Lotus

On brighter days you could find it amidst the gardens winding paths. A pagoda of glass and delicate steel traceries, gleaming in the sunlight upon a broad expanse of verdant lawn. Its delicate frame leaping skywards from the winding gravel path that cuts across the ward to its base. On such soft summer days the scent of spice and lotus drift through the door, carried amidst the noise of intricate pain. Within this crystal edifice the gardeners tend the treasures of distant lands.

Inside stands an inner wall of tall groves of pampas and bamboo, strive to conceal figures of ebon and ochre. Silent sentinels amidst the rustling grass, pulled towards the sky by silken ropes even as the grasses reach ever towards the sun. Within these groves a web of silken threads binds the occupants further still, caught on tall shoots and the delicate shards of jade that pierce their skin.

Polished marble flags lead round these grasses to right and left, until away from the door a gap in the concealing grasses reveals a translucent screen of painted figures, and fantastical plants and animals. Past this the path leads into the shaded centre of the hot house. Here within a pool of polished stones, raked into intricate waves and ripples, upon a silken pillow sits a wizened Buddha. Bound - half lotus, by white silk he sits.

The oldest in the mistresses collection, his arrival beyond the memory of any that attend him now. Limpid eyes gaze out from an inscrutable face, contemplating the thousand blossoms still blooming pale white and scarlet cut upon his skin.