xxiv.
An injured hand is far more limiting than Karin expected.
Stupid, Karin thinks again, scowling at her sorry self. Screaming would have been better. There's not much she can do here as it is, and she can't even do that since damaging her hand.
All because she lost her temper.
She wonders what her family would make of her now. What they would say.
Karin reads, mostly, to pass the time. There's not much effort in that, and it turns out that there are a few books in the library that contain scribbled notes in the margin. It alternates between making her smile or annoyed, though she only truly frowns when the words of the story are underlined.
Karin still has her legs, and Karin uses them when she feels restless. She never reaches the town, but she explores the woods, or retraces former footsteps, sometimes alone, sometimes with company. Always in time to eat.
Birdsong wakes her in the morning, and it soothes her in the afternoon. Spring creeps in slowly.
It gets easier to use her hand again. She tests the movement of her fingers again each day, and gradually the urge to grit her teeth to withstand the hurt lessens.
"I still can't believe you punched a tree," Kiyone tells her, glancing at Karin's knuckles, at the flesh that no longer is swollen and no longer needs to be wrapped. She sighs. "At least you didn't punch hard enough to break something."
Karin wants to say something callous like 'shut up', or 'when are you going to let this' or even something haughty like 'you should have seen the tree'. She'd mutter it under her breath, just loud enough so that Kiyone would hear it. But each time she tries, the words come out mumbled and the feeling of embarrassment silences her.
"Thanks for reminding me," Karin says, gruffly. Unable to meet Kiyone's eyes.
Kiyone exhales, and Karin can't tell if she's amused or annoyed. Both, probably.
"Do you still feel like punching trees?"
"No," Karin frowns, and her hand feels stiff as she glares at it. Her frown deepens. Her hand remains the same. "And even if I did, I wouldn't. This is so… being like this is inconvenient." Expelling air from her lungs, Karin looks Kiyone in the eye. "Stop treating me like a child."
"Then stop acting like one," Kiyone retorts, breezily.
"You're like a shadow," Hanatarou tells her, quietly, while Karin is sulking in the stables, reclining on the hay.
Her back faces him, and she rests on her side, using her uninjured hand to help prop her up.
First a child, now a shadow. Will the likenesses never end?
"All that black," Hanatarou continues, and Karin is tempted to ignore him.
He's gotten bolder talking to her and voicing his thoughts aloud. Mostly, he'll offer his opinions to the horses, aware that she sits in some empty stall, listening in. He always greets her, noticing her from the start, and only sometimes does she grunt a response. She usually does. Today she doesn't feel like it, courtesies be damned.
But still, Hanatarou talks. To Ganjuu, more than the rest. But he'll talk to the others and brush them just as patiently and carefully as if he values them all equally.
Karin likes to listen to him. He has a nice voice, not at all like a mouse when he's in his element, filled with excitement and joy, cheer and good will. He sounds guarded now, unsure of whether she'll respond.
She can't sleep here, no matter how easily he can. But listening to him talk, as pleasant as it is, makes her drowsy. Afterwards, either she moves to a place more comfortable to rest, or walks until she feels more awake.
"Believe it or not, that was the point," Karin says, cheek smushed to her shoulder.
"You… want to be a shadow?" Hanatarou asks, surprise and confusion shading his voice.
Karin shrugs one-sidedly. "Something like that."
"Okay," Hanatarou says, eventually. He probably nods, and shuffles to tending to the task at hand, the footfalls soft and steady.
There's an unspoken why suspended in the air, and Karin ignores it.
Black is a good colour, Karin thinks. A fine colour.
She doesn't know how else to mark the mourning of her family, the tragedy that only she survived. She couldn't let herself mourn for five years, and part of her feels that it's too late. At first, black was chosen as a reminder that her life is over, shrouded in smoke and fire, and she was the ash that remained. Wearing black means that she can mourn her family, grieve for them and weep, and promise that she would not forget them.
She doesn't have to explain why.
"Hey," Karin says, shoulders tensing, "Do you think it's possible that they're alive?"
"Who?" His voice is gentle once more. Bemused.
"No one. Never mind," Karin shakes her head and sits up, heaving a sigh. It would have been foolish to say it aloud. To hear someone else's thoughts.
In her heart, she knew.
It was a moment of weakness, there and gone, vanished in the blink of an eye, in the movement of turning around and staring at horses who knew only that they were to be brushed until their coats were glossy.
"I used to have an uncle named Ganjuu," Karin says, after a while. Hanatarou stops, mouth parted, but no words form, and Karin takes it as a cue to continue. "I don't remember him that well, but, I know he was stubborn."
"Like this Ganjuu?"
"A little."
Hanatarou, Karin learns, loves stories forged from memories. He's not fond of stories created to entertain, and he won't read history books, preferring conversations about it instead. But he likes tales that are true and is content with the breadcrumbs Karin gives to him from time to time.
And maybe—maybe Karin is evasive and vague, slow to reply as she dredges up her memories and chooses carefully what she shares. But when Hanatarou asks, and offers the brush as a gesture of good will, Karin accepts, and answers his questions about her life as a princess that was so long ago.