"You don't think she needs to know?" Ki'el looked at Meixu, not stop-ping her walk back to their inn. She had been think-ing about how to sum-ma-rize what she had heard to Chi-an, and won-dered if the fox had any sug-ges-tions.

  Meixu looked back at her, qui-et-ly.

  [ She is not a spir-it beast, ] Meixu an-swered af-ter a while. [ The en-er-gy that she is pro-vid-ed as an in-her-i-tor al-ready con-tains her Grand-fa-ther's do-main, so she has no need to change it, only to mas-ter its use. ]

  That... was not how Ki'el thought about qi use, and it was not how she felt about spir-i-tu-al pow-er af-ter what she had heard. And al-though it had been a while since the two of them had spo-ken of it... Ki'el still re-mem-bered Chi-an say-ing how she had strong in-stincts, to fear and to hate.

  To think of it... Ki'el had not spoke much with Chi-an since they had left the Sect, not about things like that. And... the girl had doubt-less changed. How much, she had no idea. But... what she wor-ried about now, was be-ing a per-son who kept se-crets from her friend, se-crets that might mean a great deal, help her ad-vance rapid-ly.

  "Do you not think that it will help her? Are you sug-gest-ing it would make it hard-er for her?" Ki'el found, when she spoke, that her voice sound-ed harsh-er than she meant it to, but it also didn't quite feel wrong. She felt like the ad-vice was... hurt-ful, or might be.

  [ You are a kind girl, young Ki'el, but most peo-ple are not ready for se-crets un-til they have mas-tered the ba-sics. ] But Meixu glanced away, and Ki'el thought from his face that he was not done with think-ing about it. [ ...But I sup-pose, if you are hop-ing that she will keep up with your ridicu-lous pace... teach-ing her such things will be nec-es-sary. ]

  Keep up? Ki'el still felt far be-hind where she ought to be, even as a part of her re-al-ized that she had passed all of Ti-ta-ni-um Qi with-out even mean-ing to. But she had also spent her child-hood lost and alone, know-ing and do-ing noth-ing while oth-ers pre-pared. She glanced away. "Was the rev-e-la-tion ...mean-ing-ful to you?" She was still sure that the fox had only been pre-tend-ing to not be af-fect-ed by it, but she want-ed to know what he thought.

  [ I have al-ready ex-plored both qi and spir-it en-er-gy in my life-time, ] Meixu an-swered, and Ki'el not-ed silent-ly that it did not an-swer the ques-tion. [ I have built and re-ject-ed. The con-cept that was pro-vid-ed, of spir-i-tu-al law, is... a clar-i-fi-ca-tion of thoughts many have had. But the use of that knowl-edge is in care-ful-ly re-fin-ing the in-tent of our do-mains, and the girl doesn't have one. She bor-rows an im-age and do-main some-one else cre-at-ed. ]

  Ki'el had not meant the ques-tion to come back im-me-di-ate-ly to that, and she turned her at-ten-tion back to the city, feel-ing a grow-ing mote of frus-tra-tion in her chest, but she took a breath and let it out. "...I have found that un-der-stand-ing qi is eas-i-er once I un-der-stood aether," she said af-ter a long mo-ment. "Even when the two are very dif-fer-ent, to un-der-stand what lies be-neath changes my un-der-stand-ing of qi."

  [ You also aren't us-ing some-one else's qi na-ture, but learn-ing to make your own, ] Meixu an-swered. [ Most young mas-ters of no-ble fam-i-lies are in-her-it-ing their qi na-ture from an an-ces-tor or an-cient tome, and while they may need to un-der-stand how qi is de-rived... they do not need to un-der-stand the fi-nal form of it un-til they are ready. ]

  Ki'el found her-self un-ex-pect-ed-ly tense. It was... noth-ing that she could put a rae-son to, ex-cept that she felt like she ought to be able to share what she un-der-stood with Chi-an, to help her grow. It felt... un-nat-ur-al, that Meixu seemed to be re-sist-ing that. "Per-haps she does not need it, but... would it harm her?"

  There was some-thing like a sigh from the fox on her shoul-der, and Ki'el looked at him again, try-ing to un-der-stand what the man was think-ing, but he was silent for a long mo-ment. Ki'el found a con-ve-nient place along the road to pause and stand in a shad-ow for a mo-ment, won-der-ing what he might say.

