Alexandertheg8
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2010
- Messages
- 74
Epicness in its truest form
The Celestial Bureaucracy
- Thread starter Tomorrow's Dawn
- Start date
heitorcccp
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2010
- Messages
- 96
Can't get words to describe. Epic, very good, a truly combination of excellent playing with excellent text. Can't wait for Season II!
Yoshiegg737
Jungo Jungo
Oh, just >4 More Months to go 
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
Why is it always the best things which have a massive wait 
This and I&B 2
This and I&B 2
mayor
Heart & Mind
Dawn, I just finished this "season" (yeah, I didn't follow it earlier
)
anyway, It was truly.... well I don't have any words for it
You even managed to get me a bit choked up when Mohammed, Choi and Murati visited Shao's mother. truly astonishing
)anyway, It was truly.... well I don't have any words for it
You even managed to get me a bit choked up when Mohammed, Choi and Murati visited Shao's mother. truly astonishing
Ken Rahaim
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2011
- Messages
- 6
I've played Civilization since version 1. I skipped version 2 and played version 3 regularly and just recently upgraded to version 4.
Compared to a lot of the folks on these forums, I'm only a mediocre, casual player. In fact, I'm such a casual player that I had no idea forums like this even existed for Civilization. I only stumbled upon Civfanatics while trying to trouble-shoot why I couldn't patch Civ 4 on my Mac. I've since patched my copy of Civ and I've learned a whole lot more lurking and browsing through these forums.
Frankly, I'm amazed at the depth of this community and the depths of the game that this community has revealed to me.
Having said all that, nothing prepared me for the Stories and Tales section of the forums. I've read through several of the stories and enjoyed the creativity, imagination and effort put into them. The stories have added a whole new dimension to enjoying Civilization.
That all said, having just finished the first season of "The Celestial Bureaucracy" I am floored by the pure value in entertainment I've received from it. When I think of the money I spend on movies or books or theater or live musical performances, for shear entertainment value "The Celestial Bureaucracy" ranks right amongst the best entertainment I've enjoyed throughout my life.
I can only say "Bravo!", Tommorow's Dawn, for sharing your wonderful story and your talent.
It'd be an understatement to say I'm looking forward to season 2! Good luck with your studies. I hope you do well if only to give you more time to work on "The Celestial Bureaucracy" when you have a break.
P.S. From references in this thread, I'm now eagerly looking forward to reading PotU.
Compared to a lot of the folks on these forums, I'm only a mediocre, casual player. In fact, I'm such a casual player that I had no idea forums like this even existed for Civilization. I only stumbled upon Civfanatics while trying to trouble-shoot why I couldn't patch Civ 4 on my Mac. I've since patched my copy of Civ and I've learned a whole lot more lurking and browsing through these forums.
Frankly, I'm amazed at the depth of this community and the depths of the game that this community has revealed to me.
Having said all that, nothing prepared me for the Stories and Tales section of the forums. I've read through several of the stories and enjoyed the creativity, imagination and effort put into them. The stories have added a whole new dimension to enjoying Civilization.
That all said, having just finished the first season of "The Celestial Bureaucracy" I am floored by the pure value in entertainment I've received from it. When I think of the money I spend on movies or books or theater or live musical performances, for shear entertainment value "The Celestial Bureaucracy" ranks right amongst the best entertainment I've enjoyed throughout my life.
I can only say "Bravo!", Tommorow's Dawn, for sharing your wonderful story and your talent.
It'd be an understatement to say I'm looking forward to season 2! Good luck with your studies. I hope you do well if only to give you more time to work on "The Celestial Bureaucracy" when you have a break.
P.S. From references in this thread, I'm now eagerly looking forward to reading PotU.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,470
Yoshiegg737
Jungo Jungo
mayor
Heart & Mind
and Feel free to try for your own story even if you don't write it up.
I find it so much more fun playing a Civgame while making up a storyline as I go
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
It's been little over a month since I stopped writing for this story and while I was somewhat disappointed by
the lack of response to the end of the first season, it is delightful to find that people were still able to find my story
(on the second page no less) and immerse themselves into the world I've crafted.
But trust me, I've got a million different story hooks that I've already planned out in my head and pre-written drafts for.
I'm really dying to tell the stories and even more excited by the fact that there are people out there who want to hear them.
I'll still be working on the S&T Times and beta-testing in my spare time for Leoreth's superior Dawn of Civilization RFC modmod so don't worry,
I won't be gone anytime soon (unless I pretty much die/become hospitalized in an accident or something),
in case anyone is worried I'll abandon this story.
