I hear you've been bossing the nurses around.
No?
OK. Sure, sure.
It was important that the drips and monitors be rearranged?
That the beds be moved so that the doctors have a hard time performing their check-ups?
You wanted them to hold hands?
I see.
OK.
Yes, they are stable. Yes, but I'm not sure – don't pout.
Come on. I have a story with music in it.
Water music.
XXX
As she approached her seventh birthday, Michiru was already studying with classmates ten years her senior. Her mother was not always impressed by some of the habits she had acquired from such company. She had developed a premature version of teenage sass. It was possibly an attempt to fit in with kids who were wary of her uncanny gifts. Her ability to adopt and adapt new skills in connection and projection made her a constant source of competition.
And she had that strange glowing symbol.
She would never really fit in.
She wasn't meant to.
Out of sympathy, her mother wasn't too harsh in her reactions to requests for sophisticated jewellery "like the other girls"; her hair done up in a clasp of bronze "like the other girls"; her use of facial crème and lip lotion "like the other girls." There was a line drawn with the request for different undergarments.
"You don't need them yet, darling."
"But I'm dying." Said her daughter. "You're killing me. Literally."
"Not literally."
"I'm dressed like a baby!"
"Oh, but you're my baby."
"Stop laughing!"
"Why don't we go to the baths?"
"Yeah, OK."
The daughters of Neptune enjoyed a particular private set of rock pools set deep in marble caves colloquially called The Chambers. It was a feat of nature and art. The rough surface of the cliff face gave way to an interior that stretched for close to a kilometre. Glow-worm-like creatures imitated a twinkling night sky. The first point of arrival was a concert arena. The rock there had been carved into a crescent of staged seating for a vast crowd. Phosphorescent vines twisted up the walls and framed the stage. From the arena there were pathways to several further, more private recreational spaces.
To say they were beautiful was an understatement.
Perhaps you've seen renaissance paintings of Olympus? Imagine those but, more serene. Perhaps one figure or two in an immense cavern lit by a ceiling chiselled to open to a starry sky. Think of gleaming tall pillars. Think of pools fed by natural falls, of turquoise water scattering light across the architecture. Think of vast walls carved with the histories of the great women. Young men had climbed and suffered near fatality in attempts to reach and take a sly look through the grates above. Men don't really change.
I entered once. It was a customary invitation to royal daughters who visited Neptune. There is something about that blue water. Something instantly and deeply soothing. Sounds echo and travel like calls from another world. The light is strange. It seemed to me a place set outside of time, or connected to all time. After a while your outlook alters. Like an enchantment. Those who spent long periods were rumoured to develop empathy for spirits; to sense the sadness of the ages.
They are gone now, of course. Crushed to rubble.
Water music was a form of recreation reserved for gifted practitioners. Within The Chambers, surrounded by an amphitheatre, was a series of tall pipes, in appearance similar to a large, ornate church organ. Before this instrument the musician would stand in water that typically came up to the knee. This Michiru did. She turned toward the audience consisting of her mother, closed her eyes, and raised her arms. She brought her palms together and bowed to acknowledge the spirit of the water, of the air, of those she could not sense yet. She slowed her breathing. In movements of both dancer and conductor, she commanded the water to travel in great arcs, funneling through the instrument. The notes were strong, deep, melancholic.
The sound vibrated over water and rock and into her mother's chest. She was forever swallowing down the fear that her daughter's sadness was born of knowledge received too early. Had there been a moment that could have been guarded against? Had there been a time when life had felt truly light? Happy? Perhaps mothers don't really change either.
Michiru would never know that her music reverberated beyond the chambers and into the lives of her people. That the classmates whose approval she sought would pause in their afternoons, would feel a connection to a wordless sorrow, would inexplicably feel less alone.
Her mother had composed herself by the time the practice was over.
Michiru bowed. Opened her eyes.
"It's like a huge mirror." Michiru spoke. "But the reflections aren't still."
"Like a divining surface?"
"Like I could disappear."
Her mother shook her head and approached to wrap a robe around the earnest musician.
"I need you to stay here, OK?" Her mother hugged the cold little body. "I need you."
"OK." She said. "I can be here now."
XXX
By age seven Haruka had witnessed the death of 3 men, 1 woman, 2 animals. This was the soldier's way. To observe and move on. Death is part of life. Death gives a final relief. It was the first death, however, the angry man, who would never leave her mind. The latter of the two animals had been her father's horse. He had become slow.
"Can't we just let him free, Sir?"
"A soldier does not question his superiors."
"A soldier does not close his eyes to… to…"
"This is important."
"I don't want to cut him."
"If you don't, an enemy will. Royal horses are well-known. Enemies aren't kind in death."
The horse released a blustery sound from its lips.
Haruka looked over to the creature. It wasn't as though they had a rapport. She approached and stroked its belligerent nose.
"Is it a boy?" She asked her father.
"A girl."
"OK." She considered its dark eyes for recognition. "Hi, girl."
The horse calmed somewhat. Did she understand? The air felt still. Haruka's vision blurred.
"It's enough now." Rivulets of hot water ran down her face. She continued to run her small hand down the animal's snout. "We say good bye today."
She lead the horse away from their home and towards the yawning pit she had spent the previous day digging with blunt tools.
Perhaps it is enough to say that she used her father's sword. That it was quick. Messy. That the collapse was final. That she had filled the grave with her hands. That she slept beside it that night. That she had prayed the horse, who was a girl, who was faithful to her father, would enter a more care-free afterlife than she could imagine. She envisioned for it a horizon of green fields free of men, where water was abundant, not diverted to cool the manufacture of weapons of war. Where creatures are not weapons of war. Where people are not.
