shaken in my faith: master of illusion - part one
i felt this urge to try writing some silmil, although i CANNOT CANNOT do it well, and everything sounds like it belongs on a stone tablet or something, and pretentious as hell. urg. this is also not really edited, so pleaseee excuse any errors.
…
Shaken in My Faith: Master of Illusion - Part One
…
…
…
…
…
Master of illusion - can you realize?
Your dream’s alive
You can be the guide, but…
-Queensryche, Silent Lucidity
…
Earth has ever been a lowly world, brought lower by the brutality and strife its inhabitants so delight in. Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that the fiercest of the godly pantheon once called it home. It’s whispered of still, how the lord of Destruction meditated so intently upon his supernal mountain that he perspired from his efforts. How those three drops of Shiva’s sweat birthed a boy-child, red-tinged and lusty, who was given to the tenderhearted Earth-mother to rear.
Though Shiva ultimately bestowed upon the worthy youth a mightier abode of his own - Earth’s sister planet, like a burning star - the god of War never forgot the hospitality of his birthplace, and thus the people of Mars were always curiously drawn to their forebear’s native and nascent land.
…
Jadeite thinks it’s a good sign, that his audience with the witch-queen was obtained with such speed. One, because he has no time to waste. Two, because he thinks it means she’s curious to hear what he has to say. And the latter is something remarkable, something that hasn’t been true of relations between Earthly rulers and their interplanetary counterparts for as long as anyone can remember. Of course, it’s hard to recall the last time Earth cared to parley with its neighbors, too - not even one so near as Mars.
So it would come as no surprise if the famed Martian Oracle bided her time, made him sweat. He’s never forgotten how the old crone treated his father, so many years ago - not a single word of welcome spoken, for all the miles he’d traveled to revere her. Even if Jadeite’s achieved a rank his father never dreamed of, the witch-queen might very well keep his son waiting as well, in her spite. And in truth, that’s fine with Jadeite, despite the myriad pressures on his schedule. It has taken patience to get where he is, presence of mind to stay there, and he is prepared to wait as long as necessary to do what must be done.
The general himself knows he’s a man possessed of unusual stillness, and it serves well to unnerve his enemies. While he sits without fidgeting or scowling, two female attendants stonily serve him food and drink, much of it reminiscent of delicacies from his homeland. The pair of them are darkly complected - oilslick hair, snapping eyes - and Jadeite privately entertains himself by imagining their reaction if he told them how closely they resemble the untamed, beguiling steppe women of his realm. Delicacies from his homeland, indeed. He offers them a lazy smile, full of promise, and they rush away, clearly feeling no compulsion to be cordial.
“Something amuses you, Lord Jadeite. I am pleased to see you so at home here that you laugh freely.”
The Far Eastern king recognizes, without ever having heard her before, how the voice of the Oracle washes the vaulted hall with its sibylline power.
…
She’s dressed opulently, like any celestial creature of his varied subjects’ imaginings - the bodhisattvas, the apsaras, the tennin. A dozen sunrise-hued layers of rich brocade emphasize, rather than overwhelm, her small frame, and a heavy-looking diadem pulls her tresses back from her face, where they fall unfettered to the floor behind her. The general’s never seen so much unbound hair, at least not outside the privacy of his bed - it must be a more seemly style here than the elaborate ladies’ coiffures on Earth. But these are not the attributes that make Jadeite stand slowly, struggling to scrutinize rather than just stare.
Far from the old woman he expected - and remembered, the Martian ruler before him is little more than a girl.
Not a single wrinkle mars that pale oval, and her look is more like a snobbish princess than a sage priestess. But…there can be no doubt that she is the one he waits for. Those eyes still burn as hot as hell, and Jadeite does some rapid calculations in his head, trying to guess at her age - before the Oracle opens her mouth to interrupt his racing thoughts. Recovering quickly from his surprise, he assumes an expression of nonchalance - and why shouldn’t he? he thinks. A guileless girl, after all, is even less to fear than a crafty hag, and Jadeite certainly has more experience with the former than the latter. A leisurely smile re-bends his lips, and he’s ready.
“It has been many long years, since an Earthly lord visited us here,” her lilting words are easy on the ears, but Jadeite finds some dark amusement in her refusal to call him king. “Welcome.”
“You are gracious,” he responds with a deferential nod of the head. “Too gracious, in fact. It is not my first time on Mars.”
