The lake gushed forth in response.

    Seeking? Health, prosperity, fullness, travel, beauty, reagents, cultivation...?

    Ling Qi grimaced, processing the glut of offers while maintaining her concentration on the technique which kept Snowblossom’s curious probing at them all from bruising flesh and breaking meridians.

    "Your blessings and power are many," Ling Qi began.

    Tendrils of water washed over her feet, and she could feel Qiyi''s rapt attention on them as they slithered to grasp at objects and the chest as a whole. The chest rattled as various items were taken one by one down into the depths. After deciding on a temple design, Cai Renxiang, Gan Guangli, and herself had discussed what to ask of the spirit with the Meng geomancer advising them.

    "First and most greatly, we beg the blessing of qi to water the guardians of this place and to grow their strength in order to ensure that no strife comes upon the shores of Shenglu. For this, we offer in return that on three festival nights, the chosen shall go out upon your waters and offer you the fruit of their experience, the sharing of memory and triumph and a return of a tithe.”

    Qi grew and multiplied in cultivation. Although it would take careful management, it would be possible to ensure that the offering, more complex than her spoken words implied, would ripple and buzz through the waters with the values and amounts promised. The rites and proto-cultivation art exercises would ensure that qi would be ritualistically expelled and returned.

    Waters shimmered in eager acceptance.

    "Secondly, we ask to set in contract the bounty of your waters, which teem with wealth of scale and bone and flesh, and permission to fish the great schools which flock freely under your waters. We ask bounties fit for all who will ply these waters from mortal shallows to immortal deeps. For this, we will give our prayers upon each casting of net or line or spear, and twice monthly, we will provide incense offerings upon our altar."

    Waters swirled in curiosity.

    Ling Qi sucked in a sharp breath and adjusted the skien of qi protecting her and her fellow cultivators as she was bombarded with ”body plans.” A deluge of trivia on structures, bones, muscles, and the qi composition of scale and bone and reproductive organs flooded her mind. She shuddered and forced the great majority of the information out of her head, leaving only the vague impression that the variety of marine life to be found under Snowblossom''s waters would soon explode.

    She had been right in her supposition. The bounty of fish had been what the lake had offered first, and it was what she wanted to offer. Snowblossom was happy that her first gift would be desired further.

    Lake Snowblossom certainly would have been wroth had her gift been ignored in these requests.

    "And lastly, we would beg for the healthiest and cleanest waters, building upon the blessings you have wrought in the veins of fire with the Prince of the High Garden, so that we may have sturdy bodies and spirits to endure the cold. For this and the rest, the prince offers his roots to drink the waters and draw your powers together. In addition, we offer our art, our hopes for the future, and temperate stewardship of your shores."

    Plants bloomed in the waters in delight. The impression of a network of roots spreading all across the land, a whole forest that was not one, but many in communion, was sent to her. @@@@

    This was the keystone. To make a spirit into a settlement god was not simple. To make it so, the god could not be distant and unknowable. It had to be bound by the same bond which held any member of a community together.

    It required that she bring a spirit to care for their flickering sparks. It was the work of mortal generations, if not immortal ones, but it was a task she would happily take up. While imperial rituals were neater and less maintenance-intensive, they resulted in spiritual relationships that were at a remove. For a hostile spirit, that could be fine. But Ling Qi had come to believe that when it came to a neighbor, a more personal relationship was required.

    As if mere deafness was the worst that the lake could do without meaning to.

    Ling Qi could feel the lake''s impatience at that. Snowblossom was curious. She wanted to poke and prod and speak with the little things who supped on her waters.

    "I beg Lady Snowblossom for your patience and your trust. I promise that I, or another who is able, will speak to you directly for at least one night every thirteen turns of the moon," Ling Qi placated.

    It was a tie, a limitation on her time, until she could train another to commune like this without breaking the contract, but one she would have to take on. Such a good relationship with a spirit could not be costless.

    The spirit''s presence swirled around them. The last of the offerings disappeared into the depths. Ling Qi felt her acceptance.

    Come. Sink Speaking Stone deep. Patience. Patience.

    Images of the world in time-lapse appeared. The lake waited, serene and unchanging, as clouds rushed by like comets, as plants sprung up and died, and as animals came and went. But now that the lake had tasted the warmth, its patience was limited. Lady Snowblossom would wait and be content, but not forever.

    "Give over the altar," Ling Qi ordered.

    Her companions murmured an affirmative and moved to the side of the boat. A pair of delicate feminine hands, slender and dainty, snaked out of the water, visible only where the torchlight met a curve or an angle. Those dainty hands snatched the stone altar and dragged it down into the dark, surrounded by hundreds of bubbles shimmering with the reflections of eyes.

    It was getting easier, she realized. The pressure was no less the alien attention of the lake''s full mind, but she understood better, by the moment, how to cycle her qi just so to deflect rather than resist the pressure and how to maintain this filmy bubble of identity keeping them from being made one with the lake.

    The two men with her were even subconsciously aware of the protection, and there was a loosening of tension in them.

    They fell back, and behind her, they knelt, too.

    "We give our thanks to Lady Snowblossom, goddess of Shenglu by the lakeside, giver of plenty and health, and sparkling waters of cold beauty." They echoed her as she spoke. "Our offerings are given, the contract is set, and our agreement is made. Under the light of the Moon and by the honor of the Celestial Court, let none shatter this covenant."

    The lake responded.

    Let none shatter this covenant. Water and earth intertwine. Heat and cold intertwine. Just as hearth and firmament intertwine, since the beginning of all days. Welcome, little ones.

    Ling Qi rose and offered her hands up to the vast eyes looking down upon them, and much larger, colder hands pressed down on hers in return. Her qi and the lake’s qi mingled. A faint puff of crimson clouded the glassy hands, and a rush of ice spiked in her own veins.

    Her first true contract was complete.