Fic:When you Tell my Story, Don't Forget Me 5/6
Part Four
[... far more painful than I could have fathomed]
November 1934
It sickens my heart to write these words. I can only hope you keep this letter, so that my research will not be in vain. I have neglected to keep you apprised of my travels and information gathering for the past while (I cannot say how long, time has become irrelevant without your face beside me marking the years) because the deeper I sink into this life that my mother lead, the more removed I become from the world I once knew.
This is not a pretty story of a woman trapped in a tomb, awaiting her daughter and a comet to free her from a living death. This is a story in fragments, half as full of fiction as of fact - if I had not seen the documents and hidden sketchings with my own eyes, I would not believe this to be true. It is far more fantastic than a princess in a tower, far more painful than I could have fathomed.
From what I have gathered, the facts (tied together with my own speculation) are these:
In the 1300s a man presumed to be a beggar, Zhu Yuanzhang, entered the White Lotus Society - a Buddhist sect that worshiped the mythical "Unborn Venerable Mother"… Yuanzhang was not (I believe) a beggar - but rather, a vampire from the North. In order to gain power, Yuanzhang hid his immortality, but used his knowledge of vampirism to become the driving force behind the secret society.
This is where it gets fuzzy - I believe, after scouring the annals, that Yuanzhang went in search of a representative of the “Unborn Mother” and, together with his rebellion, kidnapped a young woman from a small village. There are scattered reports that this woman had a family - a husband and two sons - who were killed when she refused to leave them behind. Yuanzhang made her as he was - the undead - and presented her to this obscure sect as a symbol of his power. With her at his side, he defeated the Mongols and eventually founded the Ming dynasty. This woman, I believe - was my Mother.
There are hints that the secret society stayed in power, only so long as my mother was locked in the palace - an eternal concubine to the Emperor and a Symbol of the Empire’s defeat of death.
Three hundred years later, the Ming dynasty collapsed and I believe this is the point at which my mother escaped the palace and shortly thereafter found me - possibly the victim of genocide. There are many stories in the Western mountains of a child being born of death and snow on the eve of a great war. I am not narcissistic in my belief that this may be a reference to my own beginnings. Mother was too full of fury at what was done with her - too damaged by centuries of abuse, to keep quite. My own vague memories of our early time together are full of a sense of vengeance and blood that seemed to ebb once we ventured into Europe. Especially after mother became friends with the young Katherine Pierce in the early 1800s.
There is another story of a warrior woman - Wang Cong'er- who is said to have died after a long rebellion, but I like to think if this woman was not also my mother, then at least she was there. We left for Europe around the same time as Wang’s death - as far as I can figure - and the vendetta (the warrior’s anger over her husband’s death) as well as her described fighting style (a sword in each hand) reminds me so vividly of my mother when I was young… or - at least, before we arrived in Europe and she left behind her rage. I also have had dreams in the past of battles and sieges… I had always believed to have an over-active imagination, but I am beginning to understand that my dreams are fragmented memories from my early years.
I can’t imagine the pain she suffered at the hands of her maker - locked in a room for hundreds of years, fed only rarely, a living-in-death Symbol of the might of an Empire who can keep a woman as a pet.
I still do not fully understand why my mother turned me - it is possible I was still very alive when she found me, but I am still unsure on this point. I only remember pain, blinding pain. I have no memories of being human. I now am so grateful for this - that I do not feel the need to mourn for my parents and family, the way my mother has held her murdered husband and children in her heart for all of this time. It fills me with a sadness I cannot fully express to you.
I will not be sending letters for a while; the world is too full of fury. Yes, even buried as I am in such an ancient land, I have stayed aware of the changes... I sense a coming change and a period of great unrest. The soothsayers I have befriended have urged me to return to my village far to the East, where I am still spoken of and will be welcome until such time as I can return. I hope your sons do not become involved in this world that is being built and destroyed.
Do not seek me out,
Anna
There is a story of a woman born of pain and grief. A young woman, beautiful to behold, damaged beyond belief - her pain turning her into the undead figure of vengeance.
They tell of a man from the city, a man with dark eyes and a low hood, a man with delicate skin and long fingers, who traveled the lands in search of Beauty to put on display. Many of the poor villagers on his route brought him with tears in their eyes, their young children - their unmarried daughters - seeking a life beyond struggle for that which they cherish most. Seeking the safety of wealth for their progeny.
But Beauty is in what is desired, not in what can be thrown away. That which is given willingly, is not as Precious as that which is held close. The man with the thin lips knew this instinctively, he watched the people as they passed him, looking for the Beauty that was cherished and loved beyond all others.
