It wasn’t always easy to find one’s place in life. It was an inevitable challenge for any young adult, and often even well into adulthood. Some went their entire lives without finding it. Some, either by birth or circumstance had one assigned or forced upon them. In such cases, it was common to rebel against the role given—to strive for something higher, even if you were already at the top. It was equally common for such struggles to fail. One either begrudgingly accepted their fate, or learned to embrace it—overcoming it was rare in the extreme.
In Hyeong Aecha’s case, she’d embraced it and overcome it. She had the freedom to be whatever she wanted, and those around her would support her unconditionally. Thus unburdened from obligation, Aecha chose to be a handmaiden. It was what she knew, what she was good at, and it was much more fulfilling as something she picked for herself rather than something she was forced to do.
Also, it didn’t require her to kill anybody. Almost nobody knew that her childhood training had only been half about qualifying her to serve high profile households and individuals. The other half was murdering them.
Luckily, her twin brother had found her before she’d ever had cause to use that training, but it never really left her. Only he and her mistress knew that about her—and possibly her father, but he wasn’t exactly a reliable source of information anymore.
“Good morning, Father. I have your breakfast here. Will you take it there, or would you like to move to the table?”
Do Hye looked up at her from his bed with a glassy expression.
“Dae? You look different.”
“No, Father, I’m Aecha.”
“Eh? But I was sure it was the boy that I...no, never mind. I’ll eat at the table.”
He glanced around the room, his eyes growing slightly more focused—searching. Trying to figure out where he was. It was a large room—practically a small apartment—with a bed, dining table, and a small living space. One of many in the sprawling estate.
Aecha calmly set the table for him before helping the old man out of bed and walking him over.
“Thank you, my dear. This looks delicious—did you cook it yourself?”
“I did. I’m glad you like it. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
His eyes flickered around the room once more before he slowly shook his head. There never was.
“If you need anything else, you know how to call.”
Aecha subtly let her eyes slide down to the jade talisman hanging around his neck. He glanced down in confusion, touching the talisman before quickly schooling his expression and smiling up at her.
“Yes, of course dear. Thank you for the help, I’ll call you right away if I need anything.”
He wouldn’t, but Aecha wasn’t the only person who’d check in on him throughout the day. She’d been through this hundreds of times, and he only remembered who she was one in three times at best. Even then, it was hard to tell because he could guess. Even in his senility, Do Hye was a crafty old bastard.
Over the years, Aecha had learned that it was better to ‘accidentally’ slip him clues rather than tell him anything outright. He was prone to suspecting any information offered freely.
Dae had been working on finding a way to reverse their adopted father’s mental degradation, but it wasn’t easy. His half-baked reincarnation had corrupted the very nature of the soul seeds he used to reconstruct his personality within a suitable host—or ‘soul jar.’ The cycle that had kept the old Snake going for so many thousands of years had been thoroughly broken.
That wasn’t to say it was impossible. While he’d lost many of his memories—or perhaps just his connections to them, Aecha wasn’t clear on the details—the core of his personality was still there, and he could be quite sharp when he was lucid. Her brother had, with great effort, found a way to halt the degradation, but a lot of damage had already been done.
In his present condition, Do Hye was incapable of growing. He didn’t internalize new memories and the old ones weren’t always accessible to him. Some days were better than others, and he was usually able to piece his situation together on his own, but he required near-constant care.
Just another one of her duties. She bowed and bid her father farewell, leaving to attend to the rest of her morning routine.
It was a warm spring day, so she went out to the garden courtyard to check on the laundry she’d hung up the previous day. Technically, she was proficient enough with arcane arts to create a formation to wash and dry the laundry for her—and she did have those formations—but the fabrics would be softer if left to dry naturally. Especially in the garden, where they could benefit from the rich, harmonious essence cultivated by the permanent resident there.
The courtyard was quite large, with various plots that served different purposes. There was one for teas and herbs, a vegetable garden, all manner of lush decorative flower bushes and trees, and in pride of place near the central gazebo where the laundry was still waiting right where she’d left it, the pond.
The garden pond was inhabited by a small school of koi, dozens of floating green lotus pads, and a giant white and pink lotus flower. From the center of the blossoming flower, a pink-haired little girl peeked out, revealing only the top of her head and her deep black eyes peering at Aecha as they followed her movements.
“Good morning, Little Miss Lianhua. It’s good to see you awake. How is the water today?”
A stumpy little rhizome poked up out of the water and waved at her.
“Hi Auntie Aecha. It’s warm. Some bugs tried to nibble on my leaves, but the fishies ate them.”
Aecha nodded, checking the linens to ensure they’d dried properly. Lianhua being up meant that the garden would be more humid than usual.
“That’s good. It will be summer soon—can we expect you to be up more often?”
“Mmmn...”
The spirit girl sunk deeper into her flower and blew some bubbles around it, whining. Her submerged mouth didn’t impede her response in any way.
“Still sleepy. It’s warm today. And there were bugs.”
“I understand. Shall I ask your mother to keep them out of the garden?”
