Jinki had a favorite hill, one in which he’d scurry off to-out of sight of all those who wanted to be in his presence every waking hour. In that he thought himself fortunate to be surrounded by those who loved him in likeness and in spirit, it was sometimes necessary to breathe on his lonesome. Besides which, there were also the awful peddlers who badgered and swindled him every chance they beseeched because of his wealth, and so Jinki would grow weary of them; better he endure them the next day than to continue to into yet another night in the summer’s eve.

Ever the clever young man, Jinki had a routine to his pleasure. After the day’s monotonous draw, he’d wander into his mother’s kitchen with hands behind his back and feet made of the purest of nothing so that they were a blur. A small wicker basket he’d take fleetingly, loading it with honey beignets, fresh green tea and violet skinned peaches freshly picked from the orchard. With a swipe of his cautious eyes, he made sure no one was looking and set off with a whistled song of merriment, bare feet treading the familiar path to his beloved hill.

Always sighing the sigh of relief, his trip ended soon, with his calves slightly aching from making his way up the sturdy land. On top of this hill a great deal east from his home, Jinki crossed his long legs and set the basket of treats off to the side. Then, with the lake below reflecting the sky’s grandeur, his gaze was lifted upward to where it was pink and orange and everything in between, even the colors he could never find a name for.

Here, at dusk, was where he found his peace.

But unlike the lot of us, Jinki found more of those fiery heavens.  

Because at exactly the right moment, at an exact minute that the great glowing sphere in the sky was in its descent, Jinki heard music like he’s never heard or sung. Its melodious tune infected the four winds that rustled him, therefore poisoning his ears with beautifully fatal symphonies.  Earthly, it was certainly not. And it seemed that he could only HE could hear, as humans are usually thinking of themselves and are too caught up in their affairs to hear such when the end of the day came. Perhaps  he was wrong in another aspect, as no one has ever accompanied him to the hill before…and maybe the song could only be heard there. Whatever this trivial debate, Jinki relished the lovely scores until they began to fade away in final notes; when that time came, the sun would have all but given up trying to stay in the sky, only a sliver of its glorious light still visible like a great glowing arm reaching out pleading mercy still.

This went on for several weeks until one particular dusk, where Jinki had left his home compound in a storm and had stomped off so quickly, he’d forgotten to pack his basket. The furious unshed tears glimmered, letting the light of the sunset glint off of them. As he folded his legs on the downy grass and looked heavenward, he finally let the prideful tears slide down his cheeks. And he waited for the calm to overtake him. He waited for the music.

Something like chimes whispering in his ears came about. Closing his eyes, he welcomed their jingles and felt his shoulders growing even more lax when the sound of a piano penetrated his senses as well. For a moment, it was just that. The chimes, the piano, the wind and his heart being consoled.

But when he opened his eyes to the sky again, he saw something he’d never seen before.

As if someone had painted in watercolors and used the clouds as their canvas, wondrous eyes took in the silhouette of a great piano and someone seated at its bench. The image rippled across every cloud in his line of vision. There, the fingers play! The figurine at the grand instrument was hardly still, and as it played even more touchingly, the music grew louder and louder; not to blaring, as Jinki would have had to cover his ears and run. Yet enough to get his heart pumping faster and his legs to standing him up slowly. The wind whistled around him at speeds it never had, his awe etched on pale, handsome features.

“What is this…?”

No sooner said, when he blinked, he found he was no longer standing atop his hill and was, in fact, amidst the flaming clouds themselves. And a mere arm’s length away was the piano; the piano solidified into a white, blinding substance he had no name for except that it reminded him of ivory, and yet, that was still an unworthy comparison. The lake below reflected its watery rippling on the piano’s every surface, giving Jinki the illusion that maybe the piano was made of water itself.

However, the sight of the pianist was even more startling.

His bare toes curled into the powdery soft clouds that somehow held his weight, his breath nearly expired into the thin atmosphere he was astoundingly able to tolerate, and his pupils dilated to take in the full glory of the vision.

It was a woman. A woman so bright, he barely believed his eyes hadn’t been scorched out by now.

