White Hot Darkness part 5

Shen's first birthday came and went, and his parents did not come to visit him.

It was a long time before he learned how to stand, and even longer before he figured out how to walk. Once he had gotten the hang of it, though, there was no keeping him still. The soothsayer would try to tell him to stay in a room for two minutes, but as soon as she left he would be there, tottering behind her unsteadily on wire-thin, shaky legs. He was always in her shadow, always clinging to her robes and stuck to her like glue. But he never objected to being picked up, especially when it meant that he was going to be given affectionate caresses. If nothing else, Shen loved to be loved.

As for his speech, he was a regular chatterbox by the time he was eighteen months old. He enunciated rather well for someone of his age; of course, with a tongue still more adept at baby talk, his words were often garbled or slurred. Anytime he heard a new word, he would ask, "Nana, whazzat mean?" It became his favorite sentence, and he loved to show off with it.

He was still being given bi-weekly visits from Biming, and he only seemed to put up more and more of a fuss about this as he got older. He detested the female panda, and all of her icky medicines and pointy needles. She apologized to him more than once, expressing her wishes that there were more painless ways of dealing with illness, but if Shen understood that she was sorry he never let on.

When his second birthday began fast approaching and his parents had still not made a single effort to see him again, the soothsayer had a rare moment of short-temperedness. She wanted to go out into Gongmen City to find him an extra-special birthday present, and she still didn't think that her baby was ready to go out into the big wide world. Therefore, she made arrangements for his parents to look after him for a couple of hours. They were uncertain, but neither of them really wanted to disagree.

To say that Lord Jin felt bad about what he had said during his only visit to his son would have been a vast understatement. It wasn't as if Jin didn't want his son. Actually, the fact that the boy was different wouldn't have bothered him as much as it did if it wasn't for the part about the short life expectancy. He and Ah-lam didn't want the pain that would befall them in five years or less if they truly interacted with Sheng Li. Even though some days all they truly wanted was to spend time with their child, they constantly reminded themselves that their decision had been for the best…despite their increasing doubts of whether or not that was really true.

And so, three days before Shen's second birthday, the soothsayer dropped him off in the throne room with a ball, a caterpillar toy, and a kiss goodbye. When she left, he called, "Nana! Nana!" after her for several minutes, but thankfully, he didn't cry. His parents wouldn't have known what to do with him if he had.

They had made sure that their afternoon was free of any major meetings with advisors or ambassadors beforehand, so no one came to disturb the lord and lady as they stood stiffly for several minutes, watching as Shen toddled about the throne room, sometimes pouncing on his ball or dragging the caterpillar behind him. He would occasionally chirp or mutter for no apparent reason, and it was some time before he noticed them.

Jin felt his heart twist when he spotted the little chick crouched at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at his father's throne. "Baba!" he babbled.

"Er, yes," Jin stammered. "I am your baba…"

Shen was uncertainly surveying the stairs, those things that he had never really gotten the hang of climbing. If the soothsayer had been there, he would have known that he wanted to go up and see his father, but neither of his parents was able to read into the subtle hints in his eyes and movements. He got down on his knees and began to crawl towards the throne.

"Um, son…" Jin stood up slowly, his concern growing. "Are you meant to be doing – "

But it was too late. Shen was tipping backwards, his talons skidding on the slick marble surface as he desperately scrabbled for purchase. "Baba! Baba!" he cried out between his chirps of alarm!"

Jin lunged forward, his train fanning out in an instinctive reaction to the adrenaline flooding his veins, and seized his son's hands. He pulled Shen awkwardly into his arms, and for a moment he stood there like that, clutching the frightened little bundle of a baby. Then, hesitantly, he set Shen on his feet.

Shen trembled, his eyes darting around the room. Then, without warning, he burst into tears.

Ah-lam rushed forward immediately, taking the boy into her wings and trying to hush him before glaring up at her husband. "Jin," she said sharply.

"Oh, what?" Jin snapped. "What have I done wrong now? Besides save the child from falling, that is!"

"Would it kill you to hold him for a moment? By the gods, you act as if he were already dead!"

Jin released a short, huffing breath.

"Why don't you take him outside for a few minutes?" she suggested, nodding towards the sniffling peachick. "I'm sure he'd love to spend some time with his baba."

Jin wasn't certain how he felt about this, but he submitted, and he reluctantly took Shen's hand as the two of them headed towards the courtyard. Shen was back to chattering blissfully, and he seemed to be quite fascinated by the elder peacock's fan tail. He darted behind Jin in order to stroke it in awe, marveling at the colors, the length, the iridescent eye-spots. "Baba haff pwitty feh-vuws," he declared.

Jin couldn't help but smile slightly. "You like them, do you? All peacocks grow tails like that."

Shen looked behind him as if searching for a trace of his own tail, but all he saw was his enormous robe dragging on the floor, which he promptly stumbled over.

