Empress of Blue Flower Mountain

Stories

### Chapter 1: Chapter 1

There is a mountain, far to the East, that has existed as long as the earth grew green and small creatures crept upon it. That was my birthplace and my home. I knew nothing else but those mountains for a very long time.

The first living thing I saw was neither animal nor vegetation, but my brother. He was like me, but also a little different from me. At the time, neither of us understood how we could be the same but not the same. In human speech, I am something like a female and he is something like a male. I am his sister, he is my brother. He is the sword, I am the shield.

But we are neither human, animal, nor vegetable. We are spirits, specifically of the mountains. For when the mountains formed, we existed. Everything that happens on those mountains we know about. Just the same as a human knows their own body.

We saw the first green things grow on those barren heights. And witnessed the bugs and birds arrive. Small animals, like rabbits and foxes, and then later the deer and the wolves… we were there for each arrival.

My brother loved the animals best. He loved the deer, to the point he poured his power into them and changed them. He did not realize what he was doing at first, so it surprised us both when the deer began to speak to us. Not in words, for we did not know the meaning of language, but with emotion and desire. They became, for lack of a better word, intelligent.

As for me, I focused on the plants. It’s not that I disliked the animals, but the beauty of a flower seemed to surpass the beauty of my brother’s deer. I poured my power into the plants. My favorite were the flowering trees, despite the fact that they were not initially well suited to most of the mountainous terrain.

I very carefully cultivated the flowering trees, until they blossomed blue flowers of a type unprecedented anywhere in the world. During the day, they made the mountain look like the ocean and at night they glowed as if they were thousands of tiny blue lanterns.

I don’t know how many years passed during this time. Spirits like my brother and I had no sense of time. We understood night and day and the seasons, but beyond that we paid very little attention to what that meant.

Things grew old. Things withered with age. But rather than attributing that to time, it was simply the nature of the things themselves. Those things that we poured our power into were divorced from the ravages of that silent killer, or so we thought. My blue flowering trees, my brother’s deer. We didn’t realize our meddling was unnatural, that we ourselves were strange.

Anyway.

Men came to the mountains.

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They were hunters.

Naturally, they were astonished by my beautiful trees. And when they saw my brother’s deer, who had no fear of them, they couldn’t help trying to kill one.

You may think we would be angered at their behavior, but we were not. Wolves and mountain lions had tried to eat my brother’s deer too. It’s the nature of animals to eat the grass or each other, and neither of us questioned it.

And more importantly, they couldn’t be caught. This was a point of pride for my brother. His deer were uncatchable.

The hunters never could kill those deer. No matter how hard they tried. And the deer themselves took great joy in taunting those hunters for their wasted efforts.

Brother thought nothing of the humans. They were just another wolf, just another monkey. Beneath his interest, outside a glance.

But I was very interested. The sounds they made, the way they moved, that they wore skins of other animals, used weapons instead of teeth and claw… Oh yes, humans were ever so interesting. I kept a sharp eye on them, right up until they left.

For they did leave. The animals on the mountains were smarter by simply being under our care. They would not be captured by normal methods. If a human wanted to catch even a rabbit, he’d need more than a bow and arrow or a simple string trap.

I was sad when they left, and a little bored.

My plants, which I’d spent eons taking care of, suddenly lost their appeal. I wandered the mountains, restless, looking for something to do with myself.

Thinking of the humans, I began to fashion creatures after them. They were crude creatures at first, but after many iterations, I succeeded.

These beings of mine, later would be called fairies.

This caught my brother’s attention. He’d never seen anything at all like my little fairy children. They were me but not me. An extension of my very existence while being separate from my will.

Taking a break from his precious deer, he attempted to make some himself. I’m afraid he was not anywhere near as successful. He did not really understand what they were to begin with, as he had paid no mind to the humans nor noted their differences from the animals.

His fairies were tied to his will. If he desired something, they did too. They were living, but their souls were puppets. They could never desire anything for themselves, or take joy in a thing different than what he took joy in. They were… sad. I felt sorry for them.

