You don't choose your steps when a yonder river rages
At your ankles
To follow its tide or drown at its mercy?
However the ocean in my soul
laments at the song of white-eyes
The air tasted cold and brisk. The scent of burnt sandalwood and wet timber mixed with lifeless leaves, seeping in between needless barriers painted white. The sky shone a pale turquoise, like a faded sea jewel, lovely and mysterious and just as seemingly eerie and lost. Dressed in men's clothing, how unconventional it could seem, with neither socks nor sandals on her feet. Roughed by the ground her inexistent sols met. Step after step after step. After days of work, then rice, then work, then rice. Only in hopes to earn money, and for dreams to then match up with her pay. The coarse cotton fabric smelt like autumn and tobacco flowers, for her clothing's lender was no women, nor nobleman for that matter. Bleak colors and a straw-hat, her blackened locks tangled under her twig made veil. Approaching a gate, she breathed in quickly, dispelling her anxieties and clenching her teeth. Her eyebrows followed, knitting themselves in a determined frown. An enormous shadow swallowed her in its triumph, as the figure itself triumphed over the shape of the sun.
Her fingertips shuffled about searching for parchment, a hand reaching into her kimono. She lowered her head, examining the tattered ends of hakama instead of the approaching head.
With a fair pause, the giant scratched the coarse stubble on his chin, and then narrowed his bead eyes to examine the sheet she held out. Fine characters traced with ink and an official seal, with function as some sort of pass, held between her near trembled fingers.
With a deep exhale, the giant parted his weather-slit lips with a grunt.
"Taxes... You may pass, boy."
She nodded her head simply, her nerves being plucked like strings as a nervous thrill ran throughout her limbs.
It worked, she grinned proudly. Stepping in pasted the glorified gate, she could then only question what it was she was getting herself into. She was not noble, nor working at the hand of swords and death... But merely a soul. Simplistically and only, she was convinced, only a soul. Although, such ranks would not deny her ability, for greater needs and greater causes surpassed such simplicity. If otherwise, she would not allow it.
Rows of concrete buildings and townhouses stood side by side. Pushed neatly together to form small mazelike alleyways, as if it where on purpose. Found between each hidden makeshift street where tucked away hiding spots and knitted secrets. Built with a design from a strange and far-off places. From a land that once lived with legend and lore dotted within Kojiki. From a world that did not belong to theirs. Levels stacked and stacked upon floors, painted what she decided was a sickly white. Or perhaps, what her pitiful jealousy for such luxury decided was.
Like a frozen ocean; beautiful and easy to envy from a far, but cold and unnerving a close. Forever and further vast...
Seireitei captured such a description in her glassed eyes.
But its beauty was picked from their pockets. As she carried their earnings in her hands, ready and ripe to sacrifice.
Setting down the decorated chest, concealing several gold coins and sealed with a certain spell, it sat on the tax recovery bureau's tatami floor. Sheltering herself from the growing cold, she couldn't be more pleased it was not a single step further. She had no shoes to rest, thus she simply bowed before taking a step on the elevated, matted floors.
"Inuzuri" she spoke simply, carrying the chest and bestowing a deepened voice.
"Very well!" spoke an aged man, scratching his bread, and as she expected... "Just a moment, boy, let me try and find those information sheets... I shall return."
Before stepping away, the aged man offered her to sit in the waiting room. Accepting his request, towards the left, laid a small room with sitting cushions aligned in a row against a wall with a round-style window in its center. The room was nearly empty, save for a few decorations and a second sliding door that led elsewhere's.
-
"I'll do it." A determined voice broke the chatter of men, gathered on tattered tatami mats.
"I do request the extra pay, though."
A man scoffed, holding a brush in-between his fingers and dotting down a few notes.
"Hisana, Don't be silly. No woman can go a-."
"I'll dress as a man, if I must. You need someone to report taxes anyhow. And as my employer, you said it yourself, I'm easily replaceable. So what do you have to lose?"
-
Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap
Foot steps.
Against the paper walls, Hisana tried to gather her breath. Her hat had already been lost, and a raw sore seeped within her throat. And with a brisk cough and fingers grasping the handle...
A clean whisk voiced a stranger's entrance.
A few midnight locks broke from her tangled hair tie in small wisps. An expected figure shadowed her kneeling one. Caught to stare, all so simply.
Dark brows met into a frown, color contrasting with an opposite silvery one that lined each strand of the man's hair. A robe just as white rested on his shoulders, painted with a delicate flower and a number across the back.
Thirteen.
With the natural impulse to always have a hand with an only purpose to be held out in cases of need, he did just that, placing one on her shoulder. Tears lined over her eyes like glass, distorting her vision and in a single reaction, she briskly held out a palm in arm's length in an attempt at defense and at pushing the clouded figure away. Uselessly so, and only revealing a hand stained with tiny drops of red. Blood. A sight much too familiar, as well as much too effortless to make him cringe. In sympathy, and compassion... Instead of disgust.
"Come."
Kojiki : "Matters of ancient things" Japan's oldest book dotting down its history, both actual and fictional."