Chapter VIII, Part III: Dissidence in Silence
13th Cycle, Water-Type Month, 1191 AAD
Path to Quling Tombyard, Renqu Prefecture
PW finished his shift. He took a red wooden path home. Each evening, Drifter sent PEAT and Rishu down PW's way to make sure the mienfoo would return home safely. It would not take long for the three to meet.
In the meantime, he thought about this morning. He went to the tomb sweeper's shed, taking up a broom and cleaning supplies. The locals asked him to burn money for them, so he did this. They asked him to pray with them, so he did this too. He became a little Chi to the locals. When the real Chi Wu arrived, he flocked to her as they had to him, but she shunned him. Now that he thought of it, an interaction one week back had foretold him of his demi-god status.
The first time he went to the tombyard, he was late because he walked slowly. The beauty of the landscape mesmerized him. The path was beside a river of flowing jade. The humid forest smelled of mellow jasmine tea. Sailors in their ancient boats transported crates of tea leaves southward. Across the river, were lush, tall mountains standing so tall the peaks faded into a cerulean fog. Big, brick entrances jutted out the mountainsides. All the entrances, however, were walled up.
As he walked to the graveyard, he came to a fork in the road. The left path led to Kebia City. The right side went to the tombyard. PW stood on his toes and stared down the left way. He wanted to try and see a little part of the city. But, instead of the city, he saw a milktank rushing towards him. She pulled a cart full of milk bottles.
"Aura God! Are you lost!?" She shouted. PW rolled to the side, a cloud of dust where he had stood. Tired, she clasped her knees and breathed hard. "Don't be scared!"
"Who are you?!"
"A Milk Maiden, of Kebia City," she panted, "I deliver the milk! I'm sixty-one years old, and my favorite color is orange-pink!" She swiped up a bottle and forced it into his paws. "Aura God, take my gift! Drink some!"
PW hesitated at first, but his stomach comforted him. As the little mienfoo sipped down the bottle, the Milk Maiden made a warm smile and pet his head. PW squealed and chopped her arm. He didn't drop the bottle, but the sudden jerking of his arm ejected the leftover milk all over himself. He shook himself dry and flashed his claws.
"What the hell!"
"You are so cute!"
PW hurried back to the red road. She followed. "Wait! I need a boyfriend! I need him to be dangerous but not too big, so he does not eat me or my pasture! I need one like you!"
"I'm nine, lady!"
"I said one like you! Are you lost, Aura God? You need a tourist? I know my way around! I'll point out landmarks to you, such as the yaodong here!" She pointed to the ominous structures in the mountain. "If I tell you where to go, you must oblige me!"
PW took a deep breath. She would not leave him alone, obviously. For a moment she pretended the old lady was one of the many foreign tourists in his temple. He would tell her what she wanted to hear even if it was horribly silly and unrealistic. He faced her and sat as if to meditate. "Fine! I will bless you. Hold two rocks!" Once she did, PW began his line of divine interrogation. He hummed. "Oh Milk Maiden, Shenlong asks for your real name!"
"Yuan Nai Nu!"
PW squeezed his eyes tight. "Hmm….What are the ideal characteristics of your boyfriend?!"
"He knows the gentlemanly arts, he is really really cute and rich, and he can free me from my slavery!"
"Chant 'Rah, rah, rah!' "
"Rah rah rah! Rah rah rah!" She danced in circles. "Rah rah rah! Rah rah rah!"
"Yuan, Shenlong is saying to me that you need…a jigglypuff! He will fall from the moon and sing all demons to sleep!"
She held her cheeks, delighted. "Really, when will he come?!"
"He says to…ask the High Priestess about it!"
She shrieked, and tried to pet him again, but PW fled into a tree, so she waved. "Bless you Aura God! You can have milk free anytime!"
The miltank grabbed her cart and once again sprinted towards her pasture.
PW returned his thoughts to the present moment. Through the quiet still of the sky, was bickering. The drowzee and bidoof briefly greeted him, then stuffed themselves back into their argument. "She's not going to like the meal. I will it!" Rishu said.
PEAT shouted back. "What did she expect, the starmie to dismember themselves on her whim?! We don't have the income for her insipid 'delicacies'!"
"We could have cobbled something together! What we have, well, its more what do we have!?"
"Rishu! To afford that dish, we would have to work every single day without break since the dawn of the Ming Dynasty!"
"Everyone has challenges to face but if we work hard enough, we can overcome them!"
"Do you even know when Ming Dynasty was!?"
"I'm unaware."
"It began seven hundred years ago! If she understood her people, then she would hide her jade around us. She would arrive without her distinguished title and she would expect nothing of us and let us do our work alone!"
"We should be ashamed to be lying flat in her presence..." Meaning to give up because there is no chance of success.
"My guqin may hum such soothing notes, but its player won't be so pleasant, I can guarantee Shenlong that!" He inhaled sharply. "The Ming Dynasty fell because the ancient humans stood up for themselves! There was war, drought, and discrimination, and they were sick of it! Maybe Her Majesty should take note!"
"Silence! Empress Erimo is very generous! She would not let us rot! You speak like we are not in a civilized nation, like we shut ourselves into caves and worship fire as the Shaolin do!"
He shouted, "I bet your still brainwashed to think the imperial examinations are egalitarian! We can't even afford the tutors to pass the test and climb out our poverty! We support the government, yet it does not support us, Rishu!"
