I can't seem to keep just one story going, I have to have many to keep me happy.
Anyway. Enjoy.
Be prepared for a short chapter.
Song: Tears Of Angel
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Prologue
Cover my eyes
Cover my ears
It is strange to think, that one little mistake from an age so young good lead to great things. When reading over my old diary pages, I remember the days I spent plotting against the people who made me a success. I can remember the way I rebelled and spent hours working out what seemed like wonderful plans, but now that I look back at myself, I have to wander what on earth I was thinking. My life story doesn't seem interesting, in fact if you were to repeat it to anyone else of my expertise, they wouldn't give you a second glance. However, to those who don't know and understand my culture and the way of the Geisha, I suppose it could be quite a wonderful and enchanting tale.
I suppose I should start at the beginning of my adventure, my life in a small poor village with nothing much to offer but a fishing harbor. I can remember the path up to my families house fairly well, though in most of my memories, the little winding path is a difficult one.
---
Tell me this words are all lies
It can't be true
My mother fell ill when I was only a child of seven, maybe eight. I can never be sure. She grew thin and brittle very fast, her appetite lessened and she slept for a lot of the day. For my father it was bad news, for we all knew, my father, my sister – Akiko - and I, all knew that how dearest mother only had a short time left in this world. And my father, who spent most of the day down in the fishing harbor would have to support and care for three children on his lonesome, with no reassurance of a motherly figure. Each of us prayed for our mothers health, we visited the shrine in the village each and every day, rang the bell and clapped three times before bowing our heads, each to pray for the same thing. We didn't want our mother to be taken away from us, what child does?
When we called for a doctor to come and check on our ill mother, he brought with him a middle aged man that acted very kindly to me and my sister. From what we had learned, he was an important businessman from a district called Konoha. Of course, being an isolated village, we knew nothing of the outside world, and as such we knew nothing of this 'Konoha'. However the man – Jiraiya-san – said that we would all learn in due course everything about Konoha. In the mean time, he told us we had a lot more worse things to consider and to think about.
And indeed we did. The doctor had diagnosed our mother with cancer, and although he had given us herbs and medicines to give to our poor mother to help her feel at least a little better, there was nothing he could have done at the time to stop or lessen the chances of death. Our mother was dying...and that was that. We didn't know exactly how long she had left, but none the less we visited the shrine on a daily basis. Father told us to keep mother in our thoughts at all times, if we didn't forget, she would get better and stay with us.
That I'm losing you
The sun can not fall from the sky
And we believed him. Being the naive things we were.
Days passed slowly and without event. Mothers condition slowly descended into hopelessness, while my Onee-chan and I cared and tended to her. Sometimes, when we came back from the village market, we would purposely take the winding overgrown path to our house as slow as we possibly could, the image of mother in a much worsened state then we had left her proved all too horrible. When we returned, we would find father slumped at her side, eyes swollen from his sobbing and candle light slowly dieing. And she would be laying still, groaning in pain while she slept. The scene was indeed heartbreaking. Soul destroying. Onee-chan would suddenly break into sobs and move away, while I would stay watching mother until father shooed me away.
Can you hear a hidden cry?
---
And slowly, the turn in our story began to unfold. Weeks later, in the early evening, the businessman from Konoha returned to speak to father, joined by an elderly women. Try as we might, Onee-chan and I just couldn't catch a word of what had been said and so sat on the front porch sulking. Kami only knew what Jiraiya-san and an old women had to do with our father.
When the front door finally rolled open, out stepped Jiraiya-san with a kindly smile and the old women wearing a look that could turn milk sour. She gave us one bitter look and then glided as gracefully as a withered old hag could back to the carriage that Jiraiya-san had bought with him.
"Girls, could you follow me please." He asked of us, though the statement was an order, rather then a request. Exchanging glances with one another, Onee-chan and I followed obediently, both looking back to the house to see if father was at the porch. Indeed he was, standing with a candle light in one hand and his other bought up to his mouth in a gesture of sorrow. Again, Akiko and I exchanged a worried look and went to move toward him, however a hand restraining each of our wrists prevented our desired journey. If I had known this would probably be the last I would see of my father, I would have made more of an effort to run to him.
As it were, I thought that Jiraiya-san only wanted to speak to Akiko and I, maybe tell us about Konoha. However I was very wrong, because as he horded us into the carriage opposite the sour old women, and then climbed in himself, before we could say another word, we were taken away from the home and the parents we could very possible never see or hear from again.
For what seemed like a life time to long, I buried my head into my knees, scrunched my hands into my hair and cried. Even when the sour prune sitting opposite me scolded me, and my sister tried her best to console me, I just continued to sob into my knees.
For it felt in that little moment that I understood a whole lot more then my sister, when we saw the little sign that said 'Welcome' to our village slowly fade away. I cried out.
The tears of an Angel
x
Next Chapter : Missing
x I know, horrible short right? Well, it is meant to be a prologue after all, simply starting the story. The next chapters will be alot more chunky I promise.
x I also know that the chapter might have moved to fast through the events, however I didn't want to dwell on this part of Sakura's life for to long, as it isn't of much significance.
x Again, I have A-level english to thank for the blossom of this story. I'm reading Memoirs of a Geisha as my wider reading, and I'm hooked. Though it won't follow the storyline exactly, it will have a few moments inspired from the book. For examply this prologue is a shortened version of the first few chapters...ill mother...girls get taken away yadda yadda.
x The rating for this story is not, I repeat, not for lemons for I will no sooner be writing one then flying to the moon. However it may have some suggestions or idelogically sensitive or offensive material based around the treatment of the girls.
x There you have it ;D Klouny out. x
