SKY OF PAPER: AN ASIAN STEAMPUNK FANTASY

CHAPTER 13

It was hours before I awoke in a dreary daze amidst a lonely, drab and brown colored room. The temple physician and one of his staff stood ominously next to my bed. They mumbled a few words about my health, then quickly left, as if they had little care for their patient.

A familiar voice whispered gently beside me and I turned my head to see, with great surprise, Ai standing with her brightly colored eyes, gazing past me with almost majestic scrutiny.

"Poor Masa. Poor, poor Masa. It didn’t take long for father to find us. Not long at all." Her voice was full of pity and nothing else. I felt no sadness from her, or regret; not even a feeling of loss. It was as if she’d always known the outcome. "Masa thinks he’s saving me, but he doesn’t understand that this is something I want. Many people, including my brother don’t realize it, but I’m not frail, and I‘m not helpless."

She sat down on one of the wooden chairs beside the bed and leaned in so close to me, that I could see every detail of the eerie, emerald shimmer of her eyes. I blushed, entranced by her unfocused gaze.

"I am a chienkuu ko, the rarest of them all. I can see the flows of the ether just as a shyo mu does, and I can manipulate its currents just the same as a shyo mah. When my father realized this, he demanded that I go into training. Even though my sister was a gifted shyo mah, and my brother, a very talented shyo mu, they refused to lead the life my father demanded of them. I suppose that was why my sister fled to your village. But I was different. I aspired to learn and master the abilities our family had been blessed with for generations.

But even though, as a single person, I could do both the skills of a male and female, it was not without its terrible price. The more I trained, the more I lost my sight, until one day, my common sight was completely taken away from me. When Masa learned that I’d turned blind, he furiously approached my father and told him that he would train in my place. He made a deal with him that as long as I was left alone, kept away from what he saw as a curse, he’d embrace our family's chienkuu ko traditions and become, at least in his father's eyes, one of the best of our kind.

Poor Masa, he thought he was protecting me. All this time, and he still doesn’t understand that this is what I want. He thinks my blindness was a curse, but even so, I can still see you Terr, I can still see the world around me, but in the way that you see things when you take that sky boat into the air.

I see you, because the ether moves around you. I witness the motions of the world, because of the way I see the currents flow. For me, my second sight is my only sight, and I am perfectly happy with that."

Until that moment, I felt a small bit of sadness for her, but she gave a soft, reassuring smile that seemed to bring a comforting aura to the room's drab, cheerless atmosphere.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I asked.

"Because I don't want you to leave the temple hating my brother. He’s a good person, if a bit lost."

I sat up immediately. "Leave the temple?"

That afternoon, after the physician confirmed that I had nothing more than a few bruises, I was lead to the Great Hall, past several large doors that lead from one grand hallway to another, until I found myself in a room that was so cavernous, I almost felt dizzy as I gazed at the broad, red and white walls that towered to a ceiling that seemed high enough to reach the clouds. Kassashimei, the Boar, Master Lu, Paya and a few officials dressed in formal looking suits were there, standing before Master Hotaka, who was seated at a richly ornamented wooden desk. Seeing that Kassashimei was unhurt gave a small bit of calm to the guilt I was feeling, guilt for the actions I‘d committed, but the angry look she gave me seemed to heighten my worries all the more.