Long ago before any you have ever known were born there was an Emperor. He ruled his lands with a fair and just hand. With his guidance he was able to lead his people into a prosperous age. Silver was discarded by even the poorest of the people as too common a metal to be bothered with.
In time though a dark cloud fell over the lands. First noticed by the farmers and then the census takers, no child was born to any woman, nor any beast of the land, air, or sea. Not so much as a single fruit in the trees grew. Now food had to be taken from the great storehouses and given to the people. Even with this aid the people could not work the fields as they once had and soon the gold and silver that had filled the lands flowed out to other parts of the world.
The Emperor called to him all of his vassals and retainers and sent them to the four corners of his lands to discover the source of this calamity. With every passing day a different man would return to the Emperor with ill news that they had not been able to find the source of the blight until only one retainer had not returned. A mighty warrior who had brought his young daughter with him to the western mountains.
Deep in those mountains the retainer and his daughter had set up camp in a tent she had woven of silver threads. As the night wore on the daughter was awoken by sounds of music. Venturing from her tent towards the sound and after she had passed the crest of seven more hills she came to a giant daylily. Under it was Songzi Niangniang, the maiden goddess of fertility, along with a number of unborn spirits.
As she watched the unborn spirits danced and drank of a stone cask filled to the brim with nectar that had dripped from the petals of the daylily. Still unnoticed by the spirits the girl slipped away and fled back to her tent over the seven hills on the side of the mountain.
She returned to her father and told him of the spirits, the goddess, and the music they were singing. Her father quieted her then and listened but the two could only hear the winds of the mountain against the sides of the silver tent. In time he convinced her it must have been a dream and she acquiesced to him.
The next night she was awoken once more by the sounds of music and she again ventured over the seven crests of the mountain to find the goddess Songzi sitting and drinking under the giant daylily that protected her and the spirits from any snow that may fall.
Without staying long, the girl made her way back to the camp. As she crossed the last hill she stopped and turned back to where she had come from and listened. When she did she could only hear the winds blowing through the mountains, the sounds of music and merriment was gone. Knowing her father would once again insist it was just a dream the girl took the stakes out of the ground and took up the corner the silver tent in her hands. Though she had to strain with all of her might she was able to slowly move the tent. Throughout the night she had to place the fine fabrics under great strains to move the silver tent. After she had arrived to the place she could be allowed to rest the remainder of the night not a single thread had been torn, nor even stretched by her efforts. Even when she ran it across a rock so sharp it would have made a fine blade for any warrior there was no mark on the silver tent.
Each night she did this for a week when she had finally brought the tent to the crest of the final hill she rushed to see the goddess and unborn spirits but the sun crested behind her and she only saw an empty tundra with a section where the snow had been melted away.
So tired was she from moving the tent every night while her father slept that when she returned to the tent she fell asleep until that night when like so many nights before she was taken from the land of dreams by the music of the spirits.
She came out and watched as the party continued as it had for so many nights with the unborn spirits dancing together and the goddess drinking deeply from her cup before refilling it from the cask that never seemed to run dry no matter how many drank from it.
She rushed back then to her silver tent and woke her father with a violent shaking, all the while telling him of the unborn spirits and the goddess, how they danced, how they sang, and how they drank. He quieted her then and listened to the sounds around them. All that they could hear was the flowing winds hitting the side of their tent. He scolded her deeply then, telling her that if he could not find the source of blight that had befallen their lands in the coming day that the two would return to the Emperor and inform him that they had failed and hope that one of the other servants of the Emperor had fared better than they had.
During that day the girl thought and worried knowing what she seen but not knowing how to convince him. Worse that he would find nothing and that they would have to leave, him believing they had failed when they had succeeded.
That night she was unable to sleep and lay in the tent awake until the sounds of song drifted to her and she crawled out of her bed. As she watched the goddess was just filling her cup for the first drink of the night. The girl went back to her tent taking up the stakes and dragging the silver tent and her father who slept within to where the goddess and unborn spirits were merry and presented the tent and all its contents as a gift to the beautiful and mighty goddess.
Amused by the mortal’s gift the goddess opened the tent and was surprised to find the sleeping man. Before she could question this the girl spoke up and told her it was the greatest gift she could present, a warrior with many tales to drink with. At this the goddess laughed with amusement at what the girl said, her laugh waking the father.
He was swept up by the unborn spirits and brought to a seat by the stone cask, where he could drink as much of the nectar as he pleased, and the daughter made sure he drank as much as he could. As the night progressed and the stories flowed as freely as the nectar the cask slowly emptied until the skies darkened to the deep black of the predawn night when the finally the last drop was taken up in the father’s cup.
The girl smiled to herself, proud in the knowledge that her father’s action had emptied the cask and now the goddess would return to her role and allow humans, beasts, and plants to bear children again. Her father then slept the entire day away until deep in the night when the girl once again heard the music sung by the unborn spirits. Her father this time stirring at the noise and going out to once again join the merriment with the goddess.
