Mu watched over her charge with increasing concern as time passed. They’d been travelling together for several months now and she’d started to take note of some of their quirkier tendencies.

  The gender swapping was simple enough, though she did tell Willow to stick to their boy form for the majority of the time while travelling. It lowered the chances for a terrible fate to befall them if they were to be separated for whatever reason. Plus it had the added benefit of making it simpler for her to know whether to call them boyo or girlie, which she appreciated. Making the child uncomfortable due to a lapse in her judgement wouldn’t be the worst thing, but she’d hate to make it a habit.

  It was their growing perfectionism that was starting to worry her.

  They were gaining power at an astounding rate, and picking up everything she threw at them with surprising ease most of the time.

  Yet there was always an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in her apprentice. They didn’t learn that fast enough, they should’ve gotten it right the first time, why weren’t they stronger?

  She tried, on several occasions, to nip it in the bud with talks of slowing down and how great they’ve been doing, but it persisted anyway. She couldn’t really blame them, gaining a nebulous amount of strength in seven years is a lot to ask for someone so young, but their initial confident assertion to the challenge had made Mu underestimate how much it had been weighing on the child.

  It was only after spending so much time together on the road that she began to notice the frowns and scowls any time the normally cheery child got something wrong or messed up in perfectly normal ways.

  It made her wonder if Willow had ever needed to put any effort in learning things before.

  It made a certain amount of sense to the scholar. If you could succeed with ease at the initial steps to things, then it must be infinitely more frustrating to fail at the more difficult ones.

  Hopefully Madame Park would succeed at imparting some common sense into them where she had failed. The old bat wasn’t the foremost expert on water qi or anything, but she did have a better grasp on other important things that a child should learn. She was also a decent hand at mental techniques so perhaps she’d be able to help Willow with that crowd problem they still hadn’t fully figured out.

  Plus she owed Mu big time for a prior favour so she could get her help for cheap.

  There was still some time before they’d make it to the village on the coast of the great lake that was the Madame’s home, so she’d try her best to teach and temper her apprentice in the meantime.

  ***

  It was another afternoon of travel and Willow was feeling a bit worn out.

  He’d been pushing himself quite hard despite Miss Mu’s insistence that he was making good progress.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He just always felt like it wasn’t enough lately, though he was honestly unsure why there was such a nagging feeling of urgency. Maybe it was the idea that the heroes in his stories never seemed to rest? So the idea of stopping in his task when there was a deadline slowly creeping up on him felt antithetical to the kind of person he wanted to be?

  The boy sighed and his friends sent messages of comfort and worry to him. More vocal ones from Harmony and Change, and more basic ones based around feelings or images from the rest.

  They’d been doing that a lot recently, sometimes he almost felt he could hear words from his smaller friends, but chalked that up to his growing homesickness. Mu was nice enough, and they had grown closer in their time together, but the wanderer wasn’t family just yet so there was a distance that Willow wasn’t really used to when dealing with her.

  He idly went through some of the qi exercises that his teacher taught him, but found that he didn’t have the heart to continue. He wanted to work more on his mental technique but both Mu and the twins had put a stop to that particular endeavor. There were too many variables and Willow was too much at risk to hurt himself if he continued.

  Maybe he needed a change of pace for a bit.

  “I think I’ll be taking a bit of a break.” He informed Mu, and noted that his teacher felt some relief at the news.

  “Sure thing boyo, you want me to read you one of your scrolls? I promise to stick to the script and not make up my own endin’ this time.” She chuckled nervously with her offer, referencing a prior time when Willow had been surprisingly upset when the scholar had changed an element of his story without warning.

  Even Willow could admit he’d overreacted that time, but it’s not nice to prank someone like that!

  He thought over his mentor’s offer before shaking his head. “Not right now, Miss Mu. I think I’m gonna play with my spirits instead.”

  “If you’re sure, I think I’ll take a nap then, weather’s perfect for it.” She adjusted her hat so it covered more of her face.

  He hadn’t been playing with his friends as often recently, maybe it would help.

  He crossed his legs and draped his cloak around himself so that he was as comfortable as could be and sent his projection into Change’s void, bringing his other friends with him.

  Change grinned as Willow’s projection appeared with the other spirits in tow.

  “Friend! It’s been a while since you visited! Especially with the whole gang like this.”

  “You know our homes are always open for visits, child.” Harmony agreed.

  Willow scratched the back of his head and had his projection match the motion. “Sorry, you two know how busy I’ve been lately.”

  Twinkling eyes narrowed in concern. “You must better balance moments like this in your life, Willow. I know your goal is important to you, but there is time enough for you to rest and play as well.”

  “Yeah, what she said! You gotta take time to live a little, you know?” The yang spirit said as he started messing with some of the younger spirits. “Or else you’ll come out all boring, and we don’t want that!”

  All of her elemental spirits had gotten noticeably larger in the months since the cycle of energies had started flowing between them. Which was great as now he could hug them all with his projection with much greater ease. Something that Eos in particular greatly appreciated as the ball of flame all but crashed into his projection to get one as soon as possible.

  “Heya Eos.” He sent softly as he gave the flame spirit a hug, warmth spreading from their bond.

  He’d still been checking up on everyone every day, but perhaps he hadn’t been as attentive as he should’ve been to his friends.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent making up for lost time, a child and his friends playing in a void of white.