Fatherly Asura

Ten thousand, thousand canvases lined the [Primordial Lord’s] path for his mind was fraught with impending peril. The machinations of sequence cascaded in the same fashion as waterfalls, rain and most deluges of blood.

His ink had warmed. His brush had shed many hairs.

An impossible creak rose as his immortal wrist stroked deftly upon future scenes, weighing the futures upon futures of all his venerable Mistress had set in place.

Discomfort panged through his [Spirit] at the final stroke, and it was that he forsook his prudence with - a half-step back upon wearied feet.

“Once more you defy me!” he roared, slicing the image there in two halves. “Accursed Heavens! You know not what you reap with this.”

The Heavens did not answer the burning upon his mortal cheeks.

The anger.

The shame.

The righteous fury.

Gon Ma raged against these bindings of his Path. The predictions, certainty, order and purity of it all, and thus his brush stroked once more. This ink was of midnight hue, formed from the ashes of eternal trees that had long passed into myth.

I require… indulgence.

It painted between space and through it he stepped, breathing deep of the insignificance found upon its other side.

Some trite, base, dust-like sound peeled into the [Spring] sun as his brush continued. Mortal inspiration followed, for at the end of each hair grew a streak of that same glow above. These rays of sunlight extended.

Yellow until they became crimson.

It need not be inspiration. Merely… expression.

Yes.

Expression.

Scales blurred though his conjured sun, bearing elements of its own upon protruding fangs. The majesty of his partner’s hood swelled to widths more befitting her station, and upon this blackened canvas further expression danced.

Patternage. Glyphs. Scenes.

From the sun, to a tide, for this is what her scales rushed through. As warm as his ink. Viscous. Sticky. Then, as paste when clay, marble and ground bone intermingled. Yet- what colours this bore.

Was that laughter from his lips?

Joy?

No.

He was unworthy of such emotions. His Mistress could hold no pride in this.

Gon Ma wielded his brush with a devilment of wider-spanning strokes and this tide became a well of blackest void- of absent starlight, devouring tears and nothingness. Had he a pot, an easel or tool of craft this ink could not have fallen atop it as the others had.

These pagodas of the insignificant Fortieth, Seventeenth or other wisdom-seeking ants upon which his brush cast… Those of [Dour Faced Strategist] or the [Ninth]. All houses of the Cherry River.

The [Plum Axe].

He could turn them barren with a stroke of ink, for the Cloudy Serpent Sect’s second… its Elder… [Gleeful Viper’s] most trusted hand, he, [Everlasting Scales Upon Canvas], stood above such worthless fools.

True serpents knew Heavens beyond their paltry Heavens.

Yet as he slaughtered and painted these futures of all futures, no more changed on the canvases ahead. In consternation his hand twisted once more, and desire had him summon his strength as a fledgling disciple might.

[Primordial Law of Sequences].

“That pestilence of a woman,” he spat. “Jinghui Hua. Her hand remains in this. Even with the Heavenly Roaming Prefecture’s slaughter, even if I grace those fools with annihilation at my own hand, how can this be?”

The canvas ahead of this masterwork was the same as all others.

An inevitability.

Pictured there was a throne of immaculate bone, oblong and radiant. Twelve shapes conspired to make it so, drawn from twelve beasts the likes of which the world knew only in fable. To call the remnants of their power an echo was an injustice.

To see the fool upon it was more.

Yet Gon Ma had weighed this. The small comfort of a potential slaughter- the indulgence, had indeed fed him with inspiration.

A future existed that he had never dared to paint.

At the pinnacle of Divine Clouded Mountain, he strode forth. Searching higher yet.

Skyward.

Heavenward, perhaps.

To where [Clouded Serpent Queen] had secluded herself some millenia ago, undisturbed at the center of the Divine Serpent’s skull.

Yongwu Long’s face flashed within his thoughts. Ever taunting. Ever recognisable as the [True Golden Demon].

“The clouds recede,” he mused. “A way appears.”

🀨

Redriver Dun had combed these Wisteria Peaks for signs of greater quarry, finding none, and so his wrath flowed.

These wilds would be tamed, in time, and yet if he subdued them before the remaining Chiefs arrived it would make his claim all the greater. Yes. Yes. Who better to claim this range than he? It was the way of things that the strong take all, but he, Redriver Dun, possessed qualities beyond the greatest hunters.

He had a cunning head upon his shoulders.

The scents upon these peaks were trivial.

[Spirit Weasels] in their rightful burrows.

A [Spirit Owl] that thought itself shrewd.

