sm_monthly 1-12-09 theme
I'm so glad this didn't end up being a long digression on Neo-Confucian architecture and its symbolism.
Title: Make a Man
Author: purplekitte
Theme: Senshi/Shitennou--Sacrifice
Genre: Romance, Angst
Version: Anime, Mulan legend
Rating: PG
In the Middle Kingdom, a daughter was obedient to her father, a wife to her husband and mother-in-law, and a widow to her son. They did not turn Nature of its head and those of the Silver Millennium would have disaster fall on them, as was to be expected on those who did so.
There was a war in the northern provinces, where the barbarians always were and now they were sending their women into battle, strange women possessing the magic of demons. Many were called to arms.
In the village on the river, Zhou Tai was taken by a fever while he traveled and rested in the house of Liu Hao. His things were taken to be burned, as they had the plague upon them, but disappeared before they were destroyed. Liu Hao’s daughter, Liu Mei, disappeared as well. They were a family of bad repute, old Uranian blood, but her mother had just arranged Liu Mei an advantageous marriage. Liu Mei saw only that her mother-in-law would be a cruel and spiteful woman.
Liu Mei became Zhou Tai and won acclaim. It came to be that she was assigned to General Kunzite under Prince Endymion himself. They became close as comrades-in-arms. Liu Mei grew to long for Kunzite, Kuan Chi. She became jealous of his wife, but his wife was in his mother’s house while she was here with him.
The night before a battle with ten thousand horsemen and witch-women, Liu Mei told Kuan Chi simply that she was Sailor Ariel, and left in a shower of cherry blossoms.
Liu Mei stayed far from the army lest they see her shame and resolved to fight until she died. But a lone soldier cut through the barbarians to where she was.
“Zoisite,” he called to her by the ceremonial name she had been granted by the prince. “Come back to me.”
“I wish to be your woman but cannot be. I am no proper woman.”
“Then be my man.” Such things happened in the army. “Do not leave me.”
“And what if I cannot keep a secret forever. I am a man with no ancestors, no wife, no sons. What will we do? Where will we go?”
And from the hordes of barbarians came their answer. Beryl, the prince’s barren first wife gone to a Buddhist monastery, came to the general and the senshi in the midst of her troops and took them with her.
Title: Make a Man
Author: purplekitte
Theme: Senshi/Shitennou--Sacrifice
Genre: Romance, Angst
Version: Anime, Mulan legend
Rating: PG
In the Middle Kingdom, a daughter was obedient to her father, a wife to her husband and mother-in-law, and a widow to her son. They did not turn Nature of its head and those of the Silver Millennium would have disaster fall on them, as was to be expected on those who did so.
There was a war in the northern provinces, where the barbarians always were and now they were sending their women into battle, strange women possessing the magic of demons. Many were called to arms.
In the village on the river, Zhou Tai was taken by a fever while he traveled and rested in the house of Liu Hao. His things were taken to be burned, as they had the plague upon them, but disappeared before they were destroyed. Liu Hao’s daughter, Liu Mei, disappeared as well. They were a family of bad repute, old Uranian blood, but her mother had just arranged Liu Mei an advantageous marriage. Liu Mei saw only that her mother-in-law would be a cruel and spiteful woman.
Liu Mei became Zhou Tai and won acclaim. It came to be that she was assigned to General Kunzite under Prince Endymion himself. They became close as comrades-in-arms. Liu Mei grew to long for Kunzite, Kuan Chi. She became jealous of his wife, but his wife was in his mother’s house while she was here with him.
The night before a battle with ten thousand horsemen and witch-women, Liu Mei told Kuan Chi simply that she was Sailor Ariel, and left in a shower of cherry blossoms.
Liu Mei stayed far from the army lest they see her shame and resolved to fight until she died. But a lone soldier cut through the barbarians to where she was.
“Zoisite,” he called to her by the ceremonial name she had been granted by the prince. “Come back to me.”
“I wish to be your woman but cannot be. I am no proper woman.”
“Then be my man.” Such things happened in the army. “Do not leave me.”
“And what if I cannot keep a secret forever. I am a man with no ancestors, no wife, no sons. What will we do? Where will we go?”
And from the hordes of barbarians came their answer. Beryl, the prince’s barren first wife gone to a Buddhist monastery, came to the general and the senshi in the midst of her troops and took them with her.