by G L Rathweg
That was what attracted me to her in the first place. That and the fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I or anyone else had ever laid eyes on. Her name was Kumiho. Which, while not the most auspicious name was not a real cause for concern. Many woman of volatile and stormy temperament were often named Kumiho after the nine-tailed fox deity.
My Kumiho was no different. The first time we met she tried to kill me. It makes me chuckle just thinking about it. She was sent to me from the Chin Dynasty and was a Princess. Although, I can see now that she was an assassin trained from birth to destroy not only me but my entire empire. I know all this because she made it a point to describe everything that had gone into infiltrating my empire, then my inner circle, turning my friends, and basically destroying everything that I had ever built.
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me a woman took down the Mighty Koryo Empire? And your best friend betrayed you? This is some real Shakespearean shit Dangun.” I internalized.
“Yes, yes it is. Now let me continue the tale and quit interrupting. It is hard enough to control the memory and let you see it as well with my limited Ki.” Dangun replied, flippantly.
“What do you mean limited Ki?” I asked.
“That last attack was a bluff. I was hoping that She-He would be surprised by seeing me and wouldn’t realize I had already spent all my Ki. Luckily for us the gamble worked. Otherwise She-He could have killed you and then taken me and all would be lost. But the cost of that is now I am basically powerless for the next day.” He explained.
“Fuck, this kind of changes things. When were you going to tell me? How are we going to save my grandma and Tiffany? I mean…” I trailed off.
“Calm down boy. I have a plan, now let me finish the story. Where was I? Oh, yes it was summer…” Dangun began again.
“Dammit man! I’m telling you we must take the fight to the blasted Chin!” Wiman said, for the millionth time.
“Brother please, not now. Today is a day for rejoicing. I am to meet my new bride.” I said, laughing and slapping my closest friend on the back.
“Give it a rest Wiman, have a drink!” She-He added in, handing us both a cup of wine.
“I know Chin women they love strong hearty warriors just like us.” Sima Qian added, clinking his cup with She-He.
“That’s right! Let’s drink and then see who can bed the most Chin harlots!” Jun said cheerily, holding his own cup up to toast with the others.
“Cheers friends!” She-He called, clinking cups with Jun, Sima, and She-He.
“To honor and the Great Koryo Empire!” Jun toasted.
“To Chin harlots, may we bed them all and leave none for the Chin men! Dangun you can start with your new wife!” Wiman cheered, finally showing good humor and clinking his cup with the others.
Now all four were looking at me expectantly grinning and holding their cups together in the air. I laughed and raised my own cup clinking each of theirs.
“To good friends, good times, and us! May we never fall in battle and may we never falter as brothers!” I toasted.
The five of us drank and shared another round. We sat and chatted as only those who have been together through the worst and best of times can. The next few hours went by this way as we waited for the envoy from the Chin. It had been before noon when we started and was now approaching sundown. The five of us had been drinking the whole time.
When the cry came up that the Chin caravan was sighted and would be there within the hour, none of us were very motivated to change our behavior due to our alcohol induced haze.
“The Chin are here!” The cry came from the palisade.
We had taken a small army of cavalry out to meet the Chin Envoy on the border between Chin and Koryo lands. The men were seasoned veterans and had setup a circular encampment with a palisade on a small hill that had a clear view of the surrounding area. With the cry that they were almost at the gates my friends and I were finally roused into action.
“Gah!” I yelled, as I pulled my head out of the trough of frigid water.
“Shit that’s cold!” Jun said, pulling his head out soon after followed by the rest of my comrades.
“Yes, but nothing staves off a case of the drunks like an icy head bath. Now hurry, the outriders have arrived you must get presentable Dangun.” She-He admonished, dragging me to my tent to get changed.
I protested albeit weakly as we walked towards my tent. My other friends jeered me, but halfway there we were interrupted by the fanfare of trumpets. It was too late the Chin Envoy and my new bride were here.
