Notes: Saiyuki Gaiden—haven't touched in ages. But there's something about it that keeps drawing me back. Comments and critique most welcome. :D Written for tm challenge: Body language. One hour and ten minutes.
Him and His Men
He wakes in the morning at the crack of dawn and draws the curtains over the sliver of light that breaks the dull monotony of grey. Drawing the jug from the stand he douses himself with cold water and shaves in the semi-darkness.
The coat he shrugs on with practiced ease and his boots, with their layers of grease, reflect light with what might pass as shine. At the mirror he wrestles with his comb; a few struggles later his hair stands to rapt attention, slick and pulled tightly back.
He moves quietly, ghosting over the corridors, ubiquitous fog. He is noticed when he wants to be. These people, in their insignificance and narrow minded existence, who do they think there've met, this slim smiling man, elegant, savage and perpetually tardy; and will they wonder, when they wonder at all, what this deceptively familiar stranger wants, mingling in their midst?
Mystery draws them like a charm, and to him they flock, this Marshall who is all to men and none to himself—this drifter, no alliances, no loyalty, no hint of a moral code; Tenpou Gensui.
--
It is his habit to listen erratically and aggressively. He speaks too sometimes; drawling with an air of immutable indifference but more attention is paid to him than the words he says. His hands are sensual, lyrical; he has no qualms painting non-imaginary things; enemy lines, desire and death.
Harbinger of bad news, this demigod of misfortune; controversy trawls in his wake, like a fishing net it dredges up al manner of scum of the earth. They say politics may make strange bedfellows, but he has had stranger.
He is a man with no airs—'oh I do beg your pardon, I'm so sorry." Just sitting, no acrobatics needed, he merely sits; his eyes wander, his hands are animated, and his voice dips and rises with emotion. His thoughts beat a track through red tape and taboos.
Rambling, seemingly ineffectual speech. He pursues the opposition deliberately and cruelly.
His men are watchful. He talks and they can only be silent.
--
Treason, he thinks, as he watches heaven's scaffolds being eaten away, plank by plank, devoured by the worms of corruption and greed. He takes office deep within rotting dampness (well beneath shine and polish) and does not care.
Cigarette smoke and musty books (bookworms, he thinks, may be quite territorial creatures) serve as deterrent enough for any army of spineless invertebrates.
His room is disorganised and comfortably ambiguous; the filing system is easy to grasp once you understand it. He operates on one basic principle: if no one (save him) can find anything after it enters his room they soon become wary of actually allowing any things of importance (like paperwork) to so much as enter into his vicinity.
This arrangement suits him fine—he has a long standing agreement with the people around him, and they with him. This consists of him promising to do anything they ask, and them promising never to ask him for anything. This keeps the relative peace between them.
The question of who has the privilege of sharing his bed is akin to that of The Great and Merciful Kanzeon Bosattsu's gender. That is to say, greatly speculated upon, yet a topic which its proponents are exceedingly loath to discuss in public. The population seems to be swayed in favour of General Kenren—easy camaraderie, absolute trust and equivocal repartee.
While entirely untrue this theory does have its merits, and he can see how properly elaborated upon, this explanation can be construed as the truth. Truth to him is a relative concept and he doesn't see lying so much as a travesty of fact but perhaps as a minor issue of presentation. The link between what one thinks and what one does (not to mention what one allows others to believe one is doing) is tenuous in the extreme.
The Marshall of the Western Army smiles as he talks and does not think of it as lying.
--
The day destiny caught up with him and looked him full in the eye he was in Konzen's office reading. Perched like a giant grasshopper—legs bent, body slouched forward, hands clasped around a book reverently as if in prayer—on the corner of the desk, with the sun spilling down his back and onto the open pages of his book, dense like liquid; crevices, folds and shadows, all filled to the brim.
A gentle lull, like the quiet before the storm. Konzen tells him, asperity and irritation radiating openly from his person, as Tenpou absentmindedly missed the ashtray by a good two inches and stubbed out another cigarette, You'd make a terrible actor.
Oh really, he says without much emotion, quirking his eyebrows in a gesture of amusement, proceeding to quell the acid in Konzen's voice with another cup to tea. A non sequitur, he thinks, but when his eyes meet Konzen's he feels the bits of the puzzle fall into his hands.
Excuse me, he murmurs, uncoiling his legs from underneath him and closing his book as he hops off the table. But I do believe this is my third pot of tea.
To them—to him— there is no concept of time in the afternoons spent like this, payment for his intrusion comes in the form of fragrant tealeaves and hot water, and it is by these that he counts down the number of cups to his departure.
His usual facial vocabulary is rivalled only by that of a wooden doll (as Konzen kindly points out), but he is not unskilled when it comes to manipulating words from his eloquent hands.
In the tepid brown of his tea he finds a tea stalk suspended peacefully upright.
He matches his breath to his heartbeat and makes the first move, ungraciously knocking over the teapot and upsetting a stack of papers.
It is about time he dispelled the rumours. Quash unwarranted speculation, so to speak.
When Tenpou Gensui launches an offensive, he does not fail.
The End
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