Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

"Silent and lost, vast but quaint. The quiet of the rustling leaves and springs of water fill my mind, tempting with their guile, but subtle in their influence…" Ryu muttered out the words. It was just a short few words, but he felt something stir in him. There were an endless number of contradictions in these words alone. "Vast but quaint" was just the most obvious of them. But mentioning quiet and then speaking of things that very obviously made noise was yet another. The final line, however, seemed to reframe it somewhat. Ryu stared at the poem for a long while, and soon, a picture of a woman seemed to form in his mind… a woman who found peace in this endless forest, alone and seemingly abandoned by the world, and yet still felt like she was missing something. The rustling of leaves and the rush of water was her quiet and her silence; she could quite easily lose herself in them, forgetting that they were there in the first place. But if she could so easily ignore the sounds and calls of nature, then wouldn't it be even easier for the world to forget about her existence? If the sway of such gorgeous trees and springs of water that descended from glacial monuments and rained down from the Heavens couldn't even keep her own attention… then wasn't she even smaller? They came from such vast, grandiose origins. And yet to her, they were just quaint and small, easily ignored, easily forgotten. And yet, even in their subtlety, they carried a depth that she cannot match. She chases after them, trying to encapsulate their secrets in a few words, taking their vastness and making them feel as small as she feels… But in the end, she's yet to reach that threshold. "Guile… sly or cunning…" Hours later, after reading the same words again and again, Ryu looked toward Taedra. "It seems that your own guts aren't very small." Taedra had stood silently by the side all the while. At first, she had thought that Ryu would just read for a little while before he did what he actually wanted to do by bringing her here. Half of her thought that he was probably just bored of all the women around him and wanted to take her for a "spin" after she angered him. There were plenty of men like that in the world, men who bedded women to try something new or out of sheer boredom. She wouldn't have been surprised if Ryu was one of them. At this point, she was already so old. If it could save her life and allow her to finish what she started, then it would be fine. After a day or two, Ryu would just get bored of her body and leave. It wasn't as though she was saving herself for anything important anyway. At this age… she had already stopped caring about such stuff. But he didn't do that. Instead, he read the same two lines over and over again for literal hours. He didn't even seem to grow bored. Although cultivators were known for their patience, it wasn't to the point they could focus on something so small for such a long period of time… unless their minds were likewise undergoing such a myriad of changes. But it was Ryu's words that shook her to her core. Her gaze flashed brightly and a hint of pride Ryu didn't even know she had until reading this passage sparked. All of a sudden, her hand moved and she rushed to her desk with two brisk strides, practically knocking Ryu out of the way. She picked up her quill and wrote out some words with vigorous strokes. Ryu smiled, only lightly taking a step back, but there was actually a heavy dose of fatigue between his brows. Taedra was a very long ways away from this step, so far away that he could see that she would more than likely die before she managed to succeed. Because she hadn't dedicated her life to poetry like a true mortal might, she was unable to give it her all. But ironically, it was because she had lived so long that her poetry managed to reach such depths. It was a paradox of sorts. The 100-year life of a mortal was probably the best chance one would have of reaching untold levels with an Art. But… it was likewise not enough time. On the other hand, if you cultivated at the same time in an attempt to extend your life so that you could reach that threshold… reaching that bar would only become harder. There were many stories of mortals who had never cultivated becoming Sky Gods in a single bound, but there were none that Ryu knew of that came from powerful cultivators. If you wanted to dedicate your life to such a thing, you had to truly dedicate your life to it. Ironically, Taedra had found this love of poetry too late in life to make maximal use of it. Had Ryu not come… she would have eventually died of old age, not writing out the last line that she sought after so desperately. But now… Taedra took a step back, staring at the line she wrote in half confusion and half pride. It was an odd mix as she both wondered if she had really finally done it and that she had truly finally done it at the same time. "Silent and lost, vast but quaint. The quiet of the rustling leaves and springs of water fill my mind, tempting with their guile, but subtle in their influence. "Their veneer lies dominion, a kingdom of roots gripping the core. A whispering unyielding, not swayed but sovereign—not grand but calm. "A voice that carves stones and shapes valleys. A pen that paves destiny and lays unseen. "A force that lays dormant but waiting." The words echoed through the air, and yet neither Taedra nor Ryu had spoken even a single word. The Heavens themselves seemed to have spoken. And a light descended from the skies in response.

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