Post by devilinthedetails on May 15, 2023 6:14:03 GMT 10
Title: Secrets of Serenity
Summary: Lianokami learns the secrets of serenity from her mother.
Rating: PG-13 for references to racism.
Author's Note: I prefer the nickname "Lian" rather than "Liano" for Lianokami so that is what I tend to go with in all my fics about her!
A tribute to mothers in honor of Mother's Day. There might be more celebrations of Tortallan mothers coming from me in the next few days so keep an eye out if more mother and daughter stories are appealing to you!
Secrets of Serenity
It was Lian’s mother who taught her the secrets of serenity during one of their many meditation lessons. They sat side-by-side. Legs neatly crossed on the bamboo mats they had spread over the stone terrace overlooking the garden paths her father had ordered planted with cherryblossoms in honor of her mother’s favorite flowering tree. The soft May breeze–scented with those cherryblossoms Da had planted as a love tribute to Ma–kissed their peach cheeks and combed through their jet black hair.
A small fountain in the terrace corner burbled over pebbles. Lian could picture the peaceful flow of the water even with her eyes closed the same way her mind could paint the pink blooms of the cherryblossoms from their perfume alone.
The music of the fountain made a sweet accompaniment to the soothing song of her mother’s beautiful voice as Ma guided her through the levels of meditation. Teaching her the secrets of serenity the Yamani knew better than any other people in the world. Their culture being devoted to such calm grace. Such constant balance.
In such circumstances and surroundings, with her ma’s gentle words washing over her like waves lapping at a beach, it was hard for even a child as spirited as Lian to be anything other than tranquil. Though her passionate nature warred with the calm. Seeking stimulation and excitement. Craving diversion.
“You must embrace the blessings and the curses of life with equal equanimity and grace. Equal composure,” Ma murmured. Voice just loud enough to be heard over the fountain and the breeze. “Yamani are not quick to label what is a blessing and what is a curse because they understand that it is not easy to determine what is a blessing and what is a curse. For every blessing contains a curse, and every curse contains a blessing the way every fruit contains a seed and every seed contains a flower. That is the balance Yama teaches her children when we meditate. Through meditation, a Yamani can accept the good with the bad and the bad with the good without having to label either as good or bad. That acceptance is what makes Yamani so different from Easterners. What makes the Yamani so resilient.”
Eyes shut, Lian contemplated her mother and the image she projected into the world like ripples in a windswept pond. Ma, she thought, had all the delicate beauty of a spring cherryblossom combined with the deadly, cutting steel of a naginata.
She was poised. Always polite and pleasant but cunning too. Shrewd and careful enough to survive the ruthless politics of the cutthroat Yamani court after her own parents had been disgraced and compelled to commit ritual suicide. Her ma had mastered the art of dodging the daggers of life without seeming to disturb an immaculately arranged hair on her head. She was, in a nutshell, the woman Lian admired most in the world.
Lian’s mind was drifting like a falling cherryblossom carried on the wind to some unknown destination. Perhaps Ma could sense that because she went on smoothly, “I shall tell you an old Yamani story about how entwined blessings and curses can be.”
“A story!” Lian couldn’t control or conceal her excitement. Began to bounce gleefully on her mat. She loved her mother’s stories about the Yamani Islands that gave her glimpses into that mist-shrouded, mountainous country she had never visited. The land that had given birth to her mother. Shaped her in ways Lian wished so deeply to understand.
“Yes.” A lightly chiding note entered Ma’s tone for the first time. “If you will sit down like a proper princess, be patient, and not interrupt.”
“I’m sitting.” Lian stopped bouncing. Tried to settle and silence herself for the forthcoming, promised story. “I’m being patient and proper and not interrupting.”
This last statement was rooted more in optimism than truth but Ma began to relate her tale of the twisted relationship between blessings and curses. “There once was an elderly man with a long, gray beard who lived in the countryside. He had a great, rare stallion. It was a rich, chestnut brown. Glossy and strong. In all the neighboring towns and villages, it was said to be the most gallant steed. Everyone for li around exclaimed that he was the luckiest man to have such a noble beast. It was the envy of all.”
Lian, being a lover of horses like her father and grandmother before her, could understand how the villagers could be jealous of a man with such a glorious mount. Found herself emitting her own quiet moan of envy as her mother described the horse.
