Cheerupemo!charliechaplin2
Hey CC!! Don't let school/work/st00pids/etc get you down! Not that cheerupemo!fic actually does anything to improve any situations, but hope you feel better at least!!
Prompt: None
Characters/Ships: Jadeite. Future R/J eventually.
A/N: Every traditional Chinese archetype evar!!11!1!1!!!11!oneone!
I.
The temple in the Wudang Mountains is enshrouded by mist, a small and picturesque building with a grove of poplars in the front and a row of willows in the back. A garden of herbs flourishes in front, throwing scents of angelica and cinnamon into the cool air. A brook runs in the back, alongside the graceful willows, and aside from the sounds of songbirds and running water, the land surrounding the temple is a quiet place.
The baby is found at sunset, fourteen days after the Ghost festival. His cries break the silence and attract the attention of Taoist Master Yang and his wife Lady Liu as they make their sojourn to the brook to set paper boats with candles afloat to guide the spirits of the dead back to the underworld. He is less than a month old, fretful and hungry, swaddled in a blanket and left in a wicker basket. When Lady Liu picks him up, he quiets, the pale golden fuzz covering his head shimmering in the dying sunlight.
Gentle and compassionate as the willow that is her name, Lady Liu takes him home after the rituals and prayers have been observed, and Master Yang, strong and wise as the poplars, searches the mountains all night for a sign of the boy’s mother. He finds none.
The boy might be a gift from the ghosts, but they take him in. A year later, after they leave out a feast for the ghosts and burn incense at the altar, Lady Liu picks up the baby, whose eyes are the blue of aconite flowers and whose hair falls around his little head in golden curls, and sets him down on a mat surrounded by various items. The baby crawls over past a copy of the Tao Te Ching and a fresh, dewy lotus blossom, and wraps his chubby fingers around the hilt of one of Master Yang’s ceremonial blades, carved of the finest jadeite, snowy-white, streaked through with thin lines of red.
“He will be a warrior,” Master Yang murmurs even as he gently pries the heirloom out of the baby’s hands. “A fearless fighter of extraordinary skill.” He smiles faintly with pride. “I will teach him the ways of fists and swords when he is older, and the patience and honour to use them well.”
“I hope that he will not have to use them often,” Lady Liu whispers as she picks the boy back up in her arms. He gurgles and smiles and toys with her long black hair.
They name him Bai-Yu Jian-- White Jade sword, and call him Jian-er.
II.
“Keep your back straight and your breathing slow and even. Your mind and heart must be completely calm, your muscles in a deep state of relaxation. The soft and pliable will always eventually defeat the hard and strong.” Master Yang’s voice is soothing as he sits at one end of a yin-yang painted on the floor. At the opposite end, gamely motionless but not so tranquil, five-year-old Jian-Er tries to mimic the posture.
“When will you teach me how to use the sword and the sabre?” Jian-Er asks, not for the first time. In the weaponry room of the temple, a rack of weaponry lies against the far wall. More than once, the boy has watched in utter fascination as his surrogate parents sparred in the expansive floor of the room-- Lady Liu wielding her namesake willow-leaf sabre, Master Yang armed with a tasseled sword. On occasion they would use other, more exotic weapons-- deer-horn knives, chain-whips, spears and quarterstaves, but regardless of the weapon, they would spar with grace and speed and remarkable skill.
But for now he must sit in the meditation room, focus on the yin-yang and the eight trigrams and relax his mind. Because his surrogate father has his eyes closed and does not answer his question, Jian-Er pouts at the injustice of it before closing his own eyes. He wants to be a hero, like Lord General Guan-Yu, patron deity of warriors and chieftains of the battlefield, invincible as he defeats his enemies and protects the downtrodden.
But there are many steps to take before he can become a great warrior, and the meditation is key to strengthening his qi and giving his mind the focus it needs to dispel the attacks of opponents. So he sits, in a pose learned from watching, and tries to ignore the itch between his shoulder blades as he counts his breaths.
Vividly behind his eyelids he sees a vision: the visage of a girl he does not know, perhaps a year or two younger than him, looking small and sad and lost as she stands next to a big suitcase on the wooden steps of a temple not quite like his. She gets smaller and smaller, her face blurring with distance, as he-or-probably-someone-else walks away.
The caw of a crow echoes in his ears. He almost feels a wind picking up, though he is indoors, and in his mind he sees the girl’s long black hair flutter in the breeze.
