As she entered the village Togashi Aoki breathed a deep sigh of relief. The journey had been a hard one, the mountain passes almost inaccessible at this time of year, but his Shiragiku tattoo always revealed the truth to her. This truth was not always something that she wanted to know, but truth is so often better hidden.
It was while meditating that her Shiragiku tattoo had shown her the truth of her coming here, and because she had seen that truth she had come.
Her first impression of the village was that it was the same as so many of the dragon villages at the moment, quiet. The joyful noise of children at play, absent. In its place hung a silence that almost felt like a yoke hanging from the necks of all those around.
Weary eyes looked at her from rice paddies as she passed. It seemed like these maybe had it harder than those she had seen before. She wished she knew more about why she was here, but her tattoo never revealed a whole picture to her, just fragments that left her feeling more blinded than enlightened.
She moved towards the largest building in the centre of the village. The snow swept clear of the wooden walkway outside lying piled in a heap reminding her of a shrouded body, an ill omen.
She ascended the steps, took off her sandals and knelt outside the door. Within moments it slid open and Aoki was greeted by the gnarled face of an old man. He looked displeased to see her there and began trying to shoo her away with his uchiwa when an eerie basa basa sound came from behind the house. The old man looked alarmed, slamming the door shut and disappearing back inside the house. The gentle light that had emerged was suddenly dulled.
Basa basa.
There it was again. This was a sound from Aoki's past. Not this life but of one many lifetimes ago. She tried to bring the memory to the fore but all that would come was a nagging itch that she knew that sound.
If the old memory wouldn't present itself Aoki thought she had better make some new ones. She slid back into her sandals and began to head towards where the sound had come from.