“I AM GLAD YOU COULD ALL MAKE IT ON THIS WONDERFUL DAY,” the king boomed.
The king was out of his chair holding what looked to be a spear in the air.
The audience rose to their feet at the sight of their king letting out roars of delight at the starting of the ceremony.
Min Li was not quite sure where the spear came from. She had never seen it before. She was sure that it was not part of the king’s usual routine at the power ceremony. The spear wasn’t sharp enough to really do much damage without the additional touch of power from the king. It’s only selling point was that it had quite a big blue gemstone at its head which shone bright whenever light would touch it. But the more props the better, everybody was lapping up seeing the show of power from their king.
“TODAY WE ARE HERE TO CELEBRATE OUR POWER, OUR MIGHT IN THE WATER. WE ARE HERE TO CELEBRATE THE POWERS GIVEN TO THE NEXT GENERATION. WE ARE HERE TO CELEBRATE XILIN.”
With that the crowd broke out into another roar, yelling in tandem, “XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILILN. XILIN. XILIN.”
The nobles were screaming, the fifteen-year-old outside were shouting and the queen was chanting along. Even Min Li herself, without much conscious thought, was executing a small dance side to side with her hips in celebration of the event.
If Min Li was to remember herself for a second and not get caught up in the madness, the chanting of people who proclaimed to be elegant in all matters, did seem quite ludicrous. It was as if they were worshipping something that wasn’t made to be worshipped. Maybe reading the books in the library had stuck with her a bit; there was some bits and bobs about not exalting your powers. Contrary to the thoughts of her very inner being, Min Li couldn’t stop herself from being taken by the festivities and thus carried on swaying side to side.
The king continued on when all his subjects had calmed down at the lowering of the spear in his fist.
“IT IS THE THOUGHT THAT THE GROUND WAS SPLIT INTO THREE. THE THREE KINGDOMS AND THE THREE POWERS TO GOVERN OVER THE KINGDOMS. FIRE, AIR AND WATER. WITHOUT ONE, THERE WOULD BE NO NEED FOR THE OTHER TWO. WITHOUT TWO, THERE WOULD BE TOTAL CHAOS IN THE ONE. EACH AS IMPORTANT AS THE OTHER. AND US, THE XILINS, GIVEN THE WATER AS OUR FATE.”
Now this was proper programming. These words were awfully familiar to Min Li when about half a decade ago she too was enthusiastic and pumped up about receiving her due power ad being able to be a proud Xilin. She was sure that if the king was completely left up to his own devices, he would have skipped the part about fire and would have just focused on water, for the sake of the atmosphere in the hall.
It didn’t matter anyway. The nobles and teenagers didn’t seem phased at the mention of Yilin. They were too enthralled with the process as a whole, as if the nobles hadn’t been at the power ceremony every year since they were born.
“BEFORE WE BLESS THE NEXT GENERATION,” the king pointed towards the kids over at the back and beyond with his spear, “LET US LEADERS OF XILIN LIFT UP OUR A HAND TO SHOW THE POWER OF THE WATER WHICH WE WIELD TO THE NEXT GENERATION.”
This was the part that made Min Li know from the time of her fifteenth power ceremony that she wasn’t going to be able to attend future power ceremonies with peace in her heart. It was the part that stopped her from coming to the ceremony all these years. It was the part that made her feel as faint and lightheaded as she was feeling now.
All eyes turned to her.
Beady eyes. Big eyes. Slitted eyes. Round eyes. Far apart eyes. Close together eyes. Pretty eyes. Not so pretty eyes. Not so pretty eyes that annoyed her. Pretty eyes that annoyed her all the more, honourable mention Min Li had given to Jess her retired bully.
No matter whose eyes, at the point, all the eyes made her uncomfortable.
Even if some didn’t know that now she was a servant, what everyone knew for sure was that Min Li didn’t possess a power.
She was sure that even Betti the head maid had probably enjoyed some of that gossip when it had first arrived at the door of each house in Xilin kingdom all those years ago.
Min Li could understand why so many people had spoken about it if she was going to pretend to be rational for a second. Such was unheard of.
A foster princess of Xilin with no power of water, pathetic.
A foster princess of Xilin with absolutely no power at all to be found, weird.
A princess of Xilin, no powers, no background, no validation of identity. A few people would faint, sounded like some sort of demon if they were asked.
She looked around searching for anyone that could help her not feel so self-conscious and embarrassed.
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To Min Li’s surprise, behind the façade of the usually calm and calculated prince, his eyes, when their eyes met, didn’t seem so assured and peaceful.
There was a bit of fearful reproach in them. As if he was going to be sent to a cave to go and fight a fire breathing dragon because he was a prince. As if he had been given the arduous task by his father to go and console his dramatic mother. Just as he had looked some weeks back when he was insisting on being cowardly and would ribbit everytime he saw Min Li and run away.
Fenhua’s eyes were reflecting exactly what Min Li was feeling.
But even then, staring into Fenhua’s deep eyes, Min Li found a sense of calm in his storm. Whether that peace was due to just his presence or whether he was truly calm as his exterior apart his eyes were saying, Min Li didn’t know.
