Rowan → Ethan Nakamura ✔

Mortal

Mist. Cool and weightless mist. It roiled and swelled endlessly with every breath they took, reminding Rowan of clouds in ancient traditional paintings hung on the walls of the Museum of Chinese in America. When she looked down at her hands and realized a black outline traced her fingers, the shading on her palms as if she were in a cartoon, Rowan understood that she was in the paintings themselves.

"This is so weird." Billie said, examining her own hands. The others looked similar - Billie's wide eyes were still her own and Will retained his round face, but there was something about the crease in Ethan's brow and the shade of Nico's hair that appeared dreamlike, inaccurate to how they were in real life beyond this realm of clouds.

"Where are we?" Will asked.

"No where," a voice spoke. "No where that other gods may eavesdrop."

Clouds swirled and solidified until they formed two concrete silhouettes. The men shen appeared in multicolored armor, with red chest plates and emerald sleeves. Each held a golden sword with pink and turquoise gems, the hats they wore adorned in more glittering jewels. The god with blue skin's features had hardened from the previous feminine mortal's guise, becoming more androgynous. Equally, the jaw of the god with red cheeks had softened, until both gods were neither male nor female. They were simply door gods, with identities that had changed and twisted over centuries, ceaseless in its fluidity.

"You wanted the truth," the red god said on the left. "We will show you the truth. We will show you Heaven's civil war."

The blue god pointed a finger to their right. They all turned to look, and the clouds parted.

Rowan had only seen something similar once before in her life. She had been to mainland China on a vacation to visit extended family years ago, but the memory of sitting on a stone bench with other children around her was vivid enough that she still remembered. The large puppet theater with red and gold curtains she had stared curiously at as a ten year old was now made of pearly pink clouds. Whereas she remembered small, cheaply-made paper puppets in the framed space, the puppets she saw now were real enough she would have thought it truly was Jim from a distance.

Jim's puppet was in the costume of a god rather than a Chinatown storekeeper; with lavish gold robes and a splendid feathered fan in its hand, it was facing another puppet in brilliant green robes and a sparkling emerald hat. The Jade Emperor's puppet sat on a throne of the same color, ornamented with dragons and lions and beasts of all manner that moved within the chair, roaring and clawing at each other.

"The prodigal son returns," the voice that sounded from the Jade Emperor's puppet was not that of a faceless, amateur puppeteer - it was that of the Emperor himself. Even though Rowan nor her friends had ever heard it before, the booming bellow that demanded attention could have only been regal enough for the king of Heaven. "With enough gall to walk right up his king after deserting the court."

"I did not do anything of the sort, my liege," the same way it was the Jade Emperor's voice, it was also Jim's. "I responded to the will of the people."

"The heathens," the Emperor said disdainfully. "The faithless citizens who abandon my kingdom for a country that will never welcome them."

"They have no choice, my king. China is in ruins - are the powerless to be blamed for suffering the actions of the powerful? Are they to be labeled traitors when even the leaders do not know where their allegiance lies?"

"Their allegiance lies with us!" The Emperor slammed a fist down on the armrest of his throne, a lion previously beneath his palm leaping out of the way to avoid being hit. "They have forgotten who they worship - who they serve. Although, they cannot be expected to remember when even you do not, Zhongli Quan."