Flight

Qu Yuan stepped from the plane gingerly, the stiffness exacerbated by hours in one confining seat. He had already arranged for most of his luggage to be stored for the time being, so he took his sole valise from the turnbelt and hailed a cab.

"To Heolfor Manor," he told the driver, a Korean woman who nodded and thankfully kept quiet. A hundred and twenty years of running, not just from who I am, but from them. Him, now. I doubt they'll find me here, however. And if they do, well let us hope the Elders of the clan "�if they let me in"� are more loyal and protective than my own King Huai or his son Qing Xiang. His double banishment still weighed heavily on him, all these centuries later. But his leisurely time spent roaming the countryside, satirizing his sovreign and bemoaning his state in long lyric poems, seemed a beautiful dream compared to the century he had now spent hiding in shame and fear at his undead state and the terror it represented for those who would kill him as surely as they would a cockroach.

Soon the cab pulled up to gate of the manor, and Yuan paid his fare. Looming in the distance, shrouded in midnight mist, was his destiny. [/i]