Her jealousy turned to shocked pity as Ma continued to spin the story’s thread. “Then one day the stallion ran away because it was a creature with a spirit as wild as the volcanoes and could not be held in by any fence. Of course, everybody in the surrounding villages and towns lamented the horse’s escape. Shaking their heads and remarking on what a tragedy it was to lose such a magnificent animal.”
“It does seem like the foulest luck,” Lian commented with a sympathetic groan for the old man’s loss.
“The old man had lived long enough to have acquired the wisdom not to despair based on what seemed to be the foulest luck. Instead he asked his neighbors what made them so certain the mount’s disappearance wasn’t a blessing.” Ma paused, and Lian struggled not to squirm in eagerness for the tale to resume. Her mother was trying to teach her the wisdom of patience after all.
Lian’s efforts were rewarded when Ma resumed, “A few weeks later, the stallion came galloping back home followed by a beautiful wild mare. Soon, the mare foaled a stunning colt, and the three spectacular creatures brought much prosperity and honor to the old man. Everyone for li around was jubilant on his behalf. Claiming it was a cause for great celebration. Yet the old man said only, ‘What makes you so certain this isn’t a curse?’”
“He wasn’t very upbeat, was he?” Lian frowned. A furrow clouding her brow. “Or grateful to the gods for their blessings upon him.”
Offended gods could smite in their wrath those who were insufficiently grateful. The priests of Mithros and the Black God had taught her that in their solemn temples.
“The villagers, like you, were scandalized. Couldn’t believe he would say such a thing.” There seemed to be a smile in Ma’s tone now. “Yet, a few days later, the man seemed very prescient for the man’s only son fell while riding the stallion and broke his neck. With the harvest coming in soon, this doubled the old man’s hunched-back toil in the rice paddies. When the neighbors sought to commiserate with him for his misfortune, however, he said–”
“‘What makes you so certain this isn’t a blessing?’” Lian interjected. Spotting where the story was going and eager to head it off at the pass. To prove that she could be as prescient as the old man in her own way.
“That’s exactly what he said,” Ma confirmed with a hint of much-coveted approval. “Not long afterward, invaders sailed in from Jindazhen and all the men in the district were marshaled for battle. Only the elderly and the infirm were spared the summons. The fight against the invaders was vicious. No men from the nearby villages and towns came back from that bloody battle, and it was only because the man was old and his son was bed-bound with a broken neck that they survived to savor each other’s company for many years.”
Ma paused to allow the moral of the story to sink over Lian like a bath with lavender soap bubbles. Then concluded, “So, you see, wrapped around every misfortune like sticky rice around the raw fish of sushi is a blessing, and around every blessing, a balancing misfortune is there to weigh it down. To keep its recipient humble and grounded. Serene and accepting of all fates.”
Lian nibbled her lip as if it were sushi or a glutinous ball of sticky rice. “But you were happy when it was announced that you would marry Da. That you would be sailing to Tortall to be his bride.”
She had heard the stories of that from her governess, Lady Haname, who had been her mother’s companion on that journey from the Yamani Islands to Tortall. Who had never left her mother’s side. Remaining as a loyal friend and advisor as her mother married and raised children. Serving as Lian’s strict and exacting governess. The one in charge of her education.
Lady Haname had told Lian a hundred times how poised her ma had been when Lady Haname and Lady Yuki brought her news that the emperor had dissolved the marriage contract ma had been en route to fulfilling and had decreed that ma was to wed the Crown Prince of Tortall instead to seal that treaty. How graciously she had done her duty. Acceded to the emperor’s will and pleasure. How piously she had burned incense and floated paper prayer lanterns at every temple they passed on the way to the harbor where they would embark for Tortall’s distant horizon.
“You seemed to treat that like a blessing,” Lian finished. Always liking the idea of the gentle romance that seemed to have blossomed between her soft-spoken parents before they had even laid eyes on each other. As if the gods had meant for them to be together. “Burning incense at every temple on the way to Tortall. You didn’t seem to see any curse or sorrow in that.”
“I didn’t know your father when the emperor declared I was to marry him,” Ma pointed out. Quiet as a clam. “He could’ve been a brute, and I would have been honor-bound to wed him without complaint. To be his dutiful wife. For the good of the Yamani Islands. All the people there whom I would never see again.”
“He wasn’t a brute! Isn’t a brute!” Lian exclaimed. Almost indignant on behalf of her father. Da was, in her opinion, among the most mild-mannered and even-tempered of men. She couldn’t fathom him ever being cruel to Ma or to her. He would, she was quite convinced, die first.