I'm happy to have opened the door to Civilization Storytelling for you, Ken Rahaim.
But there's many more polished and refined stories out there.
Several of them aren't even on this forum. So keep reading and keep looking
the lack of response to the end of the first season, it is delightful to find that people were still able to find my story
(on the second page no less) and immerse themselves into the world I've crafted.
But trust me, I've got a million different story hooks that I've already planned out in my head and pre-written drafts for.
I'm really dying to tell the stories and even more excited by the fact that there are people out there who want to hear them.
I'll still be working on the S&T Times and beta-testing in my spare time for Leoreth's superior Dawn of Civilization RFC modmod so don't worry,
I won't be gone anytime soon (unless I pretty much die/become hospitalized in an accident or something),
in case anyone is worried I'll abandon this story.
I'm happy to have opened the door to Civilization Storytelling for you, Ken Rahaim.
But there's many more polished and refined stories out there.
Several of them aren't even on this forum. So keep reading and keep looking
christos200
Never tell me the odds
Are you going to have a communist china?
mayor
Heart & Mind
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
Try reading it like that
mayor
Heart & Mind
ooohh.... that makes sense
for my reading skills 
for my reading skills
Tomorrow's Dawn
Heroes Never Die
I am no longer working my seasonal job and I am through mid-terms although the semester will continue to be hectic.
Thus, I have decided to continue this story earlier, as I have also realized through story planning that if I keep this on a break,
I may never have enough years to finish this story. So I am going to continue this with sporadic updates as best I can.
Enjoy, Season 2 of The Celestial Bureaucracy starts now.
There Is No Time To Let The Blood Dry.
The Emperor was present at a private-hunting party at the forests on the outskirts of
Cheng’an when five men emerged from the wood to strike at the Emperor.
Elite Imperial Guards were able to intercept them as they approached but
one managed to strike the Emperor through the neck with a wrist-strapped crossbow before he was cut down.
Xia Feng III lay dead, hanging off his mount as his companions scrambled to help him.
Investigations revealed that the assassins were of Punjabi origin. The fact alone was not enough to ensure a casus belli against the Vajra Republic but further investigation on the identities of the assassins from the secretive Bureau of Curtained Veils discovered that they were affiliated with the powerful and influential Jewish clergy. The rabbis of Vajra were known to hold many high-level positions in the Republican government; making the evidence quite damning against them. The Vajra Republic caustically denied all connections between themselves and the affiliations of the assassins; claiming that they were acting independently. This was not an acceptable answer. Troops were massed along both sides of the border and war was expected to erupt at any moment now.
When Empress Xia Song Rui ascended to the throne and made her first act of governance to visit vengeance upon the Punjabs to appease her dead father. She assured the public that the succession was safe and that when her younger brothers were of age to sire their own children, that she would mentor her oldest nephew to succeed her on the throne. She was a woman of virtue and would never deign to move her hand against her own flesh and blood. The ministers didn’t actually care that a woman was on the throne; the prevailing attitude of the time reconciled the view of Empress Hong Mei as being a skilled stateswoman who brought Wa Province into the fold of Chinese civilization instead of being an insatiable tyrant. Journey to the East, the romanticized account of Empress Lan Ye Hua’s journey to China found a resurgence of popularity as well.
Yet there was one thing the public and the court did care about.
When she looked at herself in the reflecting pool,
she saw the cool and dusty green eyes of Saxon grandmothers and Western Asian tribute princesses past.
Her hair although dark like her subjects’ was wavy and more obviously tinted brown
not unlike her own mother, the Pakixitan borne Tarkani princess.
And her skin was darkened from the heritage of her ancestral African grandmothers.
In short, she looked not too unlike the Punjabs she herself was condemning.
Nowhere on her person was there any trace of her long and storied Han ancestry.
And the public would not react kindly to that.
The Imperial Bloodline had diverged heavily but there were two prominent bloodlines.
The most prominent, numerous and powerful bloodline, who currently occupied the Imperial Throne
were the Shijiexia, of which Empress Song Rui herself belonged to. Although every ruling emperor could trace their lineage back patrilineally to the first Xia ancestor, the practice and propensity in which they would take foreign & vassal brides as their Empresses had heavily diluted the bloodline to the point where no one could recognize them as being Han.
The second branch was known as the Zhenxia as they were called. Through strict cousin-marriages and reclaimed blood from distant members of the Xia family who had dissolved into the public and regular breeding with the old Shin & Miwa bloodlines of Chaoxian & Wa, the Zhenxia were able to maintain their distinctly East Asian heritage.
