A/N: This one-shot took a while...mostly because I took my sweet time writing it. It's a prequel to my longer story Unexpected Convergence, detailing a moment in the missing years of Fuu. Enjoy.
I wrote this fic mostly to Anna Nalick's song "Wreck of the Day". Slow, melodic, and with tragic lyrics, it deftly reflects the mood of Fuu in this story.
Courses Cunningly Contrived
It's a beautiful view, one that would in the years to come be capitalized upon, immortalized, and used as a ploy to bring tourists to Edo; but that's another time and place. For now, the visage of crashing seas on cliffs and the fertile forest atop them were a comfort to only the small girl who stood at their peak. She was almost always there, and many of the shipmen who caught sight of her from their ships would wonder if they really saw what they thought they had.
Over the weeks, as more glimpses occurred and no woman came forward as the mysterious wraith of the cliffs, a mystery, nay, a legend began to form. The townspeople, some of them having a better idea of who it was than others, played into what the sailors began to imagine, because it brought money to their town, and because a little mystique could only aid their own selfish ventures.
No one cared for the girl who stood on the edges of the cliffs, dawn to dusk; no one thought to care.
Even from hundreds of feet away, hazed by fog and light, her aloofness from the physical world was clear. While her body may have stood at the top of those precipices, her mind was far away. Her mind had taken refuge from emotional perils in the safety of memory and dreams.
Then, one day, she woke up; rather, a Westerner too curious for his own good woke her up.
It started as many an epic tale, ones filled with romance and adventure, religion and politics, mystery and drama. It's a story founded in tragedy and personal growth, but that's a story you already know. The scene that took place in the waning light of a hundred sunsets, above the deep blue of a thousand seas, is the end of her story, not the beginning.
He first saw her from the top of the ship that carried him to Japan. Sent by his people to search out allies in the strange foreign land, he had no idea that he was far too late to be of any good. Weeks of anticipation had the man antsy to get out and stretch his legs, and the final sighting of the island which he'd been seeking had him rushing for the guard-rail to hungrily study it's fast approaching shores.
The sweeping forest rose steadily into a large hill, sleet-faced on one side, but gently sloping down into the town on the other. The boat was approaching the wrong side of the island for easy docking and had begun to swing around to the town-side when he saw it.
It. Her.
She stood at the top of the sea cliff, the boat too close for easy studying. What he did see made him grasp his rosary tightly. The girl, surely just a girl, stood barely feet from the ragged lines of the sheer drop, her kimono flashing as the wind ripped and twined it around her thin frame. She wore her hair down, and it too danced in the vicious winds only seen near the sea. The angle was all wrong for him to really see her, but the energy that came from her was pure and unadulterated pain. The faith that pulsed inside him demanded he give aid to her, no doubt in his mind that she was the real reason God had sent him here.
Religion is this man's game, and life. He finds that it gives meaning to even his smallest decisions, and he doesn't find that as restricting as it might sound. Little does he know that the small being he has decided to seek out will find his faith a tiring and loathsome thing.
The town knows not of who he seeks, and they play dumb while they ply his coffer with tales of phantoms and ghosts.
Some say she's the wife of a pirate, forever waiting for her love to return from the fateful final sail.
Others say she's the spirit of an ancestor long forgotten, no longer satisfied with being amongst the many worshiped by most of the inhabitants of the island.
Even more still say she's not a spirit at all, but the mistress of the shogun secretly squired away in a high hill house...and that one is farther off from the truth than any.
There is one person, an old healer who lives in a small house near the dock, who knows the truth. Silent and mournful, he speaks softly when he tells the doctor the story of the girl. Most of the townsfolk ignore this man, more for his association with certain troublemaking samurais than for the information he knows. No one wants trouble, but they do like the money that it tends to bring.
"She came here months ago, looking for someone. She was alone at first, but others came. They also left. She stayed."
The man from the boat, who now seeks the wisp of a girl he'd seen only once, looks at the shriveled man imploringly. "And?"
The healer shrugs, watching through the window as boats come and go. "And that's it."
"Who was she looking for?"
"What."
"What?"
"Not who, what."
"What was she looking for?"
"That's for her to know. I couldn't fathom it," the healer said with a sly smile. He'd seen many things that day, almost four months ago. In the evenings, when it grows colder and people stay indoors, their eyes on their plates and not the windows; he'd take the long walk up to a small hut, not far from town, but shunned because of past inhabitants. He knew the girl there, knew that she didn't care for herself as she should. He'd take her food, clean clothes, and no one was the wiser.
