White Hot Darkness
Part 2: Bad color, bad omen
The chick sprawled out on the blankets had not yet opened its eyes. Its thin white feathers were drenched in egg fluid, and it was shivering violently. After nearly a minute had passed with everyone staring in horror at it and no one making a motion to pick it up, it began to chirp weakly, instinctively wondering where its parents were. To the physicians, and to Jin and Ah-lam, its chirps sounded faint and hoarse, more like high-pitched coughs than any sound a healthy peacock should make.
At last, the head palace doctor hesitantly scooped up the chick and began to towel it off, acting as if it might shatter if he pressed on it too hard. Jin and Ah-lam were beginning to come to themselves. Ah-lam had both wings pressed against her beak, and Jin demanded shakily, "What is that?"
"Well, sir, it's, er…" stammered the physician, not succeeding too well at swaddling the chick. "It's a little boy…"
"That's not a little boy!" The lord's eyes were filled with slowly dawning mortification. "That's not a peacock! Peafowl are not WHITE!"
"I think he's albino, sir," another physician contributed tentatively. "Hard to know for sure, he hasn't opened his eyes yet…"
The baby was squirming slightly inside his loose wrappings, still trembling fiercely. He opened his tiny gray beak as if to chirp again, but all that came out was a cough – a real cough this time, painful and hacking and jolting to everyone there. He coughed for several minutes longer, and then lay flopped out limply in the doctor's arms, wheezing and sucking wind.
Ah-lam had begun to sway slightly. "Oh, gods…" she gasped. "My baby…something's wrong with him…he's a bad color…"
"He's a bad omen," said Jin, his face darkening.
These were to become the words that would be carried throughout Gongmen City for years to come: bad color, bad omen, bad color, bad omen…
Jin was thunderous, refusing to look at the little white bundle that the physician was offering to him – refusing to believe that it was indeed his son. "This cannot be our heir," he declared stiffly. "This cannot by the prince of Gongmen. He is sickly and not worthy of attention. I daresay that he'll die anyway…"
"Jin!" Ah-lam sobbed, clutching his arm. "Don't speak that way! It's not his fault that he's…like this…"
Jin gulped in deep, agitated breaths, looking like he wished that he was dreaming. How could this be happening? How could his son, his own flesh and blood, have turned out to be a…a bad omen? Oh, why had he dismissed the soothsayer so quickly? She had foretold the chick's prematurity, had seen white and fire and darkness. What would this mean for his city?...
"Take care of him," he instructed the physicians coldly. "Give him medicine, or whatever else he needs. My wife and I are taking out leave now."
Ah-lam didn't look so sure about leaving, but she couldn't bear to look at the defected little chick any longer.
"Aren't you going to name him, sir?" asked the head doctor halfheartedly.
Jin clenched his fists. Yes, he'd prepared a name for the chick in the event that it was a boy, but the name that he and Ah-lam had selected now seemed like a cruel joke. Still, they had to call the boy something…
"We name him Sheng Li," Jin announced bitterly, "meaning, 'victorious, of high success.'" And with that, he took his wife's wing and walked briskly out of the nursery.
So it was that for the first few days of his life, Prince Sheng Li didn't know the pleasures of comfort or affection.
He spent every moment in his baby bed, swaddled haphazardly, with physicians from all over the city hovering over him. Keeping the young heir alive seemed to be a constant struggle. He still hadn't opened his eyes, and he would fuss constantly despite how weak he was. Every minute he was either coughing, whimpering, or chirping desperately, knowing that the forms always rustling around him weren't his parents and wondering where his mama and baba had gone. In fact they had taken to brooding miserably within the confines of their quarters, unable to stop dwelling on the unfairness of everything.
Sheng Li cried, too, especially when he was being stuck with acupuncture needles, or force-fed milk made bitter by various medicines mixed into it. Feeding him was a chore that took fully two or three hours to complete, and some speculated that he would waste away no matter what they did. But four days after hatching, Sheng Li was still stubbornly clinging to life.
That night, the soothsayer went to see him.
She went very late, when many of the doctors had given up and gone home; those that remained had all fallen asleep, thoroughly exhausted. She crept through the nursery, wanting to see if the child she'd heard so much about was truly as doomed as everyone believed him to be. She approached his bed, caught a glimpse of him…and it seemed to be love at first sight.
The poor little thing was sickly and feverish, utterly breaking her heart. His eyes still weren't open, and he was crying out faintly, as if begging for someone to take care of him. She breathed in sharply, then reached out to smooth his scraggly feathers. "Oh, little one…"
Sheng Li began to whimper as he felt the hoof on his forehead. He was terrified of being touched; of course, that was because he had only ever been poked and prodded and pricked, never soothed or caressed. This invoked further sympathy from the soothsayer, and she gently scooped up his tiny, blanket-wrapped body, cradling him. "There, there…it's okay, I won't hurt you…"
He was squirming a bit now, crying raspily.
"Shh…don't cry…" She held him over her shoulder, tenderly stroking the top of his head. Gradually, his struggles ceased as he realized how good the touch felt, and his head lolled on her shoulder. For the first time in his life, he had stopped fussing.
That was when she noticed that his eyes were open.
He was peering at her curiously through heavy, half-closed eyelids. His irises were crimson red, which would probably send the doctors and his parents into a state of further alarm, but the soothsayer saw this as nothing but confirmation of his albinism; it was nothing to be afraid of. His beak stretched wide open in a yawn, and he blinked up at her sleepily.
She couldn't repress a soft chuckle. Oh, he was adorable. "Aww, sleepy baby," she crooned, rubbing him under his chin. He made a quiet, content sort of cooing noise and shut his eyes again, pressing his face into her robes. For the first time since his birth, he was sleeping peacefully.
For the rest of the night, the soothsayer continued to hold Sheng Li, giving him the love that he had craved so much; any time he stirred, she would rub his tummy or scratch his feet, and he would immediately drop off again.
At last, the doctors awakened, and were none too pleased to find her sitting there and looking rather smug. But their attitudes changed when they saw how well she could handle the troublesome chick.
For the next several days, she was the enlisted help of the physicians; she held Sheng Li when it was time for needles, got him to eat and take his medicines, and let him sleep curled up in her arms at night. She absolutely loved the baby boy, and perhaps it was her love that enabled him to start growing stronger. His cough lessened; his fevers began to subside. It looked as if the prince would survive after all.
When Jin and Ah-lam were told of these developments, they didn't know what to feel. On one hand, they wanted to be happy for their son – but there was still that coloration, and the head palace doctor had admitted that he doubted the boy would live past his seventh birthday. If they raised Sheng Li themselves, their hearts would be ripped out when he met his seemingly inevitable early end.
So they made a hard decision: after hearing of her talents with the child, they appointed the soothsayer as his official nanny. While she was somewhat disapproving of her lord and lady's choice, she couldn't deny that she was delighted at the prospect of raising the chick. She had already begun to secretly think of herself as his other mother.
And so, a week and a half after Sheng Li's birth, he was deemed well enough to be liberated from intensive care, and the soothsayer took him back to her quarters – their home.
A/N - Five whole reviews last chapter? Is it pathetic that I'm excited about that? Because I am. Keep it up, guys!