“Sorry She-He we have to go as we are.” I said, turning and striding drunkenly to the gates.
“Of course she is. Come on guys, Dangun is going to be an ass again!” She-He called to the others, who were all just as drunk himself included.
“Come on lads! Let’s meet my wife!” I yelled behind me, getting a surge of liquid courage induced energy.
I hurried to the gate which was on a small rise and watched the carriage surrounded by hundreds of Chin cavalry approach. My friends quickly came up beside me and all five of us watched our old enemies head our way, each of us swaying slightly. Our equilibrium was so out of sorts that I told us all to put our arms on each other’s shoulders for balance. Damn we were smart! At least, that’s the thought that was running through my mind at the time.
I studied the Chin carriage and cavalry. The carriage was garish and loud to look at. It was covered with so much gold and silver filigree that it had to blind the escort. Although, they were almost as bad. Their lacquered and filigreed armor and tall plumed hats with their giant feathers drew the eye.
So stupid. It was one of the reasons our armies usually bested the Chin. They loved to show off while us Koryo wore more muted colors that blended into our surroundings. The carriage and cavalry stopped and pulled into a formation snapping me from my musings.
They were really quite good even if they were showy. The horses stomped in time and moved like a well-greased cog. They dressed themselves in two long lines in front of, but not blocking the carriage which was pulled into the center of the formation. The massive beasts pulling the carriage were just as large as the cavalry’s warhorses and pawed the ground, snorting loudly in the cool air of the evening.
The driver and footman got down after the carriage stopped and went and opened the door, the footman holding his hand out for the occupant. Even from the distance of over a hundred meters I could tell that she was a formidable and beautiful woman. Most noble ladies of the day wore veils and headdresses as a symbol of status and to seem mysterious. This woman wore none. She stood tall and proud unashamed to let the world see her face. Which, I was suddenly much more eager to have a closer look at.
“Come on men, let’s go greet our guests.” I said, striding off and motioning for them to follow.
To their credit and being my best of friends, they stumbled towards our visitors despite being drunk as all hells. A few minutes later we were walking up to the Chin formation with half of our cavalry in tow. They had also been carousing so they were not much better off than the five of us. We got within shouting distance and my men began hollering out good naturedly to the Chin who visibly bristled at the oncoming horde of Koryo warriors.
The fact that the shouts were about the Chins parentage or lack thereof, their manhood or lack thereof, and some various comments about their sisters and mothers didn’t help. The Chin never really got our sense of humor. That was probably why when we were within fifty feet of them the whole of the Chin guard drew their weapons and took a defensive stance. My men in response drew their own weapons and took an offensive stance. Well shit, this was not the way our meeting was supposed to go.
Now the Chin were yelling the same sorts of things at my men while my closest friends and lieutenants were doing the same. If I didn’t do something soon this was going to get out of hand and there would be bloodshed. I halted my men at a dozen yards and stepped in between the two armies, but I wasn
’t the only one. The woman stepped out, her presence immediately quieting down the warriors on both sides, including myself.
“What are you a bunch of chittering monkeys?” She shouted, her voice soft yet firm and carrying along both sides of men.
I stared mouth agape and slack jawed at the bold, brazen, and ethereally beautiful woman as she berated Chin and Koryo alike. She was the storm and the sun. Her hair was long and silken and black like the darkest night. Her lips were the color of rubies and her skin was as white as alabaster and smooth as porcelain.
Her figure was perfect in every way and the clothes she wore, dark black riding leathers that conformed to each of her curves, fit her as if tailored down to the millimeter. I would bet my last gold piece on that they were.
I was so deep in my inspection of the girl that I didn’t notice quite a few things. The first being that she had turned her sharp tongue on me thus turning the attention of all the men, Chin and Koryo.
