Title: As Petals Fall
Fandom: Saiyuki
Characters: Kenren & Tenpou
Prompt: 85-Myth
Word Count: 602
Rating: PG
Summary: A conversation beneath the sakura.
In the fields of Heaven, the sakura trees were always in full bloom. Beneath one of the largest trees within the city of Heaven, two gods sat, sharing a bottle of sake as they watched the pink petals fall to the green grass below.
One arm folded behind his head as he rested against the large trunk of the tree, Kenren sighed as he looked up. "This has got to be my favorite of all the sakura around here," he told Tenpou, who sat beside him sipping sake. "This tree has character. Sometimes I feel as though I know every branch and blossom on this thing."
"It might be because you spend more time out here resting on its branches than you do commanding your troops," Tenpou remarked, his voice colored by humor.
Kenren shot him an amused glance. "I could say a similar thing about you and those books of yours, you know."
Tenpou chucked. "I suppose that you could," he conceded. The gaze that he cast up into the stream of falling petals became more somber. "Whenever I look up at them," Tenpou continued, "it reminds me of a story that I heard once. They say in the world below that when a warrior is sentenced to die by his own hand, he does so under trees like these, and his body is buried there, making the usual white petals turn this shade of pink."
"So it's death that makes these flowers so beautiful?" Kenren asked. "The people under heaven are pretty morbid."
"Perhaps," Tenpou replied, watching the pink blossoms float down on a gentle current of air. "It makes you wonder, though, whose bodies are feeding the trees up here."
Kenren turned to the other god slightly, a soft smile on his face. "You can be very strange sometimes, Tenpou. It's a wonder how I put up with you."
"Oh, I don't know," Tenpou answered, his voice tinged with amusement. "I suppose that I could say the same thing of you."
Kenren chuckled in response, and the two gods sat in companionable silence for a while on the blanket of sakura petals. After a few moments, Tenpou turned to gaze over at his friend, whose dark eyes were cast up at the bough of the tree. The sunlight cast shadows on his face which moved in time to the gentle swaying of the tree's branches. It seemed like they could sit like this forever. Side by side, as it should be. They were gods, after all. With Nataku as war god, it seemed as though the armies of heaven would have to worry little about losing their divine lives in battle, but could such a state last forever?
"Do you know what happens when gods die?" Tenpou asked his companion suddenly, though he knew the answer.
"Sure," Kenren replied. "Their souls fall into the cycle of death and rebirth in the world below." He frowned, shrugging. "It seems like a fate worse than Hell, if you ask me."
Gazing over into dark eyes, Tenpou wore a faint smile. "They say that you meet the people that you cared for in the previous life. A never ending circle of that doesn't seem all that bad to me."
Kenren frowned at his friend. "I suppose not, but what's all this talk about death? It's not like we really need to worry about that, not lately at least."
"I suppose not," Tenpou answered, his voice noncommittal. But he wondered that if it ever came to that, would he know the dark-haired god if he saw him in the world under heaven?
End