A Mushishi fic I did off the first theme in the LJ 20_aus community.
Title: Lightning
Theme: 1 - the stillness of now
Series: Mushishi
Character/Pairing: Ginko. And mushi/storm.
Spoilers:none.
Rating: safe for the kiddies.
~:~
It is the calm before the storm. Leaves, windless, rustle in the trees. Mushi rustle with them - feeling the pent-up electric wait in the air, the stark sunlit trees against the dark-clouded sky. The little ones (no name for them yet but you see them everywhere on this mountain) are panicking, tiny beads of fear showering down from the trees, collecting on the ground like ash or snow.
You have a little time before the storm hits. You can see its grey loom up before you when you come into a cleaning for a moment, rain in brush-swept lines down and a line, along the valley, of where it's raining and where it's not.
You look for a place to stay, but there are no villages in this valley. Well, maybe that's for the better.
There is a fall of trees there, though - a table of rock with fallen trunks over it. You go over there and look. A little space - not tall enough to stand up, but enough to crouch and wait the rain out. There are no animals inside, but there are mushi - little worm-things, bright and harmless; the tiny terrified ones with their fear thick around them.
You go in, taking off your pack and setting it aside; taking off your jacket and folding it over. You sit, and from where you are you see, through a break in the trees, the blue sky slowly taken over by white, then grey, then dark grey -
- and the storm wind comes. You hear the first thunder.
You feel the tiny mushi shake. Several die.
You look back. The little ones. They fear so much that they can't hold up, in such a storm - or something? Their corpses are dark, the fear around them still pearly with former life.
The wind picks up.
Now you can feel the mushi coming. They've felt you close, and overjoyed, they crowd into the cave with you. Enough so that, even over the storm-wind, you hear them: clacking and humming and whirring and little walking noises and the sounds little sea things make when they swim. They crowd in - these ones notice you faster than most mushi, and you see that it's all the little panicked ones. The fear is tinged with excitement. Little pearls roll out from under the cave's shadow, down the mountain, get caught in the leaves and rocks.
Thunder, stronger.
Then rain, drop by drop. The mushi stop moving. They stay in place. They buzz. They fizz. They are silent, and you hear the heavy drops outside, first slow, and then fast.
Then lightning.
The mushi all move at once! Around you, but none leave, and the rain increases. You count, and soon there is thunder again, and in that crack in the trees the sky is all dark, rain is falling all around, and the mushi worry themselves and drop fear and a few fall out of the cave.
Lighting again.
The mushi outside die, quickly. The others, inside, zigzag and jump and the ones outside fall to the ground, going dark, fear around them.
Lightning.
The corpses waver. The fear-pearls distort. They blossom. They mesh. They grow and grow petals that touch the bodies, and then those outside are flowers, opening petals wide, growing straight out of their old selves to catch the
Lightning.
The mushi inside see this. Or might. A few move venture out, get hit by drops and die almost immediately, and then thunder rolls over everything and the mushi-fear-flowers push up pods, that grow, that open, and new mushi come out. They crawl out slowly, rest on the petals, joy in the rain and thunder and lightning around them.
The mushi inside watch this.
You watch the mushi inside.
"Well?" you ask them. "What are you waiting for?"
Lightning.