Imprisoned
Drabbles – Hyuuga Family - 1-3 of 10
1. Caught - Hinata
The brambles clung viciously to her kimono, claws snagging and tearing the expensive masterpiece. She was not good at finding her way through the forest in the dark. Every bush seemed to knit in around her tender form, first merely curious, then greedy and grabbing. She tugged the briars and twigs gently from her clothing, determined to keep down rising hysteria, refusing to become victim to this maze of darkened trees.
It was her fault she was lost. She had been the one who had run away and hid, hiding her humiliation in the fading light of sunset.
Her fingers had crushed the warm dirt beneath them, exposing a harshness she only could show to the inanimate. She had known beforehand she would be bowed at her father's feet, forehead touching into the dirt, begging his forgiveness for her inevitable failure. She had known before she had started she would lose.
She had known that she might never make him proud. But because she couldn't have his pride, all she wanted from him was a simple acknowledgment that she had tried.
She i had tried. She had tried so very, i very /i hard.
But all he had done was frown. Frown deeply, his cold features a puzzle, pieces scattered haphazardly across the floor. She couldn't even find them all.
"Leave me."
She had quivered beneath the icy chill in his voice.
He had turned from her, lowering his head. Ashamed of her.
She didn't know how to make sense of the pieces. She didn't know how to put them together. Endlessly she had fought, knees straining to bear her broken body. Up she had risen, strong against her cousin's wrath, over and over, prepared to die. Naruto had seen her, acknowledged her, been aware of her presence. For once in her life, the dull pain in her chest had been suppressed, buried temporarily for a beautiful moment of self-acceptance.
But all he saw was the same failure. Trying was not good enough. Improving was not good enough. Nothing she did was good enough. She wanted to curl up into a protective ball, hiding from him, not doing anything, anything at all.
At least then she would no longer fall short.
She had stood up, bowed deeply to his unresponsive back. "I understand." But she hadn't. Not really.
She knew that he wanted a child he could be proud of. She knew he needed a heiress who would carry on the family name with confidence and strength.
She couldn't offer him any of this.
But he was her father too. She had hoped that the man that was her father would see something in her, something in her that would make him smile. But he always frowned. Why wouldn't he smile? She wanted him to smile.
The brambles were getting worse as she went along, clinging more. Her self-made path was fading. Where had she made a mistake? Where had she turned wrong in this maze of trees?
She could just see the stares at her ruined kimono. She wanted sleep in this labyrinth instead.
But morning was far away, so she kept going, forcing the sharp thorns out of the way, making herself move forward.
Even if the entire forest rose up against her, she couldn't stop moving forward.
2. Cracked - Hiashi
The stone basin was cracked down the middle, a ragged scar slicing through its innards. It still stood proud and tall, but it was lying to itself. Its heart had been cracked. Whenever rainwater danced into its bowl, it spilled out. Whenever a bird rested, its throat remained parched. No one could deny the garden spread around its base was pristine, spilling color, flaunting design. Putting on a bright face for important family guests.
But the garden was dependant on the basin for its center, and the basin was cracked down the middle.
Hiashi hated that clump of stone. When he had been a child, he had stretched his unblemished fingers into the crack, seeing how far he could stick them inside. He had stood on top of it at five years old, gazing triumphant over his taken territory, surveying the world as he had been taught to see it. He ruled over his domain. Everything had looked so perfect then. He hadn't thought about the crack. He hadn't even thought about his brother below, gazing upwards, eyes wide with quiet adoration.
He had never looked for and had never seen the jealously lurking behind that searching gaze. He hadn't been taught to see it, because it wasn't supposed to be there.
When things weren't supposed to be there, when they were mistakes, when they were flawed, they brought the family to shame. They brought i him /i to shame, because he was the one who was supposed to be perfect, the one to straighten everything out for everyone else. The one who knew what to do, even though the truth was that sometimes he was just as lost as they were. He couldn't show this fatal flaw, this weakness, even though deep embarrassment clung to him like a disease. Humiliation stiffened his body into rigidity. His daughter pained him whenever he saw her, whenever she managed to stutter something in his presence. His expectations for his first child, his beliefs in his abilities to run a successful family, had broken to pieces in front of him as she had grown older. Her limited chakra, her lack of leadership ability, her revolting shyness, her failed attempts to learn new skills, everything about her overwhelmed him. Sometimes he hated her, because she made him hate himself. She was his failure, his lack of perfection. But to make his inadequacy bearable, he hounded on her, concentrating on her failures so he would not have to think of his own.
Hating her, though, meant her failed not only as a leader, but as a father. A failure, unable to watch over the family properly. The children were different from before, the customs were changing. Rebellion fluttered dangerous in the hearts of the branch family. Neji swelled with rage. Tradition had to be served, he knew that. Tradition was what had kept the family prosperous for hundreds of years. These young people, they did not respect their elders, nor did they understand that orders were made be followed. Rules had to be obeyed. Why could they not see?
Youth was full of errors. At least, that's what he told himself.
Deep inside him he believed their deviance was the result of his faulty leadership. He wanted to kneel down in front of the clan, resting his head upon the floor in desperate apology. But he had to stand stiff, like he always did, hiding his flaws, trying to avoid humiliating himself. Trying to keep his clan upright and proud, even while it crumbled around him. Conflicting desires roared inside of him, driving him mad, breaking him down inside.
Cracking his heart into pieces. He knit a fake picture around him, hiding his shame behind a garden of lies. Hiding behind biting insults, ignoring Hinata's tears like they never flowed, ignoring Neji's violent, scowling face like he really was smiling behind it all.
He could not really face them, or the clan, and acknowledge that the family was broken and falling apart.
The basin needed to be replaced, but Hiashi didn't want to destroy it: it had been the foundation so long.
He hated that basin. But it had been there for hundreds years. You don't replace something that's been there for hundreds of years.
It stayed there, it stayed there, and it stayed there, looking dejected and miserable. A younger Hinata had tried to climb it once, but she had failed. Hiashi had watched from behind the bars of a window, face hidden in shadow.
Her foot had slipped into the crack, and she had tumbled back onto the grass.
He had turned away, pretending not to have seen.
3. Stigmata - Neji
"The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both." - Ecclesiastes 2:14
Heavy wounds were inflicted unto the Son, allowing him to be sacrificed for the eternal life of the chosen and the holy. He wore his imprinted cross with the grace of a man resigned, yet not a savior, for he did not want to them to be redeemed. He did not love them, and he did not teach them. He kept his genius to himself, imparting only to the foolish that their fate was inevitable. God had chosen their future, predestined their lives, and no matter what they did they were doomed to either heaven or to hell. Their gifts and their faults were imparted by God, and God decided what their attributes were going to be. Traits were God given, and therefore unalterable. He stood stiff when his God presented his desires to him, accepting his duty with a frown and a stunted nod.
He wasn't spiritually connected with the Father, but as he well knew, his subservience to this despised figurehead was already predefined. He had to obey…but he did not have to like it. His thoughts were his own when he went down by the river, not to pray, but to brood and reflect on his doomed existence. Anger and pain eroded his heart, leaving it black and empty. There was no room for anything else except grief and bitterness for his fate.
Walking on water quieted him, calmed his nerves. He stretched his hands out wide over the shimmering lake, bowing his head in sorrow. Sorrow, but selfish sorrow. He'd rather they'd all have died instead.
A sacrifice for the chosen of God's family, a Tainted Christ Child.
I really hope you enjoyed those! I'll be posting three more as 'chaper 2' and the last four as 'chapter 3.' Hope to see some of you bearing with me with these! I've never written drabbles before!
