So, essentially going to be writing short stories, sticking them in here. To be honest, most of them are going to be blurbs for possible future characters. Feel free to comment if you'd like.
A Knight's Burden
In the end, it all became ash. Molten dreams of what was, scalding heart and soul even as it passed through his fingers like water. Tears stained his cheeks when her memory came to mind. In the eyes of his fellow knights he was as he always was: Cold and distant. The walls he'd built were too high to crumble. His fortress was impenetrable. His face a slate, showing no emotion. Eventually, it felt like what the fortress was built to hide had already rotted away. It became an empty prison for the pieces of his broken heart to lay like shattered glass.
It was so hot there. His armor glowed with heat from the rays of fire in the sky. He said nothing. Water grew scarce. His throat was dry, cracked, and sore from the sand. He said nothing. Suffering found his body as well as his soul. He said nothing.
Around him, men he'd known his whole life died by the handful. From the heat. From the dwindling water. From their enemy, waiting in the dunes. Gleaming spear points to bite into the flesh, burning day or frozen night. He still said nothing.
He wished the same fate would find him. It didn't. Yet he wished for it, even as all of his being yearned that he would not be stopped this night, or the next. With his blade's touch and spill of blood on the sand, solace did not find him. The bodies lay before his feet were shallow comfort to him. They were nothing to him. Killing them didn't bring her back.
His every moment was put forth towards breaking them. His thoughts lingered like a blind man's stare. He didn't even see the inevitable coming. He won. His war was finished. She was avenged. Every last one of them, in chains or dead. Women and children spirited into bondage. Their people, their culture annihilated. So why did he still hurt? His heart didn't seem to care that he'd avenged her memory. The suffering and fear that he saw in their eyes as he stared down at them didn't fill the void. The token resistance their flesh gave as the edge of his sword parted them from life made him no happier. It didn't sadden him now, either.
A feeling of surreality permeated his world. The days after the war were the same. It was as if she'd never existed. Even as he kneeled with sword and bowed head to the one she would marry as he took the throne, the world felt hollow. What was the point of a life with her absence?
He remembered the comfort of her voice. Her naiivity in loving him, her insistence in battering down every barrier he put up time and time again to make him surrender his heart bare each time. She would take a small piece of it with her to sleep at night, even while he lay awake with mind and heart abuzz. She'd collect more pieces as he fell deeper in love with her. Hopelessly in love. The pain of it that came to him whenever he realized that he could never truly be hers. It would fade in a moment with her in his arms. He could care about nothing more than he cared about her, even with the unspoken divide between them. The barrier between the earth and the stars. The servant and the master. It all might as well have been a dream. Yet for some reason he felt so content. So happy to just pretend, even while her marriage was arranged.
He longed for the nights when they would sit together. Her feather of weight on him as she'd sit with her back to his chest. The feel of her silken night gown against his skin. His arms around her to hold her, to protect her. How she'd share her favourite of evening delicacies, reddened tart grapefruit with fine table sugar. How he'd come to love the taste.
She was always stronger willed than him. Even when he was upset with her, when he would use his absence of words to shut her out. At the end of the day it was always as it should be; the knight kneeling to his princess, submissive at heart. That was why he felt so lost now. He was a dog, abandoned by owner. Stray and directionless.
Perhaps the worst of it was the loneliness. The comfort no one tried to give. To the rest of the world he was made of ice, sharp as a sword, and as guarded as brambles. Yet she accepted him that way. Loved him that way. And now with her absence, there was no one else who did.
He thought to avenge her by retaliating against her assassins. The sultanate in that damned desert, when her prince became king. He spent years in that desert. Years fighting their civil war. He thought it to be the final chapter in his twisted life. His parting touch on the world?
Guess not. Atrocities of war to his name now. Praises sung of them, honors and status that he'd never known. He was spoken of as a hero, to his face and when he was not there to hear it. He was invited to banquet and feast. A weary gaze glazed his eyes. The words went unheard as that gaze endlessly stared at the red of sliced grapefruit in the center of the table.
After many empty days of wordless stares and bottles of wine to mark their passing, he left. No letter to commemorate. No words to share his pain. A single thing missing from his life. An end.
