The Water Sprite

Growth

90,000 Years ago and counting....

Unknown to Bai Qian she learned under Mo Yuan for thousands of years through her visits to his rock pool.  Initially she only had to visit daily in order to keep her Lotus strong as it grew, but it was when she had moved to monthly energy boosts that they both saw a change in the color of her Lotus.  The  pink tinge he had noticed, had begun to deepen ever so slightly, but it was enough for her to see it.   He knew that in order for her to remain interested in her Lotus and therefore the lessons she didn't even realize she was receiving, she needed to see the color change or she would become bored of it.  

His lessons during that time, had consisted of reading, writing,  and even creating her own stories.  He also taught her mathematics and geometry which she excelled at, as well as simple magic and how to keep her energy aligned through meditation which she did not excel at.  However she always had fun learning new things from him, that she never missed a day.

Though the times he was not able to make it, he would always return to find a story or paintings she had created just for him which she left on a nearby boulder for him to find.  Her paintings usually involved her Lotus and his rock pool, but one time she did try to picture what he looked like before attempting to draw him.   

His face was the colour of water, and at his chin, the water cascaded into a long beard.  But it was the eyes she had spent the most amount of time on, and it was her vision of him that gave him a deeper insight into her.  In the eyes that looked back at him, every emotion one could convey was visible.  She saw in him kindness, sadness, loneliness, happiness, and at times anger.  But she also managed to capture fire and ice.  Two emotions or human conditions that were not normally seen, yet she saw them in him which he immediately realized she paid far more attention to him than he realized.

She was a pleasant child who was growing up very fast.  At forty thousand years of age, she was not only aware of him, she was also paying far more attention to those around her, and the more she learned, the more questions she had.   She delighted in telling him everything that went on in the Fox Den, the things she heard and the things she saw.  She had no filter, she said exactly what was on her mind, she shared her families secrets and even things she should not know about at all.  

"Why would Papa and Mama cry in the night?" she asked frowning one day which confused him until she suddenly went onto explain herself.  "They went to bed so happy, Papa even gave Mama a special smile that he only gives her." She said suddenly widening her eyes as another thought came to her.

"Papa even touched Mamas breasts and made Mama laugh" she blurted out so loudly, that if she could have seen the look on his face at that moment, she may have shut her mouth, instead she had kept right on talking having finally found someone who actually listened to her, and because he had always answered every question she had with honesty, he suddenly found himself at a loss.

Usually she would go to Bai Zhen for information if there was something she did not understand or she wanted more information on topics her Water Sprite didn't discuss with her, however this was one conversation her brother refused to discuss, and even Zhe Yan who usually explained things in more detail to her, would always cut her off with "You're too young to know." that in the end she had gone straight to the one person she knew would not only have the answers she wanted but he would patiently explain them in detail until she understood.

"What's so great about breasts anyway?" she asked looking down at her chest that had begun to blossom.  "They're just blobs of fat." she said, suddenly standing up to place her hands over them, before giving each of them a good hard squeeze and then a thorough rub like she had seen her father do to her mother.  "It doesn't even tickle." she added as she wondered why her mother had giggled so girlishly.