The girl sat high up on the crest of the hill and watched as nectar flowed out of the daylily and into the stone cask. In time she stood and went down the hill and spoke with the spirits and shared in their drink. Quickly though she started to steal drink from the spirits, smashing their cups on the ground, and commit in all manner of chaos.
At first her father and the goddess laughed with glee at her antics, though when she decided to use the cask as her own personal pool the cheer quickly turned to jeers from the unborn spirits. After a quick discussion between her father and the goddess the man came over to the cask and plucked the girl out of it and carried her back to the silver tent.
After a short time in the tent the girl went to leave it but found a score of the unborn spirits blocking her way out of the tent. So she slept, and dreamt of how to convince the goddess to return home.
When she woke she found her father had not returned to the tent, when she left the tent and passed over the crest of the hill where her father was sleeping at the foot of the stone cask even as the goddess and unborn spirits had left with the day's light.
The girl emptied the tent on the grounds in front of it and took the tent down. With a small knife from the inside of the tent she cut the tips of the threads at the seams. Carefully she pulled each thread out before she could lay the panels of the tent out before her.
Through the day she worked and her father slept off the effects of the nectar. Her nimble fingers worked with the thread and a golden needle to change the form of the silver tent to that which she desired.
Only once Vega was peaking down on the girl did she sit back and rest her fingers from the sewing. From over the crest of the hill she could hear the song of the spirits once again. Taking up what she had done with the silver tent she brought it over the hill to the goddess and the unborn spirits. When she approached she could feel the tone change around her, while many still danced and sung together, there were others that watched her, lest she take another swim.
The girl went before the goddess and presented her with the gift she had created. An expertly created cover for the cask with a small hole in the middle to catch the nectar dripping from the daylily. It would, she explained, keep any errant item from falling into their nectar and spoiling it.
So delighted with the quality of the sewing and lustre of the silver the goddess ordered it to be draped over the stone cask immediately. With playful cries as they worked the unborn spirits gave great effort to fasten the cover.
Once it was done there was great cheer as they went back to their drink, safe in the knowledge that nothing from a fly, to a girl, to bird may fall into their drink again.
Not long after did the merriment end, when an unborn spirit ready for a new cup found it could not fit any cup no matter how small through the hole that so greedily drank every drip of nectar from the daylily.
All that were gathered there then cast their gaze to where the girl had sat only to find an empty rut in the snow. While some went out to look for her others tried to remove the cover. But no matter how they tried the cover would not budge. They begged her father and he took his sword and spear to it, stabbing and slashing the cover, but no matter how he attacked it, not a single thread could be cut or even show any sign of stretching.
As the night went on some of the unborn spirits continued their search for the girl but many more drifted away no longer enchanted by the nectar of the goddess’ daylily.
By morning the father despite all his efforts had only been able to chip the blade of his sword when he threw it down with the first rays of dawn.
Past the crests of seven hills the girl woke with the dawn from where she had slept in the trees. Through much of the night she had heard the unborn spirits wondering around, lamenting the loss of their nectar, and calling for her to let them drink once more of its intoxicating nature. But all throughout the night they never ventured so far as she had gone.
Through the day she made her way back across the seven crests where she found her father once again sleeping after spending the night drinking and then trying to restore the stone cask to all.
She watched as he slept choosing to let him rest even as the day turned into night and the first stars appeared, and even as Vega loomed over her head and her father awoke from his slumber the goddess and the unborn spirits didn’t return to make merry around the stone cask that still had the remnants of her tent tied tightly over it.
After two more nights of waiting and the goddess not returning to this place the father and the daughter made their way back to the Emperor’s palace.
Once they had returned the father spoke to the Emperor of the goddess Songzi and how she had stopped her duties to enjoy song, dance, and the heavenly nectar of her daylily, and of how his daughter was unswayed by the sweet elixir, and was able to seal away the cask that it flowed into.
At first the Emperor was unimpressed by this story and was certain that the lands blight was surely still amongst them. Only that night did the Emperor believe the stories when his wife told him she had become pregnant with the Emperor’s child.
So moved by this he rewarded the girl with eight gifts: a jade cup that could purify any liquid placed within it, a comb made from moonstone that crashed into the Emperor’s garden many years before, robes made from the down of a phoenix, a compass that points not north but at what her own heart most desires. This were the first four gifts and each worth a ransom on their own, but they were not what was most important to the Emperors heart for the girl he also gave these. He elevated the girl to a princess of the empire and with her new status he bestowed the name of Princess of the Eternal June, next was to invite her into the family by offering to her his favourite nephew’s hand, to which she gladly accepted. The final gift was two vials of the elixir of life, one for her and one to present to her husband on their wedding night.
