Chapter VIII, Part I: Tomb Girl
13th Cycle, Water-Type Month, 1191 AAD
Quling Tombyard, Renqu Prefecture
Chi Wu, the holy mienshao priestess. A wise old woman smiling peacefully on her porch as the flower petals fluttered onto the roofs. Beside her, her personal Qilin, Kuang. Together they retired after a successful campaign to enlighten all of society, for anything was possible in the realm of fantasy.
In reality, Chi Wu had a reputation of making children burst into tears. During her capture twenty years back, she was overjoyed to become the High Priestess. Not only did she get to live—Chi was instrumental in building up the Black Star's temples, fellowships, rituals, and so forth. A decade back, her fantasy was so very close, when an upper-class family hired her to help lay their old veteran to rest. Word of her service spread. Sun up, sun down, funeral after funeral. She would have stopped long ago if it were not for the courts stripping away her other income. She earned too much, the meowth claimed.
Today the Xou family hired her. They were a line of lizard warriors spanning back five hundred years. They predictably selected a graveyard for the nobles. Chi counted the auras. Thirty-seven heart-struck family at her back, as well as thirteen of her disciples. The pallbearers were vigoroth: sturdy pokemon. They stood as firmly as they could as the corpses hurled themselves against the walls of the coffins. Ahead of her, a single soul, her seeing-eye dog, Kuang. Chi had grabbed her guide's icy tail so she may be lead along.
Chi Wu nervously patted a check within her pocket, to make sure her payment had not blown away in the wind. Twelve thousand credits, all for her. The Xou family had also paid a scribe to record today's ritual, as well as paid for a ding—a sacrificial vessel—for said scribe to etch the record onto. They had paid for two statues to be used as headstones, and then paid yet more money so that everyone could show up in red robes. These were large sums of money, so the family demanded complete and utter adherence to their terms. They wanted a 'traditional' burial. This meant the caskets would be taken to a special ritualistic portal at the tombyard's center. There, a divination could free the ghosts from their bodies. Finally, Chi had to activate the portal, sucking the ghosts deep into the Underground, and then the coffins would be lowered.
An important part of the ritual was lost in translation—or edited for convenience. It related to the portal Chi would use: the Ancestral Gateway. It took form of a wide, flat golden disk upon which to dance. These gateways did teleport souls, but they were just transportation, elevators paid in soul power, not hoodoo-voodoo as the Black Star made them into. To top it off, the portal she would use today, used to be the one she took to come and go to school.
Winter, 1126. The swadloon wore their robes twice thick. The cart-pulling tauros marched stubbornly through the snowy streets. Above ground, a loudred sang into a tube leading deep into the earth, sounding a morning alarm for all the Underground. Chi had two best friends at the time. The first was her younger sister. The was second a ralts assigned to be her guardian. The ralts helped Chi get up, get dressed, and do whatever the day had demanded, so her sister did not give her much help. They exited the girls' bunks and lined up with the rest of class at the side of square brick hallway.
Their teacher, a mienshao, counted all their heads. Normally, she brought them through an antechamber and into a room with the portal. This morning, however, they were one head short. A shy haunter glided gently towards them, a scraping of steel against brick as she dragged the mutilated corpse of a pupitar behind her. The class went into shock. Chi attempted to sense worry within her instructor's aura, but the adult was calm. She and the haunter had met already.
"Have no pity for me," the ghost-type said. "Our laoshi wants you all to learn a lesson, so listen to my eulogy. The storm last night caught me out. I squinted at the other side of the valley, to see if the torcoal was still in his hot tub—but the other side was too far out. There was a thick cloud of fog at the bottom, but it looked too far down to worry about. I thought, it should be easy! I launched myself across the white abyss with all my might." The haunter's fist shivered. "What was foreign to me, was how strong the hand of gravity is. It pulled me by the forehead, down, down, into the fog. A pane of ice exploded under me, and then all around me, was dark water. It felt like the storm. Heavy, thick, icy. Sucks the breath out your lungs as soon as the water crashes across your back! The temperature shock ruptured my shell from behind the ears. I passed on. But, I found myself moving again! I needed by body out of the riverbed, so I told laoshi, and now I tell you."
The phrase 'May your soul outlast the stars', did not exist then. Her peopled believed life was a lease with God. Once it ended, it was one's duty to turn back in the life He breathed into them. So, if one became a ghost, they were forbidden from trying to prolong their afterlife. They might 'live' on for days or decades. It depended on how high a level the pokemon was at death.
