A/N
Most awesome thing ever: I was already planning on writing a snow-scene—but it started snowing while I was writing it‼ I so happy *dreamy-eyed*...
I sincerely recommend listening to 月舞 (Dance to the Moon) by 于紅梅 和 趙聰 (Yu Hong-Mei and Zhao Tsong) while reading this, so long as you're willing to listen to an erhu-pipa duet
In case you need a refresh: 山灰天 – Yama Kaiden – "Mountain" and "Ashen Heavens"
Requiem for Ether
A paradise in the clouds—Hell in the Heavens
Shifts were assigned the next day, shortly following the funeral. Life went on. Work continued.
A heavy snow threatened. Yesterday, Shinryuu had released a torrential downpour upon the land; the last of the season, they knew. As the villagers worked their shifts in the fields this day, they distinctly felt the icy wind whipping at their cheeks, the freezing water through which they trudged. That morn, frost had settled overtop slate rooftops, crumbling streets, niwa. It was truly a magical sight, sparkling crystals in the early morn light, distorted by cloud cover. Made it seem like the land was encrusted with diamonds. And created a magical backdrop for the funeral: the frozen tears of those passed.
Never before had Yama Kaiden worked so enduringly. Daughter of the shichou, she had been a child of privilege, so far as privilege went in this living Hell. She was spared the labor of slaving away in the rice fields. This late summer, however, even she was found physically tolling herself in the harvest. It was odd. Fingers accustomed to swirling ink on pristine white parchment found themselves blistering on rough, wooden tools, prunes from their time in the freezing waters. Kaiden had found herself borrowing a yukata hewn of scratchy, low-quality silk from a friend. Everything was so foreign, but she didn't complain. Her people toiled away their days as such just this way, and so could she; Boushitsutengoku needed all its helping hands to pitch in, and she was in perfect condition to do so, although most definitely unused to such exertions.
So soon as her shift had ended, the teen collapsed into a deep slumber in her room, not even bothering to close the open window.
When such danger lurked without, why would someone so precise do something so reckless? Even exhausted, this act was entirely out of Kaiden's character.
Unless she had realized that there was no point.
No point to what?
Only she and the Hunter knew.
Kaiden was but seventeen, yet she held wizened eyes far beyond her years; they were dark and heavy with grief, with life, with unwanted knowledge. The phrase "You can't unsee the truth" came to mind, especially when gazing into those endlessly black orbs. They held that distinct haunted look, ever sleeplessly exhausted, heavy with unspoken emotion and intelligence. She was a cunning girl, schooled in all available, armed with a quick wit which easily knocked any cocky scholar off his pedestal. Nimble fingers stroked out a most lustrous calligraphy, embroidered meticulous omamori, played out deigning melodies on sanxian and koto; some said she had been blessed by Benten. Her pale countenance was porcelain smooth, armed with onyx, almond eyes of a stark contrast which brought direct attention to themselves. She was a shy girl, however, and tended to direct those enrapturing orbs to her hands, rather than rudely distracting whomever she spoke with.
No one knew much about her besides these simple observations. She was far too clever to drop the reservation and reveal all her cards.
Every single action, no matter how stressed, was procured with great consideration. Her decision to assign shifts to the rice harvest, for instance, was backed by several hours of math that late eve to see which solution might procure the best results. And when pondering solutions, she'd thought up not just one, but several, going over the pros and cons of each. Then there was the mass funeral. Normally, each family would hold its own ceremony. That wasn't possible with nearly three hundred, so she'd conjured the solution of sectioning Boushitsutengoku off, and assigning each section with the burial of the dead who'd once lived there. This way, two hundred fifty or so corpses were buried simultaneously, within a set timeframe which allowed for the harvest to continue that very day, and still followed the ancient customs and respected those who had fallen.
For a girl of seventeen, this was quite a feat, especially to accomplish within a two-day period.
Night descended. Kaiden did not wake.
...
As was customary for a Boushitsutengoku night, it was of an endless darkness, star- and moon-light gobbled up by the eternal cloud cover. The village sat deathly still and silent. Tense. Foreboding. As though it were holding its breath.
Son-Gyoukumo had dealt retribution for their betrayal four times, already. Would he prey upon them once more, this night? The Nobility was never lax in terms of cruelty. The people could practically taste the horrors to come. Oh! how they could already feel his blooded breath on their throats, his canines piercing supple flesh—
Night is still. Night is dark.
