I am standing in a forest clearing. It is snowing listlessly. The sky is grey, and the trees surrounding me cast no shadows. A bitter wind runs through this place, lifting and tossing my hair across my face, momentarily blinding me. When I finally manage to disentangle it from my vision, a figure has appeared, motionless, before me. We stand silently together for a long time; I staring a little fearfully and noticing there are no footprints in the snow, and it with its face lowered and hidden behind the curtain of its dark hair. I want to reach out, brush that hair out of its face, see who hides beneath. I can't will my arm to move. A moment later, the apparition satisfies my curiosity with a tilt of its head that melts the obstruction fluidly. A woman's face appears to me, serene as though in sleep. She is beautiful, with a pale, angular face and a perfectly shaped mouth. She opens her eyes to regard me.
I feel like I'm being appraised, assessed. The pupils of the woman's dark eyes flicker up and down over my body shamelessly, but seem to look past my shell and into my spirit. I want to shift from foot to foot, I'm so uncomfortable with the whole thing, but find myself frozen. The women's thin lips curl into a small, somewhat sad smile. It's at this point that I notice she is wounded, her entire shoulder split and marred by dark blood that has soaked the white fabric of her kimono. I don't smell blood, however, only fresh snow and, strangely enough, plum blossoms. The shawl she wears hanging around her elbows doesn't stir even as a stiff, vicious wind gusts between us rudely and sets my hair awry again.
Who is this woman? Why is she here? Why is she bleeding? Why is she looking at me the way she is? What's the meaning, the story, behind that sad smile? I try to break her spell, try to beg her for answers, find my jaw locked shut. The woman seems to have heard me, however, for she has a look of consideration on her face as the questions come to me. She opens her mouth to speak, but before she has a chance, her small body is consumed by sudden flames. I can't look away. Her body, still standing before me, slowly burns away. Her ashes are carried away all at once by a strong upward breeze.
My eyes snap open and I sit up, hand on my breast and receiving the echoes of my rapid, heartbeat. The cold of the forest dissipates all at once and I find myself in my room. It is night. The blankets of my futon lay pooled, disorganized, on my lap. A dream. Of course a dream. What else would it be? I rise from the bed, noticing a shadow through the door. Upon opening it, I find Kenshin perched on the porch, staring up quietly at the moon. A few fallen tsubaki blossoms litter the ground at his feet, probably carried into the courtyard on the wind from a nearby flowering tree. I step out behind him and he looks up at me, smiling that weary smile of his. I almost ask him, "Are you having trouble sleeping, too?" but stop myself, not wanting to have to trouble him with juvenile stories of my dreams. Instead, I seat myself beside him in silence. His hand finds mine in the dark, and we share a sigh of contentment.