The Hyashin Way
His fists clenched his kimono, the fabric on his thighs wrinkling from his grip. His eyes stared downwards, brows pinched together.
Ahead of him, light glinted off from black lacquered wood. The sheath of a sword. A weapon deadly, graceful in nature. Hidden in it’s resting place like a cobra nesting in the rocks. So close at hand, yet it may has well have been miles from him now.
“Kida.” A strong voice behind him addressed.
“Do you still seek the right to carry the sword?”
There wasn’t anything he could do but tell the truth... He’d tried everything by now. Even pretending he didn’t want it at all.
“Yes, master...” He murmured.
“Yet you still cannot tell me your reasons?” The question came. Kida had heard it a hundred times by now. His hands tightened more.
“I have!” His voice replied tersely before he could stop it.. A moment later he timidly added “...Master.”
“Then you are still unready to wield it.”
Kida turned his head to look at the aging man over his shoulder with a fiery glance. “Why?!” He demanded. “I’ve beaten every opponent you’ve set against me! There isn’t even a match to my skill among my peers!”
The aging man sighed softly.. Eyes closing, only to reopen with a quiet look of disappointment. “...Kida... You possess great talents in the sword. This is true.” He said with a small frown. “Every day, I feel much pride from watching you progress...”
“Yet that pride is touched by sadness.” He amended, Kida’s expression growing more confused, more frustrated by the word. “It is what you choose to do with that talent that disappoints me. That holds you back.”
Kida could hold it in no longer. “I do as you tell me to! I spar with who you pick, I spend these.. These long hours meditating as you say, when I could be focusing on improving my skill! What do you want from me?! Just tell me!” He demanded, his tone tight, volume a bit louder.
His master was silent for a few long moments. “...Kida, to tell you would not help you. Tell a dog to behave and he may. Leave him alone with the chickens however, and you will come back to feathers.” He said calmly. “You might wield the sword if I tell you what I wish to see from you, but for you.. For you, it would change nothing. You would learn, nothing.” His tone was cold.
“Until you find the answer within yourself... I will never permit you to carry a blade.”
Kida turned around. Slim brows slightly furrowed, eyes a bit widened. “But that isn’t fair, master!”
“Why, Kida? Why isn’t it fair? Why are you -entitled- to the sword?” His master snapped. His gaze was ice. His look warning. Warning Kida did not heed.
“I’ve been here most of my life! I’ve been here longer than anyone else I know! I’ve practiced all the kata, defeated every student--”
“And you believe -that- is what makes someone worthy then?” He was interrupted.
Kida frowned for a moment, before his quiet response came. “...Yes.”
Silence permeated the room for an eternity. His master watched him with a terse frown, eyes narrowing down on him. Kida’s gaze soon fell as he felt the burning stare of his teacher’s gaze upon him. An angry, disappointed glare.
“Kida.”
He looked back up.
“Prove your worth then. Take up the sword behind you. Show me what you think it is to wield it.” He was instructed, his master’s tone quiet, but simmering with what sounded like frustration. Kida was hesitant... He was never before allowed to actually touch a real sword.. It was so sudden, unexpected. He looked at his master with uncertainty, confusion in his eyes. He turned slowly however.. Laying his hand upon the hilt of the sword. The cloth of it’s wrappings was soft.. Velvety to the touch. Enticing. He gripped it firmer, his other hand finding it’s way to gripping the smooth texture of the lacquered sheath. His goal in hand, he turned back around to see his master.
There he stood. Wooden training slat in hand. A stare on his face. Kida glanced downwards, giving the sword in his hands a pull.. It slid partway from it’s sheath with a minimal effort. Light from the sun shining in through the open doorway glinted from it’s blade. It’s edge razor-like. He grew slightly uneasy. His master was so confident in his winning that he would not draw a real sword of his own... He opened his mouth, shaking his head preemptively as if to refuse the request.
“If you do not desire it, place it back where it lay.” He was spoken over. Confliction clear on his face, another glance downwards. He was silent.. But the sword did not leave his hands.
