Member
Kangutso
Lord Zee
Dinh AaronMk
Timemaster
Lunamaria Hawke
Taeryn
Nallore
Sigma
ButtsnBallsThe Meaning of Love
Wenbo knew not quite how long he had walked. The meadows and fields had sort of floated by, much like the lazy clouds above, until his aching feet brought him to the familiar hilltop. An itch gnawed at his cheek and he raised a pair of fingers to sate it. As he pulled away, he noticed a moist, chilling sensation on them - he was apparently in tears. With a snort and a few blinks, he rubbed the moisture out of his eyes. Covering one of them in a facepalming manner, his other, orange-ringed eye fell on a small dent in the flower patches. He sighed to himself and sat himself down in the dent, plucking for himself a small straw to chew on. He surveyed the landscape:
As far as his eyes could see, flowers and grasses of a thousand different shades and colours bloomed and thrived, reflecting the light of heaven in the form of a rainbow of beauty and life. Insects buzzed sweetly from petal to petal and had sweet little debates about the mathematical perfection of hexagonal structures in beeswax. The crops throughout the valleys he could see all danced with the breeze in sweet idyll. Even the trees, in spite of their wooden appearance, seemed to enjoy themselves.
Perhaps he truly was insane. How could he consider leaving a place like this? All for… For something they always had had. He rested his forehead in his palm and groaned quietly. He had made such a fool out of himself in front of everyone - in front of K’nell!
How could he face them now?
His eyes ran down the side of the hill and fell upon his house. From his angle, he could just barely see the far edge of the shrine wall.
It wouldn’t be easy. One does not simply decline a divine request - especially not from his mother’s creator. He would need a reason; a single ‘no’ would be much too impolite.
Chagatai had the right idea: The truth prevails, always.
He put his palms on the ground to push himself up, but stopped. Could he truly do this? Denying the great Shengshi His wish? What would happen to him if he did? What would happen to his family? His future? His people’s future?
He intertwined his fingers together in his lap and closed his eyes with a sigh. They had everything here - safety, food, family. Here, on their ancestral land of Tendlepog, they had a life…
Except…
His eyes gazed skyward. He could not help but wonder if there existed others creatures out there, beyond the cliffs and the endless blue sea, or if that perhaps was the reason they had been summoned.
Did the Dreamers even look up at the same sky as the rest of the world did? If so, did it look the same all over the world?
Wenbo had subconsciously laid himself down in the grass, his eyes gazing unmovingly at the heavens above. Was there grass elsewhere in the world? Did the land feel the same to his feet on as it did here?
He took out the walnut-sized stalkplum from the fold in his robe. Did they grow elsewhere, too, outside of Tendlepog?
As his mind fell deeper and deeper into the well of though, his eyelids grew heavy and before long, Wenbo had fallen asleep.
“Hey... Wenbo?”
Wenbo’s eyes snapped open and he sat up much like the swing of a catapult arm. He took a few startled breaths and scanned the surroundings. The familiar hills had been cast in the crimson of sunset, and tall trees cast even greater shade across the drowsy plains. However, something was off.
Very off.
Wenbo lifted his hands off the grass. They were wrinkled and dripping, as if he had kept them underwater for hours. He then noticed that he was indeed sitting up to his hips in deep, black water. He scurried to his feet, but found himself unable to move them. With frustrated groans, he rolled over and began to claw his way towards higher ground, but the further he climbed, the more clearly he saw what held him back: A thousand hands gripped his ankles tightly. The air reeked sharply of rot and salt, and as his struggles waned, his groans were deafened by thundering waves breaking upon approaching cliffs.
Wenbo dared look over his shoulder as the horizon cast him over the moving mountains, past the endless dunes of sand, and onto the giant cliffs above the sea. He was suddenly completely dry - much too dry, in fact. His skin began to shrivel and blister before his eyes, the wounds spurting forth squirts of wet sand. Soon enough, his limbs turned from muscle and bone to water and sand, and before him spawned an enormous, snake-like beast of pure gold. Wenbo swallowed, his new watery form making that particularly hard, and the beast gave him a bow. Wenbo bowed back.
