They had good news, and bad news. The bad news was that submitting their class paperwork was apparently something most students typically spent a little more time than they had thinking over, leaving them stuck in administrative hell for almost six hours as they were variously passed through different departments and levels of the administrative pagoda’s surprisingly bland interior before they finally escaped.

  The good news was that— during that time— they’d learnt that they were basically free to do whatever they wanted to their house. Part of that had to be their elite cohort position, but still— it left both of them feeling excited for everything they could do. Even better was that there were plenty of stores who’d accept payment from their access tokens.

  They’d taken a quick detour to a grocery store and loaded up with all sorts of awesome, delectable… well actually mostly just normal fruits and vegetables, with the only real delicacy being some southern fruits that were ridiculously expensive by dint of having to be shipped from areas controlled by the Empire of Nine Sunlights. Which meant… complicated geopolitics stuff, she was sure, but that was unimportant— they had a bunch of fruits and vegetables whose names she couldn’t pronounce! That was plenty exciting enough, but they’d also had to take care of a few necessary things— which was to say, buying several large pots to cook everything, bowls and plates and cutting boards and knives and… so on and so forth until Lily was very glad that Avyr had volunteered to carry most everything. His cultivation enhanced strength was the only thing that made it possible.

  It was already getting late by the time they got back to their house— their house! It was still so crazy to think that they had a house to themselves— and they were able to put everything down. Luckily, a refrigerator was one of the things that’d come with the property. Lily shivered at the thought of having to lug a refrigerator all the way over to their place… then considered the challenge of making a formations version, and couldn’t but pout a little. It would’ve been fun, even if it ended up being wildly inefficient…

  Avyr shoved the last of the greens into the fridge, leaving out on the kitchen island only a few of the fruits— and the meat, of course. She’d caught him staring ravenously at the huge slab of pork belly he’d had her carry the entire way home, and it didn’t take a genius to know what was on the menu that night. “Alright… I’ve put everything I can’t on the top shelf, everything that I can eat but isn’t really good for me on the middle shelf, and all the meat on the bottom shelf.” He even managed to hold a straight face for a few seconds, too, before he snorted a soft laugh and shook his head. “There’s more than meat there, but… you know me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I suspected as much… and the pork belly?” He’d left that out, alongside a few fruits and an eclectic and seemingly random assortment of various other ingredients. “Are you going to eat it raw? Won’t that give your parasites or something?”

  “My cultivation prevents me from getting infected, by and large. With how I can modulate my internal body temperature… most pathogens can’t survive temperatures of ‘really hot.’” Avyr shook his head. “That’s beside the point though— I swear I’ve shown you at least some of the recipes I cooked before, no?”

  “I… yeah, I suppose.” Even if he typically ate raw meat— beef, if he could, and a variety of other meats if he couldn’t— she’d seen him come to school with some sort of cooked food enough times to know that he could appreciate some cooked meat on occasion too. “So… what’s the recipe?”

  “I’ll show you the real recipe one day, but we can do a pretty convincing knockoff with an oven and enough careful preparation.” He propped himself up next to the sink and quickly washed his front paws— which Lily couldn’t help but find a little amusing— before returning to kitchen island. “The stories are… this is an ancient recipe, or at least a mimicry of one. The stories are unclear, distorted by the ages of strife under the Empire of Twelve Constellations and now our new diaspora, but I remember when I was a kid, they used to talk about how the great ancestors learned from the Elegant Aliens how to cook their food, removing the satisfying tear of the meat and trading it for a flaccid softness… and, in some certain meats— such as this pork, which is often infested with dangerous parasites— for a greater safety.”

  The big cat flexed his claws, and then dug into the meat. It was a vicious thing— a ripping, tearing, utterly shredding thing… but it was not an indiscriminate violence. He ran his paw down the length of the meat, shredding it into long, tattered streamers, again and again until the whole thing was reduced to shreds… but not once did he pierce the thick, fatty skin at the bottom. Then he flipped it ninety degrees sideways and ripped through the block again, turning the tattered shreds into so many fine chunks of lacerated meat.