Here, in Boushitsutengoku, night was endless and penetrating. None could escape its clammy grasp, whispering clouds swirling overhead with a churn of demons. One could see their hands not. Only blackness. A numb cocoon of isolation, like nothing existed besides oneself. Screams were hollowed, echoed, and then absorbed.
And no matter what, this high-top Hell was inescapable.
This was what made it unbearable. The knowledge of a damned escape stood to be a lunacy-inducing prison.
Escape—escape. There was no escape! No way out, no way in. All alone, forever and for eternity. Lost and trapped all in one, 'til the end of Time itself.
Son-Gyoukumo embraced this torturous darkness. He wielded it as his own personal death-scythe, looming overhead with a booming thunder-laugh, flashing lightning-fangs. His cloak was night, his eyes death, his heart ash, his soul black hole. He was a monster in every sense of the word; a Noble through and through.
So he appeared to the residents of Boushitsutengoku. So he hounded into their brains with his every sadistic act.
This dark night was filled with dragon's breath: misting swirls of frozen depths. It spiny back arched overhead, a scaled wall which harbored naught but evil. On the high spines were caps of white, a cluster of diamond and quartz treasuries, sparkling as the mists drifted by, shattering rays of silver light before they were absorbed within the valley depths. The fog crept overtop rice fields and through streets; it wrapped an icy blanket over the slate roofed houses, pressing against wood and shoji in a silent rap. A dew settled. Looked like little eyes spying on the people, or perhaps eggs awaiting the moment to spawn and reap their devilry upon the land. Perhaps it was. There was no telling.
These mists drifted betwixt the Japanese maples, distorting the feng shui into something corrupt as dark energy was circulated through pure veins. It crept across the ike like a predator, whilst a thin layer of ice crystallized atop the sansui. Dewy eyes appeared within ishidoro, as though Shinryuu were slaying goodness's salient light. Inside the gazebo, incense was snuffed, enlightening aroma distilled to evil.
It was eerie how easily the creatures of darkness might creep through the vapor undetected, especially amongst the koke.
From the misty depths appeared a figure of darkness. His face was regal and pale and smooth and ever so intoxicating. That gorgeous countenance was framed with silky, onyx locks which tossed themselves overtop his forehead in a careless, alluring manner, just begging to be threaded through with eager fingers. His skin was paler than the moon, almost blue, and unblemished. And his eyes! oh, his eyes. They were a deep green, practically black, which caught the shattered light like emeralds, brandishing a color scheme all their own amongst the grayscale. They sparkled with mirth, with bloodlust, with loneliness, with madness, with denial, with regality. His visage was tall and narrow, almond eyes the focal point with a patrician nose between, and his mouth was flat, disguising the vicious fangs which dwelled beneath those seductively red lips.
Son-Gyoukumo had appeared. Although for what purpose was unknown, it couldn't be anything good.
He crept in total silence overtop the koke, cloak swishing betwixt bushes and trees, countenance blank. His body was hidden beneath the ankle-length cloak, and this seemed to embody his own ethereal mystery. Was this not the Noble who had walked through a downpour seemingly unaffected? The Noble who held the audacity to leave the sanctuary of his castle during a brief interlude of darkness with the risk of being set aflame the moment it ended? Certainly, Son-Gyoukumo was no ordinary member of the Nobility.
Moved like one, though. His steps were empty of noise, movements so smooth, he seemed to float over the koke. There was nothing ungraceful about him. This effortless dexterity screamed Nobility. As did the pale countenance and bloodlust-eyes.
The Noble came to a halt beneath a two-needled pine; the needles sparkled with dew, refracting their silvered light off his brooding eyes.
For hours, he stood there, staring through the open window of the shichou compound, the mists embracing his still, dark form in a mercury caress. When the moon had reached its zenith, although no human could discern as such, he melted into the murky depths and faded off into the Boushitsutengoku night.
...
"You and your oaths," a mysterious, scratchy voice ranted. "I'll never understand why you feel so obligated to comply with the wishes of the dead! They're dead‼"
It was unknown from whence the voice came. The Hunter was alone beneath the compound, poring over a scroll lined in letters of foreign tongue, and it most certainly wasn't his deep monotone. The voice seemed to originate from the scroll clutched between his pale digits.
"I mean, seriously, D—what good's it gonna do you here? These backwoods idiots won't pay you a thing. Y'keep up with these handouts and you'll be broke, soon enough. And then where will you be? Where will I be‽"
This berating stigma elicited no response from the ever stoic Hunter.
