@Gs S I love this backstory for Purr's name!

The first time YuLaan took on a human form, it was...tedious. She - she was she for now, since this human was female, but perhaps the next human would not be. She had heard others of the older generation talk about the difficulty but also the importance of placing all the hairs. She had not properly appreciated how much hair humans had, and where. But she placed each strand as best as she could, and she submitted to some of the elders for inspection before she pulled on some clothes. And then she walked. She trotted. She jumped. She stumbled. She ran. She looked and smelled and tasted, touched and listened. She was free, but also she was trapped. Confined by the solid geometry of this girl, this Celina, this human adolescent who had not been claimed by family or friends after her unfortunate death by stampeding horses. YuLaan could no longer slither and slide and roll wherever she pleased, wherever she could fit. But also, she was free. To walk above ground, to see the mists and the falling ashes and the burning red sun. And she was bound in contract to serve, so serve she would.

Strengths: character, dialogue Weakness: setting/description. Always have to go back and add details

@Gs S so fascinating to see how well you’ve thought it all through! And interesting how each character is so different

“Would you rather go deaf or go blind?” Ling asked. He cast a glance at Grandma Fan, but she was busy stoking the fire and preparing tonight’s stew. “Her vision is fine. She is in excellent health for her age or any other.” Uncle Huang patted Ling’s shoulder, then continued mending Donkey’s reins. “I mean — just what if,” Ling pressed. “Hypothetically,” Xuxi said gently. Ling stumbled over the word at first but tried it a few times till he got it right. “Hong-jie? Which would you choose?” “Blind, of course.” She was stitching some kind of protective array into Ling’s cloak. Xuxi looked up from his sword, where it lay across his knees as he polished it. “You’ve thought about this question a lot?” “I am a musician and a cultivator. Losing my sight would not affect my skills as much as losing my hearing. Even without my sight I can sense living creatures by their qi. Without my hearing, I could not use some of my most effective techniques. Or listen to music.” Cai Hong’s tone was calm and reasonable. She sounded like she’d thought about it a lot, but maybe she really did just value her music and musical cultivation that much. Ling looked down at her embroidery. “But — you have all kinds of cultivation skills that don’t involve music.” “This I could do by touch, the same as music. I love music. I don’t love embroidery. I would rather lose embroidery than lose music.” Cai Hong kept stitching nearly. Xuxi resumed polishing his sword. “Xi-ge, what about you?” Ling asked. “Which would you rather lose?” He was no cultivator, and he was not particularly musical, but without his sight he was vulnerable. “I’ll have to think about it,” he said finally. Ling nodded and shrugged. Then he turned to Cai Hong again. “Which would you rather lose: taste or smell?”

“We should wait here till the storm lets up.” Uncle Huang peered out from under the eaves of the abandoned farmhouse where they’d taken shelter. “How long will it be?” Ling frowned and squinted at the sky, then yelped when a raindrop caught him in the eye. Grandma Fan patted him on the shoulder while he scrubbed at his face. “Could be all day. Look how gray the sky is.” Xuxi tugged at Donkey’s reins, but Donkey was quite content to stand in the downpour and gnaw on some tall grass, so Xuxi skittered under the shelter with the rest of them. Cai Hong produced a massive oiled cloth from her qiankun pouch and threw it over the wagon, protecting the goods. Then she darted into the farmhouse with the rest of them. “What should we do while we wait? A-Ling should practice his reading.” Ling sighed gustily. “That’s boring.” “Want to play in the rain?” Cai Hong held out a lovely umbrella painted with a mountain scene in blues and grays. Ling accepted it and skipped into the rain, lifting it over his head as he went. Cai Hong produced another umbrella, this one plain white. “Anyone else?” Xuxi stepped beneath it beside her. “Me.”

“Adventure is a state of mind — and spirit. Master always says so.” Cai Hong raised her eyebrows hopefully at Xuxi. Granny Fan and Uncle Huang were feeding Ling, who was tired and being stubborn about eating the eggs on his rice. “I don’t need to eat eggs to have big muscles like Xi-ge! I can meditate and be strong like Hong-jie!” Ling folded his arms across his chest and literally turned his nose up in the air. Xuxi wasn’t afraid of heights. He’d loved cliff-jumping at the lake near his village as a boy. That wasn’t the same as standing on the narrow blade of Cai Hong’s sword, which she called Chengying. Just because it could take her weight and Granny Fan’s combined didn’t mean it could take his weight. “I know you have traveled many places and seen much, but seeing it from a new perspective will be an adventure.” Cai Hong raised her hand, and Chengying unsheathed itself halfway, as if it were also hopeful. The way Cai Hong talked about and to her sword like it was a person was rubbing off on Xuxi. She said her sword had a spirit, but a spirit didn’t necessarily mean a personality like an eager puppy, did it? “We won’t go far. No swooping or speeding. Just — up. Not so far up it’s hard to breathe, obviously. Not that going too far up bothers me, what with having been raised atop a mountain at all.” Cai Hong looked like an eager puppy too. Xuxi caved. Because — because he wanted to fly, too. To see what the world looked like from above. But once Cai Hong left, he would never get to fly again, and he wasn’t sure he could do that to himself. Only Chengying unsheathed fully, and Cai Hong stepped onto it, and then she offered Xuxi a hand. He accepted it after only the briefest hesitation, and then — then they were slowly rising upward, and suddenly he could understand why people painted immortals riding clouds. If people could really ride clouds, this was how it would feel, wouldn’t it. Perhaps Xuxi should have been afraid as the ground — and the trees and wagon and Donkey and Granny Fan and Uncle Huang and Ling — grew smaller and smaller till they were invisible, just specks of color on the streak of dusty yellow that was the road. But then he could see forests like rolling meadows of grass, and the glittering ribbon of rivers, and the mirror-sheen of a lake.

@Gs S thank you! Slowly still figuring everyone out…