Italics indicate thinking
NO POV
"No, no, no this can't be happening." Mitama was sitting at the table, brush shaking in her hand.
"What seems to be the problem?" Azuma asked.
"My brain is…blank!" she dropped her brush and grabbed her head "No, I finally have free time to write and there's nothing!"
"I'm sure something will come to you." Setsuna said "Stressing out probably won't help, maybe if you go out you'll get a spark…or if you're me you'll get struck by lightning."
"It's sunny out." Azuma said "And I don't recall you ever being struck by lightning."
"Oh, maybe I walked into an ambush from mages then." Setsuna hummed "I can't remember."
"That's it, I must find my spark." Mitama gathered her materials "Mother, Father I'm going into town, inspiration will surely strike me there!"
Mitama left her parents' home and went into town.
"Hmm…" She stood in the square and looked at the rubble statue "I heard Corrin destroyed this in a transformed dragon rage, it's positively…sublime, months have passed yet nothing has been done to fix this I suppose funds are better put elsewhere."
Mitama looked at the collapsed fountain and despite finding the art in its destroyed remains but her mind was blank.
"Perhaps…" she walked passed the ruined plaza towards Castle Shirasagi "The royal gardens."
She walked up the long staircase and passed through the guard gate to the garden, they have a garden with Hoshidan plants, trees and even rock piles that apparently are some sort of art.
"I…get nothing." She frowned tapping her brush on her chin "This is most depressing."
"Hey Mitama, what'cha doing?"
"Lady Hinoka." Mitama bowed "Good Morning."
"Good morning to you too." Hinoka smiled "So what's so depressing?"
"I find myself lacking…inspiration." Mitama said "I can't seem to write a single syllable of a haiku. I thought perhaps some art would spark my mind but…nothing. At this point I'd pray to the gods for a bolt of lightning to pierce me and give me clarity."
"Oh like Setsuna." Hinoka nodded.
"Wait that really happened?" Mitama asked.
"A lot of bizarre things tend to happen to Setsuna." Hinoka smiled "Falling in traps, chased by dogs, struck by lightning, falling off a cliff…it's a good thing you didn't seem to inherit that part of her."
"I say prayers of thanks for that every night." Mitama sighed.
"If you're looking for inspiration…come with me." Hinoka said "I'll show you something that might spark ya."
Hinoka led Mitama into the castle and too her bedroom.
"Ignore all the junk." Hinoka said "I keep trying to get Keaton to clean up his mess, he's worse than Velouria. The two of them are more alike than I care to admit."
"I'm aware, my liege tends to be a bit of a packrat." Mitama smiled.
"A bit?" Hinoka laughed "Thank you for looking after her, Velouria is lucky to have you."
"It is merely my assigned role as retainer of the royal family like my parents before me." Mitama said "Though serving milady does bring me a strange sense of calm."
"AH! Here it is." Hinoka opened a book "Come here."
Mitama looked up and saw that folded into Hinoka's book was a slip.
"It's a haiku." Mitama said.
"You don't recognize it?" Hinoka said
"My Aunt Hinoka
Soaring Across the Vast Sky
She is an angel"
"This is…I wrote this." Mitama said covering her mouth "It was…one of my first haiku."
"It's pretty good for a six-year-old." Hinoka laughed "This
"I am a prodigy." Said smugly.
"This poem…is very important to me." Hinoka looked down at the paper "Thinking about this, helped me a lot, there were times in the war when I wanted to give up, when I thought we couldn't possibly win…but then I remembered this and why I was fighting."
Mitama looked at her.
"I wanted to make a world that was safe, not just for Velouria but you too." Hinoka said quietly "You're very important to me Mitama."
Mitama covered her mouth and swallowed loudly to stifle her urge to tear up.
Mitama's eyes suddenly went wide as if stuck by lightning her whole body filled with sparks of energy and pep "I've got it!"
Mitama suddenly hugged Hinoka.
"Thank you so much Aunt Hinoka!" she ran out "I must find my brush at once!"
"Hmm." Hinoka closed her book and smiled softly "Aunt…she hasn't called me that in a long time."
AN
Thank you for reading. Feedback is appreciated. Feel free to message me any questions or concerns.
Suggest ideas for the future.
I feel Mitama's struggle, there are times as a writer where I so desperately want inspiration it's painful, but then when it hits I can't put my keyboard (or in her case her brush) down, and I just want to keep writing. As you can probably tell right now I've got a big Fire Emblem inspiration kick that just hit me last week while playing Warriors.
On another note I had a lot of fun playing around with the Hinoka and Mitama dynamic, especially here where Mitama is Azuma and Setsuna's daughter. I imagine they have a very close relationship even though they aren't blood related. So often in my Fire Emblem stories my focus is on bloodlines and family history so here I wanted to play around a bit with the idea that family isn't always about blood relation, that someone can be like family, or just as important as family regardless.
Till Next Time!