  [ Per-haps she is, and per-haps she isn't ready, ] the fox said, af-ter a much longer mo-ment than Ki'el might have ex-pect-ed. His voice, broad-cast by qi, was deep-er, melan-choly. [ Young Ki'el... Con-trac-tor. It is not for me to tell you what to do or what pow-er to give to your al-lies. But a part of me yearns to once more be ig-no-rant of the tallest moun-tains in the world, in or-der to ex-plore them again with eyes like a child's. When some se-crets are learned, the sun and moon and stars are no longer watch-ing over us, but mere-ly cold re-flec-tions. ]

  [ In truth, young Ki'el, if you raise your In-her-i-tor friend high enough, she will have no choice but to learn to reach past her an-ces-tors. At that time, she will need to ex-plore how spir-it en-er-gy re-jects the world. And you can cer-tain-ly tell her that it is a re-flec-tion of qi, try to ex-plain what you un-der-stand of this 'aether' of yours. But even if you are will-ing to learn all of the se-crets in your youth and spend your life-time learn-ing to ap-ply them, many wish to spend their youth, at least, im-mersed in sto-ries of im-pos-si-ble things and the mighty he-roes that ac-com-plished them any-way. To dream of be-ing one who shat-ters hori-zons and reach-es the heav-ens, soar-ing over drag-ons to be-come a star, re-turn-ing home to be-come a sec-ond sun. ] The small fox on Ki'el's shoul-der looked up at the sky, at the twist-ing and bro-ken clouds that were blow-ing slow-ly past.

  Ki'el fol-lowed his gaze, but was sure that she saw noth-ing. In-stead, her mind had latched on to what Meixu had said... in a way the fox had not ex-pect-ed.

  "Meixu," Ki'el asked af-ter a time. "What does myth mean to you?"

  [ Myth? ] The fox turned back to her, and Ki'el was sure that she saw sur-prise in the fox's eyes. Af-ter a minute, the gaze... per-haps stopped fo-cus-ing on her, or at least, not so in-tent-ly. [ There was a time--a very long time--when there were many myths about me. Peo-ple will al-ways tell sto-ries about the pow-er-ful peo-ple, and es-pe-cial-ly beasts--and in a way, that helps us. When we find that we are not pow-er-ful enough to live up to the myths oth-ers have made about us... it can be easy to re-ject that, turn-ing that frus-tra-tion with one-self into pow-er. ]

  [ But more of-ten, the myths peo-ple tell about us are hor-rif-ic, ] Meixu con-tin-ued. [ I... af-ter I was ex-iled from the Em-pire, I trav-elled the world. I took on a hu-man form to dis-guise my na-ture, did my best to learn qi in or-der to blend in. I fell in love with a hu-man woman... more than once. But each time, even-tu-al-ly, my true form was dis-cov-ered, and most of the women I loved, the women I mar-ried... af-ter-ward, when they looked at me, they saw the hor-ri-ble myths, the false-hoods, the cru-el sto-ries meant to di-vide man and beast. Those who did not leave me be-hind were killed by oth-ers. ]

  Ki'el... was un-sure what to say about that. She looked down, think-ing of her vil-lage again, about how lost she had felt af-ter every-one had van-ished. And Ki'el... had no rea-son to find fault with her-self. She could not imag-ine be-liev-ing, af-ter such a thing, that all that death had been be-cause of her.

  Af-ter a long mo-ment, Ki'el asked a sim-ple ques-tion, hop-ing it was not rude. "...I thought that spir-it beasts could not have chil-dren with hu-mans?" Kuli had said as much.

  [ Ah? ] The fox's head turned in a way that sur-prised Ki'el, and the look on his face was... strange. [ Is that... well, that doesn't... seem to be wrong. ] He glanced away. [ ...The daugh-ter I spoke of ear-li-er was with an-oth-er fox. I did... try to have chil-dren with hu-man wives, but... to no avail. I did adopt chil-dren through the years, as well, but... ahem, that isn't the point. ]

  "I re-mind you of a fox-child?" Ki'el looked at the fox on her shoul-der, though a sound near-by--of foot-steps--re-mind-ed Ki'el that this was the kind of con-ver-sa-tion per-haps best not had in the mid-dle of the city, even qui-et-ly. She start-ed walk-ing again, pro-ject-ing her thoughts, still some-what awk-ward-ly, back to Meixu. [ What was she like? ]

