Nanowrimo 2022 - Day 6 Word Count and Best Bit (Patreon)

Today I added 1,017 words to my project, bringing the total word count to 10,847!

To a person who grew up surrounded by walls, the open, rolling plains of the southern nation could feel surreal, dreamlike even. Never in Jin Xia’s life had she seen so much of the horizon. Never had she felt winds so strong she feared they might knock her off her feet. The untamed green of the grass was such a contrast to the intricately designed multicolored displays, but Jin Xia would argue it held a beauty all its own.

Of course, it would look a lot nicer if it wasn’t covered by enemy soldiers right now.

Men stood in rows between the hill and the small village of war tents that surrounded the next great hill some handful of miles away. They were expecting her – knew she was there – and yet they did not move. Perhaps they were waiting for her to make the first move. She might have traveled unwelcomed into their lands with an army, but Jin Xia had made sure that no civilian was touched, no village raided. No violence had yet been committed. At this point, Jin Xia could still argue that she’d come to the southern nation with peaceful intentions.

She hadn’t. But she could – and would – certainly claim as such if she thought it would be to her advantage.

Thus, the enemy army waited. Waited for her to make the first move so that there could be no argument who was in the wrong.

“So…” Jin Xia’s eyes drifted to her general, who grinned at her. “What’s the plan, Your Highness?”

Sun Wukong was an unusual figure amongst the army, and the palace in general. No one was sure of his origins, just that he’d been in service to the imperial family since before most folk could remember. The name was, apparently, not a coincidence. The general claimed – quite frequently, if Jin Xia had heard correctly – to be the folkloric Monkey King himself. That all the tales were true, and that he’d lived them.

It sounded ridiculous. But so did the idea of the imperial family being descendant from the great Yellow Dragon. So, the question remained, gossiped about endlessly whenever the general breezed through. Was he, in fact the legendary Monkey King? Was he simply putting on an act for the sake of it? Or was he simply crazy, latching onto a delusion of grandeur?

Jin Xia hadn’t yet decided what she thought on the matter. Nor did it particularly matter at this point. Tai Gang trusted Wukong with her life, and so she would as well.

“They wish to wait,” she told him with a sly smile. “So, we shall let them wait.”