“Then draw it out. Show me with your actions, not with your words.” Kida obeyed. The sword came singing from it’s sheath. It felt as if it were perfect in hand. Instead of smooth polished wood, his hand met hilt. Steel extended from his being. Where he was used to there being the rounded contours of sleek, tame ash there was a singular, graceful edge. He looked up from it hesitantly. His master had not moved. There was the unspoken question from Kida in the air, but it was firmly addressed.
“If you have something to prove, prove it now.” His master said, eyes narrowed. Kida set the sheath aside. The young man’s expression hardening with determination. He knew he was supposed to learn something from this... He was supposed to learn something from everything, but all too often it flew over his head, and he was expected to find the answers himself. He’d make his teacher give him a straight answer, this time.
As he took stance with the sword held just above waist level, blade tip aimed straight at his teacher, his master took a similar stance. A feather light grip on the wooden slat, a body that spoke of relaxation, even though the expression was of frustration.
“Ki!” Kida barked out. He glided forwards. His leading foot came forwards, followed by his back foot, maintaining orientation to each other. The back foot does not go in front of the lead foot. His sword rose, then fell sharply down the center line. A head slash. Fatal if it landed.
It didn’t. His master took a step off center, moving forward and to the left. Bypassing the swing. Forcing him into the reactionary role. Kida’s response was to change his center, moving to his own left and adjusting his sword to once again point the tip of the blade at his master, only now he saw and felt the wooden slat hover against the spine of the blade, above it.
Kida retreated a step uneasily. He raised his guard this time. His master persisted however, stepping closer, maintaining his guard. His eyes were locked at Kida’s as he drew closer, calculatedly. Forcibly approaching Kida, the tip of the practice sword to slide past his.
The younger man retreated further, steeling himself for a moment before suddenly stopping. “Kya!” He leaned forwards onto his lead foot, swinging the sword downwards at an angle, aiming for his master’s wrist. It was a close target. An easy one, with the way his master had been approaching.
With the flat of the training sword the master deflected the swing while stepping inwards and to the side once again, slipping the training sword behind the steel in the process, the tip suddenly making an arch towards Kida’s throat.
He stumbled in haste to try and dodge the attack. His footwork dissolving in a moment of panic. Even as he fell however, his master’s training sword stopped short of completely executing the arch.. Once he was on his back however, the rounded, blunt tip found it’s way to pointing at his neck, the master having closed in over him.
Kida’s eyes were slightly wide. His breath shaken as he looked up at his teacher.
“You bring shame upon yourself, Kida. Shame upon me, for not having taught you better.” His master’s voice scolded. Kida’s eyes immediately lowered with guilt.
His master was silent for a long moment, before he finally spoke again.
“What is the purpose of a sword, Kida?” He asks.
He knew the answer instantly. It was one of the fundamental teachings of his master. “To protect..” He mumbled.
“So then why does it hurt others?”
This question, he hadn’t been asked before... He was thoughtful for a few moments. Trying to catch his breath.. Venturing a glance up at his master. He looked sad.
“..B-because... That’s the only way to protect from those who would do us harm..” He offers timidly.
The master was silent for a few moments. “Kida...” He says, his tone softer now. His eyes losing their glare gradually.
“The goal of a true master of the sword is to protect all people. Our enemies may be our enemies today, but tomorrow it is uncertain. This must be reflected in everything we do. A respect for life, for all life, is essential to the heart of the greatest of protectors. That is the Hyashin way...” He murmurs softly. Kida’s eyes fell downwards again in understanding.
“When a swordsman is true of heart, Kida.. If you become strong enough there is more to the sword than killing, or harming our enemies. One does not have to strike, or harm to overcome those who would do such to us...”
“Then why do we carry swords, master?...” Kida asks quietly.. Yet unsure of himself.
“Because it is an acknowledgement that we bear that responsibility. That we forever have the choice, yet the true strength to abstain from it. It is our ultimate challenge. What we all must strive for...”
Kida was silent.. A look of shame and thought clear on his face as he shifted his gaze away once more. “..I think I understand, master...” He murmurs.
“Then I want you to continue your meditation on the matter. And I want you to think about what you did today... It was very disappointing, Kida...” He replied, his tone not of anger, but still of sadness. That was worse to Kida, who nodded.. Straightening to sit on his calves again, gaze never rising to meet the elder man afterwards, who slowly walked to the edge of the room.. Setting the training sword upon a rack, before leaving Kida in silence once more.
