Ninecloud City, crown jewel of the Ninecloud Continent
The Emerald Pavilion, Embassy of the Aurelius Clan
Leiala 238 / 983 ADW
I strained with everything I had. Sweat soaked my hair to my skull and my muscles shook from the effort I was demanding of them.
My foot was a mountain as I lifted it … and staggered three more steps to sag against a fountain carved from a gemstone the size of a house.
My legs trembled and I felt the wind start to thicken around me, but I held onto the edge of the water feature until I had my strength back and my mother released her grip on the air. With eight months of straining myself I was still struggling to walk more than a few steps, but the same amount of practice had made my senses second nature to me. It took no real effort to extend the threads of energy, and less to maintain them, which meant I could clearly see my mother reclining at the edge of the courtyard.
She wore her customary smile on painted lips, and her robe was even more elaborate than the many layered monstrosities that I was forced to endure. Her hair was woven through an elaborate arrangement of hairpins and jewellery, and she sampled delicacies from ornate jade bowls as she attended to her work, yet she had a perfectly ordinary broom propped against her shoulder. It was aggravatingly incongruous, even after so long.
I felt the brush of her own sensory power, admonishing me even as her smile widened.
Knowing that the threads of energy that let me sense so much of the world were only invisible to me was one thing, but I had no idea how she could always tell when I focused too much on a single place.
I did appreciate her guidance, but the threat of punishment hung heavy over my head. So reminded I spread out my awareness properly and picked through the courtyard for my next target.
It was just one of the outer courtyards, its lanes barely wide enough for two lanes of traffic in my old worlds, but there was still no shortage of options.
The emerald fountain at the centre flowed with wind instead of water, and the breeze that emanated from it rang the crystal fruits that hung from every metallic tree. Despite looking and sounding like sculptures they were living plants -bizarre ones that had all been grown and pruned into the exact same shape- that had been arranged to form the Arelius Clan's crescent moon symbol when viewed from above.
Between the symbol's two arms were flower beds -all of the plants within glowed or burned endlessly or something equally supernatural- forming the two characters that completed the clan's symbol. I wasn't allowed near those, but the trees were 'safe enough' in my mother's words. What mattered to me was that their semi-regular spacing made them perfect for practicing walking.
My cousin had been able to walk from birth, and I was not enjoying being three months behind a baby. Or eight months, if you counted my age, though perhaps it should have been five months for the difference. Regardless, my initial plan had been to hold back to avoid embarrassing the heir and giving any impression of disloyalty, but instead I was being beaten by an actual child. It was…upsetting.
So I mustered the combined will of a salaryman and a soldier, and set out for the second closest tree. Determined to challenge myself no matter how heavy my body felt and how exhausting it was and how much I wanted my bottle.
I just had to keep picking up a foot and planting it in front. Pick up. Plant. Pick up. Plant. Pick up- Realise I'd neglected my senses in my focus and that a decorative engraving had caught the cloth of my tiny slipper. Fall.
I braced myself as the air thickened around me. My mother appeared between one moment and the next, catching me with arms that felt unbreakable through the cushion of wind, then it dissipated and I was being held by a regular woman. So long as you didn't consider it irregular that she twirled her broom in one hand while holding her baby in the crook of her other arm.
My punishment came a moment later, as my mother swept my robes aside and puckered her lips, then blew loudly against my stomach.
I flailed and beat my tiny fists on her head. They passed through her like she was made of air -because of her Windskin Iron body, whatever that was- and she blew a second time before finally relenting her assault on my dignity.
I would have been significantly more upset if she had not followed up as she always did, pressing a hand to the same spot and gently overwhelming my energy with her own. All the tiny imperfections in its looping paths through my body were obvious when she did that, and she would carefully coax my energy into moving more smoothly and efficiently through me.
Then just as suddenly she was done, pulling her energy away and settling me more comfortably into the crook of her arm even as my clothes came to life and set themselves to rights. My mother's weird telekinesis always made me wonder if she could only use it to tidy things up or if she just chose not to do anything else with it.
Honestly, I should probably have been more wary of the woman. No matter how my infant brain kept flooding me with feelings of comfort and safety whenever she held me in her arms, I would have fought the feelings tough and nail if only she wasn't so understanding.
It had taken longer than I thought it would for me to pick up the language, and I was still struggling to learn to read, especially with how my parents kept snatching me away from certain texts like they thought my head would explode if I read them. My attempts at gathering information in secret had been foiled by their careful attention to my level of comprehension, such that I had only heard a few snatches of unfiltered conversation before they started moderating their words around me.