And-

“Oh?” Dun grinned, bearing his fangs to the wind. He drank greedily of the scent. “Desecrator, tell me. Is this your Darkberry tribe?”

A mere three of the Redriver tribe were at his back, all astride their crimson-furred [Spirit Bears]. Vines extended between the three, hoisting this… stone-carrier… barterer… merchant in a working between them.

A qiang’s butt persuaded his tongue to make haste, though blood and a swelling akin to ripest grapes slowed what words he slathered. “See reason,” he spat.

Dun dismounted his own partner, falling three times his height to land before this foul-scented cultivator. Some frail man that had sputtered words about Four Tigers before a fist had corrected such nonsense.

The same was delivered now. “You’ve some belief in your value. Release it,” said Dun, lifting the cultivator’s seeping chin. “Nothing will save you.”

“A poor… trade,” the merchant choked.

“Perhaps. But it’s not of my concern. When I claim these lands your ilk will not be welcome. There is some small pride in knowing your death will serve us, in this… paltry way. A message. A sign. Do not say I’m unjust.”

Untouched upon the merchant’s shoulder was a pristine [Spirit Parrot]. Untouched, of cobalt and white striated plumage.

Redriver Dun brushed its beak. “Little bird, tell us where they hide. My nose confirms much, but one of nature would not lie.”

The parrot squawked, feigning ignorance.

“You near eternity’s first step, little bird. Much as we do. Don’t debase yourself,” offered Dun, as sweet as [Spring’s] first peaches.

For one who knew all beasts the parrot’s intelligence was plain.

“For all our searching, we did not find the Darkberry tribe. It was they that found us.”

Such a reply was laced with venom. A carcass laden with hidden maggots. This had his fist act accordingly, and it swept the merchant groundward. “A beast should not speak in riddles. Those of nature must wear passion upon them as plain as the dirt beneath one’s nails,” he scolded, wiping blood upon a nearby frond. “These Darkberries hold the same history as a mayfly, and they are twice as doomed.”

“As the Four Tiger Pill Society had thought,” shared the parrot. “As did the seven tribes before you.”

A growl surfaced from Yogi, his titanic partner. Her nose was a-fuss, drawing a confliction of scents from her height above the canopy.

“Cunning foxes,” mused Dun, scraping the merchant from the ground. “Seven had moved before the mass arrives. Seven more that seek to curry favor with the Tyrant, doubtless. They hold less value than you as a message.”

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Avian laughter crackled from the parrot. “The same fate awaits you, Redriver.”

One of his foresight knew best when to hold their tongue. To speak aloud of the thousands he held in the canopies. Those that stalked crags across his newfound domain or in the shade of canyons, hollows and shores.

The Redriver tribe would claim these abundant lands.

By nature’s will, they already had.

Dun spurned his captives at the shoulder, and-

Some innocuous sphere fell before him, wet as it met the undergrowth. Yet as his peerless gaze met the dancing trunks above he struggled to see whence it came.

Yogi offered a claw tip forward, though the majesty of his scale would sooner pierce the earth than retrieve this oddity safely, thus Dun ordered his second to retrieve it.

A swift step and the sphere was collected.

Dark. Slick.

Only as firm as a rotten berry.

Redriver Dun took it between his forefinger and thumb, tasting the scent first by nostril and then by tongue. “An eye,” he frowned, throwing it into Yogi’s maw. “Their Chieftain thinks himself frightening. It carries the scent of our Sagegrave Plains.”

His seconds grinned full-fanged grins. “Nature’s will. Better our tribe loses this weakness now, isn’t it?”

“One tribesmate of many,” agreed Dun. “These Darkberries are as blind squirrels, for even they’re known to find nuts in [Winter] snow. They will be close-”

A second sphere dropped.

A second eye, stem removed and stained in aged blood to give the impression of berries.

Then a third.

A fourth.

The parrot cast its wings wide as a bloody downpour of eyes splashed across Redriver tribe and merchant alike, yet the volume was such that its plume became sodden in moments. “Did we not warn you to see reason?” it squawked.

“Reason?” rounded Dun, aware of a figure amidst the shower. His bone-hewn qiang stamped the ground, blustering [Air Qi] to disperse this rain and break the necks of many trees. “Their chief holds no cunning and they number no more than a clutch. Isn’t that the fool now?”

An axe emerged upon the distant figure as she prowled through the bloody scene, matched by a [Spirit Butterly] at her nape.

[Senses] could not find her.

“Desecrator. She masks herself from nature. From Heaven’s energies. The foulness of this Darkberry Zhu.”

