Splinters
This dream again.
It's not even a dream, more like a sudden vision. I have it at least once every month, that is for certain. Slow darkness would transport me far away, the prickles of color and sound blending into an indiscernible mush of mundanium - and then, another time not-so-long-ago, where I had fought against the false image of the other half of myself - you, loud where I was quiet, dark where my radiance could not go. I had called upon the bamboo in my hair to kill that traitorous fake who took your form; so ironic, it was, that the weapon that had killed you would serve to kill your form again, false or not. It was so clear, the anger that surged up in me - you would have been proud to see me, my face contorted in that way that I had never thought could be me, but more like you. I had never been quick to anger, though that was an entirely different case from offense. It was always different in my dreams - I would be watching from above, the bamboo I called upon spearing my form like it did you so many years ago, spiriting me back away to darkness in a haze of blood and red, crimson that poured from the depths of my soul, the red tears that your pendant cried as it was swept away from your belt that fateful night so many years ago.
Had it really been so long? Was I really so old to began to remember all of my life flashing before my eyes? Without you, I seemed to be trying to prove to myself that I was really alive by reliving these memories over and over in my dreams. What were you trying to tell me?
That I should have died on your stead?
I wonder what would have happened if that had been the case, if I had been the one caught by the trap. What would you have done in my absence? Living, existing, surviving in an endless plain of gray dullness in the years follow, doing everything routinely, hands moving on their own accord with minds of their own. I wonder if you would have ever gotten so angry at yourself that you would have destroyed yourself in your grief, as I almost did - but somehow I escaped my own destruction. Would you have been so lucky, or perhaps unlucky? What sick gift would despair have brought you in your darkest hours after my death?
Again I see your pendant, spinning a little as it hovered just above the ground, your feet pattering after it hastily, the trap springing upon you unawares. Many years ago, I went back there, and saw no pendant. Now only the harshest fake one hangs upon my neck, right in the alcove between my collarbones, looking a little too large in comparison to my large eyes and red hair. I am here tonight, on Yomi's request, his second-in-command now that my human mother is dead. I know that I look wonderful - but more than once my lord has asked me to take off my garish necklace, saying it does not match my outfit. Indeed it doesn't, but I will disobey - after all, I am the Youko Kurama, and the clothes I wear are my own business. This is one of the places no one will ever tell me what to do.
That night I had fought against that faint impression of you - in retrospect, I realized there were many signs that told me that he was fake - feeling as if I had literally had my heart torn out afterward, that fake pendant clutched so tightly in my hand that it brought the tears in my eyes. What part had I lost there, what part had I gained? In all my years as a human, I had begun to forget my heritage as the Youko Kurama, losing that demonic side of myself, raw and untamed. That day, I had glimpsed a part of myself that a human could truly never be, putting all of my strength into defeating that traitorous character who pretended to be you. And now, here I am, after all those years of preparing myself to return to the Makai, my original home, this world where I belonged even after tasting the happiness and carefree life of Ningenkai. That place was not home. Home was where I had shed my blood, my tears, my sweat - and reaped the fruit of my labors as a master thief. I was too cultured, I think, to go back to that now, though I know I still have the ability to - so I work for my former subordinate, Yomi.
I think I am satisfied. I am content with what I do. I could stay here in this job for the rest of my life. But I'm not happy. Truthfully, I don't know what makes me happy anymore.
A comment on my necklace. What was it used for, the questioner asks. I laugh, "Hypnotizing. The former owner loved to trick people with it." And then the questioner looks scared, excuses himself. He probably thought I killed the former owner for it, and that it is somehow some precious treasure. In fact, though, it is not made from anything but the coarsest materials - and that is probably why Yomi is currently questioning my taste in jewelry - and its only value is sentimental. The only thing that really matters now is that it hangs around no one's neck but mine. Would you believe how long I searched in Makai after you had died for any scrap of news for that necklace? I followed a half-dozen leads, making a lot of robberies along the way, but turned up nothing. Now, all I have is the pale impression of you lying upon the skin at my throat now. The guilt it holds chokes me, though I am smiling.
Perhaps I will take it off. I have another necklace I brought just in case; it is hidden in my sleeve, wrapped around the little dagger I bought along with me for decoration. But nostalgia keeps it there; my hands don't move to take it off. Sentimental, I think, in my old age (at least in ningen standards). I think I'm starting to die right now, seeing my life flash before me.