A woman made entirely out of gold.

Not clothed in gold, not wearing gold jewelry. MADE of it. Her skin, her hair, the hands that skidded across piano keys he wasn’t close enough to see. It was as if a craftsman had taken the purest, gold and sculpted a female who was the epitome of her …then brought her to life. As if he had polished her molten skin with honey lacquer and made it so her long metallic locks never lay down her back, but bobbed and laced about as if she were under the sea.

Fear should have been present. Jinki barely felt it. The only fear he had was if those golden eyelids finally parted all the way and spotted him there staring. He feared he’d faint away and fall back down to from wince he came. Then he couldn’t see her anymore.

The thought terrified him even though he’d only been graced by her presence for a minute.

Jinki carefully walked up and folded his arms atop the magnificent instrument. His head went slightly to side as he listened to her complicated, yet tragically fair tune. Each plunk of the keys put him in a state of nostalgia; when he remembered his mother’s lap, tales of samurais and emperors, and rain storms. Indeed, he was so warmed that he felt how this strange woman looked; golden…

All of a sudden, she stopped playing. Frightened, he quickly gazed down to the surface of the piano. His mistake, as she was already glaring at his reflection there, as if she could read his mind. He grew weak; just as his eyes were brown in a pool of white, hers were almond shaped mirrors. A mirror like you and I look into. And when he brought his head back up to face her, he could only see a double image of himself and miles and miles of pinkish clouds behind him in her eyes.

She stared back at him, now with an impassive expression. Jinki dared not move, dare not tear away. In the recesses of his mind, he thought about how the eyes were the windows to one’s soul…and how hers seem to be the windows to everyone’s soul but her own. Yet before he could wonder why, the golden beauty resumed playing and lowered her lashes down to her masterpiece again.

“Human, what is your business here?” she asked. Hers was a melodious tone, almost like bells. With an edge, he noticed as well, of an authoritive thunder. Such a voice swallowed the whole vortex of sky with power when it sounded, and he couldn’t help but assume she didn’t speak often, less the feeble world around her crumbled from it. Oddly, he felt, as a mere man,  he wasn’t supposed to have heard it.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he nearly sighed back. She made no indication of understanding and continued the piece without falter.

“Then you may take your leave. I meddle not into the affairs of your kind and as I did not bring you here, I have no explanation for you.”

Jinki blushed, making no attempt to leave. Go where, exactly? How was he to get back if he didn’t have the slightest idea to how he came?

Then he began to tremble.

“You’re still here, human?”

“My lady, I fear that I have fallen down my hill and into the lake. I think I am dead.”

“Impossible nonsense.”

“It is a very high hill. I may have taken a wayward step and plunged down.  I cannot swim, and therefore I may have drowned.”

“If you are dead, my dear simpleton, then you wouldn’t be here,” she seemed to snort. “The dead do not reside here, as you can see it is only you and I. Really, of all the fools.”

He only colored a deeper red, lowering his head as a boy.

“My Honorable Father must have brought you here,” she murmured after the silence sans music. “Only he could have, and he has always had a soft spot for your kind. Perhaps you were summoned here in his discretion.”

She eyed him, clearly in distaste.

“But why you? I see nothing worthy of your presence. You are but a simple peasant, are you not?”

Jinki knew she was referring to his clothes. He couldn’t hold it against her for not knowing he didn’t dress of pomp and high standard living when he wasn’t in the spotlight. Still, he was tickled.

“My lady, I assure you, I am regarded somewhat like a king where I’m from. My quarters are vast and imperial. The companies I keep are rich in culture as are their wares. My subjects love me well.”

“Impossible nonsense,” she repeated. Her hands ran down the scale of the piano flowingly.

“If it is not true, then I am damned.”

She paused for a split second, then continued with what he thought was a thoughtful, fitful expression.

“Human, what is your name?”

“I am Jinki.”

She nodded impartially.

“And what is it that you are, Jinki?”

“I am a musician,” he said somewhat despondently. “But when I am not honing my gifts, I come to the hill below this very setting for a respite. I come to listen….to the music.”