“I will save you someday,” he makes a silent promise, and now sits still in earnest. The trigram at his feet is the one which represents fire.
Prompt: None
Characters/Ships: Jadeite. Future R/J eventually.
A/N: Every traditional Chinese archetype evar!!11!1!1!!!11!oneone!
I.
The temple in the Wudang Mountains is enshrouded by mist, a small and picturesque building with a grove of poplars in the front and a row of willows in the back. A garden of herbs flourishes in front, throwing scents of angelica and cinnamon into the cool air. A brook runs in the back, alongside the graceful willows, and aside from the sounds of songbirds and running water, the land surrounding the temple is a quiet place.
The baby is found at sunset, fourteen days after the Ghost festival. His cries break the silence and attract the attention of Taoist Master Yang and his wife Lady Liu as they make their sojourn to the brook to set paper boats with candles afloat to guide the spirits of the dead back to the underworld. He is less than a month old, fretful and hungry, swaddled in a blanket and left in a wicker basket. When Lady Liu picks him up, he quiets, the pale golden fuzz covering his head shimmering in the dying sunlight.
Gentle and compassionate as the willow that is her name, Lady Liu takes him home after the rituals and prayers have been observed, and Master Yang, strong and wise as the poplars, searches the mountains all night for a sign of the boy’s mother. He finds none.
The boy might be a gift from the ghosts, but they take him in. A year later, after they leave out a feast for the ghosts and burn incense at the altar, Lady Liu picks up the baby, whose eyes are the blue of aconite flowers and whose hair falls around his little head in golden curls, and sets him down on a mat surrounded by various items. The baby crawls over past a copy of the Tao Te Ching and a fresh, dewy lotus blossom, and wraps his chubby fingers around the hilt of one of Master Yang’s ceremonial blades, carved of the finest jadeite, snowy-white, streaked through with thin lines of red.
“He will be a warrior,” Master Yang murmurs even as he gently pries the heirloom out of the baby’s hands. “A fearless fighter of extraordinary skill.” He smiles faintly with pride. “I will teach him the ways of fists and swords when he is older, and the patience and honour to use them well.”
“I hope that he will not have to use them often,” Lady Liu whispers as she picks the boy back up in her arms. He gurgles and smiles and toys with her long black hair.
They name him Bai-Yu Jian-- White Jade sword, and call him Jian-er.
II.
“Keep your back straight and your breathing slow and even. Your mind and heart must be completely calm, your muscles in a deep state of relaxation. The soft and pliable will always eventually defeat the hard and strong.” Master Yang’s voice is soothing as he sits at one end of a yin-yang painted on the floor. At the opposite end, gamely motionless but not so tranquil, five-year-old Jian-Er tries to mimic the posture.
“When will you teach me how to use the sword and the sabre?” Jian-Er asks, not for the first time. In the weaponry room of the temple, a rack of weaponry lies against the far wall. More than once, the boy has watched in utter fascination as his surrogate parents sparred in the expansive floor of the room-- Lady Liu wielding her namesake willow-leaf sabre, Master Yang armed with a tasseled sword. On occasion they would use other, more exotic weapons-- deer-horn knives, chain-whips, spears and quarterstaves, but regardless of the weapon, they would spar with grace and speed and remarkable skill.
But for now he must sit in the meditation room, focus on the yin-yang and the eight trigrams and relax his mind. Because his surrogate father has his eyes closed and does not answer his question, Jian-Er pouts at the injustice of it before closing his own eyes. He wants to be a hero, like Lord General Guan-Yu, patron deity of warriors and chieftains of the battlefield, invincible as he defeats his enemies and protects the downtrodden.
But there are many steps to take before he can become a great warrior, and the meditation is key to strengthening his qi and giving his mind the focus it needs to dispel the attacks of opponents. So he sits, in a pose learned from watching, and tries to ignore the itch between his shoulder blades as he counts his breaths.
Vividly behind his eyelids he sees a vision: the visage of a girl he does not know, perhaps a year or two younger than him, looking small and sad and lost as she stands next to a big suitcase on the wooden steps of a temple not quite like his. She gets smaller and smaller, her face blurring with distance, as he-or-probably-someone-else walks away.
The caw of a crow echoes in his ears. He almost feels a wind picking up, though he is indoors, and in his mind he sees the girl’s long black hair flutter in the breeze.
“I will save you someday,” he makes a silent promise, and now sits still in earnest. The trigram at his feet is the one which represents fire.