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rainbowfic2017-11-24 02:24 am
crossfortune) wrote in rainbowfic2017-11-24 02:24 am
when we were innocent
Name: Mischa
Story: too far is next spring
Colors: bistre (Never despise a trick because it is simple; the old ploys endure because they work), elvish green (Even the very wise cannot see all ends.), warm light (Our innocence is all the worse for fears)
Supplies and Styles: canvas, pastels (origific bingo, "trapped")
Word Count: 2312
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: child abuse: if I missed any others, let me know?
Summary: Masuda Sayuri tries to help her family and go on one last outing with her favorite sibling. It goes horribly wrong.
Notes: ...I don't even know what I was doing with this story. It's done but probably needs some rewrites, especially towards the end, but at least this draft is finally done.
skip
This doesn't really come up in Sayuri's narration, but it's important to future stories written in this verse. Masuda Shirou is betrothed to Ikeda Jun, a childhood friend of the same social class who is three years older (so Jun's eighteen to Shirou's fifteen). Coming of age in this society is at twenty, and they're expected to marry when Shirou is 20 and Jun is 23, unless he stays a maiden adept for longer.
.
Masuda Sayuri fidgets in boredom as she cleans the rice: she has never been good at sitting still, regardless of Father's repeated chastisements. A child of her station must learn self-control and focus but despite her hours on her knees meditating or copying lines of philosophy over and over again, the closest she ever comes to finding that inner peace and control is with a bow or blade in her hand. She tries, really she does, but she cannot sit still for long, and even now, she wants to run and jump, to climb a tree, to do anything but clean rice for the evening meal and think too closely about how their meager supply is diminishing and worry about Mother and Shizuka, gone away to war and rebellion. She wants to help somehow, in whatever way she can, but there isn't much that she's actually good at-
Seaweed! That's what they'd done before, hadn't it, when she'd really been too young to think about these things. When the fishing boats couldn't go out because of winter storms and they couldn't eat the rice that was kept for the taxes for their foreign overlords, they'd stretched what they had with seaweed and oysters. Once, when Mother was small, they'd grown the seaweed, when they could, in the old traditional ways, but they hadn't done it in a while, too busy trying to grow enough for both the taxes and to eat. Other provinces could still keep to the old ways, to cultivate seaweed along with their other crops, but Achen took too much from them, here. So growing seaweed became a story that Mother told her children, and gathering it something to stretch the rice, until they might someday be able to grow seaweed again along with everything else. But it might work, really it might.
Sayuri hops up and takes off her shoes, leaving them in the entryway, and brings the rice inside with her.
Father frowns at her disapprovingly as she slides the door closed behind her, as she sets the rice down where it needs to go. "Don't be so loud, Sayuri. Your sister is resting."
She can feel the embarrassed flush creeping up the nape of her neck as she stammers the apology and tries not to be resentful all over again of Eldest Sister Sakiko who is home again because her wife and wife’s parents, too, have gone away to war, and Sakiko could not follow them because of a difficult pregnancy. Sayuri tries not to be resentful, because it's unfilial, and she tries so hard to be good, to live up to her duty as is expected of her, but it's so hard sometimes.
"Father, I have a favor to ask," she begins, and waits until he nods at her to continue. "May I go to the cove to gather seaweed?"
Father frowns in a very particular way that means no. "I don't want you to go alone, Sayuri. Not now."
"I'll go with her, Father." Shirou says, serenely, and looks up from the book he's reading, setting it down onto the low table. Her brother is always reading, or so it seems, or embroidering, his stitches much more careful and fine than her own: though he's effortlessly good at everything Sayuri isn't, be it sitting still or sewing or knowing what to say and when with few, quiet words, she can never bring herself to be too mad at him, her favorite of her four older siblings.