Pique flits briefly over her face; some servant will suffer for not briefing her mistress. Jadeite cannot afford to let her recover from her mistake; he’s on her turf, and the politically weaker of the two. The general politely and pitilessly drives home her error.
“I met your honored predecessor, and I am sorry to offer such belated condolences for her passing. You were, perhaps, not yet born when I last came - as I myself was but a small boy. On a heroic exploit, or so all small boys think, with their fathers.”
“That is why you do not flinch from my eyes,” the witch-queen observes, her countenance smoothing like ripples in milk. Jadeite notes she has the sense to stay right where she is, imperiously gazing down from her raised dais. He’s forced to stare up at her, petite though she may be. “You have seen their fire before. And why you smile and flirt so easily with my ladies. Their look is…familiar to you.”
“Your people are indeed well-known to me,” Jadeite answers her blandly, and is satisfied by her look of intrigue at his response. He gets the sense she’s one who comes straight to the point, and who also avoids it when ceremony otherwise suits her. The latter impulse seems to have seized her, for the Oracle continues formulaically.
“In that case, we must outdo our own prior hospitality to you, and ensure we are well-known to you as dear friends, not distant neighbors.” The Far Eastern king’s impressed she can even choke out that particularly saccharine formality with a straight face - and indeed, she appears nearly carved from stone while saying it. Not much for politicking, this one.
“Phobos, Deimos.” The attendants rush over, shooting him openly baleful glances. That was more like it. “Kindly escort the Lord Jadeite to his accommodations, in the - ” she breaks off into a murmur.
Jadeite exhales slowly, trying not to let her see his displeasure at this turn of events. The girl’s clever enough to know when to retreat, regroup, rearm; and she has the advantage of distinctly higher ground. He can barely spare a day away from Earth, let alone merrily holiday in the Martians’ hostile company. But he remembers his self-made promise - to wait as long as necessary to do what must be done.
The witch-queen’s already turning away when Jadeite inclines his head respectfully, but he still catches her fleeting expression of triumph, and the Far Eastern king silently tells her the truth as he knows it.
There has to be a victor.
Here, there’s yet to be one.
…
Her fortress is nothing like the high, airy one the Far Eastern king’s left behind. A stark thing rising from starker cliffs, externally forbidding and internally labyrinthine. The general loses track of the twists and turns on the way to his accommodations. The halls are dark; daylight gives way to smoldering braziers and the smell of sulfur and cloying oil pervades. In rare places, massive windows suddenly open wide to the comparatively dim Martian sky, and it takes Jadeite no small amount of time to let his eyes adjust back and forth to see properly at all. They have the effect of disorienting the visitor, and he guesses that’s intentional.
Nothing like a queen’s palace, or what he’d expect of one - he knows none to compare with. No feminine hand to drape tapestries or brush against velveted pillows. There are no trappings of pampered royalty here; it seems more a cloister than a castle. Were he to turn slowly in his large chamber, he’d find no identifying feature of her in it, only heavy walls and oppressive space. In contrast to her gloomy surroundings, the girl herself blooms vividly, like some startling, shy mountain bird. Jadeite guesses that’s not intentional at all, but it disorients him all the same.
But he’s not Zoisite or Nephrite, to while away his time in the pleasures of exploration - either of the castle or its mostly female inhabitants (although were the latter a touch less venom-eyed, he’d consider it). No, he doesn’t wander without a discrete objective in mind. Jadeite also studiously avoids his communicator, and the questions (not to mention the iron-faced commander) he knows he’ll confront if he opens it; he hates to be tailed like a dog.
It makes him a little sorry for his liege, because there’s not a place in the world Endymion could go where the four of them couldn’t follow. The general wouldn’t trade his responsibilities to his Prince for anything, but part of him will always long for the camp life, the boyhood independence, the electrifying campaigns across the Far East that had proved him worthy of the Golden Court.
Planning and reminiscing over what waits for him at home keeps the general busy through late afternoon. And so, Jadeite finds himself very much looking forward to their renewed war of words, his and the witch-queen’s. She doesn’t wait long to jump back into the fray, and a summons arrives for him at dusk.
Sunsets here don’t have the riotously diverse hues of Earth’s; the sky is so red that Jadeite feels as though he’s staring at the insides of his eyelids. But there’s a strange and savage beauty to it, as well, and he suddenly recalls something Nephrite had mentioned before he left.