In a small village beyond the reaches of the Court and the wealth of the man’s purse, there was a young woman who was spoken of as the kindest and gentlest in the land. She was said to shine like a pearl in the deepest ocean. The man seeking Beauty sought her out and fell entranced by her easy nature and disposition.
Most importantly, the man watched jealously as the woman’s husband gazed upon her with eyes full of devotion and love. Watched as her two young sons followed her to and fro, grasping at her hands and clothing in awe and love. Watched her kiss them with such deep affection. Watched the young family as they floated on their own love for each other - oblivious to his gaze, to his purpose, to the world around them, secure in each other.
He ripped her from them easily, sliding a sword into the young man’s stomach like butter, his eyes on the woman’s face as her world came shattering down around her ankles. Snapping the necks of her children swiftly and deftly, watching her shining face grow hard and crystalize with pain.
It is said that in that moment, he laughed and kissed her with glee. This woman, who was so loved and had loved so fully, was stripped from her world in an instant, at the man’s whim. It is said that he took more pleasure in her pain, in creating a creature of darkness from where there was only light, than any from the body of a woman.
It is said that the soul of this poor creature still haunts these lands - made immortal in her pain; her soul a wreaking avenger - jealous of pure love, a figure haunted by love and made only of hate and death; destroying that which is hateful and defending that which is not. A paradox of jealousy and love, of hate and death - wandering eternally in search of the souls of her lost loves.
A Cloud of Hair Gleaming in Spring
(Wu Guxiang’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’, Qing Dynasty)
This painter gave you a cloud of hair
Set high upon your head;
A tight silk gown, sleeves broadly loose
But like a water scallion
Yellowish green, and fragile
Your eyes, softly drawn, capture
A soul suffocating inside.
You only stare at the jade hairpin in your hand.
Such pitiful life behind the lovely pose
Even the sighs are forgotten.
The naked cries and desires of youth
Have long been smothered in silk and brocade.
Sunlight
Though radiant in spring
Cannot pierce this elegant coldness
Pale ribbons strangling your veins.
Oh you cold, cold woman
If you could rip apart this silk
And leap back into the sea of life
To recover the lost pulse.
To love, to hate in the flesh is far far better
Than this life’s token - a jade hairpin.
Zheng Min
Click for Epilogue!
[... far more painful than I could have fathomed]
November 1934
It sickens my heart to write these words. I can only hope you keep this letter, so that my research will not be in vain. I have neglected to keep you apprised of my travels and information gathering for the past while (I cannot say how long, time has become irrelevant without your face beside me marking the years) because the deeper I sink into this life that my mother lead, the more removed I become from the world I once knew.
This is not a pretty story of a woman trapped in a tomb, awaiting her daughter and a comet to free her from a living death. This is a story in fragments, half as full of fiction as of fact - if I had not seen the documents and hidden sketchings with my own eyes, I would not believe this to be true. It is far more fantastic than a princess in a tower, far more painful than I could have fathomed.
From what I have gathered, the facts (tied together with my own speculation) are these:
In the 1300s a man presumed to be a beggar, Zhu Yuanzhang, entered the White Lotus Society - a Buddhist sect that worshiped the mythical "Unborn Venerable Mother"… Yuanzhang was not (I believe) a beggar - but rather, a vampire from the North. In order to gain power, Yuanzhang hid his immortality, but used his knowledge of vampirism to become the driving force behind the secret society.
This is where it gets fuzzy - I believe, after scouring the annals, that Yuanzhang went in search of a representative of the “Unborn Mother” and, together with his rebellion, kidnapped a young woman from a small village. There are scattered reports that this woman had a family - a husband and two sons - who were killed when she refused to leave them behind. Yuanzhang made her as he was - the undead - and presented her to this obscure sect as a symbol of his power. With her at his side, he defeated the Mongols and eventually founded the Ming dynasty. This woman, I believe - was my Mother.
There are hints that the secret society stayed in power, only so long as my mother was locked in the palace - an eternal concubine to the Emperor and a Symbol of the Empire’s defeat of death.
Three hundred years later, the Ming dynasty collapsed and I believe this is the point at which my mother escaped the palace and shortly thereafter found me - possibly the victim of genocide. There are many stories in the Western mountains of a child being born of death and snow on the eve of a great war. I am not narcissistic in my belief that this may be a reference to my own beginnings. Mother was too full of fury at what was done with her - too damaged by centuries of abuse, to keep quite. My own vague memories of our early time together are full of a sense of vengeance and blood that seemed to ebb once we ventured into Europe. Especially after mother became friends with the young Katherine Pierce in the early 1800s.
