The Power of Creation

It took all day. The fire was hard to tame, but together they slowly formed the world around anew. Deep down, on the ground, the children started to play in the huge puddles. The houses began to shine as the ashes were washed away by the rain, and the warmth of the fire in the earth fed the plants to grow. By the end of the day, the destructive extreme of fire had been transformed into a warming source of life. The landscape that stretched below them was golden and green. Here and there volcanoes still sparked off in the distance, far away in the heights of the mountains. But there were other Mountains with sparkling white glaciers on top, too. The Fire Kingdom itself gave birth to the most wonderful flowers and animals. The new land they created looked very much like Yan Da, Ying Kong Shi thought. It was like her: wild, hardly tenacious, yet generous and warming, playful and strong at the same time, and infinitely beautiful. As Yan Da had been the vessel of its birth, she seemed to have the stronger bond to the stone's creational powers. Ying Kong Shi helped her out as best as he could, but he saw how much strength it took her to focus and shape this raw power all day. Her hands kept moving to restrain or encourage their creations to find inner balance. All the time he stood by her side. Together they determined the course of the rivers that gathered in numerous lakes, created forests and safe places for the children to play, leveled areas to become fertile meadows, and crushed the pointed sharp monoliths in the outskirts to dust.

As the sun went down she gradually weakened, and he felt her trembling, as suddenly her legs gave way under her. He had known that only the limits of her great stamina would force her to stop. Prepared, he caught her in silence as she fell into his arms. When he gently slid back with her to the Palace below, she was already deeply asleep from exhaustion. Xing Gui, Yue Shen, Huang Tuo, Xian Xue and Piang Feng had witnessed the transformation from the palace's high towers. When Ying Kong Shi moved towards them, they helped him gently and respectfully to carry Yan Da into her chambers. Huang Tuo examined the Fire Princess' body and confirmed that, except for a mild blood loss, she was very healthy. After closing her wound, Yue She and Xing Gui retreated with Yan Da and washed her body and carefully cut off her excessively grown hair to her waist. When Yan Da was finally well taken care of and in bed, Ying Kong Shi asked everyone to rest. His friends took the hint and retired into the adjoining rooms. The loyal Fire generals were instructed by the Ice Prince to gather news from the Fire villages and to report the next day. Finally he closed the wide double doors, and left the whole world outside. He, too, felt exhausted. But he felt restless. What he was allowed to testify today lay beyond his imagination. He had never met an immortal who could use the power of creation like Yan Da. And she had allowed him to be a part of it. When he watched out from the palace window, he felt proud that together they had created something so big and beautiful. Who would have known that the last descendant of the Fire Royalty would succeed to bring balance to fire and ice?

The flame has more colors than just red. In the hot interior it burns blue as ice and leaves the same scars as its counterpart. Only between the blue and red does the flame burn yellow, in equilibrium ... Ying Kong Shi frowned. Where had these words come from out of a sudden?

"Is it you, old bird? Show yourself!" he demanded into the air. Ying Kong Shi saw Xian Xue materialize in front of him. His ancestor had the same expression on his face that he had given Ying Kong Shi when they first met some days ago. The Ice Prince turned to him and smiled a weak smile. "Had a good day?" He asked Xian Xue mockingly. The bird spirit sat on a divan and took same graves out of a bowl. "Yes, not bad. At least the view over the Fire Kingdom wasn't as boring as normal. Nice work, you two…" Ying Kong Shi's face stayed emotionless, as he looked back to Yan Da sleeping in her huge bed. "Why has her appearance changed?" he asked his ancestor. "You mean, why her eyes are now like yours? I think you know the answer. But if you really need to hear it from me… Yan Da has been recreated to her original form. She is now like you. You two are the last survivors of the Ice Fire Clan and the last to use the power of creation." Ying Kong Shi clenched his fist and exhaled sharply as he tried to process this information. "Why? Tell me, what is this all truly about?" Xian Xue eyed him compassionately and sighed. "It seems the time has come to tell you the whole story. You, and she, have been wandering around for so long… You once were so happy, at least I was told so. But who is left to know it all? It's all in the past, when the world was young…" His ancestor's gaze turned inward, allowing Ying Kong Shi's mind to see the vivid alien images that had once been reality.