  [ Mai was a sweet child at first, but af-ter she ...lost her old-er sis-ter, she be-came very se-ri-ous, fo-cused on grow-ing up as quick-ly as she could so that she could take care of her-self. As a fa-ther, watch-ing her hurt me, be-cause she could no longer have faith that I would pro-tect her. No mat-ter what I wished or what I did, it felt like she nev-er had a child-hood or a youth of her own af-ter that. There was lit-tle joy, and it felt like every scrap of hope she found she had fought for. As some-one who loved that child... I felt like I had failed her, even be-fore... she died. ]

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  There were sev-er-al ques-tions Ki'el want-ed to ask, but too many of them seemed like they would have only sad an-swers, and so she walked in si-lence for an-oth-er few min-utes.

  When at last she spoke again, she had de-cid-ed to change the sub-ject back once more. [ To you, the myths of oth-ers were a weapon against you? ]

  [ Hum, ] Meixu an-swered, his thoughts clear-ly shift-ing. [ They were a tool that some peo-ple clear-ly want-ed to use to de-fend their peo-ple. There's noth-ing wrong with telling peo-ple that beasts can be dan-ger-ous. But myths are passed down by peo-ple who do not un-der-stand the pur-pose, and they be-come warped in the retelling. Some-times, on pur-pose. ] He looked over at her. [ Telling lies, you un-der-stand, is a form of pow-er, just as telling truth can be. If you can con-vince some-one of some-thing, then you con-trol how they will act in the fu-ture. The sto-ries we tell our chil-dren, and the sto-ries that are told to adults who do not un-der-stand, both shape them as though the words them-selves were true. Some-times, that means that they be-lieve ter-ri-ble things. ]

  Ki'el stopped. In truth... she had not heard any-one speak so much on the top-ic. She had be-lieved that Sobon un-der-stood some-thing im-por-tant about myths, but this... this felt more re-al-is-tic, more ground-ed, than she had ex-pect-ed. Af-ter a mo-ment, she forced her-self to con-tin-ue walk-ing. [ So it is... con-trol? ]

  [ An at-tempt, ] Meixu an-swered, the tone of his men-tal voice a clear-er re-but-tal than his words. [ Just as qi and spir-it en-er-gy them-selves are only at-tempts to ac-com-plish some-thing. It is a pow-er that might be able to con-trol, but it is as like-ly to fail. ]

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that. When... when she had spo-ken with Sobon, she had been... per-haps naive, talk-ing about myth as sim-ply peo-ple's ig-no-rance. And... in some ways, what Meixu an-swered did not ad-dress, how, for ex-am-ple, her grand-moth-er had ex-plained qi to her. It was... not an at-tempt to con-trol her, as she doubt-ed it was an at-tempt to con-trol her grand-moth-er when it was taught to her. But...

  [ My mas-ter once said that strong myths can gain pow-er of their own, be-com-ing ...like a prophe-cy, in some strange way. That qi gets tied up in them, and... and... ] Ki'el re-al-ized that she couldn't quite trans-mit what she want-ed, be-cause she wasn't en-tire-ly sure what she was try-ing to say.

  [ Prophe-cy... ] Meixu mused on that. [ An in-ter-est-ing ob-ser-va-tion. But, I think that 'qi' would be the wrong con-cept, there. The foun-da-tion of qi is al-ways learn-ing; spir-it en-er-gy, in con-trast, is of-ten emo-tion-al, a re-fusal to ac-cept some-thing. Spir-it en-er-gy is far eas-i-er to use in ig-no-rance, to build on lies. ] He paused for a mo-ment, clear-ly think-ing. [ Per-haps there is a 'spir-it' of myth, in that sense. And if so, it would not sur-prise me if it can be wor-shipped as a spir-it beast can be, and if not pro-tect-ed, warped. And who would cre-ate pro-tec-tions for some-thing like a sil-ly myth? ] Meixu shook his head, and then the rest of him-self, be-fore set-tling. [ We are al-most back. Have you cho-sen whether you wish to ex-plain things to your In-her-i-tor friend? ]

