Once upon a time, there was a child in the Garden.
This, in and of itself, was not an exceptional occurrence. There are often children in the Garden. Producing them is one of the things that the Garden excels at most. Every six months, on a schedule trained and induced and formed nearly to perfection, six-thousand children are born in the Garden, from three thousand parents, all of whom once belonged to their own group of six-thousand. Of those six thousand infants, something like three-and-a-half thousand make it past the age of toddlers. Of those three-and-a-half thousand toddlers, up to two-thousand make it to adolescence.
From there, most of them make it to adulthood.
Most don’t make it too far past that.
This child did.
This child, who had no name for the first three years of their life, survived. They managed to learn to control the Garden’s well-sculpted special physique. They learned to adapt to the way that their Qi leaked out of their body perpetually, learned to manage the ways in which arrays forced cultivation into their body, only for it to leak back out again. They learned how to do more than just survive their physique, learned to hold it in and circulate it properly, faster than the children that were taken away for being too slow. They learned to reach it out into the world and leave traces of it behind, learned how to bow and curtsy and smile and dance and pray and speak, until they no longer felt the weight of the mold they had to grow into.
And then, when they were shaped to perfection, exactly as graceful and beautiful and demure and attractive as they were made to be, they were given their final gift. A mark of passage. The sign, the sign, that they had made it to adulthood, made it to the peak of all that could be asked of them, that they grew up right.
They were branded.
Not in a way that one might see. Not in any way that someone might be able to touch it, or that it would be able to mar the sculpted bodies and appearances of those who have made it so far. The brand is deeper than that, and better hidden.
The artifact used is one mass-produced, crafted from woven branches that are taken, sculpted just as the children, from the Garden and the Tree that grows within it. It looks, if one were to hunt one down from out of the vaults in which they are stored, like a slender wand, its tip hooked and curved and glowing ever-so-slightly a strange pink. If one were to try and stab oneself with it, they would find that it passes through meat and bone as if they are not there, leaving no mark or scar. One might find themselves surprised to find that it does not pass through all of the body cleanly, and that it catches, agonizingly, on the meridians inside the body.
For the children of the Garden, it can be felt carving through the cloud of Qi which surrounds them. It can be felt scratching against delicate veins of quasi-biology and imagined nerves. It can be felt in how it can be used to pluck, and weave, and rearrange the channels into a very specific shape.
A shape which, under the right conditions and with the right arrays, can be called to, anywhere, anytime, and pulled on. Seen through. Reached through.
It is the ultimate marker that a child of the Garden has grown well. Proof-positive that at long last, they have survived the trials and tribulations and become worth something, that they can now contribute to the Garden which has raised them.
It is the most singularly painful experience anyone in the Empire undergoes without being actively tortured. And even this is only legal definition.
But then, the child is complete. They are whole, as they were long-promised would eventually be the case. They have survived and struggled and moved forward and become perfect, become useful, and now they are at long last ready for an outside world that none of them have ever seen.
This particular child of the Garden was among one of the proudest of their batch. Joyful and excited to see a brand new world, to at long last see what their pain was all for, to stand as a peach of the Garden for all the world to see. For all of the ones that never made it. For the half of their generation that never made it to the final steps.
And then, this particular child discovered what it means to be a peach of the Garden, out in the real world.
For a long while, they did not have the words to articulate what happened to them. They didn’t have the right metaphors to be able to communicate to another what the experience was like.
A few years after this, they found out about sheep. They tasted a new plate, and asked about what was on it, and were indulged when the person they dined with learned that they had never before seen a sheep.
There it is, the peach of the Garden thought as the fluffy white animal was taken to slaughter. That’s what I am.
At least the sheep gets to die.
The first time that they left the Garden, they met a man whose form and shape was alien to them. Unique and in every way new. This man was broad-shouldered and wide-bellied, the softness of good eating and a lack of care for what others thought of him shaping him into a wide smile and a pampered brow. The peach thought that this was the most unique thing that they had ever seen- a man who had no care what others thought of him, whose body was sculpted to his desires and not to his needs. The man acted in a way that seemed brash, that seemed open and casual, so very different from how the peach was raised.
Then their meal ended. The tea was drank, the man laughing with wide and shining teeth at much of what the peach said, and they retreated into a quieter place, a place similar to how the peach was raised, full of soft silks and extravagant colors.
Then those wide and shining teeth smiled wide, and began to bite.
The strange and brash and shining man with the wide and shining teeth, the peach later found out, had a preference for the… inexperienced. A hunger for things fresh and unripe, and an enjoyment of the struggle that occasionally followed.
The peach did not struggle. They were shaped too perfectly for that.
But many years later, they saw the sheep. Soft and white and trusting of the shepherd, all the way to the butcher’s block. All the way to the dinner table.
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The peach went home. They recovered from their wounds. They learned new techniques, techniques which would go on to define their cultivation and allow their survival against the many other bright and shining teeth with so much more power.
And then they were sent out again.
There were no illusions this time. The time for such childishness had passed, it was said. But always, the tenders of the Garden spoke of pride. Always, the people who raised the peach spoke earnestly and openly about the ways in which their service aided the Empire and its peoples, how their sacrifice protected the Garden, how the peaches were and are and continue to be unmatched in their power. Victimhood was never in question. No, the suffering was their agency, the suffering was the point, and they should be oh so proud.
And so the peach learned.
Its Gardeners would say that they took the message the wrong way. That something in the peach twisted, or was missed and had grown in wrong, or that they were somehow uniquely broken.
