mood: ---
music: ---
prompts: secrets, debt;
He arrived short of dawn, when the sky was still dark, the moon sleepy overhead and clouds seemed to linger closest to the mountains in the not too far off distance, as if preparing themselves for the ascent of the sun.
He'd snuck over the wall, it's mechanical guardian still broken and in need of repair and wondered on how long had it been since he'd left this place, with it's streets alive long past the midnight hour and the music filling people's ears with the noise of merry-making. The streets were silent as he walked through them, and the lamps that stood like thin sentries on either side were either dim or broken, casting a host of shadows that made the village seem like a ghost town.
He had traveled from Kanna mostly on foot, stopping only when fellow travelers asked him to join them for a meal. Apparently, in the short time since their defeat of the Nobuseri, people from all over the nation had heard word of seven noble samurai who stood up for the villagers of a tiny village suffering under the bandit's cruelty. All samurai were now viewed in a new light -- not as wayward strays from a previous era, but as men and women deserving of consideration and kindness.
He stood now before his intended destination, the windows dark from lack of life within. The signboard that normally glared a bright fuschia pink with the character for the establishment's name slumbered, it's light shut as an eye might from exhaustion.
He eased his footsteps up the wooden steps, each seemingly in time with the quiet beating of his heart. They had sat here on numerous nights, speaking to each other of fireflies and debts, or staying but never of going. They had sat, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, the perfume on her neck whispering his secrets and desires back towards him in the breeze.
"Welcome home," a voice seemed to come from the darkness, and he stopped, his stance shifting briefly to allow him enough room to defend himself if the need would arise. What time he had spent away had roused his warrior's instincts from their slumber, causing him to once again treat the unknown as a guarded man might.
He spotted her figure in the darkness, the solidness of her form darker in contrast to the space around her. The the line of her hand melted into the shadowed form of her koto, unifying two separate pieces into once.
Her face was shrouded, but he didn't need to see to know that she would not stop him from entering. Shichiroji relaxed then, his body straightening as he walked towards this who he had once known, if briefly, as a lost, little girl. "It is far too early for you to be awake, Kotori-chan."
"Yukino-san is sleeping still within," she smiled, her sightless gaze focused onto the space beyond him. She ignored his statement as if it mattered little, and her head tilted the slightest, her long lashes like twin butterflies, folding half-moons right above the apples of her cheeks. "She will be glad that Shichiroji-sama has returned safely."
In the east, the sun rose, peering lazily over the wall of mountains and spilling excess light into a gradually brightening sky. The clouds turned different hues at their tips, like paint seeping onto canvass.
"Thank you," Shichiroji smiled, the first notes of a new piece singing softly into the air, frail and breakable as the thinnest glass. He turned then, the house still dark and still, but no less welcoming than the home that it had become to him.
music: ---
prompts: secrets, debt;
He arrived short of dawn, when the sky was still dark, the moon sleepy overhead and clouds seemed to linger closest to the mountains in the not too far off distance, as if preparing themselves for the ascent of the sun.
He'd snuck over the wall, it's mechanical guardian still broken and in need of repair and wondered on how long had it been since he'd left this place, with it's streets alive long past the midnight hour and the music filling people's ears with the noise of merry-making. The streets were silent as he walked through them, and the lamps that stood like thin sentries on either side were either dim or broken, casting a host of shadows that made the village seem like a ghost town.
He had traveled from Kanna mostly on foot, stopping only when fellow travelers asked him to join them for a meal. Apparently, in the short time since their defeat of the Nobuseri, people from all over the nation had heard word of seven noble samurai who stood up for the villagers of a tiny village suffering under the bandit's cruelty. All samurai were now viewed in a new light -- not as wayward strays from a previous era, but as men and women deserving of consideration and kindness.
He stood now before his intended destination, the windows dark from lack of life within. The signboard that normally glared a bright fuschia pink with the character for the establishment's name slumbered, it's light shut as an eye might from exhaustion.
He eased his footsteps up the wooden steps, each seemingly in time with the quiet beating of his heart. They had sat here on numerous nights, speaking to each other of fireflies and debts, or staying but never of going. They had sat, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, the perfume on her neck whispering his secrets and desires back towards him in the breeze.
"Welcome home," a voice seemed to come from the darkness, and he stopped, his stance shifting briefly to allow him enough room to defend himself if the need would arise. What time he had spent away had roused his warrior's instincts from their slumber, causing him to once again treat the unknown as a guarded man might.
He spotted her figure in the darkness, the solidness of her form darker in contrast to the space around her. The the line of her hand melted into the shadowed form of her koto, unifying two separate pieces into once.
Her face was shrouded, but he didn't need to see to know that she would not stop him from entering. Shichiroji relaxed then, his body straightening as he walked towards this who he had once known, if briefly, as a lost, little girl. "It is far too early for you to be awake, Kotori-chan."
"Yukino-san is sleeping still within," she smiled, her sightless gaze focused onto the space beyond him. She ignored his statement as if it mattered little, and her head tilted the slightest, her long lashes like twin butterflies, folding half-moons right above the apples of her cheeks. "She will be glad that Shichiroji-sama has returned safely."
In the east, the sun rose, peering lazily over the wall of mountains and spilling excess light into a gradually brightening sky. The clouds turned different hues at their tips, like paint seeping onto canvass.
"Thank you," Shichiroji smiled, the first notes of a new piece singing softly into the air, frail and breakable as the thinnest glass. He turned then, the house still dark and still, but no less welcoming than the home that it had become to him.
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