Nacreous Fountain
Rating: •• Aspect: Water. Hearthstone: Wave's Crest Eye, formerly the Cowardice Stone Bearer: Sesus Chenow. Attuned: Sesus Chenow, Sesus Zhoutai, ? .
Nacreous Fountain is a manse estate in Eagle Prefecture, several miles from the township of Blood and Iron. During the time of the Shogunate, it was held as a monastery for monks devoting themselves to the Immaculate Philosophy, coming to be associated with the Melodic Insight Heresy.
Setting Sun incandescent
On that dome between grey hills
No walls but gleaming columns
No fires but bubbling flutesong
Waters rising fresh and clear
Falling outward over blue stone
Gaining speed as it departs
Seeking out the Yodo
Still echoing Zuo Liangyu
Who waded for the Summit
Welcoming smiles, they’re liars
I am left to squeeze solace
From my own skin.
The manse did not remain a monastery after the Melodic Insight was purged from the nascent Order, instead seized by the daimyo of Wuchang, changing hands frequently during the civil strife of the Shogunate Era and ending up a possession of Gens Kurosa by the time of the Great Contagion. Even controlled by more secular masters, it remained renowned as a meditative retreat, where daimyo and officers might contemplate and find inner peace against the constant fires of conflict.
With the fall of House Kurosa, the Nacreous Fountain did not pass to the young House Tepet as did most of the former Gens’ holdings, instead being granted to House Sesus, coming to be administered by the Chenow branch. The manse proved highly unpopular with lord Chenow, who considered it’s so-called ‘Cowardice Stone’ to do more harm than good, and the manse was razed and rebuilt, its spring becoming water garden around an observation tower serving an adjoining hunting estate that remains in use as a Chenow retreat to this day.
Source: Shinjo gets credit for the idea behind this one.
