Story: Woven Secrets
Title: Woven Secrets
Warnings: slight violence
Words: 820
Written for brigits_flame week 1, November 2009 (China)
Setting: China + Japan around 300 AD
Yingtai’s fingers nimbly picked the young green leaves of the mulberry tree, quickly placing them into the small basket at her feet. At her side, she could hear her three companions, softly humming one of the songs of their childhood. Yingtai guessed that after today, she wouldn’t need to pick the leaves again for a while, since the cán, the silk-weaver worms to which they fed the leaves, had already turned their final yellowish colour. Soon, they would craft their delicate threads around themselves to form their white, protective cocoons.
As her fingers automatically carried on their task, Yingtai’s mind wandered back several weeks, to a day not unlike this one.
She and her friends were gathering leaves in the mulberry forest close to her hometown. The four girls were talking and giggling about the upcoming wedding of Yingtai‘s older sister when Yingtai felt a strong hand clasp her mouth shut and her arms were twisted behind her back. She struggled to free herself but her flailing only resulted in a brief curse in an unfamiliar language. As her hands and feet were being tied, she could hear her friends struggle briefly before they were all forced onto a wooden cart and hidden with a rough blanket.
Yingtai put the last leaves into her full basket and, seeing that her friends had also filled their baskets, turned to the man guarding them. She motioned to him that they had completed their task and he followed them on the path leading back to the village. Behind him, Yingtai could hear the incomprehensible chatter of the five foreign girls that copied everything they did to take care of the cán.
They had travelled for several days when they reached the largest amount of water Yingtai had ever seen. To the girls’ consternation, they all climbed aboard a boat, the men unfurled a jute sail and soon the coast was out of their sight. When they saw land again, they sailed along the coast until they reached a small village in which all the people spoke the strange language of their abductors. Leaving the boat, they travelled through the mountainous country for a few more days. During this last part of the journey, the foreign men had opened a small box and when they looked inside, the reason they had been taken prisoner became apparent: the box contained newly hatched cán.
When the mulberry leaves were put into the box in which the cán were kept, some of the worm-like creatures had already begun surrounding themselves with their strands of silk. Yingtai knew that the cán would soon all be in cocoons which could then be put into boiling water before the silk strands were unrolled and spun into threads.
The four girls looked at each other as the horrible realisation hit them. Every child in their country was told that the secret of silk must never leave the borders of the country. The secret had been well guarded ever since empress Leizu, who at the time was not much older than Yingtai‘s fourteen winters, had first unravelled a thread of silk from a cocoon that had fallen into her teacup and woven it. As the trade with silk had brought prosperity to the country, Leizu was honoured as the goddess of silk. And now cán eggs had been stolen and Yingtai and her friends would be given no choice but to betray the secret that their ancestors had kept for countless years.
Her guilty thoughts were interrupted when all of them joined the villagers to work in the rice fields after the cán had been tended. When the sun was high in the sky, they stopped their work and walked towards the shade of the trees next to the field, unpacking their lunch of rice and vegetables from the leaves it had been wrapped into. Walking beside one of the girls trying to learn the art of raising cán, Yingtai suddenly saw a movement in the grass ahead. Instinctively, she pulled the foreign girl back and for a moment, they stood rooted, realising they had narrowly avoided stepping on a snake slithering through the grass. With a relieved smile, the other girl beckoned Yingtai to follow her. After a brief walk, they reached a small cave with a painting inside, obviously depicting a goddess. As the foreign girl knelt down and placed her lunch before the painting as a sacrifice, Yingtai studied the goddess. With a jolt, she realised that on her hand, the goddess was holding two moths, which looked exactly like those which emerged from the cocoons of the cán. Recognising the deity as the goddess of silk, Yingtai dropped to her knees as well, suddenly certain that if Leizu could be found here, she and her friends would be forgiven for teaching these people with an unfamiliar language and a strange lifestyle the art of producing silk.