A distant Zhenxia relative would be carefully screened and selected in order to become the Proxy Empress in place of Xia Song Rui. All of Song Rui’s public appearances would be substituted by the Proxy as the public was still largely in the dark about the true nature of just how diluted the ruling Xia bloodline was.
The various Xia Emperors had not made any public appearances since the time of the Kampuchean War.
In the deep recesses of her mind, it was immensely frustrating.
She was the most powerful woman in the world and was limited to being a shadow ruler in her own name.
She could cite every surname whose blood coursed through her veins.
Tarkani, Alavi, Engel, Shin, Adesina, Miwa, Rada…the list went on and on.
Was that not legitimacy enough to cement her claim on the seat of the Empire?
Such thoughts troubled her, especially in dire times such as this.
The culmination of the coming war with Vajra and her new manifold duties as Empress was wearing her down. The loss of her beloved father had affected her perhaps most heavily of all. It was now upon her shoulders to guide her two younger brothers as if they were her own sons and manage the intricacies of the Empire all the while.
Song Rui disrobed herself, exposing her dark brown skin as she slowly descended into the flower petal-laden pool; lukewarm scented water calming the stressed muscles of the young Empress. “You two,” the Empress said as she addressed the servant girls attending the door by her private bathing pool. “Bring me the Prince Consort,” Expediently, the servants set off to fulfill her command.
Prince Consort Guo Yi entered the room and was called to the side of the Empress in the pool.
She asked him to massage her back to which he obliged. The young man, who was only four years her junior was a striking youth from Linzi. It was oft-said that Nü Wa herself had personally crafted his form before his birth. Famed even within Xin Caste circles for his expert musical skill and prowess in the art of the masseuse from the young age of twenty-three, he was already the Empire’s most eligible bachelor at a very young age. He also had the distinction of being blind, leading many a homely Nao Caste administrator to seek him out in marriage. Empress Song Rui smiled wryly as she remembered how she wrested him away from the desperate hags that made up the Chaoxian bureaucracy and made him her own. It would be a terrible shame for them to have taken advantage of the blind, beautiful youth. That was certainly one benefit of not needing to worry about arranged marriages like her younger brothers needed to. She could screw anyone she pleased; the whole of the Empire was full of Xin Caste shuài gē, ripe for the picking. But she loved him very much though and was satisfied with just this trophy. There was no need to get greedy when she already had a good thing going.
His hands began to work down her back, relieving the pent-up tension in her back. As she was being massaged, the Empress began to remove her hair ornaments. Guo Yi’s senses were acute as he smelled the entry of iron into the air. The Empress herself had not noticed it while she was mired in her own thoughts but she had pricked the point of her long brown index finger as she removed her ornate hairpieces one by one. “Mengyun, you’re bleeding,” he addressed his wife by style name as his hand reached out and grasped her wrist. Song Rui snapped out of her stupor and noticed the welling red dot on the tip of her finger. “It’s alright, I just pricked my finger on a hair ornament,” she said as she lowered her hand onto the surface of the perfumed bath to wash away the blood.
“No.” His hand laid atop her heart as his massage stopped and moved down from her shoulders.
“Your heart is heavy. I can feel it,” It was literally true, her heartbeat was slow and it would have seemed that her blood pressure was low.
“I can’t lie to you, can I?” she said as she cupped her own hands around Guo Yi’s.
“Is it about the death of your father?” the Consort asked.
“Yes…but it goes a little deeper than that…”
“I look just like the very enemies I hate so dearly,” she confided.
“I can never stand up in front of my subjects for my father because of it…”
“It’s frustrating…I am a Han. It’s in my culture. It’s in my blood,”
“The Empress the people love is the bright, black-haired, pearl-skinned girl who parades in the city streets and exults in the adoration of the onlookers…I’m…just the hand in the shadows…” “Mengyun, none of that matters at all to me,” Guo Yi consoled her. “Doesn’t that at least count for something?” She wondered if he would still say that if he could see the contrast between them but she thought it best to not postulate on what such a reality would be like. The blind consort could only comfort his Empress as best he could with a loving embrace of a kindred soul; his face pressed close against his wife’s warm cheek. “Guo Yi. Take away my pain,” as she pulled her consort’s face near to kiss her and moved his hand further south.
She had still forgotten to mend her finger and as she forgot her troubles for a moment,
the blood of a thousand kings washed away into the bath.
