Multifandom Mess

The Lotus Pier always loved the bright spirits of the world, the free and unrestrained; she held them cupped in her hand like birds, ready to fly away, to go where their whim takes them, to return because they loved her. Her cultivators reflected that, shining bright, standing against the world and attempting the impossible.

But they were only humans, their lives short and too easily cut shorter; when the invading armies came to the Pier, she tried her best to help her people – help them fight, help them flee – but the enemy was already invited inside her gates.

There was nothing she could do.

Her walls were thrown open, her treasures taken, her children killed – her very core, layer upon layer of arrays painted by all the Jiang sect disciples through all the years, violated.

The Wens sought to make her their own, in their blunt, stupid, grasping way. They didn’t know what she was, of course. No one knew. Only the Sect Leader – each one learning about her from their predecessor at the moment of their accession, the secret as well as a set of vows, an oath of mutual loyalty, and those who refused the oath were killed at the very moment of their supposed triumph.

Her children were good to her. In return, she was good to them.

When the Wens tried to seize control of her, to make her nothing more than a fortress, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to disappear – to die, destroyed in both body and soul, rather than allow herself to be used by those who killed her children.

She did not expect that anyone would be able to reawaken her.

Who could? It was impossible. Only the Sect Leader knew her secrets – and he was dead, dead long before he could pass along his knowledge to his heir, and of course it wasn’t written down anywhere.

Awakening, therefore, came as a surprise.