Still Falling SOMETHING UNDER COTTON
Dawn had spent the night before at the twins' school-town house while Val stayed home. Mei and Dawn shared Mei's room; Xian slept down the hall. He would show up this morning instead of sleeping over. A month out from their last weekend gates, the same four of them were due to run again.
Xian woke first in her own room, skin prickling between her shoulder blades where rose lines and wing-shaped ridges had appeared without explanation. Phantom heat pulsed under her shirt; she said nothing, tugged the fabric flat, and went to Mei's door without knocking.
Dawn and Mei were still asleep in a heap when Xian tipped herself over the mattress edge and landed on them like a dropped weight, legs pinned, face pushed into Mei's neck.
"Get off," Dawn groaned.
"You're both breathing too peacefully." Xian wiggled. "It's annoying."
Mei swatted her arm. Laughter rolled through the room, easy and warm. Xian kept her spine turned away and the shirt smooth over the lines she kept to herself.
When the noise finally thinned, she said, "Val. He's coming over in twenty."
Val reached the porch twenty minutes later, gear bag on his shoulder. He pushed inside and walked straight into chaos. Duvet half on the floor, hair everywhere, three girls peeling off a shared pile like they'd been caught mid-giggle.
Kitchen first: toast, tea, chatter. Gate kit waited on the dining table in neat stacks, boots and blades laid out for the outbound run.
Before they stepped out, a Gu clan guard joined them at the door, no name, no speech, just presence. Their father had made that mandatory since the family argument last month. The prior E-rank run had left without one; today the escort was obvious on purpose, a visible line between then and now.
Four hunters and a shadow behind them crossed town toward the sect-assigned E-rank sites.
Forest threshold first. Canopy green, leaf rot underfoot, goblins boiling up from the undergrowth at E-rank. Mei drove the front line, steel flashing; Dawn's support held rhythm and breath; Xian broke shields from range. Val cut angles the others opened, threading blind spots, one economical strike at a time, never planting where a goblin could grab him.
The pack parted for a Goblin Chief, bigger frame, heavier footfalls that bent the undergrowth flat. Mei locked the chief's line; Dawn kept the cadence steady; Xian cracked its guard from distance. Val slipped inside the wind-up and dropped it. Pocket cleared. From the treeline their guard watched and never moved.
The second assignment sat on the town's windy edge, shorter walk, pale scrub and broken stone where the forest had given out. The threshold opened on a thinner spread of goblins: fewer bodies, faster feet, none of them able to knot into the crush the first gate had thrown at them.
Mei walked the line forward without resetting her stance. Xian's fire picked off flanks before they closed; Dawn's rhythm landed before anyone bled. Val tagged stragglers off Mei's hip and was already turning when the chief shouldered through, smaller than the first gate's, still E-rank heavy, but the party had morning muscle in them now. Mei took the charge on her guard. Xian cracked the opening. Val slipped under the arm and steel finished it before Dawn needed a second heal. The seal folded shut.
They reeled straps and traded water on the walk out. Leaf-mold from the forest and pale dust from the scrub gate clung to boots and kit; salt dried on everyone's sleeves by the time they crossed back through town. Val's steps felt surer on the pavement than they had at dawn, the gate yield showing up in his footing rather than anything he said aloud. The guard trailed them to the twins' porch and peeled off without a word.
They kicked boots in the hall and stacked kit by the dining table. Afternoon sun lay across the living room in long rectangles; sweat cooled on everyone's skin while nobody reached for a blade again.
Mei flattened out on the rug with a groan. Dawn rolled her shoulders until something clicked. Xian took a cushion by the window and sat with her spine carefully away from the backrest.
"Still buzzing," Mei said.
"Food," Dawn answered.
"Bed," Xian added, and nobody argued.
Val counted breath with them until everyone's shoulders dropped, then left it there. Across the room Xian kept her shirt smooth over the ridges between her shoulder blades, spine held just forward of the cushion back.