“Farmers hear his drums and count the days to rain.”
A Thunder immortal of The Celestial Court
4 known connections · an open question
The Duke of Thunder: bird-beaked, drum-malleted, belly-drumming the thunderheads every time the Jade Emperor signs a storm order. He never strikes without paperwork — the thunder only punishes the guilty, or so the paperwork says — and farmers hear his drums and count the days to rain.
He is polishing his mallets tonight, waiting on a stack of signed storm orders. One of them has a smudge on the seal. He is pretending not to see it.
When the last storm order is signed and the last guilty soul is struck, the drums will fall silent — and the Duke will finally hear what the sky sounds like when it isn't his job. The farmers say he is afraid of the quiet. The farmers are probably right.
“Lei Gong drums only on signed orders — the thunder is the most law-abiding force in nature. Last storm season the drums sounded once, clear and close, with no order on the desk and no seal on the sky. The Duke checked the paperwork three times. Dian Mu checked the mirror. The mirror showed the sky, empty, and the thunder already gone.”
The thunder sounded once with no order signed.
The Jade Emperor’s court: the Queen Mother of the West, the thunder dukes, the star lords, the weaver and the cowherd. The bureaucracy of the cosmos — every god holds an office, every office holds a ledger, and somebody is always auditing.
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“the old ones say: the gem cannot be polished without friction — thunder only strikes what stands tall enough to be noticed.”
