Winter became spring, and the snow became floodwaters. But this was only the last verse of her song, and one she had fretted over too much. When focused on the oncoming summit, the peace she hoped for in the future, it was easy to do. But the future did not only include peace. They were going to war next year. They were going to battle the ith. It was going to be hideous. Winter devoured. It consumed. It crushed. The falling snows, so beautiful in their glittering majesty under a newly risen moon, suffocated the last embers of life lingering on from autumn's slow decay. That was another difference between her song and Master Zeqing’s. Zeqing's Frozen Soul Serenade was the black heart of eternal cold, a freezing song that never ended. It portrayed the chill of the cloud-piercing peaks, exposed forever to the cruel stars and blackest sky, and slew only what trespassed upon its domain. In its way, the snow that swept across the world was a much hungrier beast. However, in the end, it was a beast that was sated, that retreated, and gave way to warmer seasons in time. It was not a bottomless and unceasing hunger. There was a dichotomy she had not grappled with, in these concepts. "I like how it feels around here." Hanyi’s pale eyes sparkled as she looked up at the cloud-wreathed peaks ahead. They stood on the lowest slope, the foot of the mountain. They had gathered quite a train of lesser faeries, a glittering, whirling constellation of icy lights winking among the clouds. "A wandering site. Interesting." Ling Qi would need to report this to Renxiang and speak to the Meng geomancer they were promised soon. "No use just standing here. Let’s climb, Little Sister, and see who tries to bar our way." "Oh, I can't wait!" Hanyi tossed her hair, glaring up at the winking lights overhead. "You all better watch closely!" Ling Qi gave Hanyi's hand a squeeze and lifted her skirt hem in the other, and together, they began the long, rocky climb. They climbed toward the clouds, and the clouds came down to meet them. As expected their journey was not without opposition. The wind picked up. It howled and ripped at their hair and gowns. The soft snow fell thicker and became a driving sleet, chips of ice that would have battered a mortal, sliced their skin, and driven them to a fleeing panic. But even reduced as she was, Ling Qi was far from a mortal, and her junior sister never one at all. They were not supplicants come to beg for respite but peers to be respected. The swarming faeries above multiplied in number. As falling snow turned to slicing sleet, Ling Qi inhaled deeply, feeling the frost crackle in her lungs and was refreshed. When she let it out in the strident first verse of her song in tandem with her sister, the howling wind bearing down upon them broke apart. On the side of the icy mountain, two winter storms met and clashed. The year's end comes, blowing, blowing, o'er high mountain and o’er low hill, o’er wild river and o’er lake still. Wings flutter and fly for warmer nests. Blue skies fade, a memory for another season. Sing. Sing of chilling white, of glittering ice upon the quiet shore. Sing of snow lying light o'er roof, and of hearth where merry fire burns, embers kept alive till the end of the dark. Warm smoke rises into the frozen sky, spiced with faith and hopes. The other storm responded. Wild blows the ice, driving needles and crushing hail. Riot, wail, and revel. What is death? What is life? There are only the nameless winds and the frolicking clouds, returning ever when the Great One’s Cycle turns to cold. No limits, never limits, on the storm. Human spark, O poison temptation of want, flee, scatter, huddle upon the shore! This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Ling Qi squeezed Hanyi's hand. These were truly wild spirits, bundles of power and fragments of awareness from greater spirits temporarily spun together. , they were wild and free, unknowing of fear or death, of loss or want, nothing but the faintest wisp of thought wrapped around mechanical purpose. This driving wind and blizzard howl was the face of winter's violence. There was a place for sentimentality, but it did not exist not here. They strode over the mountain rock, between the snow-buried boulders and scrub, and under the rattling branches of trees. Ling Qi could feel that successfully arriving at the peak was no longer a thing of physical distance, though her own stride corrected such impediments. She looked up into the whirling cloud and met three pairs of eyes: one made of chips of ice; another of spinning flakes of dizzying beauty; and the last was of black pits of churning clouds. She tilted her chin up and let her mist flood out, joining Hanyi's whirling wall of pure white snow, letting the faeries above see her without restraint. Beside her, Hanyi's song rose in answer to the taunt, delivered back in their face. Wasted. Wasted is the song none hear, the field painted in glittering white none see! Beauty is in hearts and minds. Boring, empty flecks and flakes that tumble and spin, wanting nothing and being nothing, so much is missed! Be welcome, be beautiful, be known! She plucked the shrunken snow fairy from her head and cast a gimlet look up into the cloud where the other, the one composed of dark clouds, still hung. Then, she placed the snow fairy in Hanyi's hands. "I'll need some rest back at camp." That was one step, she thought. Her Final Frost Serenade had its first proper verse.