Am I dead already? Is this purgatory, to judge me?
I won't be so romantic as to say that you were my entire existence, the pillar that held up my sky. That's the stuff that ningens put in their Valentine's Day cards - and I'm sorry, when I met you I knew nothing of the world "Hallmark". You were there as a sort of crutch when I wasn't feeling well - partners in crime, I suppose, stealing from each other - but also there as a rival or occasionally something more. Distrust breeds more than fighting in Makai; when the ningens say "Opposites attract" and they mean it in a sexual way, they are very right when it comes to Makai.
A chilled cup of something comes to me. I start to wave it away, but then I think better of it and take it. Downing it in one gulp right in front of Yomi (even in Makai and especially in front of my lord who has serious taken too many trips to Ningenkai, even memorizing their manners after a while), I give him the look that tells him that I mean to get very drunk after this, starting now. As I walk to my rooms, I hear him give excuses for his gorgeous secretary who's not feeling very well right now. I could care less. Most of those politicians, fair or not, are hideous to look at, thank you very much. I would be getting a reprimand tomorrow, but right now I could care less.
It was my night - your night, as well. I lift a glass, toast it to you, hoping that somewhere, you will hear me drink to your element. Darkness surrounds me, the night wrapping me in its cold but not comfortless embrace - it reminds me of you so much, and I hold it even closer to myself.
And this is proud Yomi's secretary, the former thief Youko Kurama, hunched over a glass of spirits?
I clutch at the necklace, scrabbling to get it off, and it does, falling onto the pavement below with a clatter. One vine snakes down my hand and lifts it from the ground for me, and I smile bitterly. Yes, I've always been the one who was more famous, wasn't I? No use now with no one to share it with. I miss those days when I didn't know anything but the rudimentaries about feeling, emotion, sentiment. The human experience had simply changed me too much from the merciless thief I used to be. Still, I don't think you would disapprove; just laugh, and say I'd change over time. Makai, after all, does seem to reverse evolution instead of going forward. That's why I think Yomi is being a fool to bring all that human technology into Makai. It wouldn't treat the image of Makai - untamed Makai, where danger lurked everywhere, but excitement also, the continuous pulse of adrenaline the dance of death in this wild jungle of strange beings and stranger mysteries. That's why as the Youko Kurama, this was where I belonged - because I could control the rawness of this landscape into something that would work for me. I understood it, in some strange way - instincts? Inborn awareness? Who cared, as long as I paid those who worked under me?
A long time, I hadn't needed subordinates. But after your death, I needed people around me: noise, swearing, clattering, anything. Just constant jingle of gold through my hands wasn't enough. And the more wealth I gained, the more disenfranchised I was with it, Youko thief that I was. So, you had changed me more than my life in the human world had ever changed me. That brought a smile to me; still, Makai could throw surprises at me.
What was it about tonight that made me look up and see you silhouetted against the moon, double scythes ready, the pendant you never let me touch dangling from your belt? What bane was it that made me feel so clearly now that pain that refused to come to me almost two hundred years ago? A crash; the glass with the wine had fallen to the floor. After a moment I drop the bottle after it.
No life, no purpose. The taste of this sweet wine, this wine that I can taste now only because I hold such a high position in Yomi's favor, turns bitterly sour in my mouth. With the human world, I had forgotten the cruelty that I needed to keep all of my followers in line; in the same fell stroke, I had forgotten you.
And only now, occasionally, do I remember you. When I wear this bleeding pendant, I remember you. But only now.
One day, I hope to lock this pendant away - Yomi will be pleased, I think that this awful piece of jewelry has disappeared, never knowing the inferences that it holds for me - and I think after that I will be happy. You, after all, are the only thing that still lags behind me, the darkness upon the sunniest day - my once-and-ever shadow, that infuriating pendant that I can touch now only because you aren't here - and you will disappear from my memory forever.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
Yeah, I know. Pointless. TACTLESS, for god's sake. Oh yes, by the way, I hate those Hallmark poems. Corny, clichéd, what's the point of them? And I'm sorry if Kurama looks too. . .vulnerable in this fic. I know, I know. He's sharp usually, and he's smart and strong too - I suppose I've just been reading too many fics where he's uke, I guess.
Andrea Weiling.
