This is for Renee, who reminded me that it's too long since I wrote something.

One by one the goldfish in the pond beneath the willows die until only the goggle-eyed grandfather of them all remains. (The gardener expostulates and the steward wrings his hands, but the pond is not restocked.) Mei Chang squats on the bridge, peering between its weathered slats, and catches a glimpse of the old survivor's pale back. "Beautiful Jīnyú, honorable Jīnyú," she whispers, crumbling her breakfast bing into the water.

Slowly he rises, upturned eyes seeming to meet hers as he lips the bread. Beside her, Xiao Mei sighs. "Honorable Jīnyú, son of fortune," Mei croons, and then, hearing her tutor's sandals slapping closer beyond the withies' screen, rushes on with bare politeness, "Please share your luck with me!"

Only the seasons change. The willow leaves dry into yellow blades, rattling truculently as the wind seizes them. The gardener fells the last maple for firewood. Knotted plum branches flower and Jīnyú (if he lives) sleeps in the mud. Mei feeds her bing to Xiao Mei instead. "He's just a fish," she insists.

But when the emperor's herald arrives with more than New Year's greetings ("Attend the words of the Son of Heaven, Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the Dragon's Voice, who declares that his heir shall be known on this wise ..."), she orders the pond cleaned. "Thirty years on the east bank!" she crows, throwing fistfuls of bread to Jīnyú from the bridge. "Now I will bring our clan to the west!"

Xiao Mei tosses a crumb and sighs.

Author's Note: Nian nian you yu is a punning Chinese idiom, meaning something like, "Every year a surplus/fish" - the words are homophones. Jīnyú is simply the Chinese word for goldfish (fanciers will identify the breed) and bing a type of flatbread. "Thirty years on the east bank; thirty years on the west bank" is a proverb about the probability of one's luck or standing changing over time; compare the European image of Fortune's Wheel.