The Door To All Marvels

Snowball Fight

As the storm clouds wheeled, high above them, revolving and swirling and cascading, and racing in their terrible power ever southwards— Mingtian stood at the edge of it all insulated only by a thin pane of glass, the golden glow spilling out around him catching, sparkling, as the snow fell down.What a dark moment.

Far above, the wind howled, and the qi of the world shivered, and—

All cold came down to their desolate world.

………

The next morning, the whole city woke bright and early. And was definitely the right way to describe it— the entire city had been drenched in what was probably the most snow it’d had in . Certainly more than it’d ever had last winter, and by no small margin, either. Most people were well willing to stay inside and huddle up amongst the warmth, confident that they wouldn’t be able to get to work in the first place, anyways…

Mingtian, of course, had no such reservations. He couldn’t actually via his front door, sure; the nearly three feet of snow made that prohibitive— but luckily, the wasn’t his only exit.

Leaping from his window was pretty fun, ultimately. That moment of weightlessness, suspended above the pristine snow… and then gravity reasserted its claim over his mortal self, dragging him unceremoniously to the ground with a of glittering snow and a suspiciously Mingtian-shaped hole in the ground.

He lay there for a second, feeling but not feeling the kiss of the cold on his skin— before, after a second, he picked himself up off the ground and began to trudge towards the park. He considered, for a moment, making a formation or talisman or something of the sort that would melt the snow in front of him… maybe something utilizing one of those phoenix feathers? No, that was probably a bad idea…

In the end, he just forged his way through the pillowy white with only his mortal strength. Which was, granted, not entirely insignificant— he hadn’t left himself when sealing himself, after all— but it was still somewhat of a slog to make his way all the way to the park.

A few other people had come out, too. Not a lot— the weather was rather quite frightful, after all— but enough that the park had that faint air of vibrant, atmosphere. The same kids from the day prior had been joined by a whole group of their friends, no doubt similarly freed from whatever responsibilities they might have had by the coming of the snows… he watched, faintly amused, as they clambered onto the old snow fort they’d built before and began to expand it. With all the snow the had access to, he didn’t doubt they’d have a quite unassailable position by the end of the day…

He glanced behind him to the sound of someone gliding forward— quietly, despite the deep snows.“Clever.”

“Thanks!” Lily stepped across the last of the snow— walking it, the faint gleam of a formation of some sort just barely evident beneath the soles of her feet. “It’s pretty hacky, I’ll be the first to admit, but it’s to walk across the snow so easily.”

“I can’t imagine that you had the most dignified of exits.”

Lily flushed. “We don’t talk about the friction coefficients.” Mingtian just chuckled.

A few seconds later, bounding from the same direction— this time with more ado— came Avyr. The usual ungainly gait of a human wading through deep snow was utterly lacking from him— instead, he through the snow, sailing from spot to spot instead of deigning to deal with the snow that almost entirely covered him.

It reminded him of a fish, or some elegant cetacean, breaching the ocean surface— and spray, cascading down off his back in so much glittering cloud-of-snow, scattered into the frigid air. With his cultivation enhanced strength— second-step strength— he could quite easily leap more than twice his body length every time. Somehow, he made it look graceful.

That rather more entry managed to do what Lily’s had not— gather the attention of the group of kids and their snow fort. The sole adult amongst their number tried to calm them down— but, notably— didn’t actually reprimand any of them as they struggled through chest high-snow to get to their bench…

Ah. Mingtain blinked, quietly reprimanding himself for not realizing sooner, and quietly, amusedly, leaning back as the first of them arrived.