This dream again.
It's not even a dream, more like a sudden vision. I have it at least once every month, that is for certain. Slow darkness would transport me far away, the prickles of color and sound blending into an indiscernible mush of mundanium - and then, another time not-so-long-ago, where I had fought against the false image of the other half of myself - you, loud where I was quiet, dark where my radiance could not go. I had called upon the bamboo in my hair to kill that traitorous fake who took your form; so ironic, it was, that the weapon that had killed you would serve to kill your form again, false or not. It was so clear, the anger that surged up in me - you would have been proud to see me, my face contorted in that way that I had never thought could be me, but more like you. I had never been quick to anger, though that was an entirely different case from offense. It was always different in my dreams - I would be watching from above, the bamboo I called upon spearing my form like it did you so many years ago, spiriting me back away to darkness in a haze of blood and red, crimson that poured from the depths of my soul, the red tears that your pendant cried as it was swept away from your belt that fateful night so many years ago.
Had it really been so long? Was I really so old to began to remember all of my life flashing before my eyes? Without you, I seemed to be trying to prove to myself that I was really alive by reliving these memories over and over in my dreams. What were you trying to tell me?
That I should have died on your stead?
I wonder what would have happened if that had been the case, if I had been the one caught by the trap. What would you have done in my absence? Living, existing, surviving in an endless plain of gray dullness in the years follow, doing everything routinely, hands moving on their own accord with minds of their own. I wonder if you would have ever gotten so angry at yourself that you would have destroyed yourself in your grief, as I almost did - but somehow I escaped my own destruction. Would you have been so lucky, or perhaps unlucky? What sick gift would despair have brought you in your darkest hours after my death?
Again I see your pendant, spinning a little as it hovered just above the ground, your feet pattering after it hastily, the trap springing upon you unawares. Many years ago, I went back there, and saw no pendant. Now only the harshest fake one hangs upon my neck, right in the alcove between my collarbones, looking a little too large in comparison to my large eyes and red hair. I am here tonight, on Yomi's request, his second-in-command now that my human mother is dead. I know that I look wonderful - but more than once my lord has asked me to take off my garish necklace, saying it does not match my outfit. Indeed it doesn't, but I will disobey - after all, I am the Youko Kurama, and the clothes I wear are my own business. This is one of the places no one will ever tell me what to do.
That night I had fought against that faint impression of you - in retrospect, I realized there were many signs that told me that he was fake - feeling as if I had literally had my heart torn out afterward, that fake pendant clutched so tightly in my hand that it brought the tears in my eyes. What part had I lost there, what part had I gained? In all my years as a human, I had begun to forget my heritage as the Youko Kurama, losing that demonic side of myself, raw and untamed. That day, I had glimpsed a part of myself that a human could truly never be, putting all of my strength into defeating that traitorous character who pretended to be you. And now, here I am, after all those years of preparing myself to return to the Makai, my original home, this world where I belonged even after tasting the happiness and carefree life of Ningenkai. That place was not home. Home was where I had shed my blood, my tears, my sweat - and reaped the fruit of my labors as a master thief. I was too cultured, I think, to go back to that now, though I know I still have the ability to - so I work for my former subordinate, Yomi.
I think I am satisfied. I am content with what I do. I could stay here in this job for the rest of my life. But I'm not happy. Truthfully, I don't know what makes me happy anymore.
A comment on my necklace. What was it used for, the questioner asks. I laugh, "Hypnotizing. The former owner loved to trick people with it." And then the questioner looks scared, excuses himself. He probably thought I killed the former owner for it, and that it is somehow some precious treasure. In fact, though, it is not made from anything but the coarsest materials - and that is probably why Yomi is currently questioning my taste in jewelry - and its only value is sentimental. The only thing that really matters now is that it hangs around no one's neck but mine. Would you believe how long I searched in Makai after you had died for any scrap of news for that necklace? I followed a half-dozen leads, making a lot of robberies along the way, but turned up nothing. Now, all I have is the pale impression of you lying upon the skin at my throat now. The guilt it holds chokes me, though I am smiling.
Perhaps I will take it off. I have another necklace I brought just in case; it is hidden in my sleeve, wrapped around the little dagger I bought along with me for decoration. But nostalgia keeps it there; my hands don't move to take it off. Sentimental, I think, in my old age (at least in ningen standards). I think I'm starting to die right now, seeing my life flash before me.