He peered at her, awaiting a reaction of any measure. He was humored with slightly widened eyes and a hesitation in her song. That which he could recall only because he peered so closely, otherwise he would have missed it.

Seconds passed before she spoke again, her voice considerably more humble.

“Forgive my brutish judgments, Young Jinki. If you may…?”

“Of course, my lady,” he said kindly.

“And forgive a goddess for impolite behavior, as it isn’t the way of a lady nor a Daughter of the Sun.” She made a dainty frown towards the giant sphere. “My Honorable Father must be displeased…”

Jinki followed her gaze, though he couldn’t stare for too long at the brilliant light; for a while, her eyes were as golden as the rest of her body. Her pretty music wafted around them more poignantly.

“You are the daughter of the sun…?”

“One of many,” she said bittersweetly. “I am the Eldest Daughter.”  Her mirror eyes gleamed like diamonds when she faced him again, keys of the piano growing more melancholy. “Care you to know my tale?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he said sincerely, jumping a bit when he felt something hit his bottom. The golden beauty smiled at his surprise. Now a column of cloud was there for him to sit. He did so, sheepish curve becoming his mouth.

She started to play something very original, a tune much tamed in innocence and young love.

“My Honorable Father, the Sun, fell in love with my Honorable Mother, the Sky, in the beginning of time. In fact, at the moment they both came into being. The Sun said he’d never take another but her, and he would grovel for her affections until she’d marry him. My Honorable Mother, a free spirit, of course rejected him time and time again because she couldn’t bear to be tied down just yet. She was still young and virtuous. But eventually, she couldn’t pass up the Sun’s quite flattering advances any longer, and besides, she was falling in love with him and his warm golden light all the more. They married and I was born.

“I took after My Honorable Father in appearance, yet I took after my Honorable Mother in spirit. The Sky is the ruler of all things musical and free. The winds are in her domain, and all sixteen of them represent the silver chimes she has in her keep, forever tinkling. She is why I was bestowed the gift of song and dance.

“Alas, as My Honorable Mother raised me from a babe, she knew my Honorable Father’s attachment to your world. He gave your kind light, warmth, and life out of the strongest of love. And at the end of the day, when his reign was up and the Moon would take his place, he was sad. It hurt us to see him go through this for so long that Honorable Mother and I decided to give up our freedom to console him. That is why she came to be apart of your world permanently; every dawn to make love to him in many hues and again in the dusk, to set off her winds baring her silver chimes to comfort him. I took refuge here. To cheer up my Honorable Father, I play a different instrument every evening. I play and sing and dance to his entertainment and well -being until he disappears into the horizon.

“And my dear Jinki, you are ever so worthy of being here with my Honorable Father and I, as well as my Honorable Mother, who is all around us. Only a handful of humans in the history of your world have ever taken the time to forget themselves and appreciate my music. Few of your kind are ever truly at peace when they gaze up here, and it is only them who can hear me.

“Perhaps, you are here so Honorable Father can show me that those like you have not died out.” She gazed at her guest, ashamed. “He has been trying to soothe my animosity towards your kind for millennia now.”

Jinki nodded sympathetically, and in his chest, he felt a stir. A longing to approach her and hold her to him until time ended.

“Honorable Daughter, I do not understand though,” he began, and she smiled graciously at his respective title. “How is it that your parents are not in human form but you are?”

“My Honorable Father’s love of your kind inspired him greatly. So deep went his inspiration that I believe he secretly wished for me to be born in that image as he the my mother’s pregnant belly.”

Jinki tried hard to imagine two suns in the sky, or what the golden goddess would have resembled had she not been born akin to a human female.

Lost in his thoughts, man and goddess lost in her music, both sat in the comfortable presence of the other. And nay, the golden woman’s father was sinking fast.  Soon his wife was a deep violet color, close to ebony with dark, lingering fuchsia still painting her hide. The stars were starting to come out, and when Jinki witnessed them, he was in awe again at their size from where he was. But seeing them also brought him to realization.

He looked back to her. Her piece was growing fainter and fainter with each note.  A bittersweet smile played more sinister on her smooth, gold-plated lips.

