inkdrops | ✿ Forty-Eighth Ink Drop ✿ - [Video | Drawn

[While Miyabi did hear about the Christmas party happening at the battle dome, ans while she usually attends and enjoys herself, she's decided to just keep to herself tonight. Enjoy a quiet night in by herself. Or, well, a quiet night out. After sprucing up the cherry tree hill a little bit with some Divine Intervention (and a little help from Faeren, of course), Miyabi bounds her way up to the higher branches of the tallest cherry blossom tree and sighs. The cool rush of wind blowing the snow in brilliant little circles is so wonderful to behold. She really is so much better suited for the winter, and it's rare that she really gets to just sit and appreciate the majesty of this season. It was so common, back in Nippon, that she never really thought twice about the cold and snow, or gave much praise to the ox god, but now she sees just how lovely the snow can be, and how at home she is in it.

After so quiet watching, Miyabi finally feels a spark of inspiration strike. She sets up some of her inks and paints, and begins to draw in her journal, her face serious and calculating as it's mirrored in the little camera. Stroke after stroke, sometimes a screw-up turned into a bit of scenery or the like, an image forms on the paper in her journal, and Miyabi looks rather pleased and satisfied. If there's one creature from home that she misses the most, it's definitely the cranes. She misses seeing them dance when trying to find a mate, and just seeing them in general. They were such amazingly beautiful birds... Maybe she can find something to read about them in the library another day. They were very popular with poets and story-tellers, after all. Speaking of which--]

I know it's very late, and most of you may be out, but...does anyone want to hear a story?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yes please, Miyabi.

[Oh, Marco, hearing your voice just makes Miyabi smile almost instantly. She was almost sure you went to the party.]

Good evening, Mister Marco! I'd be glad to tell you a story, but it's a little sad...if that's all right? I could try thinking of another story.

[He's going to! But he's fashionably late. He's trying to drag a certain idiot to come to the feast portion.]

Sad is all right, though I hope you're not sad yourself, eh? Otherwise I'll try to cheer you up.

Ah, n-no! I promise, I'm not! [And she actually means that honestly.] It's just that many of the stories I was told have life lessons woven into them. So the greater the lesson, the more impactful the story...so you remember it. [Unfortunately, that makes many of the stories she knows rather bittersweet.]

But this one is good, I promise. It's called The Happy Couple. [Ironic, given what she just said about it being a sad story...]

Sounds good to me. How sad is it though?

That really depends on how I tell it, doesn't it? [Miyabi smirks into her journal, but shakes her head a little.] It's not too sad, I think, but it's a little painful if you take it truly to heart. I'm starting now, so I really do hope you like it. Tell me to stop if you don't, I won't be insulted.

[A beat of silence, and Miyabi takes a breath, then--] Hiyoku no Tori - The Happy Couple.

Up on the icy peaks of a dangerous mountain pass, a lone figure wanders about in the gloom, stumbling with each feeble step. It's a man, an archer soldier, lost in the darkness as the wind howls around him, blowing snow and ice every which way.

"I've strayed from the road... I've left the battlefield, and now I can't see a single human figure... Where am I?!" He thinks to himself, longing for the light and warmth of the mother sun to guide him to safety. But it is far too late, and the holy light sleeps, as the icy blizzard rages on.

It is as the man wanders, tirelessly, that he comes upon a rare sight in the darkness... Two cranes, a mated pair, dancing pleasantly together amongst the snow.

Sounds beautiful so far, eh.

So far...

[That doesn't exactly bode well, does it? No, it does not, because after a deep breath, Miyabi's tone changes to a lower, more dark one. This is a sad story - beautiful things in these kinds of tales never last for long. Sadly, what she says next will be exactly that.]

As the man looked upon the dancing birds, a distant memory drifted down unto him, much like the falling snow. He stands, beneath the blossoms, while a beautiful woman pleads with him. There's sorrow on her face, as she tries to convince him, desperately, not to go away.

"Yukino..." he utters, as he takes her into his arms. "So that I may prove myself to your noble father, so that he will accept me and allow me to become your husband, I will triumph in battle. I will triumph so that I may return to you."

And, like the snow still falling, ever falling, the thought is blown asunder...yet the soldier remains, lost and alone, while the cranes dance together in harmony. Enraged, he readies his bow.

"If I continue wandering aimlessly like this, I may die... And never see my beloved Yukino again! Even the birds can live on in wedded bliss... While I am--I am...!"

He draws back the arrow.

And fires.

Oh. Well, that was...

[Pointlessly cruel, he wants to say, but he's sure that Miaybi gets it.]

[Oh, she understands, and nods her head quietly with closed eyes. Cruel, yes, but not pointless. Not for this story, and not for many things. People, she's found out, don't often think - or they think too much. They're misguided by their thoughts, and led astray to do things that hurt all that is around them. With a soft sigh, she goes on.]

The arrow hits. ...Right through the heart.

In but an instant, the larger of the two beautiful cranes falls to the ground, its blood soaking both its feathers and the ever falling snow. The female gives a startled cry, yet watches its beloved lay, lifeless and unmoving, on the ground where they had just moments ago danced together. Happy and alive, moving and existing in harmony...

Satisfied, yet still seething with bitterness and no less lost and alone in the harsh mountain wilderness, the archer soldier turns his back on the two birds and travels, once again, through the ice and snow. He does not see, nor does he care to see, the now widowed crane lay her wings and head against her fallen husband...as if to mourn.

What an asshole.

[PFFFT--okay, that actually makes Miyabi lose face big time and laugh pretty darn hard. Marco, damn it, she had the mood set and you just up and ruined it! It's going to take her a few minutes to catch her breath and get back into the swing like she had been before. Bah... At least it was pretty funny, how honest those words were. Blunt, too.]

On and on it snowed, and so, too, did the soldier walk through the icy mountains. Tirelessly he marched on, his mind beginning to wander, and his strength waning with each step.

"How many days have passed since then...? I wonder if I'm any closer to the foot of the mountains?" Suddenly, his foot catches on something in the snow, and he falls forward. ...Only to come face to face with an all too familiar sight. The crane he hit, with the arrow still stuck through its chest. "Th-This is my arrow! And this...is the crane that I shot. So for all this time, I've been wandering in circles, only to come back to the same place?!"

He falls, defeated, into the snow, memories of his beloved coming to him again. "Yukino...Yukino!! Will I never see you again? Will I never come back to you?!" Turning his head, he takes another look at the deceased crane, and his eyes widen in mild shock.

[What? He was totally being serious! Well, as serious as Marco gets anyway.]

What? Why?

[Marco is the best storytelling audience, he gets so into all the stories man.]

[That's most of the problem right there.

And Miyabi enjoys that the most when spinning her stories along. That wonderful curiosity, the interest, it just tells her she's telling her story right, and doing it well. When someone gets so engrossed in her tales, it's the best feeling in the world.]

He found the lifeless body of the crane he shot, but without its head. Staring dimly at it, the soldier begins to wonder silently. "Its head is gone... Was it bitten off by a wild dog? If I die...perhaps the wild dogs will eat me, too." He closes his eyes, as the snow begins to form an icy blanket of white over him. The draw of death is almost welcoming him now. "Yukino...you loved the snow that you were named for. It was you who told me the name of the god of ice and snow. It was you who told me the snow is the god's tears... My darling Yukino..."

Oh... that's sad too... even though he's still a jerk.

[Marco ain't gonna forgive the bird-murderer :|]

✿ Forty-Eighth Ink Drop ✿ - [Video | Drawn | Backdated to the Night of the Ball]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject