Joseph Hong, Rainbringer

Rainbringer Joseph Hong

Mother always liked the rain. She spoke fondly of it each night as she laid me to bed. “The tears of angels, tears that leave good fortune in their wake,” she would say, pulling the soft silk sheets up to my neck. She would tell me stories of days long ago, before she had met my father, recounting the dozens of kingdoms she had visited as the mystical Rainbringer of the East, and my eyelids would grow heavy under the sweetness of her voice.

“A city that shone like the sun, visible from miles away. Do you know why, my prince? Its walls were made of gold, gates of silver. Precious stones were embedded in its streets and sunstones adorned its lamp posts. The radiance of the city choked out every trace of shadow so that there was no night within its walls. The Golden City, they called it ...”

At the age of seven, I believed every word she said. By then, I had already seen her bring the rain. To me, there was nothing more fantastical and captivating the first moment those thin trails of condensation gathering in the empty blue sky, twisting and turning into nimbostratus clouds, before becoming droplets of rain that threw themselves down against the earth, leaving but a trickle in their wake. Though I had listened eagerly to Mother’s stories each night, it was when I saw this that I began understanding they were more than just fairy tales, that the word “Rainbringer” truly meant something. And it was when I saw Mother’s expression, smooth porcelain painted with a calmness that only appeared when she called the rain, that I wanted to be like her someday.

There was one story she would tell every night without fail, the one she told as my eyes were all but closed and my chest was rising and falling.

It was the story of how she met my father, one afternoon in the rain. How a princess from the far East fell in love with a dazzling prince from the far West––and how they met somewhere in between. A story of love, trust, and compromise; topics far too complicated for my young mind to comprehend.

“One day you will understand,” she would murmur before pressing her lips against my forehead, the soft curtain of her obsidian locks brushing against my cheeks. She would stroke her fingers through my unkempt hair, whose color matched her own, then would blow out the lamp on my nightstand. And through the darkness, she would whisper the same words, her voice filled with love, pride, and a hint of sadness: “Until then, good night. My prince, my blessing, my little Rainbringer.”

Mother was revered and respected in every land but her own. In the East, where torrential rains were frequent, she was the embodiment of natural disaster, the incarnation of floods and typhoons. Being born into the royal family of her kingdom did nothing to change that perception. But to the people of the far West, who lived in a land of abundant sun but scarce rain, she was held in the highest regard, an invaluable piece in the proverbial chaturanga board.

She had the worst of both worlds. Despised by one, coveted by the other. And yet she never blamed the rain. She never complained about the curse that had brought out all the hatred, fear, and greed of those around her. She simply smiled, traveling wherever she was needed, calling the rain in one place, driving it away in another.

The latter, to drive away the rain, was an ability she had acquired over

the years. When she had first arrived on the Eternian continent, the rain had followed her wherever she went, causing intermittent downpours and continuous drizzles. She did not know how to call it, much less control it. The power to dissipate storms was not something she had been born with, but rather something she had learned to do nearly a decade after her father had sent her to the foreign continent across the Great Divide, formerly known as the World’s End.

“Sent is a very weak word, my darling prince,” she said one day, giving me a strained smile. Whenever she talked about him, there was a bit of irritation in her voice, but that day it sounded more like poison. “Saying that he traded me would be more precise.”

People did not know that there were quite a few Rainbringers in the East, she told me. Rainbringers, or the Cursed as they were called in the East, were sacrificed to relieve the anger of their gods, bringing the perpetual downpours to lighter rains for a few years on end. If Mother had not been born into royalty, she would never have lived past the age of twelve––the same age I was now. But her father had learned of a continent past the Great Divide that would be willing to do anything for rain. She had been traded for a large sum of gold and silver; her father had sold her away, covering it up as an ‘exile’ to appease the gods.

But that exile had led her to discover new abilities she did not know she had.

“Watch closely,” she would say whenever she pulled apart the gray clouds like candy floss, the barest grimace on her face and a single droplet of sweat trickling down her creased forehead. The wind would howl around us, resisting Mother’s touch, exposing the strands of granite that streaked the obsidian of her hair. She was well aware that, despite

having awakened my abilities, the most my twelve-year-old self could do was call a drizzle when becoming distressed. I wanted to be like her, but I was far from it. Yet she showed me such complicated things, as though she expected me to somehow perform such feats––almost impatiently, as though there was not enough time for her to wait.

Then one morning, as rain began to pour around us, she collapsed.

Each time she called the rain, it took something from her. That “something” was her life. But she didn’t blame the rain, even when she was no longer able to get out of her sickbed a year later.

She never blamed the rain.

“The rain made me who I am today,” she said, lifting her frail hand to stroke my soft obsidian hair. “The best and worst moments of my life were all spent in the rain. It shaped me. You are also a Rainbringer, Damien. You, too, will understand what this means.”

It rained on the day Mother breathed her last. Who brought that rain, I’ll never know.

Mother’s funeral lasted an entire year. People from every nation in the West came to mourn the loss of the continent’s Rainbringer, the queen who gave and gave to the very end.

It had been a stroke of good misfortune, she had once said, that her

father had learned there was a continent in the Far West willing to do anything to have rain. I didn’t understand why she had thought it was “good” in any sense. She had still been a piece, just in a different political game.

Now she, too, was gone, leaving me as the new and sole Rainbringer of the West. I could see greed in the eyes of the royals of the West as they bowed and curtsied before Father, the disgust in the expressions of the delegates of the East who came to “mourn” in my grandfather’s stead. But to me, none of that mattered. I simply wanted Mother back.

During the final month of the funeral, I slipped out of the castle in the midst of heavy rain, through the servants’ gate hidden in the far northeastern corner of the castle walls.

Though the rain obscured one’s vision quite well, I knew that my actions would not go unnoticed by my elite escort, the Royal Guard. But they, in their dark, oiled cloaks, said nothing when I navigated through the thick underbrush to the gate, nor did they stop me when I reached it. Elite knights they may have been, but before that they were friends of Mother. She was gone, yet I felt her presence in all the people whose lives she had touched, all those whom she had befriended over the years. Her shadow was immense; the role she had left me to play was too large for a mere fourteen year old.

“How did you do it?” I murmured aloud, looking up at the dark clouds from under my oiled hood. How can I even begin to fill your shoes?

It was the first time I was walking down the streets without Mother by my

side. The road had never felt so wide. Thousands of raindrops dashed against the cobblestone, a never ending, deafening echo of pit-pats. The gutters were overflowing with rainwater, small rivers trickling between the stones embedded into the cobblestone street. Two-story buildings of plaster and wood loomed over me on either side, roofs painted with rubber to keep the rain out. Their signs, swinging violently in the howling wind, leered at me as I walked down the empty road.

I walked through the downpour, the manifestation of my mourning. The rain had not stopped for almost an entire year now and there was no question as to why––there was only one Rainbringer left on the entire continent.

I reached the tavern at the end of the street leading to the royal castle. A dull light came through the thick, frosted glass of the windows. Standing in front of the heavy oak door, my hand resting against the handle, I hesitated. Never had I come here since Mother had fallen ill. And never had I ever come here, alone.

“Hello there, traveler,” the innkeeper called when I stepped inside. She was wiping down a table, getting ready to open up for the evening. “Welcome to––”

She stopped mid-sentence and dropped the rag in her hand when I lowered my hood.

“Hi, Miss Wilkes.”

When I smiled weakly, her eyes filled with tears. She raised a hand to her mouth. I had grown over the past two years, but there was no mistaking who I was. Miss Wilkes was one of Mother’s closest friends in the city and

had become the aunt that I never had.

“Little Rainbringer … Lady Ayane …” she stammered out a few words, her eyes wide and lips trembling. “Are you … okay?”

My vision blurred as tears welled up. I couldn’t tell her that things were alright. They weren’t.

“It hurts,” I whispered, shaking my head. “It hurts so much.”

Miss Wilkes wrapped her arms around me as I pressed my face into her shoulder, sobbing as I had never before in an entire year.