Saturnine Nights
It was in the eighteenth year of my life that I had committed the crime of arson. Bhagat Nadar was a spoiled bastard son of a senator who beat me to a pulp with his entourage on a whim, just because I was walking on the wrong street at the wrong time. Yes. I set him and his household on fire and he deserved every bit of it. I like to think I have done the city of Madras a service; I had thought of it as a just punishment for a despicable man like him. The court did not seem to think so and neither did my father, a scrupulous banker. By virtue of the cold clinking of money, I was spared from serving a sentence. But after paying the reparations and resolving the settlement, my father threw me out of the house onto the cobbled street as my mother protested and pleaded him to show leniency. He said the fact that he bailed me out was lenient enough and that I should get out of his face before he killed me. I ran far, far away before my father could retrieve his spear. Let the old man fume and fumble. He does not care for me. I have eight more brothers and sisters to replace me.
I know I will not be missed.
There was mixed reaction to me on the streets. Part of them loved me for ridding the city of an arrogant bastard. Part of them hated me and my father for using unearned money to set me free. I ran to the place where I knew best as a child, where I knew I would be safe. The Madras Synagogue.
It was cloudy that night, with the crescent moon barely peeking out from the cover of the veil of night; like a secret lover waiting for her paramour to climb through the window. The night was not so auspicious for me, as I was still licking the wounds inflicted by my angry father. Eventually, I made it before the looming synagogue doors, pounding my fists repeatedly against the polished wood.
“Who is it?” I heard a gravelly voice ask from beyond the other side.
“Rajat Pritha, sir,” I panted, having run a long way to the Synagogue at the far end of town.
“Rajat Pritha…why did I have a feeling you would be coming here at this hour?”
“Please, I just need some peace…” I pleaded. “My father threw me out of home and I have nowhere to go!”
“Very well, you may come in,” the Rabbi answered.
Rabbi Singh was an old, leathery man, but he was the rabbi I had known all my life. This was the man that had performed my circumcision and presided over my bar mitzvah, as well as my brother's wedding. I had always felt his warm gaze comforting throughout my life. He held vigil over the synagogue during the late hours when all others went to sleep. The good rabbi was known to appreciate the silence and serenity that came with the hours of the darkened sky.
“What can I do for you, my son?”
“I want to give my life in service of YHWH, Rabbi,”
“I can’t harbor you, Rajat. You are a criminal now and nothing I can do can change that fact.
I have watched you grow from a child to a man but never have I thought that you would commit such a crime,”
I was disappointed but not dissuaded. His tone was cold but not uncaring as far as I could discern.
“I have no other option and no other place to go, Rabbi. I truly want to make amends!
I may as well be exiled from the city if I cannot join the covenant, even as a serving boy! I need to redeem myself!”
The Rabbi looked at me sternly.
“Listen to yourself, Rajat. If you had any other option, would you still be coming here? I don’t think so.
Your heart is not devoted, son. I can offer you shelter from the elements here but I cannot give you a position,”
He fetched me a blanket and began to walk away, with his back turned towards me.
“What would I do then?” I called after him.
“Would you so quickly turn your back against one who truly loves God?
I did what I did because of justice! How unworthy men bend the systems to their pleasure.
Surely you agree with me? I did what I did because there are no people in this world who take matters into their own hands!!
I did what I did because it was a necessary sin, and I know I am to suffer to redeem myself, and God help me, I am willing.
Give me a chance, just say the word and I will throw my all into the service of the Maker!!”
He paused. I held a faint glimmer of hope that my passionate plea had touched him.
I held a faint glimmer of hope that I could start on my long road of redemption.
“What do you know of necessary sin, Rajat?”
"Or giving your all to the Maker?"
"Do you really want to know, child?"
The candles within the synagogue had all been snuffed out in an instant even though there was no wind.
He turned to face me and I recoiled in horror as I could see the eerie blue in his irises.
An animalistic fear had welled up inside of me and overtaken my body.
Everything shut down and only fear reigned supreme.
I turned and tried to run.
I could not even hear Rabbi Singh take a single step after me as I ran
but right before my frightened eyes, he descended from the ceiling to block my path.
The rabbi pinned me to the ground and bit my neck as I struggled like a thrashing antelope.
It was no use. As the blood drained from me,
he asked me a question as he ascended from my side and looked down towards me.
“Do you truly love God?”
I didn’t know why I bothered to speak back to my murderer but I did so anyway.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want to die,
and I had some stupid hope that answering him might save me.
“…Yes,” I gargled, the blood welling in my throat.
Satisfied by my answer, the rabbi wiped his mouth with his robe and opened it to speak.
As I lay bleeding on the synagogue floor, the rabbi began to recite to me what he must have told to countless others before me…
Lucifer rebelled against Heaven and stole with him the Holy Grail.
He believed that humanity was unjustly cast out of Eden,
and with the power of the Grail, sought to empower them to rise up against their Maker.
