SKY OF PAPER: AN ASIAN STEAMPUNK FANTASY

PART 1: CHAPTER 1

The Moon God never intended to create the Islands of Rui Nan.

A long time ago, when the world was only water, the Moon God took his brush, and with great, broad strokes, painted the mighty continent of Kin Ju. He painted and painted as if he were brushing the shapes of decorative leaves upon the face of a rice paper lantern, until Kin Ju covered almost one half of the world. So focused and passionate was he in his masterpiece, that he'd forgotten that there was still empty ocean on the other side.

After he'd finished, he put the brush aside without knowing it was still dripping with paint. The drops from the brush splattered about the empty side of the world. Hundreds of islands in all sorts of shapes and sizes formed from the fallen paint. The Moon God -whom I've been told was an easily pleased deity- was glad for the mistaken blemish, for he felt that Kin Ju was deserving of a little brother. These vast, majestic islands would carry the name, Rui Nan.

Even on her deathbed, my mother told me stories such as these. It was this particular story, one of divine creation, that I held most dear. Not for religious reasons, mind you, but because, in a way, the story is a vague reflection of my life. You see, for all my desires and wants, it is the mistakes, the unintended things that makes it truly memorable.

It is in these pages that I have written the details of my extraordinary childhood and about the fates of those I've met along my journey, whose lives were every bit as incredible as mine.

More importantly, this is a story about a world that has long since faded to obscurity; a world where children were once masters of the sky and where a wayward emperor sought to unite all under heaven. And it begins where God had splattered the paint from his brush.

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"All hail the Emperor!" cried the village leader as he stood at the top of the temple steps, leading everyone in the morning chants.

"May he rule us with wisdom," replied the villagers as they stood obediently in neat rows in the center of the village, bowing at the waist.

"All hail the Emperor!"

"May he rule us with strength."

"All hail the Emperor!"

"May he grant us prosperity and wealth."

Such was the chant my sister and I recited every morning before we began our day. Before morning meals, we always gathered at the temple before the village leader -who was also the leader of our prefecture- and made our loyalties known.

To our nation and to our divine emperor, these were the very things my sister and I, and all the humble creatures of heaven and earth were bound to. Being a naive boy of thirteen under the sole care of a sister that was only five years older than I, we lived during a time where the only certainty, was knowing that the next day, we'd be in morning chants again, renewing our faith in our sacred nation. Even though I thought of our chants as completely mundane, my sister, who was very proud of our country, always made sure that I never forgot the importance of being at the temple with the other villagers just before sunrise.

"Recite the three virtues," she demanded every morning as we returned home from our morning chants.

"Loyalty to the Emperor, honor above self, and spirit in all we do," I once replied in a snarky tone.