Tian emerged from his cultivation with a happy sigh. He stretched slowly and luxuriously, feeling the wind on him. The smells of the lake, the marsh, the trees, all mixing together into something marvelously alive. He even thought he could smell birds. He sniffed again. He was definitely smelling something. Tian opened his eyes. Then closed them again. Clearly, his eyes had made a mistake.
He opened them again.
What a pity. It was still there.
The crane was only slightly shorter than he was. Mostly snowy white, it had a few dingy brown feathers still scattered over its head and neck. Bright pink legs. Bright crimson and brown beak. All normal, all fine. What wasn’t fine was the face.
Starting a quarter inch behind its brilliant yellow eyes and sweeping forward all the way to the beak, the bird’s face was completely featherless. It looked uncannily like some heretic had peeled the skin off of it, leaving a shocking, vivid red mess behind.
Tian forced himself to keep looking. The bird didn’t appear to be in any pain. It didn’t look damaged at all, actually, once you got past the “Who did this to you?!” of the face. It appeared to be content standing in the water just in front of Tian, occasionally dipping its head down to peck at something tasty.
He had to acknowledge the truth in his heart. Senior Redmane was a far more handsome crane than the specimen in front of him. Senior Redmane had the beautiful flash of red feathers at the top of his head. A face full of dignified bird wisdom. Gentle with a hurting junior, yet fierce when confronting the enemy. This bird, whatever virtues it might have, simply could not compare in demeanor or looks to the honorable Senior. The difference between the two was as wide as their respective heights.
Tian could respect the strength to struggle on in the face of adversity. Especially when the adversity was your face. The feathers that had come in white were brilliant white, long and elegant. The crane was probably quite beautiful when you saw it flying. Ideally from a long way off. And it might well be a long way off. He could feel the breath of immortality from the crane, though he couldn’t tell where in the Earthly Realm it stood.
“She likes how you smell. Like a flower in a pond that will have a lot of food in it.”
Tian jumped three feet up in the air and spun around before his feet touched down again. He had no idea anyone was behind him.
It was a fisherman, carrying a net and rod in a bucket on his back. He had a big straw hat, a straw rain cloak, and was otherwise the sort of muddy brown that made you wonder if his tunic and pants got that color through coin or hard work. Tian would have immediately labeled him as the most mortal mortal who ever died from surprising an immortal, were it not for his brilliant yellow eyes.
That and he spoke crane. Cranes apparently could both get very, very big, and turn into humans. Which seemed like another one of those important things to tell him, and nobody told him!
“Ancient Crane Monastery’s Tian Zihao greets the Senior!” Tian bowed ninety degrees and held it.
“Up, up. Where do you think you are, court? You will startle the others.” The fisherman patted his shoulder and stood him up. “I saw one of the Lin clan wandering around, so I decided to check up on who else was here. Who knew I’d find a wayward Snow Princess and a boy who smells like lotuses.” The elder shook his head. His face was perfectly straight, but Tian thought there was amusement in his voice.
Tian desperately wanted to ask many questions, but kept his mouth shut. Who knows how some Heavenly bird of prey would take it?
“She wants to know if you will be sticking around long.”
“I regret to inform the Senior and Her Highness that my schedule is not my own. I’m here by the will of Elder Feng, and will leave at her will too.”
“Hmm. Oh, she isn’t literally a princess. She’s just leaving her juvenile phase and is almost a full adult. The name the humans in the Broad Sky Kingdom give her species is Snow Grace Cranes. Males they call Snow Emperors, females Snow Empresses. They look quite regal flying and hunting in the winter.”
Tian smiled. Humans had a way of slapping their own nonsense ideas on animals. At this point, it was just plain funny.
“Not that there isn’t some truth to it.” The senior continued. “They soar for longer than any other crane. They can travel for months without any hardship. Quite good cultivators too, if they feel like it.”
Tian bowed his head slightly towards the Snow Princess. He envied her. To soar through the sky endlessly, stopping to eat and sleep, then leaping back into the blue, he could hardly imagine anything better.
“You envy her?”
Tian controlled his flinch. These cranes were a sharp bunch. And people kept telling him that he couldn’t hide his feelings well.
“Intensely, Senior. I dream of soaring through the clouds. My only fear is being lonely as I do so.”
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The fisherman gave him a good looking over again.
“Elder Feng the one in the little boat up there?” The disguised crane looked up and pointed at an empty patch of sky.
“Elder Feng is on the sky barge called Windblown Manor. That is perhaps what you are referring to?”
“Yeah, the one with the shack and the garden on it. Damn fool waste of space if you ask me. But you didn’t. Do you want to name her?” The fisherman looked back over at the Snow Princess, who had been waiting patiently, watching the conversation.
“Does she want me to name her?”
“No. As she is now, she can recognize individual people but can’t create a label to put on them. They just are. As she is.”
“Then no. If, one day, she wants me to give her a name, she can ask me.” Tian smiled. “It will be my first time naming someone. I will have to think of something good.”