But looking back, my abnormality must have been clear from the very start.
I hadn't realised until after my cousin was born, but a baby looking around with intelligent eyes was creepy. Extremely creepy. Not to mention weird, and disturbing, and creepy. Enough so to make me shudder even just seeing it at a distance during the official presentation of Sha Miara, Luminous Heir, before the Ninecloud Court.
Yet my mother only ever showed me a smile, and her energy was never anything but gentle against mine.
It was hard to stay on guard in the face of unconditional love.
Instead, I had resolved to take full advantage. No matter what small indignities I had to endure to do so.
"Mother-" A finger was at my lips, my mother's disconcerting speed on full display, and she frowned playfully down at me.
"...Mama." The finger vanished and she whistled cheerfully as she set off along the courtyard, head cocked slightly to show she was listening to me. "I need to practice more."
"No more practice my little breeze, not today."
That was not what I wanted to hear, but I wasn't so foolish as to dismiss the advice of my seniors.
The most important thing I had been able to confirm about this world's magic was that it allowed for a Sacred Artist -what they called their mages- to Advance. The term referred to the process of enhancing the energy inside them, and a sacred artist who did so grew exponentially more capable each time they achieved the feat.
The energy within me, and the feats of focus and strength it allowed me to accomplish when I should have been barely able to crawl, was hardly a drop in the ocean that it could become.
My energy placed me in the Foundation stage or -depending on who I listened to- level or realm, the last of which had only a slight difference in intonation distinguishing it from the Foundation Realm. The Foundation Realm was the umbrella term that encompassed the first four levels; Foundation, Copper, Iron, and Jade. Those four were the stages that a child would Advance through to be considered an adult.
Above them lay the Gold Realm, The Lord Realm, and finally the Realm of monsters like the Luminous Queen, so powerful that when I first succeeded in pronouncing her name my father had made sure to warn me that she could hear me when I used it. No matter where I was in the world.
I would be careful not to forget his advice.
Her power let the Luminous Queen rule over the entire continent -proving that I had once again been born into a world more primitive than my last- and the others like her did the same elsewhere on the planet. Meanwhile those who failed to Advance far enough were doomed to low positions regardless of their talents.
My father, focused on his schemes as he obviously was, had still reached the middle of the Lord Realm. I suspected he had had no choice but to do so and had redoubled my own efforts upon realising it.
Fortunately I had the guidance of my mother to rely on. A woman who stood at the very top of the Lord Realm. An Archlady whose power had earned her a comfortable position as a diplomat for another of this world's great powers. Though she -and, technically, I- shared her family name with a peer to the Luminous Queen, my mother had not earned her position through idiotic nepotism.
A glance over the many distant relatives of her -our- clan who performed menial tasks throughout her Embassy showed how far that would get someone in their ranks.
My mother had advised me to focus on my body when I asked how to advance, and I had taken that advice seriously. If she told me now that I had practiced walking enough for the day, then I would take that just as seriously.
I did wonder where we were going though.
Unlike my last life, I was valued enough to simply ask these sorts of questions. "Mo- Mama, where are we going?"
She looked down at me, never slowing her pace, and her smile softened. "I've received word from my tailor, little breeze. We're going to see how your new robes look."
I promptly started struggling to free myself from her arms and get back to more important things.
It was a futile effort, but it made me feel a little less like a helpless doll as my mother whistled and strolled towards the edge of the courtyard. Since the gardens were on the roof of the Emerald Pavillion, a building that towered above the clouds, that gave me a wonderful view of the Heights of Ninecloud City. The tallest buildings and the ones whose cloud foundations flew the highest made up the loftiest districts of the immense metropolis, and were collectively known by that name.
The sight of it truly felt like another world. The brightly-coloured clouds that could support entire buildings were incredible enough, but even the buildings that speared through the sea of more ordinary clouds were more like gigantic jewels and crystal towers than anything I had seen in another life. Not even the cities of my first life could hope to match it. My eyes were still not fully developed but I had learned to reinforce them with my energy enough to see Ninecloud City stretching to the horizon without diminishing. Given how high up we were, I could imagine how all of Tokyo would have been swallowed up by my new home.