Warnings: slight violence
Words: 820
Written for brigits_flame week 1, November 2009 (China)
Setting: China + Japan around 300 AD
Yingtai’s fingers nimbly picked the young green leaves of the mulberry tree, quickly placing them into the small basket at her feet. At her side, she could hear her three companions, softly humming one of the songs of their childhood. Yingtai guessed that after today, she wouldn’t need to pick the leaves again for a while, since the cán, the silk-weaver worms to which they fed the leaves, had already turned their final yellowish colour. Soon, they would craft their delicate threads around themselves to form their white, protective cocoons.
As her fingers automatically carried on their task, Yingtai’s mind wandered back several weeks, to a day not unlike this one.
She and her friends were gathering leaves in the mulberry forest close to her hometown. The four girls were talking and giggling about the upcoming wedding of Yingtai‘s older sister when Yingtai felt a strong hand clasp her mouth shut and her arms were twisted behind her back. She struggled to free herself but her flailing only resulted in a brief curse in an unfamiliar language. As her hands and feet were being tied, she could hear her friends struggle briefly before they were all forced onto a wooden cart and hidden with a rough blanket.
Yingtai put the last leaves into her full basket and, seeing that her friends had also filled their baskets, turned to the man guarding them. She motioned to him that they had completed their task and he followed them on the path leading back to the village. Behind him, Yingtai could hear the incomprehensible chatter of the five foreign girls that copied everything they did to take care of the cán.
They had travelled for several days when they reached the largest amount of water Yingtai had ever seen. To the girls’ consternation, they all climbed aboard a boat, the men unfurled a jute sail and soon the coast was out of their sight. When they saw land again, they sailed along the coast until they reached a small village in which all the people spoke the strange language of their abductors. Leaving the boat, they travelled through the mountainous country for a few more days. During this last part of the journey, the foreign men had opened a small box and when they looked inside, the reason they had been taken prisoner became apparent: the box contained newly hatched cán.
When the mulberry leaves were put into the box in which the cán were kept, some of the worm-like creatures had already begun surrounding themselves with their strands of silk. Yingtai knew that the cán would soon all be in cocoons which could then be put into boiling water before the silk strands were unrolled and spun into threads.
The four girls looked at each other as the horrible realisation hit them. Every child in their country was told that the secret of silk must never leave the borders of the country. The secret had been well guarded ever since empress Leizu, who at the time was not much older than Yingtai‘s fourteen winters, had first unravelled a thread of silk from a cocoon that had fallen into her teacup and woven it. As the trade with silk had brought prosperity to the country, Leizu was honoured as the goddess of silk. And now cán eggs had been stolen and Yingtai and her friends would be given no choice but to betray the secret that their ancestors had kept for countless years.
Her guilty thoughts were interrupted when all of them joined the villagers to work in the rice fields after the cán had been tended. When the sun was high in the sky, they stopped their work and walked towards the shade of the trees next to the field, unpacking their lunch of rice and vegetables from the leaves it had been wrapped into. Walking beside one of the girls trying to learn the art of raising cán, Yingtai suddenly saw a movement in the grass ahead. Instinctively, she pulled the foreign girl back and for a moment, they stood rooted, realising they had narrowly avoided stepping on a snake slithering through the grass. With a relieved smile, the other girl beckoned Yingtai to follow her. After a brief walk, they reached a small cave with a painting inside, obviously depicting a goddess. As the foreign girl knelt down and placed her lunch before the painting as a sacrifice, Yingtai studied the goddess. With a jolt, she realised that on her hand, the goddess was holding two moths, which looked exactly like those which emerged from the cocoons of the cán. Recognising the deity as the goddess of silk, Yingtai dropped to her knees as well, suddenly certain that if Leizu could be found here, she and her friends would be forgiven for teaching these people with an unfamiliar language and a strange lifestyle the art of producing silk.