to keep a stronger hold of my manners than that."

"My mother wouldn't say it within earshot of you, but she'd tell me to be careful around strange charming men and respectful to strange Jades. You are, unfortunately, both." 

And I think I love you for it already. 

"Or should I say all three of strange, charming and Jade? We've certainly covered some odd topics in the last few minutes."

"But I'll be honest, I don't think she's got anything to worry about from the way you comport yourself around me."

Other than the fact I'm head over heels for you, I mean. But that's not your comportment. 

"My father will probably be hugely in favour. He's always been like that. Very... direct. I guess you could say I learned how to be honest from him."

She stands up from her place. "Shall we be off?"

"Certainly."

And off he follows her. He's a bit too old to be nervous about meeting her parents, and in fact he's talked with the two of them a few times before, once even back when he was just a very promising Iron. He thinks he may have actually exchanged a few words with Meresankh back then, but he doesn't remember them. He does know he would have tested her, he tests everyone he meets, not that any of them can tell.

Okay, talking to her parents shouldn't be too hard, they should be supportive if maybe a bit confused. She's got this. Probably. Probably maybe. 

It's a short walk over to where her family's ice cart stands, tight-packed in the shadow of one of the village's taller buildings to keep the sun off. Her mother is standing guard and chilling the whole cart, while her father is taking orders from villagers and writing them up on his lap desk. Occasionally her mother cuts in with an addition to what her father's saying to a customer, but mostly she's focusing on keeping the perishables cold in the spring sun. 

"Hello mom, hello dad," Meresankh starts with a deep breath. "This is Song Terem, I think you've met him before once or twice. I've been wondering for a long time how he managed to make Jade, and today when I saw him I took the opportunity to ask him for a few pointers. We got to talking, and he did a small technique demonstration for me, and we had lunch. I would like your permission for him to travel alongside us for a few days while I try to practice the techniques he's shown me."

Meresankh's mother looks over, and performs a formal bow, her expression a polite smile. "It's an honor to see you again," she says to Terem. "I will have to confer with my husband."

Meresankh's father looks up from his ledger, and his voice rings out, warm and boisterous. "Ah, yes, the clanless prodigy! Just like my daughter!" 

He looks over at Meresankh and gets a broad smile. "So he's the one you've been mooning after for the past year. I knew there was someone but I never knew your standards were that high!"

"Faaaatheerrrrrr, come on —"

"I'm only teasing, of course. The Honored Jade is welcome to travel with us." He bows to Terem and offers another wide smile.

He's going to ignore the comment about mooning, Meresankh seems like she'd probably prefer that.

"My thanks. Your daughter approached me for some advice on her path and we discovered both that there seems to be some similarity between force and her combination of ice and sword, and also discovered she picks up new techniques fast enough to actually get some use out of the limited mentorship I can offer before my path calls me onward. I've tried teaching before and it's never quite worked, I move on too quickly."

"That sounds like my daughter alright. From what I've seen of her, I'm confident she'll be able to learn whatever you have to teach."

Meresankh's mother gives her father a small look and nods. "I am certain my daughter will acquit herself with honor."

"Thank you, mother, father. I won't let you down."

That night, she dreams she's sitting on a blanket beneath an archway covered with vines, weeping roses drooping down its side. All around her is the enclosing hush of a deep, still forest, the individual trees blurring together into a mass of green. With staticky senses she tries to solidify a technique, her breath not quite steady as she cycles madra. The madra in her shifts and roils, alive in her hands and fighting her, the technique resisting her will. She's getting nowhere. 

"Careful there. I think if you keep trying to force it like that you'll end up trapped in an angry briar patch. Maybe try going slower, actually? I think sometimes it resists when you push harder."

He's grinning at her, expression warm and gentle. It's a different face, though, but the way he talks is just the same, and so is his smile.

She slows down, and the technique uncoils rather than hitching, its rebellion quelled. Her breathing comes back to normal and her madra flows more easily.

