Daily Sketch

“I’m sorry,” Tian Feng said. “Forgive me, but which of you is the Empress Liu Mei?”

“We are,” they said in unison.

“Of course, of course.”

Mei permitted herself a cryptic smile. Liu did as well. Obviously there was only one “real” empress, but centuries ago, after a frightful number of succession wars, the Empire of Jade and Pearl instituted the Way of the Twofold Leaf. 

From birth, each heir to the throne was bonded soul to soul with another. The process left the two physically identical and gave each of them the ability to enter the mind and heart of the other. Closer than sisters, more intimate than lovers, Mei and Liu were two halves of the same coin.

Today, the Empress visited the exhibition of the renowned artist Tian Feng. It was said by many, and by Tian Feng most of all, that he was the greatest artist since Jiang Tsen Tsin. The exhibition featured a piece that was so complex that he vowed to create art exclusively for ten years for the one who could divine the true meaning behind his painting. It had been four months and the most skilled artists, the wisest scholars, and the wealthiest and most powerful in all of the empire had attempted to guess at the painting’s meaning. But the empress had not yet visited the painting. Until today. 

The Empress studied the painting from two separate angles. It looked remarkably like... a blank canvas. The Empress tilted their heads this way and that, letting the light catch on the subtlest of brushstrokes. Mei and Liu switched places watching carefully as different bits of the painting leapt out and then faded away. 

“Does the piece have a name?” the Empress asked.

Tian Feng looked between the two of them, unsure whom to answer. Although Mei had asked the question, she gave the tiniest of deferential nods just at the corner of Tian Feng’s vision. Tian Feng turned to face Liu. “It does, my Empress.”

The Empress waited.

After rather a long stretch of time - Tian Feng was good, but the Empress had ruled four thousand kingdoms for more than a decade - Tian Feng cut at the silence. “It does... But that is part of the challenge. He... or she, who guesses the title of the piece, as well as my original intent, will win my humble services for a decade.”

“May I?” Mei asked Tian Feng, but also subtly glanced over at Liu. “Approach the painting?”

“The Empress may do as she wishes in all things,” Tian Feng said, glancing again at Liu, “But is most especially welcome to examine my painting as closely as she likes. Lord Xifu brought in a glass-blowers shop’s worth of lenses for the better part of a week.”

“And was his guess close?” Mei asked, turning from her examination of the painting.

“I believe his best guess was that it was a metaphor for the Eighty Years War,” Tian Feng said, giving nothing away as to whether that guess was close to the mark or not. Decidedly not, Mei said to herself.

Mei spent a few more moments scrutinizing the painting. She straightened and looked at Liu. They conferred in a way only two whose souls have been inextricably linked can, and then Mei asked, with the slightest bow of her head. “May I, Empress?”

Liu nodded solemnly. Tian Feng’s eyes danced between them with an excited gleam.

“The piece is called ‘Chrysanthemum petals in a Snowstorm’, is it not?” Mei asked.

A look of genuine shock crossed Tian Feng’s face. “Ye-yes,” he stammered. “How did you possibly know that? I never told anyone.”

Mei deferred to Liu. “It is like a joke painting, is it not? White rabbit in a blizzard, that sort of thing?”

Tian Feng flushed.

“But it isn’t,” Mei carried on. “Each petal, each snowflake is meticulously painted with loving detail. You can see just faintly the outlines of some of the snowflakes behind the petals that have been painted over them. It is a masterpiece and nobody will ever know it.”

“No. No one,” Tian Feng said, with deep regret in his voice. Then he did something curious with his hands.

Almost before she could think, Mei entered into the Way of the Dancing Light, with Liu right behind her. Like the aftershock of an earthquake, Mei could feel the slow rumble of her heart starting a beat, but stretched now across what felt like minutes instead of a fraction of a second. She saw the stealth black bolt of an assassin’s handbow inches from Liu’s face. She had not reached the Way of the Dancing Light just yet. 

Mei walked calmly over to the crossbow bolt. She sighted along its trajectory, following it to the source. It inched closer to Liu’s face. She nudged it aside with a finger. There were more crossbow bolts headed towards Liu, and a few, though not as many, headed towards where she had been standing. These she re-aimed back to the ankles of their original shooters. 

Something nagged at her. She looked back at Tian Feng. His eyeline was directed at a crossbow bolt that was headed directly towards his painting. He did not look surprised or dismayed in the least. She reached over and plucked up the bolt. The man may have tried to kill the Empress but no need to destroy a masterpiece. 

She whirled around. 

Someone else had entered the Way of the Dancing Light. Like the crossbowmen, he was clad all in black with no insignia. Unlike the crossbowman, he wielded a sword. A sword that was about to take her head off. She danced to the side and slammed the crossbow bolt into the flat of his blade. The bolt shook to powder in her hands and her whole arm went numb, which would be bad enough but she had barely deflected the blade even a little and it was still on its way to intersect painfully with her midsection.

She had to combine Woodpecker Biting Bark, Dolphin Kissing Crane and Monarch Causes Hurricane not to get cut in half and still the sword sliced through part of her silk robe. The assassin executed a perfect backwards Cobra Strikes from Shadow and would have taken her head off, but by sheer dumb luck Mei had tripped on one of the frozen bystanders and sprawled under his blade perfectly by accident. 

If her luck had held, the Assassin would have overcorrected from the lack of resistance, but this man was a professional and used the momentum to shear through her leg. Or he would have, but Mei kicked off the man she had tripped over just in time. She performed a modified Turtle Rights Itself.

She had nothing to parry a Shivering Blade. She smacked a tray of wine glasses and the liquid hovered in the air. She snatched a candle and thrust it into the alcohol. The fire caught on sluggishly in The Way of the Dancing Light, but it did surround her in a wall of flames before the Assassin could quite catch up to her. 

Mei knew that the fire would hardly slow the assassin. Indeed, he whipped out a bladed fan and scooped the fire to one side and the other,

But... Liu had finally joined them in the Way of the Dancing Light. The guy was good. He almost turned around in time, but the fire had distracted him enough for Liu to bring a six hundred year old vase down on his head. 

Mei and Liu both took a moment to straighten themselves up, although there was nothing to be done for the moment about the large gash in Mei’s robe. Then they both stepped out of the Way of the Dancing Light. 

As Imperial Guards poured in and arrested practically everyone, Mei turned to the painter. “Master Tian, I believe I’m owed ten years of your services? I believe the Palace Dungeons are in need of a fresh coat of paint. Let’s start there, shall we?”