She shook her head.
“Mm. Bugs need to eat. Fishies too.”
“Very well.”
Lianhua was...odd. Compared to her older sisters, who’d practically matured into fully fledged adults in only ten years, the lotus spirit was the exact opposite. She looked and acted close to a third of her actual age of fifteen—if you measured from when she’d awakened.
This was in part because she spent two thirds of the year ‘asleep.’ While she had a humanoid spirit form that could manifest any time, she hated doing so unless her flower was in full bloom. It was a warm day, and she’d been bothered by insects, so she was awake, but it was still a bit early for lotus blooms, and it would be another month or two before she became regularly active again. That was probably also why she was hiding in the pond and gesturing with her roots instead of her spirit form.
But even when dormant, Lianhua was still aware. She was just largely disinterested in human matters. As long as her pond was thriving and the essence around her was balanced—which she made sure of herself—she was content to simply sit and, well, vegetate. She was more receptive to learning new things when she was active.
Aecha left it at that, since the little spirit girl wasn’t much for small talk. Lianhua watched quietly as she gathered up the laundry, neatly folding each item and stacking them in her basket. After a few minutes of companionable silence, the little girl was comfortable enough to sit on the edge of the pool and kick her feet in the water, alternating between watching Aecha and playing with the fish disinterestedly.
She was nearly finished with her task when Dae burst into the garden excitedly, startling the poor spirit, who practically dove back into the pool to peer up at him from the edge.
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“Lianhua! You’re awake, excellent! I need a few ampoules of your pond water for some research. Can I trouble you to part with some? Preferably with as much Mist or Purity essence as you can provide.”
The lotus flower hid behind the edge of the pond, eyeing him for a moment before nodding slowly.
“‘Kay.”
A tiny cloud of mist started to form above one of the floating pads as it lifted out of the water. The cloud condensed slowly, forming faintly glowing droplets that gathered in a tiny pool in the middle of the leaf.
Dae held out a glass vial, and the leaf curled itself into a funnel to fill it with the mystically charged water. Aecha cleared her throat.
“Good morning to you too, Big Brother.”
Dae glanced over to her and chuckled, bowing apologetically.
“Ah, sorry about that, Aecha. I missed you there in my enthusiasm.”
“You startled Little Miss Lianhua.”
He blinked and looked over at the girl, still hiding beneath the water even as her flower form dutifully filled Dae’s vials.
“Oh. Did I?”
The girl furrowed her brows for a moment before curtly nodding once.
“My apologies, then. I’ll have Iseul make you some mud from soil quarried from Geumji next time, okay?”
“Mm.”
Lianhua’s response was unenthusiastic, but she did reemerge from under the surface of the pond. Aecha smiled wryly at her brother as he continued to collect his samples.
“How generous, promising her something she can get from her sister for free.”
“If you think getting Iseul to part with her mud is that easy, then you’ve never actually tried. She’s the only one in the family who doesn’t spoil her youngest sister.”
“If you say so. What do you need that water for, anyway?”
The mist that Lianhua produced gave the garden a jungle-like humidity when she was active, and was part of how her aura maintained the balance of essence around her. It was unusual for a spirit to have such a physical presence, but the mist was technically a property of the flower from which she was born, rather than the spirit herself. Lianhua, however, would argue that she was both.
Dae held up one of the glowing vials and grinned.
“Aside from the fact that it’s a top grade alchemical reagent? Fujikawa Ayumi has proposed a project for arcane healing that shows great promise. Her theory is that Mist, Water, and Purity are ideal elements for transmitting—”
“Stop! I don’t know who that is, and whatever you’re about to say is way over my head.”
Actually, Aecha did know exactly what he was talking about. She made it her business to stay on top of local happenings, especially if they involved family. Fujikawa had recently moved into town from Yamato, tried and only partially succeeded in reconnecting with her old acquaintances, and then started dating Iseul.
The trouble with arcane healing was that arcane arts were the most external of the magical disciplines, and thus were exceptionally bad at manifesting anything within the body. Even casting spells inside of another mage’s aura was difficult. Fujikawa’s proposed solution was a sort of pseudo-alchemy, creating temporary elixirs imbued with healing intent that could then be imbibed to diffuse the effects through the body and soul.
Water was the obvious medium, and Purity was an element which both had natural healing properties and could ensure that whatever concoction the technique produced would remain safe to drink. Aecha wasn’t sure what they needed Mist for, but she wasn’t going to ask.
Telling Dae that she already knew what he was talking about was the worst way to get him to stop rambling. Then it wouldn’t be a lecture, it would be a discussion. He’d want to know her opinion, and she’d be stuck talking about theoretical cultivation all day. Every now and then wasn’t bad, but her brother didn’t have an off switch.
“Right, yes, sorry.”
Rather than shut him down entirely, Aecha opted to gently shift the subject to something connected.
“Do you think it might be a path to helping Father’s recovery?”
“Do Hye? Possibly. I hadn’t really considered that, but anything that bridges the boundary between mind and soul has potential. I’m still surprised you’re calling him that.”
