The Adventures of Mizukume-chan 5 - (Fateverse, Tamamo!SI)

Second Legend: The Most Glorious Saving of Lady Daini no Sanmi - 3 of 3

Lady Murasaki Shikibu was relieved when her daughter was returned to her, but she was most confused when it was the child that apologized to her.

In the writer's mind, she was at fault for having allowed her child to be stolen away from her, but the depths of the situation had completely eluded her. The truth was far more complex than she could have expected. She blamed the blame... or she should have blamed the pain.

Her heart ached quietly as she realized in that humbling hug she shared with her beloved daughter that... she had neglected her. Her little Katako, the one that she swore to never leave to her own devices, had experienced that. Shikibu felt, for the first time ever, a sense of failure of the self in regard to her maternal duties. And yet... Katako apologized and then forgave her.

"Everyone's at fault," The cheeky kitsune girl that had led the rescue operation had said. "Daughter was too young to see the true extent of pain that Mama faced, and Mama was too hurting to see how her self-loathing led to misunderstandings and mistakes."

A most blunt summary of what Shikibu could only label as the honest reality of things.

She was at fault but... so was her little Katako-chan. And while both were still keen to bash their own selves, the duo ultimately agreed to the next words.

"Instead of suffering alone, suffer together. Rejoice that you have each other to rely on," The other girl, the one that had a peculiar snake-like scent, said with a sense of kindness but also bitterness- envy. "You will survive this."

We will.

The kind heroes retreated with a bag of coins that Murasaki had safely prepared for the occasion. She heard the snake one lament it wasn't as much as she had expected, but the fox one was as smug as usual.

"It's alright. We got something greater out of this."

That confused Lady Murasaki. And while she thought that the two 'heroes' had done something to her daughter... well, her fears were soon vanquished as she personally delved out of her writing room to see how her little one was doing.

The monks had offered to check themselves, but the woman felt somewhat enticed to spend more time with her only child. And what she found, a few hours after the slayers' retreat, was... odd. It wasn't bad, or good- it was plain weird.

Katako was mostly busy as Lady Murasaki peeked from the door, her eyes quickly taking notice of the workly mood of her little one, the girl smiling to herself as she worked on something different from literature. She saw words being written, corrections being provided and... yet the little one seemed more invested in drawing.

Even odder was the fact that Katako wasn't using a brush to paint. No, she was using a strange gray stone that was staining her hand and, once in a while, would force the girl to wash her hands in a bowl of water, dry them up and resume the chore.

"O-Oh! Mama, I didn't see you."

Lady Murasaki almost jumped too as she forgot that she had stepped inside the room without announcing herself. A hint of shame hit her mind, chiding her that it was a bad habit for her child to pick to just steps into others' room without warning them first.

"I forgot to speak due to your... relentless work."

The hint of a compliment was caught by her child, and Katako beamed shyly.

"Y-Yes, I have been driven to see the first draft done just well."

"And what are you working at?"

"Something that Mizu-chan told me about. An idea I find most intriguing."

"Truly?" Lady Murasaki indulged with growing interest. "What about?"

"To unite eyes and mind in a single wonderful form of literature. She called it 'Manga', and it is a form of drawing through... vignettes. It's those rectangles which shows a scene each."

Lady Murasaki nodded, and the explanation she was provided painted a canvas that made sense and... reasonably so, opened a door she had never contemplated until now. One of the most frustrating limits to her writing was how difficult it was to balance the use of lengthy descriptions and the simplicity of letting readers draw their own conclusions.

The balance is never a quantifiable question, and she wasn't flawless in that regard despite the many years of self-training her hands and mind to draw the best outcome possible within her creativity. To 'hurl' this away and allow a visual sight to replace descriptions with scenery, with genuine appearances, with... 'truth' felt somewhat unusual.

And yet worthwhile exploring.

The tale that her daughter had written was bland and simplistic - it would never fly as a book if that was introduced as that. But no, this was not a book... it was the Manga's 'script'.

A conduct that the drawings have to respect. Creativity given conduit but also restraint to never go beyond its general boundaries. The tale itself was a mystified view of what occurred to Katako's little 'escape', but it was dignified in a more childish and 'moral' way: a little doll created by a lonely widow that sought a daughter once took an adventure to try and be made a real girl.

The story would follow various events that would see the doll growing more and more understanding of humans, abandoning the sorrowful quiet nature of a mere doll and experience the full extent of emotions - to attain a soul worthy of being considered real.

The concept was impressive, and the few drafts her daughter drawn through that unique piece of 'hard chalk' allowed her to create lines that could be crafted with greater precision compared to brushes. There was a greater attention to details that truly gave an immersive view of each scene.

Not only the characters, but also the locations. The shadows and the point of view felt unnaturally real, and Katako was praised for her keen eye on the matter.

In the end, Lady Murasaki spent a reasonable amount of hours trying to give advice where possible. She had three tales for Katako that the girl earnestly put a childish spin on. And while that would usually irk Lady Murasaki, she understood the point of this piece of work was not to be defined as something for high minds and adults.

It was meant to entertain - it was meant to be claimed with a light heart and mind. And thus, knowing that the experience would define her daughter's own take within the world of creativity, Lady Murasaki felt thankful for the curious duo of Yokai that had not only saved her little Katako, but given her a new purpose to entertain within what little was left of her childhood.

The woman was keen to wonder how the Snake and the Fox would shape the rest of this turbulent era with their shade of weirdness.


AN

Mizukume is indeed a based fox.

Also, using this chance to make an announcement: my book, We Merrily Lost, is now available on Amazon in English! It's quite cheap for a 440+ pages book, is written by yours truly, and it is the first of a Trilogy!