Lightning Mirror 1

Ling Nuan drew in a sharp, copper scented breath, the metallic taste of her own blood sharp on her tongue, Her heel slid back a hair, foot pivoting for a better stance as he lunged forward, right fist lashing out from her tight front guard.

Her opponent's ham sized fist was still overextended, trailing blood from the cut it’s passage had left under her eye. Her nerves and muscles snapped and sparked with the raw lightning filtering through every fiber. Thunder boomed as her knuckles dug into the massive blue ogre’s over muscled gut. His eyes bulged comically as he spit up blood and wine soaked spit, crashed through two tables, bounced off the floor and hit the wall with a thunderous crack.

Ling Nuan straightened up, wiped the blood from her split lip and spit on the floor, raising her hand in the rudest gesture she knew.

Guffaws and cheers broke out roaring over the ever present thundering beat of the dance hall.

“Haha! Good show! Good show!” the Lord Leigong laughed, each clap a peal of thunder. “My foolish little cousins, you should know better than to underestimate a lightning immortal, no matter how slight she seems!”

The big brute she’d knocked over groaned and twitched, but his companions busted their own guts with laughter even after they hauled him out of the cratered stone, no more put out than the guests shaking their fists at her and laughing over the spilled drinks left by the tables she’d sent him flying through.

Gods, she missed this place sometimes when she was at the Sect or fighting the Cloud.

Just stupid ogres and laughing fairies, no hard feelings on anything going around. At least nothing that lasted past the next cup of wine or dance. The worst grudge or fight was just flash and noise, gone as fast as it came.

She grimaced and rolled her shoulders as she felt the broken shards of bone in her nose twist and snap back into place, the Leigong’s happy will only speeding up her own recovery. She mounted the stone disc that had spun her down here, soaring back to the lord's table.

“Don’t use the back of your hand to wipe the blood around, young Lady. A woman has to show a little refinement.”

Ling Nuan rolled her eyes, and channeled her qi, her piercings glowed white, sizzling and crackling as lightning danced and skittered up and down her face and arms, boiling blood away into ash.

The Lady Dianmu looked her over with a critical gaze, sparks and heat washing over her where the towering spirit’s gaze fell. The Lady Dianmu was always intense, more than twice her height, an elegant woman with pale bluish white skin that shone with a metallic gleam and hair of snapping sparking lightning woven throw a crown of fine copper wire. “Good. Much better.”

“Indeed, a flashy finish to a battle well fought, though you should have let me take out that sluggard! He was beneath you!” Yun Long announced. The absolute dingus of a spirit was already sloshed on his Father’s wine.

“Eh, I needed to get my blood pumping again,” she dismissed, tossing herself down on her seat of woven cloud. She needed to figure out how she could get one of these things to stay coherent outside the court. Qiu immediately bounded off his own platform to land in her lap, tail wagging.

“And an amusing little show it was! My Southern cousins are a rambunctious bunch, a good knock on the head is just what's needed when they puff themselves up too much,” the leigong said. “Young Musician, I am most pleased to see you after all this time!”

“It’s good to be back, Lord Leigong, Lady Dianmu,” Ling Nuan murmured, reaching to grab a wine cup from a fluttering wind fairy whizzing by with a tray larger than its body balanced on its head and hands.

“I have seen far into the land of the earth’s fangs, and seen the fighting there, our musician has comported herself very well,” The Lady Dianmu said. “It is no wonder the southern courts are feeling a little surly, with their humans being pushed back so far and their rites disrupted.”

Ling Nuan swirled the liquid around in her cup once. She saw smoke rising from villages, smoke rising from camps. The screams of horses and men alike. The raw animal terror in a man’s eyes as he threw everything he had into living just another second longer, while her lightning scorched him from the inside out.

And she remembered the blank minded fugue of that survival frenzy herself, dodging arrows falling like rain, feeling her body pierced by arrows and cutting wind, dragging her bleeding, numb legs over rough stone, hoping not to be seen as a sky shattering clash roared overhead.

She slugged back the entire cup of wine in three harsh swallows.

The Lady Dianmu observed her with sharp eyes, eyes that saw everything she felt, and which understood not a bit of it.

Spirits like her really never died in the way humans did. The Lightning sparked, flared and faded, but was born anew in moments. So they never really got it. Ling Qi’s bonded, that muse, she thought that one did, and they were alien to their own kind for it now.

She scratched Qiu behind the ears. HE understood her fear, if not the more complicated bits.

But even if some of the thoughts in her head might be incomprehensible to the spirit of the striking lightning, the Lady Dianmu could still see she was bothered. “But happier congratulations for new kin. The stamp of silver and mist in your spirit is fresh and clear.”

“A grand occasion! It was only a shame that I could not attend!”

“I do not think it would have been to your liking father, much too quiet!” Yun Long laughed beside her, the clouds under his glass skin churning sluggishly, as if heavy with rain. “Why I worried even Miss Yu’s more restrained songs might startle the mortals too much!”

“Oh yes, yes, mortals, no perhaps it was for the best,” The Leigong said. “I have never been good with mortals.”

Lady Dianmu chuckled softly, sparks popping between her teeth and skittering across the fabric of her dress. “No, you are a bit careless dear.”

“Haha, I am! It is good my wife is here to guide me when I get forgetful!”

“I’m thankful for the congratulations,” Yu Nuan replied. She shook her head and blinked. That was some strong wine. “It's…. It's a good family. I was prolly jumping in too fast, but seems like bein impulsive keeps workin out for me.”

“You are not impulsive, new daughter of the mists, you are driven and decisive,” The Dianmu tutted. “And that is why you take better to my melody than my husbands.”

“It is true enough! Though she does make the thunder roar so well!”

The Leigong’s booming laughter echoed in the hall, and Ling Nuan chuckled to herself, the memories dredged up seeming well and far away now. “Well, gotta be good at something I guess.”

“Too humble! Too humble by half,” Yun Long scoffed.

He got so loud when he got in a cup, Ling Nuan thought, receiving an affectionate lick from Qiu as well. She supposed even if someone didn’t really understand what you were thinking, they could still comfort you in their own way.

“I must agree,” The Dianmu said. “Young musician, do you think you would accompany me to the upper palace this evening? I think that I may have something interesting to show you.”

Ling Nuan gave the spirit a curious, wary gaze. “...Not a tribulation, right, Lady Dianmu?”

The spirit smiled.