The following morning at breakfast, Willow received some unfortunate news.

  “What do you mean Maple’s gonna be leaving?” The girl cried.

  Rowan raised an eyebrow at his youngests outburst. “Were you not paying attention last night when I went over the plan me and the others came up with? She’s going with your Uncle Lin and Bai to get help with the Bloom.”

  Oh yeah, she had tuned out for a bit while moping about being unable to save Old Ping. She supposed he had gone over that part of the plan then. This did mean she now had a deadline for a task that she was putting off since she didn’t know how long it would take for her sister to come back.

  “And she’s gone again.” Her father mumbled and went back to eating as his daughter was off in thought again.

  “I still think it’s stupid that Bai has to go with them.” Yew sulked, but basically everyone ignored him. Rowan had already explained partly why it had to be done, and wasn’t going to waste his breath doing it again to placate his moody teen. Maple was somewhat excited to spend time with the younger girl even if she was more Yew’s friend than hers. Willow was just too busy thinking about her own problems to even notice.

  So Willow now had to introduce Change and Harmony to her family before her sister left. She didn’t want to do it now because then her sister would have the whole day to be mad at her for keeping secrets. Tonight at dinner then. That way they’d have tasty food to distract them.

  She nodded to herself and her sister commented. “Gonna tell the rest of us what you were thinking about? It looked serious.”

  Willow debated telling everyone that she had an announcement to make later, but decided to give a simple and definitive “Nope!” instead.

  Rowan took a stab at guessing his daughter’s plan. “You’re not going with or sneaking after them, I’ll be making sure of that.”

  Oh she hadn’t even thought of that! It could be a fun adventure, and she’d escape her dreaded nemesis, chores, for the duration of the trip. However, even with her ability to harmonize she doubted her ability to sneak past Uncle Lin who would apparently also be going on the journey with her sister. So she tried to reassure her father that she wasn’t planning anything like that.

  “Don’t worry Da, I hadn’t even thought of that before you said it.”

  “The fact you got lost in thought again right after I did mention it has me more worried, not less.” The man grumbled.

  ***

  It was now a little past noon in the area behind their home and Willow was watching her father try to teach Maple the intricacies of using Meteoros’ qi. The girl wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said but it didn’t look like it was going all that great. Her sister seemed to have gotten the movement parts down fairly quickly, but stopping was giving her some trouble.

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  Ah well, she’d figure it out eventually.

  Willow got herself as comfortable as she could with her back to her mother’s plinth and sent her projection to Change’s realm where the rest of her spirits were already waiting for her.

  Eos was happily orbiting Phoebe, excited that there was a new friend added to their little group. The younger spirit was content to just sit there and take in the sight of the white void surrounding them. Change and Harmony were doing the silent talking thing amongst themselves as they watched the other two play when Willow arrived and they stopped to greet her.

  “Heya friend.” Change greeted. “Ready for the next step in your training?”

  “Yup!” The girl sent back. She had almost forgotten they were doing this with all of the other excitement of the previous night but she was eager to get to it.

  “Are you sure, child?” Harmony warned. “While we are fairly sure you are ready for this step there is always a degree of risk with such things.”

  Willow was now less sure than she was before, but she wanted to not be as weak as she is with a massive threat nearby. She had her projection lock eyes with the twinkling eyes of her spirit and nod with a resolute look on its face.

  Harmony nodded back, but worry was still clear in her bearing. “Very well. Then we shall proceed. Please send the others back to their spaces and dismiss your projection, you will need to bring to bear all of your focus for what comes next.”

  “Sister, you worry too much. I’m sure our friend will do great.” Change chimed in with a wide grin.

  They then began walking the young girl through on what exactly she’d be doing. It seemed surprisingly simple to Willow considering how much Harmony was emphasising how potentially dangerous it was. All she had to do was the core exercises she was doing before with the addition of flooding the pathways for energy in her body with the same Yin or Yang energy as her core.

  Apparently for the next step she would have her pathways flooded with the opposite of what was in her core, but she definitely wasn’t ready for that and under no circumstances was she to attempt it yet. The only reason it was even told to her was that Harmony was worried Willow would be curious what would happen if she did that and try it on her own, and the spirit wanted to be clear on the dangers of such foolishness.

  Willow adjusted herself a bit as she had already been sitting where she was for a while as the explanation was being given. She then took a deep breath and began.

  She started with Yin as she was told to, due to her body's natural compatibility with the energy type. Flooding her core was as simple as breathing at this point, as used to the exercise as she was. Even sending that same energy through her pathways wasn’t unfamiliar to the girl as she needed to do so to harmonize with her environment. However the extent she was told to flood them was quickly making her body grow uncomfortable.

  Her spirits told her to ignore any discomfort, but if it grew to outright pain she had to slowly stop the process. They were both quite insistent on this point, sudden stops of the exercise were to be avoided at all costs.

  It was when she first started the switch to Yang energies that the discomfort grew. Unlike with her core, the energy within her pathways weren’t directly connected to the source of said energies. Meaning the Yin energy still in her pathways couldn’t be shunted to her connection with Harmony and instead had to pass through her muscles and skin to escape into the air. That was largely the purpose of such pathways anyway, providing a path for internal energies to be expressed externally, but the amount of energy passing through the girl's body was more than she was used to.

  The problem came to a head when Willow switched back to Yin. Her body did not like the amount of Yang energy passing through it, and she had to grit her teeth and stifled a groan as she wound down the exercise as slowly as she could bear. One cycle was her current limit for the new exercise. Hopefully things will get easier from here.

  Covered in sweat and both physically and mentally drained, the girl relaxed and watched her sister continue to face plant in the dirt until it was time for her to start cooking.