“It’s okay to cry,” she murmured, patting my back. “It’s okay, Damien …”

Away from the diplomats, away from the castle, away from the life of royalty, I was just a young boy who had lost his mother.

“Someone who doesn’t know the face of her people is no ruler at all,” Mother would often say to her escort when she was confronted about the frequent visits into the city. “Besides, who in their right mind would hurt me, the Rainbringer? The entire continent would tear them apart.”

Many of the places she had visited for her Rainbringer duties were the small villages and rural towns that grew a majority of the continent’s crops; her countless interactions with those who cared little about status had rubbed off on her. She even insisted others simply call her “Ayane” rather than address her by her title, eventually compromising at “Lady Ayane.”

And I, inseparable from Mother, had tagged along each time she visited the tavern, earning me the nickname “Little Rainbringer” because of how closely I had resembled Mother. Two Rainbringers with black hair, mother and son, sitting at a counter, surrounded by people from all over town who wanted to meet the charming queen who never backed down from a drinking match.

I would watch, sipping warm apple cider from a small wooden cup as Mother would fold with peals of laughter, out-drinking and out-cursing a burly sailor from the port. Sarah, assigned with both protecting me and carrying Mother home, would sigh each time she met my eyes, telling me not to be like Mother when I grew up. I would smile and shrug. Mother seemed like she was having a lot of fun, as did the people raising drinks in her name.

“Is there anyone else?” she would shout into the roaring crowd, shaking her dainty fist in the air. “Is there anyone else?”

Of course, Mother wasn’t always drinking, otherwise Father would never have let us out of the castle in the first place. Other days she would simply sit and chat with anyone who came through the doors, sipping a cup of spiced lemon-ginger tea. Sometimes, she would ask the townspeople about their lives and how their families were doing. Other times, she would give advice on how to grow better crops, catch more fish, or watershield a roof, things that she would learn from spending time in different regions around the continent.

“She probably knew more than all the townspeople combined,” Miss Wilkes said with a small chuckle. “I never met anyone more charming or wise than your mother.”

As customers trickled in, the conversation grew louder and my smile grew wider. Each person had something new to say about Mother, how she had touched their lives in some way. The room felt a lot smaller than it had before, filled with laughter and warmth. There were people whom I could share memories with, people who made me realize Mother was still with me, still in my memories and the memories of those around me.

For the first time in a year, the rain stopped.

“Why didn’t you talk to your father back then?” Miss Wilkes asked when I had finally settled down at the counter for our usual monthly chat, sipping on a mug of spiced apple cider. Two years had passed since the night I had learned to stop the rain. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, illuminating the tavern with a spectrum of colors. “Even then, the two of you weren’t on bad terms.”

“I was going to,” I replied, recalling the moment. “But then I heard him crying in his room when I was about to knock. I had lost my mother, and he had lost his lifelong partner.” I grinned ruefully. “I didn’t want to burden him with my own problems.”

A lot of things had changed. For one, I was now officially the “mystical Rainbringer of the East,” proudly carrying the title Mother once had. I was not as skilled as Mother had been, but I was learning quickly, at a much faster pace than Mother had, according to Father. We now talked about Mother often, sharing our memories of her whenever we could. Remembering her was much less painful than trying to forget about her. Remembering, together, almost made it better.

“And to think that she knew ...” she trailed off, gesturing at the small pile of letters my mother had been ‘sending’ me over the years. One for every birthday since the year she passed. I suppose it was her way of looking out for me, the way mothers do for their children. Each year brought a new story she had never told me before. Stories of her childhood, before she had come to the West, but also stories of why she had done what she did all those years ago.

Mother had written that she had felt the power slip away from her when she gave birth to me. It was some kind of unnatural sensation she couldn’t explain, she just simply knew she was no longer the Rainbringer, no longer protected by whatever blessing had been given to her. It had been passed on to me.

“She could still call the rain,” I tried to explain to Miss Wilkes, even though I was still trying to understand just what Mother had been talking about. “But at the expense of her wellbeing. And she chose to do so to keep me from having to live the life she did. I don’t think she knew she would have so little time, though.”