"You indulge her too much," Father sighs, his brows furrowing, but does not press his objections further with the sudden still-water calm, divine insight, that settles over his son's face. How does someone argue with divine insight, the word of the Lady? "I want both of you back before dark. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Father." Shirou rises carefully from seiza and bows, and Sayuri almost cannot hide her elation. It's rare that she can spend time with her brother: he's usually busy with his studies, and now that he can't travel anymore to the provincial capital to study, he spends twice as much time reading. She doesn't begrudge him that, though Shiori sometimes does, muttering out of the side of her mouth when he can't hear about him needing to help more. He helps just fine, Sayuri wants to argue, even if he spends a lot of time reading, especially because someone has to help Father keep peace in the house while Mother and Shizuka were gone. That takes so much work on its own, but she tries not to argue with Shiori, even as much as she wants to, because it would just be more work.
(his embroidery graces every piece of cloth in the house: Sayuri struggles with her needle as she tries to imitate him, how he sews prayers for health and fortune into every stitch. He knows all the rituals, how to properly interact with the spirits-)
The sky is winter-gray and the wind is still as Sayuri stands with her basket, waiting for Shirou to put his shoes on and join her. He pauses for a moment at the entryway, a moment too long, and that unbroken still-water calm passes again over his face.
"Brother, are you coming?" Sayuri calls back to him, briefly unsettled by that look. She's always associated that stillwater calm with the maiden adepts sworn to the Grieving Lady, concealed in their hidden shrine beneath the notice of their rulers: Shirou will have his term of service soon enough, but until then, he's just her brother. Not an oracle, not a sworn maiden, not a prophet: just her three-years-older brother, quiet and shy and prone to dreaming stillwater fits.
Shirou snaps back to himself soon enough, with a faint, serene smile. "In a moment," he says, quietly, and picks up his basket, following her down the path towards the hidden cove. The footing across the rocks was slick, the paths narrow and winding: Sayuri likes it here in summer especially, when the sky and sea are bright as the Lady's eyes, instead of just gray with Her grief. She could spend all day here, then, at the beach tucked against the rocks, the only time she ever successfully empties her mind to meditate.
These little trips with her favorite sibling were rare: before everything, he'd been traveling since he was her age, twelve, for his studies and gone for weeks at a time, returning with new books and new things to teach her about. This might even be their last outing: soon enough, he'll be in service to their goddess for five years, and then he'll be of age and married, assuming that his betrothed comes back from the war. Sayuri runs ahead and periodically looks back to make sure that he's still following after her: she can hear the telltale chiming of his betrothal bracelets around his slender wrists as he makes his way across the rocks with sure grace, but she looks anyway, just to be sure.
The cove is much the same as it ever was, the familiar semicircle of sand between rocks and the sea, wind singing over the rocks, water lapping against the shore: a carefully guarded village secret passed down through generations. Some of their neighbors are already here, including even a few elders, all with baskets and clearly having the same idea: Shirou bows and greets them respectfully, as he passes them, and Sayuri tries to follow his lead, even to Elder Mother Suzuki, the gossipy old lady who doesn't like her because she's too loud and too clumsy at the wrong times. Manners and respect, she reminds herself, the lessons of politeness, respect, and obligation, and follows Shirou towards a more secluded area - better pickings.
"We shouldn't stay too long, sister." Shirou says, eventually, and Sayuri nearly drops the seaweed she's putting in her basket.
"Is something wrong?" she asks him.
"Something is going to happen," he finally answers, amber eyes dark. "I can't see what it is." He goes silent, watching the sea, and Sayuri wonders what he sees, while trying to gather seaweed as quickly as she can. Silent and still, staring into nothing, until Sayuri grabs his shoulder and shakes him, trying to get his attention and pull him back from stillwater sight.
"Brother, what do you see?" she asks him, urgently, and he looks through her for a moment, his eyes faraway.
"Tell the others to leave, Sayuri. We have to leave." his voice is quiet and still uncertain, still caught in the haze of prophecy, but Sayuri grabs his hand, rests her basket on her hip with her other, and pulls her unresisting brother after her, shouting for their neighbors to leave as she runs back up the beach. Drags Shirou with her, because she isn't going to leave him behind, and isn't sure that he's quite aware enough to walk on his own right now.