However while I had been lost in nostalgia, imagining the Tokyo District, my mother had not stopped walking. She finally hopped up onto the ornate marble and iron railings that bordered the roof, as smoothly as if she'd been stepping up onto a sidewalk, then she stepped off into open air.
I had flown higher than the clouds before, many times, but the key words there were 'I' and 'flown', and most importantly 'had'. As in, I had flown, but I couldn't now.
Having fought hard for the dignity of using a toilet normally, I came horrifyingly close to being relegated back to soiling myself. My terror was instinctive, but that made it easy to master once the first moments passed and I realised that the rushing wind had no hold on me. My mother's mastery over air allowed her to shape it around us, such that only the trailing silks at the edges of her outfit were caught in it. Other than that she and I might have been standing on a rock in still air, instead of plummeting through a thick bank of clouds.
We punched through into open air and Ninecloud City spread out before me. For all eight months of my life so far I had been carried around the Heights by one parent or the other. Even there I'd only really seen my home and my mother's Embassy. The occasional sight of the city through windows was like catching glimpses of a dream.
Now I saw reality, and no dream could compare.
Our descent had transformed the sea of clouds into an overcast sky, yet the city's lights were brilliant enough to banish the gloom and paint the clouds with a thousand shifting colours. The vast buildings I had seen from above had become titanic pillars holding up that sky, with mere giants filling out the city around them.
Down here the solid clouds were everywhere. Huge examples floated as though fixed in the same grid as the city below, some flying alone amidst empty space, while others laid out entire streets and districts in three dimensions. Smaller and more mobile clouds carried lesser buildings -only the size of a house, instead of a city block- that moved slowly but freely through the city. Then there were the tiny ones that held what looked like carriages or even individual people, all of those soaring at speeds that would probably have looked more impressive if any of them were close enough to see properly.
Instead my mother and I fell alone alongside one of the city's pillars. The Emerald Pavillion was a ridiculous megastructure carved in marble and gemstone but it was the empty air around it that most clearly displayed the reputation of its owners.
Lucky for the Clan's dignity, that meant no one could see my mother pull a face when she felt my attention focus close to her. I hurried to spread it out again before she could levy another penalty so soon, but we were already plummeting past the tops of the regular buildings and their mere several dozen floors went by before I could perceive anything beyond a riot of colour and sound.
My mother was taking her next step in the same moment that she landed, once more whistling and twirling her broom, while all around us Arelius Clan workers were hard at work in the gardens that encircled the Embassy. Only a handful broke off their work to bow or gape at my mother, and by the slight downward twitch at the corner of her mouth I doubted they would be rewarded for it.
It was good to have high standards but I had to wonder if she understood how disruptive it was for the boss to abruptly fall out of the sky. No matter how smoothly she had landed.
There wasn't much chance of her listening to a baby on the subject of human resources though, and I had no intention of revealing the full extent of my memories to burnish my credentials. I put the flaws in her management techniques out of my mind and focused on the city that loomed up around us at ground level, buildings towering over the gardens where a few moments earlier -and a few hundred metres higher- they'd seemed insignificant.
The edge of the garden had no boundary other than a wide decorative engraving in the stone paving, and my mother cleared that in a single step with the aid of a very convenient gust of wind. Despite the sheer force required to lift her like that, the wind hardly ruffled her hair, and I didn't even feel it.
Then we were out in the city, and the noise and smells all hit me at once. My wider senses had taken it in, but it wasn't the same as feeling it all with my actual body. Spice and music and chimes and smoke and light and who knew what else. It was so overwhelming that I felt my instincts clamouring in my throat, the rising urge to scream and bawl until my caretakers made the unpleasant sensation go away.
With a little help from my mother's soothing hand on my belly, I mastered the urge and found her looking down at me again.
"Remember that Tanya. Just because you know it's coming, that won't make the sensation any duller."
I nodded dutifully and committed the lesson to memory. My wider senses were as acute as my physical ones, but they had a certain mental distance to them that had been hard to appreciate in the pristine halls I had lived in so far. Out in the grime of a living city, I was extremely glad to discover that distance.
To normal eyes and ears and even a normal nose, Ninecloud City would have been unbelievably clean for the primitive level of technology on display, especially given the sheer scale of the city. Streets as broad as any modern city teemed with finely dressed people going about their business and faint music drifted through perfumed air. The city loomed above us, the street criss-crossed with decorative banners and street-spanning bridges, all of it looking as though it had been built fresh that morning and the paint and lacquer had just barely finished drying.
