Discovered Letter

Soft wind on my skin, reminders of the past coming back. In front of me are wide plains of grain, the sun setting them alight in a kaleidoscope of colours. I suppose that there is nothing more to be said as the falling leaves crunch on the ground.

As memories of another night like this, where you traced your hands over my skin come back. I wonder about you. In spite of everything, I do wonder about you, we nearly killed each other, but maybe, maybe that was the only way we could reach out to each other.

By ancient tradition what happens at the Winter Court stays there. Whatever friendships are forged, enemies found, and love bound in honest pledge...it's ephemeral like a dream. Oh the feelings are still there, the beating of your heart as you think of them is still there. You just aren't allowed to act like it matters so much...al of these things are to be resolved one way or another. The bonds cut as we return to our homes, if we're lucky, if we're blessed, we get to see each other again to do it all over again.

Most of us aren't that lucky. Most of us get to go to true Winter Court, once or twice, and that will be the highlight of our lives. Which I suppose is why I'm like this, because I see you, in my mind's eye I see you just coming into the Winter Court. Your hair perfect, your clothes arranged for masterful effect, eyes already sweeping the room for all the careful cues that will let you win the court.

For a long time,

Truth was, that what we shared was never more than a simple affair, a dalliance to pass the time. You never lied to me, never pretended that it was anything other than that. I lied to myself because I wanted, needed more. Needed to believe I was wanted for something that was me alone. When that truth was reaffirmed, I broke inside, to hear that all my hopes, all my dreams everything I had pinned to you was all in my head, I couldn't handle it.

Even now, I'm surprised that I didn't end up being ordered to cleanse my shame, given what I did. I tried to hurt you as much as you hurt me, but you gave as good as you took, in the end, I was exiled, and now...

Now I think I understand why you pushed me away when you did. It was never that you didn't care about me. You did after a fashion, it was that you knew your place, and you knew no matter what I wanted, that there wasn't space for me there. Not, because you hated the idea of it, but because the court would end, and our paths had to, must diverge.

I used to ask myself, why Doji-no-kami invented the concept of a Courtly Affair. Why a kami would ever want to have anyone go through what we went through. To fall so hard only to break, what sense is there in that?

Maybe, maybe, she saw the love as worth the pain. That to live as people, we had to have a way to reach out beyond the bonds of friendship or family. Something that couldn't be granted with marriages arranged as they were...maybe...she just wanted all of us to have a chance to love, however brief it has to be.

I think the truth is though, that she wanted us to learn love is a choice we make-

The sun sets in full as the samurai looks up from his writing table. In front of him, his wife stands holding a single lantern.

"Who are you writing to?" She asks her husband.

The husband looks up from the letter, and shakes his head.

"Just someone I once knew."

"Oh..." She says softly.

Unspoken is that she knows who her husband writes to, who has captured his heart and soul for years, and that it is not her. That no matter how hard she tries, she's just a simple country Samurai like him, not someone that her husband could fall for. What is unknown to her, is the pain that echoes in her voice. That catches her husband's ear.

The samurai reads over the last of his letter. Quietly he stands up and folds the letter into a small origami crane.

"Husband what are you doing?" She asks.

"Making a choice" He says softly.

With that he waits for another wind to blow, and throws the crane into it, letting it go at long last. She looks at him confused, until he lowers the lantern and pulls her into an embrace. He has a lot to make up for her...but he will make the simple choice.