  Then— middle paw holding the bowl, with one paw he sliced away the few tenuous bonds still holding the meat to the skin, while with another he carefully rolled up the freed skin, ensuring there was always more meat to slice into the bowl.

  When he was finished, the bowl was entirely filled with tattered shreds of meat. “Traditionally, you’d bury the meat in a hole in the ground, then dig a pit and start a fire nearby. I’d like to do that some day… but for now, we can throw it in the oven.” The whole process looked awkward, certainly, but there was clear expertise in Avyr’s every movement, as he— this time with a knife— sliced the fruit into pieces and then added into the ingredients, all the various different sauces and powders and so on and so forth. Finally, he stuffed a bunch of flour in the whole thing. “The dirt would typically absorb most of the libations, and the flour fills that role nicely. Plus, I’ve used the flour in other recipes after the fact…” He turned to the oven, then pouted. “I always forget…”

  He pulled open the oven door and— Lily stepped back at the wave of heat, the almost physical roiling of energy in Avyr’s paw as the air inside the oven was rapidly brought to temperature. Then he slid the dish into the oven with a soft smile, closed it with a soft snap, and— it was done. Dinner was well on the way to being made.

  Avyr’s dinner at least. The amount of meat that’d gone into that… “I hope you don’t mind,” she began slowly, “but I’m going to stir fry some vegetables. I don’t think I can stomach all that meat…”

  “That’s—” Avyr paused, a flick of what Lily recognized as embarrassment shivering down his whole self. “I think I realized something that we forgot to buy, Lily.”

  “What?”

  He stared at the oven miserably. “We’re not possibly going to be able to eat all of this food, and I totally forgot to get any sort of tupperware.”

  “Ah. We can… um. Leave it on the plate and put it in the fridge for later?” The full fridge? Avyr didn’t even have to reply for her to hear him say how that wasn’t going to work. “Well… it’d probably go bad if we left it out overnight… um.” She was silent for a second before— with a burst of sudden motion, she pulled open the fridge door and started pulling out vegetables. “I’m just going to start cooking my stir fry and the problem’s going to go away if I don’t think about it.” Avyr snorted, but didn’t say anything.

  He didn’t wander off to do Avyr things or whatever, like she’d expected, either. Actually, he watched quite attentively, and it was only after she’d started chopping up the bok choy that she realized she was learning the recipe in the same way she was learning his.

  He couldn’t even eat it— or at least not much of it, that, she was largely sure of— but he still paid attention. “Um… I don’t really know the history of this dish. It’s just… stir fry.” She couldn’t help but feel kind of bad at that— after Avyr’s long explanation as to the deep lore of his own dish, just making a simple stir fry felt… weak in comparison. “It’s one of the foods that the matron made sure everyone knew how to make. I remember when I was a little kid, every week she’d have a few of us come into the kitchen. She has a few little pots, mostly for some smaller things, but she’d have us each prepare our own stir fry under her careful supervision. In retrospect, she did most of the work, but we did learn… later, we’d have to use these giant woks to cook meals for everyone when we had kitchen duty, but those first times cooking… she’d taste everyone’s attempt and tell them that it was delicious.” She smiled dreamily. “I remember burning mine so badly that I could barely stomach it, but I was so happy that I made something the matron approved of.”

  Avyr nodded. “She was a kind woman.”

  “You make it sound like she died!”

  “Well…” Avyr flicked his tail in once-again embarrassment. “You bring up a good point, but.” He didn’t actually finish the sentence. Lily just laughed.

  She’d thrown all the vegetables into the wok— no meat this time, because Avyr well and truly had that covered, when someone knocked on their front door. She paused, then gesutred to Avyr. “Can you go get that?”

  “If…” he paused, seeming to consider his words. “I can, of course, but if the dish can survive you stepping away from the stove for a moment, then it might be better for you to go. They might be… less inclined to their worst tendencies if they’re met by a human.”

  She grimaced. Avyr was a perfectly polite cat, but… it made sense. “Just keep tossing the stir fry like I was doing. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Avyr nodded. “That should be well within my capabilities.” He grabbed the wok’s handle only a little awkwardly, giving it an experimental toss before nodding to her. “It’ll suffice. Hurry though, before they start to think you’re making them wait.”