“No,” Ma agreed. “He was quite charming and civilized. A pleasant surprise in a husband from the Eastern Lands.”
Lian stifled a giggle. Remembering that those from the Yamani Islands had a tendency to regard people from the Eastern Lands as uncouth barbarians. Not wishing to add to that impression by her own indecorous laughter during what had originally been intended as a meditation lesson and had devolved into a precious as pearls story time with her mother.
“But there could have been a curse in my marriage to him if he was a brute, and I would never return to the Yamani Islands again.” There was a reflective note to Ma’s voice that quelled Lian’s humor. Made her feel an echo of her mother’s almost melancholy wistfulness. “Never go back to the place that bore and bred me same as a child cannot crawl back into her mother’s warm womb after entering the cold world. There was an endless sorrow in that.”
“Da has tried to give you pieces of the Yamani Islands here.” Lian breathed in the scent of cherryblossoms. Cherryblossoms her father had planted to try to keep her mother’s homesickness at bay, Lian realized now.
“Yes, but pieces are not the same as the whole.” There was no wavering in her mother’s tone. Just soft strength. The strength of cherryblossoms on a May morning. “We can mourn for our lost past even as we embrace the joys of our presence and future. That delicate dance and balance between everything we grieve and everything we hope for is what it means to be serene.”
“I’m not certain I’m made for serenity.” Lian’s lips twitched. Thinking she was too passionate to long for serenity as her parents did. To placidly accept whatever fate life and the gods deigned to bestow upon her. She wanted to define her own place in the world under the sun and stars. To carve out her own destiny from the rough rock of her present and future. To stubbornly will her dreams into reality.
“Nobody is made for certainty,” Ma corrected her. “It is something that we must all develop and maintain in contrast to the chaos of our natures and the world.”
“The world doesn’t seem to be in chaos now.” Lian couldn’t resist arguing with her mother. She was too precocious and indulged to avoid any debate. “The garden is very peaceful.”
“Things are never merely what they seem. They always transcend that.” Ma had the final, decisive word on the matter. “My story should have taught you that if your ears were open and not closed like a too-willful child’s.”
A too-willful child. That was Lian. Too willful for serenity even in a cherryblossom garden.
Summary: Lianokami learns the secrets of serenity from her mother.
Rating: PG-13 for references to racism.
Author's Note: I prefer the nickname "Lian" rather than "Liano" for Lianokami so that is what I tend to go with in all my fics about her!
A tribute to mothers in honor of Mother's Day. There might be more celebrations of Tortallan mothers coming from me in the next few days so keep an eye out if more mother and daughter stories are appealing to you!
Secrets of Serenity
It was Lian’s mother who taught her the secrets of serenity during one of their many meditation lessons. They sat side-by-side. Legs neatly crossed on the bamboo mats they had spread over the stone terrace overlooking the garden paths her father had ordered planted with cherryblossoms in honor of her mother’s favorite flowering tree. The soft May breeze–scented with those cherryblossoms Da had planted as a love tribute to Ma–kissed their peach cheeks and combed through their jet black hair.
A small fountain in the terrace corner burbled over pebbles. Lian could picture the peaceful flow of the water even with her eyes closed the same way her mind could paint the pink blooms of the cherryblossoms from their perfume alone.
The music of the fountain made a sweet accompaniment to the soothing song of her mother’s beautiful voice as Ma guided her through the levels of meditation. Teaching her the secrets of serenity the Yamani knew better than any other people in the world. Their culture being devoted to such calm grace. Such constant balance.
In such circumstances and surroundings, with her ma’s gentle words washing over her like waves lapping at a beach, it was hard for even a child as spirited as Lian to be anything other than tranquil. Though her passionate nature warred with the calm. Seeking stimulation and excitement. Craving diversion.
“You must embrace the blessings and the curses of life with equal equanimity and grace. Equal composure,” Ma murmured. Voice just loud enough to be heard over the fountain and the breeze. “Yamani are not quick to label what is a blessing and what is a curse because they understand that it is not easy to determine what is a blessing and what is a curse. For every blessing contains a curse, and every curse contains a blessing the way every fruit contains a seed and every seed contains a flower. That is the balance Yama teaches her children when we meditate. Through meditation, a Yamani can accept the good with the bad and the bad with the good without having to label either as good or bad. That acceptance is what makes Yamani so different from Easterners. What makes the Yamani so resilient.”