“Wenbo!”
Wenbo turned around. He saw his house before the rising dawn, red, white and yellow rays bathing the humble shack in enough light to nearly set it aflame. Wenbo reached out to push aside the curtain in the doorway, and the house approached and obliged. As he stepped inside, the house expanded immensely, until Wenbo was the size of a flea in comparison. All the furniture disappeared. All that remained inside was himself - alone. Then he became just tall enough to reach a basket that was conveniently placed on top of the nearby moving mountain. Wenbo opened the basket and peaked inside to find that it contained his entire family, all smiling lovingly at him.
Wenbo felt a pang in his chest and tears formed in the corners of his eyes. A single tear dropped into the basket and the scenery changed again, this time to a completely circular pond, next to which sat a two-horned snake and a white skin ball with a creepy smile drawn on it in charcoal. Wenbo found himself standing next to the snake and the ball and gave them each a curious look. The ball gave him a wink. “Do you?” it asked.
“Do I what?”
“A THOUSAND FAMILIES!” the snake suddenly screamed at the top of its little lungs, nearly sending Wenbo into orbit. He did come pretty close, though, and as Wenbo drifted there above the clouds, he felt suddenly a soft, icky sensation eel its way across his cheek. Before him, a cloud metamorphosed into an eye, which then split into two eyes and flew above Wenbo to stare down at him.
“Are you even listening?” the eyes asked.
Wenbo frowned. “Am I--”
SMACK!
Wenbo snapped his eyes open yet again, only this time his hands were considerably drier while not quite having reached the consistency of quoll jerky. His head rubbernecked about in several directions, taking multiple tries before noticing the frown above him.
“Oh. Sorry, I fell asleep,” Wenbo said with a weak smile.
“I could tell,” Ai replied with a sigh. She patted the grass and flowers next to her husband and sat herself down beside him, staring forward at the horizon. Wenbo snorted with a wrinkle of the nose and twiddled his thumbs together.
“So…” he eventually said. “How was the feast?”
“It was great. We missed you a great deal,” Ai replied monotonously. Wenbo swallowed.
“Th-that’s good to hear. I’m sorry I didn’t come. I--”
“Had to go sulk?”
“I was going to say ‘think’, dear.”
Ai scoffed. “Like you thought your speech through?”
Wenbo deflated. “Ai, could you please avoid bringing that up--”
Ai held up a finger and Wenbo quieted down instantly. “No. No, I don’t think I will. What happened, Wenbo? You presented it so well to us. What changed? Crowds have never been a problem for you before. Was it God’s presence?”
Wenbo sucked in a breath and looked sideways. Ai nodded. “Alright. So now that you’re name’s sullied and you have been portrayed as a selfish fool, what will you do?”
“I’m not selfish!”
“Well, you sure sounded that way!” Ai gestured in the direction she had come from. “Everyone there thinks that the only reason you want to leave is to go on some childish, reckless adventure - and that those who go along will forever be shut off from their homes, they families, their futures.”
“Ai, you--...” Wenbo pulled some desperate breaths. “You believe me, right? You believe me when I say I want to leave not just for the wonders, but for the good of our family - our people?”
Ai looked away. Wenbo took her hand. “Ai, please.”
“We already have it well here… What could there possibly be outside that we don’t have here?”
“Ai, can’t you feel it? Tendlepog is safe and, and beautiful, but… We’re not free here.”
Ai frowned. “What do you mean? Of course, we are.”
Wenbo shook his head. “I should rephrase that - we are free here, but not free to go anywhere but here.” Ai’s frown faded a little and Wenbo gestured to the distant, dark mountains. “Look, beyond those lazily drifting tops, there is nothing but endless desert - it’s impossible to pass through without the Warden’s consent, and he only answers to God.” He then gestured to the opposite direction. “Then there’s the Forbidden Forest, which we are not allowed to enter. We have ourselves a space in between.”
“Our space is massive, Wenbo! You have never even seen the other side of the continent!”