"We have to go!" she yells over the sound of the waves and echoing surf. "We have to leave now."
"What's happening?" someone asks: Sayuri isn't sure who, and to be honest, doesn't really care right now.
"I don't know, but brother's had a vision."
Whispers run through the crowd, but the entire village knows about her brother's prophetic gifts, even the neighbors who might not believe her otherwise, especially with how very out of it Shirou is. Sayuri adjusts her basket on her hip and shakes her brother again, trying to get him a little more aware, trying to get him to come back to himself. She can't carry him, she's pretty sure, at least not at any kind of speed, and dragging him will be slow. At least their neighbors seem to believe her and are starting to move, just as Shirou comes back to himself - entirely too late.
The screech of a falcon cuts through the air, once an auspicious sign, but no longer: her eyes dart to the sky, where an albino falcon circles, and for a moment, she can't breathe and clutches her brother's hand even tighter. Maybe it was only coincidence, maybe, maybe, but even that fleeting thought dies as the sound of metal rattling echoes through the air. Her blood chills as a prickle runs up the back of her neck. No, no, no-
Too late. Too late to run: too late to go anywhere. Even more too late, her blood chilling, when she sees the tall, white-clad man come into view at the head of his soldiers, expression hidden behind a mask, as he holds out his gauntleted arm for his white falcon. Mikkel, their overlord's masked, most favored servitor: he'd only served him for a couple of years, with his origins equally mysterious as his sudden appearance at his court, but he'd already proven much more brutal and efficient at hunting down the Grieving Lady's worshippers than his predecessors had been. Their entire village had kept to the Lady's worship, if quietly, able to blend in and hide their maiden adepts away - but Shirou and the tearstone around his neck were undeniable proof of Her continued worship.
(how had Mikkel gotten here so quickly? How had he even found the cove? He shouldn't know where it is-)
There's nowhere for them to go. Nowhere to go, with soldiers in front of them and the sea behind them, and Sayuri swallows hard, trying to be brave, trying not to cry, trying to find some measure of inner peace and failing no matter how hard she tries not to cry or tremble. Her basket falls forgotten from shaking hands to the ground, spilling seaweed across the slick rocks. Maybe she would be braver if she had a weapon, something, anything, because maybe at least she could try to do something, maybe try to protect her brother at least, instead of this helpless waiting. There's nothing that she, they, can do, outnumbered and unarmed, against armed soldiers.
"Shh, shhh, shhh," Shirou murmurs, soothingly, his slender arms winding around her, and Sayuri buries her head in his shoulder, trying not to hear the sounds of armed men or weeping, trying not to openly sob but she's so scared. There's nowhere to go, nowhere for them to run, and she knows Shirou only has enough strength to save one of them. No adept has the power to translocate two people at once, not even him, and the priestess says he's got the strongest potential that she's ever seen, already wants him to put off his marriage and stay in service indefinitely and his powers aren't even fully awakened yet. She knows that he can only save one of them, and knows who the better choice will be.
(he needs to save himself. she'll be fine, won't she, she's only a little girl, a little girl not quite on the cusp of growing older, who can forget what she's been taught and be a good girl for new parents who aren't her parents, but he's nearly a man and wears the tearstone of a maiden adept sworn to the Grieving Lady.
she'll be fine, she'll live through this, but he won't-)
"You'll be fine, Sayuri, I promise." he says, and tries to smile for her. "Be a good girl for Father."
"Brother-" she jerks her head upright to stare at Shirou, as his eyes briefly close in concentration and the blue jewel on its cord around his neck begins to glow, bright against the fading light. Over his shoulder, she can see Mikkel approaching, sword in hand.
"Go on, sister. I'm where I need to be,"
The world is washed in blue, and the last that she sees of her brother as everything dissolves is his serene, helpless smile and the blade held against his neck.
