eisakoúō – [ancient greek] to properly hear unto, i.e. to listen intently
Chapter 1:
Azura stares off into the distance. She sees rolling hills, rich with rice and barley; wide, shimmering lakes like crystal glass, plentiful and blue; colorful pieces of architecture, tiny and delicate as carvings. They seem far away and beautiful - unnaturally calm and idyllic - like she is gazing at a painting. And though there is clearly life within the scene - moving like little ants on the horizon - in a way, Azura is.
She sits on the windowsill with her legs tucked underneath, facing the small room she lives in. Her arms are braced against the wooden frame, holding her inside as she leans out, head turned toward the world outside.
She can see her mother scolding her for her recklessness - Azura is perched on an open edge, and there is more distance between her and the ground than ever in her life - but her mother is gone, and so Azura continues to sit and watch. It is a beautiful sight, and yet - in small ways - it is a sight twisted by sadness.
Many things in life are, Azura is beginning to see.
The room she dwells in is an example. It is not small - though it is perhaps smaller than she is used to - and round in design. Here in Hoshido, the walls are lined with sheets of paper, webbed in elegant flora, and the flooring is simple and wooden. Delicate patterns are everywhere; woven into the cushions and the silks, imprinted on the low tables and the drawers, etched onto the china and the glass. Sleek and grand is clearly not the style favored in the East as it is in Nohr, but Azura likes this new one as it is done in her quarters.
She admits that it is - as prison cells go - luxurious.
Queen Mikoto does not call it such, of course. She says that it's for Azura's own protection that she stay, and not wander - to be safe is to keep to the quarters she's been given in the tall, westernmost wing of castle Shirisagi. She is a guest, but one who is not welcome by all, as the Queen puts it, and though Azura is familiar with the concept she isn't certain. She can't be certain of anything.
In the end, however, it matters little what Azura thinks. Queen Mikoto wishes for her to stay, and so stay she will, with guards stationed outside her door and on the roof, watching discreetly - lest the twelve-year-old try anything untoward.
For how long, she isn't certain. Perhaps only a short while, until she's traded for Mikoto's child, returned, or - or taken care of... Perhaps forever.
Azura sighs, a heaviness settling over her chest, and looks back out at the Hoshidan countryside. It seems as tranquil and beautiful as described, as Azura has seen in books and drawings - but a painting to her it will remain.
Some time later, there is a soft knock on her door - so faint Azura wonders, for a moment, if she heard anything at all. Within a few moments, the tap-tap resumes, but before Azura can even move from her nook in the window she hears the rough slide of the wooden screen.
It opens with a jolt, as if thrown aside impatiently. Though the ninja usually sneak in so quietly she does not notice, Azura is not surprised to - once again - see a half-masked face beyond. She has had no other visitors, save Mikoto. Even her meals are delivered by the armed soldiers.
It is too early for dinner, however.
A messenger? she thinks. Hope springs in her heart. Maybe bearing news, at last? That Azura is to return to Nohr?
The ninja walks in.
There could have been news, Azura realizes as she catches the man's steely gaze, but perhaps not the kind they hoped... This ninja is stern, with crimson hair Azura is certain she has not seen before. What features she can see are youthful, but horrifically scarred, giving him an antagonistic feel the others do not possess. An air of death.
An executioner?
Her blood turns cold as the thought grips her mind firmly. It's difficult not to know about such men -even at her age - given her upbringing, but Azura does not react. She simply waits, perched against the windowsill, with slit yellow eyes boring into her from across the room. It is pointless.
The ninja shifts slowly, as if reluctant, but when he moves to reveal his purpose there, it is not what Azura expects.
He steps out of the doorway, and a little girl shuffles through.
Azura slips off the windowsill, surprised.
When Azura sees her, the girl reminds her of a doll - small and delicate-looking, with fair skin and pale-red hair, dressed flawlessly in golden silk. Even when she moves - a formal, stiff walk that's unnatural on a child, head far too low for Azura to see - she seems more like a piece of art than a living five-year-old girl.
"Visitor," the ninja announces shortly, as if he's eaten something sour. Her heart skips at the tone but all he gives Azura is a dark, warning look - as if to say I'll be watching you - and then disappears in a swirl of dust.
The sound of his exit makes the little doll jump - though even that seems short and unnatural. Subdued.