They’re formidable archers, the West-king had reflected idly, and say their twilights are red because they have shot the sun from the sky. He sinks below the horizon, and bathes heaven in his blood.
She stands just a few feet away, and now that they’re next to each other, Jadeite can see just how diminutive she really is, the top of her head maybe reaching his collarbone. He thinks Kunzite could probably sit on her by accident, and has to suppress a snort of laughter at the thought. Perhaps the Oracle feels conscious of her height too, for she’s even more formally attired than before, yellow crown piled high with finely wrought spikes. The general is put in mind of armor. He suspects it’s not without cause.
“I trust your rooms are to your liking, Lord Jadeite.” They’re both eager to dispense with rituals; he can feel it in the shimmering, dust-strewn air.
“Very much so.”
“I believe you might actually tell me if they were not,” the witch-queen says with a ghost of a smile. She tries to both flatter his candor and coax it, and he understands why when she continues. "And how does the young Prince fare?"
There’s something mildly hilarious about this girl calling Endymion “the young Prince” - there’s no way she’s his elder, and Jadeite surmises she’s at least a few years younger. If she wasn’t yet born to be Oracle when he visited last, there’s no way she’s graced with the infamous Lunar longevity, despite her rumored years spent in the Moon Sorceress’s circle - in the bosom of a most prized little princess. Now the whispers make sense; until this morning, he hadn’t understood how an old woman could so easily befriend a barely teenaged Moon heiress. This one’s youth shows in her unpracticed probing; Jadeite deflects her blunt query without difficulty.
“I see him only rarely, at great parades and the like, but I'm assured the Prince does well.”
“Oh? I was given to believe you had finally achieved your father’s great wish. That you had at last ascended to the Prince’s Golden Court.” The Oracle walks, and indicates that he walk with her. They stretch their legs down the length of the great hall, and half a step behind as protocol dictates, Jadeite sees that her vividly scarlet hair wafts slightly in an unseen wind, though he feels none.
“But,” she continues with a shrug, perhaps understanding that he won’t be laid bare so easily, “Princelings are a handful, and your many subjects are already more than a few handfuls, certainly.”
She learns quickly, Jadeite thinks appreciatively. “Princelings and little princesses alike,” he responds, and is unsurprised when her limpid expression remains unruffled, this time. After their first meeting, the witch-queen comes well-prepared.
“I know nothing of little princesses,” she tells him lightly, warming to their thrust and parry. “After all, I never was one. And neither were you.”
“A little princess?” he laughs, and after a moment, she does too, though the tips of her ears redden at her linguistic gaffe. The sound of it is husky and sweetly unaccustomed, and he wonders how often the lonely, sheltered Oracle indulges in it. The Far Eastern king knows the weight of sovereignty, but not of divinity, and that makes him wonder as well.
He wonders what her real name is.
“Forgive my impertinence,” Jadeite tells her soberly after a moment’s silence. “Your grasp on my dialect is far greater than mine on yours could ever be. And you are right, of course. I was not born to royalty.”
“Not born, perhaps, but not all of us have the chance to remake our fate as you do,” the Oracle murmurs a little unsteadily, almost to herself. Jadeite turns to her, and almost steps back when he does. Where he expected uncertainty, he meets the full force of those flaming irises, nearly licking at his face.
The girl speaks slowly at first, and then gains speed and force. Perhaps this is how it sounds - her mighty gift of foresight, spilling out like lava before it burns her. “Your closeness with the Prince, and the rise of his Shitennou - it’s not the only rumor to have reached this fortress. I have also heard…stranger things.”
They’ve halted in their pleasant stroll’s progress. Outside, a rubescent sky darkens. Jadeite says nothing and waits for her to fill the silence.
“I have heard how you and your father came out of the West and conquered the steppes, the jungles. The islands and mountains and deserts, and united them under your dragon banner. I have heard that ahead of your father’s armies rode a dread vision, a golden general who cloaked himself in many terrifying shapes. How you crowned yourself god-king of the Far East - a yellow-haired mercenary’s bastard son, nothing more - and won your position as the Prince’s guardian. I have heard…” and here she swallows, almost convulsively. “That Earth-magic is afoot again, for the first time in many ages. That you wear illusion as lightly as your smile.”
Jadeite’s every suspicion - every reason for coming to Mars - is confirmed by her almost imprudent rush of words. The general hadn’t expected her hand to show so soon, but the same part of him that rejoices in her forthrightness also respects it. His smile falls like an old skin.
