Chapter 4
“Moon, my child,” Jessica speaks to the girl “Sun, and Wind. Let me tell you what your father’s did not. Years ago, lifetimes in fact, this land was at war, a war like few others this land has ever seen. Two of the family of the zodiac god gathered here and for the first time the small challenged the large, the passive challenged warriors, the rabbit challenged the dog. This has not been since the zodiac gods lived on this island.”
Sun looked to Jessica “who is this god you speak of? I see no gods.”
“the Usagi called this god Jade, the first Emperor.” Jessica looks to him.
****
On the fourth day after the birth of the world and on the second day after the fish maiden birthed the moon. Jade the first emperor was walking through his garden at sunset, he looked to the sky and saw a black tapestry looming over head and he thought to himself “something is wrong, the sky is too dark at night.” And so he pondered for a long time what must be done. Jade is a master painter like on other man has ever been and so he thought “I must paint a new sky, one that is bright and colorful, a tapestry so eloquent that every man that looks upon it shall weep at its glory.” And so Jade called Ami, and the Sun lowered from the sky as the grate goddess of wolves and looked to her father.
Ami the grate wolf of the sun bows her eyes to her father and says “my father it is many hours till dawn but yet you call me here to the island where time starts. What troubles you my father?”
And Jade reply “Ami my most beautiful daughter look to the sky and tell me is the sky to dark.” Jade places his hands to Ami’s face then rolls one hand across the sky showing off the blank tapestry laid out before them.
“the sky is dark this is true but was it not your will that the queen of fish governed the night alone and whisper to us that it is time to rest with her coming?” Ami sets her head on the shoulder of her father trying to understand the words he is speaking.
And with her name spoken if only in whisper the moon comes down from the sky as Luna the queen of the fish to stand before her father and she says “Father your head is heavy and your arms are weak why do you not sleep?”
Jade looks around him at all the things of beauty he has created “on this land I was to paint the most beautiful painting that any should ever see. It is to be the finest thing that any god or beast could every craft but yet I feel it is not yet perfect.”
And so Luna grabs Ami by the tail and plucks from her back a hair thin brush and she hands it to her father “if the world is not yet perfect then you most keep painting “
And so Jade hold the brush formed form the back of the sun goddess to the sky and with one stroke of the brush summons forth from the nothing tenfold ten billion tiny suns and dims them so that the light they cast turns the world purple. Luna is impressed and tells her father “if this is not perfection then I know not what perfection must be.”
And the stars line up in the sky in perfect symmetry sharing the sky with the largest in the east and the smallest in the west. Then Jade turns to Ami and ask “is it perfect?”
And Ami lowers her eyes “if you must ask if it is perfection that you see then… ,… then you must have already spotted imperfection.”
And jade ask “so then what must next I do?”
Ami looks at her father “you the creator of all things must ask your creations to do what you cannot do. Call out to all that you have given a voice and feet and ask them to come here and paint the sky give each of them a peace of space equal to their weight and tell them to draw their own facieses on that peace of space.”
Then; Jade, Ami, and Luna slept and as he woke Jade called to his tiniest creation which he called fly and told it “you are the fastest of my children, you must whisper in the ear of every beast with feet and a voice that Jade needs them to perform a special work.”
The smallest of beast, whose name is Fly, sings her praises onto her father “I will sing all day and all night and the world will hear me and all your creations shall flood onto this land and your will shall be done.”
And so it was, Fly flu into every home singing and knelt before each beast calling them home, the edge of the world, and the land form which the sun and the moon where born.
So the fly calls to the rat, “Run forth my sister and help me sing our fathers name that all the world may know that he loves us and needs us this day.”
And so the rat runs to her brothers the rabbit and the cat and told onto them “Come my brothers, our father calls are names. Tell the dog and the pig.”
Then the rabbit and the cat run to the dog and the pig and say onto them “brother and sister, father calls for you. Find the snake, the horse and the wurm, for they must know too.”
Then the wurm spoke to the turtle and he to the rest of the world and all beast the could walk swim or fly ran to the edge of the world. And luss the Emperor spoke onto them “behold the night sky for it is dark and the queen of fish has not the power to light it.”
All at once with a single voice all the worlds beast spoke back “what for must I do father that I my light the sky and bring you gory and joy.”
The Jade emperor seed onto them “you will all pluck a single hare of a single feather from your crown and with it you will paint your face on the sky, should you have no feather or hair take on for the back of the women standing nearest to you.”
And so it was that the sky was painted, but behold the emperor was still not happy for now the sky is to bright and so the emperor shook the sky and stars fall to the earth washing ashore and created sand. The emperor looks to all the beast of the world again and seed onto them “choose now twelve of you: the youngest, the tallest, the strongest and the smartest, the most loved and the most loving, the fastest and the most fruitful, choose twelve that are everything you are and everything you want.”
And so twelve beast line up before the emperor and say onto him “we are the twelve; the young, tall, strong, fast, smart, loved, and beloved, we are everything everyone else wants to be.”
So the emperor speaks onto them saying “your name is now and forever ‘Zodiac’ I shell now place you inside the sky for all to see….”
***
The door to the tiny hidden house opens and Kuro walks in picking up the story as Jessica tells it “But then Rat ask ‘how are we to know where to stand’ and Rabbit ask ‘need we play a game?’ and so the zodiacs start a race around the world. But Rat, she is smart and declares that the rules where to run to the emperor but from where to start no one proclaimed so she ran backwards and won the game before it began.”
Kuro stands over Jessica, towering over her he stands three times her size needing to crouch to fit in the home. “return my son to me without another word witch and the girl as well.”
“Kuro, it has been a lifetime since your last trip here.”
Kuro grunts “and it will be another before we speak again.”
“The children are not being held against their will. They may come and go as they wish.”
Kuro crawls outside commanding Sun, Moon, and Wind to fallow. The children fallow the emperor without another word. As the group walk the long way around the bluffs and down the river Moon looks up to her father “who is she?”
“A star fallen to earth. A goddess amongst men, that’s what she wants us to think. But no, she is empty, a body with no aura. She gave away her right to live amongst the pure.” Kuro whispers, his eyes turned to the water with a look of suspect unease.
