The (Im)mortal Mazu

Mazu is the renowned Goddess of the Sea and the Deity of Seafarers. There are over fifteen hundred houses and temples dedicated to her. But, before she became Mazu, she was a mortal girl by the name of Mo-niang, living on Meizhou Island.

Mo-niang was taught healing by a monk who found her both intelligent and kind-hearted, and once she had mastered medicine, she moved onto religious studies. One day, while Mo-niang sat by an ancient well, a god ascended from it. Mo-niang recognized him as good, so while everyone around her fled, she came up to the god. The god gave her a copper book that taught her how to see into the future, and how to visit places in a spiritual form.

During her practices, she walked the paths of a mountain village in a trance, and saw a young girl strapped to a sedan chair while being carried up to a large cave.

“What’s happening?” Mo-niang asked a younger boy who was watching the spectacle. The girl obviously didn’t want to be there, tears glowing in her eyes and her hands and wrists red from struggling against the ropes binding her to the chair.

“She’s being sacrificed,” the boy whispered, not looking at Mo-niang. “There are demons in the mountain, that’s what Mama says. She said to be glad that my sister wasn’t chosen to be brought up to them.” The boy looked at Mo-niang. “Is she going to die?”

Mo-niang already knew of all this from one of her visions, and already had a plan, so she ran up to one of the men carrying the chair, stopping him from going any further.

“Get out of the way,” the man growled, trying to nudge her away with his dirty boot. “We need to take her before the demons destroy our houses.”

“Help me,” the girl on the chair mouthed, tears dripping from her bright brown eyes, “please, help me.”

Mo-niang caught the girl’s tear, clutching her hand into fist. She knew that she could drive the demons away, if she took the girl's place. The demons wouldn’t expect the sacrifice to be the one to take them down.

“I’ll take your place.” Mo-niang told the girl, untying her wrists.

“You can’t do that!” The man carrying the chair protested, but shut his mouth and helped the girl down from the chair when Mo-niang fixed him with her spirit’s glare. Her mother always said it was unbecoming of her, but she ignored her.

Once the girl was free, she quickly hugged Mo-niang before running away, her bare feet stirring dust up behind her.

“Why are you doing this?” The man asked her.

“I can save this village from the demons,” Mo-niang said, knowing the man wouldn’t believe her.

The man laughed and shook his head. Mo-niang just looked out around the village at the children she could save from becoming the new sacrifices to the demons.

“How long is the walk to the cave?” Mo-niang asked the man, holding her hand up to the sweltering heat from the sun.

“At least another thirty minutes,” the man said, still shrinking away from her.

Mo-niang climbed into the chair, taking a deep breath and closed her eyes. Thirty minutes would be plenty of time to see into the future, to see if her plan worked.

She opened her eyes, watching from above as an older version of herself slipped into a trance. This wasn’t the right time, it was too far into the future, but she couldn’t break the connection until the vision was finished.

❋❋❋

Mo-niang felt her spirit leave her body, speeding over the rocking and trembling ocean to a small boat.

Her father’s boat.

Mo-niang reached out, pulling her eldest brother out of the boat, her spiritual form’s strength enough to lift his unconscious form. She cradled him to her side, and reached for her other two brothers, dragging them to the shore. She rushed back out to the sinking boat, searching for her father’s body.

He had to be alive.

He had to be.

Suddenly, Mo-niang felt her spirit reconnect to her mortal form, and she awoke, her mother’s face above her.

“No,” Mo-niang cried, burying her face in her hands. “No.”

“My Silent One, what is it?” Mo-niang’s mother used her nickname–from when she was a baby and didn’t cry–leaning down to look into Mo-niang’s eyes.

“Father.” Mo-niang stood up, pushing her mother away. Her father’s face flashed in her head, his happy tears when she said her first words, smiling when she told him she was close to mastering the book’s teachings. “He is dead. He drowned out at sea.”

“No,” Mo-niang saw her mother’s face shatter, “and your brothers?”

“They are safe. I was able to save them.”

“But your father…”

“He’s gone.”

❋❋❋

“No!” Mo-niang awoke from the vision.

“What?” The man grunted. “You volunteered for this. You can’t leave.”

“Nothing.” Mo-niang shook her head, looking out to the sea. “It was nothing.”

Her visions could be wrong, right? If she changed what she did, could that help save her father?

“How much longer?” Mo-niang asked.

“Twenty minutes,” the man answered.

“No, fifteen,” the other man carrying the chair said. “You were asleep for a long time.”

Mo-niang closed her eyes again, determined to find out what happened after her father’s death–and if she could prevent it.

❋❋❋

Mo-niang climbed the mountain, the one where she had first met Qianlyian and Shunfeng’er. Her friends, her guardians, and the two most annoying demons on the earth at the moment.