That day, the Ancestral Gateway that the Black Star found so important was but a footnote. There were just two rules so simple they hardly needed remembering.
One: The gateway needed aura to work. An aura sphere of sufficient power was enough for one trip.
Two: The Ancestral Gateways teleported either ghosts or living pokemon only.
The teleporter was in a big stone room. The class gathered upon it and began a ritualistic dance. Their combined aura grew so powerful Chi recalled joining even though they had not taught her how—she could 'sense' what to do. The air whirred, a scent of hot flesh surrounded them, then suddenly, freezing ice-air whistled through the trees. The faint warmth of morning sun laid like a blanket over her shoulders. The fleshy scent gave way to the smell of humid soil and evergreen leaves.
There was a seven-story pagoda beside the gateway. Some of the children rushed in it for their flutes. The rest snapped up ritual bells—suzu—from an old wood trunk. Their teacher formed all the students into a line. She asked each student to say one thing about the haunter that they would miss. Chi couldn't see the ghost's reaction, but her aura said all she needed to know. After they said their compliments, the teacher had everyone give her a final goodbye.
"Zaijian!" They shouted, flickering bells wildly, playing any little tune they wished on the flutes. Chi, her sister, and her ralts friend shook their bells without a care in the world. The former pupitar had not even left. Her teacher had brought brushes so her friends could write wishes on the corpse, like signatures on a cast. Death was not necessarily sad for them. It was the next chapter of life, a step close to God. She was finally free to roam the earth and do whatever sensible things she liked, until her time came once again. Day after day, she came back to class, until a year later, they were short one head once again.
"Sifu! What's going on!?" A voice like thunder broke her thoughts. "Your is aura overcoming me—I cannot think!"
"Kuang! Did I tug your tail?!"
"Eight times! Stop living in the past! We have work to do!"
Chi Wu stood ruler straight. Quling tombyard settled inside a large circular clearing in the forest. The yard itself was surrounded by walls forming a square. Surprisingly, the structure was very 'blind friendly'. When she felt round cobblestones under her feet, she was on a road leading into the gravesite. When the sound of her bells went stuffy and tight, she walked through a gate. When the scent of incense came to her, and the grass felt silky, she knew was inside. Of course, Kuang's worry already informed her that she was with the graves.
Chi asked, "Why is your aura so ugly?"
"Red isn't my color." Kuang replied. Kuang hated red. Red was death's color. It poured out when claws carved the skin off an arm and the flesh and bone was exposed. Unfortunately for her, the grass soaked in it, the trees were painted in it. The gravesites were all unmistakably red.
The High Priestess' disciplines worked urgently. The coffins were set on the gateway and absol busts laid around the portal's circumference. Bells, ribbons, and powders were prepared. Meanwhile, Chi and Kuang stepped onto the gateway. They were the only ones to do this for now. The meinshao placed her paws on the caskets, feeling the aura within. A smoke leaked out the coffin lids. Tasting it, as Kuang had accidentally, stabbed the tongue with supernatural needles. She hopped back and yelped.
"Kuang?!"
"I am bad with cursed bodies! What do you think we should do?"
"I can't say. Aura is mysterious. I've spent years studying yet all I can muster is a vague notion. Every author makes it something else."
Her master's ignorance startled her. Chi dedicated her life to studying aura, sharing her findings with the clergy. A gap in her knowledge became a sure gap in everyone's. "What about what you teach us?"
" 'Aura-reading is the art of anticipating actions and emotions,' " she recited diligently, "but clearly there is more. These jiangshi are evidence of that." She pulled her paws back, turning her head down, and sighing. "I believe the two we lay to rest today were hexed in the Old War. Specifically, they had been made to possess themselves without ever leaving their bodies, so they are not trouble when killed. This is like running in a giant morpeko wheel. You become exhausted but go nowhere! They will burn out say...a quarter and a half after this."
Kuang whispered. "Sifu, smile! Your honest nature is exactly we love you!"
Chi's attention returned to her disciples. They had organized everyone into two circles surrounding the gateway. They made up the inner rim, the family making an outer rim. She patted her glaceon on the back. "Take the shade. Do not dance. We cannot have you reach your boiling point."
"Yes, sifu!"
Chi stood up. A faint whistle from an azumaril priestess, and she knew which direction to face. "The ascended," she called. "Tell me about them."
An old charizard cleared his throat. His tail was covered with a cloche. He spoke on behalf of his grandson, a heliolisk. "His grandmother seemed to keep falling from us by the day," he said with heavy sorrow. "Fives months ago, she lost her way home. By, the New Year, she lost our own names. Yesterday her heart went still. Then his mother followed." He patted his grandson's shoulder. "We approach the High Priestess will full eyes on both their behaves. They were so sweet to everyone they knew, being true leaders in their circles. This fallen family hopes her seance might break their curses and allow them to ascend."
