Chapter 1

The Third Morning

"Do as Thou Will that Shall be the Whole of the Law."

-The First Proverb of Divinity

Lao de Village is to put it bluntly barely a village. It would more accurately be described as a bundle of sticks and rocks mixed together to form a child's attempt at making houses in the mud and only marginally more structurally sound.

If it rained the roofs would leak profusely.

If the wind blew a bit stronger than a fan at least one house would collapse.

If there was a famine... well you couldn't really tell the difference if there was bounty to be honest, am I a bad person for thinking that?

If a spirit beast was somehow born (as no already existing spirit beast would come near us) close enough to even consider eating the villagers... The villagers could do little more than die.

By all rights, Lao de Village should have been destroyed and forgotten.

It is definitely one of those things.

But why it has not been destroyed yet is very simple... The people who live here simply keep rebuilding it.

If there is one positive point about Lao de Village it is that it turns away no one. It does not turn away the weak (obviously), it did not turn away the disfigured, the insane, the orphan, the widow, the "bloodthirsty" clansmen or the "savage" tribal.

By virtue of being desperate enough to need to live here you were welcome here. Though don't confuse this as the people who live here being anymore compassionate than anywhere else, see it more as them being more busy keeping their homes from catching fire during the rare dry season, to have time to act on any prejudice or simple minded bullying.

That isn't to say there are not some stupid enough to try anyway but those who have said extra energy to spare either disappear in the night or eventually realize they have energy to spare to try and leave Lao de Village.

I was not born in Lao de Village.

I was born in God Finger City. The Provincial Capital of the Finger Mountain Province.

My New... Newest(?) Mother in polite company was a courtesan.

In not so polite company a whore.

She mishandled her birth control accommodating a particularly rough client and became pregnant with me when she would not undergo an abortion she was thrown out of her residency.

She fled to her parents home first and when they turned her away she fled to her grandparents... My birth was a difficult one.

Her last act in this world would be to hold me close to her apologize for not being able to be there for me and give me my name.

"Chao-Xing"

My immigration to Lao de Village followed shortly after. Great Grand Father and Mother were not financially stable by my Newest Mother's arrival. They became less so when one of the Finger Mountains began to flex and the entire province became flooded with Demonic Spirit Beasts.

Great Grandma died during it and although most of the more powerful beasts were killed by a Divine Dragon Spear Sect Branch Garrison the effects of the devastation unleashed on the province still lingered and will probably linger long after I am gone.

Grand Father could barely afford to take care of me as an infant and by the time I had the strength to walk on my own short distances he was on his last legs.

Lao de Village was not the first place we sought refuge, but by my estimation it may very well be the last. There is simply nowhere else to go.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

We acquired residency via building a house someplace nobody else had set up. It was just the way things worked... and if they weren't Great Grandfather carried a big dagger on his hip. It is only slightly better than the houses around it thanks to the prudent spending and saving of Great Grandfather.

I do not assume to be able to hold onto it without him.

But that does not concern me at the moment. What concerns me at the moment is breakfast. The most important meal of the day.

Great Grandfather had fell down three days ago and hurt his ankle... and I have no medicine to offer him and with limited knowledge on the practice of manipulating "qi" as "Cultivators" do I had no mystical arts to heal him with. The best I can offer him is what little food we had stored so that he might pass with some comfort.

It was hardly adequate.

I manage a small fire to cook rice and salvage our leftovers from last night... and the night before that and the night before that into my best approximation of a stew.

It is pitifully small but it is all we have.

I would get more but Grandfather would be alone and while I am no Princess... Grandpa would do all in his power to treat me no less and would hear nothing of me climbing the nearest mountain to hunt.

It pained him to see me so much as pick up a broom let alone cook... and if he had any questions about how I knew how to do either without his direction he kept them to himself.

Which was good for me because I didn't have any idea on how Grandpa would take my story... I wouldn't even know where to start it... Maybe when I was first born perhaps? That would be a long story almost 3 centum millenniums of history to cover.

The story of my next life would be miniscule by comparison. I only made it to 200, but human life cycles have always been short. The rejuvenation technology of the far future only able to stretch a standard cycle to a solid 450 at most, and only with access to the best of the best of medical practices. Nevermind the mortal lifetimes of my first world... They rarely made it pass 150.