“…and you. You are the worst of them all. A giant baby masquerading as a man. Look at you! No wonder all these men act like children if you are their role model. You are filthy, drunken, and from the way you speak, a retard!” The woman yelled, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Every man, Chin or Koryo, even my closest friends burst into laughter as they heard her words. My face went hot and turned red and anger as embarrassment began to well up inside me.
“Quiet!” I shouted, flaring my Ki and bursting out in energy that covered my body in flames ten feet high.
The men went quiet, all of them even the woman shut her mouth for a second due to my wrath, but only for a second. Then her eyes narrowed and the look she gave me made me pause for a moment and douse my Ki in surprise. The woman was so fierce and so beautiful, not to mention a witty and fearless orator. I couldn’t help it and began to laugh, slowly and quietly at first, then loudly and with real humor. The rest of the men joined in and the tension was gone just like that.
I got ahold of myself and turned to the woman, bowing deeply and with real respect.
“Pardon me and my men my lady. Please forgive this foolish man who is held captive by his vices. Will you honor me with your name my lady?” I asked, with a deep flourish.
She stared at me for a moment not too long but long enough to make me uncomfortable in my bow. Then she nodded and a bright smile blossomed across her gorgeous face.
“That is the first sensible thing you’ve said. I am Kumiho. Now, escort me to your camp I’m tired and famished and need to wash the dirt and sweat from our travel off me.” She said, holding her hand out to me to escort her.
I stood up tall, puffed out my chest, and took her hand. The both of us walked back to my camp talking the whole way and followed by the rest of our armies.
The memory changed and jumped forward in time showing scene after scene of Dangun and Kumiho interspersed with Wiman and the others. I watched the whole thing unfold before my eyes and it was like binge watching a Netflix show. I couldn’t wait till the next episode.
It seemed like Kumiho really was the perfect woman, at first. She did everything right and became a friend and confidant to Dangun before becoming his lover. Kumiho wasn’t satisfied with Dangun alone though. She befriended everyone around him. His wives, concubines, servants, warriors, and even his closest friends. I watched her become the most important person in Dangun’s household. The last thing I saw was Kumiho leaving a drunken and drugged Dangun during a banquet with Wiman close behind.
The memory faded and I was back in the shower. I was quiet thinking about the memory I had just seen. Kumiho was hot, I mean super fucking ridiculously Unicorn hot. But still, Dangun didn’t seem like the kind of guy to fall for a temptress. There had to be more involved than I was being told.
I finished my shower and turned the water off. I got out and toweled off, still thinking about what I had seen. Dangun had disappeared after his story. After I got dressed in, you guessed it, an Adidas track suit, I went to look for the spirit.
I eventually found him in the backyard staring at the moon. It was full tonight and lit the evening up with it’s bright white light. I had always liked full moons the light had reminded me of magical things and made me feel like the fantastical wasn’t just fantasy. I stood silently next to the ancient spirit, patiently waiting for him to talk.
“When I was a child I used to stare at the moon. We did not have much to do growing up and it was one of the only things I had that was always there. There were nights I would stay up as a child and just dream. Especially nights like this when the moon is full and bright, anything is possible. At least, that’s what I thought then. Now, nights like this just remind me how foolish I was and how old I am now.” Dangun said, more to himself than to me.
“Yeah, you are over a thousand years old or whatever, talk about ancient. I mean you’re so old that you probably called Buddha little brother. You’re so old that Genghis Khan doesn’t even mean anything to you. You’re so old that dirt was probably the new thing for floors back then. You’re so old…” I said, in my best Rodney Dangerfield.
“Ok, ok, I get it. That’s enough.” Dangun replied, chuckling at my terrible jokes.
“Feeling a little less like a bitch now?” I asked.
“Yeah, thanks for the lowbrow humor. You know if I hadn’t gone through your memories I wouldn’t know about many of the references you make.” Dangun said.
“You said something about that before. It still creeps me out that you are rooting through my mind like that.” I replied.
