“Happy birthday!”

  They all yell at the top of their lungs(yes, even Rakan), their fellow restaurant goers grumble but no one outright complains to them. It would take suicidal courage to admonish a cultivator. Not that they would kill them, or really do anything, but you don’t go petting bears just because a few are docile. Unless they’re Dune Bears, but that’s besides the point, the analogie is for normal bears.

  Yorin is absolutely delighted by the scene in front of him, plates upon plates of different kinds of curry, all for his little stomach. Tantra is horrified by the mess he’s going to make, but she can put that aside for now considering the occasion.

  “Curry!” He bellows like a warcry, then starts his crusade against etiquette and manners.

  Rakan chuckles at the display, taking his lamb chops and eating them with a surprising amount of care, considering he doesn’t really act like a proper gentleman.

  Erick is sitting next to her, so manners are obligatory, much to his dismay. But Tantra will not tolerate an improper upbringing! The boy will learn manners someday, and Tantra will keel over before she gives up on her sacred duty.

  Kisrin is fine. In terms of eating, not in terms of…everything else. He’s been getting better over the months, but the times he just stares at nothing are still frequent. She doesn’t really know what she can do for him beyond what she’s already done. Which is just to talk, she wants to get him a gift or something but she feels as though that would be faux pas, considering she’d essentially be telling him to celebrate the destruction of his village.

  Etra…well the less said about her table manners the better.

  Just as she’s about to enjoy her noodles, someone places a hand on her shoulder.

  She turns around disgruntled to find two women wearing robes of black with a white trim with identical faces smiling at her.

  “Hello!” One of them says,

  “Are you Tantra Sol?” Says the other.

  Tantra just blinks at the two of them then nods hesitantly.

  “Great!”

  “We’d really like to talk with you!”

  Tantra scrunches her brow at them, “why?”

  “Oh just to get your real name,”

  “Then kill you!”

  The restaurant goes silent and Rakan materializes his club as the others clutch at their weapons.

  “Because you’re not Tantra, she’s still training in…where was it?”

  “The Serpent’s Pinky!”

  “That doesn’t sound right,”

  “Well it is!”

  “Wait,” Tantra says, “what do you mean kill me?”

  They both look at her like she’s dumb.

  “What it sounds like dummy/silly!” They both say simultaneously.

  Rakan rises from his chair, “what she means to say is why you want to kill her”

  “But we already said!”

  “She’s an imposter!”

  “But I'm not!”

  “Prove it!” They both say simultaneously.

  Tantra scratches at her cheek, “I could..uuhh…teach you market economics?”

  They both give her a flat look.

  “Okay, say that she is an imposter, why should you care?” Rakan says.

  “Money!” One of them says,

  The other nods enthusiastically.

  “Wait, wait” Etra interrupts, “I’m not following this at all, someone hired you? To kill this chump?”

  They both nod at her.

  “A little dishonourable to act as assassins against one so far beneath your own cultivation, isn’t it?” Rakan says with a critical edge to his voice.

  “Pfft, puh-lease, don’t pull that on us, we do what we want!”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Exactly!”

  Rakan just stares at them and shrugs off his club, “inside or outside?”

  -

  Unfortunately for the proprietors, the twins had chosen to get right to the violence with little to no fanfare. Each manifesting dual falchions and immediately going for Tantra’s throat, they were both blocked by Rakan, but their blades managed to chip his Kanabo, what followed was a flurry of activity as Rakan took on two cultivators of who knows which realm all at once.

  He was losing.

  Not by a dramatic degree, but they were drawing lines of blood on him, switching between fainting and attacking with an eerie precision that belies their aloofness. So naturally, Tantra had to distract one of them, just one, that’s all. One of the cultivators that can keep up with Rakan.

  Sure, why not.

  Not like she has any other choice.

  So she charges in, club raised high and eyes scanning for an opening. She finds none, but she just needs to distract, not beat. She brings down her club and the woman snickers before she becomes a blur and-

  Pain.