  Ki'el had to pause and al-low her think-ing to shift, though she did her best to cap-ture her thoughts for now in men-tal space that Kuli pro-vid-ed. [ I will. She de-serves to know. ]

  [ I will an-swer ques-tions if she has them, but I will let you take the lead, ] Meixu an-swered, al-most im-me-di-ate-ly. [ Try to leave some mys-tery for her. It dri-ves young peo-ple to ex-plore, which can be just as im-por-tant as grow-ing stronger. ]

  Ki'el con-sid-ered those words as she round-ed the last cor-ner to where their inn was. It was an up-stand-ing place, if rel-a-tive-ly small; the man who owned it was qui-et and pro-fes-sion-al, and his two young sons had both been ea-ger to as-sist when-ev-er they had any is-sue or ques-tion. When it came into view, Ki'el not-ed that Mian was stand-ing out-side, look-ing a bit ner-vous.

  "Ki'el!" He sound-ed a bit re-lieved. "I... sor-ry, I don't know why I didn't come along with you. I should have." If his gaze shift-ed to the fox on Ki'el's shoul-der, she was still too far away to tell for sure. "Even with Meixu with you... a girl shouldn't walk through the city alone."

  [ Not gen-er-al-ly, but she was pro-tect-ed this time, and every-thing was fine, ] Meixu an-swered, some-what more loud-ly. [ A few strange looks, but noth-ing worse than that. ]

  Mian nod-ded. "Did you find ...what you were look-ing for? And things went well?"

  "Yes," Ki'el an-swered. "The city's guardian de-ity was will-ing to lis-ten to Kuli, and I was able to lis-ten to an in-ter-est-ing con-ver-sa-tion." She paused only briefly. "Is Chi-an still around?"

  "Yes, though she talked about go-ing down to the baths." Mian opened the door as Ki'el got near, and the two of them went in-side.

  In the end, in-stead of bring-ing the top-ic up im-me-di-ate-ly, Ki'el let Chi-an con-vince her to go to a near-by bath-house, with Mian com-ing along on the walk just to keep up ap-pear-ances. Meixu... re-fused to go, de-spite what he'd said ear-li-er, say-ing some-thing about how he wouldn't be wel-come.

  Be-cause of the hour, per-haps, the bath-house was not busy when they ar-rived, and Ki'el was able to se-cure a room for only the two of them. Ki'el made sure to study the qi scripts, in the places where they were ex-posed, both for the baths them-selves, and what Kuli sug-gest-ed were pri-va-cy scripts around the edges of the room. Both were sur-pris-ing-ly com-plex for what they did, but Ki'el was able to pick out some ob-vi-ous con-cepts, such as 'heat' and 'wa-ter' and 'noise.'

  When she first sank into the hot wa-ter, Chi-an let out a strange-ly des-per-ate sigh of re-lief, one too cute for Ki'el to make any at-tempt to copy. Still... she put one foot in the wa-ter first, ex-per-i-men-tal-ly, feel-ing the heat start off at un-pleas-ant be-fore be-com-ing sim-ply too warm. But, trust-ing Chi-an, she stepped in fur-ther, and again, un-til she was up to her hips in the hot wa-ter.

  It... was start-ing to feel bet-ter, at that point.

  "Have you nev-er had a hot bath?" Chi-an looked at her strange-ly, the girl hav-ing only her head above wa-ter.

  "The peo-ple of my vil-lage did not have qi or scripts," Ki'el an-swered, mov-ing deep-er into the wa-ter. "They would boil wa-ter some-times, but... it was of-ten too hot." In the time she was with Lui and Sobon, she had gone out to a bath-house there, but had re-fused to go in. The peo-ple who ran that bath-house had the wa-ter filled with some kind of scent that she did not like, and the wa-ter had looked un-usu-al, per-haps as a re-sult. This ap-peared to sim-ply be clean wa-ter.

  "Ah." Chi-an ducked her head ful-ly un-der-wa-ter, com-ing back up a few mo-ments lat-er with her hair ful-ly soaked, and she got up, run-ning her hands through it. "Script-ed baths are the best, though. You don't have to wor-ry about get-ting the wa-ter dirty, usu-al-ly, and the tem-per-a-ture is al-ways just right." A mo-ment lat-er, she ducked her head back un-der-wa-ter, and Ki'el saw her play-ing with her hair un-der-wa-ter.

