=What Started It=
She sat where she could see outside. That was the only thing she could do, since her adopted father refused to let her go outside when it was snowing. Or when the wind was blowing too hard, or when there was the barest hint of rain in the air.
“Ling! You are not practicing!” her tutor snapped, hitting a slender stick against the palm of his opposite hand. “If you desire to be a proper woman you will practice and strive to become one.”
Ling stayed silent, looking towards the snow for inspiration. “I have not decided that I wish to be a woman at all,” she said darkly, putting her flute on the ground beside her. It wasn’t the flute’s fault, she admitted, feeling slightly guilty for the rudeness she had done it, but she had been holding these thoughts in for far too long.
The tutor stuttered for a moment before replying, “Regardless! You are to learn to be a proper member of this household and to do so you must—“
“Proper?” Ling demanded, standing. Her tutor, that thin hateful man whose skin was stretched taunt over his face, took a step back before his eyes narrowed.
“Yes, proper!”
“He raises me to be a courtesan in all but name,” Ling snarled. “He wishes a pretty doll made for entertaining his business partners—“
“That is your father you are speaking of!” the tutor screeched.
“He is no father of mine!” Ling bellowed. “Or have you not heard that I was adopted?” She turned, racing out of the room, her flute left forgotten behind her as she headed into the snow covered garden. There was a stone bench there, covered with a light sprinkling of snow. She headed for it, her anger keeping her warm where her clothes could not. But the rock leeched at that heat far more quickly than she could generate it.
“That was unjustified.”
She didn’t turn around, having no desire to see her eldest brother at the moment. Her brother was the one she usually turned to when things got bad, but he was right, and she hated admitting when he was right. “I have no desire to talk to you right now, Bolin.”
“You are his most promising student, though,” Bolin said, moving closer so that were Ling to lean back, he would be supporting her weight. She didn’t lean back. “The tutor, he has more pride in your accomplishments as a musician than any other in this family or the next.”
“It wasn’t about the tutor,” she told her brother, bringing her knees up to her chest. “It’s about Father.”
Bolin was silent, silent for so long that she glanced up at him with a questioning look. “Forgive me,” he said finally, his hand falling on her shoulder briefly before sliding away. “Come in before you freeze to death,” he added before walking inside.
What was there to forgive? She almost asked that when she realized there was something on the bench next to her. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the flute sitting in the snow. She snatched it from the damaging wetness and wiped it off lovingly with the sleeve of her clothes. “I won’t forgive you if my flute is ruined,” she said more to herself since Bolin was gone.
Hesitantly she lifted the flute to her lips, testing to see if the snow had warped it. It hadn’t. There hadn’t been enough time to hurt the well made instrument. Gently, softly, she started to play a song.
It was a song she knew, yet didn’t know. It twirled through the air, pulling at poignant notes that spoke to her very heart, bringing images to her mind that she wasn’t sure she had ever seen. Hesitant fingers tested and tried each note, as if they, too, were uncertain they were playing it correctly.
A voice floated on the air, childish and sweet. It was the innocent tone and beauty that only a prepubescent boy could reach. Ling stopped, bringing the flute from her lips and looking around for the child that knew the words to her melody.
There was no one there. A clank came from the small pond to her right and she looked over, seeing the bamboo lifting again to fill with water. That had not been the voice, yet it was the only sound she heard.
Slowly she lifted the flute to her lips again, blowing life into the silent instrument. This time her fingers moved more smoothly over the holes, an unwritten memory guiding her touch and breath. The song began again, stronger and faster than it had been the first time. And the voice began to sing again.
Ling knew there was no one there. She knew that the only place the voice could be coming from was her own imagination. But still, that sweet, lilting voice brought silent tears to her eyes. The tears crept from under her lashes and trickled over her cheeks, biting her skin with how hot they were compared to the cold around her.
It was a voice she did not know, but she knew that it belonged to someone very dear to her heart. Gently she pulled the flute away from her lips, reaching up and wiping at the tears with her sleeve. It was the voice of a friend.
If only, she thought, if only she knew who that friend was.
Deep in the shadows next to their house, Bolin took a step back, lowering his eyes from the beauty that was framed by snow. He should have never brought her to his father. He should have kept her as his own, finding some means of self employment, no matter how difficult it might have been. But it was too late. His father knew Ling for the beauty she was, the beauty she would become. He had plans for her.
If only, he thought, he had a way to take her away.
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