"Of course you're right," she says. "Maybe next time you'll listen to your instincts before you end up slamming your face into a tree, hmm?"

"That was one time! Or perhaps four. How was I supposed to know the answer to all life's problems isn't "Use more power?" Truly, to mock me for such an unavoidable error you are a cruel and heartless woman. Evil beyond mortal imagination!"

He's beaming at her, so, so much love in his eyes.

"Truly, the ashen depths of my heart are a mystery beyond mortal ken. Not that that should excuse you with all the practice you've had at kenning them!" She breaks down giggling, pulls him in close, and kisses him soundly.

He starts moving in to kiss her at the same moment she reaches for him. If they weren't so graceful perhaps that would result in their teeth knocking together. Were they not so durable, perhaps that would hurt them. Instead, his movement towards her instantly accounts for her sudden movement towards him and nothing so clumsy happens.

He does his best to kiss her within an inch of her life, arms wrapping around her and holding her close against him.

She kisses back ardently, her breath hot, her arms embracing him close, and suspended in that blissful moment the dream slowly fades to white.

And Xue Meresankh awakens, covered in sweat, in her bed at the inn. 

Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh what was that —

Xue snuggles deeper into the covers and tries to suppress her own arousal and embarrassment. That was — Song Terem — and they kissed —

She's never had a dream quite that clear before. They were always vaguer, before. Clear enough to know it was him, but so much more immersed in fog and soft warmth, rather than — being able to see him, properly... 

Her imagination must really be getting away with her now that she's actually met him in person. It's obviously a mashup of her technique practice earlier with her more persistent fantasies... 

Thinking back to her technique practice yesterday, though, maybe dream-him was right. Maybe she should try going a little more slow and smooth, instead of forcing it...

No reason not to try it!

She pushes herself out of bed, a smile on her face, and starts getting ready for the day.

Terem has been awake for half an hour when she rises. He's off to the north of the town, cycling force aura from the whitewater rapids there. If she looks out of her window she can just barely make him out, he's a tiny dot off in the distance.

Meresankh's gaze skates right past Terem, his form too far away for her to even really register. She goes out to the ice-cart, where her parents are setting up for the morning's deliveries, and resumes practice; best to try and make progress while she can. 

She sits atop the ice blocks, even though it makes her look slightly odd and is a little uncomfortable even with a sheet of fabric between her and them. She's found it's easiest for her to draw aura when she's actually in physical contact, one with the ice; she lays a hand against its cold surface and focuses. 

A distant voice comes back to her, unfamiliar, from the depths of memory. Someone once said to her... "Speed is fine, but rushing breeds error. Practice slowly so you can be quick when it counts."

None of this shoving Aura around by main force. She was going far too fast, trying to show off for Terem. She should build the technique properly, layer by layer of madra from the ground up.

It takes her a while. It's slower even than the version she pulled out in front of Terem. Minute after minute crawls past.

She was kind of half-expecting the madra to suddenly flow smoothly, like in her dream, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Guess she shouldn't put too much stock in dream insights. 

Taking her time deliberately does seem to be improving her results, though. And being able to take it slow is exhausting her less as well. She's been pushing very hard for the last year or so; perhaps she's picked up some bad practice habits...

So in a way, "not forcing it" is helping, just not with her madra forming...

Huh.

Her madra structures are still coming out somewhat brittle, though. She's getting an effective deflecting layer, but when she tests it she can tell it's too flimsy. Trying to construct a... dense layer of spiritual ice along her skin... doesn't seem to be working well; it shatters like thin ice or a badly tempered blade when she tests the structure with even moderate force. She's missing something.

Even when she finishes her cycling routine and starts to cool down from the spiritual effort, she's not tremendously farther along. 

It's really, really tempting to keep going. The obvious thing to try next is to form the madra more into and through her body, like with her existing ice body technique, but she knows from bitter experience that if she tries now she'll just run herself into the ground and might even have a madra accident.

Speed is fine, but rushing breeds error.

She inhales, returning all her madra at last to her core, and hops down off the wagon to talk to her family and see if they know where Song Terem has been. 