Aimi tumbled out of a snowbank, giggling madly as she collapsed onto the ground next to Avyr, gasping for breath in the lee of her exertion. “That was fun! C’mon, c’mon, he’s not going to bite or anything…”

Mingtian sent an amused gaze to Janus as he trailed behind the pack of rambunctious kids, looking rather exasperated. “Sorry for… their eagerness… sometimes,” he paused, catching his breath for a moment— “sometimes I think I have enough energy to keep up with them, and then they pull something like , and I remember…”

“It’s no matter.” He patted the bench beside him, not looking away from the gaggle of kids as they managed to, in the impressive way that only arrogant kids and cultivators with an equally low level of emotional intelligence could, challenge the two to a snowball fight. “I wouldn’t have thought of all people, would be this calm.” As they raced out, the kids eagerly retreating to their fortress while Lily set up something that they’d probably remember for the rest of their lives, and Avyr played up the part of the ‘fearsome beast’ for them to fight against.

Janus shrugged, and if it was a little then Mingtian had the presence of mind enough not to point it out. “He’s… harmless.” His fellow librarian heaved a bag— a , insulated bag— onto the bench beside him, hard enough to make the whole structure creak. “Not that he doesn’t have the to do harm— he’s an cultivator, for heaven’s sake— but that he doesn’t have the .” Even as he roared at the kids, and the kids squealed and threw a flurry of snowballs back… “it simply isn’t in his nature.”

“What is nature, and what is choice?” Janus just gave him a weird look, and he chuckled in return. “Sorry. I had a conversation with Avyr the other day about matters of cultivation, and such. I’m just… in a state of mind.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“And now the one asking philosophical questions?” For a long second, neither of them spoke— before, together, they burst out into laughter. Whether it was the strangeness of the circumstance, or the influence of his mortal existence… Mingtian found the laughter to be surprisingly .

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Out in the field, Lily shouted— ”And a circle of blinding light erupted beneath her, a gleaming, light that seemed to glow with all the sunlight of a snow-clad world. Then, a whipped up, small at first, then only ever , expanding in scope until the whole park shivered under the force of it and a maelstrom of swirling snow revolved around the site of her grand formation.

Most of that was due to inefficiency in the qi gathering nodes, he gathered, though it certainly dramatic. He made a note to give her some pointers on that part of the art when they next spoke to one another… but, inefficiencies in a formation were inevitable when they were so quickly constructed.

Flashes of red light crackled through the contained storm as it reached only higher— another inefficiency, this time relating to her qi control which… understandable, given her low advancement. Still, she had clearly been rushing with the formation if she’d let it take much of her meager qi reserves…

With a final, sonorous of displaced air, the cyclone — bulging out and then back with a clap of air, leaving only a fine misting of snowflakes suspended midair… and Lily’s brand new fortress of supreme power.

It was… surprisingly unimpressive for such a dramatic formation. Mingtian couldn’t hold down the snort of laughter that escaped him at the sight of a hollow cylinder of snow, ten feet tall and featureless and just… onto the middle of the parkgrounds. It didn’t even have any crenulations or anything, just a smooth top.

Everyone else, though, was too busy gaping in awed, surprise to realize that the whole thing wasn’t that great to begin with.

He could see the faint exhaustion that burdened Lily after that working, weighing down her shoulders and clinging to the shallow rise and fall of her chest… but, she didn’t let it burden her much. Instead, she merely stood atop the wall, fierce wind catching the open ends of her jacket and— framed so dramatically, placed her hand on the pommel of her sword and declared— “I have raised the castle of Infinite Hyperdoom! Tremble in fear, enemies of the Hyperdoom Sect!”

His laugh only redoubled.

Of course, the kids didn’t take that lying down. In the spirit of good sporting, the first elder of the Infinite Hyperdoom Sect— that was, of course, Avyr— was convinced to betray his evil sectmaster by the righteous hero Aimi, who then rode him into battle at the head of an entire division of snowball wielding junior disciples whose glorious charge was too much for Lily to handle. Somehow, all the snowballs managed to bypass shielding talismans capable of blocking qi-enchanced blows from , but— well, that was the power of righteousness or something. They were having fun, and that was the most important part of it.