“You have heard much, Oracle, so much that I fear your education resembles espionage.” The look she gives him nearly incinerates, and her hair and clothes now tremble as though part of a wavering mirage. He’s undaunted. “But I have not come to be interrogated by you like a barbarian. Like my father eighteen years before me, to beg for an ancient crone’s battle prophecy. As you say, I've conquered and crowned myself king of the Far Eastern people. And as I say, your people are indeed well-known to me.”
Jadeite’s level tenor drops with the gravity of his accusation. “I see them in my lands. More and more, every day. It is a strange alliance you all share, that claims to care little for Earth’s savage doings, and yet plants spies among us like weeds.”
“How dare you - “ she begins hotly.
“You think I know so little of my own borders that I can't see them teeming with more Martians than Earth-born men? Do your scouts expect to camouflage themselves among the dark-haired and dark-eyed of the Far East?”
“Perhaps your boyhood encounter with our kind has left you…paranoid.” The witch-queen’s regained some of her aplomb, redirecting her anger to her scathing tongue. “Insecure. You cannot honestly mean that you see Martians everywhere in your homeland. We are not in the habit of sending our spymasters to rot on Earth. And furthermore, we have never had the slightest interest in your barbarian planet.”
“Is that the truth? You must be as conversant with the legend as I am,” Jadeite challenges her. “Has it never struck you that our two peoples wear the same black hair and eyes? That our languages share so many roots, and our children so many names? That we choose our leaders as you do - searching for incarnations of our gods, and not passing divinity from royal father to son? Come now, you can’t tell me - with all you’ve heard about me and my conquests and holdings, that any of this sounds fresh to your ears.” She opens her mouth, but he continues inexorably. “I will tell you what I have heard, Oracle. That the inhabitants of Mars have always inexplicably longed for Earth - “
The girl scoffs. “You believe that old myth - ”
“ - that they yearn to return to the birthplace of their patron god. I've heard that Earth makes a tempting morsel for its bloodthirsty sister star.”
“To call us bloodthirsty, when your singleminded goal for four and twenty years has been the subjugation of the Far East!”
“And so we bear another similarity. Your people are warriors, cavalrymen and archers like mine, and so they are drawn to my kingdom. That is why they have always migrated there, in secret. On Earth, every drunken Far Easterner can trace his fathers back to three drops of sweat in the sand, long before communication between our two planets became the exception rather than the rule. And it is no treason for Earth-born, to swear that the god of Mars is their distant ancestor. But it is treason for a Martian to live and spy amongst them. If you think to invade, I have come to warn you that my realm is the worst place for you to start, because I know well that my - our - subjects are united in their ferocity. I broke them to my hand. And that - that is why I have come, Oracle. So that war between two warlike peoples may yet be averted.”
In the corner of his eye, Phobos and Deimos motion frantically, calling for guards at the sound of their heated exchange, no doubt. The witch-queen notices as well, but a strange resignation has painted her features with quiet. Jadeite knows he’s won this round, but something in him still regrets writing this passivity on her face. She raises a slim hand, heavy with her planetary seal, and her attendants immediately bow and vanish.
“And does your Prince know you have come to treat with me, on behalf of your own sovereignty?”
“Does it matter? This is not between Earth and an alliance under the Moon - it is between your kingdom and mine. Do your Sorceress - and her daughter the princess - know you’ve received me?” he counters.
A spark in her embered eyes, fierce and protective, and Jadeite's immediately put in mind of the Moon heiress’s speculated-about Senshi, one of the fearsome army assembling against Earth even now.
But the Oracle keeps her secrets, remains defiant.
“I’ve told you already, Lord Jadeite. I know nothing of princesses, save that there is one. I sit on no throne but the hopes of my people, and the flaming crown I wear burns me most of all.”
…
…
…
…
…
Quick glossary for the weird stuff.
Shiva - god of destruction in the Hindu pantheon.
Mangala - god of Mars and war, again in the Hindu pantheon, but pretty much everywhere else as well…and this little story of his birth is mostly true, too! Minus the non-existent Martians always wanting to go back to Earth, though…
Bodhisattvas - loosely speaking, those on the path toward or achieving enlightenment, in Buddhism
Apsaras - dancers or nymphs of the Hindu heavenly court
Tennin - heavenly spirits prevalent in Japanese Buddhism, in particular
i know, i know, it reads like some fruity princess bride dialogue. bear with me…i tried to keep things formal in this chapter, since it’s supposed to be kind of a meeting of state, and they’re not familiar with each others’ native languages besides. they’ll loosen up, don’t worry :P
…
Shaken in My Faith: Master of Illusion - Part One
…
…
…
…
…
Master of illusion - can you realize?