“Mo-niang, please, don’t do this,” Qianlyian begged. Mo-naing had hired the two demons as her guardians after they became friends. She still laughed over the time when she had first met them, back when she was still young and trying to do everything at once. Qianlyian had reminded her over and over again of the time when she had held a boulder over their heads.

“Don’t,” Shunfeng’er repeated, both demons falling to their knees.

“It’s just a walk.” Mo-niang smiled down at them, a sad, sentimental smile. She would miss them. This was as far as she was ever able to see her visions, so she assumed… This was where it all ended.

She finished her climb up to the top of the mountain, taking a deep breath of the fresh air around her and surveying the beautiful waters where she had grown up and saved countless lives. But, for everyone she saved, there were still others she hadn’t, and she grieved for them every day.

Mo-niang sat down, shutting her eyes and letting the sound of the waves below lull her into meditation. Suddenly, a beam of light cast her eyes open, and Mo-niang felt herself ascending up, somewhere. She smiled, closing her eyes again, embracing the sea and the people who relied on it, vowing to protect them.

❋❋❋

“Miss!”

Mo-niang awoke, her stomach plummeting as her chair was dropped at the mouth of a cave.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” the man said, and the other man nodded politely to her.

Mo-niang unsteadily got to her feet, trying to shake her vision from her head. She was needed right now, and dwelling on the future wasn’t going to help. The two men left, starting their journey back down to their village.

Mo-niang stepped into the cave, waiting as two demons came forward, bright smiles on their faces.

“Pretty.” One smirked, circling Mo-niang.

“Perfect,” the other laughed, nodding. “The best sacrifice.”

“You must abandon evil and return to righteousness,” Mo-niang rose to her full height, but while still being pretty tall for her age, she was still at least five feet shorter than the demons, “and you can no longer harm the people,” she added quickly, staring down the demons. The demons looked at her, at each other, and then back to her.

Then they burst out laughing.

“Abandon evil,” one taunted, wheezing.

“Return to righteousness,” the other added, about to fall to its knees. “That has got to be the funniest thing I’ve heard from each of the sacrifices. Oh, you’re too much.”

Mo-niang took a deep breath, channelling the magic that was strengthened while in her spiritual form. As the demons were busy laughing, she pointed to the sky, and a gigantic boulder broke out of the cave wall and hovered above the demon’s heads.

“Mercy.” One of the demons fell to his knees, joining the other on the ground. “Please, mercy.”

“We will repent.” The other looked up at the boulder, terror in his eyes.

Mo-niang wasn’t sure whether or not to believe them, but then she realized they were the same demons from her vision.

“Qianlyian?” Mo Naing looked at the demon on the left. “Shunfeng’er?”

“Yes, that’s us,” Shunfeng’er said, his voice about to break.

“You can go.” Mo-niang pushed the boulder back into the cave, stepping aside. “Don’t ever terrorize anyone again.”

“Yes, we promise.” Qianlyian and Shunfeng’er bowed. They ran out of the caves, leaping off the edge of the mountain and taking off across the waters.

Mo-niang bowed her head, focusing on the small village’s future. She saw another girl strapped to a chair, trembling, and placed at the mouth of the cave. The girl waited for a day, and when the demons did not return, walked down the mountain and told the villagers that the demons were gone.

She smiled, letting her spiritual form return to her body back at home, sitting at her loom.

When she awoke from her trance, Mo-niang didn’t give herself time to process her visions. She immediately dressed in her bright red robes that helped guide sailors back from the rocky seas. She walked outside, her eyes unfocusing for a moment as she saw the skies outside become gray and tremulous.

Mo-niang went down to the beaches to warn the sailors not to go out today, and to guide back the ones who had already gone.

“What happens after I go into the light?” She wondered out loud, then closed her mouth and shook her head.

She wouldn’t dwell on that.

She walked up to one of the fishermen, telling him about the bad weather ahead. It didn’t matter if he didn’t believe her, she would try and save him anyway after he found himself trapped out in the waves.

The man laughed, pushing off his boat and heading out to sea.

Mo-niang shrugged, moving onto the next sailor, noting the markings on the boat so she could find him again when he needed help.

❋❋❋

Mazu smiled over Meizhou Island, her figure taller than the mountains. She was still wearing a red robe, hoping to guide all the lost sailors home. The other gods scoffed at her when she told them that she wanted to spend most of her time on Earth, helping people come home from the sea. But then again, none of the other gods had ever had the experiences of being mortal, knowing that you only had so much time on Earth.

“Mo-niang?” Qianlyian asked. Mazu was happy to see that even though she no longer had a mortal form, he and Shunfeng’er were brought with her to Heaven. They were also the only beings who even knew that she used to be Mo-niang, but Mazu saw that later people would connect the dots. She didn’t mind them being connected, but she was just as content with them staying broken.