The cuture of Tae is based off of feudal Japan, with some alterations. Here are various notes you should keep track of.
~ A common peasant kimono is usually a dull colour such as brown or grey, with sometimes a simple symbol stamped all over it.
~ A daimyo is a feudal lord of Japan. They are vassals to the emperor and shogun. The shogun allows them property in exchange for special honour and allegiance.
~ The shogun is the commander-in-chief of Japan, and rules alongside the emperor.
~ Look up pictures of Japanese castles in google.
~ I had the maids dress in black kimonos with white trims. They are my own creation.
~ In Japan, even today, you are supposed to take off your shoes and leave them at the entrance as you enter the building, and maybe slip into indoor shoes.
~ Shoji doors are doors that are made with paper glued to the back of wooden screens. You open them by sliding them.
http://www.sinister-designs.com/design/images/door.gif
~ Tatami mats are mats made of bamboo strips. The floor is usually covered in about 8, depending on the size and shape of the room.
~ A rogue samurai is a samurai who owes allegiance to no master. A normal samurai serves a master, usually a daimyo, for the rest of his life. Should the samurai do anything to dishonour their master, they must commit suicide. Rogue samurai never have to commit suicide because they have no master to dishonour.
~ Priests and priestesses live at Shinto shrines. They own and manage the shrine, and donations made to the shrine go to them. I think I made this up, but one can have a priestess excorcise their house of bad luck spirits at a small price. Kikyou from InuYasha is an example of a priestess, and Rei/Raye from Sailor Moon, as well.
Long, ago, Tae was formed by the several forces of personality. After starting the world off, these forces left their spiritual and physical forms on earth, and entered the Realm of Forces, where they eternally bond themselves whithin crystals. No one of our Tae could enter the Realm of Forces. These physical beings the forces left behind started to have their own lives, and they had families with the normal people of Tae. These ancient, divine blood have vastly split, and each split survived to the modern day. Only the oldest of today's people really believed in the legend, however. But now, a new chapter of the legend is about to begin!
ACT I: The Demon Daimyo and the Peasant Boy
A boy with blond hair was stumbling through a thick forest. He was thirteen years of age, and his kimono was dull and tattered, the clothes of a peasant. He was breathing heavily, for he had been running nonstop for a day.
The forest then ended, and he found himself at the start of a grassy field. Several yards away from him was a walled town, and on a hill in the middle of the town, was a castle, Japanese architecture. "At last," the boy breathed, "The capital of the province." He started across the field.
Suddenly, the night horn sounded. The boy just realised that the sun was setting, and that the security was drawing up the bridge. "No, no!! Wait for me! Wait for me!!" The boy called as he ran across the field. He made a leap for the top of the bridge, missed, and fell into the moat. Unfortunately, the moat was fairly deep, and so he quickly struggled to shore for he could not swim. By now, the drawbridge had completely closed.
Now back on land, he found a place where the grass was soft and curled up to sleep. Now we see one of his flashbacks.
~*~
The boy was thrown out of a small house by a strong, angry pregnant woman.
"I don't want to deal with your frailty anymore! You're weak, small, and pathetic and you're not worth a drop of old sake! I don't know why I never killed you when you were born, but that's it! Get out, you little runt! You are never welcome in this home again!"
The boy then ran away from the house, crying a little.
~*~
"Wake up, kid!"
The boy awoke to see the end of a katana in front of his eyes. He looked up to see a pair of samurai frowning down at him, one of them holding the katana. He yelped and knelt into a low bow, his nose practically touching the ground.
"Give back the goods you have stolen, boy." The samurai with the katana said.
"I haven't stolen anything!" He said and cowered under the blade.
"Don't lie. You have stolen food and money from the castle of the daimyo!" The samurai raised his sword in an act to kill the boy.
"Drop your weapon!" shouted a female voice. The samurai stopped. "How can it possibly be that little kid?" A black-haired woman clad in the kimono of a daimyo had appeared on horseback. "The thief had black hair and was fat. This one is blonde and is skinny. Go back to the town."
