Avuri

As expected, Avuri could feel the moment that Lyn's water claw touched her skin. It didn't take very long at all before the slight scratching sensation turned into a slight itch as Lyn's Qi began to enter her system.

In her meditation, Avuri had begun moving her own Qi through her meridians, and as its flow sped up, the itching around her neck and shoulders passed. Her Qi simply swept up Lyn's as it went by, carrying it along her normal pathways. It was really quite simple for her, as their Qi matched on a fundamental level.

While Avuri's Qi might have been more ice-like in nature, while Lyn's focused more on the water aspect, they still melded easily and without much effort. Avuri attributed that to water's tendency to flow and bend as necessary, making this process of blending natural to the Qi's own nature.

She sat quietly, focused on the meditation without much strain. Lyn's Qi came faster as the Bond proceeded, but never fast enough to cause her any discomfort beyond the initial itchiness. And that was miniscule enough that it only bothered her if she thought about it.

She spent only a little piece of her concentration listening to Lyn's incantation as the Bonding proceeded. There was a moment where Lyn's voice changed in tone to something a little harsher, more forceful, that came with a change in the way her Qi felt. It was also more rough and the itchy feeling became worse, but still not so much that it bothered her.

She focused on putting the itch out of her mind and keeping her Qi moving. As before, as it flowed by Lyn's Qi, it swept the other Qi along, carrying it around her meridians and body. The itching didn't die down as much as before, but it was still mild.

A few minutes later, Lyn's tone changed again. It returned to her more normal sounding caring voice, before her power spiked. Avuri's gut reaction was to be alarmed, but she felt Lyn's hand rest gently on her shoulder. That calmed Avuri for a moment before she felt a seed of intense power cap off the transfer of Qi.

As was normal for her now, that little seed got swept up in her Qi's current, and was carried through her meridians until the Qi circulated through her core and Dantian. The seed settled there, not flowing through it like the rest of Lyn's Qi.

From that seed, she felt a sweeping sense of calm and cooling, minty feeling spread through her. Something about it put her at peace, and she realized that it was assisting in making Lyn's Qi adapt to her body. While the two disparate Qi signatures had blended until then, they hadn't actually settled in together. They did that now, feeling as though it created a single, stronger version of Avuri's Qi as Lyn's melded into hers.

The itching around her shoulders and neck faded away, and Avuri slipped into a deeper meditation, falling into her Inner World.

She opened her eyes in her home. The wooden cabin stood strong and firm against the blizzard raging outside. She could hear the wind howling and the snow and bits of hail pelting against the walls. It mixed with a crackling fire in the house, which altogether made a fairly calming backdrop of sound.

And then she heard a crack of thunder, which was something entirely new in her Inner World. The sound of the snow and hail slowly transitioned into the telltale sound of a torrential downpour of rain, complete with lightning flashed and thunder, though both were far from her mountain top retreat.

Avuri had been prepared for this, although she wasn't exactly sure how it would manifest. The flood of Lyn's water Qi was diluting her Qi to be more water than ice; and she would need to rectify that.

The easiest way would be to simply circulate her newly inherited power through her body until it naturally became more akin to her Blizzard Qi than Lyn's Pure Water Qi. That would happen over time, but would make her own techniques a little unstable until then, with her Qi leaning too far to the water aspect.

The way that she had mentally set on was taking the overwhelming water aspect from Lyn and crystalizing it forcefully. It was in her body now, and Lyn had said she would have control over it the same way she did with her own Qi. That gave her some leeway to do what she wanted with it.

And she had decided that while her wintry mix of water and ice Qi was what represented her most, having some more water-leaning Qi would be good for her, too. And with it, she could try to get Lyn to teach her more healing techniques that relied on stronger water Qi.

Avuri sat on her cushion by the fireplace and focused. She could feel her Qi moving through her, and immediately put her plan into action.

It would take a little time, but she endeavored to isolate some of the water Qi and push it through her meridians in an old Cultivation technique she had used as a child. The pathways she had used then still existed, so it wasn't as dangerous as working in a new technique from scratch. Instead, she merely had to be careful to slowly expand the meridians that hadn't seen use in many years.

It was slow going at first as the old pathways needed to adapt to the new, much stronger flow of Qi that was trying to move through them. But Avuri was exacting in her control, moving things along at a solid pace.

She wasn't sure how long it took before her meridians had adjusted, but it didn't feel like it was all that long before a section of the water Qi had been portioned off into a different path in her body and flowing on its own like Qi should.

By the time she was comfortable not keeping her full attention on the new-old technique, she realized that the sound of snow and hail had returned to her mountain, and the rain had vanished. There was an echo of far off thunder, but she suspected that, too, would fade in time.

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She stood, took a deep breath, and stepped outside of the house and into the blizzard, curious to see what had changed.

The house appeared the same. Her mountaintop was still as secluded as ever, but when the house had expanded, so too had the cliffside. It was quite large now, more than enough to accommodate the house. From where she stood outside the door, the edge of her cliffside was a ways off to her left, while the mountain continued to climb higher to her right.