Let the foolish children that ran about this piss-in-a-pot town make up their fantasies. He knew the truth, and held it closely. He'd always been good with secrets.
That night, under the light of a half-moon, the man of religion follows a man of healing, and together they journey to a small home in a field of sunflowers. She's not there, but the healer doesn't expect her to be. Lately a change in her had him pondering whether it was time to try and reach out to her. Grief shouldn't make one so sad. Celebration of life was just as important as mourning loss of it.
Though the healer leaves, the religious man doesn't, instead standing in the field, he listens to nature as he never thought possible. Where he comes from, there's always activity, noise, or action. Here, on this small island, away from town, there is nothing. It's more refreshing what Westerners expect of this small militant country.
Eventually, he lays there, his mind on matters of his own conscience, little thought to the girl he subconsciously believes can help him alleviate some guilt he's carried around for quite a few years. Just the thought of her conjures up thoughts of another girl, one he'd loved feverishly in young adulthood, only to leave for the familial duty of God's service. Even though his faith fills him in ways he'd not thought possible, he thinks of his love for another and fears God knows of his deception.
Some might wonder why this story focuses on an anonymous man, wandering the country in search of a stranger. It doesn't; it's the faith that ties them. For all her reasons and excuses, in the end the journey she undertook all those months ago was not a search for her father. Rather, she searched for the reasoning behind her actions. Why she felt the way she did, why she acted as she did, why she said what she said, and did what she did? Her father was to give her the meaning behind her life, and in the end, he only made it more confused.
She pondered that as she stood and watched the sun rise over the horizon, blinding her with its radiant light and she took a step back in response. Behind her, a twig snapped in the distance and she whirled, knife in hand before she thought to reach for it. Her eyes, wide and the color of the trees only feet away were wild as she studied the shadows that dissipated before her eyes.
The man stood there and watched her calmly sheathe the knife. "You trust easily," he commented stepping beside her to study the sun as she had.
"I don't," she replied, surprised at how hoarse her voice sounded. She'd not spoken except to sing small songs during the night for weeks. It showed; as well as the malfeasance of a life she'd been living. Despair over her father's death, her ordeals at the hands of pirates, and the subsequent parting with her best friends had taken its toll, and she feared that toll would be grave indeed.
Yet she couldn't find it in herself to sway herself from this destructive aim.
The man smiled, and turned to say something else...before finding himself freezing at the feel of the sharp point of the knife in his neck. His smile was rigid as he eased off the knife, taking a consolatory step away from the knife-wielding child before him. "I'd thought you put that away."
"You shouldn't assume."
"It can only bring harm," he agreed, surprisingly at ease with the down-trodden girl. "My name is Father-"
"I don't care," she said smartly, her eyes once again raptured with the light dancing on the water below. The iridescent colors were the closest she got to happiness lately. The way they moved reminded her of the way her men had fought, so smooth and quick. The waves below were also just as deadly.
"I was hoping to inquire as to your name?" He made it a question, not wanting to pressure her. After waiting for day, he'd followed to sound of the waves to where he'd seen this girl, and to his surprise, for his luck was never so good, he'd found her there. Again, so close to the edge she stood, her pink kimono torn and writhing in the wind, the tattered strings making an odd halo about her. Her brown hair was lank around her face, but it too gave her an aura. She was ethereal, even standing next to him. Her eyes so wide to the day, her face passive in its study of the ocean before her.
She sighed, easing her head to the side to crack the tension forming there. "I'm not telling you my name. If you're from the shogun, kill me and get it over with."
He shook his head quickly. "I'm not from the government. Or, here at all. I'm from England. It's-"
"I know where it is," she said as she turned from the cliff before her to him. "What do you want?"
"I saw you, from the boat down there."
She shook her head, her eyes truly focusing on him for the first time. She stepped closer and the vague smell of sake drifted on the ferocious wind to his nose before sailing out over the abyss and into the savagery that broiled inches away. "Many people see me; most don't care."
"You seemed..." God, he sounded so foolish as he tried to sound it out that he almost didn't say anything at all. "...you seemed like you needed help."
Fuu laughed, a brittle broken sound unlike anything the man had heard before. She slid her palms down her slightly protruding stomach and started to walk down a feet-beaten path to the place her father, and now she, called home. "I'm beyond help."
Naturally, he followed. "I don't think you're supposed to drink in your condition."