Abandoned Village, Renqu Prefecture
As they came up the dusty trail, they saw Her Royal Majesty touring the village, knocking at loose bricks, the dust collecting on her gauntlets. PEAT and Rishu's heads lowered, showing their submission, but PW instead stiffened up and kept careful eyes on her. There was no warning, nor reason for her visit.
Everyone came to Drifter's house and sat around his iron bowl of food. A long, overly formal exchange of greetings began, then dinner started. The chesnaught grabbed a bundle of wooden spoons from a bucket and passed them out to his children. There were precisely enough him and them, but no more. The dewott empress rolled her shoulders and peered into the bowl. One would normally be offended if they were invited to dinner yet not allowed to eat. On this occasion it was the most respectful choice he could make. The dinner was just leftover scraps from lunch, which were leftover breakfast. The same mush PW watched Drifter cook in the morning was the same mush in the bowl, just colder and stickier. PW noted everyone else felt horribly embarrassed…except for PEAT. The drowzee's lowered his head, but his spine was straight as the mienfoo's.
Drifter represented the household. He alone bore the weight of speaking to the empress. He spoke very low. "We tried to get your fried starmie, Your Honorable Majesty, but upon asking them, a translator told us the staryu said, in their blinking language, to shove things where the certainly do not belong."
"Did the idea of a ditto not occur to you?"
"Ditto?"
"A mimic, a substitution." She said. "A copy, a facsimile, a stopgap, a fill-in…Is there at least enough of a portion for me, theoretically?"
He shook his head no.
She bowed lightly, taking the rejection with grace. "Since I am not allowed to eat, no one may eat in this village ever again."
The room froze, expect PW. The mienfoo had ducked his chin to fit in but he kept his eyes on everyone. PEAT seemed almost to speak, but licked his lips instead, and remained silent.
Once again, a formal exchange swept the room. Drifter had bowed deeply, and all the children followed. Then Empress Quqi bowed, but to a smaller extent. The order had been accepted. "Her most Benevolent Majesty, your sharing of time with us is a privilege. The Royal Geisha places more pressure upon his pathetic residency than twelve dusknoir! Our lives are so unstable! She battles us, and we lose honor and our crops every time!"
"I do concede that her husband should see you in her place, but his nature is an odd sort and makes him unreliable. As it stands, she has only performed her role to the letter. This village is abandoned because it is deficient to the health and soul. In a week it will not stand."
"We must move again?"
"I have ordered the prefect to arrange something permanent for you. Details will come tomorr-"
"Can I leave now?"
It was PW who asked. The empress snapped her head towards him. The tension fell like an anvil on the toes.
"Sweeper, as I understand you lived a great life," sarcastic. "Pollution, sun-blocking skyscrapers, and senseless gadgets, just like that fire nation! You Shaolin Loyalists live against our very nature as pokemon!" She stood up, cracking her knuckles. He stood up too, flashing his claws. Taken aback, she added, "Have you considered that this one high above you is currently preparing for war?"
"So what?!"
She huffed. "So I am in a mood to battle!"
— Battle! PW vs Her Royal Majesty —
The others rushed up against a wall. PW and Empress Quqi paced in ever tighter circles around the bowl, sizing each other up. Her eyes danced across his pressure points, formulating a library of moves with which to defeat him. PW meanwhile wanted her to hurry up and lose. Fighting was in his blood: her training could bring her close to his ability, but never past it.
She was faster, so her attack landed first. PW collapsed into the cold porridge. He was conscious enough to cough out the food but too disoriented to stand back up.
She had reached over and clapped his earlobes so hard a shockwave reverberated in his skull. He never even considered such an attack. A move like that was banned in his temple. However, the Black Star was entirely removed from humanity. Their techniques were not regulated into neat boxes he could learn, name, and counter.
The empress pulled PW up by the neck so that they could be face to face. "Shaolin, you wanted to leave? You will cherish the first of next month!" She let him drop to the groud and addressed the rest of the family. "I expect no one to be here in two day's time! Get yourselves together and move out!"
She stormed out the home. Drifter pumped his fists. "I knew summoning her would help! I'll be a bag of baked pokebeans if I let that old cat kick me around!"
"See?! She does care!" Rishu said to PEAT.
The drowzee only grimaced. He hurried PW to the farm and fed him an oran berry. The mienfoo's hearing was restored.
PEAT whispered, "Your bite is as big as your bark! PW, I will honor you somehow!"
The monk squinted, face contorted in confusion. He redirected his attention to Drifter. The part-grass type tapped his spoon on his chest like a drum. "Alright! Everyone, dinner, and bed! We must get all the sleep we can before tomorrow! Come on, one two, one two!"
"What is for dinner?"
"Pick off the crops, we won't get to keep them anyway!"
Within a minute everyone picked away the berries like locusts. As he stuffed his face, PW became lost in his anxiety. His focus right now was not his living situation. Every sunrise crept closer to his banishment. Meanwhile, From Vermillion Skies was conscripted into the military, and now Yi and Er were missing, too. The reason was that the Black Star rapidly shifted as Empress Quqi prepared it for war, but as a lowly peasant, the mienfoo was not privy to what she did.
However, Empress Quqi was all too aware of the challenges she faced.