For once, Sen simply sat in the darkness that pervaded the mountain before dawn. He had meant to get up and train, as he did every morning. When he stepped outside to start, though, he instead found himself sitting on a bench, cycling qi, and letting his mind drift. It was quiet and, although Sen barely noticed, a touch of frost rested lightly on everything, ready to evaporate at the first kiss of sunlight. The smallest tendrils of winter had come early that year. In a quiet corner of his heart, Sen recognized that he was tired. A few weeks earlier, Uncle Kho and Master Feng decided that Sen was reaching a kind of something. He searched his memory for the term they had used. His bleary consciousness haltingly, grudgingly, dredged up the word. Plateau. He was reaching a plateau just fighting the two of them. So, they enlisted Auntie Caihong to increase the difficulty. Sen had not appreciated how much harder fighting three people would be until he had to do it.

It wasn’t thirty percent harder the way he had imagined. He was relatively sure he could have managed thirty percent harder. No, it was more like three hundred percent harder. Three people could coordinate and vary their attacks in ways that were impossible for two people. It changed absolutely everything about the fight. Sen had been forced to push his skills, his qi techniques, and his senses to their extreme limits to avoid simply being crushed immediately. He ended every day feeling like his mind and body had been wrung out like an old cloth. He also knew that his middling ability to keep them at bay had more to do with Auntie Caihong training him in her sword style than it had to do with his ability. He knew what to expect from her, at least a little. It gave him a tiny edge and just enough room to stay a half step ahead of utter defeat.

Yet, the toll of pushing so hard for so long had started to add up. He noticed himself making tiny errors that wouldn’t have happened a month prior. There were tiny hiccups in his thought process that delayed decisions for fractions of a second. He knew that wouldn’t seem like anything to regular people. The delays were so small that they probably wouldn’t even notice, but Sen did notice. In a fight with three people operating at peak foundation formation, even tiny fractions of a second were critical, or lethal, depending on which side of the fight you were on. So, for once, Sen just let himself sit and rest for a little while. As he had more and more often, Sen found himself staring off into the east. The ocean was in that direction. His desire to see it had turned into impatience. It was a nagging sensation that the ocean was waiting for him, although he knew that didn’t make any sense. There was something else, though, something that tickled at the edges of his perception or his mind or maybe even his soul. He started to reach for the sensation when he heard the door open.

He looked over and saw Auntie Caihong walking over to him. She held small, steaming cups in both hands. Sen just stared at her as she walked toward him, vaguely aware that there was something he ought to be doing. His sluggish mind finally made the connection, and Sen shot to his feet. He offered a respectful bow before accepting one of the cups. Auntie Caihong sat down on the bench, and Sen joined her. He held the cup in his hands for a moment, enjoying the heat that sank into his fingers. Then, he lifted the cup and sipped at the scalding liquid. He offered a little sigh of contentment as the heat bloomed inside him. Auntie Caihong looked around happily at the courtyard.

“I love this time of year,” she said.

“Why is that, Auntie?” Sen asked, mostly by reflex.

“I don’t know if it’s any one thing. I like the colors. I like the way it’s cold in the morning but can still feel like summer in the afternoon. I like the way I can feel everything on the mountain getting ready for the winter. Everything is changing, but it’s not done changing yet. Before long, everything on the mountain will be asleep or have traveled away to somewhere warmer. Winter is often peaceful, but it’s too still for me.”

Sen nodded to show he understood, although he couldn’t think of anything to add. He found his gaze drifting east again and forced his attention back to Auntie Caihong. He found her giving him a vaguely sad look.

“You’ll leave soon, won’t you?” She asked.

Sen dug deep and considered his answer with care. “Yes. Soon, but not too soon. At least, I don’t think so. It’s not, that is, it’s not quite time. Uncle Kho, you, and even Master Fend taught me a lot about balance and the need for it as a cultivator. I’m still in balance here. I’ll stay while that’s true, but it is changing.”

Auntie Caihong sat quietly and sipped her tea. She looked thoughtful, but not as sad.

“Do you know when?” She asked.

“I’m guessing a bit, but probably in the spring. I think that’s when-,” Sen drifted off, not quite sure what words would properly describe the feeling.

The cultivator’s eyes grew sharp as she looked at him. “That’s when, what?”

Sen tried to gather his thoughts. He knew he had to tell her about this the right way, but it was hard to come up with the right words when he was so tired.

“There’s something waiting for me or maybe something I’m supposed to do at the ocean. I can sense it. Feel it. It’s like,” he paused to think again, “it’s like a distant call. You can hear the sounds, but you can’t make out the words until you get closer. Right now, I can hear the sounds. When I can hear the words, that’s when I’ll have to go.”

Auntie Caihong stared at him in complete silence for nearly ten seconds. Her gaze was so intense that Sen felt uncomfortable. Then, she broke the tension by snorting and offering him a wry smile.

“Jaw-Long has been a bad influence on you,” she said.

The statement was so unexpected that Sen burst into laughter. Then, realizing that Uncle Kho or Master Feng might still be sleeping, he clapped a hand over his mouth. When the intense desire to laugh finally passed, Sen lowered his hand.

Snickering, he said, “A bad influence? How so?”

“Whenever he talks about cultivation, or even using a spear for that matter, there’s always this mystical edge about it. It’s like he enjoys this unique relationship with cultivation that gives him insight, but not in a way that he can express directly. You sounded a lot like him just then.”

Sen blushed a little. “I don’t mean to be vague. I just can’t think of a better way to put it.”

She smiled and patted his arm. “It’s fine. At least, I know we’ll have you until spring. So, that’s something.”

Sen suppressed the unhappy noise that he wanted to make. “I wish I could just stay. I love it here. I love being here with you, Uncle Kho, and Master Feng. I love learning and training. I finally know what it’s like to have a family. But Grandmother Lu is my family, too. I’ve been away for, what, five years? I know I left her in a much better situation, but I still worry about her. I worry that she may have needed me for something, and I wasn’t there. Even if I didn’t know there was something waiting for me in the east, I’d still have to go.”

Sen glanced at Auntie Caihong. He could see the last vestiges of moonlight glimmering in her unshed tears.

“You’ll always have a home here, family here, Sen. We might not want you to go, but we’re all cultivators. We understand that sometimes, advancing means leaving. Just make sure you come back from time to time.”

“I will, Auntie.”

“Good. Now, I actually came out here for a reason.”

“Yes?”

“You’re taking the day off. I don’t care what you do. Sleep. Cook. Read. It can be anything except training, fighting, or studying. I’d tell you to stop cycling, but Ming trained you too well for that. I don’t even think you know you’re doing it most of the time.”

“Auntie, I need to-,” Sen started to say.

“Rest. You need to rest. You’ve been pushing yourself harder than I’ve ever seen anyone at your cultivation stage push themselves. And I’ve known some true zealots. Taking one day off this year will not set you back. I already spoke with my husband and Ming about it. If you don’t sleep, at least try to do something to relax. Maybe even do something fun, like chasing Falling Leaf up and down the mountain. I bet she’d like that. No objections. This is an order.”

A piece of Sen wanted to object on principle, but Sen ignored that. He just offered up a defeated smile. “As you say, Auntie.”