It was a typical scene, in a typical place at a typical time of year. It was a dark and stormy night in an ancient manor in a far away land on Halloween night. There were a group of teenagers just… like… you….
Though perhaps the storm was not so stormy, only a light drizzle; and the castle was not so abandoned, it housed living residents; nor was the land was so far away, no more than fifty miles from a paved road; and the teenagers were not just like you, they were ninjas; but it was Halloween, so that makes it scary! Okay, not really…
"Oi, there's an entire street with naught but candy shops! I even found that dark bakin' cocoa you wan'ed, and some sugar skulls- ain't that queer? Little heads made o' pure sugar tha' sit square in me palm, painted an' pretty as a kitten!" Jin prattled on about his short excursion to Mexico in preparation for the Day of the Dead while staring into the empty eyes of a traditional ningen Mexican candy. He drifted around the kitchen as Touya prepared his own treats for the evening.
Touya only smiled at his old friend; the smallest things could make that elf happy, he found a piece of joy wherever he went. The ice-youkai was also preparing for All Hallows Eve; they found trick-or-treating children rather endearing in a world of chaos, and it was also a day where, in many cultures in both the ningen and youkai worlds, the dead were honored and remembered. "O' course these li'l beauties were the only thing I splurged on, swear a' fore gawd, I did! The bright paint on their little white faces reminded me of him… I wanted to leave one out for him."
"They are very nice, Jin," Touya said, pulling his mini-cakes out of the oven, "He would have loved them." The two youkai gathered their food together in a basket and set out from their house in the dark, wearing their cloaks that had been altered to look less morbid. They were accused twice, by their neighbors, of being part of the Ku Klux Klan before they changed them. Being accused of being Harry Potter nerds wasn't quite so bad.
The two walked across a field in silence before passing under the quiet branches of fir and oak trees. The dead oak leaves crunched softly, being partly soggy in the drizzle. They entered a small, open structure with a traditional Japanese sloping roof and a hanging incense burner. Touya lit the lamps and the burner while Jin spread out the contents of the basket. "Bloody shame it's rainin'," Jin said softly, "always made his paints run."
"It smells nice, though," Touya countered, trying to keep the mood cheerful on the morbid day. Jin however, could not keep the tears from falling. He smiled, but his tears reflected grief. Touya place one of the chocolate cakes and a sugar skull on the small shelf of the headstone. "It's been about a year since, hasn't it mate?" Jin whispered through a hitching throat.
"One year and three months." Touya replied. The two lifted their sake bottles to each other and ten to the stone. "Here's to you, Gama."
In honor of Mako, Steve Irwin, and my grandfather James Byron Nix.