The Green Tea Sea glittered in cold sunlight, with neither a ripple nor a wave to break its glassy surface. Mountainous, gnarled roots and monolithic leaves broke the otherwise spotless horizon. They were messengers from the Depths, heralds of the unseen majesty that lay beneath. No raft dared touch them, lest it contract the Infestation. The sun stared at the Bamboo Princess from its place in the cloudy, pale sky. She let her grassy skin absorb its morning energy with pleasure. Soon it would allow her no more until the next day. So there she lay, upon her rotting temple as the Sages dabbled below. They needed no sunlight, for they were of soil. Only the royalty of the Sea were afforded the luxury of a grass shell. The Bamboo Princess heard one of the Sages climb onto the damp wooden roof beside her. She turned to him in mild surprise. The Sage respectfully informed the Bamboo Princess that she was to come inside, even though she wasn't done absorbing sunlight. She would have to retire much earlier that night if she were to abandon her sunbathing now. The Sage insisted. With reluctance, the Bamboo Princess agreed to come inside. An icy gust of wind blew from the Sea, as if in protest to the Bamboo Princess' compliance. She ignored it, allowing the Sage to assist her off the roof and onto the rickety balcony below.
The Infestation had already begun to spread through her temple. Insects crawled in orderly lines along the rafters, and lumpy nests had been formed in dark and dripping corners. The Sages, nine in total, prayed to weathered carvings and faded parchments, hopelessly preserving a religion that had long since lost its name. Upon sight of the Princess, the eldest stood and gingerly shuffled over to her. His soil was grey and teeming with the Infestation. A worm writhed in his cheek. Cobwebs filled his crumbling mouth. He bowed his respect to the Bamboo Princess and told her he had received a prophecy from the Lost God. The Princess was unnerved. She looked to the Sage who had retrieved her. His soil was a healthy brown, and the Infestation was yet to claim him. He nodded in reassurance. Wishing she could return to the sunlight, the Bamboo Princess turned back to the eldest Sage. He began to relay the prophecy, a grand ballad of rhymes and metaphors. It sounded more like the script of a play than the word of a God (not that the Princess had ever seen a play). After the Sage had finished, the Bamboo Princess requested an explanation. She had understood very little of the prophecy. It used obtuse phrases, and words that had not appeared in any of her collected scrolls. The Sage explained it simply. The Bamboo Princess had been chosen by the Lost God to quell the Infestation and return the Green Tea Sea to glory. To do this she would have to leave the temple for the first time and travel by raft to the centre of the Sea. There, she would learn the world's secrets and ascend to the rank of Bamboo Empress. This was her fate, as determined by the Lost God. The Bamboo Princess felt empty. Her life of dutiful study and introspection had been ordered to an end, but she could not disobey the Sages, nor the Lost God (if such a being existed, that is). The Princess shivered as a chilling breeze blew through the Infestation-eaten holes in the temple walls. She looked down. Small black beetles crawled across her paper slippers. She gently kicked them off. The eldest Sage urged her to make her response. The Bamboo Princess pondered for a moment as the wind desperately battered against her skin, then made her decision quickly.
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From the small, half-sunken dock of the floating temple, the Bamboo Princess was to take the last raft for herself, and only herself. No Sages were permitted to journey with her. It would be a solitary trip; one supposedly destined to change the world. The Infestation had taken too much already. The Bamboo Princess was going stop it, regardless of if she wanted to or not. It was a fact, decreed by the Sages. She was going to save the world. She was the chosen one, the hero. The Bamboo Princess accepted all this hesitantly, and she dared not consider the prospect of failure. She would do what she needed to. Fate would be fate. The Bamboo Princess pushed off of the dock with the raft’s single oar. She gently floated away, the murky expanse of the Green Tea Sea beneath her. The Sages watched solemnly from the docks. They did not wave goodbye.
The raft had once been a beautiful, carved work of art. Back when there had been more than one temple, it had been one of dozens of rafts intended to ferry Sages between the floating structures. Over time, the carvings had worn out and the wood that held them had rotted. It was disturbingly soft under the Princess’ feet. The oar too, had become little more than a splintered piece of driftwood. These two items combined were what the Bamboo Princess would have to rely on to succeed. She found this fact unsettling. The Princess smoothed out her paper robes and sat. Behind her, the temple was beginning to fade into mist. What would become of it without her? The Bamboo Princess let such thoughts pass through her mind as quickly as they had come. Feeling at peace, she leaned back and allowed the sun, ever patient and watchful, to grant her the last of today’s energy. She would have to stay awake for as long as possible to mitigate the risk of disaster whilst she slept. The Bamboo Princess stared at the sun, letting its distant brightness burn into her eyes. Under layers of cold, she could almost feel some warmth. The Princess felt something else in that moment. It crawled across her leg. She looked down, alarmed. A single black beetle. The Princess rose to her feet quickly. Alarms rung in her head. The Infestation never allowed itself to spread to an isolated object without establishing a nest. The Princess began to search around the small square platform, peeling her eyes for even the slightest hint of a nest’s beginnings. Slowly she moved her search to the edges, then the sides of the raft. She froze. Tucked into a rotted-out alcove in the side of the raft was a small bulbous sphere, festering with black insects. A fully constructed nest.