Your dream’s alive
You can be the guide, but…
-Queensryche, Silent Lucidity
…
Earth has ever been a lowly world, brought lower by the brutality and strife its inhabitants so delight in. Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that the fiercest of the godly pantheon once called it home. It’s whispered of still, how the lord of Destruction meditated so intently upon his supernal mountain that he perspired from his efforts. How those three drops of Shiva’s sweat birthed a boy-child, red-tinged and lusty, who was given to the tenderhearted Earth-mother to rear.
Though Shiva ultimately bestowed upon the worthy youth a mightier abode of his own - Earth’s sister planet, like a burning star - the god of War never forgot the hospitality of his birthplace, and thus the people of Mars were always curiously drawn to their forebear’s native and nascent land.
…
Jadeite thinks it’s a good sign, that his audience with the witch-queen was obtained with such speed. One, because he has no time to waste. Two, because he thinks it means she’s curious to hear what he has to say. And the latter is something remarkable, something that hasn’t been true of relations between Earthly rulers and their interplanetary counterparts for as long as anyone can remember. Of course, it’s hard to recall the last time Earth cared to parley with its neighbors, too - not even one so near as Mars.
So it would come as no surprise if the famed Martian Oracle bided her time, made him sweat. He’s never forgotten how the old crone treated his father, so many years ago - not a single word of welcome spoken, for all the miles he’d traveled to revere her. Even if Jadeite’s achieved a rank his father never dreamed of, the witch-queen might very well keep his son waiting as well, in her spite. And in truth, that’s fine with Jadeite, despite the myriad pressures on his schedule. It has taken patience to get where he is, presence of mind to stay there, and he is prepared to wait as long as necessary to do what must be done.
The general himself knows he’s a man possessed of unusual stillness, and it serves well to unnerve his enemies. While he sits without fidgeting or scowling, two female attendants stonily serve him food and drink, much of it reminiscent of delicacies from his homeland. The pair of them are darkly complected - oilslick hair, snapping eyes - and Jadeite privately entertains himself by imagining their reaction if he told them how closely they resemble the untamed, beguiling steppe women of his realm. Delicacies from his homeland, indeed. He offers them a lazy smile, full of promise, and they rush away, clearly feeling no compulsion to be cordial.
“Something amuses you, Lord Jadeite. I am pleased to see you so at home here that you laugh freely.”
The Far Eastern king recognizes, without ever having heard her before, how the voice of the Oracle washes the vaulted hall with its sibylline power.
…
She’s dressed opulently, like any celestial creature of his varied subjects’ imaginings - the bodhisattvas, the apsaras, the tennin. A dozen sunrise-hued layers of rich brocade emphasize, rather than overwhelm, her small frame, and a heavy-looking diadem pulls her tresses back from her face, where they fall unfettered to the floor behind her. The general’s never seen so much unbound hair, at least not outside the privacy of his bed - it must be a more seemly style here than the elaborate ladies’ coiffures on Earth. But these are not the attributes that make Jadeite stand slowly, struggling to scrutinize rather than just stare.
Far from the old woman he expected - and remembered, the Martian ruler before him is little more than a girl.
Not a single wrinkle mars that pale oval, and her look is more like a snobbish princess than a sage priestess. But…there can be no doubt that she is the one he waits for. Those eyes still burn as hot as hell, and Jadeite does some rapid calculations in his head, trying to guess at her age - before the Oracle opens her mouth to interrupt his racing thoughts. Recovering quickly from his surprise, he assumes an expression of nonchalance - and why shouldn’t he? he thinks. A guileless girl, after all, is even less to fear than a crafty hag, and Jadeite certainly has more experience with the former than the latter. A leisurely smile re-bends his lips, and he’s ready.
“It has been many long years, since an Earthly lord visited us here,” her lilting words are easy on the ears, but Jadeite finds some dark amusement in her refusal to call him king. “Welcome.”
“You are gracious,” he responds with a deferential nod of the head. “Too gracious, in fact. It is not my first time on Mars.”
Pique flits briefly over her face; some servant will suffer for not briefing her mistress. Jadeite cannot afford to let her recover from her mistake; he’s on her turf, and the politically weaker of the two. The general politely and pitilessly drives home her error.