Story: too far is next spring
Colors: bistre (Never despise a trick because it is simple; the old ploys endure because they work), elvish green (Even the very wise cannot see all ends.), warm light (Our innocence is all the worse for fears)
Supplies and Styles: canvas, pastels (origific bingo, "trapped")
Word Count: 2312
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: child abuse: if I missed any others, let me know?
Summary: Masuda Sayuri tries to help her family and go on one last outing with her favorite sibling. It goes horribly wrong.
Notes: ...I don't even know what I was doing with this story. It's done but probably needs some rewrites, especially towards the end, but at least this draft is finally done.
skip
This doesn't really come up in Sayuri's narration, but it's important to future stories written in this verse. Masuda Shirou is betrothed to Ikeda Jun, a childhood friend of the same social class who is three years older (so Jun's eighteen to Shirou's fifteen). Coming of age in this society is at twenty, and they're expected to marry when Shirou is 20 and Jun is 23, unless he stays a maiden adept for longer.
.
Masuda Sayuri fidgets in boredom as she cleans the rice: she has never been good at sitting still, regardless of Father's repeated chastisements. A child of her station must learn self-control and focus but despite her hours on her knees meditating or copying lines of philosophy over and over again, the closest she ever comes to finding that inner peace and control is with a bow or blade in her hand. She tries, really she does, but she cannot sit still for long, and even now, she wants to run and jump, to climb a tree, to do anything but clean rice for the evening meal and think too closely about how their meager supply is diminishing and worry about Mother and Shizuka, gone away to war and rebellion. She wants to help somehow, in whatever way she can, but there isn't much that she's actually good at-
Seaweed! That's what they'd done before, hadn't it, when she'd really been too young to think about these things. When the fishing boats couldn't go out because of winter storms and they couldn't eat the rice that was kept for the taxes for their foreign overlords, they'd stretched what they had with seaweed and oysters. Once, when Mother was small, they'd grown the seaweed, when they could, in the old traditional ways, but they hadn't done it in a while, too busy trying to grow enough for both the taxes and to eat. Other provinces could still keep to the old ways, to cultivate seaweed along with their other crops, but Achen took too much from them, here. So growing seaweed became a story that Mother told her children, and gathering it something to stretch the rice, until they might someday be able to grow seaweed again along with everything else. But it might work, really it might.
Sayuri hops up and takes off her shoes, leaving them in the entryway, and brings the rice inside with her.
Father frowns at her disapprovingly as she slides the door closed behind her, as she sets the rice down where it needs to go. "Don't be so loud, Sayuri. Your sister is resting."
She can feel the embarrassed flush creeping up the nape of her neck as she stammers the apology and tries not to be resentful all over again of Eldest Sister Sakiko who is home again because her wife and wife’s parents, too, have gone away to war, and Sakiko could not follow them because of a difficult pregnancy. Sayuri tries not to be resentful, because it's unfilial, and she tries so hard to be good, to live up to her duty as is expected of her, but it's so hard sometimes.
"Father, I have a favor to ask," she begins, and waits until he nods at her to continue. "May I go to the cove to gather seaweed?"
Father frowns in a very particular way that means no. "I don't want you to go alone, Sayuri. Not now."
"I'll go with her, Father." Shirou says, serenely, and looks up from the book he's reading, setting it down onto the low table. Her brother is always reading, or so it seems, or embroidering, his stitches much more careful and fine than her own: though he's effortlessly good at everything Sayuri isn't, be it sitting still or sewing or knowing what to say and when with few, quiet words, she can never bring herself to be too mad at him, her favorite of her four older siblings.
