God-Kings of Lotus: Heroes of the Unconquered Sun

[GryffonDurime]

Ivory receives the Adamant with a gracious smile and sighs.

"With respects, Ignis, I have something to attend to thanks to your help." She grins wickedly and rushes from the court room, wings flapping as she leaps from the nearest window and takes to the skies of Heaven. Her mind is quick and clear as a glacier-fed river, easily remembering the quicksilver waterways that crisscross Yu-Shan as she guides herself back, back to where it all began.

O-Bankai stands at the threshold of his manse, and Ivory looks at him: not gloating, not imperious, but forceful nonetheless. O-Bankai cedes to her, gesturing for someone within to exit.

She's not much taller than Ivory Eyes: a stunted woman, heavy with age but not obese. Her hair is thin and mixes black and gray in equal proportions. Her skin is tanned by thirty years of Chiaroscuran sun, her eyes are soft and pale silver. The nose, the ears, the angle of her lips--they are features familiar to Ivory Eyes, features inherited. Somber Reed smells of cinnamon and mint.

They embrace, and if Ivory is crying then Reed is behind herself, shaking with tears and laughter as she inhales deeply. Ivory Eyes is suddenly aware of her scent--it has to be rice, rice, rice. Rice and the rich smell of deep, clean earth.

"I'm sorry that it's taken this long," Ivory manages between heaves, and Somber Reed pushes her daughter back to take in the sight of her. Ivory pushes her hair back into place self-consciously, realizing how long she's travelled from Lotus to the Blessed Isle, through the City and into Yu-Shan.

"Ivory. You're alive. You're really alive," Reed says.

"And I'm taking you with me," Ivory says with a laugh. She prompts her mother, rushing forward to cross the hearth. Somber Reed shoots O-Bankai a nasty look of her own as they pass the irate culinary god. "Are you ready?"

"Ready? Ready for wh--"

Somber Reed is interrupted as Ivory flares her anima, letting the raptor spread over both herself and her mother. They're enveloped in an instant and Ivory takes her mother's hands and launches the pair skyward. Her mother screams, a delighted woop.

"Ivory, how is this possible?" she asks.

"Anything is possible for the Solar Exalted," Ivory says, smiling as she turns down to look at her mother. "You've missed a lot mom, paying for my sins. That ends today. You're coming to live with me in Lotus. We found it mom, called there. It was this tiny village long ago and now...you'll see, mom. It's a metropolis now, where people live long lives and...and mom, you can have anything you want, Ivory says, still crying. "You can have palaces, jewels, feasts, wings. If you want wings, I will give you wings, mom."

"Oh Ivory," Somber Reed says as they pass lower to the ground and land at a waiting dragonboat. Reed leans in, brushes an errant strand of Ivory's hair behind her ear. "What could I possibly want with wings when I have such a daughter who would and could offer me them? That is the best gift you can give me, Ivory. The one thing only you can provide: your presence."