"I saw him head towards the rapids north of town a few hours ago. I don't know if he's still cycling there, but if you want to speak to him that's the direction you should head." 

Her mother looks from side to side, and leans in to whisper. "And be careful, daughter. I know you have a good head on your shoulders but it's been quite some time since you've been this reckless. You really must have your heart set on him." 

"Yes, mom."

And off she heads towards the rapids north of town, hopefully there to meet Terem.

There she does, in fact, meet Terem. He's sitting cross-legged on a large boulder that sticks out from the rapids in the middle of the stream, taking slow, deep breaths. She can see the force aura coming off the rapids move towards him slowly.

"Xue Meresankh! Good morning! What brings you to my rapids this fine day?"

He speaks in time with his cycling techniques breathing pattern, the sentence coming out in one long exhale.

"Progress report, Honored Jade! I've been able to form a thin gauntlet of compacted madra at the edge of my skin, but testing the technique shows it is too fragile for actual use. The layer snaps like brittle ice. I believe the layers of madra need to be deepened, to be laid through the body as well as the skin, but I was beginning to exhaust myself, so I came to report rather than continue my efforts."

"My dreams last night were of technique practice. They seem to have reminded me of a fundamental I was beginning to forget. Speed is fine, but rushing breeds error. In my haste to catch up to you over the past year I've become somewhat hasty. Today I made an effort to slow down and take my time, and that seems to have been worth it."

"That's one of my most common slips as well, actually. It's always tempting to try to move your madra just a bit more forcefully, but it often costs more in clumsiness than it gains in speed, in my experience. Learning something new is always frustrating, the binding in your spirit yet to do it nearly automatically and empower the technique, and not even the experience with the technique to move smoothly."

As he talks he slips from his cycling technique, but then moves back into it after he's done.

There's something a bit odd going on with the aura, actually. The force aura looks grey to her copper sight, a duller heavier-looking colour compared to the shining silver of sword aura, just as it should. However, it's behaving just a bit oddly, rushing towards Terem a bit more than she'd expect in the distance and slightly slower once it's close, the aura in the distance almost pushing the aura closer to Terem into him. It's subtle, like water flowing downhill just a bit faster than it should, and then a bit slower.

Smoothly... She feels she should know something about madra flowing smoothly, something important, but it's not coming to her for some reason.

She finds herself focusing on the flow of Terem's madra as she considers the word.

It's subtle, extremely subtle, but something is slightly different. It could just be that it's Force madra rather than the madra she's used to using, but... her instincts feel like something is different about the way Terem's madra flows. Something that shouldn't be happening.

When he next takes a breath and that slight oddness comes under her eye again, she says it —

"There — you — are you doing something with your madra, just there? Or is it just that it's Force madra and so it flows differently?" 

"Ah. I'm surprised you noticed that." This is either very good news or slightly bad news, and he's not sure which. "I am in fact doing something very strange there utilizing a secret of mine. I will say no more of the specifics of it; it's both a secret that aids me and quite dangerous if done even slightly wrong. If you think you've figured it out please talk to me before attempting it, even if it takes you months to run into me."

"Oh! but don't worry, I'm not angry with you for noticing and you're at no risk of figuring out the secret on your own without it being pretty obvious you'd be doing something dangerous if you immediately tried to cycle using my method. I'm rather impressed you noticed, you must have very good instincts for the flow of aura. Nobody else has."

He pauses, debating saying something, and decides he really should just say it out loud rather than hoping she's not afraid. He doesn't know whether she knows that if she'd observed a secret held by a school Jade they would absolutely be considering killing her right now and probably do so, but if she does she must be terrified. "And, ah. There's no way to say this that doesn't bring up the very fear I'm trying to assuage if you're not already having it, but I'm very much not to type to kill someone to keep a secret of mine like that. I'd rather it didn't come out that I'm doing something odd with my cycling, but I'm not about to do something to make that happen besides asking you politely, and I wouldn't even if you learned the specifics of how it works." It's not like anyone could actually imitate him at it, frankly. 