The boy raised his head, recognised her as the daimyo, and returned to a bowing pose. The two samurai bowed in front of her, and then left for the drawbridge.
"You can stand up, boy. You don't have to sit there like a toad." The daimyo said. The boy rushed to his feet quickly. "You have a name, boy? Mine is Meiloyn."
"I'm Jaku, Meiloyn-sama." Jaku said. His large, blue eyes looked up into Meiloyn's. They were golden and had slit-shaped, cat-like pupils. "W-Wh--You're a demon!" He said in fright and ran into the forest.
Jaku was right. Meiloyn was a devil, but she had the ability to hide her horns, wings and traditional tail. Her eyes, however, she could not change, and always retained those thin pupils. That was what usually gave away her species. She couldn't change her long, pointed ears either, but if no one noticed her eyes, she could pass off as an elf with unusually long ears.
"No, you idiot! Don't run into the forest! There are wild demons in there! If they sense you, they will wake up and kill you!" Meiloyn shouted after him. "Oh, why not, the demons in there are easy to kill anyway." She headed into the forest after him.
In the dark forest, Jaku made his way through a collection of vines. He could hear strange creaking noises from the trees, and tried to ignore them. He stepped and snapped a large twig. The sound ran through the trees. He could hear something moving through the ground below him, through the leaves above him, and SNAP! It happened fast.
Spiny vines shot out of both the above tree and the ground and wrapped around his arms, legs, and his body. Not only did the thorns on the plants dig into his skin, but contact with the vine stung horribly, and they were also tightening by the second, choking him. Jaku tried to struggle free, but it was useless.
SLASH! A white streak went through the vine wrapped around his left arm and cleaved it in two. The vine recoiled fast and let go of his arm. Meiloyn followed suit with the rest of the vines, and Jaku fell to the ground. He saw the severed vine next to him and reached toward it.
"Don't touch them. They're covered with a membrane that stings if you touch it. But if you cut the vines, the flower will come out of the ground, collect solar energy, and use it to regrow the vines. That's your chance to kill it."
Then the core appeared. Digging out of the ground came the flower and roots of the plant demon. The flower was a horrible shade of pink and was the foundation of all the vines. Before the roots could grab Jaku again, Meiloyn stabbed her sword into the flower, killing it. "That was easy." she said as she sheathed her sword.
Jaku leaned against a nearby tree, holding the area on his arm where the vines grabbed him and wincing. Meiloyn said to him, "You see why running off into the forest is a bad idea? It might help if you exposed the skin to the air completely, so take your shirt off."
Jaku removed his shirt. Meiloyn examined his small, skinny arm and said, "You know, there is a wonderful thing called food. Ever heard of it?"
"Yes I have, Meiloyn-sama. I don't get it very often, though."
"Sad. Not only are you twiggy and starved, but you also look tired and dirty. Let's get out of here. I'm going to clear your name. The samurai are probably waiting for you so they can execute you."
"You will, Meiloyn-sama? You'd do something like that?" Jaku said.
"Not really, it's just that you're too pathetic to possibly be the thief, and I don't believe in false executions, no matter how pitiful the one to be executed may be. Come on, we have to get out of this forest before you get attacked by any more demons. Here, your shirt." Meiloyn tossed the boy his shirt.
Meiloyn then walked out of the forest, with her sword in hand and Jaku following closely behind her, clutching his shirt and glancing around nervously.
Before long the demon and the boy had re-entered the field before the capital walls. Meiloyn mounted the horse, who was waiting patiently for her to return.
"Get on." she ordered to Jaku in not the most kindly way. Jaku managed to get on the horse not without struggling, and found himself sitting behind the saddle, which was made for one person. "I'm not responsible if you fall off," Meiloyn commented. "I don't use this horse to pick up little whiny human boys, so don't expect her to be equipped for the job."