Eyes shut, Lian contemplated her mother and the image she projected into the world like ripples in a windswept pond. Ma, she thought, had all the delicate beauty of a spring cherryblossom combined with the deadly, cutting steel of a naginata.
She was poised. Always polite and pleasant but cunning too. Shrewd and careful enough to survive the ruthless politics of the cutthroat Yamani court after her own parents had been disgraced and compelled to commit ritual suicide. Her ma had mastered the art of dodging the daggers of life without seeming to disturb an immaculately arranged hair on her head. She was, in a nutshell, the woman Lian admired most in the world.
Lian’s mind was drifting like a falling cherryblossom carried on the wind to some unknown destination. Perhaps Ma could sense that because she went on smoothly, “I shall tell you an old Yamani story about how entwined blessings and curses can be.”
“A story!” Lian couldn’t control or conceal her excitement. Began to bounce gleefully on her mat. She loved her mother’s stories about the Yamani Islands that gave her glimpses into that mist-shrouded, mountainous country she had never visited. The land that had given birth to her mother. Shaped her in ways Lian wished so deeply to understand.
“Yes.” A lightly chiding note entered Ma’s tone for the first time. “If you will sit down like a proper princess, be patient, and not interrupt.”
“I’m sitting.” Lian stopped bouncing. Tried to settle and silence herself for the forthcoming, promised story. “I’m being patient and proper and not interrupting.”
This last statement was rooted more in optimism than truth but Ma began to relate her tale of the twisted relationship between blessings and curses. “There once was an elderly man with a long, gray beard who lived in the countryside. He had a great, rare stallion. It was a rich, chestnut brown. Glossy and strong. In all the neighboring towns and villages, it was said to be the most gallant steed. Everyone for li around exclaimed that he was the luckiest man to have such a noble beast. It was the envy of all.”
Lian, being a lover of horses like her father and grandmother before her, could understand how the villagers could be jealous of a man with such a glorious mount. Found herself emitting her own quiet moan of envy as her mother described the horse.
Her jealousy turned to shocked pity as Ma continued to spin the story’s thread. “Then one day the stallion ran away because it was a creature with a spirit as wild as the volcanoes and could not be held in by any fence. Of course, everybody in the surrounding villages and towns lamented the horse’s escape. Shaking their heads and remarking on what a tragedy it was to lose such a magnificent animal.”
“It does seem like the foulest luck,” Lian commented with a sympathetic groan for the old man’s loss.
“The old man had lived long enough to have acquired the wisdom not to despair based on what seemed to be the foulest luck. Instead he asked his neighbors what made them so certain the mount’s disappearance wasn’t a blessing.” Ma paused, and Lian struggled not to squirm in eagerness for the tale to resume. Her mother was trying to teach her the wisdom of patience after all.
Lian’s efforts were rewarded when Ma resumed, “A few weeks later, the stallion came galloping back home followed by a beautiful wild mare. Soon, the mare foaled a stunning colt, and the three spectacular creatures brought much prosperity and honor to the old man. Everyone for li around was jubilant on his behalf. Claiming it was a cause for great celebration. Yet the old man said only, ‘What makes you so certain this isn’t a curse?’”
“He wasn’t very upbeat, was he?” Lian frowned. A furrow clouding her brow. “Or grateful to the gods for their blessings upon him.”
Offended gods could smite in their wrath those who were insufficiently grateful. The priests of Mithros and the Black God had taught her that in their solemn temples.
“The villagers, like you, were scandalized. Couldn’t believe he would say such a thing.” There seemed to be a smile in Ma’s tone now. “Yet, a few days later, the man seemed very prescient for the man’s only son fell while riding the stallion and broke his neck. With the harvest coming in soon, this doubled the old man’s hunched-back toil in the rice paddies. When the neighbors sought to commiserate with him for his misfortune, however, he said–”
“‘What makes you so certain this isn’t a blessing?’” Lian interjected. Spotting where the story was going and eager to head it off at the pass. To prove that she could be as prescient as the old man in her own way.
“That’s exactly what he said,” Ma confirmed with a hint of much-coveted approval. “Not long afterward, invaders sailed in from Jindazhen and all the men in the district were marshaled for battle. Only the elderly and the infirm were spared the summons. The fight against the invaders was vicious. No men from the nearby villages and towns came back from that bloody battle, and it was only because the man was old and his son was bed-bound with a broken neck that they survived to savor each other’s company for many years.”
