Excerpt:

The following story is based loosely on the Chinese legend of Chang’e and Houyi, the version that my mother told me when I was little. The rest of it is based completely on my own imagination.

Prologue
“Papa! Papa!” they cried happily as the Emperor walked through the inner court.

The nurses, trailing behind the boys, hid their giggles behind wide sleeves.

It had been a good day for the Emperor, and he smiled fatherly and indulgently at his sons as he walked toward them with arms wide open. The youngest two, the twins, clambered into his arms, leaving the other seven children to tug and pull at his golden robes, clamoring for attention. The Emperor ignored the nurses’ anxious clucking at the mess being made of his regal silken dragon robe and focused instead on the twin busy whispering into his ear.

As he listened, he walked toward the great hall, and settled himself onto the great carven chair set at the head of his room for his convenience. It was softened with beautiful pillows embroidered by the youngest of his seven daughters, Violet, herself. He glanced absent-mindedly at the rose tinted goldfish swimming through some seaweed across the surface of one of the pillows. A soft golden fin fluttered in a flash of gold, then the fish disappeared to the underside of the pillow. “How Violet has improved,” the Emperor thought proudly to himself. “By now, she must be the most talented seamstress as well as weaver of all of Heaven’s fairy girls.”

The Emperor once again turned his attention back to his nine young sons. When the twin was done tattling, with the other adding in helpful details, he set both of them back on their feet. All the other boys already knew exactly what the Emperor had just been told, and were busy casting glances and snickering at the poor boy who had just been tattled on. He dragged his feet, his head down, as he slowly ambled over to his father. As he passed the twins, who were smiling broadly, he glared daggers at them, but the twins didn’t mind him at all and only kept grinning. He made a mental note to give them a good thrashing later.

“Tian’er,” the Emperor boomed, his thin brows pinched into a sharp valley, “why don’t you tell me what happened today?”

Prince Long Tian, seventh son of the Jade Emperor of Heaven and one of the Nine Suns of the Sky, wriggled like a little fish in his acute embarrassment, and mumbled half coherently, “I-I was just playing with him, Papa, I di-didn’t think that i-i-it was such a big deal…that…I-I-I, well, uh, I’m sorry Father.”

It was the boys’ duty to ride through the sky, one after the other, to bring light and warmth to the mortals on Earth. Tian’er had told one of the twins, Rui’er, that the little boy was late in going out, that their elder brother had come ages ago already. The terrified little boy had clambered onto his phoenix and streaked out into the sky, only to collide in a burst of fire and feathers with the elder brother who was still ambling along his route through the sky. Two aging farmers plowing their land died of a heart attack instantly at the sight of the fiery explosion in the sky. A two headed chicken was born a day later, and the people generally took this as a catastrophic omen and went into a praying frenzy for a month. Tian’er almost laughed at the memory, but a quick peep up at his father caused him to blanch. He cleared his throat quietly, and went back to staring intently at the tiling pattern beneath his feet.

“You are not only the sons of the Emperor of Heaven, but you also hold the very noble and honored roles of the Suns of the Sky,” said the Emperor to all of his sons, sweeping his dark gaze over the boys. Some straightened proudly at this reminder of their importance, while the others shuffled their feet self-consciously. Tian’er squirmed harder. “I expect you to take this role seriously, or you will be punished for your next infraction.”

Tian’er let out a silent breath of relief at the word “next” and hastily bowed in gratitude to his father.

The Emperor spent a while longer at the inner court. He critiqued the swordplay of his fifth son, then listened in appreciation at the poem his second son wrote for the Emperor’s eldest daughter Ruby.

As the Emperor left the court to go visit his daughters’ court in his extensive Heavenly Palace, he chuckled softly to himself. “That Tian’er is a wild one, he is. I would do well to keep an eye on him, before he burns my court down.”

But as is often the way with the gods, the Jade Emperor quickly forgot all about the incident.

Chapter 1
“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“I was talking to our sisters in the peach garden, and Sky Blue told me that Papa’s going to go visit the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea tomorrow.”

“Yes, Violet told me. She made me help her weave a cloak for Papa before he leaves. Girls…ugh… Why?”