To those of the Arelius Clan, the hidden dirt was laid bare. Whether it was flowing through intricate sewers beneath the street, or coating the carefully hidden alleyways that workers hurried through. As my mother carried me through the crowded street -always at the centre of a slight bubble of empty space- I got to take in both the gleaming perfection of the city and the well-oiled machinery that kept it gleaming.
Despite the grime, that machinery drew my attention more than the endless wealth and wonder and I realised soon that the low-tech display was just a facade. Fire might have lit the lanterns and heated the food in every street stall, but those fires were unnaturally steady and strong, consuming strange fuel where they didn't burn out of nothing at all. Beasts of burden might have been the most common method of travel at ground level, but the beasts were as likely to be strangely animated puppets as actual animals, and in either case they hefted absurd loads.
I had noticed the glowing symbols and strange objects that filled every hidden space of my home and the Embassy, and had long since figured out that this world used its magic in place of most technology, but I had thought such things were a luxury of our lofty station.
Watching a sewage worker rummage through a floating chest that followed her through the tunnels, I re-evaluated.
The difference was one of quality, not kind. Indeed the more I looked the more I found things that matched or even exceeded the capabilities of my previous worlds. Especially once my mother's steady pace winding us through the lesser commercial streets and into a sprawling many layered district of leisure facilities.
What shops I could see from my vantage were selling services more than products, greeting rare customers with the dignity of a high-end establishment. Meanwhile most buildings were selling…experiences.
I saw a crowd of boastful youths selecting weapons ahead of descent into some kind of labyrinth, next door to a hall of cushions where children laughed and hurled themselves through the air like gravity hardly existed there. Concerts played out in a dozen vast auditoriums, and plays filled the rest, all accompanied by a level of special effects I could hardly believe. I even saw a hall tucked in a lonely corner where a more sedate class of customer watched a large projection play out a story at one end, and had to admit that I wouldn't have chosen a cinema over the other diversions on display either.
It wasn't a place for the poor to play, but it wasn't for the truly wealthy either, not with how my mother continued to stand out in her finery.
Which meant I was going to have to re-evaluate more than just the level of technology. The cultural advancement of this world exceeded my expectations as well.
They might have been brutish in their attitudes towards strength, but that clearly didn't make them savages.
Even if some of the people I saw might have looked it.
I had seen my first talking animal not long after my mother first took me to her Embassy, but that dignified ape had worn clothes befitting the grandeur of a diplomat as he took tea with her on one of the rooftop gardens.
The pack of glowing tigers that was loudly discussing their plans for the afternoon hadn't bothered to wear any clothes at all. Though it was perhaps unfair to call them savages for it, given they were mostly exchanging critiques of various operas as they lounged around a particularly ornate fountain.
They weren't even the strangest people on the streets. I'd hardly seen a single normal looking human since I was born, finding that almost everyone in this world seemed to have one odd feature or mutation to mark them apart from others, but out in the city -and no longer distracted by the city itself- I realised just why a mere extra limb here or flaming hair there had failed to draw comment from my parents.
Things got much weirder than that.
People with wings chatted over drinks with humanoid trees. A group of floating lights played instruments made of light for occasional tips from passersby. An actual dragon sprawled out in a pool of pleasantly floral goo while attendants massaged and groomed it, and I spotted some much smaller but similar looking dragons wrestling in one of the soft-play areas under the watchful eyes of the workers there.
Then my mother leapt two hundred metres straight up and I lost sight of all of it.
In an instant we were strolling through a far more luxurious and rarified sort of shopping centre. One where attendants immediately appeared from hidden doors and began offering refreshments and services and guidance to a lounge where they would bring us whatever we wished.
My mother waved them off without a word, marching right up to a tailor that I would have mistaken for a small palace if not for the animated mannequins that posed in clothing that should not have been physically impossible.
Another attendant materialised -or would have seemed to if I couldn't see into the hidden room where they'd left their lunch half eaten- and bowed us through the door as it opened automatically. In moments we had been guided through golden corridors to a room so heavily decorated with tapestries and delicately hung cloth that I wasn't sure if it even had walls.
Refreshments were brought and my mother idly rearranged the bowls with a crooked eyebrow and her odd telekinesis, digging in her sleeve as she did so. She pulled out one of my bottles, a masterwork of delicate golden lattice woven around a carved crystal bottle, and offered it to me.
