endbook_rogue_5_1_4

'This isn't as simple as collecting stones. An atmosphere is neither living nor dead. Rather, it is like a wisp of smoke, a breath of wind, a perception, even. Tell me then, how are we meant to collect such a thing?'

Yi's hands do not stop, even as he speaks. Wheresoever his hands reach, moss climbs up the strange stone, while still waters take in the falling snow.

Liang tosses him a half-baked answer, knowing Yi is simply looking for someone to ramble at while he's busy.

'Wrong!' He is, of course, rather pleased. 'By the time you've dredged up a definition of 'atmosphere', it will have already changed. When the cold wind wears away the rocks, and the hornbeasts trudge through the snow, have they ever stopped to consider it? Such stubborn demands will only make you lose sight of the essence. The compromise we've arrived at is just right... Let me see, over here—pull in another brook, nestle it between the mount and the stream, where qi and life gather. Aha, how brilliant!'

With the 'Gardenlet' complete, Liang sends over a cup of tea and a plate of candied preserves. Yi lies down across a hornbeast's horns, and eagerly admires his own handiwork as he allows the beast to take him where it will with its swaying gait.

This hornbeast was lured over by a path through the forest that does not yet exist. This secluded forest, nestled between the mountains, was a good choice to merge with the frozen soil of Sami. Closer inspection reveals yet another sight: a wondrous forest of stone, the fragrant grass strewn about linking them together. The beast bends down to eat, and during this fateful moment, a pink 'leaf' falls upon its horn, taking on the form of a human. In the eyes of the admirer, this Gardenlet is well suited to the hornbeast, and to the hornbeast it is a veritable feast. Everyone is pleased. As its hooves gently pace by the forest's edge, the 'leaf' returns to the tree's branches, awaiting the next moment of destiny.

Yi plays about with the ancient tree he is extremely fond of. One leaf seems to have absorbed the winds of the icefield, quivering several times. This tree, its age a mystery, links together countless leaves. Some carry the scent of desert sands, others emit the damp smell of the sea, while others fill the air with the scent of oil paintings from nations no longer on the map, like secret signals sown across this great land.

Whenever Yi loafs about, ignoring his duties, Liang will always nag him a little. Only when he is fiddling about with the tree does Liang leave him undisturbed. The Garden of Grotesqueries has left him many responsibilities as its master, watching atop the Tomb, facing the memorial hall that refuses the recording of memory. The blank scrolls and pages, and the name that sticks to the tip of the tongue, unable to be read... At first, Yi simply wanted a quiet space where he would not be disturbed, that he could decorate as he pleased. However, with it falling upon this realm, how could he hope for it to stand apart from the land? One must draw in hundreds and thousands of connections if one wants to merge the sights of the land. One tree cannot hope to hold all the beauty under Heaven, but just as plants take in sunlight, and roots absorb water, and hooves tread along paths... how can you say this tree cannot collect every kind of atmosphere under Heaven?

If what brought Yi to this mortal realm was simply a memory of Sui, coalesced upon the tree, then the many leaves of that tree are the roads he has walked, the sights he has seen, the smells he has smelled. How could he ever tire of looking at it?