In the end, I took a bit of his spirit and fashioned a fairy like mine from it. I gave this fairy to him as a gift. He liked it at first, because it was from me, until he realized it took no heed of his commands.

That was when I had my first inkling that my brother had a problem.

He did not understand why I thought fairy children with opinions and desires different than mine was a good thing. In his mind, they were simply an extension of our being, so they must obey. He viewed any differences as unnatural, dangerous, and ugly.

So the fairy I gifted him was neglected and despised, not just by my brother but by all his fairy children as well.

In the end, my fairy children brought him to me, begging me to take him in. My heart was broken. My gift had been rejected. Of course I took him in. Though he was crafted from my brother, I’d created him. I gave him special care and attention because I felt guilty for giving him existence in a family that would never appreciate him.

A great deal more time passed after that. My fairy children, plus the one from my brother, were my pride and joy. They helped me cultivate my trees, look after my gardens, and every day showed me the world through their fresh, young eyes.

I loved them.

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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Humans came again. This time, they were not hunters. There were women and children, as well as men. Rather than the skins of animals, they wore woven pieces from plants, dyed and many colored. I’m afraid I was mostly focused on their clothes at the time, so I did not pay much attention to the reason they were there.

Later, much later, I learned they had been chased from their home country. A new ruler came to power through the sword and was slaughtering all those who had been loyal to the prior leadership. Several high ranking families saw the writing on the wall and fled. But the new ruler was not keen on letting them escape, so he sent his armies to chase them down.

Many died before they reached the mountains. There was a great deal of sorrow. What kept them going was, at night, they saw a great light in the distance. Beautiful and blue, it called to them like bees to flowers.

Yes, my beautiful flower trees lit their way. A light in their darkest hour. I still like the thought of it.

At first I only observed them as they made their way deeper into the mountain forest. They were extremely cautious, not even willing to light a fire for fear of being found by their enemies. Unaware of their plight, I only knew that I liked them very much and didn’t want them to leave.

My experience with humans was limited, but I knew they liked food and would eat plants as well as meat. So I instructed my fairy children, who had a physical substance I did not, to guide the humans to good fruits and vegetables.

It was the human children that led the way. Though my fairy children had a physical body, for some reason the adults could not see them while the children could. To this day I have no idea why. Perhaps it’s the way children view the world, I don’t know.

At some point the armies came to the mountain too. They intended on entering, but neither my brother or I would allow it. This was not because my brother was interested in saving the humans I’d taken an interest in. Truthfully, that was not why I stopped them either.

They radiated evil. It poured out of them in waves.

Up until that point, no evil thing came near our mountains. We did not even know what evil was until it was at our doorstep. But the moment we sensed it, our repulsion was so strong that we shook with both rage and disgust. It was an instinctual hatred. We would never allow evil to come into our home.

The hunters and the fleeing families also had evil in them. All humans do. They are tainted with evil when they’re born. But humans are also touched with goodness as well. The good is quite powerful, strong enough to smother the evil. If humans are careful, the goodness will lead them to redemption. If they are foolish…

…they end up like that army.

Though I did not know it at the time, many humans are foolish. The army was not really an exception. The hunters and the fleeing families were the exception. Goodness is often neglected among mankind for the quick and easy pleasures that come from evil. But back then, I did not know that, and assumed humans were generally of the good sort.

Anyway, we did not let the army enter. We are spirits, we have no physical form, but that doesn’t make us weak. The mountain is our body, the creatures on it our hands and feet. When the army tried to enter, every living and none living thing sought to stop them. From the mountain lions to foxes, bees to tree roots, even the very dirt under their feet, impeded them.

My brother’s fairy children fought them directly, using their hands and teeth like the animals to kill them. Some of my fairy children fought them too, but most stayed with the hiding families in the forest. They liked the little human children and, seeing them afraid, wanted to comfort them.

Many men died that day, human blood soaking the mountain for the first time. The army eventually retreated, screaming that the forest they’d entered was cursed and filled with demons. The devastation of the army must have been enough to convince their new ruler the truth of their statements, because no one from that country ever came near the mountains again.

