Chrysanthemum
Lately he kept finding the personification of the Middle Kingdom himself out in the garden and away from life in the palace. The Middle Kingdom liked to sit by the water reed pond, which was allowed to grow wild, and watch over it with a strange blankness in his eyes. A servant would bring him his meals and regular pots of tea, all of which he would touch but never finish.
And so he spent his days in such a manner never speaking a word to anyone.
Sometimes on his more productive days he would work on a piece of craft. Usually he wrote poetry, carefully inking his verses with a pitifully thin hand, and perhaps a picture as well, on endless sheets of rice paper set out to dry around him. But he was also known to take on stranger projects. Today was one such day; he was embroidering.
"That's woman's work," he informed the Middle Kingdom, who ignored him and continued threading gold into a piece of cloth in the pattern of a chrysanthemum.
It was summer, and the air was heavy with heat and the cricking of insects. He sat down uninvited on a patch of grass beside the Middle Kingdom, but the Middle Kingdom duly set aside his embroidery and picked up the teapot, poured him a cup of jasmine tea.
A sudden gust of wind whipped up his handiwork and sent it fluttering out towards the pond. He saw panic in the Middle Kingdom's eyes, so he reached out and caught it before it could land in the stagnant water. He had upset the tea tray in his haste. But the fabric was saved – it was silk, even his sword-calloused hand knew it – and he held it out to examine the pattern.
"Why are you spending all of your time making this?"
He could not keep from sneering. He thought of all the court affairs that suffered from the lack of the Middle Kingdom's presence. The native Chinese do not appreciate their new conquerors and they showed it with every tiny little interaction – a smile that was too fixed, a bow that was too stiff, too unwilling. One day it would be a knife in his boss's back. The thought both angered and terrified him, and he crushed the fragile silk in his hand.
And there was the Middle Kingdom, oblivious to the damage he was causing, fighting to save his worthless embroidery. His anger redirected itself towards him, and before he could stop himself his hand flew to land a backhanded slap across his face.
The smack resounded so loudly in the hot still air it travelled the length of the water reed pond and back. A welt rose red and angry across the Middle Kingdom's face, but he had uttered not a single word in protest.
He immediately regretted his action. But he was unwilling to apologise.
"Why don't you speak?" he spat, unleashing all of his pent-up rage.
When the Middle Kingdom looked ready to withdraw into himself, his eyes turning glassy in their now characteristic blankness, he grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him violently, shouting, "Speak!"
Another breeze rustled through the reeds, a brief respite from the stifling stillness. The loose ponytail of the Middle Kingdom's hair came undone and the strands stirred in the light wind, traces of ink in water. Without a word, without a single sign of having acknowledged the words spoken to him, the Middle Kingdom fell back to the grass in a sigh of silks and turned his unseeing eyes back to the pond.
He took it as a dismissal. He got to his feet, and kicking the upturned tray aside as he stormed out of the garden.
In his hurry to leave he forgot to return the half-embroidered silk piece to its wretched owner. He examined it again once his anger had cooled, and stowed it in the folds of his robes for safekeeping.
I chose the symbol of a chrysanthemum without much real thought behind it (lol totally ripped off Curse of the Golden Flowerlol). But I thought to look it up to see if it might have any significant meaning and beside interesting cultural facts such as these:
1) The chrysanthemum is one of the "Four Gentlemen" (四君子) of China (the others being the plum blossom, the orchid, and bamboo). The chrysanthemum is said to have been favored by Tao Qian, an influential Chinese poet, and is symbolic of nobility. It is also one of the four symbolic seasonal flowers.
2) Chrysanthemums are the topic in hundreds of poems of China.
3) Chrysanthemums were first cultivated in China as a flowering herb as far back as the 15th century BC.
…I also found this:
4) "Chrysanthemum Gate" (菊花门), often abbreviated as Chrysanthemum (菊花), is taboo slang meaning "anus" (with sexual connotations).
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