Kong/Stereotypes

The Wan Kuei
	Full of life. Full of vigor. Pursue it; live, so that the rest of us do not forget to. Live, so that we don't have to.
	You contemplate the endings with such serenity that I cannot comprehend you. You stay still, accepting, calm, when I would tremble with rage. I want your control. But I'm unwilling to give up the rage to get it.
	As no other who walks the Five Paths, I cannot comprehend you. There are no words to describe it, accurately. I feel as though I should be able to process, intellectually, how you serve some purpose. But I find that you only obstruct all paths other than your own. Perhaps one day I will meet a Crane I can respect. But that day may not come before this Age ends.
	In a way, I envy you. Give up everything. Move on. Experience everything. Cling to nothing. But my duty binds me; I admire your balance, but your path is not mine. I have a purpose to serve. You can leave yours behind to follow it; I am bound.
	My brothers and sisters, ours is a sacred charge. We are teachers. We are cultivators. We are gardeners, and our crop is wisdom and enlightenment. Our thresher is pain. Suffering is our soil. Evil is the sunlight which we must radiate to grow a crop of the righteous. We walk a narrow path, to be a heavenly demon without falling to our impulses, which steer us toward Yomi. To leash the P'o and use it without letting it draw us to damnation. Ours is the most vital path. While others may concern themselves with their own Dharma, with their own honor, their own balance or their own calm or their own energy - we must concern ourselves with others. We are the shepherd and the wolf both. We must sacrifice our holiness, our goodness, our humanity on an altar of duty. We must scourge ourselves clean of the impulse to do good and to show compassion. We must murder within ourselves our weakness without giving up our empathy. We must feel the pain we inflict on others more keenly than they themselves, and bear that pain with grace. In the end, Heaven will turn its back on us. There will be no great reward. Our duty is the same, and it is a truly righteous devil who does it.

The Others
	You are the seed. You are the sheep. I am the gardener, the shepherd. I will tend you, I will guard you. I will prune and shear. And I will harvest and slaughter.
	The kin-jin are a house divided. They will fall. Not because we will it, but because they do. Each wishes the destruction of the other more than they wish the enlightenment of the self; so far as I can tell, their philosophies are nothing but a means to power, an excuse to hate the others. Every one seems a slave while proclaiming themselves freer than all others. Each claims to know Heaven above the rest, but each's Heaven serves only their own agenda. If you served the will of Heaven, you would have goals outside yourselves. If you were free, you would not follow laws set down by those who wish only to keep you at each others' throats until they rise to devour you. And fucking hell, you're all more obsessed with Zao-lot and what he did than I am. How far and wide did the Dragon Tear and the darkest side of our soul arts spread?
	The Hengeyokai of this land are less rational than those of home. And that's saying something.
	You wield lightning. But often, you strike randomly. Serve Heaven, not yourselves.