Meiloyn lead the horse across the field, across the drawbridge, and into the town, with Jaku holding on, trying not to slide off the mare's butt.
For a few minutes, the capital city was full of people: tourists checking out the town, children playing ball, some wealthy people in colourful kimono walking together under umbrellas, merchants selling fish and bags of rice, people praying at the local shrine, and yet more people that appeared to be doing nothing at all. Then a guard at the gate yelled, "MAKE WAY FOR MEILOYN-SAMA, THE DAIMYO!" All the people in the street quickly moved aside as the mentioned one trotted through the town.
"Who's that on Meiloyn-sama's horse?" wondered a rogue samurai standing in front of a small pub.
The pubmaster beside him answered, "He appears to be a young boy about 9 or 10, a peasant by the looks of him.
"I'm 13." Jaku said to the pubmaster as they passed.
"Really? You don't look like it to me." It was true. Due to his small size and child-like anatomy, Jaku really did look a lot younger than he really was. By the time he's an adult, he would still look like he was 16 years old.
"He looks more like a whiny 2-year-old to me." Meiloyn said.
Eventually, the horse carried the two humanoids up a flight steps, away from the town, to a tall and beautiful castle on top of a large hill. "Here we are. My castle: where I live and where I work." Meiloyn unmounted the mare as Jaku slid off, then handed her to a samurai standing guard, who led her away.
After the two had stepped onto the porch and entered the castle, Jaku found himself in a tatami room larger than any other he had ever seen. In the center there sat a tea table and four cushions around it. To the left there was a shoji door, to the right there was another shoji door, and there was an elaborate mural on the front wall of a demon man, dressed in the armour of a daimyo, carrying twin swords and apparently fighting in battle.
"That's a mural of my father. I had it painted when he died. This--" She unsheathed her sword and compared it to the sword painted on the wall "--is the reforged and merged daughter of his two swords. It's so dense with two swords' worth of steel that it would take a strong human to wield it easily. Try holding it." She passed the sword to Jaku. He almost stumbled under its weight.
"Wow! It's really heavy!" Jaku said. "How do you hold something like this?"
"Simple: The sword was forged for a demon, not a human. I can carry it as easily as a human would be able to carry a normal sword thanks to my demon strength. The added weight is supposed to make it cut through the air faster and deal more damage. It actually takes two slices with a normal sword to cut the thick vines of a plant demon, like the one that attacked you earlier.
"It's also because a normal sword can sometimes be too light for a demon. Think of fighting with a hollow sword made out of extremely sturdy paper. It's like that. It just doesn't feel natural. Your arm is supposed to come first by force, and the sword should follow, pulled by your arm's force. With a very light sword, they come at the exact same time. My father used two normal swords to balance out the lack of weight, if there is such a thing."
"That's interesting," Jaku said, apparently interested.
"Okay, enough talk about weapons. The contact from the vines still stings, right? I'll go ask a maid to prepare a bath with a soothing potion added for you. In the mean time, I'll talk with the samurai and get your name cleared. Wait here--TAKE OFF YOUR **** SHOES! YOU'RE DAMAGING THE MATS, AND YOU COULD HAVE BROUGHT IN SOME BAD LUCK YOU MIGHT HAVE STEPPED ON! Oh yeah, wash your feet at the entrance, too! Where were you raised, in a pig pen? Great, now I have to get the local priestess to exorcise the room again..." Meiloyn slammed open the left-hand door loudly as she passed through it, then slammed it closed just as hard and loudly.
Jaku looked down and noticed that his dirty feet were still wearing even dirtier sandals, and that he had tracked dirt into the castle. He blushed, took his sandals off, and put them on the porch next to Meiloyn's, and then quickly washed his feet in the basin provided at the door.
Jaku re-entered the castle, and sat at the tea table. Just as he reached his hand to touch the tea set...
"Hey! Don't touch anything! Not yet at least!" barked Meiloyn from the door.
