Previously posted as part of a Multifandom Drabble Collection.
Requester: infi(underscore)inficio
Fandom: Samurai 7
Pairing: Kirara & Kyuuzo
Word/Situation: a small chat
Mood/Theme: Serious
Approximate Timeline: Episode 12 (in preparation of fighting the Nobuseri in the village)
Other: none
Title: The Quiet
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Samurai 7 © GONZO (based on Seven Samurai © Akira Kurosawa)
Rating: K
Word Count: 500 - exactly!
Summary: Kirara is caught following Kyuuzo (Kirara & Kyuuzo)
Authors Notes: Kyuuzo sucks! That's about it. I hope you like it Infi, I tried to make them have a conversation.
Kirara watched Kyuuzo closely in her village. Her sherry eyes followed his flaxen hair weave through the trees between the cliff overhang and the water shrine tucked deep in the forest.
She almost fooled herself into believing that she'd hidden her presence from him. Until she found herself face-to-blade with one of his twin swords.
Pink-cheeked and breathless, she stumbled back from the glinting metal and fell, with a resounding, graceless thud to the cold, hard earth. "Wh-what's the meaning of this?" She did her best to sound indignant as she desperately pulled at the hemline of her skirt and prayed he hadn't seen anything.
"You were stalking me." He commented slowly and withdrew his blade, slinking it back into its shared sheath.
"I most certainly was not!" she flushed. "This is my village, and as it just so happens, I was on my way to the water shrine." She pointed with a shaking hand at the distant outline of a small building amongst the trees.
"No doubt." He turned from her, the cold shoulder rustling the breeze through the trees.
She stood, and straightened her clothes and extended her stride so that she was only slightly behind him as they walked through the trees. "Why do you seek the shrine?" she asked, already fingering the pendant around her wrist, without realizing it.
"The quiet," he answered, never looking back.
Kirara stopped, her feet planted against the dirt, immovable. Long since before she became a shrine maiden, she would visit the small hut during long summer days when the din of a peasant's life became too much to take. And she would find solace in the gurgling stream, and the soothing presence of water, flowing through the earth like veins.
She watched his back retreating. He didn't seem to be the least bit concerned that she was not longer trailing along behind him.
"I don't understand you." She said, finally, twisting her fingers together around her sacred pendant. "You came because you want to kill Kambei-sama not because you care what happens to Kanna and yet, you protected me. You didn't have to; I wasn't even nice to you." A faint light had begun to show in the darkness, it came from between her cupped hands.
"Why does your charm glow?"
She looked up to find him facing her, only a few feet away.
"I-I don't know." She blushed in the darkness.
"When you understand that, then you will understand why I came." As vague as ever, he turned again and walked into the darkness. She stood there for a while, trying to understand what he meant. But as the blue light emanating from her hands grew stronger, she recalled what he said as they traveled.
Some things don't need to be said.
If he had chosen to speak, then she knew it was important. Because even if she didn't understand anything else about him, she knew, at least, that when he chose to speak, she should chose to listen.