The Lamb and the Gray Battle

September 17, 2022

As Diyiren recalled those early months with Siofra, the words tumbled out to Nianzang clinging to him.

"My mother treated her like a servant, but Siofra never flinched or frowned near me. She'd make a small motion with her head and we would run outside and dance and sing. I could scream. I was getting better at shifting my hands into dragon claws. Just plain black paws," he said, admiring the gold scroll work. "I could splash water around. That was easy. My sword lessons with Niang went well and she was pleased with me and that made me happy. I learned what fun was and I begged Yuemu to never leave me."

Nianzang said, "You were calling her Yueme by then?"

"Well, Yueme's tummy was a very big bump. And yes, I trusted her by then," he said, a smirk on his lips. "I had a much better understanding of what was happening. BoBo had told me in explicit detail what my duties would include with Qizi and I was more than a little distressed about that."

Nianzang giggled, nuzzled into his father's shoulder. When Nianzang reached his second century, his father made him a gift of Madame Hua's Flower Palace. And promised to fill it with any flowers that caught his eye. He couldn't imagine his father afraid of sex.

Diyiren said, "I couldn't make my hand hold the form of a claw for longer than a few minutes."

This time, Diyiren wasn't distracted by the gold scrolls. He was reminded that his hands were now permanently trapped in the form of claws. But he needed to focus.

"I was terrified that I was expect to make something else—a very sensitive something else—stay hard and I had to put it inside of this wife thing. This wife thing that I still didn't really understand."

Nianzang writhed with laughter. "BoBo probably thought he made it sound thrilling and exciting."

"He failed," Diyiren said. "Laoshi tried to make it more appealing, talked about using my sword to penetrate the flower. Hideous and horrible, bloody, awful nightmares."

Nianzang pounded the surface of the bed with his fist, couldn't control his convulsive laughter.

"Yuemu handled it best. She told me I was too young to worry about it and took me outside."

Diyiren continued, "On my eighth birthday, I was in high dudgeon. Why wasn't Qizi here yet? They promised she would make me happy and I wouldn't be lonely anymore. Yuemu was the only one who had any ability to rein me in."

Diyiren recalled touching Yuemu's tummy, feeling the vibrations as Aoibh kicked. Yuemu had picked out a name long ago and often referred to the bump that way.