  Lily rolled her eyes at the big cat, but did hurry out over to the front door, pulling it open with a smile. “Hello?”

  “Oh!” Two people stood in the door— an older man and a woman. “You’re a bit younger than we expected… ah, but where are my manners. We checked in on you earlier today, but you weren’t present, so we decided to come back later. I’m glad to meet the new neighbors. Are you here with your parents, by any chance?”

  She shook her head. “No, just us. Avyr and I, that is. And you’re…”

  The woman gave her a polite nod. “Gan Muchong, and my husband, Gan Qitao.” The man gave her a polite nod in turn. “I teach economics and political theory, while my husband teaches aeronautical engineering. He’s been a rather busy man, as of late, you know.” She did not know, but she nodded along politely as the two of them laughed. “And you are…”

  “Lily. Lily Ward.”

  There was ever the slightest pause at that— but Muchong didn’t allow it to get in the way of her conversation, which Lily could appreciate. “Nice to meet you, Lily. I look forward to seeing more of you in the future— though I’m sure you’ll be plenty busy with your classes.” She didn’t know the half of it… “feel free to drop by any time— we’ll be sure to let you know if we’re too busy.”

  “Of course, nice to meet you…” she paused, frowning as an idea came to her. “Say… do you have any dinner plans tonight?” Qitao glanced at his wife, who just shook her head. “We made too much food, and don’t have anything to store it in—”

  “You can borrow some of our containers, if you need.”

  She blinked, taken a little aback by the genuine kindness. “Oh… um, thank you, but I was thinking that if you two were amenable…” a brief pause as she twisted back, raising her voice. “Avyr! Can the neighbors eat over today?”

  “Sure!” He chirped back.

  She turned back a little sheepishly to the couple. “Yeah. That… if you want to, we wouldn’t mind having you over. We have plenty.”

  “That sounds lovely, dear. Qitao wouldn’t mind, I’m sure.” She fixed her husband with a look that made it obvious that he better not mind or else, leaving him little room for anything other than just shrugging and accepting. “Oh! We have that dessert we made the other day— we’ll bring that! When will food be ready?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “In…” she considered for a second… “an hour? Or so? I’ll let you know when it’s done. See you then?”

  “Of course.”

  They departed after that, Leaving Lily alone— once more with Avyr. Avyr, who they had no idea was actually not human… she couldn’t stifle the small sigh that escaped her. This was going to go great, wasn’t it…

  ………

  A fire descended on the sliver of silver of river, blazing sunlight casting long lurid shadows over the whole of East Saffron. They slanted across their roof, long shadows and every small thing, walls and pillars and geometric facade, long shadows stretching amongst and within the golden late-evening night.

  Lily opened the gate, waving the couple she’d invited in. “We’ve not got much at the moment, but hopefully the food’ll make up for that.”

  “No worries, no worries.” Muchong just laughed it off, looking around the area. “It’s nice to have a new neighbor. This place is always so… you must understand, the spirit of a place well cared for, but empty. What is a home without a soul?” Lily didn’t, really… but she nodded, getting the gist of what Muchong was speaking about. “We’re both looking forward to seeing how you’ll take the place, aren’t we?”

  Qitao rolled his eyes. “Of course we are,” making it evidently clear that he couldn’t care less were it not for his wife’s insistence. “It’s a nice house. I’m sure you’ll enjoy living here… though given the university’s proclivities, you might actually end up living in the library.”

  Muchong gave her husband a shove. “Don’t be rude. I’m sure that they’ll be able to balance study and home life.”

  “If they’re taking economics, maybe.”

  “Why you…” she paused as Lily led them into the house proper, taking a deep breath of the aroma… the suffusing flavor that had filled the whole house after Avyr had taken the food out of the oven. “Is that torch ginger I smell? Where’d you get that?”

  “Some of the university subsidized grocery stores carry it, and Avyr said it was necessary for his recipe.” Lily had to admit, it was a very East Saffron sort of ingredient— it was no surprise to her that there was enough grown locally, despite the climate, that it could make its way to stores. “It’s a southern recipe.”