  Two blades dig deep into each of her shoulders, causing her to drop her kanabō to the floor. Tantra lets out a scream as she is kicked to the ground and blood flies everywhere. She stares at the roof, contemplating life and how fucking stupid it is for getting her in this situation before the woman goes to finish her off-

  A clang echoes as a guandao blocks her blade, Tantra can hear a wet cough from behind her as the woman steps back and raises a brow.

  “We’re only here to kill her kiddo, stay out of the way and you might live,”

  “Fuck, you” Yorin coughs.

  The woman shrugs then she is a blur again-

  Tantra, with all of her being, forces her arms to move, despite the severed muscles. She sends Qi to each shoulder and demands of them something impossible. She boosts as much as her body would allow, and grabs the woman's ankle.

  She seems startled, actually tripping in front of Yorin.

  Yorin brings down his guandao but in that time she has cut Tantra’s wrist and rolled out of the way.

  Right into Etra’s staff.

  It seems to disorient more than damage, which is exactly what they need to stop her from activating her speed technique, because that can’t be regular boosting, the amount of Qi it would take would be tremendous. Also Tantra still has her arms, if she were boosting regularly, her strength would match her speed.

  Tantra grabs her kanabō and charges at the woman as Kisrin stabs her through the guts.

  She growls and whips out her blade at Kisrin’s face, cutting a thin line as blood spurts onto the ground.

  Tantra flares with anger as she brings down her club for the second time.

  This time the woman isn’t in a position where she can counter, forcing her to bear the brunt of a two handed club caste in pure steel with her dual falchions. Tantra suspects that they must have durability scripts, of that she infused them with Qi because they don’t even chip.

  Etra swings her staff at the womans legs catching her off balance and-

  She becomes a blur, and Tantra can smell the sheer amount of Qi that woman just expended.

  Smells like motion somehow.

  In an instant she is in front of Etra, bearing down her blades.

  -

  His name wasn’t always Rakan.

  He used to be called Okath Fars, a simple name for a simple boy. Okath means to bring about winter, it was kind of a joke among his family. Afterall no one likes winter, at least not where it snows. Few crops can be raised during such a season, and it’s too cold for anyone to do anything but huddle amongst each other. He’s pretty sure his family only let him join to add to the warmth.

  A lot of his early life was like that, kindness only shown when there was something to gain, otherwise he was the victim of both apathy and occasional cruelty. It’s not like his family went out of their way to hurt him, they just didn’t care, and when it was convenient, he would be the one that suffered for them.

  Amongst his siblings he worked the field the hardest, despite being the youngest.

  He would be the one to take the beatings.

  And he would be the one to blame if anything untoward happened to the family.

  Because he was winter.

  No one likes winter.

  Eventually, when he was old enough, he jumped at the chance to join a sect, joining the tournament barely a month after he had access to his Qi.

  He lost in the first round.

  He was tenacious though, always getting back up, always fighting.

  This was his chance.

  Hilarand obviously saw something in him, because out of all the candidates he chose Rakan.

  He didn’t want to say goodbye to his family, so they left right after the tournament.

  Hilarand taught him as they travelled, taught him the ways of cultivators, and their values. He didn’t really understand back then, he was only seven, but he’d grow to appreciate the man’s words.

  When he crossed into the sect Okath died and Rakan was born.

  He chose that name because Hilarand told him it meant strength through adversity.

  It sounded right at the time.

  Since then he’d been training, pushing himself to be the best, he formed a few bonds and went on a few journeys. Reaching a level of strength that could rival someone in connection, and in only three decades. He was, in every sense, a prodigy.

  But he’s never had anything like a true family.

  Over the past year he’s grown fond of the fools in his charge, not to the point where he’d consider them family, but on the way there certainly.

  So when he saw the woman's blades making way for Etra’s skull, he knew what he had to do.

  Rakan pulled at his core, drawing each ounce of Qi and pushing them into his legs, arms, and kanabō, in an instant, faster than thought itself, he was beside the woman, club flying at her.

  It burst her skull like a melon, brain matter and bone fragments flying everywhere.

  Etra stands unharmed.

  Rakan lets out a shaky breath in relief.

  Then two blades burst from his chest.