Am I dead already? Is this purgatory, to judge me?
I won't be so romantic as to say that you were my entire existence, the pillar that held up my sky. That's the stuff that ningens put in their Valentine's Day cards - and I'm sorry, when I met you I knew nothing of the world "Hallmark". You were there as a sort of crutch when I wasn't feeling well - partners in crime, I suppose, stealing from each other - but also there as a rival or occasionally something more. Distrust breeds more than fighting in Makai; when the ningens say "Opposites attract" and they mean it in a sexual way, they are very right when it comes to Makai.
A chilled cup of something comes to me. I start to wave it away, but then I think better of it and take it. Downing it in one gulp right in front of Yomi (even in Makai and especially in front of my lord who has serious taken too many trips to Ningenkai, even memorizing their manners after a while), I give him the look that tells him that I mean to get very drunk after this, starting now. As I walk to my rooms, I hear him give excuses for his gorgeous secretary who's not feeling very well right now. I could care less. Most of those politicians, fair or not, are hideous to look at, thank you very much. I would be getting a reprimand tomorrow, but right now I could care less.
It was my night - your night, as well. I lift a glass, toast it to you, hoping that somewhere, you will hear me drink to your element. Darkness surrounds me, the night wrapping me in its cold but not comfortless embrace - it reminds me of you so much, and I hold it even closer to myself.
And this is proud Yomi's secretary, the former thief Youko Kurama, hunched over a glass of spirits?
I clutch at the necklace, scrabbling to get it off, and it does, falling onto the pavement below with a clatter. One vine snakes down my hand and lifts it from the ground for me, and I smile bitterly. Yes, I've always been the one who was more famous, wasn't I? No use now with no one to share it with. I miss those days when I didn't know anything but the rudimentaries about feeling, emotion, sentiment. The human experience had simply changed me too much from the merciless thief I used to be. Still, I don't think you would disapprove; just laugh, and say I'd change over time. Makai, after all, does seem to reverse evolution instead of going forward. That's why I think Yomi is being a fool to bring all that human technology into Makai. It wouldn't treat the image of Makai - untamed Makai, where danger lurked everywhere, but excitement also, the continuous pulse of adrenaline the dance of death in this wild jungle of strange beings and stranger mysteries. That's why as the Youko Kurama, this was where I belonged - because I could control the rawness of this landscape into something that would work for me. I understood it, in some strange way - instincts? Inborn awareness? Who cared, as long as I paid those who worked under me?
A long time, I hadn't needed subordinates. But after your death, I needed people around me: noise, swearing, clattering, anything. Just constant jingle of gold through my hands wasn't enough. And the more wealth I gained, the more disenfranchised I was with it, Youko thief that I was. So, you had changed me more than my life in the human world had ever changed me. That brought a smile to me; still, Makai could throw surprises at me.
What was it about tonight that made me look up and see you silhouetted against the moon, double scythes ready, the pendant you never let me touch dangling from your belt? What bane was it that made me feel so clearly now that pain that refused to come to me almost two hundred years ago? A crash; the glass with the wine had fallen to the floor. After a moment I drop the bottle after it.
No life, no purpose. The taste of this sweet wine, this wine that I can taste now only because I hold such a high position in Yomi's favor, turns bitterly sour in my mouth. With the human world, I had forgotten the cruelty that I needed to keep all of my followers in line; in the same fell stroke, I had forgotten you.
And only now, occasionally, do I remember you. When I wear this bleeding pendant, I remember you. But only now.
One day, I hope to lock this pendant away - Yomi will be pleased, I think that this awful piece of jewelry has disappeared, never knowing the inferences that it holds for me - and I think after that I will be happy. You, after all, are the only thing that still lags behind me, the darkness upon the sunniest day - my once-and-ever shadow, that infuriating pendant that I can touch now only because you aren't here - and you will disappear from my memory forever.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
Yeah, I know. Pointless. TACTLESS, for god's sake. Oh yes, by the way, I hate those Hallmark poems. Corny, clichéd, what's the point of them? And I'm sorry if Kurama looks too. . .vulnerable in this fic. I know, I know. He's sharp usually, and he's smart and strong too - I suppose I've just been reading too many fics where he's uke, I guess.
Andrea Weiling.