Humans of this world whom ascend into the Realms of Cultivation are able to live for quite a long time. A few of them according to legend who grasp their way to the peak of Divinity would actually outlive an Elder Ulma Fae Lord.

It would be a very long story, I do not think he would live long enough to hear all of it even if he was in good health and he was not.

When the food was cooked and prepared and the necessary precautions were taken when an open fire was no longer necessary.

I brought the food to Grandpa.

He rested on the only bed we had... made of hay, discarded pillows, pretty flowers, colorful leaves, tiny pebbles that I found along the trail and rotten bed sheets that had survived the journey here and rotten bed sheets that would be borrowed along the way.

His skin was a pale and sickly color. His chest, arms and legs are covered in sores and scars some faded most not. His beard was as white as snow. His lips once full of color are mere slits...

"My Princess i-is that you?"

"It is me Grandpa. I have food for you."

He laughs.

I remember it being much more louder. I remember being able to make me laugh to.

It cannot do so now.

"My beautiful princess... You should save it. Save it for yourself. You will need it."

"What do you mean?"

I know exactly what he means.

"My Princess... My beautiful princess... Forgive me. I am going to take a little nap... would you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Could you find my knife? I hid it in the i-in the... the I think the..."

It sits right next to him.

I pick it up for him and attempt to lay it up on him but he declines my attempt.

This shocks me, Grandpa had been particularly protective of the weapon, keeping it close to him at all times, only I took more precedence over it.

He had almost parted with it once and only once when I had turned nine years of age during our travels he had resolved to sell it to buy us more food.

But by a magical coincidence a Boar had been impaled upon a spear in front of our tent.

Whoever had done it must have been very intelligent and very pretty and very strong.

"It is not mine. Not anymore."

I do not like these words. I do not want them.

"I was but there keeper for a little while and if you would my Princess... would you be theirs for a little while?"

No.

"Okay Great Grandfather I will."

It is a feat of monumental strength that the man smiles.

"Thank you. I will rest for but a moment."

I rest my head upon his shoulder I listen to the sound of his breathing, committing it to memory.

When the next morning comes at the age of 12 I am alone again.

~∆~

When a Fae dies it is said that our souls are particularly more invested in remaining within the mortal plain. We are nigh immortal entities, unless Death takes us forcibly we could tread upon the mortal plain for time unending. Zaza said that the Second Ulma Fae King had tread Creation since the beginning of it.

I asked him what happened to the First Ulma Fae King...

The Second Ulma Fae King killed him.

It was how we figured out we weren't truly Immortal.

We spend so much time in this world that leaving it for the next world is difficult for our souls. So to help them on their way to the Heavens the Fae would carry the body of the recently deceased to the highest point we could.

Along the way the family members and close friends would whisper embarrassing secrets they shared with them to the body in hopes that their words would reach their soul and the embarrassment and shame would make them flee the mortal coil.

When Necromancy became a more prominent practice and our understanding of the soul became more extensive, the practice fell out of favor among common folk.

The practice became the domain of the rich and wealthy to observe it to stress their connection to our ancestors and what not.

I am not rich or wealthy... but even in this place I am Fae.

I do not think Great Grandfather will need much help reaching the next life.

But the people of this world speaks of at worst cruel and at best indifferent Heavens. A much more active pantheon then my second world or even my home world.

The Divine are fickle beings.

Maybe they will not treat him with all due respect. Maybe they won't bother to consider his plight at all. Maybe they will consider him beneath them.

There are to many maybes.

I will give Great Grandfather the best chance I can.

I carefully wrap his body in sheets... to the best of my ability. I do my best to make a travois out of the branches of wood long enough to serve as much and place him upon it.

I gather as much food, water and clothes as I can into the travel bag that had carried us to this village.

Great Grandfathers knife comes with a sheath that clips comfortably to the side of my moth eaten pants, somehow feeling secure despite the state of my clothing.

Then I... I look at our home.

I absorb it for a moment.

It will be no time at all till someone realizes it is empty, until someone else lives here. I do not know how to feel about this.

If I am honest I rarely know how to feel about things. I do not words very well.

I do not have the time to spend trying to find them.

I turn my back on the home.

I do not look back.

~∆~