Chapter 1 - Fields of Fall

The morning lay heavy with the scent of opium poppies as I watched the young shepherd on the hill, his silhouette cutting a quiet figure against the early light. He wasn’t a true shepherd, not by the traditional sense. No, these were not herds he tended, nor did he guard against wolves or thieves. He was a Shepherd of Bliss, one of the watchful souls entrusted with the poppy fields, those vast and secretive gardens hidden within the Silk Curtain. He sat there as though he belonged to that moment, woven into the golden hues of dawn that spilled over the horizon.

I observed him from a distance, as I often do, my heart caught somewhere between the beauty of the scene and the weight of the memories it stirred. It was the dawn of autumn, that brief, haunting season when the world seems to hold its breath. The sun rose lazily, stretching across the land, staining the clouds above Mt. Kirama in deep crimsons and soft ambers, like a brushstroke across heaven. The cool mountain winds swept down from the peaks, carrying the crisp edge of fall’s approach, a reminder that nothing is eternal, not even the poppies swaying in that endless field.

They stretched as far as the eye could see—amber, ochre, and rust, like a fire set loose upon the earth. And each flower held within it a secret, a power, a whisper of dreams waiting to be unfurled. The poppies weren’t merely beautiful; they were the true wealth of Kaiju Bay, and each petal was steeped in history, in struggle, in the ambitions of those who sought to claim them. The Blue Wizards, long ago, had tried to wrest these fields from us, believing their magic could bend even nature to their will. But they were fools to think the Silk Curtain would yield so easily. Those who tried to take our lands found that they were the ones bent, broken by the unyielding nature of this place.

In the fields below, the poppies were nearly ripe, the buds fat and heavy with the sticky, crystallized resin of opium pooling at their bases. Soon, the Shepherds of Bliss would descend upon the fields, harvesting the precious drug that would find its way through Sakana Cove, where it would be distilled, then loaded onto junkets bound for the distant cities of the Runiverse. It would sail through the inky waters of Kaiju Bay, carried by hands that knew the weight of its worth and the danger of its journey.

Beyond the Bay, in foreign lands where we’ve left pieces of our home, these opium-laden vessels would supply the enclaves known as Little Silk Curtains. They sprouted in city after city, a tapestry of the Silk Curtain woven into the strange, towering streets of foreign places. In those alleys, where the diaspora of Kaiju Bay had gathered, where immigrants, exiles, and merchants breathed life into memories of home, we carved out new lives. We called these places Little Silk Curtains—a name whispered with pride, a reminder that no matter how far we traveled, we carried our culture with us.

The Blue Wizards, in their arrogance, looked upon our people with disdain, calling us “Orientals” as if it were an insult. But we bore the name proudly, like a talisman against their ignorance. To them, we were curiosities, oddities to be watched, distrusted, and sometimes pitied. Yet, for all their superiority, they hungered for our opium. They craved its power, its dreams, its strange and sacred magic that could only be cultivated in these lands.

I watched the young shepherd below, his gaze lost in the motion of the poppies that swayed under the morning light. I wondered if he understood the legacy he held in his hands, if he felt the weight of all those who had come before him, tending these fields, keeping our traditions alive in a world that often wished to see them erased. He sat there, quiet and still, as the mountain breeze played around him, as if he were in communion with something older, something unspoken.

These poppies were more than crops to us. They were symbols of resilience, the anchors of a people who refused to disappear. They grew only in the far East, nourished by soil and secrets that had endured long before my time. They were our lifeblood, our connection to both past and future. And here we were, preserving this precious treasure in a world that did not want us to thrive.

So, here I am, watching over this young shepherd, thinking back on the path that brought me here, and the many paths that will follow. I am Tengukensei, and though they might look upon us as mere cultivators of dreams, we are far more than that. We are storytellers, warriors, survivors, and wanderers. We are the Silk Curtain itself, stitched into each petal, each leaf, each harvest that blooms in the fields of fall.

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