  “Is your friend from the south?” Then, just as quickly— perhaps recognizing how south and empire and touchy subject might all come together, she continued— “nothing against that, of course. One of my best friends was from the Brass Academy in Fenfeng, before…” she sighed. “You know your history.”

  Lily just nodded, not quite sure what to say to that. What could she say? She was far too young to remember anything about the last war. It’d taken her parents, sure, but she barely even remembered them beyond the haziest of recollections. She’d been far, far too young when she’d seen them last…

  Avyr had personally lived through the invasion of his home and the fall of Fenfeng. These people, they had known people— couldn’t have not known people who lost their lives or more in the war. She walked through a garden of shadows, and carried none… and how much more would a cultivator like Zhihu see? Feel? How much more than even her the Sect Master, or someone who’d lived through not just the most recent war but the conflicts before even them.

  “He’s… from thereabouts, yes,” she cautiously responded. “He’s lived in the north for a long time though. He had to leave when he was younger for reasons that I’m sure you understand.” All she got in response to that was a pair of quiet nods. Almost there… Lily breathed in, settling herself, then led them into the dining room. “Muchong, Qitao, let me introduce you to Avyr. Avyr, these are the neighbors.”

  For a few seconds, they just stared at each other— the neighbors speechless, Avyr not quite sure what to say. Then, before it could get too awkward, Avyr dipped his head respectfully to the two of them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you two. I look forward to getting to know you better.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was a cat!” Then— realizing that what she’d inadvertently blurted out wasn’t the politest thing ever said, she quickly wrung her hands, apologizing. “Sorry, sorry— it merely caught me by surprise.” She wasn’t really talking to Avyr though; both of them noticed, and both of them didn’t comment on it. “So…” quick to change the topic of conversation, even as her gaze kept flicking over with some mix of shock, slight concern, and even a dash of bewilderment to where Avyr was standing. “I brought a cream cake for dessert! What’s for dinner?”

  Avyr waved a paw towards the bowl heaped full of cooked meat. “A traditional from my home. I suppose it’d normally be called something like pit pork, but I didn’t cook it in a pit, so that’d be a misnomer. Lily made a stir fry.”

  “Oh! Wonderful!’ From there, things proceeded… more or less normally. It was still a bit awkward, and neither of the professors seated themselves next to Avyr— who himself had to stand to even awkwardly reach the table, something they’d have to ameliorate in the future… Well, it was good enough. That was the most charitable thing Lily could say about the meal.

  The conversation drifted. Qitao, surprisingly, led for the first bit— a really interesting conversation about the aeronautical engineering that she’d had no clue about priorly. Apparently they’d just gotten a huge grant from the East Saffron government, which was good in that they now had a lot of money, and bad in that they were expected to train up more aeronautical engineers and such than there were people interested in the field to begin with. His complaints about the unreasonable expectations were very amusing…

  That bled into a conversation about the East Saffron government as a whole, which… politics. It wasn’t something she usually concerned herself with, and it was a bit strange to hear people so clearly in-touch with the greater politics of the city. They were concerned about the potential of coming conflict with the Empire again, far too soon after the last war…

  “Its entirely possible you won’t have a choice." The two professors glanced over to Avyr, who ducked back a little sheepishly at the sudden attention. “I’m not super in touch with the politics of East Saffron, but I’m all too aware of how the Empire of Nine Sunlights functions. At least during my lifetime… it is their nature to push and push until there isn’t anywhere left to push. Then, they see if the people they’ve been pushing break or not.” He shrugged. “It just so happened that the Fenfeng and Beixian broke.”

  Muchong was silent for a second before— slowly— she nodded. “I think you’ve read the situation well enough. The modus operandi of the Empire of Nine sunlights is essentially that. If the histories I’ve studied are accurate— which, given how old they were, they very well might not be— that’s the core of their plant for territorial expansion. Sects are, by their very nature, disunified.” Which was an odd thing to say, even if— theoretically— it was true. Lily was pretty sure the sects hadn't been independent from one another since… before the Empire of Twelve Constellations, much less the far more recent Empire of Nine Sunlights.