Given that my mother had never fed me from anything but a bottle, I had gathered that it was considered somewhat shameful to breastfeed. Not that I had any right to complain. The milk was always the perfect temperature and tasted incredibly delicious. If oddly herbal and a little like her energy felt.
I drained the bottle in record time, shaking my head when another appeared in my mother's hand and refusing to be so crass as to burp when she bounced me gently on her knee. She favoured me with a gentle look of scepticism but then the proprietor appeared and spared me from any verbal argument on the matter.
Six hours of exquisitely crafted torture later, I wished dearly that we could have spent some of that time arguing instead of dressing me up in ever more elaborate clothing.
Still, I had conducted myself with the dignity befitting my parentage and hadn't let the occasional lip wobble become the cries that my infant brain longed to resort to.
Not even when my mother declared that the twelve layered robe they had finished with was so perfectly tailored that it required no adjustment. Meaning I would be wearing it out of the establishment.
Combined with my short limbs, it was hard not to feel like a cocoon, or possibly the victim of some enormous spider.
Though at least my mother was happy. She was smiling even wider than normal as she left the shop and strolled over to a quiet plaza full of statues. Then her attention abruptly fell on me with such force that it felt like a physical weight.
"You don't like the clothes, my little breeze?"
A diplomatic lie was on my tongue when I remembered that my mother valued me far too highly to be bothered by my distaste, and that she could definitely tell when I lied.
"They're hot, and I can't move."
Some kind of unnaturally cool silk was woven into the inner layers, and it was the only reason I wasn't sweating through them already. As for moving, it felt like I would rip through them if I moved wrong and yet like I was wrapped in a straitjacket at the same time. I hated them the most out of all the outfits my mother had tried out on me.
She just smiled. "That's perfect then. Time to get some more exercise."
"But I can't move."
"And yet you must." Despite my protests she placed me gently on my feet and pointed to a statue all the way across the plaza. Half again as far as I had ever walked before. Then she said, "That one my little breeze, or we'll have to slow your training down to something more appropriate for your talents."
It was an ultimatum she'd never even hinted at before. Always I'd felt like I was exceeding her expectations, and my father's as well. Everytime I achieved a new level of proficiency with my energy or my body they looked at me with pride and delight in their eyes, but clearly I'd missed something.
Perhaps I was exceeding the expectations for a normal child, and my parents were doting enough to appreciate that, but clearly our station meant higher standards.
Well.
I lifted my foot as far as my clothes would allow, ignoring the effort, ignoring the strain, and planted it as firmly as bedrock.
Normally when I exerted myself physically my energy flowed through my body by instinct more than conscious control. Now I took control in full. Balance was always my weakness, so I forced that to strengthen. My legs trembled with my weight, so I made them stronger. My neck and spine wanted to flop limply, so I made them firm.
Then I took another step, and another, and another.
The magical cooling didn't have a hope of keeping up, but we were in public and I could no more risk embarrassing my mother than failing her. Another conscious working of my energy kept me from sweating from the effort of it all. Though my head ached from the additional focus on the energy flows throughout me were starting to feel raw and tender.
I kept walking.
My energy was starting to run dry, which was normally the point at which my mother would have stopped me regardless of my physical state, but she didn't move and I didn't stop.
It was just a few more steps.
Then just one more.
Then-
I was in my mother's arms and ascending rapidly through the clouds before I knew what had happened. The movement was so sudden I had to take a moment to think whether or not I had fallen over.
But after that moment I was sure. I hadn't. I had done what my mother had commanded me to.
"Ah well. I suppose you are ready after all little breeze."
So why did she have such a complicated expression in place of her usual smile?
Ninecloud City, crown jewel of the Ninecloud Continent
The Immortal Spire of Celestial Radiance, Inner Chambers of the Next Dawn
Leiala 238 / 983 ADW
To Sha Miara, the time before her birth was like a dream.
She had not known what a dream was when she woke, but she had known to expect that she would awaken from it. She had known what was to come. She had known so many things.
She had not understood all the things she knew in that time before time, but she had still known them.
Now her dreams came to her with the same absolute clarity as her mother's womb. The recollections attended her as eagerly as the Lords who served her at all times. Though her mind could never be a tenth so humble as they were in her presence. Not even with the vast disparity between them and herself.
She had been able to see Vital Aura while still in the womb. Though the time between awakening and emerging into the world had been mere moments, she had still witnessed the perfection of a Monarch's form from within. She had seen her mother's Core shining like the sun from within a body that was as much spiritual as physical..