"You're silly," Jin chuckled as he righted his son. "You don't have long feathers yet. You'll get them when you're all…" His voice faded, and he found himself unable to say "grown up."

Sheng Li was never going to grow up…

When they arrived at the courtyard, they discovered that the overcast sky and damp, heavy air that had formed earlier in the day had turned to a steady drizzle of rain. Jin frowned, preparing to turn around and go back inside…

But Shen had already tottered out into the rain, giggling as he raised his arms up towards the shower. He jumped up and down as best he could on the squishy ground, adoring the feel of the mud on his bare feet. "Son!" called Jin. "Come back here – you're not supposed to be out in the rain!"

Shen looked over at his father. "Wanna pway," he said sadly.

Jin breathed out. Shen did look like he was having an awful lot of fun. Well, perhaps five minutes wouldn't hurt…

So Shen was permitted to play in the rain for five minutes, and then he was taken inside and thoroughly toweled off. When the soothsayer came to pick him up, she never knew that it had happened. But she did notice that he seemed rather listless that night, and put him to bed early.

When Shen woke up in the morning, he was coughing and had a fever. His nanny, unsurprised, sent for the palace physician and received the usual stack of medicines. She fed them to her chick and kept him in bed, hoping that he would at least be feeling better by his birthday.

His birthday passed, and he was no better. A few more days passed, and he was worse.

By now, the soothsayer was extremely concerned. Not one of the usual medicines was easing his symptoms; his coughs were thick and raspy, and he often sounded like he was choking for several minutes on end. His fevers were skyrocketing nearly all of the time, never once breaking. He had cried at first, but eventually he grew too weak to, and spent his days and nights whimpering in pain. She worked tirelessly trying to soothe him and make him more comfortable, but nothing she did had any effect. Finally, when he had been ill and miserable for a week and a half, she sent for Biming.

Biming, who was quickly becoming the preferred healer around the Tower of the Sacred Flame, arrived in the morning to find that Shen was apparently deeply asleep. The soothsayer explained that he hadn't properly slept in several days, and had pretty much passed out from exhaustion the night before. But as Biming set to work on him, and jostling him and even pricking him with needles didn't cause him to stir one iota, she was forced to draw another conclusion.

"I hate to tell you this, Min Yun," she started shakily, turning to her friend with an expression of utmost fear on her face, "but little Shen is not asleep…he's comatose."

***

Within the next twenty-four hours, things went from bad to worse very, very quickly.

The soothsayer refused to leave her baby's side for any reason, and she was almost always gripping his hand, softly pleading for him to wake up. Biming worked steadily, despite her fretful admittances that there wasn't much that she could do, and at last a servant sent for Jin and Ah-lam. When they heard that their son might be on his deathbed, they couldn't come fast enough.

The parents were in a sorry state when they arrived. Ah-lam was sobbing with her face pressed against Jin's long neck, and Jin looked, if possibly, even worse. His face was gaunt and vacant. He knew why Shen was so sick, and it made the furthermost depths of his heart ache horribly…

"It's my fault," he muttered.

"Wh-what do you mean, my lord?" managed the soothsayer. She was crouched beside Shen's bed mat; her eyes were red-rimmed, and there were visible tear tracks in the fur on her cheeks.

"When we were watching him…I let him play in the rain…" Jin shut his eyes in remorse, his throat pulsating with repressed tears. "It's…my fault…"

Ah-lam and the soothsayer stared at him in mortification.

Jin knelt beside his son's bed mat, an uncontrollable sob bursting through his beak. "Oh, son, I'm so sorry…" he gasped, pressing his face into his wings. "I didn't mean to…I didn't know…oh, I'm so, so sorry…"

He didn't reach out and touch the boy, but only because he felt that he didn't deserve it. He was an awful father, there was no doubting that now. He was so concerned with being upright that he hadn't even held his own child, and he had been foolish enough to let a sickly albino chick, a chick with that dreaded condition, out into the rain. Oh, what had he been thinking…he was a miserable excuse for a father…

Jin and Ah-lam did not stay long, and once they left they locked themselves into their chambers, resigning themselves to hear the inevitable news of Sheng Li's death.

The soothsayer did not sleep, didn't even try to. Biming continued to do as much as she could, working until nearly dawn until she finally nodded off, and the soothsayer let her. It gave her the opportunity to lift her poor little chick into her arms, rocking him and cradling him and nuzzling him, quietly begging her baby not to leave her. She sat down on in the corner, clutching tightly to the feverish little body in her lap, and finally cried herself to sleep, doubting whether or not Shen would still be breathing when she awoke.

***

Biming finally came to late in the morning, and when she saw the soothsayer and Shen curled up in the corner together, she couldn't help but sigh and wipe tears from her eyes. She approached them, planning to check the baby's vital signs…which was when she noticed his tiny red eyes peering at her in irritation.

"Miz B," he said, which was what he called her since he couldn't pronounce her name at his age. "Nana's squishin' me."