::Author's Note::

Hello! Thank you for stopping by to check out this little one-shot. This was written for Livi-Love as a response to a Secret Santa event hosted by Stealthy Stories. Please feel free to interpret this as you see fit. We hope that you enjoy it. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

Cheers,
Stoic Harlequin

I'll Be Staring to the Dawn

I wish...

Karai's legs were folded under her on a tatame mat floor of a one room abode, tucked away in rural Japan. It was the equivalent of a square footed postage stamp, but far more than enough to facilitate Karai's needs. The words lingered on her tongue like the rancid taste of sour milk. They hadn't even been born from her lips, but were simply a mere thought. She pondered what she wanted to follow the two simple words with - what wish she had - in celebration of this important holiday of her ancestors.

Yet wishes were for dreamers and hopefuls, those who had weak spirits and believed they could change the world, even their own meager existence - their small world - with desire over action. Believing in an idea, and not a plan, seemed doomed from the start. Even so, she craved finishing those words and she would do so in reverence for the people who celebrated this tradition and set forth such a practice for her culture.

The faith of man so rooted in honor and dignity came from the reality that wishes could come true...but only if they were spawned with realistic expectations. It was when the wishee hoped for unreachable results that wishes became nothing but a wispy dream. Karai had no time for dreams, not anymore at least.

In her hand, a small and round paper doll rested. He was ugly and had a face of seeming malcontent. The round circles, which would be eyes, were vacant - as hollow as the innards of the light weight figure. Situated in front of her was another statue of the same shape, make and color. Yet the one in front of her was different as the left eye was carefully painted in with black ink. The right was still empty. Karai frowned at it, scowling in distaste at its reminder; its purpose to refresh her memory of a wish she had once had. Moreover, she felt a mild hatred for herself as she, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, was bitter about the fact that she somehow believed that that wish could come true as well. In a show of whimsical hope, she had a set goal for herself...and the dolls single painted eyed was a reminder of her failure, her dishonor. If it had been fulfilled, the right eye would be as darkly colored as the left.

It was not.

As the words 'I wish' filled her mind again, she lifted the kanji calligraphy brush and prepared to fill in the left eye of the new doll. Tomorrow, the unfulfilled former year's doll would be burned with thousands of others at the temple in the center of the city. Some would bare both black eyes while others would be just as incomplete as Karai's. It was the only time of year she knew she would return to Japan - the beginning of the New Year - so she could celebrate in the holiday of her people.

What a celebration this was...a celebration of failure.

She stared at the little man in her hand, the Daruma doll, and hated him more than ever. He had no power to grant her wishes and still there was a small piece of her that hoped he could and would hear her wish. It was the fragment of Karai's spirit that wasn't hardened by the life she lived leading the Foot Clan in her late father's stead. It was the bit of girlish laughter that still played in back of her mind, of her heart, that remembered what it was like to be carefree and joyful in the green backdrop of Japan's beauty. She had hope and optimism that she vehemently denied existed.

She could recall, at one point in her life, where she held a doll with twin black eyes and cheerfully prepared to burn him at the New Year's celebration just as she did the disappointment in front of her. Perhaps it wasn't that she failed, but that her wishes had lost their attainability.

Her hand faltered when she heard the first bell ring. With each ring echoing in her ears, her head snapped up and she let her attention go to the temple bells. In that moment, she knew the new year was upon them. It had passed midnight and was moving into a new calendar. The sky was black beyond the window but other bells of distant temples joined in and the song began as she knew they would ring out one hundred and eight times - for each worldly desire to be shed for that year; or at least the hope that they would be shed. It was as if bird song filling the midnight sky with music and reminder of what purity should be.

Karai wondered what there was to be celebrated...what might change this next year.

She waited on the bells, until each had finished it's last sound and died into silence again. She peered back to the fat little doll in her hand. Considering her father, she remembered his insistence on tradition; a celebration of something that had mattered in her life. She had a loyalty to him. That loyalty ran through her blood like passion. It focused her and kept her aware of her goals; always and forever his goals. They were the same and always would be. Until she could see that her most hated enemies were destroyed, she would not rest. She wondered methodically what she would do when that day came. The thought didn't linger long as she couldn't focus on a victory that was still looming, it would distract from the present and give them room to have an advantage over her; for prideful arrogance and certainty was a dangerous vice. She had to remain diligent in her search for them and destruction of those four turtles and their rat master.

With that thought, she leaned forward a little bit and gingerly painted in the left circle of this year's doll. It was with a smooth single stroke, creating a circular shape on the doll's eye, that a new goal was born. This year's wish.

...we weren't enemies.