Character(s): Botan.
Prompt: Fairy Tales Don't Always Have a Happy Ending, Do They ("Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie)
Summary: Sometimes, when she sleeps, she dreams.
Note: I'm so sorry it's late (again) but, well, Nanowrimo plus being sick does not a good combination make.
Dream a Little Dream
Sometimes, when she sleeps, she dreams.
She dreams of a time long ago, when she had black hair and wore a child's kimono. She is the precious daughter of the wise village chief and the skilled protégé of the village miko, an elderly woman with wrinkled hands.
In her dreams, she will soon put on the kimono of an adult woman and take up the duties of a miko. She will never know the touch of a man, never hold her own children, but it is a small price to pay for the safety of her village, and there are none within it whom she loves as a woman should love a man.
It is as she is tending to a sick child that the raiders come. She is paralyzed temporarily, but no longer than an instant passes before she recovers and her training takes over. She helps the child to her mentor's hut, joined by other children too young to help in the fighting. With the old miko, she chants protection charms and prepares healing salves.
The sounds of fighting grow louder and sharper, and the old woman's eye narrow with determination and purpose. She grabs her replacements hands and thrusts her power, her life force, into the young woman, hoping it is enough.
Newly energized, the black-haired woman-child strides out of the hut, grabbing a bow and making sure to not break the wards. She takes aim like the great miko of old and arrows of power appear in her hands. She kills the raiders, but they are many and she is one with limited power.
She pauses, and the arrow that takes shape in her hands is brighter than the others. With care, she pulls the bowstring back and with a sigh she releases.
Botan wakes, shivering, sitting up in her bed in Reikai, blankets tangled with sweat-soaked limbs, and clutches herself until dawn.