Heavenly Shae

Heavenly Shae

Book 1: Old Monster

Chapter 1: "Go see the world."

Shae poked the fire with her favorite stick. It was important to have a favorite fire poking stick, everyone knew that. Sparks flew up as she rearranged the white hot coals and ash. She removed the stick to inspect the damage, the tip was blackened, and a few spots of char were glowing from the heat of the fire.

A small gust of wind noticeably cooled the stick. Shae looked across the fire, the old monster had appeared with almost no fanfare. His physical appearance resembled an antique, worn but somehow holding onto its own self importance. His unfortunate aging belied the power he had cultivated over his long life. His shabby robes were gray with dust, the original white only showing through in a few places, but the red and blue embroidery along the sleeves still held its rich color, red dominated the right side and blue the left.

The intricate needlework was an outlined floral pattern, almost like a Hawaiian shirt done in blackwork. The mostly monochrome design didn't draw too much attention, you were meant to pay attention to the man, not his clothes. A large snake or scaled lizard was hidden under the pattern on each sleeve. The old man's long white hair was tied back, covering where the pattern met behind his shoulders. He rarely faced away from Shae, so she hadn't been able to appreciate the full design, and hadn't seen the heads of the creatures.

"Still using that same stick, Miss Shae? It really would be nothing to get you something more reliable, I'm not keen on the taste of ash." He said in a gravelly monotone voice that reminded her of a grandfather with a cold. Not her own grandfather, and on second thought maybe a great-great-great-grandfather.

She looked back to the fire, it had been disturbed by the old monster's arrival. "Ugh, if you don't like ash, stop arriving with a gale of wind at your back." She gestured to the air above the fire, which had been filled with floating ash and sparks. Then she returned to poking the fire, trying to even the heat out again. She knew the old man would be more offended by unevenly cooked meat than a bit of ash. She wouldn't admit it to him, but in their short time together her tastes had drifted to match. Only having a few things to eat made you surprisingly picky about those things.

She didn't look up at him to check his reaction, instead she chose to imagine he was frowning in thought. She knew he wasn't, he never bothered to emote. Shae complained about it at first, how hard it was to have a conversation with him, and now she preferred it when he stayed away and just used qi communication to talk to her. He usually slipped more emotion into his qi than he let slip onto his face or in his voice. Their conversations were also much briefer then.

"Miss Shae, praytell what have you prepared for tonight's meal?" He asked, his words and tone too formal and stiff. He always was, unless he was angry, then the mask cracked.

"For me or you?"

"Surely, it must be the same?"

"Not today, you're getting the rabbit skewers, I'm trying something new... not sure you'd like it." Shae said, hesitating through her uncertainty.

"Ahh, come now, I'm no picky child. And I know rabbit skewers are your favorite. I'll try your new creation."

She briefly wondered if the 'picky child' comment was directed at her. Unlikely, he rarely sniped and never so directly. She was, in fact, a child, moreso in her own opinion. Mid-teens might be considered adults in this world, but she knew kids were kids for far longer than society expected them to be.

Her youthful appearance was colored by clear signs of her upbringing. Rough cloth and tanned skin marked her a working peasant. Culturally, her shoulder length black hair was considered too short, and it also indicated poverty. The wealthy would maintain and take pride in their long hair. She considered it a style choice. All the combs, hair ornaments, and extra soap required were luxuries she didn't want to pinch copper to try and afford. Not that she was ever close to having spare funds when on the road, alone.

Her childlike youth still showed and would have others call her cute instead of a more adult description. It was slowly fading as she passed through puberty, though it was hard to tell if she would blossom into a youthful jade beauty or be stuck as cute for another decade. She was free of any freckles, scars, or disfigurements that could drastically affect her future prospects. Her mother had been sure to point all this out to her before she left home. Now she found that being stuck on a mountain with an old monster had a bit more impact on her future.