"Understood," she said with sympathy. "We all know that when a villager travels to the other side after these types of ailments…that they will not have long." The children whimpered a tad louder. She felt especially bad for them; their voices were the most crushing ones to hear in the afterlife. "Your family would be wise to burn their poems, lest the vile DuxDux feed on in your past."
"We will take your words as gold!"
Chi retrieved a vial from her robes. She sipped a juice of white berries and betel nut powder. She then slid it back under her robes. "Students, commence! This set of rites must be perfect!"
Dozens of friends and family hummed together. Her followers hurried around her on the gateway, shaking bells. The mienshao moved one foot in front of the other, shifting herself into a slow, fluid dance. Pools of aura burbled and boiled around her prayer bells, exactly in sync with their rhythmic movements. The coffins buckled and creaked, leaking ghoulish smog from their doors. However, the curse remained stubborn. Slowly, Chi collected a blue energy between her paws. She ordered her party to do the same regardless of their ability. The party's chants, motions, and faith excited her. The aura sphere grew into a boulder. Sweeping her hands downward, Chi charged the entire gateway with soul power. The caskets kicked and shook. The lids exploded tens of feet in the air. Two ghastly broke out. They were kept from flying away because of the stone absol laid around. Chanting turned to cheering, clapping, and bright sobbing.
"Hello?" The grandmother ghost groaned; voice raspy with age. The younger ghastly, identifiable only by voice, yelled with joy.
"Bless the stars, it is the High Priestess! Mother, it's all true!"
The reunion could not last long. Everyone had ran off the portal. Blue arcs crackled on the gateway. It itched to activate—only the mienshao's willpower kept it from doing so. In a couple of minutes, Chi would become too tired to hold the aura, and it would send anyone, dead or living, straight into the Underground.
"Lost spirits," the mienshao hurried. "Can you recall your names?"
"Name?" The older ghastly said "I, I think it was Xik—no, I, I think—I can't remember! Xixou, did you know it?"
"It was Ximing, mother!"
Chi frowned. The older spirit retained her poor memory. However, she was well aware of their proper names. "Ximing, I am giving you the responsibility of meditating," the High Priestess said firmly. "Xixing, I need you to keep any demons away from your mother. Hide yourselves in an old item and let yourself dissipate naturally!"
The charizard butted his way through the conversation, throwing dismissive apologies. His eyes drew up to the old ghastly looking longingly at him.
"Darling, do you remember me?"
His mate's pupils quivered fervently as she pushed her fading memory to the limit. The seconds came and went, then one long minute had crawled by. His knees trembled and buckled just as the coffins had. The earth shook as he collapsed onto them. The gentle giant's loss of faith caused a wave of remorse even greater than the news of their deaths. Chi's strength weakened. The portal ejected a vast column of blue light, and then, there was nothing upon it but the coffins.
…
The Xou family had left moments ago. They placed no fault upon the mienshao. She did precisely what was asked of her. The priests collected their sacrificial items into wagons, ready to move on. Chi, however, had lingered around the grandmother's tombstone. She had sent a vulnerable soul into the most densely haunted area on the planet.
Guide Kuang had rested beside her master. Her voice was calm, assuring, the same a commander might give to his dying soldier. "I understand what you are going through, but there are others who need us."
Chi stood up, preparing to leave. "It is not them I'm worried about."
"Chi Wu, we need to talk!" Both women pivoted their heads to the voice. "Give me a chance!"
PW: the other Shaolin. He was the one person whose aura she could not fully understand. PW had seen her three times by now. He always sat back and waited during her divination, then threw himself at her, begging for attention. Chi picked up a handful of leaves and spread them across the tomb. A silent way to tell him to get working. However, he ran up to her arm and tugged upon it. "You can't keep walking away! We must talk, foo-to-foo!"
"Sweeper, every of my waking moments belongs to someone else. You are wasting your breath!"
She flicked him into the grass. As PW picked himself up, Kuang shot her master a look, then turned to him. "Drifter told us what happened," Kuang said hurriedly. "I'm so sorry! That thing is…nevermind! Despite how it may seem, there are many who want to call you their friend!"
"Thank you! What's you name?"
Chi shouted, "Kuang! Get here now!"
"Visit us at Mount Chi! I must go!" She rushed.
"Oh! Bye…I guess..."