Lilith as his agent on Earth dispersed his blood and tainted the lineages of humanity.
God was not deaf to the cries of the tortured and waged war against the Lightbringer.
The most loyal of angels descended to the Earth to save the mortals from their depredations,
Wielding swords of flame and spears of thunder,
The bravest angels clashed with the demon armies of the Lightbringer.
The battle raged for nine days and nine nights, tearing the world asunder,
But at long last, Lucifer and Lilith were cast into Hell and walked the earth no more.
In their dying breaths, they cursed the victorious angels to walk the Earth forever.
They burned in fire & sun, forever damned to hide in the shade of night and drink of mortal men’s blood,
When we discovered we could not return to Heaven, our tears flooded the world.
God cloistered away his Chosen people in the Ark and sheltered them as our sorrowful deluge came to the end,
We had saved all of His Creation, but had become damned through the course of the vigil,
and brought it to brink of ruin with the angst of our despair,
For this, we must earn our redemption.
He charged us with protecting his favored people, the sons of Noah.
For centuries, we have guarded the Jews like shepherds over their flock,
And watched them populate the world,
We led Ham to Africa, where he begat the great Hamitic race.
With guidance, Japheth sired the Japhethic race that came to claim Europe,
And the seat of power lay within Shem, who inherited his father’s legacy and right to rule.
His line spread across all of Asia and it is from there that they will inherit the Earth.
The Han were the first Semites to walk the Eastern fringe of the continent,
They had perhaps, walked too far, for they wandered out of the protection of the angels.
Writhing from out of Hell, the bested demons seized the hour by the neck and descended upon them.
Lucifer & Lilith took forms pleasing to woman and man and begat their serpentspawn from them.
The Bureau as they like to call themselves, but they are nothing but demons and abominations.
Those are the Lost Children, corrupted Semites.
The serpentspawn have seeded themselves amongst them, but one day we shall free their blood from the bond of the devil.
Even now, they seek to expand their reach and corrupt the rest of Noah’s legacy.
This will not stand.
This is our eternal mission,
To hold back the tide of Lucifer’s serpentspawn,
And to envelop the world in the One True Faith.
For God promises,
When the faith of his Chosen people has dispersed among the world and bathed the Earth with their prayer,
God will open the gates to Heaven, and smite all those borne of the serpent, to plague the Earth no more,
And we shall adjoin our rightful place at the foot of the maker.
That is our labor.
Tonight, you join the ranks of the righteous,
Welcome to the Elohim.
From my dying eyes, I could vaguely see him prick his finger and hang it over me.
A single black droplet of blood fell from the curve of the finger and into my mouth.
I died at that moment as the taint raced through my veins.
And then I cheated death and was born again.
Blood calls to blood.
A new chapter begins.
Thus, I have decided to continue this story earlier, as I have also realized through story planning that if I keep this on a break,
I may never have enough years to finish this story. So I am going to continue this with sporadic updates as best I can.
Enjoy, Season 2 of The Celestial Bureaucracy starts now.
There Is No Time To Let The Blood Dry.
The Emperor was present at a private-hunting party at the forests on the outskirts of
Cheng’an when five men emerged from the wood to strike at the Emperor.
Elite Imperial Guards were able to intercept them as they approached but
one managed to strike the Emperor through the neck with a wrist-strapped crossbow before he was cut down.
Xia Feng III lay dead, hanging off his mount as his companions scrambled to help him.
Investigations revealed that the assassins were of Punjabi origin. The fact alone was not enough to ensure a casus belli against the Vajra Republic but further investigation on the identities of the assassins from the secretive Bureau of Curtained Veils discovered that they were affiliated with the powerful and influential Jewish clergy. The rabbis of Vajra were known to hold many high-level positions in the Republican government; making the evidence quite damning against them. The Vajra Republic caustically denied all connections between themselves and the affiliations of the assassins; claiming that they were acting independently. This was not an acceptable answer. Troops were massed along both sides of the border and war was expected to erupt at any moment now.
When Empress Xia Song Rui ascended to the throne and made her first act of governance to visit vengeance upon the Punjabs to appease her dead father. She assured the public that the succession was safe and that when her younger brothers were of age to sire their own children, that she would mentor her oldest nephew to succeed her on the throne. She was a woman of virtue and would never deign to move her hand against her own flesh and blood. The ministers didn’t actually care that a woman was on the throne; the prevailing attitude of the time reconciled the view of Empress Hong Mei as being a skilled stateswoman who brought Wa Province into the fold of Chinese civilization instead of being an insatiable tyrant. Journey to the East, the romanticized account of Empress Lan Ye Hua’s journey to China found a resurgence of popularity as well.