But calm she felt, and so she kept on staring. Looking into his eyes as if he was sure they would give her the answer to life.
Seeing the fear within Min Li’s eyes, at once the crown prince took hold of the knee of Min Li under the table.
How improper. Min Li looked around to see if she had gone mad and needed to be pinched out of it or if anyone else was witnessing what she was.
A few eyes of the beady sort, and one set of the pretty though annoying sort appeared to have witnessed the thigh holding from the prince.
Out of respect, the eyes of the beady sort looked away, but the latter set of eyes kept on staring with a huff and a roll of the eyes.
The crown prince was positively ruining his image of purity that he had carefully crafted, but the funny thing was Min Li didn’t quite mind.
Min Li was trying to decide whether to remove the crown prince’s hand from her knee which told Min Li that Fenhua had succeeded in distracting her since her mind was off the anxiety she was feeling.
She had never before thought that her knee was one of her most attractive features. Now that she was pondering on it, she could tell why the crown prince would have chosen her knee. It was a good knee. A solid knee. A never before broken knee. An easily bent knee. The shape was as well rounded as a courtesan’s rump. The lines of the left knee that his hand was currently upon were smoothly curved promising of a silky journey if caressed.
Quite fetching if given the chance of a second thought. But she didn’t want to be seen as too eager of a beaver, and a complete promiscuous harlot so maybe she would have to deprive the crown prince of the touch of her knee.
Before Min Li came to a decision whether to remove Fenhua’s hand or not, the king raised his spear to the sky, well the roof, although sky was probably what he was intending for it to look like.
Out of his spear, though Min Li was sure it was an illusion and it was really all the king’s hand doing the work, came what was a bolt of clear blue water.
The water looked charged. Min Li wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, but the water looked as if it wasn’t just simple water. It looked as if there was power behind it, which there was.
Min Li was never quite sure how Xilin, Nilin and Yilin did it. The substance that they created seemed to cater to their every whim.
This water the king had so conjured wasn’t spiling on the floor. It wasn’t going anywhere at all. It simply was there and then when he didn’t want it there, it wasn’t there.
Min Li had often wondered whether that was her problem and why she couldn’t access powers. She simply just didn’t know how a substance could defy simple physics. Whilst everyone else, including five-year-olds and people who acted a little behind of their formal education, acted like normal humans, Min Li was stumped by the most basic of things. Like a neanderthal, she just could never understand the simplicities of life. Instead of getting on with it like everybody else and letting out her own bolt, she would um and ah, and hold her tongue out of her mouth like she wasn’t all there.
All the nobles quickly copied the example of the king, but their own stretch to the sky was without the helpful prop of a spear and therefore looked a lot less impactful.
The custom was that everybody that could had to join in had to add their bolt to the sky before they did their final chant. So, after a minute or so the nobles started looking around to see who hadn’t joined, why the joined centre of all the bolts touching wasn’t bright enough so they could start their chanting.
The culprit in this case was the crown prince. Which is why, instead of making a big fuss, everyone just looked at the nails of their other hand waiting for the prince to join.
“Do it too,” the crown prince whispered, now awfully close to Min Li’s ear.
If Min Li didn’t know better of the unadulterated crown prince, she would have thought that her having let him caress her knee, had made him rather excited and presumptuous with how close he was now.
Again, the crown prince leaned in. Now he was so close that Min Li nearly let out a titter at the feel of his breath on her ready and welcoming ear.
“Raise your hand,” the crown prince chimed again.
Still not quite sure what he was asking her to do, Min Li decided to submit to instruction and Fenhua’s command. She put her right hand in the air reluctantly wondering what the point was of the pretence when she couldn’t create her own bolt. She wondered whether maybe the crown prince just wanted to be in with the chance to touch her other knee after she removed the obstruction.
The crown prince put his left hand in the air, which was against custom, although Fenhua being the crown prince knew this, he didn’t seem to care.
Min Li nudged him, but he paid no attention to her and concentrated on his own bolt.
Suddenly a bolt of the same water substance also shot out Min Li’s own hand. Min Li didn’t know how it had occurred and so was again umming and ahing and holding her tongue her tongue out of her mouth like she wasn’t all there. She turned her hand over in surprise and didn’t see a change in the direction of the bolt. Min Li stopped dwelling on her own greatness right then and there knowing that the same thing had happened as last time.
Fenhua broke boundaries and rules for her anytime he was given an opportunity.
Last time he had tossed water on Little Miss Annoying who Min Li had been fighting like she was a little flimsy ragdoll when they had established that no powers were to be used. And here he was now abandoning a sacred tradition and purposefully helping Min Li feel a part of the community.
“XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. WATER. WATER. WATER. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN. XILIN.” Everyone chanted including Min Li at the King raising the useless shiny bejewelled spear at the sky.
Min Li smiled as she chanted along, she felt oddly satisfied even though she hadn’t done anything herself. The crown prince also looked like the cat that got the cream and was now licking the remnants of cream off his paws. Min Li hmphed, people are weird these days, I can’t believe touching my knee could make a prince this happy.