Wenbo nodded. “You’re right. I haven’t, and if I explored my whole life, I certainly wouldn’t be able to see it all… But what about my children, and their children, and their children’s children. How many generations will pass before all of Tendlepog is explored?”
Ai took his hands in her own. “All too many, Wenbo - you’re thinking about hundreds, if not thousands of years from now! Are you really so sick of this land that you want to go out into a spiteful, unloving wilderness we only know from stories? Mom and mother probably even altered those stories to make them seem less gruesome!”
Wenbo looked to be digging desperately for a proper retort, but the look in Ai’s tired eyes shut him up. He hung his head forward and caressed his wife’s hand absent-mindedly. Ai, too, let out an exhausted sigh and rested her head on his shoulder. For a long while, they sat in silence, disturbed only by beautiful birdsong, which Wenbo was a bit sad to realise was quite an intense lover’s quarrel.
As the seconds turned into minutes, and the sunset grew ever dimmer, Wenbo asked, “Do you remember the first time we came here?”
Ai let out a single snore and smacked her lips a little. “Sorry, I must’ve dozed off. Did you say anything?”
Wenbo gave her a smile and planted a soft peck on the top of her head. “I asked if you remember the first time we came here?”
Ai let out a soft “oh” and made herself comfortable on his shoulder once more. “I do - quite clearly, as a matter of fact. I was sixteen and had only just come back from our trip to the clay pits. You asked me to meet you here, and when I came, you presented me with this necklace.” She patted a bluestone-tipped necklace around her neck, strung with a length of woolen thread. She then looked up and kissed him on the cheek. “Then you asked me to marry you.”
Wenbo giggled triumphantly to himself. “You have no idea how nervous I was. I had climbed mountain walls, snuck into the Forbidden Forest, confronted mother - but none of it had ever made me as scared or nervous as that moment did.” He hooked an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. “But I owe that moment everything - my children, my house, my fields… All exist because you were there.”
Ai blinked and giggled. “Is flattery your new strategy, great Thinker?”
“No, I’m serious, Ai - without you, I… I would be entirely different; my life would be entirely different.”
Ai snickered. “Yeah, you would’ve ended up with Bayarmaa instead.”
Wenbo rolled his eyes playfully. “I would’ve, yes, but didn’t - ‘cause she was much too outclassed by--” He poked her nose and pecked her on the cheek. “You.”
Once more, Ai giggled, and despite her ageing appearance, Wenbo only saw the smile of the beauty from the decades past. She collected herself again. “Alright, out with it. What’re you trying to get at? Are you trying to flatter me into going off on that wacky adventure with you? Because my mind is set in that regard.”
Wenbo nodded slowly. “I know… And that’s what hurts the most about the whole thing, really.”
Ai’s smile faded a little and her brows furrowed together. “Heh. What do you mean by that?”
Wenbo sucked in a slow breath. “Life here on Tendlepog really only has any value to me because of you and my family… Chagatai… Li… Temüjin… Bayarmaa… The paradise we are surrounded by is beautiful, idyllic.” He then shook his head slowly. “However, the shock of leaving that behind cannot even begin to compare to that of who I would be leaving.”
Ai narrowed her eyes and pulled away from Wenbo’s shoulder. “You’re… You’re going all the same, aren’t you?”
Wenbo didn’t look back at her, but kept his eyes looking forward at nothing in particular. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m going.”
Ai’s face drained of what little colour it had and her black eyes began to glisten with moisture despite the evening darkness. She pulled her knees to her torso and wrapped her arms around them. “You’ve always been like this.”
Wenbo nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Ai, I--”
“No! No, you’ve always been like this! You’ve always gone out on crazy, stupid adventures with your brother, or with our son, or even on your own - and every time, you’ve come home either bloody or broken or gods know what else!” Ai stood up and Wenbo reached out to her.
“Ai, I--”
“But you’ve always come home!” Ai sobbed loudly and Wenbo pulled back. His wife dragged the tears out of her eyes with the back of her sleeve and grit her teeth together. “Every single time, you’ve come home to me - but this time, that’s not possible!” She kept rubbing her eyes as if drying up a deluge. “How can you do this to me, Wen-Wen? Your own wife?”