A [Dao] formed on Dun’s lips. Yogi shattered a swathe of this peaks with his roar.

“That… that is not Zhu,” croaked the merchant, coughing blood through grinning teeth as he strained to see the scene ahead. “That is… that is merely the girl that carries their water.”

🀩

Disrhythmia.

Disharmony.

Chaos.

The millenia-garnered treasures, all the Western Demon Front’s offerings and tithes, and furthermore the boons granted by Bojin, the Plum Phoenix and Aunt Lianse’s endless vaults had granted peerless benefit to Mingqin’s seclusion.

[Escaping Eye Dilation Arrays]. [Nine Grasses Spiritual Refinement Arrays]. [Jar of Quan Formation].

Myriad more than required no understanding outwith their purpose.

Her [Conception Vessel] had waxed as though all the sounds below Heaven were now stored within her [Spirit], and Mingqin worried as inordinate quantities of pure Qi had consumed the lacking foundations she had built.

Aunty Lianse… she demanded steadfastness of her.

Purity of [Mind], [Body] and [Spirit] so that it was no more than a tranquil pool from which she might draw.

Yet therein lay the vexation.

How might we reach [Harmony] when these gifts were given? What insight might we reach or what concept might we embody when we are so young in this world?

Mingqin’s [Spirit] touched upon her partners’. Songbirds no longer, she felt, for they were formless and full of potential.

Their song was of futures.

With this she resonated deeply, and about it, knowing not how deep she had cultivated nor how long she had sat idle- her mantra awoke.

“The song across all ages. We are the righteous heartbeat to be instilled in others. The uniting thrum, the warding hum, the chant to save all those to whom we are responsible.”

Yes.

Across [Seasons] she wound these individual notes. Interlaced [Sound Qi] with [Spirit Qi]. Wove her [Dao] into her very heartbeat and [Intent].

And still she knew not the passage of time as the golden chime filled her ears; as characters of [Ink] appeared with such [Profundity] Mingqin had need to shy from them; as her [Core] became a thing of-

A cataclysm of lightning erupted through her song, golden and wide. Encapsulated in a single note. An all-encompassing crash beneath which her own melody was quashed.

Mingqin was thrown from her cultivation by its memory alone, and was her flesh not an immortal material she might be slickened by much sweat. “It is over,” she breathed. “We have consolidated all and triumphed.”

Twin trunks of feathers draped across her, and her arms cradle these softened necks as both her partners pressed their reassurance.

“My loves. I would see you,” her voice struck like unknown thunder about the chamber. Nigh unrecognisable. As did the ground beneath Mingqin’s rise crack with hitherto unseen force.

Such were the granted boons.

Such was the [True Lord Realm].

As with the trunks, twin beaks arrived at her proffered palms. Only, they could not be contained within.

A thunderous gasp filled the chamber, cracking its outer shell.

Mingqin’s astonishment shed tears as he strolled the length of her songbirds’ apotheosized forms. Titans, the pair, possessing a wingspan to cloud all beneath the Heavens- and yet such an observation was trite, mortal and did no justice to these halves of her soul.

Fables.

Phoenixes.

Light spilled into the chamber, carrying with it [Autumn’s] bite as the [Arrays] warding her seclusion chamber unravelled one by one. Whatever sight or majesty might have come with their dispersal was washed aside by Lianse’s flicking palm.

[Dour Faced Strategist] wrestled Mingqin into her bosom with a strength even newfound immortality could not resist. “Mingqin’er, child.”

“Aunty,” she returned, separating by half a pace.

“Immortality is a thing you wear well. As is this song my [Spirit] hears to look upon you. There is strength in this,” beamed the taciturn warrior. “Come, child, come. Jade Songbird City awaits.”

Mingqin’s partners made ready their wings, and the dome about them crumbled as they loosed their first cries. Golden waves cascaded their feathers like ever-falling raindrops and at these first notes they crashed and vibrated all above.

Not even dust remained.

The [Autumn] sun was high as they took flight, announcing the City Lord’s rebirth. Great shadowless fables that soon impressed their observations.

“Aunty Lianse? How is this so? For how many [Seasons]- how many moons, perhaps, have I remained in seclusion? Jade Songbird City has grown to all horizons!”

Three gestures crossed [Dour Faced Strategist’s] chest, warding off evil and other omens in repetition. “Mingqin’er,” she hesitated. “Pay no heed to what has passed. Only the [Seasons] ahead are of interest. If only as few as might remain.”

The City Lord blurred, bypassing her throne, hall and waiting subjects. Here she stepped upon the wind’s own sound, soaring until her domain could truly be witnessed.