"Why're you still here, anyways? Weren't you supposed to be kicked out yesterday?"
That was true. Yama Kaiden had told the Hunter he could stay for the night, after the werewolf slaughter, of course, and stay he had. But that had been the night previous this. Why was he still here? Especially since he would receive no payment were he to slay Gyoukumo Kousui. There was no incentive, yet he remained, nonetheless. Why?
The voice seemed to know why. It was simply unsatisfied with the reasoning.
What was this about oaths to the dead?
"You should just turn around, and—" Without warning, the rant was cut off. It appeared the Hunter had found something interesting in the scroll. "Oh-ho... Now I see..."
...
As the moon reached its zenith, the weather shifted, and Son-Gyoukumo melted into the darkness of night just as the first flake fluttered into the niwa. The lonesome little ice crystal floated gently on the breeze, swishing and swirling in a white flourish between the Japanese maples and two-needled pines; it swooped on by the azaleas and satsuki; before finally settling atop the icy casing at the edge of the ike, right alongside the dejima. The snowflake was pristine white, and of an ostentatious pattern sporting six speared tips, the staffs of which were adorned by leaf-shaped ornaments; the limbs connected congenially at the center in a spiral of six which seemed to sparkle in the dim silver light. Alone, the flake glittered, a gem of white amongst the overwhelming green koke. It slowly faded away into the icy sansui, melting into the whiteness, like Son-Gyoukumo had the night.
The flake was not alone, however. It was soon followed by another gliding ice crystal. Then another. And another.
Soon enough, a screen of ash was upon the kokeniwa, brushing a white dust overtop the koke. The green blanket of velvet was soon dyed white, and it looked like a sea of powdered sugar.
One by one, snowflakes drifted down, increasing in intensity and volume with every passing second. They created an engulfing death shroud of diamond and quartz which formed a layered dusting overtop black slate and green koke alike. Along the edge of the ike, the ice invaded deeper into the sansui, overtaking placid waters with a reflective gleam. The flakes settled betwixt the pines' needles as dew transmuted into hunks of crystal; they danced and twirled in the breeze, swooping in fantastic whorls.
The silence of night wasn't pierced by the soft goose down billow, but deepened as the blanket absorbed sound like koke, only far beyond the niwa into the lands outside its tranquility.
Flurries swooped by in an intricate ballet. Snowflakes twirled into the bowels of ishidoro, settled atop the shells of kamejima, dangled precariously to the bare maple branches like diamond earrings alongside the icicles. Snowcaps formed atop the ariso, sparkling just like the dragon spines lost in snow and mist overhead.
Bobbing black pranced through the ashen blizzard. It was the onyx-haired head of Yama Hakugin, Kaiden's three year old daughter. The child was skipping along the snow-covered pathway leading into the gazebo. All 'round, the world was awash in grayscale black and white. Her own locks were blacker than midnight, visage a pale mirror to the frozen ike; she was garbed in a black homongi and snowy-birch-patterned fukura suzume, over which was a white haori. Were one to look closely, they would note how Hakugin's nose was oddly patrician, eyes of a faint emerald tint; her brows were long and narrow and sharply defined. She was the spitting image of her late Oneesama, Meina, only more refined, like a member of the aristocracy. Overall, the girl was absolutely adorable.
She flounced through the snow with a smile on her face, lips almost red from the cold.
Halfway through the wall of bamboo, Hakugin paused. She turned her pale face to the ether hidden above by swirling flakes, and her grin widened. "Thank you so much for this blessing of snow, Yuki-Onna-sama," she giggled. And then the girl continued on her way, kicking up a misted swirl of flakes on her way into the gazebo.
...
Kaiden awoke with a start. One minute, her breathing was slow and steady with sleep; the next—a sharp gasp, as though struggling, drowning. She jerked into a sitting position, body weakly supported on shaking hands, and spun her head about this way and that. Her black hair swished with the movement, strands slapping her cheeks.
The frenzied girl's eyes came to rest upon the open window and the white pixies fluttering through the darkness. Luckily, there had been nothing more than minor breezes, so no flakes had found their way onto the tatami; the shoji were dry, too. It was far below freezing, so portrayed by Kaiden's vapor-breath. Every exhalation came out in a great white plume reminiscent of the earlier dragon breath which had settled overtop the land. The snow had since taken its place, but without, visibility remained low. The air was stiff with cold, dry and smooth. Her throat was cracked from dehydration and low humidity, but Kaiden paid no attention to this. She remained completely focused on the window. Waiting.