Ma paused to allow the moral of the story to sink over Lian like a bath with lavender soap bubbles. Then concluded, “So, you see, wrapped around every misfortune like sticky rice around the raw fish of sushi is a blessing, and around every blessing, a balancing misfortune is there to weigh it down. To keep its recipient humble and grounded. Serene and accepting of all fates.”
Lian nibbled her lip as if it were sushi or a glutinous ball of sticky rice. “But you were happy when it was announced that you would marry Da. That you would be sailing to Tortall to be his bride.”
She had heard the stories of that from her governess, Lady Haname, who had been her mother’s companion on that journey from the Yamani Islands to Tortall. Who had never left her mother’s side. Remaining as a loyal friend and advisor as her mother married and raised children. Serving as Lian’s strict and exacting governess. The one in charge of her education.
Lady Haname had told Lian a hundred times how poised her ma had been when Lady Haname and Lady Yuki brought her news that the emperor had dissolved the marriage contract ma had been en route to fulfilling and had decreed that ma was to wed the Crown Prince of Tortall instead to seal that treaty. How graciously she had done her duty. Acceded to the emperor’s will and pleasure. How piously she had burned incense and floated paper prayer lanterns at every temple they passed on the way to the harbor where they would embark for Tortall’s distant horizon.
“You seemed to treat that like a blessing,” Lian finished. Always liking the idea of the gentle romance that seemed to have blossomed between her soft-spoken parents before they had even laid eyes on each other. As if the gods had meant for them to be together. “Burning incense at every temple on the way to Tortall. You didn’t seem to see any curse or sorrow in that.”
“I didn’t know your father when the emperor declared I was to marry him,” Ma pointed out. Quiet as a clam. “He could’ve been a brute, and I would have been honor-bound to wed him without complaint. To be his dutiful wife. For the good of the Yamani Islands. All the people there whom I would never see again.”
“He wasn’t a brute! Isn’t a brute!” Lian exclaimed. Almost indignant on behalf of her father. Da was, in her opinion, among the most mild-mannered and even-tempered of men. She couldn’t fathom him ever being cruel to Ma or to her. He would, she was quite convinced, die first.
“No,” Ma agreed. “He was quite charming and civilized. A pleasant surprise in a husband from the Eastern Lands.”
Lian stifled a giggle. Remembering that those from the Yamani Islands had a tendency to regard people from the Eastern Lands as uncouth barbarians. Not wishing to add to that impression by her own indecorous laughter during what had originally been intended as a meditation lesson and had devolved into a precious as pearls story time with her mother.
“But there could have been a curse in my marriage to him if he was a brute, and I would never return to the Yamani Islands again.” There was a reflective note to Ma’s voice that quelled Lian’s humor. Made her feel an echo of her mother’s almost melancholy wistfulness. “Never go back to the place that bore and bred me same as a child cannot crawl back into her mother’s warm womb after entering the cold world. There was an endless sorrow in that.”
“Da has tried to give you pieces of the Yamani Islands here.” Lian breathed in the scent of cherryblossoms. Cherryblossoms her father had planted to try to keep her mother’s homesickness at bay, Lian realized now.
“Yes, but pieces are not the same as the whole.” There was no wavering in her mother’s tone. Just soft strength. The strength of cherryblossoms on a May morning. “We can mourn for our lost past even as we embrace the joys of our presence and future. That delicate dance and balance between everything we grieve and everything we hope for is what it means to be serene.”
“I’m not certain I’m made for serenity.” Lian’s lips twitched. Thinking she was too passionate to long for serenity as her parents did. To placidly accept whatever fate life and the gods deigned to bestow upon her. She wanted to define her own place in the world under the sun and stars. To carve out her own destiny from the rough rock of her present and future. To stubbornly will her dreams into reality.
“Nobody is made for certainty,” Ma corrected her. “It is something that we must all develop and maintain in contrast to the chaos of our natures and the world.”
“The world doesn’t seem to be in chaos now.” Lian couldn’t resist arguing with her mother. She was too precocious and indulged to avoid any debate. “The garden is very peaceful.”
“Things are never merely what they seem. They always transcend that.” Ma had the final, decisive word on the matter. “My story should have taught you that if your ears were open and not closed like a too-willful child’s.”
A too-willful child. That was Lian. Too willful for serenity even in a cherryblossom garden.