Scrollmaker
300 Years Ago, the 98th Year of Emperor An's Reign.
A man sat in the back room of his small home on the outskirts of Dayuanpendi, seated on a short stool before a low writing desk neatly covered with a thick sheaf of blank talisman parchment and writing utensils. His trimming knife, inkstone and blotter and brushes, all arranged to be faintly lit by the only source of light in the room. A dim and dampened flame barely illuminated the man's green robes and the rest of the square room with it's well cared for walls in the chill of a Ebon Rivers morning. Square shadows hung outside the light of the fire.
It was nearly silent except for the breathing of two people. The man and his young daughter of seventeen winters who rested beyond the flame on her pallet, sleeping peacefully. Above the man hung an unlit square paper lantern, the fire only barely illuminating the characters on it's sides and leaving them unreadable. Through the window above his daughter, through the slatted shutters, the stars were beginning to fade with the coming dawn.
The man sighed and ran his hands over the bronze embossing of his name and title on the front of his desk.
Scribe Gong Sho.
It's the start of an old routine for the scribe. Moving carefully the man reached under his desk and gently pulled out a book, covers made of green painted wood and the parchment within thin with age. Setting it on his lap he opened it, entering a state of meditation as he turned through the pages delicately with two fingers worn with the beginning of age. His qi began to cycle and spin, flowing like words and syllables beneath his skin and to his arms.
With a satisfied hum he found the passages on the particular prayer he had been asked to copy by the Temple of the River Song, said river which he could hear burbling sleepily through his window. The spring floods will come soon and the river liked a particular prayer slip to be on his banks in large numbers. Sho stilled in consideration, his qi flows waiting for his next desire.
I think the slightly aged veined ink I have will do. He's expressed interest about it when I mentioned it at one point during my fishing. Sho thought, pleased by the memory.
Moving swiftly but smoothly he closed his book and set it back in its place before reaching over his desk and flipping up the cover of his ink storage. Selecting the ink in question, it is an oily and very black ink which seems to run away from the stone when he set up his tools, full of wind and wood qi. He is not concerned by the tiny clacks of his work or the swishing noises of his robes. His wife in the outer room on their shared bed and his daughter have both expressed amused liking for the noise of his work. Smiling under his full beard he gathered his qi in his fingers and settled himself, left arm supporting his right above the paper as it grasps his small brush.
Then he began to copy his desired prayer onto the talisman slips, spikes of warm yin water qi stabbing into the paper like needles following his brush in its rapid swish-swish course across the parchment. His hands move much faster than a mortal's as he scribed a prayer slip, placed his brush over the inkstone, moved the slip to the side to dry with his left hand, and then returned to its grip on his right, inscribing small circles with both hands as he moved rhythmically. It was all one smooth motion reminiscent of a water wheel he grew up near, constantly in productive motion.
Soon Gong Sho could feel his cheek being warmed by the Sun and he stoped his work. One hundred and fifty prayer slips laid beside him, dry and neatly stacked. He relaxeed, setting aside his tools and packing up, letting the familiar motions ease away the lingering qi in his fingertips.
"Murph... guh?" He looked over as his daughter pushed up on one hand and blinked sleepily at the window and then at him.
"Morning Father." She says quietly, one hand rubbing an eye.
"Morning Bingqing, did you sleep well?" He asked. She nodded and smiled. A quiet rustle from the outer room told him his wife Gong Chun was also awake. He heard a faint grumble from his daughter.
"Shall we make breakfast then?" His tone was teasing. Bingqing looked at him darkly, fully awake now, before giggling and rising.
"In a moment Father."
The talismans rested by the now vacated seat, ready for their future use.
Gong Bingqing had been sent by her father after breakfast and his morning tutoring, which had picked up in complexity rapidly since she had awoken to the Red Soul a month ago, to the temple. On her hip in a case she was carrying his most recent talismans. The small town in Ebon Rivers was
alive all around her as she walked down the main street.
There were people of all stripes and colors in attendance. Bright silks, wools and other cloths, with people calling out in dozens of voices, some flavored with the little dialects of distant villages and other nuances.
"Gong! How's your morning?" A sprightly voice leapt over her shoulder and into her ear as she turned slightly and looked right. And down, to her friend, his shock of green hair all over the place and his clear brown eyes meeting her blue ones.