Your Tribesmen were Yuan Ji's first creation. There were only few of you, and he created them out of the two driving elements, fire and ice, as equals to himself. Those first immortals were happy and innocent, and thrived in the world their father had made for them, Illusion God Mountain. He gave them powers to shape his creation. And they used it to build lands and seas, mountains and woods, heights and depths. Two of his creations, a man and a woman, fell in love. No one knew a name to that feeling yet, but all of their fellow tribesmen felt it to be a beautiful and powerful emotion. And it spread and infected others. The first descendants of the Ice Fire Clan emerged from the love connections. It is said that it was with these children that Yuan Ji's jealousy of his creation began because he was born into reality alone. The two lovers wanted to please their maker, and sought his approval by joining their powers to create a gift for him. It was the Ice Fire Rock, a tool to create the mightiest wonders. In Secret, they had hoped he would create himself a wife to experience love, too.

But when Yuan Ji realized that their joined magical powers were able to make a tool of this might, he became very anxious and angry the two would end up stronger than him overpower him one day. All out of his fear of competition he came to the conclusion that the Ice Fire Clan was a failure. He decided to weaken the powers of his subjects by taking one of the two elements from each of them. With this, he ended the era of the Ice Fire Tribe. The cut went deep, and destroyed the social ties of families, friends and lovers. Eons have passed since then, and the souls of the Ice Fire Clan still miss each other. Their longing determined all of their reincarnations, never able to overcome the separation, never uniting because of opposing positions. The two lovers managed to hide the stone before they were separated, in order to prevent Yuan Ji from destroying it, and to leave their descendants with hope, that one day, eventually, binary stars would meet again.

When he opened his eyes again, Ying Kong Shi stared at his ancestor. He didn't move for a long while. When Xian Xue thought he wouldn't move at all, his descendant spoke in a hoarse voice. "So the two lovers were ..." Xian Xue nodded. "Yuan Ji took the fire from the man, and he became cold and distanced. He took the ice from the woman, she became unpredictable and ambitious. At first they tried to get along because she was pregnant by him. But Juan Yi incited the misunderstandings between them again. There was no official war in those days, but the result was the same. The Ice and Fire clan moved far apart. The forest they had inhabited became empty and cold. The Ice King later made an image of the forest, you know it as Snow Fog Forrest. His memories of his mate haunted him and his heart was restless. One day, it was reported, he transformed into a Xian Xue Bird and flew away. As for the first Queen of Fire, no one knows what became of her. Her descendants said that she too had gone to forget her memories and to fly free as a firebird. But their reincarnations never forgot to miss its other half… ."

Xian Xue sighed. It was always painful to go back. Ying Kong Shi still set there, frozen and deep in thought. "Ying Kong Shi. I am sorry to share this burden with you. But you had a right to know the past. I hope you understand now, why I support your love. After all, it once had been mine, too." With this, the snowbird left, and the Ice Prince sat there for quite some time, staring at the world, and wondering what the future might hold for him and Yan Da.

In that first night of its creation, the sleeping land awakened. Nourished by the Ice Fire Rock, the nature spirits opened their eyes and helped the creation that took place. Slowly, in every corner of the country, little lights showed up, and the wind and the creatures sighed in relief. Xing Gui watched at the Magic Cube in Front of her, and sighed, too. Although Ying Kong Shi and Yan Da had confessed their feelings for each other, Ying Kong Shi hadn't come clean with her concerning her past life in the other dimension. The leader of the Dream Tribe was still burdened with the Fire Princess' memories of the other dimension, and the task she had assigned her with. Slowly Xing Gui watched the projections in the air around her. She cried tears as she witnessed the violation and sadness the Fire Princess had had to endure. Xing Gui was so filled with emotion that she did not see the hidden figure watching everything in the darkness from a corner of the room. A mean smile played on the lips of the person who was exactly memorizing the floating pictures in front of her.