NaNoWriMo'09: excerpt #1 from Prologue
Nov. 1st, 2009 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
denenkyuuokay, here's a few hundred words of what I've got done of the prologue so far:
Red Threads, Book 1: No Faith
Summary: Half a millennia ago the Elemental Beasts were born from the gradual concentration of four elements in the east, south, west, and north corners of the mortal realm. While magnificent, they were as impassive to mortal life as the natural disasters they embody, and were eventually ordered to be imprisoned in the underworld by the Jade Emperor of the immortals. As punishment, they were stripped of their immortality and condemned to numerous lifetimes of the very suffering they had caused.
Over the centuries, as the mortal realm slowly returned to peace and prosperity, the beasts and the terrors they wrought faded from the mortals’ memories， until they remained no more than a faraway legend.
Now, five hundred years later, their spirits have been reborn as five mortal beings, each struggling through their own trials of redemption, and each connected to the other by a red thread of fate. Caught on either side of the conflict between the rénlèi (humans) and yāojīng (nonhuman entities that can take on human form) will fate bring them together as friends, or enemies?
序幕 《紅線》
Hóng Xiàn
(PROLOGUE: RED THREADS)
Yùe Lǎo
The small ferrying cloud I had summoned scatters in wisps beneath my feet as I hurriedly make my way through the spirit gates of Dìyù, realm of death and rebirth. Ahead of me lies the path to Dìfǔ, the court of the underworld, blanketed by clusters of translucent línghún – mortal spirits – drifting through, clinging to their peers and silently bemoaning their deaths.
Nervously, I start to dust my robes off of the tendrils of residue immortal energy that had followed me down during my descent from Tiān’táng, the upperworld. Some of the línghún are already breaking from their clusters and gathering towards the weak immortal light of my own essence, the dead drawn to the allure of eternal life and everlasting wisdom. Knowing that the yánwáng – judges of the dead – disliked any and all interruptions to their orderly business of assigning doom, I quickened my pace and did my best to avoid the wayward spirits slowly crowding around me. My long silver beard I kept tucked inside my robes just in case – the hair of an immortal holds just as much power as their blood.
By the time I reached Dìfǔ’s doorstep, Yánlúo Wáng was waiting on his formidable throne behind an equally formidable table stacked with the Tomes of the Dead. At any given time, one of the ten yánwáng will be sitting on that throne, waiting to judge each mortal by the weight of their lifetime’s good and bad deeds. Using an ink brush imbued with the immortal power they each possess, they will mark their judgement down, either permitting the spirit to return to the cycle of reincarnation in the mortal realm, or banish it to the Planes of Mortal Suffering. One corridor behind the throne leads to the Bridge of Rebirth, while a second to the opposite end drops down, down, down, eighteen levels into hell.
I do not know many of the yánwáng personally, but Yánlúo Wáng I have met on multiple occasions…two or three that I can recall within the past century. Regardless, that did not make him any friendlier than the Guardians of the Immortal Gates, and those four had permanent scowls on their painted faces.
“It is rare to see you away from your strings, Elder of the Lower Moon,” he says by way of greeting and sends another spirit on its way with a smear of ink.
“Threads,” I correct him patiently, and my essence glows a little brighter with pride. I do not expect him, young as he is, to understand the intricacies of weaving fates and breaking ties. And, might I add, I do not actually live on the moon. My mansion nests on a cloud somewhere just below the Moon, though it does manage to float off sometimes during the Moon’s weaker phases.
One of the línghún has caught hold of my sleeve and I snap back to the present to tug free from the weak hold. It is no wonder so few immortals visit Dìfǔ, ever. While the spirits can never do much substantial damage, it is still quite disconcerting to be grabbed at by so many invasive hands.
“What is the purpose of your visit Elder?” Yánlúo Wáng asks then, and I am fairly certain that was a bemused expression on his face. I wonder for a moment why the spirits do not make a grab at him, but one look at the impressionable markings on his face tell me all I need to know.
“There have been whispers in Tiāntíng,” I start, and pause as I wonder how I should broach the topic. Upperworld-underworld politics were a complicated mess of don’t-knows, don’t-tells, and don’t-cares. It was a wonder any semblance of order could be maintained in the management of the mortal realm when half the people involved are kept in the dark of the true purposes of their actions. However, I am fairly certain that the recent secrecy with which the Jade Emperor’s court has been held has, at some point at least, involved the participation of Dìfǔ’s wardens.
“There have been whispers in the palace of the immortals,” I begin again, “that the Elemental Beasts have been released from your custody and sent into the mortal realm” – a cautious breath – “as higher mortals.”
It was no secret that the Beasts, like many other condemned spirits, had been put through repetitive reincarnation cycles as lesser mortals – animals of labour, insects, and sometimes even short-lived plants – all the while with their memories intact. It was a punishment that familiarizes them with the suffering they were spared from as higher mortals, admonishing them for their sins of privilege. Even though this stage of punishment was considered an improvement over the Planes of Mortal Suffering, taking it to the next step and granting them bodies of higher mortals was almost like–
“Allowing them redemption,” Yánlúo Wáng says, calmly, as if he truly believed it.
I, however, had no such faith.