  It kind of reminded her of Mingtian, for whatever reason… she pushed the thought out of her head. “You don’t think that the government of East Saffron will let them push us until we fold? Surely they’d resist.”

  “That resistance is war,” Muchong said softly. “The inevitable culmination of that. Anyone who truly thinks that the government of East Saffron has a say in whether or not the city goes to war is a fool of the highest order. No… that decision rests with only a single authority, untouchable by the hands of us mere mortals.” Lily opted not to inform them that technically, Avyr wasn’t a mortal, and that she wouldn’t be one for long either…

  “The Bloody Saffron Sect.” Avyr said with a quiet finality.

  Muchong nodded. “They hold the ultimate authority over the course that East Saffron will chart through these turbulent waters. Unless the Ever-Joyous Harmony of Bells Sect interferes, but their immortals don’t start wars. You know how rare it is for them to get involved in the typical battles of these things.” Nobody brought up Beixian port. Nobody needed to bring up Beixian port. It brought itself up. Lily had never lived in a world where Beixian port had been a polity that existed, but the thought that there’s once been a third, neutral Immortal-ascension level power on Aurelia… it boggled the mind. She found it hard to believe.

  She supposed the Empire had, too- and with the Empire's disbelief came destruction. The tales of Beixian’s final days were so apocalyptic that she sometimes had difficulty believing them…

  “That does bring up a good point,” Qitao interjected, after eating a bit more of the meat. It was good meat, Lily had to admit, despite having been designed for the cat tastes. “East Saffron cannot possibly shoulder the burden of a war on its own. Any war that involves us will by necessity drag in the rest of the Aurelian Alliance of Sects, and the independent actors too.”

  “There are few independent actors anymore. The principalities are leaning more towards the sects than ever with the recent destruction of their most powerful ally, the remaining high-level cultivators amongst the cats are aligned with the sect— no offense, Avyr—” Avyr didn’t look like he’d taken offence at Muchong’s comment, but his expression had gone curiously blank. Not something that anyone who didn’t know the cats well would’ve been able to spot, but it was there. “And with… whatever has been going on offworld, I doubt there will be a great deal of independent support from there, either. But this is all just… immaterial worrying. You’ll not likely have to deal with a war for a long while yet. Hopefully decades, but almost certainly at least a few years.”

  “Right.” That was… not very reassuring. The possibility of a war in the future… “well, I guess I was always going to have to deal with it anyways.”

  “Oh? You plan to pursue cultivation?”

  “We’re in the elite cohort.” That seemed to genuinely take the pair of them back for a long moment. “Sorry that you won’t have us as neighbors for all that long. We’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

  Muchong laughed lightly, waving her hand in dismissal— but it was a forced gesture, and everyone knew it. “Don’t worry about that, dears. You should focus on your studies if you really want to follow the path of cultivation. The class schedule alone for the elite cohort is not for the faint of heart… and its never just the classes, let me tell you that much. Good grades alone are not enough to make it into the greatest sect on Ca Cao.”

  Avyr rolled his eyes. “We figured. We’ll put in our best effort. Both of us…” knowing, convicted with their path, their stone set heaven set way— “are determined to pursue the path of cultivation to its peak.” It was a laughable claim. Like saying they would pull the stars out of the sky and craft them into a necklace, or saying they would make tea out of moonlight. Yet still… as Muchong looked over them, heard them— she said, could say nothing. Theirs was a determination that defied everything that stood before him.

  “Good luck,” was all Qitao managed to say into that silence— and it was enough.

  They would need it.

  The rest of their conversation proceeded more or less normally. Some simple conversations about what was having on campus and a slight discussion about the best restaurant options they had. A pleasurable little thing, until they finally left. Come the late-night air…

  Lily watched the moonlight over the river with a quiet contemplation, and couldn't help but wonder…

  What would it be like? To be, at last, a cultivator? She’d find out soon…

  Avyr padded up beside her, settling softly, unspeakingly, on the cool ground beside her. Just watching the glittering of dull stars and sharp waves, and all the luminary light of a city at night… still, together.

  She guessed she’d find out soon, wouldn’t she?

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