Shocked, Jaku pulled his hand back immediately and got up off the cushion.
"Anyway, I got your name cleared and two maids have prepared the bath already. Follow me."
Jaku obeyed her, and followed her through the door. Beyond this door there was a hallway, which spanned on for the entire section of the giant building, which was a little more like a building complex of a lot of smaller buildings put together and connected by doors. Meiloyn took a right past a few doors into another hallway, passed a door, then entered the left door after that. Just as she had said, two maids had prepared a bath for Jaku.
Meiloyn immediately leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.
One of the two maids tried to assist in undressing him but Jaku pulled away quickly. "Neglect the service of my excellent and well-respected maids and I'll make sure you have no genitals to worry about anyone seeing." Meiloyn threatened. Jaku froze in terror, and decided to allow the maids to undress him.
Meiloyn was an expert at verbally threatening people. She sounded so real that Jaku didn't want to take any chances with whether she was serious or not, and she was a demon, too. Jaku was raised to believe that demons were evil and enjoyed killing people for little particular reason, which didn't help calm him at all.
Meiloyn sighed. "Maybe if you tried going through puberty, you wouldn't have the self-consciousness problem. Are you really 13 years old?"
Jaku rushed into the bath quickly. "Why do you have to watch anyway?" He was too annoyed to notice the soothing feeling the potion in the water gave to his skin, and that the stinging was going away quickly.
"If I had my way, I'd be off doing something more interesting, but the samurai decided that even if you're innocent, you should be watched. Unfortunately, the samurai are all either too busy or don't want to deal with a little baby. So here I am, stuck with the job of watching you." She readjusted her position on the wall. "Dump some water on him, and wash his blasted hair. It's tangled and matted beyond recognition." she ordered.
One of the maids picked up some water in a bucket, then dumped it on the boy's head.
After that was finished, Meiloyn ordered Jaku to put his clothes on, then led him back out to the room with the tea table. "Okay. You've been healed of stingingness and stuff, it's time for you to leave. Away with you!" she brandished a paper fan she was not previously carrying.
Jaku stepped out onto the veranda and thought about who was worse: The demon woman and her constant threats and insults or his mother with her physical abuse and forcing him to work constantly without rest. It was near impossible to tell when Meiloyn was being serious when she made a threat, but that sort of thing was easy with his mother.
Cool! For fiction it kept my attention exceedingly well, that would usually take me about 40 minutes to read, but it took me around 15. Well done
What ratings? Did I miss something?
There is an option to rate at the bottom.
3 seems to mean average.
I don't see the point in rating a thread myself.
There is an option to rate at the bottom.
3 seems to mean average.
I don't see the point in rating a thread myself.
Mmm... Me neither.
Meiloyn, I loved your story. I would like to make a print out (with the author's permission, of course 
) so that I can appreciate it more fully.
I can't read for too long on a computer screen, ne.
Thinking yourself as a demon? That sounds
familiar...
LOve the background. I do this too. If someone was to ask me any question about the characters I could tell them straightaway what the answer is because I mentally flesh them out prior to typing and constantly re-evalue their lives or stances, etc, as the story goes.
I had a picture of how Meiloyn looked like but I didn't have the long ears, that would only remind me of those stupid
grells in world of warcraft. But some really intense and green cateyes, red/brown sweaty skin (typical for some devils and demons in my fantasy).
Forbidden? Oh, well this is the pic of a grell:
It's pretty neat. Obviously well thought out; soooo much background! I heard once that a good author should know her characters well enough to be able to list the contents of their pockets at any given point in the story, even if it's completely irrelevant to the plot and will never actually be mentioned. You could do that, I'm sure.
It reads like a movie, though, or a comic book. Like it's supposed to be in a different medium, something more visual. Aren't you planning to eventually turn this into a graphic novel? That would explain it. I like the fast pace, but the description's sparse in some places, maybe because you know what everything looks like so well you forget that your audience doesn't.