Yet there was one thing the public and the court did care about.
When she looked at herself in the reflecting pool,
she saw the cool and dusty green eyes of Saxon grandmothers and Western Asian tribute princesses past.
Her hair although dark like her subjects’ was wavy and more obviously tinted brown
not unlike her own mother, the Pakixitan borne Tarkani princess.
And her skin was darkened from the heritage of her ancestral African grandmothers.
In short, she looked not too unlike the Punjabs she herself was condemning.
Nowhere on her person was there any trace of her long and storied Han ancestry.
And the public would not react kindly to that.
The Imperial Bloodline had diverged heavily but there were two prominent bloodlines.
The most prominent, numerous and powerful bloodline, who currently occupied the Imperial Throne
were the Shijiexia, of which Empress Song Rui herself belonged to. Although every ruling emperor could trace their lineage back patrilineally to the first Xia ancestor, the practice and propensity in which they would take foreign & vassal brides as their Empresses had heavily diluted the bloodline to the point where no one could recognize them as being Han.
The second branch was known as the Zhenxia as they were called. Through strict cousin-marriages and reclaimed blood from distant members of the Xia family who had dissolved into the public and regular breeding with the old Shin & Miwa bloodlines of Chaoxian & Wa, the Zhenxia were able to maintain their distinctly East Asian heritage.
A distant Zhenxia relative would be carefully screened and selected in order to become the Proxy Empress in place of Xia Song Rui. All of Song Rui’s public appearances would be substituted by the Proxy as the public was still largely in the dark about the true nature of just how diluted the ruling Xia bloodline was.
The various Xia Emperors had not made any public appearances since the time of the Kampuchean War.
In the deep recesses of her mind, it was immensely frustrating.
She was the most powerful woman in the world and was limited to being a shadow ruler in her own name.
She could cite every surname whose blood coursed through her veins.
Tarkani, Alavi, Engel, Shin, Adesina, Miwa, Rada…the list went on and on.
Was that not legitimacy enough to cement her claim on the seat of the Empire?
Such thoughts troubled her, especially in dire times such as this.
The culmination of the coming war with Vajra and her new manifold duties as Empress was wearing her down. The loss of her beloved father had affected her perhaps most heavily of all. It was now upon her shoulders to guide her two younger brothers as if they were her own sons and manage the intricacies of the Empire all the while.
Song Rui disrobed herself, exposing her dark brown skin as she slowly descended into the flower petal-laden pool; lukewarm scented water calming the stressed muscles of the young Empress. “You two,” the Empress said as she addressed the servant girls attending the door by her private bathing pool. “Bring me the Prince Consort,” Expediently, the servants set off to fulfill her command.
Prince Consort Guo Yi entered the room and was called to the side of the Empress in the pool.
She asked him to massage her back to which he obliged. The young man, who was only four years her junior was a striking youth from Linzi. It was oft-said that Nü Wa herself had personally crafted his form before his birth. Famed even within Xin Caste circles for his expert musical skill and prowess in the art of the masseuse from the young age of twenty-three, he was already the Empire’s most eligible bachelor at a very young age. He also had the distinction of being blind, leading many a homely Nao Caste administrator to seek him out in marriage. Empress Song Rui smiled wryly as she remembered how she wrested him away from the desperate hags that made up the Chaoxian bureaucracy and made him her own. It would be a terrible shame for them to have taken advantage of the blind, beautiful youth. That was certainly one benefit of not needing to worry about arranged marriages like her younger brothers needed to. She could screw anyone she pleased; the whole of the Empire was full of Xin Caste shuài gē, ripe for the picking. But she loved him very much though and was satisfied with just this trophy. There was no need to get greedy when she already had a good thing going.
His hands began to work down her back, relieving the pent-up tension in her back. As she was being massaged, the Empress began to remove her hair ornaments. Guo Yi’s senses were acute as he smelled the entry of iron into the air. The Empress herself had not noticed it while she was mired in her own thoughts but she had pricked the point of her long brown index finger as she removed her ornate hairpieces one by one. “Mengyun, you’re bleeding,” he addressed his wife by style name as his hand reached out and grasped her wrist. Song Rui snapped out of her stupor and noticed the welling red dot on the tip of her finger. “It’s alright, I just pricked my finger on a hair ornament,” she said as she lowered her hand onto the surface of the perfumed bath to wash away the blood.
“No.” His hand laid atop her heart as his massage stopped and moved down from her shoulders.