“I met your honored predecessor, and I am sorry to offer such belated condolences for her passing. You were, perhaps, not yet born when I last came - as I myself was but a small boy. On a heroic exploit, or so all small boys think, with their fathers.”
“That is why you do not flinch from my eyes,” the witch-queen observes, her countenance smoothing like ripples in milk. Jadeite notes she has the sense to stay right where she is, imperiously gazing down from her raised dais. He’s forced to stare up at her, petite though she may be. “You have seen their fire before. And why you smile and flirt so easily with my ladies. Their look is…familiar to you.”
“Your people are indeed well-known to me,” Jadeite answers her blandly, and is satisfied by her look of intrigue at his response. He gets the sense she’s one who comes straight to the point, and who also avoids it when ceremony otherwise suits her. The latter impulse seems to have seized her, for the Oracle continues formulaically.
“In that case, we must outdo our own prior hospitality to you, and ensure we are well-known to you as dear friends, not distant neighbors.” The Far Eastern king’s impressed she can even choke out that particularly saccharine formality with a straight face - and indeed, she appears nearly carved from stone while saying it. Not much for politicking, this one.
“Phobos, Deimos.” The attendants rush over, shooting him openly baleful glances. That was more like it. “Kindly escort the Lord Jadeite to his accommodations, in the - ” she breaks off into a murmur.
Jadeite exhales slowly, trying not to let her see his displeasure at this turn of events. The girl’s clever enough to know when to retreat, regroup, rearm; and she has the advantage of distinctly higher ground. He can barely spare a day away from Earth, let alone merrily holiday in the Martians’ hostile company. But he remembers his self-made promise - to wait as long as necessary to do what must be done.
The witch-queen’s already turning away when Jadeite inclines his head respectfully, but he still catches her fleeting expression of triumph, and the Far Eastern king silently tells her the truth as he knows it.
There has to be a victor.
Here, there’s yet to be one.
…
Her fortress is nothing like the high, airy one the Far Eastern king’s left behind. A stark thing rising from starker cliffs, externally forbidding and internally labyrinthine. The general loses track of the twists and turns on the way to his accommodations. The halls are dark; daylight gives way to smoldering braziers and the smell of sulfur and cloying oil pervades. In rare places, massive windows suddenly open wide to the comparatively dim Martian sky, and it takes Jadeite no small amount of time to let his eyes adjust back and forth to see properly at all. They have the effect of disorienting the visitor, and he guesses that’s intentional.
Nothing like a queen’s palace, or what he’d expect of one - he knows none to compare with. No feminine hand to drape tapestries or brush against velveted pillows. There are no trappings of pampered royalty here; it seems more a cloister than a castle. Were he to turn slowly in his large chamber, he’d find no identifying feature of her in it, only heavy walls and oppressive space. In contrast to her gloomy surroundings, the girl herself blooms vividly, like some startling, shy mountain bird. Jadeite guesses that’s not intentional at all, but it disorients him all the same.
But he’s not Zoisite or Nephrite, to while away his time in the pleasures of exploration - either of the castle or its mostly female inhabitants (although were the latter a touch less venom-eyed, he’d consider it). No, he doesn’t wander without a discrete objective in mind. Jadeite also studiously avoids his communicator, and the questions (not to mention the iron-faced commander) he knows he’ll confront if he opens it; he hates to be tailed like a dog.
It makes him a little sorry for his liege, because there’s not a place in the world Endymion could go where the four of them couldn’t follow. The general wouldn’t trade his responsibilities to his Prince for anything, but part of him will always long for the camp life, the boyhood independence, the electrifying campaigns across the Far East that had proved him worthy of the Golden Court.
Planning and reminiscing over what waits for him at home keeps the general busy through late afternoon. And so, Jadeite finds himself very much looking forward to their renewed war of words, his and the witch-queen’s. She doesn’t wait long to jump back into the fray, and a summons arrives for him at dusk.
Sunsets here don’t have the riotously diverse hues of Earth’s; the sky is so red that Jadeite feels as though he’s staring at the insides of his eyelids. But there’s a strange and savage beauty to it, as well, and he suddenly recalls something Nephrite had mentioned before he left.
They’re formidable archers, the West-king had reflected idly, and say their twilights are red because they have shot the sun from the sky. He sinks below the horizon, and bathes heaven in his blood.
