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Quicksilver's Quill Offers
~A Renaissance sidestory~
Lyrics translated by Tasuki no Miko; used with
permission.
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If I
could have a small wish granted
It would
be for the stars to light up your darkness.
People
are small, people are hollow.
Return
one day to the heavens.
Ito
Chiisaki Negai (The Smallest Wish)
I
doubt you would have heard of me, but my younger brother, although he was
only thirteen, was very famous. Quite aside from being the most
brilliant person I have ever known, he also had the honor of being
Chiriko, the seventh and final seishi of Suzaku, the Seishi of the Mind.
But he's dead now.
It's
quite a shock to learn that your only sibling has died. I'm told he
died valiantly, but that is cold comfort to my aged mother, who has
withdrawn to her rooms and taken to her sick bed. I doubt she will
ever rise from it- she never fully recovered from Dokun's birth, and with
his death, she seems to have collapsed in upon herself
entirely.
I
remember the day they brought the news from the capital, a day during last
autumn, when the final leaves of the summer clung stubbornly to the trees.
It rarely snows here, yet the leaves still fall, and the rainy
season comes, darkening the earth with its cold, moist breath. It
was on one of those days that a pair of horsemen came, searching for our
household. I greeted them formally, a feeling of forboding sitting
like a rock in my stomach.
With
an elaborate gesture, the first man slid off his horse and knelt before
me, profering a roll of rice-paper tied with a red ribbon, marked with the
seal of the Emperor. It was with shaking hands that I undid it, and
my mother leaned over my shoulder to read the elegant script. When
we were finished, I raised disbelieving eyes to the soldier. "This
can't be right- Dokun's only a child!" I protested.
"Gomen
nasai," he said, and the sorrow in his eyes was sincere. "But I have
seen the body of Seishi Chiriko myself. They held a state funeral
two days ago. The Emperor would have waited for your family
to attend, but we are preparing for war, and time is too scarce to
spare."
I
nodded numbly, my cloudy mind unable to comprehend the new reality I had
just entered. "Please, you must have had a long journey.
Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my house," I said.
The
soldier shook his head. "Iiee. We are needed- we must return
at once. Konan is at war, and can spare none of her
soldiers." He swung his leg over the saddle and kicked his horse
lightly, surprising the beast into a canter. Then they both
were gone, leaving us to deal with the aftermath of such devestating
news.
I
looked at my mother, and was surprised that she was shedding no tears.
"Kaasan?" I asked tentatively, decideding that by focusing on her,
I wouldn't have to deal with my own grief.
She
looked at me with the green eyes that were the hallmark of our family.
"I knew," she said. "I guess a mother knows these things,"
she said, heading back into the house. When she entered her room, I
didn't know that it would be the last time I would see her outside of it.
Dokun
was a late child, the kind they call "change of life", one that came to as
a surprise to us all. I was fourteen when he was born, and I
suppose it was a good thing we were so far apart in years. If we
had been closer, I most likely would have been overcome by envy, but as it
was, all I could feel was bemusement and a certain amount of pride in
him.
He
was precocious; a child prodegy. He spoke in simple sentences at
under a year, walked about the same time. By the time he was two
and a half, he was learning to read. His intelligence was
frightening, but no one hated Dokun for it. We had a hard
time understanding him, yes, but there was always a gentleness to him that
kept people from disliking him. He was kind and patient, and never
put on airs for all that he was entitled to.
Children
who are born late in life sometimes have problems mentally, but Dokun
showed no signs of it. If anything, he seemed to be stunted in his
physical growth- while a pretty child, he was always small for his age-
the last time I saw him, he appeared to be around eight, even though he
had just celebrated his thirteenth birthday.
I
was the only one who knew he was Chiriko before he left for the Palace,
claiming the stars had called to him and warned him of danger to the
Miko. He was about ten, as I recall, and it was a late night in
spring when I discovered that my brother was a warrior chosen by our
God. It hadn't been that long since our father, a good man, had
died, so I had been rather more shocked then is excusable.
Dokun
loved to read; if given the chance, he would stay up way past a decent
hour, trying to cram as much information into his head. It
was our task to make sure he remembered to care for the more mundane
aspects of life.
That
night he had been in the library, and our mother and servants had already
gone to bed. I was about to retire myself, when I remembered
that no one has yet pried him out of his books and back into the real
world. With a sigh, I proceeded to the library, prepared to
meet the usual overly innocent eyes that would look injured when I took
his fingers off the books and escorted him to bed. We had
learned that he would sneak a volume or two back to his room if we didn't
monitor him carefully.
I
walked into the library slowly, careful not to startle my ototochan.
At ten, he looked like a six year old. He sat on a
cushion, engroassed in a book, trying to puzzle out the words by oil
light. Strangely, there seemed to be another light that shone from
somewhere within the room. Creeping forward, my eyes fastened on
the source with horrified wonder.
It
was coming from my brother.
More
particularly, it was coming from, of all places the top of his foot.
I walked closer until I could see the lines that were
glowing. To my shock, it wasn't some spilled paint, but rather a
symbol- the symbol of "stretching", the mark of Chiriko.
"Chiriko?"
I murmured softly, trying to reconcile this new knowledge with what I had
already known. He turned his sea green eyes on me and smiled
beautifically. The flames danced across his face, and for an
instant, he looked like an old man, but then the illusion was shattered.
I blinked my eyes, trying to reconcile the dichotomy.
"Chiriko?" I asked again.
He
nodded. "Hai, oniisan," he said, his normally piping voice gentled
by the night. "Boku wa Chiriko desu," he said, holding out his hand
for me to shake. I took it in my own, trembling slightly. It
was as though my brother was a complete stranger.
"How-
long have you known?" I asked, trying to collect my scattered
thoughts.
He
shrugged. "A day- a week- a year... perhaps forever," he said with
negligent wave of his hand.
I
doubted his carelessness. I was sure he knew the exact date- Dokun
was not given to forgetfulness, but he had learned that his abilities
sometimes frightened those older then he was.
It
was so hard for me to make sense of this. I had always known my
youngest brother was extraordinary, but to learn he was a seishi... to
learn he was a figure that had stepped from legend....
He
seemed to understand my confusion, for he reached out and kissed my cheek.
"I love you, oniisan," he said softly, and that was all that
mattered. He was my ototochan, no matter what else he may have
been.
He
was only a child. I never thought of Suzaku as a cruel God, but now
I wonder- my little brother hadn't even been old enough to get married,
and now he lies dead, fallen in some foreign land.
My
name is Ou Chang, and my brother is dead.
This is in the style of "Glimpses of a Fallen Star"
I
guess the entire style STILL hasn't worked its way out of my system
yet.
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