She looked at him, to see if he was being serious about trying the experimental food. Impossible to tell. "Well, if you insist?" She asked skeptically. Rabbit skewers were not her favorite, but she couldn't manage to correct him on that, no matter how much she tried. Sure they were tasty, but they were just too much work to make. She knew many other dishes she liked more, but her options were quite limited here.

"Indeed, I do insist." he affirmed, a bit of qi-aura in his words, confirming he would not be challenged on this. Shae refrained from making the obvious "no take-backs" or "your funeral" comment, those never went over well with the old monster when he was being serious.

Silence held until the food was ready.

Shae had made the rabbit skewers because it was one of the few meals the old man didn't complain about. Having it to herself, she savored the delicate flesh, with just enough spice to overcome the gamey undertones.

"Hmmm, this isn't your best." The old monster stated.

Shae's expression said all the 'I told you so' she needed it to.

He set his meal aside to be left uneaten, he didn't really need to eat anyway. It had taken Shae a few conversations to get him to admit to that. It seemed he just liked having the meal as a cover for conversation.

"Did you think on the topic I mentioned yesterday?"

"Hmm?" Shae mumbled, food still in her mouth.

"About the insects." He spoke sharply, trying to jog her memory. "Living in the desert?" He gestured down the mountain at the dimming horizon, where a small patch of white desert could be seen.

"Ah, right. I'm not sure how you expect me to remember so much detail."

"Oh, come now, the Memory Technique I shared should be more than enough."

"The technique that I can't use properly because I'm too weak? And would it even work on past memories?" She shook her head. It didn't help that she had forgotten nearly all of his instructions the day after she tried it, and refused to admit it to him.

He shifted in his seat, expression unreadable, but his body language saying she might be correct. "Well surely you must remember something." Shae could sense the exasperation in his words, even if it didn't touch his voice. That was fine, exasperation was better than anger.

She paused in her eating, looking into the fire like it would reveal the truths of the world. "Desert would have... scorpions, for sure, and they have to eat something, so probably whatever they eat. And lizards, bigger ones like iguanas. They must eat some insects too. Probably small flies and sand mites. Sand mites are a thing, right, I didn't just make those up?" She looked up at him for an answer.

He managed a slight rise to a single eyebrow. "You sound uncertain. Mites and small flies are certainly abundant in other locales, mainly those with plenty of other life. Deserts and wintery mountaintops are extremes, however. So this seems to dodge conventional wisdom." He gestured up their mountain, the icy top was much closer than Shae would have liked, the frozen wind often whipping down to chill her bones.

Shae prickled at his words. The flat emotionless tone somehow made it more condescending than if he tried to be condescending. She shook off the irritation, stubborn determination setting in.

"There are cacti, of course, some grasses that can handle the conditions. Oh, cactuses can flower, so there must be pollinators, insects usually do that. Or birds, which would also need to eat, which would point to more insects... Probably not many birds then, aside from the scavengers, like vultures or buzzards."

"Vultures or buzzards? Which is it? What sets them apart from each other?"

"Ugh, I don't know!" Shae's composure cracked, "Why would I know? I barely walked by it one time and I'm supposed to be an expert all of a sudden?" She stood from her seat, but didn't shout directly at the old monster, instead turning to look down the mountain. "It's right there, why don't you just go there and look. You're a fancy cultivator, you probably have a flying sword and could get there and back in a day. Just go!" She gestured into the distance, breathing deeply.

"Are you quite done?" Finally a bit of emotion in his voice, impatience.

"Never." She whispered, knowing he would hear. Then she gesticulated wildly at the desert in the distance and looked at him. "The world is out there, Just, Go, Look, at it!"

"I think not, that is why you are here, my dear Shae. To enlighten me about the wider world, you've seen more of it, and traveled further than I have in recent memory."

"But that doesn't even make sense. Why don't you have some super qi eagle sight of the nine winds technique? You could just look at the desert from here and get more than what I could remember. Why aren't you using your super senses to go out and experience it?"

