~ Kurama Temple, Late Spring, 1169 ~
From below, the stairs up Mount Kurama appear endless. Embraced on each side by towering trees, they rise up the slope until they vanish into the forest. The branches above dapple each wide, stone step with sunlight and shadow, swaying with the cedar-scented breeze. It is a lovely, peaceful climb.
Unwilling to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings, the girl glares down sullenly at the steps she's climbing. Her escort, a monk whose name she has, through determined effort, avoided learning for the whole week-long journey from Fukuhara-kyō, precedes her up the steps. By this point, neither one of them can stand speaking to each other, so the only sounds are their feet on the warm stone, the rustling of the wind in the cedars, and the cawing of crows in the distance.
She does not want to be here.
She does not want to be anywhere that she knows of, and nowhere she knows of will have her. Anyone who cares for her is already dead or ruined. Father died before she ever knew him. Mother placed herself under the Chancellor's thumb to protect her. Her own clan can't afford to shelter her, and her father's surviving allies won't risk taking her in. She has been a liability all her life, and the knowledge burns in her.
These monks don't want her either. It's only at the request of her father's killer that they're taking her in.
She has never held any illusions about Imperial Chancellor Taira no Kiyomori, though she has been part of his household for more than half her life. The deaths of her father and half of her brothers lie squarely on his shoulders. She's been spared because her mother swallowed her loathing to become his concubine, and because fostering his dead foe's girl-child is a gracious way for him to demonstrate how secure his power is. He enjoys showing how little he fears the vengeance of the Genji. She and the brothers she's never met are no threat to the Taira.
Yet, she swears silently, for the thousandth time. No threat to them yet.
For now, though, she is here, and she does not like it. Whether or not she has any choice in the matter, she understands that a monastery is no place for her, not intellectually, but with the bone-deep repugnance of a vibrant eight-year-old child at the prospect of a life of ritual and restraint. She wants to live, not dry up into a fossil. How could anyone do that to themselves? It's all she can do not to break away and run, but there's nowhere to run to, forward or back.
Part of her wants to cry at the thought, but she's cried enough to shame her already on the way here, in between bouts of fury and homesickness and indignation. She's done with it. She takes that piece of her, crumples it up, wraps it around itself, and ties it in the tightest knot she can make. It strains, but she holds it tight until it stops fighting.
There. No more tears. Simple.
She lifts her head and distracts herself trying to guess how far it is to the top. Mount Kurama is not tall, as mountains go, but seen from the foothills, it's imposing. She wonders if the steps go all the way up to the peak. Probably not; she's heard the tengu live atop the highest of these wooded peaks, wild and magical spirits of the mountains. If the other monks here are anything like her escort, they'd want nothing to do with them. The thought of meeting one gives her a brief, bright flash of enthusiasm. All the stories she's heard of them were tinged with fear, but she can't remember ever being truly afraid of anything, and she thinks it would be very fine indeed to be like they are, wondrous and dangerous and free.
"Oh, back from Fukuhara at last, Dai-sōzu?" Both she and her escort look up at the voice. Sitting on the next landing is another monk, who rises to his feet and comes down to meet them. "Two whole seasons away from us! It's good to see you again after so long, Brother. And who's the little sparrow with you?"
The diminutive nickname irritates her, but there's a casual good humor in the new monk's lilting baritone that keeps even a touchy, restless eight-year-old from taking too much offense. He's broad-shouldered beneath his black robes, and would be tall even without the extra height from his single-toothed geta. A wide inverted bowl of a straw hat covers his head, tilted at a rakish angle so only one bright eye and bushy eyebrow can be seen above a long nose. His easy smile makes creases on his tanned face. With interest, she notes the long tachi scabbarded at his waist, its only ornament a feathered tassel hanging from the pommel. He must be a swordsman as well as a priest, then, which isn't uncommon but does raise him a notch or two in her estimation.
Her escort bows deeply enough that this must be a superior. "Kiichi Hōgen, it's a pleasure to greet you once more. This young lady is the daughter of the late Lord Minamoto-no-Yoshitomo. By the request of her family, and that of the honored Lord Chancellor Taira-no-Kiyomori, she will be joining us here for the foreseeable future." Her mood sours further at her foster-father's name.
"Well met, then!" The senior monk gives her a little bow, which she begrudgingly returns, and peers at her sidelong from one canny eye, chuckling in the back of his throat. "Not very happy to be here, are you, Sparrow?"
"No, Hōgen, I am not," she snaps back, not trying to hide her sullenness. His one visible eye widens in amused surprise.
"Oh, hold your tongue, girl, or at least be pleasant for once," mutters the escort, in a weary tone.