So they might have surpassed her like an ocean exceeds a droplet, but mere Lords could not begin to intimidate her. They were pale shadows of what a Sacred Artist could become. Of what she would one day become.
Whenever she started to forget that, mainly when it had been too long since her mother could grant her an audience, Miara only had to call upon the memories that referred to whatever Lord she beheld and remind herself of the true comparison between them.
Ran Malya, Third Keeper of the Inner Court, placed a vial of elixir before her, and Miara recalled that Malya had not advanced to Copper until she was two years old. A long bony finger tapped the cylinder of bitter nastiness and Miara pondered the inaccuracy of that phrasing. Malya had been almost three.
Rather than force her poor servant to remind her again, Miara reached out with her pudgy hand and popped the vial open. Then she drained it in a single gulp and resisted the urge to wrinkle her face at the taste, or throw the glass tube at Malya's.
The Luminous Queen would never be so undignified around a mere Overlord. So Miara, as the Luminous Heir, would not do so either.
Instead she placed the vial gently back on the golden tray before her, then settled back into place on the cushioned dias on which she sat. Occupying pride of place at the head of her meditation hall, it was comfortable enough that she had to fight off the urge to fall asleep while she cycled her Madra. Of course to do so would have been unacceptable for the Luminous Heir, so she did not allow it. No matter how much her foolish body believed it needed to sleep the days away.
Thoughts did not come with the clarity that she remembered from that long dream, and she had a vague understanding that it was because her mind was now subject to the limitations of her physical form. Likewise her body might have had the capabilities of a child in the Copper stage, but it was still prone to feelings that she knew a Copper should have left behind long ago.
She had shared that weakness with her mother, whispering it to her in a private audience, and the Luminous Queen had favoured her with her embrace. Then she had reassured her that it was acceptable to release such feelings in private, and held Miara until she finished crying.
Her mother was a guiding star in a world of shadows. The one thing that her memories could do no justice to. So she had added that understanding to the vault of knowledge they bestowed on her and allowed herself to sleep and cry and wail whenever her mother had the time for such an audience.
The rest of the time, she reminded herself that the Luminous Heir must have discipline beyond any lesser Sacred Artist, and glared at the Lords and Ladies whose presence forced her to maintain her royal bearing.
Fortunately there was always the distraction of cycling. As one in the Copper Realm she could see the Vital Aura that filled the world, and draw it in to become her own Madra. In her meditation hall, filled with the most powerful natural treasures that a Copper could withstand, Miara was free to focus on her breath and the beat of her heart, and the steady pulse of her core as she cycled the auras of those natural treasures.
Each moment of cycling brought her more power. Each drop of power brought her greater understanding. Each fraction of understanding brought her closer to readiness for the next stage.
When she focused on her advancement Miara did not feel so much like a mass of power barely contained in a body that thrummed with confusing knowledge and mewling instincts. She just felt like a Sacred Artist at the beginning of her journey, looking ahead to the mountain that she had just begun to climb. The mountain that she would one day reach the peak of.
It was comforting.
It was the only comfort the Luminous Heir could allow herself in the presence of her lessers.
And so passed the days of her first three months after awakening.
There were occasional interruptions. The wonderful moments that she could bask in the presence of her mother. The awful hours she had to spend in official ceremonies and being presented to the court. Her memories told her that hours were not a long time but it felt like it never ended and she wanted so badly to cry and have it all stop and go away. She wanted the time with her mother not to end so quickly. She wanted comfort.
She got time in her meditation hall.
Then one day, for reasons she did not really understand, there was a new kind of interruption.
The Second and First Keepers of the Inner Court told her that she was to have a guest in her chambers. Her cousin was being brought for a personal audience.
Memories told her that their relationship was more complex than that. Sha Tanya was the child of Sha Rallan, and therefore her second cousin. She wasn't sure what that really meant though, and it was dangerous to share her recollections when she was not sure of her understanding of them. Her mother had told her that herself.
So Miara stayed quiet and waited to find out what a second cousin really was.
When she beheld Tanya for the first time, Miara decided that a second cousin was a small creature wrapped in pretty robes until its blonde hair could barely be seen. She dutifully added that knowledge to the crystalline records of her memory. Then she took a second look at Tanya and realised something terrible.
She could not sense the other girl.
