the birds no longer sing
Characters: Ling Yao, Lan Fan, her family
Summary: Bird fly and they die. No one can change this and yet, they seem to try.
Ling Yao sneaked out of his family's palace in their hometown in the earliest hours of the morning. Usually, he would have tried to sleep in but not today because today, he had a mission and so he sneaked out of the palace and headed straight into the awaking town, passing a first bunch of tired guards that had guarded the town during the night and that were going to bed now, at six in the morning. The young prince chuckled as he passed the men and women who were too tired to recognise him as he hurried down another alleyway, heading for the part of the city where the clans of the strongest warriors lived because this was the reason why he had given himself a mission. Along the last few months, he had seen a lot of them and they made him curious because while some of those families were truly rich, they did not seem to care much about gold and wealth and more about honour and other things the eye could not see.
For his little excursion, he had decided to stalk, no, observe the prominent members of the most prominent clan that had its compound located on top of a hill. He easily got over the walls that kept strangers from getting into the gardens of the large compound and hid a second later when a middle-aged man stepped out of a hall that the prince identified as the clan's meditation chamber. The man wore a set of navy robes with a haori in a paler shade of blue that bore the crest of the clan, the Ying-and-Yang-symbol the prince had seen on masks and shirts before.
A second later, he managed to recognise the man as the clan's second-in-command, as the only remaining son of the head. It took him a moment to remember the name but given that he had heard it many times from various maids who had gossiped about him because he was a pretty attractive widower, he quickly remembered Zan Wei's name. In his earlier years, he had been one of the best warriors and bodyguards of the village and quite possibly whole Xing but after his brother's death, he had retired to attend to the administration of the huge clan.
And for his reason, it was strange to see him strolling through the gardens. For a moment, it seemed like a normal morning walk which was a habit many people of the village shares – especially if they were of higher social status, but suddenly, the man dodged behind a bush and disappeared from the sight of the thirteen-year-old prince who sighed as he decided to continue his observation from another point and thus climbed up in a tree and jumped from branch to branch like a hyperactive squirrel until he saw the man again.
The sight was a strange one. The man sat on the ground, digging a small hole with his hands, dirtying his hands and humming a little song. After a moment, he sat back and looked at the result of his work before he took something from the ground next to him and buried it before he took a single flower and a stone to mark the place and sat back to recite a funeral poem. After all was said and done, Zan Wei rose and walked into the main building of the compound, cleaning his hands by the well and continuing his morning routine like nothing had happened.
Ling sat back on his branch, wondering about what he had just witnessed when a young girl left the house, dressed into black training gear and munching an apple. It took him a moment to recognise Lan Fan Wei, the youngest grandchild of the clan head and niece of the second-in-command. The orphaned girl started her training with stretching and push-ups before she went on with a complicated sequence of various kicks and punches, all performed with a certain lethal grace that made Ling feel wary and relieved at the same time because she was scheduled to be his bodyguard from the day of his fourteenth birthday.
Lan Fan sat down cross-legged on a rock for meditation and closed her eyes for a moment before a young maid approached her and whispered something into her ear. A mixture of sadness, confusion and compassion crossed the young girl's face as she rose and walked straight into another part of the enormous garden and about three hours after her uncle had done it, she performed the same strange ritual but this time, Ling saw what she buried. It was a little bird that had dropped out of its nest and broken its neck. And this was what confused him greatly. They were warriors – well, Zan had been and Lan Fan would be – and for that reason, it made no sense for them to bury little birds when they had died. It was the nature of every living being to die at some point and there was no point in trying to counter that.
A few weeks later, Ling observed how the current elite bodyguard – other than Fu – walked down a road that led from their compound to the only school of their town, an academy where the children were enrolled at a very young age to learn the first steps of self-defence and other important things. When Ling had been younger, he had never understood why the children of the town frequently carried a kunai or two with them when they left the walls that surrounded their town but one day, his uncle had explained him that not everyone was protected by adults and that some children had to defend themselves.
Chao Wei – that was the man's name – whistled a merry tune before he suddenly stopped and bent down to bury another little bird, complete with the short poem and the bow at the grave. This was it. As soon as his uncle would arrive, Ling would ask him about this strange behaviour.
The warrior walked down the street and disappeared soon enough from the prince's sight as a horse stopped in front of the young boy.
"Oi, if that isn't my favourite nephew," the tall man smiled as he easily picked up the boy to lift him up and twirl him around. "What do you have been up to lately, young one?"
"Uncle, do you know why the people of the Wei-family bury dead little birds?" the boy asked.
"I don't know but they usually have a reason for everything they do – and if they believe that it is necessary to bury dead birds, let them be. The mind of a warrior is deep and complicated … and I see no reason to question something as long as it does no harm to anyone," the man replied as they walked down the road back to their palace. "And assuming that Chao is involved somehow as well, I really have no reason and no right to question anything of this," he added as an afterthought. "You might understand it one day, I promise."
But as they kept walking, Chao passed them, carrying a giggling little girl on his shoulders, before he disappeared into the direction of the market, Lei suddenly stopped and shook his head. "After all those years, he still manages to beat me at any game we play," he sighed. "One advice, if you ever have to pick an eternal rival slash object of jealousy because his life is easy while yours sucks, do not pick the Wei because in that moment, your life is doomed to suck forever," he muttered. "Anyway, let's go and hurry up before lunch is cold."