Azura starts herself, uncertain, but then chides herself for flinching away from a child - especially one who, Azura is surprised to notice, trembles visibly as she comes slowly closer. Her little arms, folded uncomfortably in front of her, move almost imperceptibly within their sleeves, as if twisting around themselves anxiously.
It's minutes before Azura manages to remember her manners, and by then the girl is standing dead still before her, quiet for all but her shallow, erratic breaths. Waiting.
Azura is used to silence, but even this unnerves her. She takes in a shaky breath.
"Hello..." Azura begins.
The girl whispers back, but so faintly Azura can't make it out. She thinks its a greeting.
Azura doesn't know what the girl is doing here, but then neither does her guest, it seems - the girl doesn't make a move in either direction, as if anchored to the center of the living quarters. Azura bites her lip, feeling at a loss.
"Um... Can I help you?"
The girl's shoulders tense and she flinches back, but before Azura can bite her tongue for asking anything her visitor is reaching for something in her tiny yukata. A sun-colored sheen catches Azura's eye as the girl comes quickly forward, making Azura retreat a step, but when she offers something to Azura the Vallite freezes.
It's a small pendant, crafted from shell and crystalline stone, silver and set with a shimmering blue jewel. It contrasts with the young girl's sparkling ruby eyes - almost crystal themselves - as they peer timidly into Azura's own, as she cradles the necklace ever so carefully in her small fingers. Azura's hands shake as she reaches for it.
This is yours now, dear, her mother's words echo in her ear, with deep affection and an urgency, thread just underneath. Do not let it out of your sight.
And she hadn't, for the two years it had been in her possession; Azura had not taken it off for a moment - though whether because it reminded her of her mother or of the reality it came from, she isn't certain. But then Azura was stolen by Hoshido, and they took everything.
Her shoulders weigh unnaturally light, as if something is missing, but when her fingers touch the stone it feels like a piece of Azura has returned to her. She looks to the girl, tears brimming in her eyes, and for the first time since she woke here, Azura feels emotion stir in the hollowness of her chest. "T-thank you."
The girl is staring at Azura, guileless as young children are; transfixed by the way Azura clutches the pendent to her collar, as if she will never let it go. At Azura's words, however, she blushes deeply, though the Vallite is busy staring at the glistening stone herself, a burn building behind her eyes.
Azura's heart aches in a way she hasn't allowed it to for a long time. When she slips to the floor, curling around herself, she doesn't realize that she's speaking until she hears her voice drop low, as she confides, "It... belonged to my mother."
Azura has not spoken much since she woke here, in a country far different from her own, or any she's lived in - she must always be careful of everything she says, however little - but there is a gentleness to this girl, an innocence, that makes the Vallite crack.
When the girl's head tilts, eyes wide and rose-colored locks falling to brush her shoulders, Azura can't help but turn away, her vision blurring.
She misses her mother so much in that moment. It feels like someone has pulled the floor from beneath her, and Azura realizes that while she screamed she could never live without her, she has been - she's been holding herself together all on her own - and it tears her apart.
Tiny fingers reach out to rest on her hand, gentle and feather-light, saying nothing and everything at once.
Azura's heart feels lodged in her throat, but the girl is looking at her worriedly, helplessly, grasping their hands together tightly, and...
Her voice is choked with tears when she says, "Mother... she called me Azura."
Another murmur, one that sounds vaguely like - "S-Sakura?" Princess Sakura.
The girl nods, shyly, eyes still wide.
Hoshido's youngest princess.
Azura gently releases the girl's hand and swallows her sobs, wiping the wetness from her eyes. She doesn't know what it means, for the Queen to send her daughter to see her - for the Queen to return this pendant to her - but she is certain of so little these days; it doesn't seem to matter. Azura only feels overwhelming relief, and gratitude, because she had thought her mother's most treasured possession was lost forever - her last request met with failure - and now it isn't.
Sakura, was it?
"That's - that's a beautiful name," Azura says, like her mother used to say. "That is a beautiful name. It means 'by the sea', did you know?" Arete would go, when talking to the servants' children in the palace; her mother knew much about meanings and traditions. But Azura does not know what Sakura means in Hoshidan culture, like Arete would, and so she leaves it at that.
It is enough for Sakura; she smiles back at her, hesitantly - bashfully - before the girl ducks into a clumsy bow and then scurries past Azura, yukata streaming behind her like golden sails.
Azura watches her go, and thinks, as she clutches her mother's necklace to her chest - feels the place on her skin where their hands touched - that the girl is not very much like a doll at all.
Her hands are too warm.