It had surprised her when I had willingly volunteered to follow her around once I turned twelve. Perhaps she had never thought anyone in their right mind would pursue a life of constant displacement. Nevertheless, she decided to teach me everything she knew from that point on, even if it meant straining herself, sensing that her time was drawing nearer with every passing day.

Miss Wilkes frowned. “And that’s why your grandfather is calling you?”

That was another change that had occurred since Mother’s passing. My

grandfather––Mother’s father, the one who abandoned her––sent envoys to the kingdom. He had heard from his subjects how Mother had learned to dismantle storms and apparently took an interest in me, demanding my presence in his kingdom. He believed, and rightly so, that if I had inherited Mother’s blessing, I would have the same ability. Father rejected this demand and made a counterdemand that his father-in-law come in person if he wanted to take me away.

In the midst of this political-yet-familial back-and-forth, however, I couldn’t help but wonder what Mother had once said about Rainbringers in the East. If they were so common, why weren’t they able to stop the rain where they were? And Mother, with her additional abilities; if she had been able to awaken those abilities only during her time here in the West, did that mean they weren’t hereditary? There was always the possibility that no Rainbringer in the East had ever lived long enough to awaken those abilities. But what if it was more than that? Mother had mentioned that there was no flow of mana in the East, but here in the Eternian continent, most vegetation was made of it. Did these additional abilities have to do with where we were?

Four long years of planning later, I clasped hands with the lead shipwright, Silas, as we stepped off of the S.V. Rainbringer, the newest addition to our kingdom’s fleet. It was the largest voyager built to date, enough to fit two hundred crew members and twice as many passengers, and boasted massive canvas sails capable of covering half of the royal castle.

In normal situations, such large sails would have been useless, too heavy for any winds to pick up. But our kingdom had a Rainbringer. A very talented one, in fact.

“Thank you for the help, Sir Damien.”

“You’re always welcome, Silas. And thank you for this amazing ship.”

“Are you sure about this, Damien?” Father scratched his beard, either thoughtful or doubtful. Or both. “It’s quite the journey to the East.”

“I’ll be fine, Father,” I laughed, slipping behind him and massaging his shoulders. At eighteen, I had reached his height; now, two years after that, I stood a head taller than him. “Or are you doubting your own son?”

Father cleared his throat, shoulders tensed as though he were thoroughly distressed. He ran his fingers over the buttons of his coat. “You’re just like her, Damien. The way you stop at nothing until you get what you want. You got the expedition approved; do you really have to go on it?”

“It’s just a few months, Father.”

“A few months without rain.” Father ran his fingers through his unkempt amber hair, now streaked with gray, giving a ragged exhale of resignation.

I glanced at him before peering up at the sky, where the barest traces of clouds were beginning to form. “That’s what you think, but you’ll be wrong in three weeks. And then another three after that.”

Father’s eyes widened as he realized what I was implying. “Damien, are you saying ...?”

“There’s a lot that Rainbringers can do,” I said, looking out where the sky and sea embraced one another, out at the sunrise, my hair blowing about in the light sea breeze. “And even more we still don’t know about.”

Rainbringers didn’t simply bring rain, contrary to common belief. They could also drive it away, as Mother had shown me. But that wasn’t the end. Wind, temperature, humidity; there were so many things Rainbringers could influence, things left undiscovered because no one had tried. “And that’s why we’re going to the East.”

The plan was to slip them away, unnoticed, before any sacrifices could be made, and bring them to the West, where they could live as normal people––or even revered as Rainbringers, instead of the Cursed. The decision would be up to them. I was going to stop the sacrifices to save them and give them that choice. The way that Mother had saved and given me that choice. She didn’t want me to lose my childhood the way she had lost it in the past, so she compromised––a compromise that came at the cost of her life.

She traded my freedom for her life and left me with memories, in the townspeople and in the rain, to keep me company even when she was gone. And she did.

In the rain, I had mourned the loss of Mother. In the rain, I found her again. And in the rain, I had become what she wanted me to be.

Her prince, her blessing, her little Rainbringer.