Sword and Snow

As it turned out, we didn’t get immediately found out. When Avuri and I first awoke from our meditation that morning, we separated our Qi and Domains, leaving us feeling pretty normal to all appearances. Altogether, breakfast went pretty normally.

Avuri and I were joined by our girls, Vale, and all my siblings for the meal. It was a wonderful morning, especially after the relative chaos and darkness of the previous morning. Thankfully, Cierra and Stena both seemed to be acting like themselves instead of carrying any residual sadness from the previous day.

We all laughed together as we all gorged on pancakes. Avuri had volunteered to make the morning’s meal as the two of us had been the first up and about. She had also decided to make the meal a little special, adding some of her chocolate to the pancake batter - I imagined she wanted to cheer up the girls just in case they were still upset.

And while they didn’t appear to still be upset, the pancakes were a huge hit anyway.

I was glad to see everyone in a good mood after the fiasco the previous day, and all the laughter was just the medicine we all needed. It was also unfortunately exactly what Avuri and I needed to forget about our previous nights’ exploits.

Following breakfast, everyone started to go about their own daily routines while they were on a half-vacation. Kota and Ieji decided to take an early break in the bathhouse to relax, citing their usual lack of access to a large hot spring-like bath.

Demi and Rylie had wanted to join them, but were shooed off; instead, they ended up heading out to the playground for some morning exercise. I suspected they were planning to work up a sweat before kicking the other two out of the bath later for some girl time.

Vale and Talya decided to entertain the girls in the house while Avuri and I cleaned up our breakfast. They had broken out a deck of cards for a simple children’s game pretty quickly, and every time I walked back into the room to grab more dishes, I couldn’t help but smile watching them play.

On the fourth trip between the dining room and kitchen where we were washing the dishes, I decided I was wasting time and called up my Domain to gather up the rest of the dishes in one go. Avuri was in the kitchen at the time, using her own Domain to generate water to help wash the dishes off. But that was still close enough that our Domains touched almost within seconds of my attempt to pick up the dishes.

One thing we hadn’t done at all the previous night was work on how to control our new connection. Or, more specifically in this case, how to stop the connection from forming on contact. And that’s exactly what happened. The instant that our Domains came in contact with one another they melded together, forming that same strange, combined Domain that we had incidentally formed the night before.

Thankfully, we had experimented enough that nothing went haywire. I didn’t suddenly create pillars of ice in my attempt to float the plates, and Avuri didn’t accidentally start creating metal while using water to wash the dishes.

Unfortunately for us, it didn’t matter. Vale had grown accustomed to always having small amounts of his Qi dissipated in the air to keep an eye on his surroundings. It never required much attention from him, but was always enough to tell if there were unwelcome visitors nearby, or just something generally wrong. And he caught the change in our Domains right away.

I had done my best to act like nothing happened while directing the plates into the air, but Vale’s face still shot up from his hand of cards to look me in the eyes. In that short moment I couldn’t tell if he looked concerned, angry, afraid, or shocked.

“Emery?” He said tentatively, “What did you do?”

I gave him a shaky smile while allowing the plates suspended in my Domain to fall back to the table. “Uh…I’m not sure what you mean? I was just going to bring the plates into the kitchen to wash them?”

His expression finally seemed to settle on bemused. So, he wasn’t angry at least. That was good. I knew what he was going to say next before he did. He was never one to beat around the bush.

“Emery, your Domain - “

“Run.” I told Avuri through the link, and immediately bolted toward the window. I flew out the window, taking the two story drop with ease. It was barely a second before Avuri landed next to me, having leapt from the kitchen’s window. I grinned, seeing that she didn’t so much as blink before following me.

“Where to?”

“Bath house.” I sent, hoping to get Kota and Ieji to run interference.

“Emery! Avuri! Hold it right there!” Vale shouted from the window as we took off running.

The fact that he wasn’t immediately on our heels as I knew he could be told me that, if nothing else, what we had done was nothing too horrible. If he was actually mad or genuinely concerned, he would have had us pinned within seconds; but as it was, we were putting distance between us as he shouted out of the window.

It reminded me of when I was a kid, and my siblings and I would regularly run and hide like this. Once we were older, running away as we were caught getting in trouble had become a game of tag that we regularly used for training. It would quickly devolve into all of us trying to stymie Vale from catching whichever sibling had forgotten to wash the dishes, or whatever else we had done.

As we turned down the path toward the bathhouse, I heard the telltale slam of Vale’s heavy landing on the ground that he did whenever he wanted to be menacing. I smiled - he was playing along.

“Emery!” He bellowed, dragging out the last syllable. “Get your sorry ass back here, you! And Avuri too!”

“Run, you two! Run!” Talya shouted from the window, clearly holding back some laughter.

We bolted toward the bathhouse at full tilt. Vale wasn’t right on our heels, but he was gaining on us, adjusting his speed to make us work to escape. He was playing the game, same as we had always done as teenagers. A laugh bubbled up out of my throat and it came out sounding almost maniacal.

Avuri turned to me, and I could feel her concern radiating from her through our new bond. The feeling was so clear that it almost threw me off; it felt almost as if it was my own feeling of concern for myself.

I turned to her with a huge grin on my face, all of my concern over the situation flowing away. She must have felt it from me too, as she answered me with a grin that showed a total lack of concern.

“What’s the plan?”