My brother’s opinion of humanity reached a whole new low that day. The fact that we’d met many humans who’d not succumbed to such evil in the past did not sooth his fears. That they could, at any time, be totally taken over by evil was enough. The potential and the capacity for such vileness put him on edge. He did not want even the possibility of that kind of thing happening in his home.

His eyes turned to the families my fairy children had been protecting. He wanted them dead, every last one of them. Even the infant children who, by some miracle, had been born and survived the long trek to our mountains.

For the first time, my brother and I had a serious disagreement. We could not reconcile our viewpoints. He viewed humans with fear, I viewed them with potential.

In the end, it was only his love for me that stopped them from being slaughtered. I actually begged him, something that I’d never done before, to spare their lives. For my sake, he stayed his hand. He did not like it, but he also could not say no.

We were brother and sister. The only two of our kind in the whole world. We spoiled each other in many ways because of that. This was an instance where my brother spoiled me, against his better judgment.

So the humans stayed. And my little fairy children and I watched over them.

The mountains are not an easy place to live under normal circumstances, and it was made worse for them because the animals were impossible to catch. To solve this problem, I guided them to streams, ponds, and rivers. My brother and I never paid any mind to fish and water crawlies, so they never gained any intelligence. The only benefit the fishes had was from being on our mountain, absorbing our power from the very water. It made them stronger, bigger, and healthier. Perfect for eating, for which the bears rejoiced, but not much else.

The humans also domesticated many different creatures: mountain goats and sheep, for milk and clothing. The yak for heavy loads. The ducks and geese for eggs and feathers. When these animals grew old or were seriously injured, only then would they kill and eat them. This was counted as mercy killing, by the animals and the people.

They figured out rather quickly that something was helping them survive. Their children saw or heard things, and had knowledge of the mountains that just wasn’t natural. The fairies, the humans called them, were helping them. The fairies had chased away the army, and the fairies guided them to food and clean water. The human adults had no idea why they attracted such goodwill from the fairies, which in their homeland were viewed as malicious spirits, but they were careful not to lose it.

The fairies told the human children all about me, how I was beautiful and strong, and how the blue flowers that glowed at night had been made by me. They even called me “mother”, once they understood what that meant among the humans. The children naturally told their parents as well.

Hearing this, the first thing the adults thought to do was worship me as a goddess. But I would not allow it. When they carved images of me in wood and then bowed to them, I saw evil grow in their hearts and it brought a chill to my soul. I did not understand what a goddess was at the time, but anything that grew evil in humans should not be encouraged.

They ignored my warnings through the fairies, so I found the biggest bear on the mountain and instructed it to destroy the ugly wood carvings of me and chase those who made them. Any time they attempted such worshipful nonsense, I’d call the giant bear in to punish them. No one died or was seriously hurt, but it gave them a good scare.

After that, the adults listened to the children, and by proxy the fairies, who’d warned them against trying to worship me as a goddess. Still, this left the adults dissatisfied. So the fairy mother would not allow worshiping, but some sign of respect should be made. It was her land, and her good graces, that allowed them to live after all.

After a lot of arguing and discussion, they bestowed upon me the name Xuiying (beautiful flower) and reverently called me the Empress of the Blue Mountains, Mother of the Fairies, Keeper of the Blue Lights. If they ever thought I might be near by, they would get on their hands and knees and bow, wishing me a long life several times in a row.

I thought the whole process was odd, especially if they bowed in the wrong direction or when I wasn’t even there. I’d never asked for such respect, never demanded it, but they forced it on me regardless. I did like the name though, and referred to myself as that ever after.

While I was learning all kinds of fascinating things from the humans, my brother kept his distance from their settlement. He did not like them and would only visit me if I left them for a time to tend my trees, usually during the spring.

When I told him of my newly acquired name, he did not see the point in it. We’d never needed names before, so why get excited about it now? I then shared the human concept of family, and how he and I were like that: brother and sister, a family.

I thought that would at least catch his interest, but instead it seemed to upset him. When I asked him why, he got befuddled and eventually said he didn’t really know why and then left in a huff. His confusion must have been immense, for I did not see him for quite some time after that.

That was the second time I suspected my brother had a problem.