Sword and Snow

Emery

Emery was lightly scrubbing their dishes while listening to Cierra, Stena, Arek, and Astra arguing over what game they should play later that night. She supposed it wasn't really that important. None of what she had done that morning was, depending on the point of view. But this very normal life was important to her. And now she was once again in a position where she could try to fight for it, rather than be wrapped up in training all day, every day.

"Why're you scrubbing dishes?" Avuri asked her mentally while putting away the left over food for scraps or animal feed later.

"Because I want to." Emery sent back with a shrug. She felt Avuri's soft joy flow through their connection at the sentiment and it made her smile.

And then she felt Vale draw closer. He was, as expected, coming to take Cierra, Stena, Kord, and Avuri's cousins back to the Elders' compound for their own training.

Emery also was pretty sure that, if he paid any actual attention to her or Avuri he would immediately sense that they had completed processing the dragonblood, and would bring them with him, too. Afterall, Emery knew they would need some more training. Even Kord had started to go back to the compound for a little bit of additional work with Ray to truly make use of his dragon abilities.

Emery and Avuri both knew that they would need to do the same. They knew that. But…

Emery glanced over at Avuri, standing in a corner of the kitchen, wearing a cute apron, fiddling with leftover breakfast ingredients. She had to suppress her initial response to the scene before her, but the second urge she channeled down their link. Impulsiveness, a little impish delight, silliness. Emery was feeling immensely childish today, apparently.

Avuri received the message, and glanced back over her shoulder to meet Emery's shimmering eyes, and she couldn't help the slightly exasperated smile that spread over her face, nor the way it morphed into something similarly childish to the smile on Emery's face.

"You sure about this?"

Emery had to hold back a giggle. "Yep."

Avuri did giggle at that, which drew the attention of the kids at the table. "Your funeral, I suppose." She said aloud.

"Hm?" Cierra prompted, looking confused.

"What's going on? Mom, you in trouble?" Stena asked.

Emery considered her response for just a moment before answering, "Not yet," and shushing her children with a finger to her mouth. She undid her own apron's tie, while Avuri followed suit. They weren't exactly dressed for any roughhousing, still basically wearing slightly worn-out work clothes after their morning chores.

"What do you mean, 'Not yet'?"

"Wish us luck." Emery said with a wink.

"What do you mean, 'Wish you luck'?" Stena asked again, sounding mildly alarmed, but Emery and Avuri practically vanished from the kitchen, prompting their children to all stand up, their chairs clattering to the floor. Except for Astra's, whose chair just slid back.

Emery dashed out of the house at almost her full speed. She held back just enough to avoid causing any damage to the house or furniture. Avuri was on her heels, keeping up easily enough. They both knew they would have to get away to the edges of the Basin before they could really use their full speed, if not beyond the barrier Array entirely.

As soon as they left the house, Emery turned to run in the exact opposite direction from Vale's approach. If they were exceedingly lucky, he either wouldn't notice them or wouldn't care that they were moving away from him at high speed. If they could stay far enough way from him for the short period of time he was here to gather up the Elder-training team, they may be able to at least have this one day to relax with nothing to work on and just spend it with their kids.

Unfortunately, Emery was not surprised when Vale's course altered just slightly - moving from the house toward them.

"He's onto us." Avuri sang, even her mental voice ringing with a teasing, playful song.

"You don't say." Emery sent back, knowing full well that they had a near zero chance to simply run away without being noticed.

"Now what, love?"

"What do you think? Do we just run, or do we get creative?"

"I think we start with just running?" Avuri said, as they bolted straight through the little neighborhood of homes they had built for the kids and visitors.

"Morning, Talya!" Emery called, still running full tilt, as they passed her sister tending to a little garden she had started in front of her house, with Mylo strapped to her back.

"Morning?" Talya said, turning around to see nothing but the dust cloud Emery and Avuri had kicked up.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Most of the kids were still at the dining pavilion eating, so the area around the houses was mostly empty except for a few stragglers that were the last to wake up. Emery stopped briefly to hug Fia, and she picked up and spun Faye around to say good morning as they ran past. Avuri had clapped Kord on the shoulder and wished him luck with training as they ran by, leaving all three of them speechless.

"Morning Cove! Glenn! Mica!" Avuri called, as they also passed her cousins, who were stretching in front of their own house, preparing for the day to come. The three of them all waved back, but wore clearly confused but amused expressions. Glenn must've been the first to actually venture out with his Qi senses, because he suddenly went pale.

"Run! Run faster, you idiots!"

Emery laughed boisterously at that, and picked up speed. Avuri kept pace as they approached the edge of the Basin. Vale had been gaining on them, as he was flying at a decent speed, not worried about causing damage to the ground or buildings in the way they were.

