A Great Escape
Chapter 5: The second visitors
"After the deaths of Lord Jin and Lady Ah-lam," Storming Ox began, "there was quite a power vacuum left here, as you can imagine. People from all over the country – all over the continent – swarmed here, claiming that they were great politicians and deserved a seat of power. Lady Mai Ying was one of those people."
Shen, Xun, and the two masters were seated around the kitchen table in the dormitory, discussing the puzzling visit. More than anything, Shen wanted to know why this Lady Xuilan thought that she had the right to make such demands. It turned out that Storming Ox was right about things getting overcomplicated.
"Mai Ying and her family had lived in the city for years, trying to pose as sort of half-baked nobles. She and her husband were vain and pretentious, constantly trying to convince people of their aristocratic merits. Your parents never liked them, Shen, but it was easier just to throw them a bone once in a while than to try and get rid of them. For a long time they didn't do anything worse than making nuisances of themselves. They had a baby, Mai Ying's husband died somehow, and she kept bragging to everyone about how wonderful she was. But in those confusing times before the Masters Council was established, she saw an opportunity to gain more power."
"Let me guess," interrupted Shen, his voice dry and faintly tinged with sarcasm. "She tried to attack somebody or something and got herself banished."
"That's the gist of it, yes," agreed Croc wryly. "Master Thundering Rhino was pretty much running the show for a while, and she presented herself to him as a candidate for the next ruler. He refused her. A few weeks later, he formed the Masters Council. She was a kung fu master herself, so she was enraged that she hadn't been appointed to it and challenged him to a duel. She lost, of course." He wanted to say, "No one could ever beat Master Thundering Rhino," but, considering his present company, thought better of it.
"She sounds lovely." Shen folded his hands on the table. "So, Xuilan is her daughter? I'm assuming that her upbringing was very bitter and hate-filled. But she must have only been a child when all that happened…why did Master Thundering Rhino banish her as well?"
Storming Ox shrugged. "I don't think he knew. He banished Mai Ying, and Mai Ying probably fled the city in a rage, taking her daughter with her. And now we have the daughter to deal with."
"So, how are we gonna deal with her?" Xun spoke up. "She might be a threat. She has that creepy bodyguard…"
"Even if Xuilan knows kung fu, we're more than a match for her and Ming," responded Croc dismissively.
"She could have outside forces waiting," Shen pointed out. "There's no telling what she did in exile."
"True," answered Storming Ox thoughtfully. "But let's try to deal with her peacefully for now. I'll send a message to our political advisors. In the meantime, Master Shen, we might want to try getting up those defenses ahead of schedule."
He and Croc departed to go find a messenger, leaving their guests seated silently at the table. Xun, ever ready to break an awkward silence, turned to his friend and grinned. "No pressure or anything."
Shen rolled his eyes.
…
Work seemed to be postponed as the Masters Council awaited the arrival of their "political advisors," who had promised to come right away. Shen, not knowing what he was supposed to be doing, milled around absently. Eventually he approached the masters and remarked, "I didn't even know you had a political advisor."
"We didn't have much use for these two before," said Croc. "But now that it's only us, we've learned that you need more than fighting skills to run a city. The politics used to be handled by…"
Out of politeness, he trailed off, but Shen still flattened his crest and looked away. He knew what they meant, of course. Master Thundering Rhino had been the one to handle the political side of things in Gongmen, before being killed by Shen. This brought Shen back to his thoughts from earlier that morning: If your master is slaughtered by a crazy person with a cannon, why would you invite that crazy person to make MORE cannons?
"You might want to stick around and meet them," commented Storming Ox into the subsequent dead silence. "Jie Xifeng and his wife are peacocks, too."
"The proper term is peafowl," Shen corrected absently, before blinking as the meaning of that statement sank in. "Really? They are? I had no idea that there were other peafowl in the city…are they related to me, by any chance?"
"I don't think so. They're not even from this country…they came from some island somewhere, during that same power vacuum time. I'm sure Xuilan probably hates them, too, but they might actually know how to deal with her."
Shen had heard enough to be intrigued about the Xifengs. He agreed to meet with them once they arrived and went back to his previous activities of waiting for something interesting to happen.
Not fifteen minutes later, while he was in his room mediating, he heard the muffled voice of a servant announcing somebody's arrival and the indistinct sounds of Storming Ox and Croc offering greetings to someone. He stepped out of his room silently, careful not to intrude on any conversations that might be going on. Sure enough, a peacock and a peahen had just been welcomed inside the dormitory.
He approached them cautiously, unable to keep from staring in curiosity. The Xifengs were unlike any peafowl he had ever seen. Of course, his idea of what a normal peafowl looked like was based on the appearances of his late mother and father and maybe a few cousins he had briefly met during his childhood. These two looked entirely different.
Master Storming Ox noticed him and cleared his throat. "Shen, meet Jie and Yue Xifeng. Jie, Yue, this is Lord – I mean, Master Shen."