Where she was not.
Was that where happiness lived? Somewhere ignorant of battles?
Just like that man had said?
The King watched the return of his daughter, who he did not call his daughter, with something like empathy.
Her back ached. Her clothes were dirty with mud and blood. She was not ready to be lectured or corrected. She didn't meet his gaze. If she had, she might have seen something to ease her mind.
We can only speculate.
The King left for an extended spell after that event. He claimed the need to acquire a new steed. In her heart, Haruka hoped this next one would out-live her.
A soldier's path is walked alone.
For two earth months, she remained without her father. In the light hours she completed a physical training regime; running, weights and sparring with local boys. Metal swords were too expensive. They used rods or clubs. In the evenings, she read texts of philosophy. Rocky yawned round her ankles. She listed the words that confused her, awaiting her father's return.
Five month later, she greeted her father with:
"What will war achieve?"
"What? Don't' be ridiculous. What does the sun achieve? What do the stars? The Sky?
"Stability. Navigation. Hope."
She was hit across the face.
"War is not an option. It is the reality. Who are you reading?"
"Everyone."
"From where?"
"Everywhere."
"Neptune?"
"Of course."
"They are cowards."
"They want revolution,"
"It's a lofty goal."
"All goals are."
She was hit again. The familiar metallic taste entered her mouth.
"I'll fight." She said. "Not believe. But fight. Until I'm nothing."
"Who do you fight for?" Her father asked.
The fire flickered in the hearth. Her dog yawned in front of it, oblivious.
"I don't know. Just… everything. So everything can keep being."
"What about you? Yourself?"
"I'm tired of being, sir."
"You are a child!"
"Yes."
"You're too young to…"
"When is enough, sir?"
The King raised his hand. Stopped. He turned away and watched the dog for a moment.
"Your sparring sessions are going well."
"Fine, sir."
"Then the challenge is too light. Tomorrow you go in unarmed."
She sighed. "I will need recovery days."
"You may have one. Any more and you take them outside of this house."
"But my bones – "
"If you are careless enough to damage your bones you will recover elsewhere."
"Yes, sir."
Perhaps it is enough to say that it went as well as could be expected, that the assigned sparring partners were armed, that they were told not to hold back. Perhaps it is enough to say that some of the boys were left in tears. That she wasn't.
That she had forgotten them.
She had no mood to face her father afterwards. It was clear that it would take more than a day's recovery. She knew her body and its signs. She called to her dog and limped towards a setting sun. There was a safe place only an hour or two away. Shelter. Water.
The girl and the dog curled together in a recess in the rock face. The girl slept better than the dog, who was inclined to stretch and kick.
She awoke late. She wasn't sure whether the vision was part of the real world or a creation of her mind.
There was a girl in the water!
Or rather, a girl made of water. Her feet, her body took on the silhouette of a girl, but her form was filled by the rippling water from the lake before the cave's opening.
"Are you real?"
The real or fake apparition giggled. Maybe it didn't matter. "I think so." She said.
"Like an angel?"
"I'm a girl."
"I'm a soldier."
"Soldier? I can't see you. Step into the water?"
Haruka was hesitant. Surely this could be a cruel trick. Her ankles might be pulled to drown in the shallows. She wasn't strong enough to resist such a thing. Her mind might be playing a strange game. It could be an enchantment. She found herself stepping forward nonetheless.
"I'm here." She said.
"Oh." Said the girl. There was a quiver in the water. "Oh, your sadness, soldier?"
"Yes?"
"Don't leave."
"I'm here."
"I feel you wanting to leave."
Haruka waivered at that point. The girl tilted her head slightly. Not angry. Not disappointed. Haruka's throat tightened and released a sob. How could a strange water creature know that she…? How she…? She fell to her knees, splashing recklessly. She hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. She tried to breathe like normal.
"Girl?" She asked, "how do I call you?"
"Friend." Came the answer. "I am your friend, sad soldier. Please stay?"
"I hurt." She shook her head. "All of me. The outside and the inside, I'm a curse. I curse everyone. I'm supposed to undo my curse but I – I just don't think – "
"Your heart is pure and pure and pure. Like crystal." Said the girl.
"I'm so, so, messed and dirty and broken and – "
"I want you to stay." Said the girl. "I feel your… something. I have felt you before, maybe?"
"Huh?"
"You are a familiar feeling."
"You see me?"
"Sort of. I'm still learning. I feel you in the water. We are connected."
"Really? Are you from here?"
"I? No. I am from Neptune."
"No. No I can't be with… it's not allowed. No!"
Haruka pushed back from the edge of the lake and scrambled backwards. The watery figure of the girl remained, looking around as though lost.
"Soldier? Are you there? Please live."
Haruka held her injured knee to her chest. "I'm here." She said. "I shouldn't talk to you."
"I hear your words and not your feeling."
"I don't want to feel anymore."
"I know." Said the water girl. "It's a curse of living."
"For everyone?"
"Every, every, everyone. They don't say it in words."
"Really?"
The water girl nodded confidently.
"Girl? Do you have sadness?"
"Oh, yes." Said the girl. "I have my own and I remember everyone else's. I swim in sadnesses. All different and the same."
"Really?"
"Hmm. The deepest sadness being alone. But you aren't."
"I have Rock." She answered.
"And me." Said the girl. "I think. I don't know where from? You are a familiar feeling. You are like a happy memory that I can't touch. Please stay, soldier? I think I feel less without you."