Wenbo grit his own teeth and stood up. “Ai, it’s because I need to see the world! It’s like God said, it, it’s in my blood!”
“No, Wenbo! You belong here - with me.” Ai shuffled over and embraced the frowning Wenbo. “With all of us…”
Wenbo sighed and embraced her back. “Ai, don’t-... Don’t make this harder than it alread--”
“I won’t let you - what part of that don’t you understand?!” She glared tearfully into his eyes.
“I don’t care! If you’re not coming with me, then, then--!”
Ai’s glare immediately became a shocked gape. She clung tighter to the folds of Wenbo’s robe. “Then what? Then what?!”
Wenbo himself was now desperately holding back tears, and utterly failing. He took Ai’s hands by the wrists and calmly pulled them away from his robe, Ai staring in disbelief all the while. He shot a look down the hillside where the Garden shone a bleak light onto the roof of his cabin. He looked back at Ai, who shook her head at him.
“Don’t… Please don’t,” she begged.
Wenbo let go of her wrists and set off into a sprint down the hill. As he ran, he heard Ai screaming his name after him, tears clogging up her throat on multiple occasions. He could not let that stop him now - he would see the world beyond; he would see all of it; he would--
He slipped on the dew-moistened grass and crashed into the mud. Behind him, he heard approaching footsteps. He rushed back to his feet and kept running. A pain stung him. His leg - it bled. He cursed under his breath, but nonetheless persevered towards the wall of shrines.
“Wenbo!” he heard from behind. It stung worse than the pain, but he kept up his accelerated limp. He could see it clearly now - the shrine to Shengshi. Once he reached it and said his prayer, it would be done. He would be in His hands and due for transport upon His arrival. He knelt down beside the shrine and folded his hands.
“O blessed Sheng--”
Ai tackled him to the ground. Wenbo struggled, but his wife planted a well-placed smack on his cheek that very nearly knocked him out cold. As he weakly shook his head to recover, Ai grabbed him by the folds of his robe and lifted him up a little, her alabaster hair hanging down over his face.
“Are you insane?!” she bellowed straight at his face. Wenbo didn’t answer. Ai adjusted her position a little to regain balance and accidentally planted her knee on Wenbo’s wound, inciting a sharp groan. The rage in Ai’s face subsided and she looked down at the bloody bruise. She then pressed her lips together and sniffed. “Look at you… Can’t even run fifty feet without getting yourself hurt.” Ai shot the shrine to Shengshi a look and then shot one at Wenbo as well.
“Don’t you even dare to move,” she snapped. Then she stood up and walked inside their shack. Wenbo laid in the moist grass, still recovering from the blow. He snorted and realised he was tasting blood. The outside world truly had nothing on Ai when it came to danger.
She came out the house again, carrying a small pot of salves and a roll of woolen bandages. As she bandaged Wenbo’s leg, the ageing dreamer let out a relieved sigh. “... I wouldn’t even last a day out there, would I?”
“Doubt it,” Ai teased. She tied the bandage together tightly and poked at it until Wenbo groaned for her to stop. She gave him a weak, slightly sadistic smile and looked back at the shrine. “You’re really that set on going, huh?” she said somberly.
Wenbo sat himself up and sighed. “Yeah… Sorry, Ai, but you can’t stop me.”
She shook her head. “That snapping stubbornness of yours is going to be the death of you, I swear…” She sucked in a breath and paused for a long time, so long that Wenbo thought she had started crying again. However, eventually, she let out a single word: “Fine.”
Wenbo frowned. “Fine what?”
“Fine. I’ll go with you.”
Wenbo furrowed his brow. “Ai, are you serious?”
“When am I not?” she retorted. Wenbo took her hand in his own.
“You know as well as I do what you will be leaving behind - what’s at stake.”
“Yes, I know that perfectly well.”
Wenbo glared at her. “You’ve spent all evening scolding me for my choice to leave, and now you suddenly change your mind? What, after I get a little bruised--ow!”