A Knight's Burden
In the end, it all became ash. Molten dreams of what was, scalding heart and soul even as it passed through his fingers like water. Tears stained his cheeks when her memory came to mind. In the eyes of his fellow knights he was as he always was: Cold and distant. The walls he'd built were too high to crumble. His fortress was impenetrable. His face a slate, showing no emotion. Eventually, it felt like what the fortress was built to hide had already rotted away. It became an empty prison for the pieces of his broken heart to lay like shattered glass.
It was so hot there. His armor glowed with heat from the rays of fire in the sky. He said nothing. Water grew scarce. His throat was dry, cracked, and sore from the sand. He said nothing. Suffering found his body as well as his soul. He said nothing.
Around him, men he'd known his whole life died by the handful. From the heat. From the dwindling water. From their enemy, waiting in the dunes. Gleaming spear points to bite into the flesh, burning day or frozen night. He still said nothing.
He wished the same fate would find him. It didn't. Yet he wished for it, even as all of his being yearned that he would not be stopped this night, or the next. With his blade's touch and spill of blood on the sand, solace did not find him. The bodies lay before his feet were shallow comfort to him. They were nothing to him. Killing them didn't bring her back.
His every moment was put forth towards breaking them. His thoughts lingered like a blind man's stare. He didn't even see the inevitable coming. He won. His war was finished. She was avenged. Every last one of them, in chains or dead. Women and children spirited into bondage. Their people, their culture annihilated. So why did he still hurt? His heart didn't seem to care that he'd avenged her memory. The suffering and fear that he saw in their eyes as he stared down at them didn't fill the void. The token resistance their flesh gave as the edge of his sword parted them from life made him no happier. It didn't sadden him now, either.
A feeling of surreality permeated his world. The days after the war were the same. It was as if she'd never existed. Even as he kneeled with sword and bowed head to the one she would marry as he took the throne, the world felt hollow. What was the point of a life with her absence?
He remembered the comfort of her voice. Her naiivity in loving him, her insistence in battering down every barrier he put up time and time again to make him surrender his heart bare each time. She would take a small piece of it with her to sleep at night, even while he lay awake with mind and heart abuzz. She'd collect more pieces as he fell deeper in love with her. Hopelessly in love. The pain of it that came to him whenever he realized that he could never truly be hers. It would fade in a moment with her in his arms. He could care about nothing more than he cared about her, even with the unspoken divide between them. The barrier between the earth and the stars. The servant and the master. It all might as well have been a dream. Yet for some reason he felt so content. So happy to just pretend, even while her marriage was arranged.
He longed for the nights when they would sit together. Her feather of weight on him as she'd sit with her back to his chest. The feel of her silken night gown against his skin. His arms around her to hold her, to protect her. How she'd share her favourite of evening delicacies, reddened tart grapefruit with fine table sugar. How he'd come to love the taste.
She was always stronger willed than him. Even when he was upset with her, when he would use his absence of words to shut her out. At the end of the day it was always as it should be; the knight kneeling to his princess, submissive at heart. That was why he felt so lost now. He was a dog, abandoned by owner. Stray and directionless.
Perhaps the worst of it was the loneliness. The comfort no one tried to give. To the rest of the world he was made of ice, sharp as a sword, and as guarded as brambles. Yet she accepted him that way. Loved him that way. And now with her absence, there was no one else who did.
He thought to avenge her by retaliating against her assassins. The sultanate in that damned desert, when her prince became king. He spent years in that desert. Years fighting their civil war. He thought it to be the final chapter in his twisted life. His parting touch on the world?
Guess not. Atrocities of war to his name now. Praises sung of them, honors and status that he'd never known. He was spoken of as a hero, to his face and when he was not there to hear it. He was invited to banquet and feast. A weary gaze glazed his eyes. The words went unheard as that gaze endlessly stared at the red of sliced grapefruit in the center of the table.
After many empty days of wordless stares and bottles of wine to mark their passing, he left. No letter to commemorate. No words to share his pain. A single thing missing from his life. An end.
The Hyashin Way
His fists clenched his kimono, the fabric on his thighs wrinkling from his grip. His eyes stared downwards, brows pinched together.