“Long Tian, you better not be planning anything stupid.”

“Long Jia, just because you’re the eldest doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do. Long Yun, you’re up for it, aren’t you?”

“Hmm…well, only if you help me steal that cloak from Violet. If she tells anyone I helped her to make it, I’ll never be able to show my face in Heaven again. I’m a boy. Not an icky girl. Ugh, there’re more than enough girls in Heaven already.”

“Don’t worry; that’ll be easy. I filched the key to her loom room once and made a copy. See? We can sneak into the girls’ court early tomorrow morning. I need to steal some cloud powder from Ruby anyways.”

“OOOOOH! WE’RE TELLING MAMA!!! AND PAPA! AND VIOLET! AND RUBY! AND THE NURSES! AND—”

“Shut up you stupid eggs! I still haven’t gotten you back for the last time you tattled on me!”

“You know, Long Tian, I always thought we should give Rui’er a black eye on the right, and Kui’er a black eye on the left. It would be so much easier to tell those twins apart that way.”

“Hahaha! That’s a great idea, Long Jia. I say, we get them now, eh?”

“…… MAMAAAA!!!”

“What the… WEI! Get back here you two! You little thieves! Give me my key back! I’m going to get you, you little pests…!”

“Long Yun, did you ever get the feeling the three of them are just little monkeys who jumped out of a rock? Sometimes I think there’s no way they could possibly be our brothers…”

“Hai…I agree completely, Long Jia. Completely.”

The buck finally stopped to graze in the shadows of the trees. Houyi held his bow up, the goose-fletched arrow already notched. He had been tracking the deer for an hour already, and the sun would soon go down the horizon. The buck straightened for a moment, and cast his head into the soft breeze. Houyi tensed, never moving his sights from the deer. He loosed the arrow, and it went streaking for the heart-- A scream pierced the calm, and Houyi jumped in fright. Several birds burst out of the foliage around him, and he almost fell over the roots of the tree he was hidden behind. A deer can't make that kind of sound, Houyi frowned to himself, and looked over at the deer. The arrow stuck up from a bundle of satiny pink and blue cloths. What? Houyi bounded over to the bundle, and cursed. A girl lay fainted on the grass where the deer had been a moment before. The arrow had struck her leg, and her dress was drenched in blotches of red around the wound. Heaven bless me, what have I done to deserve this? he moaned to himself. He sighed and kneeled down beside her, digging around inside his leather pack for the little porcelain vials of herbal medicine he'd prepared from some plants he had found in the forest. They were crude, nothing fancy, like the ones physicians of the town had, but they did what he needed them to. Houyi began pulling open the girl's skirt to pull the arrow from her leg, then stopped in consternation and acute embarrassment. This was a girl, and a very rich one at that if her embroidered silken robes were any indication. One did not go around pulling up the skirts of a qianjin, the precious daughter of some rich man, like some common kitchen girl. Once she awoke, she would probably get her father and a battalion of city guards to kill him and spread the little pieces that were left of him around the forest. Houyi glanced furtively around, as though afraid of someone catching him, then hastily scolded himself. There was no one else in the forest to see, and besides, it was not his fault. He had been aiming for a buck to have some meat to bring home, and this crazy, air-headed, rich girl had jumped out of nowhere. Houyi growled; this was ridiculous. He roughly, and with a bright red face, pulled up the flowy material enough to extricate the arrow, then cleaned the wound, rubbed some of the herbal poultice on the wound, and gently bandaged the very pretty leg in some clean cloth. She better get on her knees and kiss his feet when she woke up; he had just saved her life! Houyi growled again, then arranged his equipment so that his arms would be free to carry her. This was a very different burden than the one he had come to the forest expecting. His family, who was too poor to afford to buy meat from the town, would be expecting him to bring home some game to feed them, not this crazy rich girl, who was just as likely to scream to her parents that she'd been abducted by some wild man as to thank him for saving her life. Even if she was a very pretty crazy rich girl. Maybe the arrow and the pain had rescrambled her brain, made her a bit more sane, Houyi thought hopefully to himself. It was as likely for him to shoot an arrow at the sun.

Chapter 2