In the same instant that they passed the last row of crop fields, Emery piled on more speed. Avuri followed, and together they inadvertently kicked a small double crater into the ground where they kicked off at their new speed. It was easy enough to maintain it with lighter, long-striding leaps afterward thanks to their Qi, but there wasn't much they could do about the initial launch.

As soon as they were outside the reach of the Arrays, Emery pushed out her Domain violently, the same way she would in combat. While they had done a small amount of training with their new Domain, Emery had all but forgotten about it in the heat of the moment.

Their Domain rushed out from Emery's body in a shockwave, blast-chilling the air for what was likely kilometers around her - and that was with an unfocused push, rather than a concerted effort to expand her Domain. Emery's stride faltered as she was momentarily shocked by the power that she still wasn't used to exerting.

"You're okay, keep running!" Avuri sent, and Emery did exactly that. She used a quick flex of Qi to create a shard of metal to push off from, which fixed her loping stride.

"Emery!" Vale shouted, as soon as he passed beyond the Array, chasing the pair into the Iron Dragon Peak. They covered distance fast, ending up surrounded by the craggy, metal-filled rents in the ground that marked the metal-aspected Peak. "Why are you running, you pain in the ass?"

"No reason!" She shouted back, using Qi to make her voice carry. "You can stop chasing us whenever you'd like!" Now that Emery and Avuri were moving at full speed, Vale wasn't gaining on them as quickly. He's still catch them eventually, but they could run for a while first.

"Avuri, talk some sense into your boneheaded wife!"

"Hey! She's your daughter!" Avuri shot back, laughter in her voice. "And don't call my wife a bonehead, bonehead!"

Vale growled a guttural, draconic sound that was typically meant to be intimidating, but it was a sound that Emery had long associated with playing. He had growled like that while wrestling with her and her siblings all the time growing up, after all.

Emery let out a laugh as she continued to dash. They were making a wide circle, trying not to stray too far down the mountain side or make a noticeable mess of it, but Vale was happy to follow behind them rather than try to cut them off. For now.

It occurred to Emery then, that she and Avuri hadn't actually had the chance to really test out their new Domain or Qi, let alone their new draconic forms.

Avuri must have read her mind, because Emery immediately heard, "Are you sure you want to do this?" in her head. She just grinned to herself, and sent excitement and empty bravado down their link and she spun, ready to intercept her father with all she had.

Avuri, who had been only a step behind Emery, moved in tandem, spinning and stopping beside her wife. While they had yet to truly test themselves as a pair, they did already have a few tricks up their sleeve.

Avuri took over conscious control of their Domain, forcing an abundance of ice Qi into. In moments, the entire area was filled with gently floating snowflakes that stretched for kilometers. She passed control to Emery, who immediately focused on her own innate control, sharpening all of the flakes into razor sharp blades. She didn't want to seriously harm Vale, so they weren't as sharp as she could make them, but she hoped it was enough to make him second guess diving at them like a meteor.

Unfortunately, they had no such luck. Vale pushed out his own Qi around him as he dove headlong into the flakes to create an aura of heat around him. While it didn't negate their Domain, it was enough to melt the flakes enough to blunt the edges, which then failed to leave any marks on his scales.

"Well, we should've seen that coming." Avuri sighed mentally.

"Next time, I'll add actual metal to them." Emery growled, and then prepared to intercept the burning meteor that was her father.

He crashed into the ground nearby and immediately lunged straight at Emery, as she had expected. Even more than ten years later, he still wasn't as comfortable with tackling Avuri as he was his own daughter. It made him at least a little predictable.

Emery gracefully danced aside, slipping beyond Vale's grasp. It was a regular dance for the two of them that reminded Emery of her childhood. Whenever they 'fought' like this, it was far more like play wrestling. Vale's goal was almost always to get Emery in a headlock, bearhug, or some other grapple. He'd use techniques against her occasionally, but it was rare and almost never to injure - mostly he tried to trip her up with flames by her feet.

Still, Emery knew her father well enough to be able to narrowly avoid the vast majority of his grab attempts. However, with each failed grapple, Vale would focus and try a little harder. And while Emery had come a long, long way since childhood, she was still quite a ways behind Vale. She knew it was only a matter of time until he would get her in a headlock and ruffle her hair.

"What do you think? We're already caught. Do we just go for it?"

"Why not?" Avuri laughed. "Maybe you'll actually win and catch him off-guard."

Now that was an interesting prospect. Vale clearly hadn't looked at Emery with his Qi sense deeply enough to sense that she had completed processing the dragonblood. She doubted a sudden transformation would really catch him that much by surprise, especially given it had been a while now since they had started processing it, but every bit helped.

More than that, though, she wasn't sure what she should do to 'win'. She'd never been in any sort of position to do that before.

"Do whatever you can. I'll back you up." Avuri reassured her.

Emery felt a devious smile erupt on her face. "I love you."

"I love you, too. Now shut up, focus, and let's beat the crap out of your dad."

Emery nearly lost her footing again when she laughed out loud.