Ai poked him on the wound again and Wenbo shut himself up. “Oh, don’t think for a second that I’m taking any of that back. I am furious, livid that you’re going through with this. Still…” She pursed her lips. “... What would my life be without you?”
Wenbo drew a quivering breath. “I…”
“No, I won’t give you a say in this, either. If you’re so snapping determined to leave me behind, then I might as well come with you. I am your wife; if I don’t support you in this, who will?”
Wenbo looked away sheepishly. “That’s a little cold.”
“Well, boo-hoo, it’s the truth,” Ai replied snarkily. “Now, tell Shengshi you accept.”
Wenbo nodded with a wry frown. “He prefers ‘His Lordship’, actually.” Ai rolled her eyes.
“I’m sure he does.”
Wenbo made a face and crawled over to the nearby shrine. He cleaned himself up the best he could, shuffled his knees into a proper stance with some wincing due to the cut, and bent his head.
“Great Lord Shengshi… This servant Wenbo has made a decision on His Lordship’s magnificent proposal.”
For a moment, there was no response. Ai peeked over his shoulder at the shrine. “Consider being a little more sincere. You’re being unnecessarily humble.”
Wenbo waved for her to quiet down. “Trust me, He prefers it that way.”
As soon as he finished, a warmth embraced the two, characterised with a dense humidity and a faint scent of chlorophyll. A liquid sound trickled in the background, along with a few plucks on what they could only guess was the string of a harp.
“... Aaah… Wenbo. After all these weeks, I was beginning to think you were not going to call me at all.” The deep, oily voice of the snake felt as though it came from every direction simultaneously. Ai had assumed a personality completely opposite of the one before - now, she appeared to be cowering behind Wenbo. The voice took note.
“This must be your wife - oh, I am so glad Xiaoli introduced to you all my little marriage experiment. Tell me, dear, what is your name?”
Ai looked at the shrine with a frozen expression. The clay bowl of river water looked back with oppressive interest. She felt fear clog up the words in her throat, another thing the voice took note of, remarked with a sigh.
“See, Wenbo, this is what I told you about before - most mortals simply freeze up when they are first exposed to a divine voice. It is so inconvenient…”
“Ai, Your Lordship,” she finally managed. “I’m Ai.”
There came a monotonous hum. “Try again.”
“Wha…?”
“Like I did,” Wenbo whispered loudly. “Like mother taught us.”
Ai mouthed a ‘really’, to which the voice responded. “Really.” She swallowed and once again began to unclog her throat. “Th-this servant is named Ai, Y-your Lordship,” she eventually said.
There came an audible nod. “Very good, very good. Oh, you two certainly make a lovely couple. I simply cannot wait to see the little children, as well! I have already found you a perfect spot, far to the south. It is out of the worst heat and very much safe from all manners of attacks. It will simply be perfect for you.”
Wenbo gave Ai a sheepish look. There came another hum, slightly disappointed in nature. “I sense that you are about to suggest some alterations to my proposal.”
Wenbo took a breath, failed to formulate a sentence, then took another. “Your Lordship - this servant failed to convince the others of the grandeur of His Lordship’s proposal. If this one may be so frank, many believe the gifts offered do not outweigh the dangers of the outside world. Much of what His Lordship promised, the Dreamers are already accustomed to.”
The voice was silent. Wenbo continued. “No dreamer has known a day of starvation in their lives so far; no dreamer thirsts for neither water nor wine; and no dreamer is short on wealth. Tendlepog is, to most, a paradise.”
There came a quiet hiss and an invisible, oppressive glare bore down on the two. Still, there was no rage in the voice when it spoke, “I see… I will be honest, I had not expected the living standards there to be so… Well, perfect. Then again, my dearest brother K’nell is a crafty fellow.” The voice hummed for so long it began to sound like purring. Wenbo and Ai exchanged terrified looks. Then the hums stopped.
“Oh, very well,” the snake said eventually. “I will grant any who come with me another blessing. In addition to everything mentioned before (the wealth, the crops and all that), I will bestow upon you one more favour.”