"You indulge her too much," Father sighs, his brows furrowing, but does not press his objections further with the sudden still-water calm, divine insight, that settles over his son's face. How does someone argue with divine insight, the word of the Lady? "I want both of you back before dark. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Father." Shirou rises carefully from seiza and bows, and Sayuri almost cannot hide her elation. It's rare that she can spend time with her brother: he's usually busy with his studies, and now that he can't travel anymore to the provincial capital to study, he spends twice as much time reading. She doesn't begrudge him that, though Shiori sometimes does, muttering out of the side of her mouth when he can't hear about him needing to help more. He helps just fine, Sayuri wants to argue, even if he spends a lot of time reading, especially because someone has to help Father keep peace in the house while Mother and Shizuka were gone. That takes so much work on its own, but she tries not to argue with Shiori, even as much as she wants to, because it would just be more work.
(his embroidery graces every piece of cloth in the house: Sayuri struggles with her needle as she tries to imitate him, how he sews prayers for health and fortune into every stitch. He knows all the rituals, how to properly interact with the spirits-)
The sky is winter-gray and the wind is still as Sayuri stands with her basket, waiting for Shirou to put his shoes on and join her. He pauses for a moment at the entryway, a moment too long, and that unbroken still-water calm passes again over his face.
"Brother, are you coming?" Sayuri calls back to him, briefly unsettled by that look. She's always associated that stillwater calm with the maiden adepts sworn to the Grieving Lady, concealed in their hidden shrine beneath the notice of their rulers: Shirou will have his term of service soon enough, but until then, he's just her brother. Not an oracle, not a sworn maiden, not a prophet: just her three-years-older brother, quiet and shy and prone to dreaming stillwater fits.
Shirou snaps back to himself soon enough, with a faint, serene smile. "In a moment," he says, quietly, and picks up his basket, following her down the path towards the hidden cove. The footing across the rocks was slick, the paths narrow and winding: Sayuri likes it here in summer especially, when the sky and sea are bright as the Lady's eyes, instead of just gray with Her grief. She could spend all day here, then, at the beach tucked against the rocks, the only time she ever successfully empties her mind to meditate.
These little trips with her favorite sibling were rare: before everything, he'd been traveling since he was her age, twelve, for his studies and gone for weeks at a time, returning with new books and new things to teach her about. This might even be their last outing: soon enough, he'll be in service to their goddess for five years, and then he'll be of age and married, assuming that his betrothed comes back from the war. Sayuri runs ahead and periodically looks back to make sure that he's still following after her: she can hear the telltale chiming of his betrothal bracelets around his slender wrists as he makes his way across the rocks with sure grace, but she looks anyway, just to be sure.
The cove is much the same as it ever was, the familiar semicircle of sand between rocks and the sea, wind singing over the rocks, water lapping against the shore: a carefully guarded village secret passed down through generations. Some of their neighbors are already here, including even a few elders, all with baskets and clearly having the same idea: Shirou bows and greets them respectfully, as he passes them, and Sayuri tries to follow his lead, even to Elder Mother Suzuki, the gossipy old lady who doesn't like her because she's too loud and too clumsy at the wrong times. Manners and respect, she reminds herself, the lessons of politeness, respect, and obligation, and follows Shirou towards a more secluded area - better pickings.
"We shouldn't stay too long, sister." Shirou says, eventually, and Sayuri nearly drops the seaweed she's putting in her basket.
"Is something wrong?" she asks him.
"Something is going to happen," he finally answers, amber eyes dark. "I can't see what it is." He goes silent, watching the sea, and Sayuri wonders what he sees, while trying to gather seaweed as quickly as she can. Silent and still, staring into nothing, until Sayuri grabs his shoulder and shakes him, trying to get his attention and pull him back from stillwater sight.
"Brother, what do you see?" she asks him, urgently, and he looks through her for a moment, his eyes faraway.
"Tell the others to leave, Sayuri. We have to leave." his voice is quiet and still uncertain, still caught in the haze of prophecy, but Sayuri grabs his hand, rests her basket on her hip with her other, and pulls her unresisting brother after her, shouting for their neighbors to leave as she runs back up the beach. Drags Shirou with her, because she isn't going to leave him behind, and isn't sure that he's quite aware enough to walk on his own right now.