"You know Chao Wei personally?" Ling asked in confusion.
"Before I continue, know this: I will forever deny that I said this," his uncle said seriously. "It's more like we have a mutual friend … he's my ex-girlfriend's older and overprotective cousin and so, well, we know each other but I think that he has sworn on his grandmother's grave to break my bone if I ever get too close to his family again. And his threats aren't empty."
It still took Ling three years and many more funerals for little birds and finally the ceremony of Fu's burial to approach Lan Fan who seemed to be the most likely to say something about the strange habit the members of her family shared. She flinched and shook her head before she mentioned towards a group of tree that was a little further away from the mourning members of her family. She lowered her head and sighed deeply before she picked a thin grey thread from her white dress and looked up again. "Do you see the little girl?" she asked before she corrected herself. "No, she is no longer the small girl she used to be … time has passed. She has grown."
"So did you," he commented with a smile. "A year ago, you wouldn't have spoken this freely – and especially not without blushing. You also wouldn't have requested anything from me."
"I apologise if I was speaking out of turn, young lord," she said with a small bow. "Well, one day, Min Li – that's her name – found a dead bird in her bed when she woke up. She was four and you cannot imagine the way she screamed. I found her, begging the bird to move again. She has always been a sensible girl and so, my cousin who is her guardian requested that we bury any dead bird we see. Seeing that I'd rather not see her crying again, I follow this request."
He turned around to look at the girl that stood by Chao's side, head lowered and hands clasped around a white lily. "She looks a lot stronger now," he remarked as he watched the determinate expression in the girl's pale blue eyes. "She has a goal and she will reach this goal."
"She is top of her year," Lan Fan nodded with a proud little smile. "I guess that this would make grandfather prouder than anything else … that we will keep going without him. Chao, he finally accepted the offer of the academy to teach there when he is not away and with Uncle Zan as head of the family, we really don't have to fear anything. And as long as you request my service, I shall have a place to go as well."
"Well, I would be a fool to turn you down," he said with a smile. "Thank you for your trust."
She smiled as she turned back into the direction of her family. "To trust is something we have learned along the years," she shrugged. "Sometimes, it surprised me how much we rely on someone else. When I was a child, Chao used to care about no one but maybe my sister and to rely on absolutely no one. When she disappeared, he was greatly distressed."
"Now, he seems to care greatly about that girl … Min Li's her name, you said? She might become a great warrior one day," he shrugged. "Maybe not as much of a warrior as the old man but still a really, really good one … I will keep an eye on her."
"I doubt that she will ever be allowed to pursue this career."
"Who of your family would truly stop someone from becoming a warrior?"
"The one who has raised her and who has lost someone to his profession before," she replied. "I highly doubt that Chao will appreciate the idea of losing her as well. Like I said, he is protective."
She had always been more confident when she had spoken about her family and for a moment, Ling wondered what it was like to have a normal family where people had no interest in killing and maiming each other. But then he remembered that someone of her family had put a dead bird in the bed of a little girl to scar her permanently and this had made the entire core family to change their ways and to ensure that the girl never saw a dead bird again.
"When he is that overprotective … what will he do when she becomes an adult?" Ling asked as he watched how Chao kindly placed his hand on the girl's shoulder and led her back to the house.
Lan Fan shrugged as she watched them leave. "I don't know … and I think that he doesn't know it yet either," she replied before she bid her goodbye and followed her family. She was on an official leave at the moment and therefore, it had been the first time in years for him to see her out of uniform – and he had to admit that he had liked to see her like this once more.
Ling was running. He ignored the strange glances from the servants as he dashed through the large gardens until he stopped at the rock where Lan Fan was meditating. The past twelve years had been kind on her and if anything, she had grown more and more beautiful. He grinned up at her and held out the white envelope. "Lan Fan, we are going to a wedding," he declared.
"If by going you mean crashing, I will not agree with this," she said as she opened her eyes. "It was the most embarrassing thing you have ever done when you barged into the wedding of Mr and Mrs Mustang. I really do not want to repeat that experience."
"This time, we do have an invitation," he grinned as he dragged her from the rock and back into the direction of the stables where he intended to get someone to prepare the coach. He had decided to go there personally because otherwise, it was a common problem that things simply took too long for his liking.
"Who invited us to a wedding?" she asked, slightly out of breath.
"Remember your grandfather's funeral all those years ago when I asked you what Chao would do if Min Li would grow up? It seems like we know it now: being beaten by her in a spar and having to accept her proposal afterwards. And that's the wedding we are going to attend."
She sighed. "The doctors will murder me," she muttered. "Really, I am not supposed to travel."
He grinned at her before he hugged her and gently caressed her belly. "You and the little prince will be okay. You have me to protect you," he smiled before he became suddenly so much more serious. "And I promise to hide all the dead birds with you."
She still smiled by the time they reached the town and she downright laughed when she talked to her niece who had never been prettier and happier before in her life.
"Yes, don't worry about me, Lan Fan – I have someone who will protect me from anything … from dead birds just as much as from myself … and all in a way that is not suffocating because he tries to hide it," the young woman smiled as she looked over at her husband. "He is trying pretty hard to hide that he's just a big teddy bear inside."
"So … you knew all along?" Ling asked as he kept his arms wrapped around his pregnant wife.
"I was about five or six when I realised that I had not seen a dead bird in a very long time … and that this was probably kinda strange with all the glass," Min Li replied. "But … he meant well."