Ahead of him, light glinted off from black lacquered wood. The sheath of a sword. A weapon deadly, graceful in nature. Hidden in it’s resting place like a cobra nesting in the rocks. So close at hand, yet it may has well have been miles from him now.
“Kida.” A strong voice behind him addressed.
“Do you still seek the right to carry the sword?”
There wasn’t anything he could do but tell the truth... He’d tried everything by now. Even pretending he didn’t want it at all.
“Yes, master...” He murmured.
“Yet you still cannot tell me your reasons?” The question came. Kida had heard it a hundred times by now. His hands tightened more.
“I have!” His voice replied tersely before he could stop it.. A moment later he timidly added “...Master.”
“Then you are still unready to wield it.”
Kida turned his head to look at the aging man over his shoulder with a fiery glance. “Why?!” He demanded. “I’ve beaten every opponent you’ve set against me! There isn’t even a match to my skill among my peers!”
The aging man sighed softly.. Eyes closing, only to reopen with a quiet look of disappointment. “...Kida... You possess great talents in the sword. This is true.” He said with a small frown. “Every day, I feel much pride from watching you progress...”
“Yet that pride is touched by sadness.” He amended, Kida’s expression growing more confused, more frustrated by the word. “It is what you choose to do with that talent that disappoints me. That holds you back.”
Kida could hold it in no longer. “I do as you tell me to! I spar with who you pick, I spend these.. These long hours meditating as you say, when I could be focusing on improving my skill! What do you want from me?! Just tell me!” He demanded, his tone tight, volume a bit louder.
His master was silent for a few long moments. “...Kida, to tell you would not help you. Tell a dog to behave and he may. Leave him alone with the chickens however, and you will come back to feathers.” He said calmly. “You might wield the sword if I tell you what I wish to see from you, but for you.. For you, it would change nothing. You would learn, nothing.” His tone was cold.
“Until you find the answer within yourself... I will never permit you to carry a blade.”
Kida turned around. Slim brows slightly furrowed, eyes a bit widened. “But that isn’t fair, master!”
“Why, Kida? Why isn’t it fair? Why are you -entitled- to the sword?” His master snapped. His gaze was ice. His look warning. Warning Kida did not heed.
“I’ve been here most of my life! I’ve been here longer than anyone else I know! I’ve practiced all the kata, defeated every student--”
“And you believe -that- is what makes someone worthy then?” He was interrupted.
Kida frowned for a moment, before his quiet response came. “...Yes.”
Silence permeated the room for an eternity. His master watched him with a terse frown, eyes narrowing down on him. Kida’s gaze soon fell as he felt the burning stare of his teacher’s gaze upon him. An angry, disappointed glare.
“Kida.”
He looked back up.
“Prove your worth then. Take up the sword behind you. Show me what you think it is to wield it.” He was instructed, his master’s tone quiet, but simmering with what sounded like frustration. Kida was hesitant... He was never before allowed to actually touch a real sword.. It was so sudden, unexpected. He looked at his master with uncertainty, confusion in his eyes. He turned slowly however.. Laying his hand upon the hilt of the sword. The cloth of it’s wrappings was soft.. Velvety to the touch. Enticing. He gripped it firmer, his other hand finding it’s way to gripping the smooth texture of the lacquered sheath. His goal in hand, he turned back around to see his master.
There he stood. Wooden training slat in hand. A stare on his face. Kida glanced downwards, giving the sword in his hands a pull.. It slid partway from it’s sheath with a minimal effort. Light from the sun shining in through the open doorway glinted from it’s blade. It’s edge razor-like. He grew slightly uneasy. His master was so confident in his winning that he would not draw a real sword of his own... He opened his mouth, shaking his head preemptively as if to refuse the request.
“If you do not desire it, place it back where it lay.” He was spoken over. Confliction clear on his face, another glance downwards. He was silent.. But the sword did not leave his hands.
“Then draw it out. Show me with your actions, not with your words.” Kida obeyed. The sword came singing from it’s sheath. It felt as if it were perfect in hand. Instead of smooth polished wood, his hand met hilt. Steel extended from his being. Where he was used to there being the rounded contours of sleek, tame ash there was a singular, graceful edge. He looked up from it hesitantly. His master had not moved. There was the unspoken question from Kida in the air, but it was firmly addressed.