"Master Shen, eh? I've heard of you!" exclaimed Jie, and Shen found his wing being pumped so rapidly that he could only blink in surprise and try not to look too stupid. "It's a pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure…"
Jie spoke with a slight accent, one that Shen couldn't place. He was an extremely colorful peacock, his feathers dappled with a hundred shades of green and blue and teal and yellow and orange and who knew what else. The eyespots on his train seemed to wink boastingly at everyone who looked upon them. If Shen had thought his coloration to be pale and uninteresting compared to his father's, then he was downright invisible next to Jie.
"Darling, let up on him," scolded Yue, wrenching her husband back. Her accent was a bit thicker than Jie's, and her colors were nearly as vibrant. She was a stunningly beautiful peahen, and it seemed that only the lack of a fan tail made her less striking than Jie. Shen was accustomed to peahens being duller than their male counterparts, and he found his eyes being constantly drawn back toher.
"It is nice to meet you," she told Shen, smiling.
"The same to you." He bowed. "You're both…political advisors, is that correct?"
"Oh yes, yes," answered Yue enthusiastically. "We have been for thirty years, darling, and we've never met you but we've heard of you. We're not very powerful, we mostly just get a few little assignments here and there, but my husband and I would be lying if we said we did not enjoy it! And when we were told about this Lady Xuilan it sounded very interesting, too interesting an opportunity to pass up…"
"That's enough, my love," Jie hushed her. He looked at Shen apologetically. "My wife is something of a chatterbox."
Shen nodded dumbly, a bit caught off-guard by her fast pace and overly emphatic tone.
"Why don't you all come and sit down in the kitchen?" offered Croc, and after a few general sounds of agreement were made, that was just where they headed.
Shen happened to be the first one to the kitchen, where he found Xun licking his fingers after apparently having a snack. He gripped the wolf's shoulder and hissed, "Xun, I swear to the gods you're as bad as the panda! And we have guests."
"Wha? More guests?" Xun's head swiveled as Jie and Yue were escorted into the kitchen. "Well, who are they?"
"They're political advisors, and they're here to talk about Lady Xuilan." With that Shen held up a long feathered finger to his beak, indicating that they should probably shut up now, and hurried over to the table so that he wouldn't be left out of the conversation.
He needn't have worried, however; the conversation was currently just more of Yue's chattering. "I cannot believe that you two gentlemen are still not married! Shouldn't the rulers of the city have wives? Wives will help your careers! I helped my husband's career when he married me!"
"Yes, yes, of course," Storming Ox agreed vaguely. He didn't appear to be very good at making small talk. "Er…how is your daughter?"
Right then Shen realized that things were about to take a turn for the intriguing, as Jie's oddly stiff, straight crest drooped at the mention of the word "daughter." Yue's eyes turned sad, and she clicked her tongue. "She is doing poorly!" she declared. "She is doing very, very poorly. She is having more of those, what do they call them…panic attacks."
Shen sat forward immediately upon hearing those two words. "Panic attacks? You have a daughter who has panic attacks?"
Jie shot his wife a glare; it seemed that he hadn't wanted her to mention that. But he submitted, "Yes, our daughter has suffered from panic attacks since she was a chick. It's very concerning, really…"
"We simply have no idea what to do with her!" Yue produced a fan from her sleeve and proceeded to laboriously air herself out with it. "We have summoned the best healers from all around China, they have given her their best medicines, and no one can help her. I sometimes think that she is getting worse. She cannot support herself, and she cannot stay with us forever. But since she is a cripple – "
"Just because she has panic attacks doesn't mean that she's a cripple," Shen couldn't help but point out.
"Oh, but she is! She thinks that she can make a living from her writing, but not a printer in the city wants prose from someone with her condition. You do not understand how badly off she is. At this point we have two choices. We can send her to an asylum, or we can marry her off to someone who will support her. But she is nearly too old to be married, and we cannot find a willing husband…"
Shen leaned back in his chair, stunned. He remembered his earlier thought, wondering that morning if anyone else in Gongmen City suffered from panic attacks; well, now he had his answer, and then some. He'd had no idea that having those attacks was perceived so badly. It was just a little irrational fear and a few physical symptoms, nothing that you would call someone a cripple over. Immediately, his heart went out to this daughter who was being talked about so negatively by her parents.
And there was more, too…the wording they'd used. They had called her panic attacks a "condition." That was Shen's least favorite word, because when he was growing up, his albinism and weak immune system had forever been referred to as his "condition." It had debilitated him, of course, but even more debilitating was everyone's perception of him. He really felt sympathy for this daughter now. She was thought to be an invalid, so incapacitated by what people thought of her that she was unable to be self-supporting. Somehow he felt that she was a kindred spirit to him. And if her parents weren't careful, she could end up being just as insane as he had once been.
There had to be something he could do for her. Some way that he could get her to a place where she could be herself and people would listen to her…but no sooner had he had that thought then his brain promptly delivered him a plan of action. He breathed out, steeling himself.
"Well, I know of a willing husband for her," he said calmly. He knew what the reaction to his next word was going to be, but he forced his voice to remain steady as he announced, "Me."
A/N - It should be mentioned that Jie, Yue, and their daughter are not Indian peafowl like Shen. They are Java green peafowl.
Oh, and...that's all the reviews I get, huh? ...whatever.