Sagacious and Venerable Senseis of Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword,
I, Princess Wu Yinmei, as petitioner in this proceeding, demand that you strip respondent Chen Peasprout and her battleband, called by the tragically inauspicious name “Nobody and the Fire-Chickens,” of all points they earned during the First Annexation and that such points be transferred to me.
I restate here all the undisputed facts that the senseis need consider:
- I am the great-great-granddaughter of the Empress Dowager of Shin.
- I fled here to the city of Pearl seeking sanctuary from the Empress Dowager’s ruthlessness.
- The Empress Dowager is preparing to invade Pearl.
- Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword has thus been transformed into a military academy.
- The academy students are being taught to use their skills in martial skating not just for theatrical performance, but to protect against the invasion.
- Chen Peasprout falsely and hatefully accused me of coming to Pearl to spy for the Empress Dowager, which is a vile slur soaked in vicious lies.
- The Empress Dowager demands that Chen Peasprout be deported back to Shin to be executed as a traitor.
- Chen Peasprout is granted sanctuary to stay here in Pearl only if she takes first ranking at each of this year’s three Annexations.
- I foolishly accepted Chen Peasprout’s invitation to join her battleband. During the First Annexation, we performed shamefully and were rescued from defeat only by my seizing prized possessions belonging to our opponents, and threatening to hurl them into the sea if we were not awarded first ranking.
- Chen Peasprout then expelled me from her battleband, simply because she had not authorized my stratagem, in a pitiful public tantrum exhibiting an utter absence of shame or dignity that was an embarrassment to witness.
I will not say that Chen Peasprout has trash for leadership skills, for I am a kind person and have a complete lack of opinion about her character or the fact that she was only one of two students that Sensei Madame Liao sentenced to remedial leadership class.
I will say that I tenderly urged Chen Peasprout to learn from me for I was groomed for leadership from birth. I wrote an entreaty in the form of a harrowing opera scene entitled “The Bitter Tea of the Dynasty in the Dynasty.” It recounted how the Empress Dowager threatened to poison me, like she poisoned everyone else in our family, if I proved to be an unsuitable leader to inherit the throne. I include with this petition a letter orb recording the performance of this scene.
Yinmei:
Why have you summoned me, great-great-grandmother?
The invitation called me to a feast.But if this is a feast why aren’t there any others
To join us but the honorable deceased?Empress Dowager:
I’ve summoned you to feast, great-great-granddaughter
On something that is precious beyond price.
So what I pour into your cup is more than water,
What I put in your bowl is more than rice.
Will you take the bitter tea
Of the dynasty in the dynasty?For your sake, commit to me
And the dynasty in the dynasty.Will you join us, will you Empress Yinmei be?
They talk of vicious things that I have done to
Each person who’s inheriting my throne.It’s only that I’m searching for the special one to
Convince me with some merit of her own.A girl who has the courage to put finding
A way to change the law into her plan.When she is Empress, Shin will have no more foot-binding.
Our girls will walk as far as any man.Will you take the bitter tea
Of the dynasty in the dynasty?For your sake, commit to me
And the dynasty in the dynasty.Will you join us, will you Empress Yinmei be?
Yinmei:
Then she claps and orders me to eat and drink.
I don’t know what to do, don’t know what to think.But she put our family into their graves,
And that’s where she’ll put me too unless I’m brave.So for four days and four nights I stay composed,
With my spirit steady for my mouth is closed.I refuse your poison, I will not comply!
I live unafraid until the day I die!I won’t take (Why won’t you break) your bitter tea (Come drink my tea)!
Of the dynasty in the dynasty,
I won’t break (I tried to make), so set me free (you into me)
Of the dynasty in the dynasty!
I won’t join you, I won’t Empress Yinmei be!
What I have learned from my experiences is that a leader makes decisions that no one wants to make.
What you will learn, as the waves of war hurl toward our shores, is that Chen Peasprout is not the leader who will save Pearl.
I am.
– Petitioner, Princess Wu Yinmei
Henry Lien is a 2012 graduate of Clarion West. His short fiction has appeared in publications like Asimov’s, earning multiple Nebula Award nominations. He is the author of the Peasprout Chen series, on which he was mentored by George R.R. Martin, Chuck Palahniuk, and Kelly Link. Born in Taiwan, Henry currently lives in Hollywood. Henry has worked as an attorney, fine art dealer, and college instructor. Hobbies include pets, vegan cooking, writing and performing campy science fiction/fantasy anthems, and losing Nebula awards.
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