She stands just a few feet away, and now that they’re next to each other, Jadeite can see just how diminutive she really is, the top of her head maybe reaching his collarbone. He thinks Kunzite could probably sit on her by accident, and has to suppress a snort of laughter at the thought. Perhaps the Oracle feels conscious of her height too, for she’s even more formally attired than before, yellow crown piled high with finely wrought spikes. The general is put in mind of armor. He suspects it’s not without cause.
“I trust your rooms are to your liking, Lord Jadeite.” They’re both eager to dispense with rituals; he can feel it in the shimmering, dust-strewn air.
“Very much so.”
“I believe you might actually tell me if they were not,” the witch-queen says with a ghost of a smile. She tries to both flatter his candor and coax it, and he understands why when she continues. "And how does the young Prince fare?"
There’s something mildly hilarious about this girl calling Endymion “the young Prince” - there’s no way she’s his elder, and Jadeite surmises she’s at least a few years younger. If she wasn’t yet born to be Oracle when he visited last, there’s no way she’s graced with the infamous Lunar longevity, despite her rumored years spent in the Moon Sorceress’s circle - in the bosom of a most prized little princess. Now the whispers make sense; until this morning, he hadn’t understood how an old woman could so easily befriend a barely teenaged Moon heiress. This one’s youth shows in her unpracticed probing; Jadeite deflects her blunt query without difficulty.
“I see him only rarely, at great parades and the like, but I'm assured the Prince does well.”
“Oh? I was given to believe you had finally achieved your father’s great wish. That you had at last ascended to the Prince’s Golden Court.” The Oracle walks, and indicates that he walk with her. They stretch their legs down the length of the great hall, and half a step behind as protocol dictates, Jadeite sees that her vividly scarlet hair wafts slightly in an unseen wind, though he feels none.
“But,” she continues with a shrug, perhaps understanding that he won’t be laid bare so easily, “Princelings are a handful, and your many subjects are already more than a few handfuls, certainly.”
She learns quickly, Jadeite thinks appreciatively. “Princelings and little princesses alike,” he responds, and is unsurprised when her limpid expression remains unruffled, this time. After their first meeting, the witch-queen comes well-prepared.
“I know nothing of little princesses,” she tells him lightly, warming to their thrust and parry. “After all, I never was one. And neither were you.”
“A little princess?” he laughs, and after a moment, she does too, though the tips of her ears redden at her linguistic gaffe. The sound of it is husky and sweetly unaccustomed, and he wonders how often the lonely, sheltered Oracle indulges in it. The Far Eastern king knows the weight of sovereignty, but not of divinity, and that makes him wonder as well.
He wonders what her real name is.
“Forgive my impertinence,” Jadeite tells her soberly after a moment’s silence. “Your grasp on my dialect is far greater than mine on yours could ever be. And you are right, of course. I was not born to royalty.”
“Not born, perhaps, but not all of us have the chance to remake our fate as you do,” the Oracle murmurs a little unsteadily, almost to herself. Jadeite turns to her, and almost steps back when he does. Where he expected uncertainty, he meets the full force of those flaming irises, nearly licking at his face.
The girl speaks slowly at first, and then gains speed and force. Perhaps this is how it sounds - her mighty gift of foresight, spilling out like lava before it burns her. “Your closeness with the Prince, and the rise of his Shitennou - it’s not the only rumor to have reached this fortress. I have also heard…stranger things.”
They’ve halted in their pleasant stroll’s progress. Outside, a rubescent sky darkens. Jadeite says nothing and waits for her to fill the silence.
“I have heard how you and your father came out of the West and conquered the steppes, the jungles. The islands and mountains and deserts, and united them under your dragon banner. I have heard that ahead of your father’s armies rode a dread vision, a golden general who cloaked himself in many terrifying shapes. How you crowned yourself god-king of the Far East - a yellow-haired mercenary’s bastard son, nothing more - and won your position as the Prince’s guardian. I have heard…” and here she swallows, almost convulsively. “That Earth-magic is afoot again, for the first time in many ages. That you wear illusion as lightly as your smile.”
Jadeite’s every suspicion - every reason for coming to Mars - is confirmed by her almost imprudent rush of words. The general hadn’t expected her hand to show so soon, but the same part of him that rejoices in her forthrightness also respects it. His smile falls like an old skin.