“Just follow me. Stick close.” I responded. Avuri immediately worked her way to fall in closely behind me as we barrelled through the large double door to the main bath.

“Emery? Avuri? What - “

We didn’t even slow down as we fought to keep out balance on the wet rock around the bath while keeping up speed. “Sorry!” I shouted, actively looking away from Kota and Ieji. I wasn’t sure if they were clothed in anyway or not, but I wasn’t about to find out. Avuri quickly covered her eyes too, looking down to just follow my footsteps through the bath. I yelled, “Tag! You’re it!” as we slid up to the back wall of the open air bath and jumped the wall.

Vale crashed through the doors right as we hopped the wall. I heard him bellow my name as he did so, followed quickly by a bunch of water sloshing around.

“Dad!” Kota said, sounding happy and excited. “Came to soak with us, did you? Grab a towel and sit down! The water’s lovely!”

“Yes, you must join us.” Ieji followed up.

As we continued to make distance, all I could hear was the shuffling and scuffle that no doubt broke out after we ran away. There was splashing and some other noises, but we were too far to make sense of it.

“I knew they would still help.” I laughed. “Just like old times.”

Avuri shot me another look. “Old times?”

“Yeah! We used to run from chores like this all the time as kids. It made for some great -”

I was cut off by Vale’s shouting and a large crash as he literally moved through the back wall instead of over it. Kota - thankfully clad in a towel around his center - was still holding Vale’s leg.

“C’mon, Dad! You said you’d join us!” He insisted, trying his best to hold the dragon-man back.

Vale looked at him briefly, grabbed him with both arms, and pitched into a violent spin. The force was enough to force Kota to break his hold, and Vale threw him back into the bath with a loud splash. Then he once again turned his attention to Avuri and I, pushing off into a run again.

“Sorry, sis!” Ieji called from somewhere still in the bath.

I laughed again. “To the playground!”

Avuri must have felt my elation and enjoyment in the situation, because it was beginning to rub off on her. She had a wide smile on her face as we jumped between trees on the shaded path to the playground.

The run was short this time, and we quickly made it to the wide field that was set aside for playing and training. Rylie and Demi were both already watching us, likely having heard the commotion from before. They were clearly dressed for a work out, but hadn’t actually worked up a sweat yet.

They looked confused as we broke away from the wisteria trees lining the path, but looked less confused when they saw Vale running behind us.

Demi grinned widely at me immediately. “Tag?”

“You’re it!” I said without missing a beat. Demi and Rylie stepped up shoulder to shoulder as Avuri and I blew past them. “I owe you two.”

“Hey, new sis!” Rylie called, offering Avuri a bit of a smirk. “Once you two get caught, I want some of that hot chocolate you made for the girls yesterday.”

“You got it!” Avuri laughed, her smile only growing wider. “If you can keep him here for twenty seconds, you’ll get three cups!”

“Yes ma’am!” Rylie and Demi shouted in unison as we made it across the playground and crossed into the trees again. I felt my sisters’ Qi flare as they prepared to actively try to halt Vale’s advance.

“They won’t last twenty seconds.” I sent to Avuri.

“Couldn’t hurt to give them something to work for. Now what?” She sent back.

“Back toward the house? We’re out of distractions.”

“I guess we just keep running then!” I could feel the exhilaration and joy washing off Avuri in waves through our bond. I couldn’t help but laugh and enjoy the insanity for a moment.

And a moment was really all we had. I could feel a few clashes on the playground, but it only took seconds before I felt Rylie and Demi get entirely overwhelmed. And then I heard Vale yelling our names again.

“Ten seconds.” Avuri said.

“That sounds about right.”

“I’ll give them two cups each.”

“I’m not sure they deserve two for ten seconds.”

“Well you did say that twenty was too long.”

“I did.”

“Emery!”

Vale’s shout was too close for comfort as we once again broke away from the little cover offered by the trees. With nothing else to put in his way, Vale was basically upon us - well, mostly me - and prepared to grapple us into submission.

“Break left!” I shouted into our link, and Avuri listened without any hesitation. She immediately turned to the left as I made a hard right. Vale swung his arms in a bearhug motion right in between where we had broken off from and growled as he turned after me.

“Keep running! I’ve got your back!”

Avuri didn’t need to tell me twice. I didn’t slow down or even chance a glance back at Vale to see how close he was to grabbing me. Even without looking, I knew he would be mere steps behind me.

“Duck!”

I did so, and felt the brush of air pass through my air as I narrowly avoided Vale’s attempted grapple. Avuri seemed to appear out of nowhere, and slid into Vale’s leg foot first, with a sliding tackle. Evidently, she had created a path of ice to make her slide fast enough to make contact.

The impact didn’t really seem to have any effect though, and she merely crashed into him without pushing him off balance. Vale wasted no time in bending to wrap an arm around Avuri's waist. Then, ending the game, he all but vanished from my sight as I felt an iron like vice wrap around my own waist and hoist me up off the ground.

I sighed and let the fight go out of me, drooping in Vale’s clutches. He was laughing now, carrying each of us in one arm the way he might with large packages, tucked under an arm.

“You two idiots are married for two days and you already Bonded your Domains? What are we going to do with you?” He asked.

Avuri and I shared a look, then I watched in horror as she lifted an arm and pointed at me the way a child would.

“It’s her fault!”