Oh shit she said really said that out loud, with her mouth parts, she hadn't even considered —

And he's so gentle he's not even going to kill her about it even though she could be pressured by some other Jade easily to reveal his secret —

She can't help it, she starts tearing up. 

"S-sorry," she manages. "I — you —" 

She tries to wipe the tears from her eyes and center herself. She is better than this she is better than this she is better than this if she makes a scene it will only make the fact she's seen something she shouldn't have more obvious, she doesn't want to draw attention from the village —

"Thank you," she finally manages, with a surprisingly heartfelt warmth in her voice.

"You're very welcome. It's- not more than what everyone should do. If some Jade or another does learn that you have some sort of information, give them everything you have, okay? No need to try to keep my secrets, I can look after myself." He's really, really not worried about his health, here. His secret is very helpful and also essentially impossible to copy. He doesn't want her dying for him. Or even temporarily resisting pressure and getting punched for him. "I really am mostly just worried that people would try to imitate me and die. If not for the fact that it's dangerous," and a few other constraints he's not going to mention, "I would be spreading the knowledge behind my odd cycling technique myself, and simply deal with the consequences." 

If she does talk, someone from a school could try to force him to reveal the secret behind his cycling technique, which in fact is substantially more effective than any of the standard ones in the Valley, or press gang him into the school, but, well. He genuinely isn't worried about that. They wouldn't send enough Jades. They probably wouldn't even condescend to send a single elder, much less multiple, and he's very confident in his ability to deal with a few regular Jades from any of the schools. And they may not even send multiple, in which case he's not even at risk of having to badly hurt anyone to secure his freedom.

Perhaps he should have just said it was something odd about his cycling technique and brushed by it all, hoped she wouldn't realize it was anything very strange? No, better for her not to accidentally reveal something that gets back to a school Jade who knows exactly the wrong amount and decides to bother him about it.

She squares her shoulders and brushes the last few tears from her eyes.

"Okay."

So it's not that he's just partial to her. Damn.

Still, a deeply caring heart willing to risk substantially to do the right thing is — hardly a bad thing for him to possess, right?

"Would that all Jades had your caring heart. I can't imagine that having a — fragment of such a dangerous secret — in the hands of another — can be very comfortable for you." 

He really does just keep giving her more reasons to like him. 

"It is somewhat concerning but my understanding of the mechanics involved suggests you can't learn enough to give other people some idea of how to do it without it becoming somewhat obvious it would be dangerous to do so, so it's not as bad as it could be."

Should he ask her if she's doing okay? Probably not, she was trying to hide that that situation greatly worried her and so not drawing attention to the fact that he could tell is probably the kind thing to do.

He's so curious about what she could see but asking exactly what she noticed is perhaps a bit fraught to do, just this minute.

She coughs. "That's good at least." 

She takes another moment just to settle her emotions. 

Her mother was right, she's being tremendously stupid. Any other Jade...

"Please give me a moment to sort through this all. I'm increasingly realizing that I'm being even more reckless than I expected, and I am lucky that I got you and not any other Jade." 

Without waiting for Terem's answer, she sits down on the rocks by the side of the river and closes her eyes. 

Trying to focus inwards, she falls back to a moment earlier in her life, when she'd just been clawed up by a spirit cougar and had to learn how not to panic in a hurry...

She's scared, yes. But as far as she can actually tell, Terem isn't the threat. The threat is someone else using her to get at Terem.

That feels leaden in her gut. The idea that she might be a weak point to him. If she's Iron and he's Jade, and they - get together - then she'll forever be his accessory. No matter how talented she is, if she can't make that Jade leap, then she'll always be a vulnerability to him. 

She wants to cycle madra, but she's away from the aura of the cart. It itches, like a thorn in her side.

She breathes, slow and steady, as if she were cycling, but refrains from pulling at the madra in her core. 

Either she has to enter the scary world of Jades, be someone who people fear and respect, or she has to give up on Terem. That's always been the decision in front of her. It was never really quite this real before now. 