...end of excerpt, actual Prologue continues past this point
###
he is a very progressive old guy, yes he is 8D
I'm debating whether I should let him appear more often or switch to another POV when we're in upperworld/underworld narratives, but he'll return again in the epilogue for sure.
Summary: Half a millennia ago the Elemental Beasts were born from the gradual concentration of four elements in the east, south, west, and north corners of the mortal realm. While magnificent, they were as impassive to mortal life as the natural disasters they embody, and were eventually ordered to be imprisoned in the underworld by the Jade Emperor of the immortals. As punishment, they were stripped of their immortality and condemned to numerous lifetimes of the very suffering they had caused.
Over the centuries, as the mortal realm slowly returned to peace and prosperity, the beasts and the terrors they wrought faded from the mortals’ memories， until they remained no more than a faraway legend.
Now, five hundred years later, their spirits have been reborn as five mortal beings, each struggling through their own trials of redemption, and each connected to the other by a red thread of fate. Caught on either side of the conflict between the rénlèi (humans) and yāojīng (nonhuman entities that can take on human form) will fate bring them together as friends, or enemies?
Hóng Xiàn
(PROLOGUE: RED THREADS)
Yùe Lǎo
The small ferrying cloud I had summoned scatters in wisps beneath my feet as I hurriedly make my way through the spirit gates of Dìyù, realm of death and rebirth. Ahead of me lies the path to Dìfǔ, the court of the underworld, blanketed by clusters of translucent línghún – mortal spirits – drifting through, clinging to their peers and silently bemoaning their deaths.
Nervously, I start to dust my robes off of the tendrils of residue immortal energy that had followed me down during my descent from Tiān’táng, the upperworld. Some of the línghún are already breaking from their clusters and gathering towards the weak immortal light of my own essence, the dead drawn to the allure of eternal life and everlasting wisdom. Knowing that the yánwáng – judges of the dead – disliked any and all interruptions to their orderly business of assigning doom, I quickened my pace and did my best to avoid the wayward spirits slowly crowding around me. My long silver beard I kept tucked inside my robes just in case – the hair of an immortal holds just as much power as their blood.
By the time I reached Dìfǔ’s doorstep, Yánlúo Wáng was waiting on his formidable throne behind an equally formidable table stacked with the Tomes of the Dead. At any given time, one of the ten yánwáng will be sitting on that throne, waiting to judge each mortal by the weight of their lifetime’s good and bad deeds. Using an ink brush imbued with the immortal power they each possess, they will mark their judgement down, either permitting the spirit to return to the cycle of reincarnation in the mortal realm, or banish it to the Planes of Mortal Suffering. One corridor behind the throne leads to the Bridge of Rebirth, while a second to the opposite end drops down, down, down, eighteen levels into hell.
I do not know many of the yánwáng personally, but Yánlúo Wáng I have met on multiple occasions…two or three that I can recall within the past century. Regardless, that did not make him any friendlier than the Guardians of the Immortal Gates, and those four had permanent scowls on their painted faces.
“It is rare to see you away from your strings, Elder of the Lower Moon,” he says by way of greeting and sends another spirit on its way with a smear of ink.
“Threads,” I correct him patiently, and my essence glows a little brighter with pride. I do not expect him, young as he is, to understand the intricacies of weaving fates and breaking ties. And, might I add, I do not actually live on the moon. My mansion nests on a cloud somewhere just below the Moon, though it does manage to float off sometimes during the Moon’s weaker phases.
One of the línghún has caught hold of my sleeve and I snap back to the present to tug free from the weak hold. It is no wonder so few immortals visit Dìfǔ, ever. While the spirits can never do much substantial damage, it is still quite disconcerting to be grabbed at by so many invasive hands.
“What is the purpose of your visit Elder?” Yánlúo Wáng asks then, and I am fairly certain that was a bemused expression on his face. I wonder for a moment why the spirits do not make a grab at him, but one look at the impressionable markings on his face tell me all I need to know.
“There have been whispers in Tiāntíng,” I start, and pause as I wonder how I should broach the topic. Upperworld-underworld politics were a complicated mess of don’t-knows, don’t-tells, and don’t-cares. It was a wonder any semblance of order could be maintained in the management of the mortal realm when half the people involved are kept in the dark of the true purposes of their actions. However, I am fairly certain that the recent secrecy with which the Jade Emperor’s court has been held has, at some point at least, involved the participation of Dìfǔ’s wardens.
“There have been whispers in the palace of the immortals,” I begin again, “that the Elemental Beasts have been released from your custody and sent into the mortal realm” – a cautious breath – “as higher mortals.”
It was no secret that the Beasts, like many other condemned spirits, had been put through repetitive reincarnation cycles as lesser mortals – animals of labour, insects, and sometimes even short-lived plants – all the while with their memories intact. It was a punishment that familiarizes them with the suffering they were spared from as higher mortals, admonishing them for their sins of privilege. Even though this stage of punishment was considered an improvement over the Planes of Mortal Suffering, taking it to the next step and granting them bodies of higher mortals was almost like–
“Allowing them redemption,” Yánlúo Wáng says, calmly, as if he truly believed it.
I, however, had no such faith.
...end of excerpt, actual Prologue continues past this point
###
he is a very progressive old guy, yes he is 8D
I'm debating whether I should let him appear more often or switch to another POV when we're in upperworld/underworld narratives, but he'll return again in the epilogue for sure.