After five motionless minutes, the tension in the girl's body relaxed, and she let out a relieved sigh, turning away from the snow. She gazed down at her blue fingers as they tightly clutched her Willow and Crane patterned sleeping mat, the silk unfelt betwixt her numb digits.
"Yuki-Onna has certainly outdone herself, hasn't she."
Kaiden's eyes grew wider than seemed possible as she stopped breathing altogether at the sound of that voice. It was deep and confident and suave and inhuman; it echoed eerily through the room, off the tatami and shoji and softly falling snow. Her shoulders were stiffer than boards as she jerkily turned to face the voice, the figure in black standing over in the corner, right by the door. Son-Gyoukumo. He had spoken in keigo, teasing her own manner of speaking, a fanged smile gracing those luscious, red lips.
"The snowfall is so heavy, I had no choice but to seek shelter. Although that certainly hasn't impeded Hakugin-chan." At this, he cocked his head to the side, smile widening. The expression could almost be passed off as pride.
Yama Kaiden's grip tightened on the mat, pulling the fine silk into distorting waves. Her wide black eyes didn't waver from Son-Gyoukumo's form as she pulled the blanket towards herself. Which was odd. With a Noble in her room, why was Kaiden concerned about the cold, all of a sudden?
Son-Gyoukumo took a booted step forward, his silent step unnerving. Responding, Kaiden scooted back, pulling the blanket further closer. Another step, another slide. Soon enough, Son-Gyoukumo towered above Kaiden as she crouched atop the tatami, silk blanket thrown childishly over her head; her tremors were clearly visible through the fabric.
"Now, now, enough of these games," he chastised as though to a child. His smile was bright, but it didn't reach those hard, emerald eyes. Actually, they almost seemed to be transmuting into rubies. And with that, the Noble ripped the blanket off Kaiden—
And a flash of silver spliced through the air. Blood arced from the slash in Gyoukumo's chest as Kaiden's katana glistened wetly in the snow-light.
A/N
白銀 - Hakugin – "Silver; Snow". The first kanji means "white", the second "silver"
Shinryuu—also known as Shén lóng, in Chinese—is an imperial dragon, armed with his five claws; he is the bringer of rain and master of storms, and, astoundingly enough, of equal importance as Tiānlóng, the celestial dragon (by the way, this definition is for Shén lóng, but—close enough!)
This chappy's certainly got something of a dragon theme... And as for that dragon theme! Go look back in history, and people have referred to mountain ranges as dragons. The Japanese Alps are pretty rugged and dragon-y, by my opinion lol
Benten is a Japanese goddess. She's the goddess of love, eloquence, fine arts, and wisdom. I'm pretty sure she's also got associations with water
Yuki-Onna is the Snow Queen or Goddess of Winter
Homongi are semiformal kimono mostly worn for tea gatherings or small parties (pretty high-class for a three year old, though); a fukura suzume is sparrow style obi; and haori are very formal jackets worn over a kimono
Okay, I realize the sanxian is a Chinese instrument, and I probably should've just called it a sanshin, but I'm biased and like its Chinese predecessor more, so live with it -_-
For some beautiful music played on the sanxian, here're some YouTube links:
YouTube. com / watch?v=VK_7HxUQSxM
YouTube. com / watch?v=doehGHQMSwY&feature=related
YouTube. com / watch?v=Bop-lXzdfPM&feature=related
Then there was also the koto, which is Japanese. Thirteen strings—ha! Here's some beautiful music for that, too ^^:
YouTube. com / watch?v=75uAD-XYs6U
YouTube. com / watch?v=Tczxw8bVMZM&feature=related
Son-Gyoukumo—I can't believe these are his first lines O.o—by the way, addresses himself as "Ore-sama", which could be translated as "The Great Me", 'cause it's an "I" with an ego. You'd have to be unworried about sounding rude or egotistical to use this, and Kousui certainly fits the book lol
Oh, and I forgot to mention this when I described the niwa: 7 (七) is the Japanese lucky number; meanwhile, 4 (四) is the Chinese number of death (not sure if it's the same in Japanese culture). Those will appear again!
And, in honor of Thanksgiving, I used the word "gobble": "star- and moon-light gobbled up by the eternal cloud cover." *smirk* 'Cause I'm just that dedicated to the holiday