After the agreement was struck the atmosphere in and around Willow’s home was odd. In addition to the inherent awkwardness of someone new finding their place in the household, there was now tension between her aunt and father.

  Willow still felt that Aunt Jieun was far too harsh with her father, but if the turmoil of emotion within him was any indication he did not agree. In any case the two groups went back to their respective chores and the girl hoped there would be some form of reconciliation between them around dinner.

  Currently the two of them were doing battle with the dust and dirt in the house after they had finished the dishes. Jieun was armed with an old broom that she had brought from her home, and Willow had a dust rag she used to attack any dust or cobwebs she found. There wasn’t a lot as Maple had only just left and she was quite thorough in her cleaning habits.

  While they cleaned Jieun interrogated Harmony and Change on some of what they had been up to in the past year, with Willow interjecting her own anecdotes periodically.

  “So now you need to find a weak metal spirit.” She said and paused in thought, ignoring the complaints of the girl that her two friends aren’t weak. “That could be difficult due to the excess wood qi in the Vale.”

  Willow wasn't deterred. “Don’t Aunt Sarah and Uncle Lucius have metal spirits? I could maybe ask them for help?” The girl had been thinking of doing as such for a bit now, ever since she discovered that stronger spirits can make little ones basically whenever they want.

  Her aunt shook her head. “Snips is too weak to do what you want, and while Stannum could do it they would be heavily weakened for a time afterwards. With the Emerald Bloom a constant potential threat nearby it would be foolish to weaken one of our few fighters even if he’s one of our weaker ones.”

  The girl grumbled but saw the sense in the decision, though the statement did raise a question. “Who else knows how to fight?”

  This got a raised eyebrow from Jieun. “Has your father not told you stories from his youth?”

  Willow shook her head, making her curls bounce. “I’ve heard some stuff when he talks with Uncle Lucius, but it was mostly times they got in trouble for doing stuff they weren’t supposed to. Like when Da moved a road sign so people thought the way to a city was through his family's farm, or when Uncle Lucius broke his leg trying to impress Aunt Sarah.”

  Her aunt began laughing. “The time he tried to push a wagon up a hill by himself, yes she’s mentioned it. He’s just lucky his mother was a competent healer, breaks like that can take a turn for the worse if not properly set.” Her expression grew more serious. “So he hasn’t told you how he met your mother?”

  The girl shook her head again while wiping down a windowsill and the woman hummed in response. “Then I suppose it’s not my place to say. Just know that he was quite the fighter back in the day, even if those days seem long behind us now.”

  “Can you fight?” Willow asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

  Jieun chuckled. “I can. I’ve even taught Bai a thing or two, much to my dear husband's frustration.”

  The girl tilted her head in thought. “Why would Uncle Lin not want her to know how to fight?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Jieun scoffed. “It wasn’t so much the teachings, but the methods. He viewed what I was putting our girl through as too harsh, but it was how I was taught and he couldn’t argue with the results.” Willow sensed a lot of sadness and other darker emotions coming from her aunt, but none of it was being shown on her face. She knew better than to try and find out why. People never liked it when she asked questions about emotions they were trying to hide.

  Instead she moved on to a safer topic. “Who do you think would win a fight, you or my Da?”

  Her aunt laughed at the sudden shift, the dark mood gone. “In a straight up and fair fight that musclehead would win.” Her smile took on a sharper edge. “But I don’t really go for fair fights.”

  Willow reminded herself not to get on her aunt’s bad side.

  They finished up the last of the cleaning in relative silence, Jieun continuing to hum that strange tune as she worked when it was clear that her niece had no more questions or comments.

  When the work was done Willow informed her aunt that it was time for her to do her daily qi exercises.

  “Very well, I’ll observe and see what exactly your spirit 'friends' are doing to you.”

  The girl did her best to ignore the slight against her friends, but an unhappy expression likely lingered on her face. The two of them moved to Willows room and her aunt looked around at all of the myriad scrolls across the various shelves.

  “I see you’ve been enjoying Lexie’s collection of stories.” Her eyes locked on to a particularly tattered scroll. “Perhaps a bit too much.”

  The child blushed. “Sorry, I just like looking at that one a lot. It’s the story I was reading when Eos was born.”

  Jieun unrolled the scroll and hummed. “And got their name from it seems. I had almost forgotten this one, tsk, not my finest work.”

  Willow’s eyes bulged from her skull. “You wrote it?”

  The woman shook her head. “Not in the sense you mean. I wrote it down and added the illustrations, but the story itself was simply one of many your mother enjoyed. I personally preferred the Calypso stories over ones like this.”

  “So that’s why those one’s had better pictures in them, I just thought it was cuz she was an artist or something.” A mystery that she didn’t even know existed was solved.

  The girl felt her aunt’s amusement and embarrassment at that statement.

  Jieun cleared her throat a bit, but prevented her emotions from reaching her face. “If you want, I can redo this one? That way you’d be able to keep reading the story and we can put the other away as a keepsake.”

  Willow was hesitant. She didn’t want a new scroll, the one she had was just fine even if it was getting a bit tattered. That just meant it was well loved.

  Sensing the girl's reluctance, her aunt continued. “I can try my best to make the artwork better if you want? I can’t promise anything since I’m out of practice, but I can probably do better.”

  New pictures! That she could definitely get behind. It would give her something new to look at because she had basically memorized the old one right down to the brush strokes even if she still couldn’t read. Which triggered a thought.

  “Can you teach me how to read too?”

  Her aunt raised an eyebrow. “Your father and sister haven’t taught you yet?”

  The girl shook her head. “Da is always too busy, and the one time I asked sissy she got really sad so I never asked again.” Willow wasn’t sure why her sister had such a strong reaction, but she assumed it was because she liked reading to her.

  Jieun sighed. “Very well, there should be time after your exercises before we need to start dinner preparations. I’ll teach you what I can then, but be warned it’s a lot of work and I’m a strict teacher. I won’t tolerate you slacking off.”

  Willow gulped and nodded. She hoped she knew what she had just signed up for.