She's embarrassed about that. She thought she had committed to the decision but it's a hard path, trying to catch up with this prodigy and his secrets. She knows so little, compared to him. And it stings. It especially stings to admit that her mother was absolutely right to tell her to be careful. 

Her eyes slip open, and she looks sideways over at Terem, without turning her head. 

What kind of person is this man. She loves him but she doesn't know him. He's scattered, easily gotten talking, less careful with his secrets than he should be, arrogant for good cause, kind, clever... But she still has the sense that he's holding the majority of himself back somehow. His attitude seems unguarded, but the more she learns about him the more surprises she encounters... 

She loves him, though. And he seems worthy of love. Is that not enough?

It could not be...

It could easily not be. She doesn't want to end up dying of this, as harsh as that sounds. 

Her heart rebels at that, though...

If she decides she really doesn't want it, she can just let go. Let him go back to his wilderness. Stop pushing. It'll only be a few days in his company, that way. 

But for now...

"I think I'm more centred now," she says. "That was certainly a blow to my ego, but frankly I should've known that the affairs of Jades tend to involve such things... It's just hard to feel the immediacy of that when I've never even met one before." 

"Thank you for accommodating my foolishness. I shouldn't have been paying close attention to how you cycled in the first place. I was just... thinking that maybe I could see how you applied that lesson, to be slow and smooth at first to train speed..."

One of the not-quite secrets of the sacred arts is that the difference between a Jade and an Iron is usually in resources and skill, not esoteric wisdom or great mysteries unravelled. Individual Jades might occasionally have a personal secret like, say, a surprisingly solid Enforcer technique they've hidden, or an extra binding in their favoured weapon. But the difference between Iron and Jade doesn't rest on that, no, that often comes down more down to wealth than anything else, or connections. For every Jade there are ten Irons who could be Jade if they had the right family, or the money, or the right friends. But that sounds far less impressive than pretending you've a stock of grand truths you use to achieve mastery in the sacred arts, so they all put on airs. He, in fact, earned those airs, thank you very much. The rest of them are imposters.

"You're very welcome and- with any other Jade that alone wouldn't have been dangerous, in your defence. And recall, I'm out in the open right now, there wasn't any hint anything was secret. Most Jades- to be entirely frank they mostly don't involve such things, particularly. Not in their aura cycling technique. Not if they're doing that in public. The Wei clan have their secret methods to cycle light aura but everyone knows they're secret. In general, the schools and the clans themselves have their secrets, the methods of performing the techniques on their Paths. But those are obvious secrets, everyone knows they're secret. You aren't going to stumble on to one of them. You just got very unlucky. By all means don't look quite so closely at strange sacred artists in the future unless you're prepared to understand something dangerous, with eyes like yours, but it really isn't a normal thing to have to worry about."

"You know, I've cycled in front of other Jades. None of them have noticed anything strange. Refusing to cycle in front of any of them would have been a sure sign something was odd, and an aura cycling technique worth hiding is rare, it would have gotten me far too much attention. Everyone knows why the Wei and Heavens Glory have secret methods for light, light is hard. Force is easy. But- the important thing is none of them noticed. No Iron, no Jade. Nobody, ever." 

Noticing what he was doing was not easy, he's very, very good at making the oddness of the aura around him subtle.

"I- can I ask what you saw? You've either got anomalously good Copper sight or an incredibly good instinct for how aura ought to flow and I find myself incredibly curious which it is."

She considers for a moment, and then nods. "I think it's the second. It - there was a moment just there on each breath that was slightly off somehow, and when I looked closer I noticed the aura moving oddly, the flow slightly faster and then slightly slower than it ought to have been. I don't know how I spotted it if nobody else has ever noticed it, it just... felt wrong." 

"I've always been unusually good at manipulating madra though, at least according to my parents. I don't know what the situation is like at the schools or in the clans, but for a clanless I'm supposed to be a prodigy. Clearly not so much compared to you, but..." She shrugs.

