This is Ling Yù. Here, the Sino-Tibetan nations are a superpower.
Julie Bremmer, Gabby Márquez, and Lynette Lindquist are all blondes. They're not all married, but they're all just as desperate...if not more so.
This is the Wisteria Wood. It covers a very vast part of Ling Yù. On the surface, it's one of the loveliest forests one could ever visit. Alas, dark secrets whisper from between its tree trunks...and from within the compost all over the ground, that the Wood's trees shed each autumn...at its zenith. Or trough; however you want to look at it.
In the Wood's highlands, there are caves. They're no minor sight. Some of their openings are big black holes that drop straight into the ground. Some such openings, even, are more than a click across.
Over such a hole, a hill towers. It's covered in wisteria forest. Alas, the wisteria trees are shorter near the summit.
Meet Julie Bremmer. She's a resident of the highlands. Naturally, though, she lives at a lower elevation...away from these scary cave openings.
Her hair is blonde, and straight. What she wears is black and revealing. She often wears black. Many see her as a hopeless romantic...just like her mother before her.
She sits alone on the hill, and looks around. Her lover is nowhere to be found. It seems like he often isn't.
From high aloft, the Red Sun approaches. He's Japan's patriotic hero. He wears a red cape that flaps like a flag in the wind, as he flies. Most of his suit is white...and as his name suggests, he sports a Red Sun symbol on his chest.
His real name is Kaoru Kentaro. To the Japanese, he's a hero. To himself, he's just a simple sidekick trying to make the human race's dreams come true...best he can...considering his limits...but mostly considering his strengths...as impressive as they are...
Atop the hill with Julie, he lands. She runs to him rather quickly. She usually is that quick...and clumsy, too. At any moment, Kaoru expects her to fall into that abyss down there.
She pins him to the ground, and makes out with him. For her, it's been a long time coming. It always is. To Kaoru, of course, it's never long enough. And yet, she hasn't annoyed him enough for him to leave her yet.
As the day passes, they do more of it. Alas, it soon gets to be too hot. On the upside, Kaoru's powers spike. On the bigger upside, Julie REALLY loves this when it happens. On the downside, Kaoru loves her too much to risk her overheating in the light of day.
At last, he breaks away from her. He's got a job down in the cave to do. He kisses her one last time, struggles to keep it brief...runs off the cliff, and plummets deep down into its surrounding shadows, cape flapping like a red flag.
Like a starry-eyed Lois Lane, Julie runs to the edge of the bluff, and watches in awe. She is SO head-over-heels for that Superman...
They day beats on. Soon, it's high noon. At least the wisteria trees have shade beneath them.
Julie exploits this shade, and waits. Kaoru sure has been gone for a long time. She almost worries that he's perished down there...if that's even possible...
Via instinct, she raises her arm, and catches an apple moments before it would've hit her on the head...like Isaac Newton. She holds it before her face, and admires it. It looks good. She raises it to her mouth, ready to take a bite...
She stops, opens her eyes, and looks around. Nearby, but not too much so, a copperhead snake lies coiled. It watches her...and flicks its tongue. Like Satan, he seems to be waiting for Eve to cross that sacred line...the one that will curse humanity with mortality and childbirth pains when crossed.
But of course, as far as Julie's concerned, Ling Yù already has too much of that to speak of...as well as to not speak of. She scoffs, and throws the apple over her shoulder.
With a dismayed look, the copperhead hisses, turns, and slithers off into the grass, to tempt humanity another day. Frankly, though, he'd do his species more honor if he just struck a human and doomed them to die via copperhead venom. But of course, this snake can't do that to Julie. She's too adorable to curse.
More of the day passes. Dusk is upon Wisteria Wood.
Julie's tired of waiting. Sleepy-eyed, she stands, rises to the top of the hill, and looks down. There's just an empty black abyss down there. She thinks she can hear the swiftlets and bats inside, warming up their nightly noises...assuming they don't make those noises around the clock. As small as they are, they probably do. Julie would know; she's always only ever done something similar each time a guy's broken up with her.
At least Red Sun doesn't give up on her. That's the one love of her life she KNOWS she can always count on...
Beneath her feet, the ground gives away. Julie screams, and goes toppling after her love. On her way down, she flails and screams. She shouts Red Sun's name.
Shadows and colder temps later, she lands in a field of guano. Fumes rise from it. Julie lands bottoms-up in a pile of it. She sobs, when she does.
Alas, she can't stay. She must seek out the love of her life. She slides down the side of the guano pile, nearly barfs while doing so, straightens out her little black dress, and runs off into one of the tunnels.
She follows a lot of them for a while. By and by, she's convinced that she's lost. And the guano piles have yet to abandon her. Shit; there are probably cockroaches down here that she forgot to think about. But then, it's not like she CHOSE to fall down into here...
From nearby, what looks like the neck of a sea serpent rises from the guano, opens its shiny red eyes, and probes the darkness for disturbances. As Julie studies it, she can see that it's actually a very large earthworm; titanic, she'd daresay. And she's like a flake of detritus to it.
The worm senses her...and his eyes shine with brighter light. Julie takes a deep breath, and lets loose a shrill scream that echoes off the cave walls.
Buried in her bed, Julie wakes, sitting bolt-upright. She wears little more than revealing black lingerie. It seems black is a prevailing color among women of the Wisteria Wood.
Julie reaches for a wallow in the bed near her...only to find it empty. But then, there's no wallow, either. Of course there's no wallow. Julie's been single for way too long now. That would explain the darkness of these dreams of hers of late.
But at least Théoden King had Herugrim, his sword, to reach for, after Gandalf woke him up from Grima's leechcraft... Too bad Julie's no swordswoman... She might do better with a flail, though... But for now, let's just hope she never has need of one.
Julie waves her bare arms, and casts a few spells. A goblet levitates itself to her, full of water. Trying to relax, she drinks from it. For some reason, that water feels SO good against her mouth's surfaces...as well as her lips'...
Julie has big lips, and a weak ass. She's usually in some state of emotion, and hence very intuitive. Most times, she can deal with what she foresees before it comes over to bite her in the ass. Alas, her last love bit her in the ass VERY hard when he left her for some geisha.
Yes; Julie Bremmer is a witch. And with luck, her next boyfriend won't find that out too soon for what's best for him...if Julie ever gets the pleasure of finding out what that is...