At some point he had risen to also look down the mountain at the desert in the distance. "The names are not quite that pretentious. I had heard of Eagle Eyes and Sky Sight in my early years but neither technique fit my cultivation style."

"Right, why would you need to look at anything while sitting in a dark cave all day." She snarked back.

She felt his hesitation more than heard it. "... what if I told you I was blind?"

Shae looked over at him, he seemed serious but it was hard to tell through the wall of stoicism. "I'd call bullshit. Go on a quest and get some new eyes. Even if you were, not a good excuse, you have at least four other senses to go explore the world with, now get gone!"

"You seem quite intent on my departure, why is it that important to you?"

"Because, I want to leave. Getting you to leave seems like a decent first step."

"Have you tried cooperating with my interviews?"

"I can do both!" She said sarcastically and threw her arms up in the air. "However, somebody doesn't take unknowns for an answer. How am I supposed to know something I clearly don't?"

"As you might have guessed, I have a sense for when you are lying, and when you are holding back." He paused for a beat. "You are holding back. Quite. A. Lot." He was being serious again, but Shae missed it.

"Haha, so yet another sense that you could be using on the world out there, instead of trying to wring nothing out of me here."

Clearly the old monster was reaching the end of his fuse, he put a bit of qi pressure into his words. "Have you heard of Divine Sense?"

"Ugh.." Shae managed, struggling to keep standing against the pressure.

"It is a pure sense that cultivators develop, unhindered by physicality, based only on cultivation and limited only by distance. With it I can sense the land around the mountain in finer and more accurate detail than a hundred mortals scouting the land for a hundred years."

Shae was still struggling against him, unable to speak. Self satisfaction now the only emotion she could feel from the old monster, bleeding through the qi pressure he was putting on her.

"Every day, when I sit in the dark and cultivate. I am expanding that sense, reaching just a bit further everyday. So in a way, I am going out there, seeing the world. We cultivators have more patience than you mortals. I can wait years to sense that desert, sense the horizon, sense the whole world."

Shae was pretty sure she could only sense 'smug' right now and really wanted to wipe it off his face. Finished with his lecture he had let up the pressure just a bit. "Well, -c'ugh" she coughed, "Congratulations on your inch, shame that you don't know how to use it."

The qi pressure crashed down on Shae without delay, dropping her to a knee. "Well, it seems you are eager for another session of tempering." The old monster stated flatly, not even looking at her. The qi pressure slowly rose, giving way to her coughing then collapsing to the ground. It let up then, just a bit. Enough that she could gather herself, catch her breath, then it would spike up again, making up for lost time. This cycle continued, repeated until one of the spikes of pressure had her coughing up a mouthful of blood.

She felt the slight intrusion of qi as the old monster checked to make sure she wasn't completely broken. The 'tempering' wasn't over however, they had just found the edge of what she could handle today. Usually he would say if she had improved, or not, since the last time, but not today. Shae must have really hit a nerve. The pressure ramped up again, just shy of her breaking point. Endurance based tempering he called it. Though he never really explained the process properly. The pressure didn't let off again until Shae had passed out, a fair bit longer than usual, Shae thought. She had been a bit more stubborn today.

When the girl's body slumped limply into the grass, the old monster also relaxed a fraction, his stoic facade breaking slightly. He carefully changed his aura and the local qi pressure to once again shield the girl from the pressure of the mountain itself. He then waited for her breathing to return to normal, followed by a quick qi scan to ensure no lasting damage.

Only then did he fully relax, slumping his posture into a slight slouch, a cane appearing in hand for him to lean on. He let out a long sigh, "Uh-haaa, mortals and their petty insults." All the bravado and anger drained from him just as easily as the sigh. Moving back to the small campfire he grabbed one of the cooling rabbit skewers, "Hmmm... but just what is an inch?"