Fuu suddenly turned, the small bottle of sake hidden amongst the folds of her clothing flying from her hand and slamming into the tree centimeters from his face. He stood shocked as she suddenly and furiously gripped his white collar and brought his face close to hers. "You know nothing of my condition, Father. I'm not some charity for you to suddenly participate in. I want nothing from you or your Faith. You've done enough."
Before she could release him, he gripped her wrists and studied her eyes. Familiar eyes. "You're Seizou's daughter."
She stared at him in surprise, jerking her wrists from his. "And?"
"I've been sent here to find him."
She laughed again, just as broken as the first time. "He's dead."
"How?"
"I'd like to say I killed him, but, alas, your God has taken that from me."
They walked to her home, not in sync, rather he following. He tried to question her further, and she proved unresponsive. He didn't enter her dwelling without invitation, instead standing there most stubbornly while she tottered around within.
"Why are you still here?"
"I wish to speak to you," he replied, taking a seat on her doorstep, eyeing the many small sake bottles littered there.
"Why?" Her voice sounded oddly small, more like the child she appeared to be. "I've given you the answer to the question you asked."
"I have another."
"Ask away," she said wearily, dropping to the step beside him, reeking even heavier of the favored alcohol of Japan, swaying slightly in a non-existent breeze.
"Why are you so sad?"
She stared at him between half-lidded eyes, unfocused and dreaming. "I'm alone."
"Why are you alone?"
She shrugged, standing to stretch her arms to the sky, her swaying more profound as she now danced back and forth to music only she could hear. "They danced for me. Shining lights in the dark."
"What lights?"
"Lights of the sun. Lights of the sword. Lights of the stars. Lights of fire. Lots of lights," she replied simply, her eyes fully closed as she remembered all the lights. Lights accompanied by screams. Lights accompanied by laughter. The light of a certain samurai's eyes as it died slowly with the realization that forgiveness does not come.
"Is that why you watch the water?"
She stopped moving, trying to focus on that fact. "No."
"Why do you watch the water?"
"I'm thinking of swimming."
"Swimming?"
"Yes. Of leaping and swimming."
"From...where we were standing?"
"Yes," Fuu replied, turning back to the stranger.
"Why?"
"Do you see this?" Her hands on her stomach, again illuminating her growing womb. "God's cursed me. To be reminded of my sins."
"I wasn't aware your people had an equivalent for sin," the good Father noted.
Fuu froze. "They don't."
"You're a Christian."
"No. I believe in my ancestors."
"And sin."
"I-"
"It's okay," he interrupted quickly. "It's okay to believe in both." He stood and grasped her hands, drawing her face to his own as he spoke rapidly. "As long as you believe, it doesn't matter what you believe. God cares not for the words you use to worship him, just that you worship." He gently used the tip of one finger to poke her stomach. "He makes no mistakes, nor does he condemn you for mistakes. You must seek forgiveness for your sin, not with Him, but with yourself."
She smiled, drunk out of her mind and probably not going to remember any of this. "What if it wasn't my sin?"
"Then, you must contemplate forgiveness...for others." He slid the rosary, his own personal one, and his book of Faith into her hands. "You're damaging yourself, physically, mentally, and spiritually. It's time to stop playing, Fuu."
Faith binds them together. Binds everyone together. It can give you epiphanies and pain. While she may not remember the words he spoke, or the concern he had for her, in the morning, she'd wake with a hangover in a field of flowers and realize that she didn't want to hate anymore. It wasn't an end-all, but it was a step. The first of many.
A/N: I totally made up a word in this story...cookies for the person to figure out which one!
My goal with this story was not to write a complete new chapter or story for Fuu. This was to elaborate on the mentions I made in Unexpected Convergence. Now we know what it was that forced Fuu to forgive the one-eyed pirate for being a rapist and the father of her child.
I chose not to truly focus on Fuu when I wrote this for two reasons. First, to show just how distant she allowed herself to become during the few months after Mugen and Jin left her. Fuu, so vibrant and alive in the series, had allowed herself to become a shell of who she once was. Second, because I'm weird and I let my mind do odd things.
If you don't really understand what I wrote above, then I suggest you seek out my story Unexpected Convergence. It will explain a lot.
Thank you to everyone who's been asking for this one-shot, and who read UC. I still love y'all.
Jin's one-shot to come soon.
NEW NOTE: Special thanks to Girl.Interpreted for reading, and loving, this story...and for being so kind as to inform me of several small errors. Yes, my friend, semi-colons are sexy. I adore them. I ADORE THEM. KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY BEAUTIFUL PRECIOUS SEMI-COLONS!!!
Moving on...