“If you have something to prove, prove it now.” His master said, eyes narrowed. Kida set the sheath aside. The young man’s expression hardening with determination. He knew he was supposed to learn something from this... He was supposed to learn something from everything, but all too often it flew over his head, and he was expected to find the answers himself. He’d make his teacher give him a straight answer, this time.
As he took stance with the sword held just above waist level, blade tip aimed straight at his teacher, his master took a similar stance. A feather light grip on the wooden slat, a body that spoke of relaxation, even though the expression was of frustration.
“Ki!” Kida barked out. He glided forwards. His leading foot came forwards, followed by his back foot, maintaining orientation to each other. The back foot does not go in front of the lead foot. His sword rose, then fell sharply down the center line. A head slash. Fatal if it landed.
It didn’t. His master took a step off center, moving forward and to the left. Bypassing the swing. Forcing him into the reactionary role. Kida’s response was to change his center, moving to his own left and adjusting his sword to once again point the tip of the blade at his master, only now he saw and felt the wooden slat hover against the spine of the blade, above it.
Kida retreated a step uneasily. He raised his guard this time. His master persisted however, stepping closer, maintaining his guard. His eyes were locked at Kida’s as he drew closer, calculatedly. Forcibly approaching Kida, the tip of the practice sword to slide past his.
The younger man retreated further, steeling himself for a moment before suddenly stopping. “Kya!” He leaned forwards onto his lead foot, swinging the sword downwards at an angle, aiming for his master’s wrist. It was a close target. An easy one, with the way his master had been approaching.
With the flat of the training sword the master deflected the swing while stepping inwards and to the side once again, slipping the training sword behind the steel in the process, the tip suddenly making an arch towards Kida’s throat.
He stumbled in haste to try and dodge the attack. His footwork dissolving in a moment of panic. Even as he fell however, his master’s training sword stopped short of completely executing the arch.. Once he was on his back however, the rounded, blunt tip found it’s way to pointing at his neck, the master having closed in over him.
Kida’s eyes were slightly wide. His breath shaken as he looked up at his teacher.
“You bring shame upon yourself, Kida. Shame upon me, for not having taught you better.” His master’s voice scolded. Kida’s eyes immediately lowered with guilt.
His master was silent for a long moment, before he finally spoke again.
“What is the purpose of a sword, Kida?” He asks.
He knew the answer instantly. It was one of the fundamental teachings of his master. “To protect..” He mumbled.
“So then why does it hurt others?”
This question, he hadn’t been asked before... He was thoughtful for a few moments. Trying to catch his breath.. Venturing a glance up at his master. He looked sad.
“..B-because... That’s the only way to protect from those who would do us harm..” He offers timidly.
The master was silent for a few moments. “Kida...” He says, his tone softer now. His eyes losing their glare gradually.
“The goal of a true master of the sword is to protect all people. Our enemies may be our enemies today, but tomorrow it is uncertain. This must be reflected in everything we do. A respect for life, for all life, is essential to the heart of the greatest of protectors. That is the Hyashin way...” He murmurs softly. Kida’s eyes fell downwards again in understanding.
“When a swordsman is true of heart, Kida.. If you become strong enough there is more to the sword than killing, or harming our enemies. One does not have to strike, or harm to overcome those who would do such to us...”
“Then why do we carry swords, master?...” Kida asks quietly.. Yet unsure of himself.
“Because it is an acknowledgement that we bear that responsibility. That we forever have the choice, yet the true strength to abstain from it. It is our ultimate challenge. What we all must strive for...”
Kida was silent.. A look of shame and thought clear on his face as he shifted his gaze away once more. “..I think I understand, master...” He murmurs.
“Then I want you to continue your meditation on the matter. And I want you to think about what you did today... It was very disappointing, Kida...” He replied, his tone not of anger, but still of sadness. That was worse to Kida, who nodded.. Straightening to sit on his calves again, gaze never rising to meet the elder man afterwards, who slowly walked to the edge of the room.. Setting the training sword upon a rack, before leaving Kida in silence once more.