“You have heard much, Oracle, so much that I fear your education resembles espionage.” The look she gives him nearly incinerates, and her hair and clothes now tremble as though part of a wavering mirage. He’s undaunted. “But I have not come to be interrogated by you like a barbarian. Like my father eighteen years before me, to beg for an ancient crone’s battle prophecy. As you say, I've conquered and crowned myself king of the Far Eastern people. And as I say, your people are indeed well-known to me.”
Jadeite’s level tenor drops with the gravity of his accusation. “I see them in my lands. More and more, every day. It is a strange alliance you all share, that claims to care little for Earth’s savage doings, and yet plants spies among us like weeds.”
“How dare you - “ she begins hotly.
“You think I know so little of my own borders that I can't see them teeming with more Martians than Earth-born men? Do your scouts expect to camouflage themselves among the dark-haired and dark-eyed of the Far East?”
“Perhaps your boyhood encounter with our kind has left you…paranoid.” The witch-queen’s regained some of her aplomb, redirecting her anger to her scathing tongue. “Insecure. You cannot honestly mean that you see Martians everywhere in your homeland. We are not in the habit of sending our spymasters to rot on Earth. And furthermore, we have never had the slightest interest in your barbarian planet.”
“Is that the truth? You must be as conversant with the legend as I am,” Jadeite challenges her. “Has it never struck you that our two peoples wear the same black hair and eyes? That our languages share so many roots, and our children so many names? That we choose our leaders as you do - searching for incarnations of our gods, and not passing divinity from royal father to son? Come now, you can’t tell me - with all you’ve heard about me and my conquests and holdings, that any of this sounds fresh to your ears.” She opens her mouth, but he continues inexorably. “I will tell you what I have heard, Oracle. That the inhabitants of Mars have always inexplicably longed for Earth - “
The girl scoffs. “You believe that old myth - ”
“ - that they yearn to return to the birthplace of their patron god. I've heard that Earth makes a tempting morsel for its bloodthirsty sister star.”
“To call us bloodthirsty, when your singleminded goal for four and twenty years has been the subjugation of the Far East!”
“And so we bear another similarity. Your people are warriors, cavalrymen and archers like mine, and so they are drawn to my kingdom. That is why they have always migrated there, in secret. On Earth, every drunken Far Easterner can trace his fathers back to three drops of sweat in the sand, long before communication between our two planets became the exception rather than the rule. And it is no treason for Earth-born, to swear that the god of Mars is their distant ancestor. But it is treason for a Martian to live and spy amongst them. If you think to invade, I have come to warn you that my realm is the worst place for you to start, because I know well that my - our - subjects are united in their ferocity. I broke them to my hand. And that - that is why I have come, Oracle. So that war between two warlike peoples may yet be averted.”
In the corner of his eye, Phobos and Deimos motion frantically, calling for guards at the sound of their heated exchange, no doubt. The witch-queen notices as well, but a strange resignation has painted her features with quiet. Jadeite knows he’s won this round, but something in him still regrets writing this passivity on her face. She raises a slim hand, heavy with her planetary seal, and her attendants immediately bow and vanish.
“And does your Prince know you have come to treat with me, on behalf of your own sovereignty?”
“Does it matter? This is not between Earth and an alliance under the Moon - it is between your kingdom and mine. Do your Sorceress - and her daughter the princess - know you’ve received me?” he counters.
A spark in her embered eyes, fierce and protective, and Jadeite's immediately put in mind of the Moon heiress’s speculated-about Senshi, one of the fearsome army assembling against Earth even now.
But the Oracle keeps her secrets, remains defiant.
“I’ve told you already, Lord Jadeite. I know nothing of princesses, save that there is one. I sit on no throne but the hopes of my people, and the flaming crown I wear burns me most of all.”
…
…
…
…
…
Quick glossary for the weird stuff.
Shiva - god of destruction in the Hindu pantheon.
Mangala - god of Mars and war, again in the Hindu pantheon, but pretty much everywhere else as well…and this little story of his birth is mostly true, too! Minus the non-existent Martians always wanting to go back to Earth, though…
Bodhisattvas - loosely speaking, those on the path toward or achieving enlightenment, in Buddhism
Apsaras - dancers or nymphs of the Hindu heavenly court
Tennin - heavenly spirits prevalent in Japanese Buddhism, in particular
i know, i know, it reads like some fruity princess bride dialogue. bear with me…i tried to keep things formal in this chapter, since it’s supposed to be kind of a meeting of state, and they’re not familiar with each others’ native languages besides. they’ll loosen up, don’t worry :P