“Don’t let it bother you. What I mainly do is access your memories like books and read them like you would page by page. Just much faster as I’m way more intelligent than you. Then for movies and TV show I watch your memories like a I was watching them on a screen. When you were training the first time I binged over a hundred shows, Friends and The Last Dance were two of my favorites, not to mention Tiger King. Carol mother fucking Baskins did it!” Dangun said, trying his best to match the accent.
If you’ve never heard a three thousand year old Korean spirit try to do a redneck accent you are missing the fuck out. I immediately began cracking up and laughed harder than I ever had in my life. I understood that part of it was the stress of the last day, but most of it was Dangun’s stupid accent. It was perfect and just hit that cord inside me. A moment later the ancient spirit was cracking up as well.
And so it was that two idiots, one old as hell and one young, dumb, and full of, well you know, just sat and laughed under the bright moonlight. After a few minutes of uncontrollable laughter, we caught our breath and sat in silence.
“Ok, that is enough of a break it is time to train. We have your women to save after all.” Dangun said.
I nodded and stood up, ready to take some names and kick some ass.
TRACK 10 – CARRIED AWAY (TIESTO REMIX) – PASSION PIT, TIESTO
“Since our time is short and our enemies are much stronger than you, we are going to have to take extreme measures in our training.” Dangun explained.
“How extreme?” I asked, simply curious.
I mean, I was going to do it, I just wanted to know what difficulty setting this would be.
“Every second of this will be harder than anything you’ve ever had to experience before and as we continue it will only get harder. You will always be on the precipice of death if you fail. We will be splitting your mind into pieces and part of it will be running your body through the most demanding of physical exercises while your other part will be cultivating inside your mind. That will be done inside the most difficult place possible, the Spirit Realm, where everything will be trying to kill you. Are you sure you want to do this?” Dangun asked, his face and tone one hundred percent serious.
“So, the hardest and scariest and most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Like playing Dark Souls on crazy idiot hard setting, got it. It’s Deity fucking mod. You could’ve just said that. But yeah, I’m ready let’s fucking do this.” I replied, with not j
ust a little bit of trepidation in my quavering voice.
“Let us begin. First gather as many of those Celestial Grapefruits as you can and stack them here. You will need them for your training.” Dangun said, pointing to my grandma’s grapefruit tree.
“Celestial Grapefruits?” I asked, looking at the tree.
“Did I stutter?” Dangun asked, eyebrows raised.
“No, but you said something stupid. Those are just my grandma’s grapefruits. She’s had that dumbass tree since before I was a baby.” I said, shaking my head in disbelief at the old man.
“You are a daft boy. Look at that tree and look at the fruit. Do those look normal to you?” Dangun asked.
“Like I said, they are just…” I began, but then when I looked at the grapefruit tree the motherfucker was glowing with a white light. It was not very bright, just enough to tell that something about it was different. The grapefruits themselves were glowing brighter and brighter in the moonlight like grapefruit sized lightbulbs.
“Exactly, now hurry up time is wasting.” Dangun said cheerily, then walked over to the back porch whistling while he went.
I glanced from him and back to the glowing fruit tree and back again. What the fuck? How did my grandma have a glowing Celestial Grapefruit Tree? What felt like a small light blinking in my mind was going off and instinctively I knew to close my eyes. An image appeared and on it was a message.
CELESTIAL GRAPEFRUIT TREE
These fruit trees are exceedingly rare and only grow in areas of pooling elemental energy. Not only that, but they need consistent tender loving care from seedling to full grown tree to flourish. The difficulty, hardship, and attention needed to grow these is worth the price. When the tree is full grown, the grapefruit will contain concentrated elemental energy that culminates during the nights of the full moon. This concentrated energy is of no affinity and can be used to power any type of Ki. These grapefruit have the added effects of healing physical damage and refilling Ki energy. If the grapefruits are picked anytime besides the full moon they will just be ordinary but delicious grapefruits.