The fisherman nodded. “Just so you know, if you pick Little Red or Little White, especially Little White, under Crane Law she is allowed to break both your legs and shove you into a deep lake.”
“I thank the senior for his guidance!” Crane Law?! Yet another vital thing he wasn’t told about!
“Mmm. Are you friends with that Lin girl?”
“No.” Tian opened his mouth to explain, but couldn’t. He just shrugged.
“Explain.”
It seemed he would have to explain even if he couldn’t. “She insulted me, I humiliated her, and she’s in a lot of pain and shame over a loss. We have been forced to work together and can be civil with each other.”
That got a grunt. “Well. That seems fixable.” The fisherman reached into his basket. “Can you cook?”
“Not well.”
“Roast a fish over a fire?”
“One of the few things I can do, yes, senior.”
“Here. Cook some for the two of you. She will want hers cool, so roast it then cool it to air temperature. They don’t like hot foods.”
The senior handed over a couple of river fish Tian didn’t recognize. Each was about as long as his arm, a mottled bluish green and white. “Yes, Senior.”
He hadn’t finished the sentence before the fisherman vanished from sight.
“I have… so many questions. So, so many questions.” He looked over at the red faced crane. She continued to wade patiently in the water, waiting for food. The red face remained hard to look at without thinking of the word “flensed.” Maybe she would grow into it or something.
“Well, I’m not going to risk breaking yet another unknown Crane Law, so… time to cook, I guess.” Tian set out his little table and got to work. Grandpa had encouraged him to load up on things like a metal grate to cook on, and he’d never had a reason to use them so far. Now seemed like a good time. A bit of salt for seasoning, trying not to think too hard about where it came from, and the gutted fish went over charcoal.
He roasted it the very best he could. It was a strange kind of hospitality, but if it’s what the senior wanted and what the princess wanted, he didn’t have any objections. Besides, there was something subversively delightful about setting out a little table and grill next to this wild lake and feeding a Crane Princess her roasted fish on a plate, along with some dried fruits and cold vegetables for extra color and flavor.
She ate them all, seemingly happy enough. Tian chuckled and made some tea. He wouldn’t offer the crane any, because with that beak, how could she even drink it? But the weather was beautiful, the situation was surreal, why not have tea in this immortal moment?
“I think tradition would demand I compose a poem, or be so moved my brush would rush across the paper and capture the scene in bold, yet restrained, painting. Unfortunately, I have never written a poem in my life, and the only art I know how to make is drawing circles in the dirt.”
The Princess didn’t seem to mind. She just returned to hunting for food in the lake near his table.
“Also acceptable would be accompanying the scene with a haunting flute melody, or a soulful piece on my guquin. But I can’t play them either.” He felt his heart sour. He heard all that from his once-brother Long. Gentle Long, the Gentleman who lived worse than an animal in a cell filled with his own filth. Not because anyone forced him too. Devils of shame and cowardice beat him into it, and locked the door to stop him from leaving again. The beauty of the lakeside scene was suddenly thrown into sharp relief.
Was this what the path to immortality was like? People joined your path. Became important to you. Then they parted from you. Perhaps forever, perhaps just for a time. But in the end, you always walked the road alone. A lonely thought. All the nonsense about Dao-Partners suddenly seemed much less silly.
Auntie Wu had warned him. Could you keep walking towards immortality even knowing how much it would hurt? Tian looked at the wild blue sky reflected in his tea cup, then looked out at the immortal scene on the lake. A long way from the dump.
He lifted his cup and saluted the Princess, then drank it in one go. A long way from the dump. Brother Long couldn’t crawl out of his own filth. He couldn’t take the pain his immortal path brought him. Tian could. He had much further to walk.
Funny. He could suddenly breathe better. Tian looked into his empty tea cup. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Strange, strange, strange. But welcome.
“Pour for two more.” Elder Feng was suddenly seated at his table with the fisherman. Tian stood, bowed, and did so.
“Good tea. Well, no, it’s lousy tea, worst I’ve had in years and that includes the pine needle tea I tried. But it’s made in a very good way.” The fisherman nodded and sipped appreciatively. Elder Feng nodded right along with him.
“If the seniors would prefer, I do have a fifty year old aged White Brow white tea-” Elder Feng shook her head and the fisherman waved him down.
“Like sending a slightly bigger ant to avenge a smaller one.” The fisherman shook his head and looked over at Elder Feng. She sipped her tea once more, and set the cup down with an ominous click.
“I think now is as good a time as any for this conversation. You have had a chance to look over the scrolls I sent you. You have seen a bit of the mortal world, and seen some of the immortal wonders in our little Broad Sky Kingdom. You have fought in a war. Killed. Healed. Thought deeply on the nature of the world and your own heart. You have known brotherhood, companionship, betrayal, and familial love. A shockingly rich life for anyone, immortal or otherwise.”
Tian bowed his head silently.
“And now you are wondering where your future will take you even as you doubt that the present can be saved. So, Tian Zihao. Let’s have a frank discussion. If you were entirely free to decide, where would your immortal path take you as you journeyed from this lake to the Monastery?”