She opted to explore around a bit to see if anything noticeable had changed. And while she didn't find anything notable at first, she eventually found a frozen water floe. It appeared to come from a natural spring or something higher up the mountain, and under a thick layer of ice at the top, she could visibly see a beautifully clear current flowing beneath the ice.

She followed the small stream back to her house, where she found it passed underneath the building. Curiosity peaked, she went back inside and explored the house until she found a new additional room that had the icy floe traveling through it. The room was designed with a wooden dam of sorts that collected some of the icy water from underneath the ice and kept a small pool of ice cold water in the house while the rest flowed on.

The kept water was frigid, but still liquid, and beautifully clear - unnaturally so. She could see the stone that formed the basin clearly, and the water had a painting-like blue hue that looked both fake and immensely inviting.

Avuri couldn't help but cup her hands and bring some of the water to her lips. It was as shockingly cold to her system as she had expected, but the taste was unreal. It was crisp and clear, as if she had tasted the very idea of what water should taste like. It left her stunned for a moment, before she decided to return to her cushion in the main room to resume meditation.

She felt like most of the work had been done, but she wanted to be sure her body had adjusted safely.

She didn't think she spent very long in the following meditation session, just mentally running a check on her meridians and body. Everything seemed to be in order. More than that, though, she was surprised by how well it seemed Lyn's Qi had been incorporated into her own.

There was barely a difference at all. Whatever that final piece of Qi had been, it had seemingly given Avuri natural control over all of the related Qi, as if it had always been hers. And while she did need to corral some of the water Qi to make sure her blizzard Qi remained as undiluted as possible, the obvious boost in power was exactly that - obvious.

Satisfied that she was safe and the job was done, Avuri opened her physical eyes. Lyn was still sitting behind her, and she could feel the woman's presence clearly. Apparently, Lyn could tell that she had left her meditation as well, as the dragon placed a gentle hand on Avuri's shoulder.

"Well done."

"Thank you."

Lyn chuckled then, dissolving the somewhat reverent air that had hung in the room after the ceremony. "It seems we were all right. That was hardly an issue for you at all."

Avuri took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It does seem that way, doesn't it? Now I feel silly for being as nervous as I was."

"Well, that nervousness was a fair response to the unknown. But you've made it through. And in record time no less."

"Record time?"

"Avuri?" Emery's voice echoed through the door. "Did something go wrong? The Qi settled, but it's only been ten minutes." Thankfully, she sounded only mildly concerned for the moment. It was unlikely she'd try to break the door down.

"I'm fine." Avuri said with a light smile on her lips. "All finished, in fact." She rolled her shoulders. They itched a little, and as soon as that thought entered her head, she realized that they were, in fact, very itchy. She quickly turned back to Lyn, glancing between her and the new patterns on her shoulders.

"It itches. Bad."

Lyn smiled, her apparent lack of concern putting Avuri at ease. "Yes, and it will for a while yet. You finished incorporating the Bond so quickly that the Mark hasn't healed yet. It'll probably be an hour before it stops."

Avuri shivered, rolled her shoulders again, and valiantly fought the urge to scratch at the etchings. She hadn't really dealt with an actual itch since she had broken through to the Sky Realm, so suddenly experiencing the nagging feeling after so long made the whole ordeal worse. It was awful.

"Are you ready to go outside?"

"I think so." Avuri said, carefully positioning her robe's top around her shoulders to leave the etched skin bare. If anything so much as grazed it, the itchiness exploded.

Lyn nodded and waved a hand toward the door, which separated the fangs that made up the door. Emery was waiting on the other side; whatever tension she had gathered over day left her in a rush upon seeing her wife - her shoulders dropped, she let out a held breath, and even visibly slumped.

The smile on her face was as clear as day though, until it suddenly morphed into another concerned expression.

"Do we need to keep our Qi separated, still?" Emery asked the room, the question coming out oddly childish.

"Just for a bit longer, yes." Vale said, poking his head around one of the other doorways. "Well done, Avuri. I knew you could do it. And congratulations to all of you; the hard part is over. Now the worst part begins."

Emery spun on her father so fast, Avuri was startled into a laugh.

"The worst part?" Emery asked. Kord popped his head out the other doorway, looking equally confused.

"We need to talk now, yes." Vale said. "And finally discuss the mechanics of the bond, and how it functions."

"Oh. So a quick class on it, then." Kord said and shrugged, unbothered.

Emery groaned. "Well, at least we have Ray and Lyn here. Maybe this won't be so bad."

Vale chuckled. "You did always hate the way I taught you."

"Who wouldn't? You were an awful teacher!"

"Why is Uncle Vale so bad? I always thought he did a great job when he taught us stuff." Kord asked.

Vale grinned at him. "Thank you, Kord. And she hated it because I always drilled the kids on theory and technique before allowing them to practice application. And your mother is about as impatient as they come."

Emery rolled her eyes. "Let's just get on with it, then."

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