She shrugged, continuing to work as they chatted.
“You are my brother, and he is your father. He may not be related to us by blood, but if you care about him, then I will endeavor to do so as well. He was quite lucid when I met him this morning—you should visit, while you’re here.”
Dae looked away and scratched the back of his head.
“Maybe...”
Aecha sighed and put down her basket so that she could put her hands on her hips for a proper glare.
“Dae, it’s been fifteen years. You can’t avoid things forever!”
“I know that! I don’t intend to. I just...want it to be him. I want to cure him first.”
“That’s just procrastination, and you know it. He may never fully recover, or it might take centuries. If you keep putting things off until you think you’re ready, you’ll never be ready. When are you going to ask her?”
He pursed his lips, and silence dragged out between them. From the edge of the pond, Lianhua watched curiously, unbothered by their argument. Eventually he sighed and turned away.
“That’s different. Look, I’ll visit our father. Today, even.”
“Mhm. You know she’ll say yes—just ask.”
“That’s not the point. Ugh, you’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Aecha crossed her arms. For all that he was brilliant, loyal, and quite sensitive to other people, her brother had a giant blind spot when it came to his own feelings.
“You already practically live here when you’re not at the academy. I’m here, Father’s here, the Little Miss already calls me ‘Auntie’ and answers your requests without a second thought. What do you suppose that makes you, hm? Dae, you’re already part of her family—just make it official.”
He hesitated, about to respond, but then she delivered her coup de grace.
“Besides, at the rate you’re going you’re bound to start a family here whether you marry her or not. It’s amazing Miss Yue beat you to it.”
Dae spun around to meet her with an incredulous stare, blushing from ear to ear as he sputtered a response.
“That is not—what business is it—you—how do you know that?!”
She kicked the basket of laundry and rolled her eyes.
“Who do you think has to clean up after you? Besides, Mistress Kaede tells me everything. Don’t worry—she hasn’t had any complaints so far.”
“I—will think about it, alright? Maybe I have been procrastinating a bit—but this new research—!”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure it’s fascinating. I’ll let you get back to it. I’m sorry for being a nag, but as your little sister, I feel obligated to push you when you’re being stubborn.”
“Yes, well. Thank you, I think. Though maybe you could afford to push a little more gently.”
Aecha rolled her eyes and sent her brother away with a shooing motion. He actually was an incredibly busy person, and her distraction had probably rendered him late for some important meeting. Once he left, Aecha picked up her basket and turned around, entirely unsurprised to find Hayakawa Kaede sitting at the edge of the pond, gently stroking her daughter’s pink hair.
She’d probably been there the entire time.
“You don’t have to be so hard on him, you know. He’s doing his best.”
She sneered at her Mistress and best friend, dropping her basket again so that she could cross her arms.
“Don’t you start. You’re as much to blame as he is. Why didn’t you say anything? Why don’t you ask? You’ve been together for almost fifteen years and you still act like a pair of teenagers. Lianhua is more mature than both of you combined!”
The lotus spirit giggled and Kaede gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“Of course she is. She’s over a thousand years old. You’ve got the wisdom of ages, don’t you sweetheart?”
“Mhm!”
Lianhua smiled innocently, and it was hard for Aecha to tell how much she was actually following. Probably all of it. Despite her childlike demeanor, she often displayed emotional intelligence well beyond what anyone expected of her.
She sighed.
“You’re as bad as my brother, dodging the question.”
Kaede leaned back and looked up at the sky with a bittersweet expression, tucking a lock of crimson hair behind her ear.
“I don’t have the luxury of asking anymore. I’m the Goddess, remember? I don’t make requests that I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving as orders.”
That brought Aecha up short, though only for a moment.
“I wouldn’t have any trouble denying one of your requests, and it is my entire job to fulfill them. Surely those closest to you—like Dae—can be trusted enough not to humor you just because of who you are? Otherwise, who can you trust?”
“Who indeed? You’re right, I suppose. And it’s not like I wouldn’t be able to tell if he didn’t mean it. Maybe I just want to enjoy having someone I love propose to me?”
What a pain those two were. Aecha almost regretted bringing them together in the first place, the way they made her do all the work. Maybe that was Yoshika’s subtle way of punishing her for being so meddlesome. The mischievous glint in Kaede’s eye as Aecha thought that was probably just a coincidence.
“Very well. Is there anything else I can do for you, Kaede, or should I prepare to fill my entire schedule with micromanaging your love life?”
The goddess chuckled, then stood to stretch.
“Could you have one of the rooms in the main wing converted into a nursery? Yue’s going to be staying here for a few years to raise our son. Actually, I’m feeling ambitious—why don’t we make it two? You’re right—Dae and I have been getting along quite well recently.”
Aecha sighed. Yoshika was a demanding mistress indeed, but she was committed to being a handmaiden worthy of anyone—even a Goddess.
“Yes, Mistress.”
She rolled up her sleeves and got back to work.
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