2.

Under Lamplight

Between the two wars there was a time of peace. It stretched like a thin cloth, easily pierced, but it was not for ten years. In those ten years Yao Wang lived comfortably at home with Mei Hua, Im Yong Soo, and Li Xiao. Mei grew to a full woman of twenty one, Im to an indecipherable age, and Li to a child only barely reaching his tenth waking year on that planet. They lived in relative ease. The house they owned, endowed to Yao by his father before him, lived isolated from all others but supplied with a path to a nearby town by the river.

There, on that river in small homes in a small village lived the rest of his assorted family. They were those who grew too old to live with their guardian and wanted a place to remain free. The family was, bound by a dirt road, complete save for one.

A year before the smoke filled the sky, the family sat around the table, their legs tucked beneath, and their hands on the cool wood of the table, warm cups of tea in their grasps. Mei finished pouring her own cup and settled the pot down, gently putting a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyelashes fluttered down as she sipped.

To her left Li Xiao sat, small, and barely able to keep his eyes awake. They had spent the entire day at a festival. Mei even had trouble stopping herself from dozing on the table. On her right Im Young sipped thoughtfully. His hair, unruly and black as the earth, fell constantly in his eyes.

"Push your hair back," Yao remarked.

Im colored, his cheeks becoming bright red, and he obeyed with a small nod.

The walls of rice paper incased the glow of the candle, casting an orange light on them all and finding them otherwise in quiet darkness. Li settled his head on the table and Mei stood, grasping the small form in her arms, and walked to his room, placing her thing fingers on the sliding doors and pushing it open. The pattern of flowers compressed, and the folded out to show the simple beauty of blank space and delicate writing combined. Her silhouette faded as she retreated further into the house, setting the boy in his bed, pulling the sheets up around him and wishing him good night. He was fast asleep by then, his pale lips parted and his sallow skin gray in the moonlight. She stretched out her hand, slender as the winter's twig, but retracted it in hesitation. She returned to the table, collecting the cups.

Yao Wang stood on the opposite side of the room, watching her collect the cups in silence. Im had chosen to leave for sleep. He was in his room, separated from hers by a thin door. Yao's eyes, dark and foreboding, hardened with age and swimming with his past locked on to her every movement. He locked his hands under his sleeves, which poured down milk-white.

Mei finished collecting and washing the dishes, when Yao turned, his lengthy ink-black hair flowing with his movements. Mei followed him at a distance, feigning going to her room, and stopping at the window to peer out.

The moon, three-fourths, shone down. Stars speckled the sky, overruling the muted shades of lanterns. Yao walked in the darkness, his chin raised, and entered into a different section of the house, where he bowed deeply, on his knees, and his forehead nearly touching the ground.

Mei removed herself from before the window and lowered herself to the bed, stretching her legs before her and tracing shapes down her thin calves and thighs, and finally lying back to allow gentle waves of sleep to lap over her.

She knew what Yao was praying for. He wanted the safety of the one who was never home. He had gone to war, and she wanted him to return unharmed as well.

Yao rose from the circular area, snuffing the lamp, and returned to the house, limping occasionally.

Mei, still on the edge of sleep as it dragged her beneath its waves, death's twin-brother, she began to wonder about her guardian. She knew her story very well, but his was undetermined. He had found her orphaned and, wordlessly, took her in as though she was always with him. Then he was dirty and scarred.

One scar, she recalled, stretched from his right shoulder to his left hip. It was gnarled and thick, like a rope stretched under fabric. She had watched him from the corner of the room, still too young to comprehend what that scar signified, but she knew very well what it was. And then rising from where the door cut off her vision, she could see frail hands touch that scar and drag their fingers down its length. Yao shuddered, his shoulders contracting and his hair, hair that she loved and envied to her own earthy hue, fell to cover half of it. She enjoyed, when she was allowed at that young age, to tug her fingers through the silky threads and pull them back, holding the hair in her fingers until the dropped back and swung on his back, clothed, and hiding the hideous scar won from battle.

He said, once something about it. He was straightforward to the present, and sometimes the future, but he remained strictly vague about his past. "It was a choice." He said, once, and ordered her not to speak of it.

Mei shifted in her bed, looking back out the rectangular window and out into the night. Space above glimmered.

The following year continued in that lazy haze. Days flitted by and the months vanished before she knew. Then, hardly moments later; her legs burned as she ran. She held Li's hand in her own, the tiny palm fitted perfectly in her own. Her hair, tied with a green ribbon, did not bother her. Yao was in front, his sword clanging against his side and his sandals kicking up dirt.

"Where are we running?" Im asked, a hint of excitement tinged his voice.

"We are running to the lake."

"That's not very far from here. They may still find us."

"I am not planning on staying there very long. We have family there. We will travel together." Yao came to a sudden halt.

Mei stopped just short, breathing hard. They had been running for a long time, and the smoke continued to billow behind them, sniffing them out and hunting them.

Im huffed. "We can't stay there long."

Yao raised his arm and pointed to the smoke. "Look."

Im turned and gazed. The smoke was heading still towards them, but angled away.

"We can stay for some time." Yao said. "It will give us time to prepare."

"We're running away, then?"

Yao's face contorted and he shook his head gravely. "I will not risk my family's lives to go and fight. I can't fight anymore, and you know Kiku has been fighting for us. He has brought great honor to us, and if we are stubborn and refuse to save our kin then we will shatter that honor. Do you understand, Im Young Soo?"

Im nodded, apologizing.

"But you should know my plan. We will stay by the river until we are prepared, and then we leave." Yao said simply, and turned to start running again.

"Why must we run?" Mei asked. Her voice cracked as her cheeks burned.

"We must run because we must move as quickly as possible, Mei Hua."

"Yes," she nodded, and made sure Li was keeping up, before running on.

The smoke continued to follow behind them, the sky rising in a great orb, stretching infinitely as their world changed its shape and its meaning.

Back in their home a piece of parchment awaited their samurai.

There will be Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. However for some I could not find their human names so I used my own and, as for Malaysia, I used an OC I discovered on a wiki. I do not own her. Whoever created her does.

Here are the human names for your convenience.

Yao Wang - China

Mei Hua - Taiwan

Li Xiao - Hong Kong

Im Young Soo - South Korea

Maya Salena - Malaysia

Kiku Honda - Japan

Nirand - Thailand

Linh - Vietnam