Author Note: So my hard drive got totally wiped out when my laptop went comatose, so I've lost EVERYTHING. Not incredibly happy about it to be honest which means updates from me are going to be pretty er...spacious. Starting over computer wise sucks.
Anywho, here's just something small.
I'm chalking this one up to certain movies about certain wizards voiced by Christian Bale. Yep.
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Catch A Falling Star
When Misao was six, shortly after Aoshi and his four men stole away in the night without so much as a goodbye to their young protege, she began staying the fields until twilight. She would just stand and wait, looking up to the sky until one of the adults dragged her back to the Aoiya. As the long, balmy days of summer passed and still she kept at it, Okina finally sat her down in the kitchen after hours over a plate of red bean filled dumplings.
"My little Misao, why do you keep going into the fields all evening long? And don't say it's for practice because reports say you just stand there looking up."
"Am I in trouble?" she asked, eyes large as she gobbled on a dumpling.
"Should you be in trouble?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.
Misao sighed in a long, weary manner that was surely copied from Omasu. The brunette teenager was starting to give way to sighing and remarking dramatically as if she were older than her years.
"Well it's all Shiro-kun's fault! I mean really, he's the one who told me!"
"Told you?"
"About falling stars! He said if I caught a falling star it'd make my wish come true so I keep waiting to catch one!"
Okina nodded, understanding. So that was it then, she was merely being childish. No worries. And yet...
"And what is it you wish for that you stand out there all day?"
Misao smiled a big tooth grin.
"For Aoshi-sama to come home of course! I haven't caught a star yet, but I'll keep trying!"
He was wrong. There was indeed room for worry.
When Misao was twelve, it was the first time she tried to leave the city borders. She hadn't gotten so far into the forest with her little napsack and cloak when Okon and Omasu found her and dragged her kicking and screaming home. She had stopped trying to catch stars a few years earlier, and when she begrugedly admitted she was going to find Aoshi-sama, Okina wished then Misao had continued her childish quirk.
She was confined to the grounds, and it did not please her.
"Misao-chan, why did you try to go and find Aoshi-sama?" Omasu asked as she and Okon sat with Misao one spring afternoon on the back porch.
"Because I want him to come home!" she exclaimed, cerulean eyes shining brightly.
"We all want our Okashira to return, but you can't just go run off like that! These aren't safe times, Misao-chan." Okon added, trying to dissuade the young girl's notions of running off around the country.
"It's not the same as you all! You just want our leader to come home to lead us, I just want Aoshi-sama back." she said sadly.
"You're not still...there are other boys your age you know." Omasu said gently.
Misao stood up angrily, fists clenched at her sides.
"I don't care about other boys! I love Aoshi-sama and only Aoshi-sama! I'm not giving up!"
And she stormed inside to her room. And she would keep trying to run off, keep being brought back, keep being lectured on her feelings for years to come still.
When Misao was sixteen, she ran off sucessfully and travelled all over what felt like the ends of the world with no map and compass to find her Aoshi-sama. She only had the stars as her guide, the same stars she had once tried to catch dare they fall. Those stars burned eternal didn't they? Why couldn't anyone understand her feelings were the same way? She would be guided by her feelings so like the stars.
She came close without realizing it. Shortly after Kanryuu, weeks really, she had brushed through Tokyo and only heard the wisps of the story and not the particulars. She never heard of the Oniwabanshuu involvement, of the death of her friends, or of Aoshi-sama dark fate. She moved on to Yokohama, stopping everywhere in between before returning back north.
Somewhere on the road to Kyoto she found herself in the company of Himura Kenshin, and whether it was fate or cooincidence she knew not. She only knew he had word of Aoshi, and she would follow and even leap to potential death to make progress. Sure many thought her crazy, foolish, reckless, and childish for her single-minded pursuit of a man she hadn't seen in a decade.
She didn't care. What was so wrong with remaining steadfast and true of heart? Was it such a bad thing to stay loyal to feelings for one person for so long? That was silly.
It was a few months before Misao's seventeenth birthday when she witnessed the end of the duel between Okina and Aoshi. It was in minutes that her heart was broken. Everthying after that was numb. She remembered blood, voices, somehow ending up back at the Aoiya. It was a blur really, because she could only strongly hear the pounding in her ears and all she could see were stars in her vision.
Kenshin made her a promise, he would bring Aoshi home. She wept for the first time since her childhood.
Later, much later when the others had gone to rest for the night, she walked outside and away and towards the open grass that was cool against her bare feet. She looked up at the velvet sky littered with diamond stars and just stood waiting.
She would catch her fallen star and this time she would not let him go.