But with every warm body pressed against their own, for every crushing weight of cultivation breaking theirs and taking pieces away to feed itself, for every blow and violation and smile full of wide and shining teeth, Kaena learned. The suffering was agency. The suffering was the point. And they were indeed proud, in their own way.
What can a peach do about being eaten?
Nothing.
So the best that can be done is to make every bite painful.
They had to be subtle. They didn’t even know they were doing it sometimes. And yet, just as they were trained to weave their Qi into listening arrays and traps, they learned to twist it just a bit further. They learned to shape what was there into something not quite helpful- a concoction that added to one’s cultivation as it was torn free, but which would poison the well just enough to cause problems later.
One of the people that took a bite of them gained a heart demon, and their mind split in half, but this was years after they had met with Kaena, and so no one wondered. Then another that had taken a bite out of them lost control of a technique, causing terrible damage and losing his rank and privileges, but such things happen, and so no one wondered.
Then a woman who had met with Kaena a few months prior snapped and killed someone they should not have killed. Then some began to wonder.
It still took them two more years to link the events together. In that time, six lesser nobles of the second ring went mad or crippled their own cultivation, two merchants of the first ring found that their Qi signature had been altered in a way to damage their Halos, and one Lieutenant General suddenly had a collapse of their cultivation during a defense of the Wall.
The question came up, afterwards.
How did they do it? How did a peach possibly become so toxic as to become a threat to cultivators more than a dozen steps above them? The Lieutenant General had been in the Warrior realm, even if he was weaker than most, and a Halo is supposed to be inviolable.
There were many voices that said that they should just be killed. Culled from the population, that their toxicity wouldn’t infect the next batch.
And then… a joke. An insult and a disposal method, wrapped up in one. The bull-man. The beastkin Researcher, pet project of a Grandmaster, one who has been in his role a long time. One whose failure would never be made public, but which would wound his master’s reputation ever-so-gently. A complex move in the great game, but not one so damning that any fingers could be pointed.
A foolproof strategy. A ruined product, its execution only delayed and a potential solution found; a black mark on an embarrassment to the upper echelons of the Empire, and a move against an old player. Guaranteed to grant at least someone what they wanted.
Except for one thing.
Kindness.
Not a good kindness, perhaps. Kaena knew that then, and knows it now. An opportunistic kindness, born of earnestness and hatred alike.
But kindness enough to look like freedom. Hatred enough to provide soil for the growth of a broken thing.
And now, all these many years later, the move has been turned on its head. Now, the broken thing which looks more perfect than ever and has only grown in the fertile soil to which it was tossed is once again in the halls of the Garden.
Kaena does not smile. To smile would be improper. As always in the Garden, one’s performance must be perfect.
They pick up the kettle and pour out a cup for the Gardener sitting across from them. Afterwards, moving slowly and efficiently, they pour one out for themselves, and set the kettle back down, waiting demurely for the Gardener to take the first sip.
Their Halo illuminates the room, the light of the candles burning peach-white and reflecting off its brilliance. It spins, and if Kaena looks closely enough, they can see that it only looks flat from afar- close up. Up close, it glows with a thousand-thousand-thousand runes all floating in sequence. If one looks even closer, they might see what strange flesh the runes have been carved from and into.
The person beneath it doesn’t really matter. They are one face among many. They might have once demanded Kaena’s death- or they might have acted on their side. No handler is ever expected to interact with any Peach more than is strictly required, and always, the Halo monitors it and updates what must be done next. The Garden and its Gardeners, grown into each other like two branches of the same sick tree.
“You have done well.”
Kaena doesn’t speak. It isn’t their turn to speak.
“It is unlikely that you are fully repaired. It is thus in everyone’s best interests to find a way for us to properly ascertain your state. It is not much, but we hope that this gift shows our sincerity in receiving you back into the fold.”
A test, then. Framed as a gift. Because how else would they frame it.
Now it is Kaena’s turn to speak.
“This one thanks you for the privilege, honored Gardener.”
They do nothing so crass and uncouth as nod. A Gardener’s approval, or lack thereof, is a thing of subtle motions, stretched over time.
“A recent enemy has been made convert. Given your particular record, it has been decided that you might be best suited to to move things forward, however they end.”
“Has this chosen being a name?”
Out of turn- but only just barely. Only just enough that it may be excused. Selling the illusion that they have been gone from the fold long enough to lose perfect reactions- but not so far gone that they don’t recognize the imperfection. That they don’t tilt their head ever so slightly, showing contrite shame at the misstep.
“The target’s name is Qu Haolan. It may be a useful tool in these ever-so-slightly chaotic times. If you are healed, at your cultivation level, it should be no true trial to impress upon it the advantages of the Empire, and what we can provide.”
Hmm. High-Realm, then. Upper Warrior? Emperor?
Something capable of killing them.
Kaena dies, Taurus and by osmosis Errath are shamed, and all is right for the Garden. Kaena succeeds, and the Garden has secured a new high-realm asset for the Empire and has found someone capable of “fixing” a defective product, and all is right for the Garden.
Kaena does not smile. This is not a place for smiling.
“Of course, honored Gardener. This one is honored to serve the Garden as its Peach once more.”
The Snake returns once more to the Garden.
Right alongside the two other Snakes that they brought home with them.
The twins are free now. They could talk. They could unveil what Kaena did, at which point Kaena would be reprimanded- and rewarded for their initiative and strength.
Or… they could be Snakes. Like Kaena.
Kaena wonders how a flock of Snakes might look. They remember the sheep, and wonder how those soft and gentle things might seem with fangs, dripping venom.
And then, and only then, do they take a drink of their tea.
So many possibilities. So little time.
Ah well.
The more the merrier.