Before he knew it, he was on his feet and rounding the piano slowly. All he wanted to do was touch her, just one touch. To let her know that in everything unspoken, she’d be alright as long as he was there.

His fingers were inches from her shoulder when an invisible force stopped them in their tracks.

“Your intentions are noble, Young Jinki. But you mustn’t touch me on your own will, for you shall surely perish.” On emphasis, she lightly tapped the edge of his sleeve, and it was singed away in nano seconds.  She kept the sad smile as she stared up at him, hands folding in her lap. From this angle, Jinki saw her true self; just as he suspected, her body was , yet not, as the golden armor of her skin showed no and only displayed an undetailed, golden triangle where her legs parted. It reminded him of the androgynous illustration of angels in his story books. But so, in all aspects, the being before him was indefinitely female.

He suddenly felt like he knew how the Sun felt when it first laid rays on the Sky….

“If I may, my lady, another question,” he said even more softly. “I feel our departure coming soon.”

“And you feel right, my good man.”

Jinki inhaled. “Where will you go after your father has disappeared?”

A sudden crackle sounded in the inkier distance, something like lightning but much more lethal. Now in this darkened realm of navy blue clouds and wintery mists, the golden woman was even more of a lustrous beacon. A sight for sore, mortal eyes. As it couldn’t be helped, her narrowed mirror eyes were a-blazed with the closest source of color and light; herself.

Her heat enveloped him as he stood mesmerized and stricken with grief at the way she was looking at him.

“You shall see now,” she whispered weakly, rising.  The piano vanished a moment later. Eye to eye, she mapped the human out before her. His small inquisitive eyes, his silky pearl skin, his plush, auburn curls. When she sighed, it was as if all of her mother’s winds were sighing with her. Jinki features softened vulnerably. “But first, hold out  your right hand.”

He did. She kissed the very top of her index finger’s nail and, giving him a look of assurance that he wouldn’t be burned to sure death, she pricked the center of his palm. He felt the pain immediately, gasped, and fought the urge to hiss. Yet it was quickly replaced with a dull ache, followed by a lovely warmth that spread throughout his body. When he glanced down at his hand, a golden glow lit the center of his palm. Gazing back up in a flush, the golden woman’s regal smile was more genuine.

“We are now bonded. You are a true Honorable friend, Jinki.  May my Father always protect and keep you and your kin.”

She backed up a bit, and bowed formally to him. Jinki smiled and reciprocated the gesture. “Thank you, Honorable Daughter.”

No sooner was this said than the crackle snapped again, this time closer. Something from afar was coming, he could see. She turned around to face the oncoming object with heavy heart. Bravery locked in her straight, proud pose.

It took only a few thunderous minutes for the object to stop before them; a silver chariot drawn by two plush, ferocious looking blue dragons. Jinki watched as she left his side and joined the wielder of the elegantly wheeled mechanism. With a silent goodbye, she wrapped an arm around a toned waist dutifully. The taller young man didn’t fully acknowledge it though, as he was glaring his black, silver speckled eyes Jinki’s way; warrior body stiff and his sneer unyielding. His skin had the same pearly, luminance of the Moon’s although much more refined. Frothy waves of water were his crown and glory. And in being, the waters were dark, turbulent and threatening, in likeness to his steely eyes of hate and jealousy.

The pale creature took one last look at him and uttered one growl much deeper than that of his dragons, then cracked his whip across their great, long bodies. She didn’t look back as the chariot was hauled around and thundered back from whence it came at the speed of sound.

Jinki blinked as they vanished in a twinkle of light.

Then he found his cheek was being rubbed by something soft and foreign. Grass.

He sat up quickly, blood rushing from his aching head. The sun was gone, with only the moon glittering in satisfaction on the lake surface. Stars dotted the night sky around her. Jinki rubbed his hand down his face and stood to go back home, but stopped in his tracks at not only the ominous lightning strike that shook the clouds, but the peculiar warmth that he felt when the hand made contact with his cheek.

When he looked down, a bright golden glow lit the center of his palm.