Not having advanced to the Jade stage yet, Miara did not have the luxury of spiritual perception. She lacked the senses to be aware of a spirit that was not actively exerting its spiritual pressure on the world.
However, she had only ever spent time in the presence of those in the Lord Realm or higher, and such Sacred Artists were too strong for their spiritual pressure not to leak out of them at least a little. Not unless they suppressed it, and suppressing their pressure in her presence would have been the act of an assassin. No one would dare.
Always she had been able to feel those around her. Even as Tanya's father rose from his brief bow and carried his daughter towards the dias, Miara had no trouble feeling the weight of him.
Tanya had no such weight.
Because she was not in the Lord Realm.
Because she was weak.
She was one of the people of the Ninecloud Country, and she was weak.
Weak, and surrounded by those stronger than her.
Miara shot to her feet with her fists balled at her sides and glaring so hard that she could feel tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. Right at each of the Lords and Ladies that stood at the perimeter of the meditation hall.
The instinct that moved her didn't come from her dumb body, but from the perfect clarity of her memories. A purpose that echoed through her dreams and into her body, until she felt like she would burst from it.
She was for protecting her people. That was the Luminous Queen's purpose, and the Luminous Heir would become the Luminous Queen. So it was her purpose too.
Sha Rallan placed his daughter down with another bow, then retreated to the edge of the hall. Miara wanted to scream at him.
The Luminous Heir was perfect, and didn't need a father, but she knew that a father was like a mother. Someone who could be trusted by their child. Yet he was leaving Tanya with just Miara to keep her safe from any Lord or Lady who decided to hurt her. The fool.
She would be able to crush them all one day, but not yet. She wasn't strong enough to protect her people yet.
One of the Ladies at the edge of the hall moved, Sha Lalalei the Fourth Lesser Keeper of the Inner Court, and Miara tried to manifest her own spiritual pressure and crush Lalalei through force of anger alone. How dare an Underlady make any movement at all in the presence of a Foundation stage infant? What if she hurt Tanya?!
The foolish Lady went still again, and Miara looked to Tanya to check on the girl.
She found her sitting on the cushion where her father had placed her, looking back at Miara with considering eyes.
It was weird to be looked at by someone weaker than her, but that didn't matter. Miara had to make sure she was okay. Also, she belatedly remembered that she had to say the right words for a personal audience.
Her memories gave her the right way to say what she needed to, and Miara mouthed the words twice then said them as clearly as she could.
"Greetings beloved cousin of the Sha family. Be welcome in my chambers and speak freely. A-are you in-" A memory cut her off as she realised the potential implications of asked if her cousin was in good health when her father had been the last to touch her. Even if he was fool enough to put her down amidst so many Lords and Ladies, Rallan hadn't given reason for such suspicion. So instead Miara awkwardly finished her question, after too long a pause, with a vague, "Are you well?"
Tanya looked up at her, raised up on her dias, and smile weirdly and too wide…but her eyes were honest and she said, "This humble one thanks the Luminous Heir for such concern. Please be assured that I am well."
"Ah. Good."
Miara frantically sorted through her memories for how to say, politely, that Tanya needed to hurry and run away because she was too weak to protect her. Tanya just kept smiling, and the silence dragged on while the Lords and Ladies all thankfully stayed where they were.
Finally Tanya said, "This one is honoured to be in the presence of one whose advancement surpasses her own."
That gave her just the opening she needed, as Miara found a memory that was sort of right and drew herself up to say, "To come into the Luminous Heir's presence despite your weakness, y-you are impertinent."
Instead of crying for her father and fleeing, Tanya only cocked her head to the side and said, "This one's weakness is offensive to the Luminous Heir?"
Instead of groping for words any more, Miara nodded and waited for Tanya to go where she was safe and leave Miara to get stronger as fast as she could.
Only, Tanya settled into a cycling pose instead. Then she began to do…something. Miara couldn't really tell without spiritual senses, not for sure, but she could see the way the thick vital aura of the meditation hall twisted around her, and she could connect it to memories from her dream, and most of all she could hear Sha Rallan gasp and appear a dozen paces away with almost every Lord and Lady in the hall having moved to intercept him when he tried to rush towards her.
Fools, the lot of them. Obviously he was trying to get to his daughter, because she was advancing to Copper.
"Let him through!" Miara shouted, wishing she had her mother's voice instead of a shrill and childish tone that broke when she yelled. At least they all did as they were told. A few tried to come closer with him but she gave them another glare. Advancing to Copper was delicate and they might hurt Tanya.
