Scattered Blossoms (Orichalcum and Green Jade Daiklave, Artifact •••••)
Once there was a Solar Exalt, who developed an obsession with cherry blossoms. Through his life in the First Age, he used sorcerous methods to convert a Wood-Aspect Demesne into a Demesne suited to cultivate that particular plant, all year long, before he raised a Garden-Manse on it. He would spend time in the enchanted Garden of Ten-Thousand-And-One Blossoms, admiring the scenery of cherries in full bloom and composing works of art underneath the largest, and most beautiful cherry tree, located in the center of the manse.
During the Usurpation, the Solar knew that his time has come to an end, and as such, instead of fighting to the bitter death, he composed a death poem, and thrust his blade into his heart, dying under his favored cherry tree…
When the Dragonblooded came for the Solar's head, they instead saw a mortal servant, who accommodated them, before she placed the severed head of her deceased master, smiling serenely even in death.
His would-be executioners celebrated in joy over one less Solar to murder, and in the garden they celebrated, with the mortal servant pouring them wine and serving them food, along with her services as a courtesan, with all that it entailed.
When at last the army of Dragonblooded collapsed in sexual exhaustion and inebriated from the wine and drugs consumed, the courtesan led them to their rooms, where they slept peacefully, never to awake again, as the mixture of certain drugs and wine and the bliss produced from the celebration turned their blood into a deadly neurotoxin, potent enough to affect even Exalts.
For the 'rooms' they were led into was actually the roots of each of the ten thousand cherry blossoms, one for each Dragon-Blooded, and two thousand per Elemental Aspect. They were absorbed into the trees, their life force mixing with the cherry blossoms the Solar once loved.
The courtesan dissolved, revealing the smiling visage of the hungry ghost of the ex-master of the Garden of Ten-Thousand-And-One Blossoms, his death avenged, before his spirit left to Lethe peacefully.
His lover, a Sidereal Chosen of Serenity, who secretly aligned herself with the Gold Faction, arrived moments later, knowing of her beloved's sacrifice, went to each of the trees and plucked a flowering branch from them within moments – the most beautiful ones –, and through her prowess, wove a glowing strand of cherry-pink, and hid herself – and the garden – from Creation, and indeed, even from her peers.
From the core, the Chosen of Serenity forged a sword, worthy of her dearly departed and the heir of his Exaltation, using the purest green jade and Damascus steel she can get her hands on, melting them in Essence-fueled flames carefully calibrated to her specifications. Year by year she worked, singing molten jade and Essence and wood together, her passionate songs even reaching to the little gods overseeing the creation of the blade, and they sang with her, for it was her intent that the strand that would one day be the core of Scattered Blossoms never be scorched nor scarred.
So delicate and laborious the process was that it took a millennium for the Sidereal to heat and cool the mixture of jade and steel and wood, leaving certain areas hollowed, as she then sang the strand of cherry-wood, now supercharged with Essence into the hollowed section of the blade and let it grow within its confines, even as she sang molten orichalcum, kept in stasis through sorcerous methods by her long-dead lover, slowly into the cherry-wood strand, grafting it with Solar power.
The process of incorporating a second magical material – a powerful one at that – was so complicated that it took the Sidereal another half a millennium to complete the process, and by the time she was done, the strand of cherry-wood had grown into a mighty tree, kept in check only by the unyielding property of wishmetal and sustained by the supernal Essence of both Wood and Solar aspects.
Finally, though curiously, Scattered Blossoms was quenched in a cherry blossom bath, the liquid being the sap gathered from a cherry tree planted on the same day as its forging and the petals the most beautiful scarlet, gathered from each and every cherry tree within the Garden-Manse, on the day of the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress, and deemed ready for battle.
That night, the Sidereal of the Chosen of Serenity re-appeared in Creation, seeking out the bearer of her dead lover's Exaltation…
Scattered Blossoms is a double-edged reaper daiklave, its viridian tip to hilt etched with golden Old Realm script, in which a death poem lamenting the short-lived beauty of the cherry blossoms can be read should one be allowed to examine it. Its guard is fashioned as a pair of flowering cherry blossoms, the hilt sprouting from the center of one and the blade the other side. This particular artifact deals with both the deadly elegance expected from a Solar swordsman, and the deadly beauty of Green Jade, its rapport with nature further enhanced by the properties of orichalcum, this time manifested as the ability to sprout the different breeds of cherry blossoms found in the Garden-Manse of Ten-Thousand-And-One Blossoms, each with different magical properties.
Scattered Blossoms boasts a single hearthstone socket, at the pommel of its blade.
It was still unknown on the true strength of the artifact, for it was literally fresh out from the forge.