"I shan't." They can be bothered by what she says all they like. She already knows she's not staying here a minute longer than she must. Where she'll go, she doesn't know, but she'll not be a monk or a nun or any such thing. There's a conspiratorial twinkle in the senior monk's eye that encourages her to prod her escort even further. "Should I not answer my elders when asked? I'll not tell a lie."
The consternation her escort shows is matched by the amusement of his senior. "Well spoken, little sparrow! What's the good of a lie? A trick's one thing, but a lie's no good at all."
"I'm no sparrow," she says, both gratified by the compliment and annoyed by repeatedly being likened to such an inoffensive bird.
The tall monk sits down on her step. To her further irritation, she notes that even sitting he's as tall as she is standing. With amusement, but no malice, he says, "Oh? What are you, then? A swallow? A gull? A young falcon, perhaps?"
She draws herself up as tall as her eight-year-old body allows. "I am Ushiwakamaru, a Genji, and no beast at all."
"Hah, perhaps you're a hedgehog, so prickly are you! But I've a fondness for prickly things, hedgehogs and humans both." He gives her an unbothered smile, then looks her escort up and down. "Dai-sōzu," he says, naming the other monk by rank, "I've little to do right now. I'm sure you're weary from the road and from having to travel with such a, hah, a thorny responsibility. You go on ahead, pay your respects,and refresh yourself as you need, and I'll see to settling in the young falcon here."
The junior monk looks between them, hesitating. "I couldn't possibly impose upon you, Hōgen." Propriety requires him to refuse, even if his desire to accept is obvious.
"Now, now, it's no trouble, truly. I'd appreciate talking with a new young face. You know how tiresome we all get after a long winter." Kiichi Hōgen makes a placating gesture, showing that there's no need to keep up the usual polite refusals.
"If you're sure, Hōgen…"
"Of course! I've asked to do it, haven't I? We'll be fine, and you and she look to be rubbing each other the wrong way. Making her bristle is no way for her to meet us, and prickled with hedgehog quills is no way for you to return. Go on with you! Just let the Risshi know the girl's with me when you get up to the refectory, and we'll be along in good time."
Bowing repeatedly, the monk says, "Of course, of course. Thank you, Hōgen. It has indeed been a long and…" He casts Ushiwakamaru a flat look, which she returns with interest. "...very trying trip."
Ushiwakamaru watches her last link to the only place that's passed for home in her life walk away from her without so much as a backwards glance, and refuses to feel anything. Instead, she sniffs, makes another wind around that knot inside her, and twists it tighter. Not a single tear leaks out.
The senior monk watches his brother go and chuckles."Always been a bit uptight, that one. Ah, well, he'll relax when he passes on, if he doesn't manage it before!"
Looking for distraction, she turns to the monk, unfazed by his casual reference to death. The animal comparisons are still irksome, but his last one wasn't so bad; she supposes it wouldn't be so bad to be a falcon. "What's the difference between a trick and a lie?" she asks.
The monk turns back to blink at her, then rears his head back in boisterous laughter, slapping his knee. "Do you know, for all the times I've made that distinction, no one's ever asked me that before?" When he's recovered, the man squints at Ushiwakamaru with that one gleaming eye. She'd thought him a spry forty or forty-five years, but for a moment, she isn't sure whether he's a weathered thirty years old or as ancient and ageless as the mountain itself. "A very good question! For asking such a clever thing, I'll tell you my answer. But first, you tell me: what do you think the difference is?"
Put on the spot, she shifts uncomfortably. "I… I don't know. I didn't think there was a difference at all."
"Not so quick with a good answer as a good question, eh? No matter, no matter, one can't have everything so young." Ushiwakamaru frowns at the condescension, but the monk goes on. "Now, a good question has as many answers as there are people to answer it, but here's mine, and you can take it as wisdom or foolishness as you like. A lie makes you serve it. You have to act in a way you don't want to, bend in ways you don't want to bend, so your lie isn't uncovered. A trick serves you. You show the part of you you want to show, and get them to act as you want them to while you stay yourself. You see? One puts you in the hands of another, and the other puts them in your hands."
Ushiwkamaru thinks about that. All her life, she's been in someone else's hands, and all her life, she's resented feeling them squeeze. "If I had to choose, I'd rather trick than lie. I think I'd rather be tricked than lied to, even. Tricksters might be having fun, but liars must resent the people they lie to awfully."
That sharp eye squints at her. "For words like that to come from one so young and honest, perhaps you've some experience with liars?"
She briefly averts her eyes, not wanting to acknowledge the point, but a rush of frustration at herself for backing down provokes her. Meeting his eye again, she says, "I wouldn't fear being in someone's hands at all, if they weren't a liar or a trickster."