"Ach, Laozi you know it's great. Wanna come with me to the temple, or are you too busy being a packmule for your mother?" Her tone was particularly
acrid. Some would dare to say
sardonic.
Laozi just cackled, and shifted his large rack of pottery where it sat on his shoulders.
"I'm good, don't fall in the river, mother wants you to come over for dinner tonight! She's doing steamed duck!" The boy had a very knowing look in his eyes. Which was answered by a greedy glint in Biangqing's eyes and a toothy grin.
"Oh
really? Well I'll see you later then. Bye!" She said, waving as she slipped away back into the crowds.
She came to the Temple shortly thereafter and bowed to the gate guard. He let her in without a word or acknowledgement beyond a nod. There are monks working in the garden, a complicated network of irrigated herb plots, but only two or three that she could see. She wasn't sure because they have a nasty habit of being
juuuust out of sight when you least expected it. Almost scared the life out of her when she was a girl of five once.
Winding her way over the little wood bridges she headed into the temple, returning the bows any of the monks gave her when they saw her. Passing through the threshold into the central room of the temple was a relief from the heat of the day.
The room was large enough to hold her entire small home, at least twice over. And passing through the middle of it was an almost natural seeming cleft in the stone floor through which the River Song passed, creating a subdued roar which filled the room. Seated on her knees beside that cleft was the head monk, Liao Baozhai. The woman had shaven hair high up her skull, and then let the rest of her raven hair spread over her shoulders like a shawl, highlighting the pale skin of her face.
"Hello Honored Monk, it is Gong Bingqing from my Father." The greeting was simple and ritualistic and somewhat awkward due to it only being recently that her father sent the girl on errands as important as these deliveries.
The head monk turned slightly and nods, smiling, which lifted a weight off the nervous girl. The elder woman waved a hand.
"Welcome, welcome. Come with me then. How is your father?" The kindly woman asked with a quirked smile.
"He's fine, happy as always." Bingqing says as she followed the monk left and through an archway, which opened onto a short step leading to the river's bank. On that bank were a series of very short wooden poles pounded into the soil by disciples of the temple and volunteers from the town. Hundreds of them going and going and going until the river's course curved out of sight and likely beyond that. Her father had explained before that the River Song liked to wash over them, and read them apparently. While the spirit had been "a bit unclear", in his words, he figured that it reminded the spirit of someone who it had known and was still fond of.
Bingqing shook herself from her idle musing and hurried after Baozhai, the woman gracefully winding through the poles down to the bank of the river.
When she caught up, Bingqing pulled off her case and set it at her feet as she followed the monk in bowing and paying respects to the river.
Baozhai spoke. "Greetings great River Song, you continue to honor us with your healthy flows and the village is thankful for your coming floods." The monk bowed twice here and clapped her hands, which Bingqing followed. "We are thankful." They both say together, the routine well trod. Baozhai straightened up partially, while Bianqing stayed bowed, and continued to speak.
"I come with a child bearing gifts from her father Gong Sho. Talismans which we hope you find pleasing in your mercy. May we proceed with placing them?" The woman waited for a moment, and while Bianqing heard nothing in response, the river obviously responded in the positive because Baozhai straightened and smiled.
"Thank you great River." She said kindly as she turned and gestured for the girl to follow her to the first pole.
When the spring floods came a month later, the River Song was quite satisfied with the gifts given. The food baskets given to his waters tasted of happiness and joy, the wines and drink swirled nicely in his body and the fish entrails made pretty patterns. But he enjoyed most the many little talismans, the knots of painted string, tiny wooden boats and the prayer slips which he spent hours reading with his friends by the light of little paper lantern boats.
Everything came together to make his celebrations with the earth and stone spirits on his banks lively and fun, as they should be.
All of these things he swirled over, and the village received another good flood this year. When he subsided again, his celebrations complete he left nothing but fertility and good health behind. And one water soaked talisman, which was accidentally put a little too securely, a little too high on his flood banks by a tired girl after a long day at work.
That talisman would be found the next day by Gong Sho, and carried back to his home, where it would be pressed and dried and then set to hang on his wall amongst the many other similar talismans and scrolls. Though it had a more complicated future in store for it than most of the other writings which adorned the scribe's walls.
@yrsillar
Omake for the throne. I'm probably going to do a series of this.
. The other being more Yin and picking up heart meridians to focus on people and connections, giving better awareness of others, team coms, and group stealth tricks by manipulating the signs of their presence.