“Your heart is heavy. I can feel it,” It was literally true, her heartbeat was slow and it would have seemed that her blood pressure was low.
“I can’t lie to you, can I?” she said as she cupped her own hands around Guo Yi’s.
“Is it about the death of your father?” the Consort asked.
“Yes…but it goes a little deeper than that…”
“I look just like the very enemies I hate so dearly,” she confided.
“I can never stand up in front of my subjects for my father because of it…”
“It’s frustrating…I am a Han. It’s in my culture. It’s in my blood,”
“The Empress the people love is the bright, black-haired, pearl-skinned girl who parades in the city streets and exults in the adoration of the onlookers…I’m…just the hand in the shadows…” “Mengyun, none of that matters at all to me,” Guo Yi consoled her. “Doesn’t that at least count for something?” She wondered if he would still say that if he could see the contrast between them but she thought it best to not postulate on what such a reality would be like. The blind consort could only comfort his Empress as best he could with a loving embrace of a kindred soul; his face pressed close against his wife’s warm cheek. “Guo Yi. Take away my pain,” as she pulled her consort’s face near to kiss her and moved his hand further south.
She had still forgotten to mend her finger and as she forgot her troubles for a moment,
the blood of a thousand kings washed away into the bath.
Saturnine Nights
It was in the eighteenth year of my life that I had committed the crime of arson. Bhagat Nadar was a spoiled bastard son of a senator who beat me to a pulp with his entourage on a whim, just because I was walking on the wrong street at the wrong time. Yes. I set him and his household on fire and he deserved every bit of it. I like to think I have done the city of Madras a service; I had thought of it as a just punishment for a despicable man like him. The court did not seem to think so and neither did my father, a scrupulous banker. By virtue of the cold clinking of money, I was spared from serving a sentence. But after paying the reparations and resolving the settlement, my father threw me out of the house onto the cobbled street as my mother protested and pleaded him to show leniency. He said the fact that he bailed me out was lenient enough and that I should get out of his face before he killed me. I ran far, far away before my father could retrieve his spear. Let the old man fume and fumble. He does not care for me. I have eight more brothers and sisters to replace me.
I know I will not be missed.
There was mixed reaction to me on the streets. Part of them loved me for ridding the city of an arrogant bastard. Part of them hated me and my father for using unearned money to set me free. I ran to the place where I knew best as a child, where I knew I would be safe. The Madras Synagogue.
It was cloudy that night, with the crescent moon barely peeking out from the cover of the veil of night; like a secret lover waiting for her paramour to climb through the window. The night was not so auspicious for me, as I was still licking the wounds inflicted by my angry father. Eventually, I made it before the looming synagogue doors, pounding my fists repeatedly against the polished wood.
“Who is it?” I heard a gravelly voice ask from beyond the other side.
“Rajat Pritha, sir,” I panted, having run a long way to the Synagogue at the far end of town.
“Rajat Pritha…why did I have a feeling you would be coming here at this hour?”
“Please, I just need some peace…” I pleaded. “My father threw me out of home and I have nowhere to go!”
“Very well, you may come in,” the Rabbi answered.
Rabbi Singh was an old, leathery man, but he was the rabbi I had known all my life. This was the man that had performed my circumcision and presided over my bar mitzvah, as well as my brother's wedding. I had always felt his warm gaze comforting throughout my life. He held vigil over the synagogue during the late hours when all others went to sleep. The good rabbi was known to appreciate the silence and serenity that came with the hours of the darkened sky.
“What can I do for you, my son?”
“I want to give my life in service of YHWH, Rabbi,”
“I can’t harbor you, Rajat. You are a criminal now and nothing I can do can change that fact.
I have watched you grow from a child to a man but never have I thought that you would commit such a crime,”
I was disappointed but not dissuaded. His tone was cold but not uncaring as far as I could discern.
“I have no other option and no other place to go, Rabbi. I truly want to make amends!
I may as well be exiled from the city if I cannot join the covenant, even as a serving boy! I need to redeem myself!”
The Rabbi looked at me sternly.
“Listen to yourself, Rajat. If you had any other option, would you still be coming here? I don’t think so.
Your heart is not devoted, son. I can offer you shelter from the elements here but I cannot give you a position,”
He fetched me a blanket and began to walk away, with his back turned towards me.
“What would I do then?” I called after him.
“Would you so quickly turn your back against one who truly loves God?
I did what I did because of justice! How unworthy men bend the systems to their pleasure.
Surely you agree with me? I did what I did because there are no people in this world who take matters into their own hands!!
I did what I did because it was a necessary sin, and I know I am to suffer to redeem myself, and God help me, I am willing.