  Ki'el knelt, then sat, in the wa-ter, feel-ing a rapid change as the wa-ter be-gan to heat her core in-stead of her limbs. As she felt the warmth be-gin-ning to spread, she could feel her stress be-gin to melt, and could ad-mit that there was cer-tain-ly some-thing to be said for a good bath. It was... not quite like swim-ming, and this bath wasn't deep enough at its deep-est to let her more than pre-tend to swim, but it was good nonethe-less.

  When Chi-an came up out of the wa-ter, Ki'el not-ed that her Rag-ing Storm Qi--or rather, her blood-line's Rag-ing Storm spir-it en-er-gy--had cre-at-ed a thin lay-er of wa-ter around her un-der her con-trol, and Chi-an was run-ning it through her hair, sweep-ing out what-ev-er had been caught in there, restor-ing some of its col-or in the process. She watched for a mo-ment, be-fore broach-ing the sub-ject.

  "When I was meet-ing with the Guardian Beast..." it felt weird to speak of, and she want-ed to rush through it, but how even to be-gin? "...Kuli want-ed to speak with it, as I said be-fore, and in ex-change for it lis-ten-ing, Kuli spoke with it about the na-ture of spir-it en-er-gy."

  "Spir-it en-er-gy...?" Chi-an turned to look at her, a look of sur-prise on her face. "Is it re-al-ly that dif-fer-ent? I ad-mit it's strange, hav-ing qi that al-ready has in-tent in it, but..."

  "Meixu says that it's dif-fer-ent when you are cre-at-ing your own, but he doesn't think the dis-cus-sion would be all that use-ful to you."

  "Hm, maybe." Chi-an closed her eyes for a mo-ment, and Ki'el thought that she looked odd with all the wa-ter mov-ing through her hair. "I'd like to hear it some-day, but right now, I'm wor-ried about oth-er things. I don't have a place where I can safe-ly play with ...spir-it en-er-gy, not un-less we find a house."

  Ki'el felt a twinge, be-cause she want-ed to talk about it with her friend, but sim-ply nod-ded. "I would like to tell you, when you are ready."

  Chi-an nod-ded, and let her-self drift away in the bath, again, and Ki'el, though it felt weird to do it, dunked her head into the hot wa-ter, and be-gan scrub-bing out the dirt that had got-ten into her own hair.

  It be-came ob-vi-ous as she did that she had not tak-en good care of her hair... not that she re-al-ly cared all that much. She resur-faced, run-ning her hands through her hair, but it felt too thick in her fin-gers, coarse and un-pleas-ant.

  "Can I?" Chi-an moved clos-er, and Ki'el turned to let the girl touch her hair. Chi-an's stormy wa-ter en-er-gy tin-gled as it moved across her hair and scalp, and Ki'el did her best not to make strange nois-es as it did. "You haven't washed your hair in a while, have you?" Chi-an tsked at her.

  "Not well," she said. "A lit-tle bit... a while ago." She had tried to wash it in the bath-house, but the soaps they had all smelled aw-ful to her.

  "I can tell," she said. "You know, one of the perks of... of my fam-i-ly, is that there is a pow-er specif-i-cal-ly for clean-ing hair. I guess... I guess they like to keep clean, you know?"

  Ki'el sup-posed it was nat-ur-al that a spir-it fox blood-line would want to keep their fur clean, but re-spect-ed Chi-an's para-noia about speak-ing aloud on the mat-ter.

  Af-ter re-lax-ing and talk-ing about small mat-ters some more, Chi-an and Ki'el left the bath-house feel-ing fresh, find-ing Mian wait-ing out-side for them. The man, too, seemed to have washed him-self a bit, though Ki'el thought he must not have soaked as thor-ough-ly as they did. On the walk back, though, Mian did com-ment, "The hot wa-ter cer-tain-ly does help. It al-most feels like my bur-dens are lift-ed, a lit-tle."

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that, but al-though her body felt stronger... if she had felt bet-ter in the mo-ment, it had not last-ed. There was too much... and she had no idea what was right, what was com-ing, or whether she would ever be-long any-where.

  And that... that bur-den was some-thing she sim-ply didn't know how to car-ry, and no amount of hot wa-ter could wash it away.