From east to west and all in between, the glittering [Paifang] strewn about her streets, the vast golden shadow of the once-neighbouring monks’ namesake tree now within her borders, the pagodas of Numbered clans that paled against it.

More.

Altogether too much stood where before it had not.

City Lord Mingqin had proved incapable of its stewardship before, and yet… “That was before,” she hummed, sharing a note with the gentle wind. “As [Righteous Melodies Phoenix], we will prevail.”

🀦

The Asura no longer held a name, for this was the way, and a thing many of his kin had forgotten.

Gu was the force of absence.

Loss.

One must know a thing in order to know its disappearance, thus he found this behaviour of acting as the ascetic humans did… shortsighted.

His fire was of mortal making, constructed by the striking of stone upon dry foliage left over from the dying time. Gu did not empower its heat, for it was no force of the Yin, and what trite heat it offered could not melt the snows upon which it flickered.

Still, the Asura enjoyed its dance. He savoured what sadness would come once extinguished.

For this was the way.

The unwise would name the silence of these winding passages serene, they would wrongfully claim the still breath of these massed brethren was born of serenity. Some thousand, thousand unmoving figures in the near-blackened depths of these… Chimes of Serendipity sat about him, shying from the light his fire cast.

As if stone.

This sadness was prevailing. A thing the Asura had yet to lose.

Wind whistled through the yawning cave under which he sat, and fell quiet. Rose. Sang. Dipped. Screamed.

Vanished.

“Joyous,” came a voice.

The fire danced toward it, and so the Asura turned. “Joyous,” he affirmed, shifting his topmost arms so he might glean from whence this came.

“I would join you.”

“Would you add value to this night so I might mourn your parting?” queried the Asura.

“Much.”

Two lower arms splayed in welcome.

What entered into firelight was not of his kin. A thing neither beast nor human. While it walked upon two legs as the Pischacha and shared some slight semblance of their varifaceted hues, the silvering skin marked it as other.

“Who are you to walk unfettered among the absent folk?” asked the Asura, tracing a dance of rising embers.

“One that misplaced and gained a name. In these lands I am known as Yaoguai. But if you ask deeper, then I am a mere wanderer. Lost, and curious.”

The Asura tapped the hand-shattered logs, indulging in how they cracked. “Lost,” he mused. “What might you do when you are found?”

Yaoguai laughed.

“It was no jest.”

“A thing need not be a jest to be amusing. The scope of what you ask cannot be confined to one conversation between strangers,” offered the strange being. “Yet around a fire, tales must be told.”

Defying reason, the being opened a diminutive leather pouch. One slung where a mortal’s crotch and oftentimes, most precious treasures might rest beneath. The lid widened to produce twin goblets of foreign look - glassware by human naming - possessing long handles and wrist-length necks.

Golden liquid sloshed within.

“To wet both my tongue and your interest, friend.”

The Asura took it as if it were the sharp end of a jian, though on inspection the flame’s dance worked an interesting show when held behind it. “That is neither a working of Qi nor Dao.”

“Aye,” smiled Yaoguai. “Neither. Where best to begin my tale, I wonder? To look around, this seems the end.”

Fire crackled.

What sweet, fruity notes were contained within the liquid called strongly. As if a clarion call. An impression from Absence. An urge.

It lifted to the Asura’s tongue, which lapped slow at first. Against instinct, he paused only to offer his words. “The absent folk are said to be without end.”

“Spirit and thoughts are more intertwined here than my homeland. Your Dao, your Paths, your insight shapes you as an Artisan shapes vessels. In these passing months - Seasons - I have seen an undercurrent to these myriad truths,” said Yaoguai, emptying the liquid and filling it once more with a flick of silver fingers. “All things have balance. Your kin are the absence to Qi’s substance. It will remain, come what may. That is not the end of which I speak.”

An upper arm wiped the Asura’s lip, and another stirred the vessel. “Laws bind these lands. For each sensation there is an opposite. A mutual force. The intertwining of which you speak is a search for the greater truth.”

“Just so.”

“Just so,” lapped the Asura. “The value you add. It is in this end.”

“It is.”

“It is,” again, lapped the Asura.

“An uncountable mass of your kin await this… Fated Day. When the throne appears and these truths might be rewritten. I would wager few have considered the alternative. That in place of warring over this land, another might bear riper fruit.”

Fire crackled until it was doused by the Asura’s remaining liquid.

Then it merely spat.

“Have I offended you?” queried Yaoguai.

“There is substance enough in these words that lesser things go unneeded. Speak.”

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