"How quickly you managed a passable madra sheathe around your hand yesterday and this morning would stand out at a school, actually." In part because the schools are really just the best of the clans, and the clans don't actually have any bloodline advantages at manipulating madra.

"Your eyes, though. Those are rather sharp, I think, to notice anything odd at all. And your instincts for aura flow are good enough I haven't actually run into anyone else who has ones as good as yours. It's a bit of a shame you aren't a Ruler by affinity, but I'd still recommend making that something you focus on secondarily."

It's very interesting that it was aura flow of all things. Jade Rulers who've spent decades focusing on manipulating aura flows haven't noticed anything odd. And they have an entire extra sense, not that it's quite as acute as Copper sight is.

"I would strongly guess the benefits of touch are psychological, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful. The sitting still with crossed legs we all tend to do is just as psychological, when you get right down to it." 

He pauses.

"I think you may find that core a useful thought to build a style around. I am the ice, the sword, the slicing blizzard. If your control of aura is anywhere near as good as your instinct for how it flows you should be able to make it something near to true."

"I see."

He stressed the word core weirdly there. Is she supposed to do something with her core? The madra type she's generated has long since swapped over to ice/sword madra...

Maybe she needs to think about the madra differently? It is a spiritual essence. Maybe she should be thinking of it as some specific type of blended madra. She's been sort of flailing at trying to stick together ice and sword madra techniques, but she knows that's not ideal...

She could think of it as driven snow madra... It's not quite perfect, that would seem to be wind as well and she can't afford to add another madra type... cutting ice... frozen blade madra? What is she making herself, precisely... What is she creating...

She's totally zoning out, isn't she. She coughs. 

"I will certainly attempt so," she says.

He doesn't mind. That just means she's paying close enough attention to actually think about what he's saying.

"To expand on that and explain the rationale, ideally your techniques work together. My enforcement lets me move quickly and take strikes, my armor enhances that farther, my weaponry allows me to concentrate force in a way that would otherwise be difficult. It all works together to keep me alive and get me where I need to be so that I can deliver the strikes I need to to win the fight. My Striker and Ruler techniques do likewise. There's a way in which you win a fight, a method of achieving victory all your techniques work together to achieve. So: how does a person who is the ice and the slicing blade win a fight? What does that let you cost your enemy, what does that let you do? What disadvantages to your enemy and advantages to yourself does that give you?"

"There are many ways your sacred arts could let you utilize madra with aspects of sword and ice. The trick with a new Path is picking which one. Someone with a different sense of what felt right might find themselves creating shards of sharp ice like caltrops and using Ruler techniques to freeze and cut anyone who strays too close. To embody cutting ice, for it to be you and you to be it- that narrows things down, and that's good. There are simply too many options unless you've got something helping you like that."

She nods, and casts herself back a few months, to when she visited a village forge to see if she could see a sword being made. 

She wasn't nearly so lucky; but some persistence let her observe the smith's apprentice making nails. She still remembers the pattern of his hammerblows, five and one, five and one, narrowing and compressing the metal. He had quite nice forearms. 

She still remembers how the metal hissed and steamed when it was cooled...  

"Metal and ice... Are the same in some ways. They both harden when they're cold and soften when they're hot. I can feel that in their madra, a little, that they share a — commonality. I feel like I want to be that — hard and rugged and beautiful and precise. But that's very much aesthetic, rather than — actually a goal based on effectiveness."

"I want to be... a dagger-edged snowflake. A dancing fragment of snow blown so hard it cuts and blinds. Something strong and crystalline and beautiful. But, well. It's hard, finding a single interpretation that fits what's in my heart. I know too little about blades. I've never even held a sword in my life."

"Hmm. That certainly sounds compatible with an Enforcement primary and Ruler secondary path."

He wishes he instantly had a whole suite of abilities to advise her towards, but frankly figuring it out herself will likely give her better results. He might know a bit more but she's got more than enough raw talent to come up with something that fits her better than his ideas would.