The monk chuckles and clambers to his feet with loose-limbed grace. "Nor should you, if you can snare such a rare bird! For now, though, consider yourself in my hands. I may trick you just a little, but I'll not lie to you. That's the best you'll find on this mountain save the images of the Buddhas. They have an easy time with honesty, since they don't do anything or say anything." He extends his hand to her.
"You don't sound like a very good priest," Ushiwakamaru says, taking his hand. Whether he's a good priest or not, she likes him despite herself.
"That's because the very worst priests and the very best sound the same," the monk says, and he laughs again. It's infectious; she shouldn't want to smile at such irreverence, but she does. "I think a young falcon ready to stretch her wings might want lessons that a statue can't teach. Perhaps I could show you a little of how to use one of these." He pats the scabbarded tachi at his hip with his free hand.
Her heart leaps. "Yes!" she says, without a moment's hesitation. His smile becomes a grin, and for the first time since she's left home, she can smile back.
As he leads her up the stairs toward her new home, she looks up at him and asks, "Do you think I'll be able to meet a tengu while I'm here?"
"Oh, I think you might, if you look hard enough," replies the monk, chuckling. "After all, I have!"
April 22, 2018
The harsh bzzzzz of a Chaldea HQ door buzzer broke through the rustling of wind in tall cedars. Stone stairs underfoot were replaced by smooth, institutional-style bedclothes and the cawing of crows changed to the sound of a kouhai trying to split the difference between politeness and urgency.
"Senpai! Are you awake yet? I hope you slept well, but if we don't hurry, breakfast will be over!"
"Uh… Yeah, I think." Ritsuka blinked and rubbed his face as he dragged himself to a sitting position in his bed. Raising his voice, he said, "Yeah! Good morning, Mash! Sorry I overslept." He glanced at his bedside clock and winced at what it showed. "Give me a few minutes and I'll meet you at the cafeteria?"
"I'll save you one of the pastries!" Her muffled voice sounded relieved.
Ritsuka smiled through a yawn. "Thanks, but don't! I need the motivation this morning!"
He heard Mash giggle. "All right, Senpai. See you there."
Ritsuka had never been a morning person, but he'd had plenty of involuntary training in how to get up and move before he was completely awake. He put it to good use, splashing water on his face, throwing on one of his regular outfits, and generally making himself halfway presentable as rapidly as possible. Fighting his increasingly ungroomable hair was usually a good way to put nightmares out of his mind. None of the twenty or so mortal humans in the complex had the time to give each other haircuts, which left them at the mercy of whichever Servants felt like being domestic. For Ritsuka especially, that was kind of a crapshoot.
This morning, even that battle wasn't enough to distract him from that dream.
He'd always thought of his childhood hero as a bold young warrior on a path of brilliant, righteous vengeance. He'd never thought of Ushi as being something as mundane and unheroic as lonely or unwanted, a child who'd never known a stable family. It put her relentless lionization of her brother in a different light.
He'd have to have a chat with Ushi and see if something was bothering her. It was nice to have an excuse to talk to her -
Ritsuka stopped short and made a face at himself in the mirror of his tiny bathroom. He was doing it again, wasn't he?
There had been a moment, maybe a month before, when he'd been talking with Ushi over cutting potatoes, and she'd said something unexpected that made them both smile, and he'd been briefly struck by how attractive she was, in the way that you notice something you were already aware of because it's suddenly relevant. The distinction between 'she's attractive' and 'I'm attracted to her'.
Ritsuka hadn't said or done anything about it, of course. It wasn't the first time he'd been smitten with a Servant and it likely wouldn't be the last. With a few exceptions, his summoned friends tended to be good-looking, charismatic, and attentive, and he was no more immune to that combination than any other seventeen-year-old even when they weren't also paragons of humanity. He was still a little embarrassed about how awkwardly tongue-tied he'd been around Cu Chulainn for most of a month after they'd finished with Orleans. It hadn't helped that was pretty sure he wasn't the Lancer's type at all.
Getting infatuated with Heroic Spirits seemed like a bad idea. Of course, if thinking a crush was trouble had ever made one go away, he'd never heard of it, and this one was proving hard to shake.
He shrugged at himself in the mirror, gave his hair one last frustrated tug, and hurried off to try to snatch breakfast from the jaws of defeat. Just like the rest of his worries, whatever he was feeling about Ushi wouldn't cause any problems as long as he didn't go around advertising it. He just needed to wait for it to go away on its own.
Author's Note:
I am extremely fond of smol Ushi and her crow parental unit.
Comments/reviews are welcome and encouraged, if anyone feels so moved. Hit numbers going up doesn't have quite the same feeling to it.
The theme for this chapter is 'Bird Song', by Juniper Vale.
I want to dance on the horizon line
But there is something I am caged behind
I have a heart made to take flight
But I'm low, so low