The whole thing ended when, after most of the kids had been struck by one of the sectmaster’s cultivator-precise snowballs, Avyr had burst with a blazing, power, shooting towards and the tower in an enormous spray of shattering snow. Lily cartwheeled comically at the top of her tower for a short second before she crashed backwards with the avalanche-destruction of the castle of Infinite Hyperdoom.

The kids cheered, Avyr let out a triumphant roar, and Lily just groaned as she pulled herself free of the wreckage. She was smiling too, though.

“Alright everyone!” Mingtian started a bit as Janus called out from beside him, gathering everyone’s attention— “who wants hot chocolate?” A chorus of kids crying Responded in kind, the whole gaggle of them, even the most tired ones, racing over to crowd around them. With the collapse of the castle of Infinite Hyperdoom, it seemed that their hero had graciously allowed the defeated sectmaster to partake in their victory spoils, too.

Janus spared a glance to Avyr, slightly apologetic. “Sorry… if I’d known you’d be here, I would have packed something for you…”

“It’s fine,” the big cat rumbled, seemingly unbothered.

Mingtian, on the other hand, had an . Grabbing the thermos of cold milk his fellow librarian was using to cool down the hot chocolate, he poured a bit into a cup and sketched a quick heating formation onto it. A rather elegant thing, if he had to say, ensuring that the cup didn’t heat up as much as the milk within it…

He handed it over to Avyr, who tentatively used his two front paws to prevent it from spilling everywhere. The he gave him, steam curling up from the cup and twisting around his whiskers, and fleeing to those lofty skies above…

“Thank you,” he murmured quietly, before leaning down to lap at the warm drink.

It was almost even cute.

The moment’s prior energy slowly collapsed back, fading once more, into the more , the more quiescent quiet enjoyment shared around a cup of any good drink. The kids all loved the hot chocolate, strange drink though it was, and he had to admit it was a rather tasty concoction…

As the steam curled up into the air, drifting across the starless azure sky, he took it all in—

Just another moment so , and yet, despite it, he couldn’t help but feel like it was so much than it’d been when he was…

Alone.

What a peculiar, mortal sensation. To so truly the distinction of the passing days and months, in a world that moved on the whim of hours and gave no respect to the future eons.

Avyr gently placed the cup on the bench, keeping a careful eye on it— lest some rambunctious kid knock it over. “This was… nice.” He seemed to hesitate, on the next words— not an ill-fated hesitation, he didn’t think, merely a hint of awkwardness. “Fun as it was, we didn’t come out here to get in a snowball fight. We…”

Lily took a long gulp of her hot chocolate and, with a gasp, quickly spoke over the big cat. “What he means to say is that we’re going to go on a short vacation. I mean— I know that this a vacation already and we’re having fun, don’t get me wrong! Just, we thought about it and didn’t want to use our break just staying here in the 32nd precinct when there’s so much more stuff to explore, you know?”

“I understand.” He nodded his head… that they had come back, at all, was already counter to the typical way of things. To explore, to … it was not all of cultivation, but he would be a fool to say it was not at least . Though, he could not deny that he was at least . “Where do you plan on going? Back to the Dragonspine Mountains?”

Lily choked on nothing, and Avyr laughed. “,” he rumbled, emphatically. “back there. Not for a long time, hopefully.”

“Yeah, what he said.” Lily shook her head, giggling— eyes aglimmer with mirth. “We’re just going to head to the next precinct over, you know? It’s not going to be anything crazy, just visiting the museum there. I’ve heard they have a bunch of artefacts from the Empire of Twelve Constellations!” As if their entire wasn’t an artifact from that ancient empire…

Mingtian sighed, his breath billowing out into the freezing cold. It wasn’t a sigh, though. “Sounds interesting. Be careful.”

“Of course, of course.” Lily rolled her eyes. “It’s just a quick trip. What could go wrong?”

Probably not much.

Probably.