FFM 2015 Day 4 Challenge: Silkpunk

The children had never learned to speak.

Their parents had been mutilated by the mad Emperor years before, hands severed and their tongues cut out, so that they could neither communicate nor help themselves. Villagers came to the temple to tend them, but it was considered a dishonor to speak in their presence, and so their children had grown in silence, feral, untutored and devoid of any common tongue.

To the east, a toxic sunrise was just beginning to crest the horizon, and holding a scrap of heavy silk across her nose against the stench, Jian Shu surveyed the scene before her. It had been a great temple once, dedicated to the old gods, but war had left it gutted and consigned it to rot, and now fat blue flies buzzed through the ruins, making their lazy way through the stagnant summer air to land on the emaciated, sickly people that huddled in the shade beneath the walls.

It recalled to her mind an old poem from her childhood.

"Graven images of long-departed gods,
dry spiritless leaves:
companions of the temple porch"

The true sadness was, this was just one of many such places left behind by the war, and there was only more destruction to come.

Jian longed to go back to her Skyjunk, and take refuge within its familiar bamboo frame and wings of structured silk, but she had been sent here with a purpose, by order of the Daughter of the Dawn herself, and one did not disobey the orders of ones Empress.

Tugging at the leather cord around her neck, Jian drew forth a notched silver coin and smoothed her thumb in a circular pattern across its surface, watching as the shadow of her Commander coalesced before her, called forth by the mechanized whisper-tech that powered every war engine, every weapon, and every silk-ship in the Empress’s army.

Adopting a formal pose, Jian bowed her head in deference. "Commander Li." She greeted, "I bring bad news I'm afraid. The reports were mistaken, there is nothing here of value. I'm afriad the Royal Alchemist will have to look elsewhere for his telepaths.”

Unsurprisingly Feng Li looked disappointed. "That is unwelcome news, Jian, he will be displeased. But very well, I will alert the High council immediately, and give them word of your return."

Feng severed the link, and the moment he was gone, Jian slumped with relief, throat suddenly dry. She felt a brush of concern against her mind, and turning, caught sight of one of the children standing by the temple wall. She smiled, and he smiled back, buffeting her with a series of emotions that conveyed more than any sentence she had even spoken.

 She couldn't regret her decision to lie to her superior. Whatever these children were, whatever they could be, they deserved to be protected. And at the end of the day, it was really quite surprising just how much you could communicate to someone without saying anything at all.