Ai and Wenbo looked at the incorporeal eyes expectantly. The voice then went, “... What is it that you are missing?”
Wenbo looked to Ai, who nodded reassuringly back. “Well,” he said, “when we suggested leaving, God came to us and warned us that it is possible that, if we leave, we may never return. In a sense, we are, well, trapped here.”
“Being trapped in paradise cannot be so bad?” the voice suggested a little sarcastically.
“No, no - it isn’t - but we’re still trapped,” Wenbo insisted. “Sure, we can walk Tendlepog for eternity and never explore or populate it fully, but we can never leave and see the wonders of the outside world - and if we do, we may never return to see our loved ones.”
The snake hummed in understanding. “So it is freedom you want?”
Wenbo nodded. “We want to be able to go wherever we want, whenever we want. We want to explore, see the world, and live as inhabitants of this universe, not as people of a continent.”
“I see… Would flight satisfy your needs?”
Wenbo looked at Ai, who shook her head. “Your Lordship is most generous; however, flight alone may only scratch part of the itch.”
The snake hummed inquisitively. “Go on.”
“His Lordship sees the bonds we tie with our families and friends. We would like to travel the world without sacrificing those bonds. All Dreamers should travel as one great flock, migrating from land to land as one great family - exploring in the day and telling stories around a fire at night.”
The snake hissed pensively. “I see… So any solution that lets all Dreamers travel freely as one across great distances would be satisfactory?”
“Travel comfortably,” Ai added. The snake clicked his tongue in a surly manner.
“Alright, be orderly, please. Do not interject your demands so rashly. Very well, though - travel comfortably, you shall. Anything else you would like this solution to incorporate?”
“If His Lordship could let us travel the land as well as the sea using this solution, these servants would be incredibly grateful,” Wenbo added.
“Gratitude will be expected for certain,” the snake muttered. “I take it you would prefer sustenance, shelter, water and safety to be included as well?”
“Does His Lordship really mean that?” Ai asked.
“Of course, I mean it,” Shengshi retorted. “I hope you are not assuming I am only doing this for myself.”
They both waved their hands. “Of course not, Your Lordship!” Wenbo and Ai assured in unison.
“Good,” the voice hissed. “I suppose I now have to remove the clause regarding permanent settlement, as well…” Shengshi muttered quietly to himself. “No matter. I shall change it to this: In return for my gift, your settlement shall forever be loyal to me. Not a day shall pass without prayer, and once every three moons, you shall sacrifice to me a small portion of your harvest. Do this, and the gift, in addition to all aforementioned blessings, are yours. Tell your people of these new terms and see if they are more inclined to come.”
Wenbo and Ai nodded slowly. “Of course, Your Lordship,” Wenbo said. “But… What if they still won’t listen?”
Shengshi sighed. “Then I will make due with those that do. As long as I have two specimen of separate genders, it will be enough. However, a more natural migration is preferred - for both you and me.”
Ai placed a hand on her abdomen and shook her head at Wenbo. “We shall do our best to at least bring along our own family, then, Your Lordship,” Wenbo promised.
“That is good. Make certain it is not by force, though - I reckon my brother already has shared his thoughts on that subject.”
“Of course, Your Lordship,” Wenbo assured.
“Well, then - best of luck… My grandchildren.” They could nearly feel a cosmic blink as the voice disappeared. Wenbo looked at Ai, who was still in recovery behind his back.
“Hey, you alright?”
Ai blinked a few times and gave him a weak frown. “Y-yeah… Wow, I understand now why you were so enthusiastic after the first time he had talked to you. His presence is so… Different from God’s.”
“Yeah,” Wenbo agreed. “Yeah, it really is.”
Ai put her tired head on his shoulder. “So… What now? Are we gathering everyone again?”
Wenbo shook his head. “No, I’ll go to each of our siblings one by one… But we’ll start here at home.”
Ai looked concerned. “Do you think Ren will come along?”
“... I don’t know,” Wenbo admitted.
For a while, the two remained there in front of the shrines, planning what to do before the sky would rip asunder.