Though, if Tanya really was advancing, Miara suddenly wasn't sure if she needed to protect Tanya or not.
The dreams told her all about protecting those weaker than her, and she knew that one day that would be everyone else on the Ninecloud Continent, even if she didn't quite understand what that was yet.
People stronger than her were to be surpassed. That was something she understood very well after three months under the tyranny of her attendants telling her when to sleep and eat and bathe and everything.
People as strong as her though, she had no more experience with those than she'd had with people weaker, and far less immediate instincts for dealing with them.
The twisting of the vital aura got stronger and she felt something a little like a breeze going towards Tanya, if you could feel a breeze with your Madra.
Then Tanya sucked in a deep breath and toppled forward onto her face. Or she would have if Miara and Rallan hadn't both caught her. Or, Miara supposed, if Rallan hadn't caught her and Miara's much slower reaction hadn't left her holding onto her uncle's arms.
Technically her first cousin once removed, the memories told her, but that was silly. He'd helped her keep Tanya safe and that meant he was her uncle.
As he helped Tanya passed out body into a meditative position, Miara settled back on her own cushion and tried to figure out what to do with someone as strong as her who was so close in age.
The memories didn't even have anyone else but her who had reached Copper before their first year passed. Not even in their dimmest reaches, where she felt like there had once been more and perhaps would be again when she was stronger.
Delving in search of it did remind her that she needed to surpass those as strong as her too, but that was hardly enough of a challenge to be worth dwelling on. She was the Luminous Heir and nobody could stand against her with the same advancement as her.
So should she protect her fellow Coppers too?
That idea felt more right, and she was settling on it when Tanya finally stirred.
Her cousin was on her feet in an instant, power surging through her enough that Miara could feel the bare stirrings of spiritual pressure on her skin, and for the first time she thought of something else.
Should she be cautious of someone as strong as her?
What if Tanya wanted to hurt her? Like the Lords and Ladies all around seemed to think?
Miara still glared at them, even as she almost took a step back from Tanya. From her peer. The first one she had ever met, and probably the only one she ever would, if the memories were right about how incredible this was.
Everyone was muttering, and nobody was moving, and again Miara had the thought that Tanya might attack her when her cousin moved.
But all she did was fall to her knees, suddenly able to do it with the same grace as Miara could have. Then she bowed her head and said, "Is this one now worthy to be in the Luminous Heir's presence?"
A dream flashed in Miara's memory, and where they were normally hazy and lacking in such definition, she knew at once that this one was a memory of her mother. A memory of Sha Rallan.
A memory of him bowing his head and offering friendship when her mother felt angry and fierce and alone, then Miara lost the memory in the flood of happiness that came from what her mother did in it. She couldn't find the memory again, and she couldn't remember what her mother had done. Just that she had never regretted it.
The light of her mother was still there to guide her though. Even if she didn't have the memory, Miara knew what her mother did when they shared an audience. It might only be a personal audience and not a private one, but surely the rules were the same?
So she stepped forward and reached down, then pulled Tanya up into a hug.
Her cousin was warm and soft and wearing far too many layers of robes. She was stiff and still and she didn't return the hug.
That was okay though. Technically hugging the Luminous Heir was disrespectful and Miara didn't want Tanya to be punished. Not when her memories had finally given her the perfect thing to do.
She drew back from Tanya, and drew herself up to her full height, then Miara announced to the hall.
"Sha Tanya is hereby declared a Companion of the Luminous Heir!"
The dumb Lords and Ladies made a lot of noise, and Uncle Rallan's eyes had gotten wider, and Tanya was just staring at her, but none of that mattered.
Miara could remember all the fun adventures that other Luminous Heirs had gone on with their Companions, or bits of them at least.
She was sure that it was the right choice. Now Tanya could get stronger together with her, and they'd help each other, and give each other hugs, and it would be like if she'd had a sister only not like some of the sisters she had only very dim memories of where one of them had ended up gone and wasn't in any other memories.
The Luminous Heir would advance and Companion Sha Tanya would advance as soon after as she could, and they'd work together to do what the Luminous Heir should do.
They'd work together to protect everyone on the Ninecloud Continent.
…Whatever that was.
A/N: Happy Holidays folks. Sorry for the delay on this one. Now off I go to finish playing Cyberpunk so I can update those fics too.