There is another story of a warrior woman - Wang Cong'er- who is said to have died after a long rebellion, but I like to think if this woman was not also my mother, then at least she was there. We left for Europe around the same time as Wang’s death - as far as I can figure - and the vendetta (the warrior’s anger over her husband’s death) as well as her described fighting style (a sword in each hand) reminds me so vividly of my mother when I was young… or - at least, before we arrived in Europe and she left behind her rage. I also have had dreams in the past of battles and sieges… I had always believed to have an over-active imagination, but I am beginning to understand that my dreams are fragmented memories from my early years.
I can’t imagine the pain she suffered at the hands of her maker - locked in a room for hundreds of years, fed only rarely, a living-in-death Symbol of the might of an Empire who can keep a woman as a pet.
I still do not fully understand why my mother turned me - it is possible I was still very alive when she found me, but I am still unsure on this point. I only remember pain, blinding pain. I have no memories of being human. I now am so grateful for this - that I do not feel the need to mourn for my parents and family, the way my mother has held her murdered husband and children in her heart for all of this time. It fills me with a sadness I cannot fully express to you.
I will not be sending letters for a while; the world is too full of fury. Yes, even buried as I am in such an ancient land, I have stayed aware of the changes... I sense a coming change and a period of great unrest. The soothsayers I have befriended have urged me to return to my village far to the East, where I am still spoken of and will be welcome until such time as I can return. I hope your sons do not become involved in this world that is being built and destroyed.
Do not seek me out,
Anna
There is a story of a woman born of pain and grief. A young woman, beautiful to behold, damaged beyond belief - her pain turning her into the undead figure of vengeance.
They tell of a man from the city, a man with dark eyes and a low hood, a man with delicate skin and long fingers, who traveled the lands in search of Beauty to put on display. Many of the poor villagers on his route brought him with tears in their eyes, their young children - their unmarried daughters - seeking a life beyond struggle for that which they cherish most. Seeking the safety of wealth for their progeny.
But Beauty is in what is desired, not in what can be thrown away. That which is given willingly, is not as Precious as that which is held close. The man with the thin lips knew this instinctively, he watched the people as they passed him, looking for the Beauty that was cherished and loved beyond all others.
In a small village beyond the reaches of the Court and the wealth of the man’s purse, there was a young woman who was spoken of as the kindest and gentlest in the land. She was said to shine like a pearl in the deepest ocean. The man seeking Beauty sought her out and fell entranced by her easy nature and disposition.
Most importantly, the man watched jealously as the woman’s husband gazed upon her with eyes full of devotion and love. Watched as her two young sons followed her to and fro, grasping at her hands and clothing in awe and love. Watched her kiss them with such deep affection. Watched the young family as they floated on their own love for each other - oblivious to his gaze, to his purpose, to the world around them, secure in each other.
He ripped her from them easily, sliding a sword into the young man’s stomach like butter, his eyes on the woman’s face as her world came shattering down around her ankles. Snapping the necks of her children swiftly and deftly, watching her shining face grow hard and crystalize with pain.
It is said that in that moment, he laughed and kissed her with glee. This woman, who was so loved and had loved so fully, was stripped from her world in an instant, at the man’s whim. It is said that he took more pleasure in her pain, in creating a creature of darkness from where there was only light, than any from the body of a woman.
It is said that the soul of this poor creature still haunts these lands - made immortal in her pain; her soul a wreaking avenger - jealous of pure love, a figure haunted by love and made only of hate and death; destroying that which is hateful and defending that which is not. A paradox of jealousy and love, of hate and death - wandering eternally in search of the souls of her lost loves.
A Cloud of Hair Gleaming in Spring
(Wu Guxiang’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’, Qing Dynasty)
This painter gave you a cloud of hair
Set high upon your head;
A tight silk gown, sleeves broadly loose
But like a water scallion
Yellowish green, and fragile
Your eyes, softly drawn, capture
A soul suffocating inside.
You only stare at the jade hairpin in your hand.
Such pitiful life behind the lovely pose
Even the sighs are forgotten.
The naked cries and desires of youth
Have long been smothered in silk and brocade.
Sunlight
Though radiant in spring
Cannot pierce this elegant coldness
Pale ribbons strangling your veins.
Oh you cold, cold woman
If you could rip apart this silk
And leap back into the sea of life
To recover the lost pulse.
To love, to hate in the flesh is far far better
Than this life’s token - a jade hairpin.
Zheng Min
Click for Epilogue!