"We have to go!" she yells over the sound of the waves and echoing surf. "We have to leave now."
"What's happening?" someone asks: Sayuri isn't sure who, and to be honest, doesn't really care right now.
"I don't know, but brother's had a vision."
Whispers run through the crowd, but the entire village knows about her brother's prophetic gifts, even the neighbors who might not believe her otherwise, especially with how very out of it Shirou is. Sayuri adjusts her basket on her hip and shakes her brother again, trying to get him a little more aware, trying to get him to come back to himself. She can't carry him, she's pretty sure, at least not at any kind of speed, and dragging him will be slow. At least their neighbors seem to believe her and are starting to move, just as Shirou comes back to himself - entirely too late.
The screech of a falcon cuts through the air, once an auspicious sign, but no longer: her eyes dart to the sky, where an albino falcon circles, and for a moment, she can't breathe and clutches her brother's hand even tighter. Maybe it was only coincidence, maybe, maybe, but even that fleeting thought dies as the sound of metal rattling echoes through the air. Her blood chills as a prickle runs up the back of her neck. No, no, no-
Too late. Too late to run: too late to go anywhere. Even more too late, her blood chilling, when she sees the tall, white-clad man come into view at the head of his soldiers, expression hidden behind a mask, as he holds out his gauntleted arm for his white falcon. Mikkel, their overlord's masked, most favored servitor: he'd only served him for a couple of years, with his origins equally mysterious as his sudden appearance at his court, but he'd already proven much more brutal and efficient at hunting down the Grieving Lady's worshippers than his predecessors had been. Their entire village had kept to the Lady's worship, if quietly, able to blend in and hide their maiden adepts away - but Shirou and the tearstone around his neck were undeniable proof of Her continued worship.
(how had Mikkel gotten here so quickly? How had he even found the cove? He shouldn't know where it is-)
There's nowhere for them to go. Nowhere to go, with soldiers in front of them and the sea behind them, and Sayuri swallows hard, trying to be brave, trying not to cry, trying to find some measure of inner peace and failing no matter how hard she tries not to cry or tremble. Her basket falls forgotten from shaking hands to the ground, spilling seaweed across the slick rocks. Maybe she would be braver if she had a weapon, something, anything, because maybe at least she could try to do something, maybe try to protect her brother at least, instead of this helpless waiting. There's nothing that she, they, can do, outnumbered and unarmed, against armed soldiers.
"Shh, shhh, shhh," Shirou murmurs, soothingly, his slender arms winding around her, and Sayuri buries her head in his shoulder, trying not to hear the sounds of armed men or weeping, trying not to openly sob but she's so scared. There's nowhere to go, nowhere for them to run, and she knows Shirou only has enough strength to save one of them. No adept has the power to translocate two people at once, not even him, and the priestess says he's got the strongest potential that she's ever seen, already wants him to put off his marriage and stay in service indefinitely and his powers aren't even fully awakened yet. She knows that he can only save one of them, and knows who the better choice will be.
(he needs to save himself. she'll be fine, won't she, she's only a little girl, a little girl not quite on the cusp of growing older, who can forget what she's been taught and be a good girl for new parents who aren't her parents, but he's nearly a man and wears the tearstone of a maiden adept sworn to the Grieving Lady.
she'll be fine, she'll live through this, but he won't-)
"You'll be fine, Sayuri, I promise." he says, and tries to smile for her. "Be a good girl for Father."
"Brother-" she jerks her head upright to stare at Shirou, as his eyes briefly close in concentration and the blue jewel on its cord around his neck begins to glow, bright against the fading light. Over his shoulder, she can see Mikkel approaching, sword in hand.
"Go on, sister. I'm where I need to be,"
The world is washed in blue, and the last that she sees of her brother as everything dissolves is his serene, helpless smile and the blade held against his neck.
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