Give me a chance, just say the word and I will throw my all into the service of the Maker!!”
He paused. I held a faint glimmer of hope that my passionate plea had touched him.
I held a faint glimmer of hope that I could start on my long road of redemption.
“What do you know of necessary sin, Rajat?”
"Or giving your all to the Maker?"
"Do you really want to know, child?"
The candles within the synagogue had all been snuffed out in an instant even though there was no wind.
He turned to face me and I recoiled in horror as I could see the eerie blue in his irises.
An animalistic fear had welled up inside of me and overtaken my body.
Everything shut down and only fear reigned supreme.
I turned and tried to run.
I could not even hear Rabbi Singh take a single step after me as I ran
but right before my frightened eyes, he descended from the ceiling to block my path.
The rabbi pinned me to the ground and bit my neck as I struggled like a thrashing antelope.
It was no use. As the blood drained from me,
he asked me a question as he ascended from my side and looked down towards me.
“Do you truly love God?”
I didn’t know why I bothered to speak back to my murderer but I did so anyway.
Maybe it was because I didn’t want to die,
and I had some stupid hope that answering him might save me.
“…Yes,” I gargled, the blood welling in my throat.
Satisfied by my answer, the rabbi wiped his mouth with his robe and opened it to speak.
As I lay bleeding on the synagogue floor, the rabbi began to recite to me what he must have told to countless others before me…
Lucifer rebelled against Heaven and stole with him the Holy Grail.
He believed that humanity was unjustly cast out of Eden,
and with the power of the Grail, sought to empower them to rise up against their Maker.
Lilith as his agent on Earth dispersed his blood and tainted the lineages of humanity.
God was not deaf to the cries of the tortured and waged war against the Lightbringer.
The most loyal of angels descended to the Earth to save the mortals from their depredations,
Wielding swords of flame and spears of thunder,
The bravest angels clashed with the demon armies of the Lightbringer.
The battle raged for nine days and nine nights, tearing the world asunder,
But at long last, Lucifer and Lilith were cast into Hell and walked the earth no more.
In their dying breaths, they cursed the victorious angels to walk the Earth forever.
They burned in fire & sun, forever damned to hide in the shade of night and drink of mortal men’s blood,
When we discovered we could not return to Heaven, our tears flooded the world.
God cloistered away his Chosen people in the Ark and sheltered them as our sorrowful deluge came to the end,
We had saved all of His Creation, but had become damned through the course of the vigil,
and brought it to brink of ruin with the angst of our despair,
For this, we must earn our redemption.
He charged us with protecting his favored people, the sons of Noah.
For centuries, we have guarded the Jews like shepherds over their flock,
And watched them populate the world,
We led Ham to Africa, where he begat the great Hamitic race.
With guidance, Japheth sired the Japhethic race that came to claim Europe,
And the seat of power lay within Shem, who inherited his father’s legacy and right to rule.
His line spread across all of Asia and it is from there that they will inherit the Earth.
The Han were the first Semites to walk the Eastern fringe of the continent,
They had perhaps, walked too far, for they wandered out of the protection of the angels.
Writhing from out of Hell, the bested demons seized the hour by the neck and descended upon them.
Lucifer & Lilith took forms pleasing to woman and man and begat their serpentspawn from them.
The Bureau as they like to call themselves, but they are nothing but demons and abominations.
Those are the Lost Children, corrupted Semites.
The serpentspawn have seeded themselves amongst them, but one day we shall free their blood from the bond of the devil.
Even now, they seek to expand their reach and corrupt the rest of Noah’s legacy.
This will not stand.
This is our eternal mission,
To hold back the tide of Lucifer’s serpentspawn,
And to envelop the world in the One True Faith.
For God promises,
When the faith of his Chosen people has dispersed among the world and bathed the Earth with their prayer,
God will open the gates to Heaven, and smite all those borne of the serpent, to plague the Earth no more,
And we shall adjoin our rightful place at the foot of the maker.
That is our labor.
Tonight, you join the ranks of the righteous,
Welcome to the Elohim.
From my dying eyes, I could vaguely see him prick his finger and hang it over me.
A single black droplet of blood fell from the curve of the finger and into my mouth.
I died at that moment as the taint raced through my veins.
And then I cheated death and was born again.
Blood calls to blood.
A new chapter begins.
hoplitejoe
Top fun-poster
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
- Messages
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Great to have you writing again.
Yoshiegg737
Jungo Jungo
YEAH! First post after th-
Darn it, HJ!
Good luck with the war, though
Darn it, HJ!
Good luck with the war, though
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