Aren't the Flowers Lovely?
Prologue Blind
"The Mongols, they are coming! Lady Min-Sai, I beg you, take leave!" The guard called into the cold room for Min-Sai, but there was no answer. He looked frantically about; taking no notice of the golden dragons that decorated the room, the fine gold arches of the chamber, or the lavish, hand woven rug that he stepped upon.
The Mongols were approaching...
"Lady Min-Sai, where are you? Where are you, my princess?"
Everything was going in slow motion. He searched the most intimate places of the room, but she was nowhere he searched. Hoof beats and battle cries grew louder. He could hear death approaching Forbidden City Palace, and he feared for the princess.
After so many minutes of his search, a torch made contact with a drape after being hurled by an invader through a window. The guard looked frantically about, but could not find Min-Sai. The smoke wrapped gray fingers around his throat, dizzied him in his search. He could not find the princess...
But Min-Sai found him...
"Shin!" she called from the doorway. "Quickly, come out of there!" The guard, however, had grown weak in the strangling smoke. The princess bolted in and took the guard up in her arms; carried him into the stone hallway.
"Shin," she pleaded. "The Mongols are near! Quickly! Use your magic; save us!" Shin gave no response to her plea. "Shin, Shin, open your eyes! Please get up, Shin." She shook him by the shoulders. "Shin!" she cried once more with tears threatening the corners of her round eyes.
"I am too weak to use my power," he said as he staggered to his feet. "You must go now. There is a silk caravan heading further east into Japan. You must make haste to join them." His eyes were clouded and his voice was scratchy. "...Go..." he commanded lowly. Footsteps were heard within the palace, enemy footsteps. "Go!"
The Mongols poured into the hallway from Shin's direction as Min-Sai ran. Shin did his best to keep them back. In her worry, she looked behind her to Shin as she neared the end of the passage. She would have rejoiced –for more guards had come to Shin's side to assist –had she not seen, in the very instant, Shin being thrust into a wall bleeding by his stomach. In his dieing moment, his eyes bleed into Min-Sai's. "I've always loved you," they said.
...Min never joined the caravan.
The ocean pulsated with a life of its own. The waves crashed on the shore as gulls fished for scallops in the rocks...so many rocks. Red snappers could be seen leaping in the water in the distance...Were they always so far away? Two children played games on a nearby plateau in the grasses. The beach seemed so nonchalant; so unable to uphold life; so...barren. Yet it housed within itself a unique life.
This beach in Tsingtao, China housed a great guardian deity. This deity was one of the west. He was neither evil nor harsh, but like his suspected ancestor, Loki, he was very tricky.
The Japanese merchants who made trade there called him Itoshii, but the Chinese did not have a name for him. 'We speak to our guardians within our hearts,' they would say, 'and our hearts know their names, though they will not tell our minds.'
One day, a rock chanced upon Itoshii. It was carelessly thrown into the water by a crying girl. He looked into her heart and read her emotions.
'Why," it cried, 'Why did he have to die? Why did he want me to go to Japan? Wh y hadn't he told me sooner?' Itoshi saw everything the girl had been through that day. 'I could have saved him!' her heart screamed. 'I could have prevented it! He wanted me to go because he wanted me to be safe, but I missed the caravan. They will find me, those monsters! They will kill me when they do!'
Min-Sai looked out into the water and saw her reflection in the rocks. Her image there looked like a sprite, an eternal angel of sorrow. She was beautiful, and yet so unhappy. A tear fell to the ocean mirror, and the image wavered and danced, and then, became still once more. The ghost looked at the mortal and said, 'I am only what you make me...what you make of yourself...'
A noise on shore caught her attention.