Post by Peishin Louh on Oct 27, 2008 14:38:56 GMT
(OOC - a WIP, i'm doing it as i go. any comments welcome, but please make them through a PM. this will be the first and only A/N.)
***********
A quiet room.
A light boarded floor. Wood-and-paper walls, two dim, two leaking light from the corridor and outdoors respectively. A solid board ceiling.
A tatami mat leaning against one wall. Sheets neatly folded as an anchor at its base. A large bookcase with four faded books. A rubix cube not yet completed on the top shelf. An ocarina sitting in front of a flask of sake and a bottle of Human alcohol.
A sheath seventy centimetres long, brown, dull, empty.
A zanpakuto resting in long-fingered hands.
A Shinigami, kneeling, eyes closed, quiet, breathing evenly.
An atmosphere of calm contemplation. Of slow and deliberate preparation. The crawling-flesh sensation of balance between cold, churning uncertainty and hot, vibrant determination to succeed.
Peishin Louh opened his eyes and fixed them on the blade.
His mind focused on the edge, ran back and forth across the infinite sharpness, caressed it like a whetstone until it sang in his soul.
It was as much a part of him as his voice or his heart, but until today he had never had the courage or the power to accept it completely. It was his anger, his fear, his love and his hate. It was everything in him that would stand and fight and cut and kill.
It was the part of himself he kept sheathed in his deepest soul.
With a last, lingering glance over the physical blade he was ready. He took a deep breath that trembled only slightly in his lungs and did something that would be impossible to describe to another living being.
He left Soul Society behind and stepped inside an altogether different world.
He'd seen it before, of course. Sometimes in the bloody urgency of a losing battle, sometimes in the clinical patience of meditation, sometimes when he swung his sword in victory, and sometimes as he cared for it with cloth and oil in his squad barracks.
Occasionally he'd seen it in the fog of inebriation, and he'd seen it as his blood leaked out of his body, steaming in the red-pink-white snow-slush of the Human world or onto the clean white stones of 12th squad's training grounds.
The details remained pretty much the same no matter what the circumstances might be, except for one noticeable variant. The time was rarely the same. even though there was never a sun, the time varied from sunrise to sunset. Never night, save for once, when he had really thought he was going to die.
For these reasons he always checked the sky first.
It was bright enough to be midday.
There was grass underfoot, a sea of yellow. Strange weedlike plants poked out, reaching up past the grass with two or three heads and blue, thorned stalks. Blue and white mushrooms grew to the size of trees. Above, the sky was purple, cloudless, but it stirred and rolled like fire.
There was no sound. No movement, not even wind, but the grass swayed gently as if there was one. It was a scorching day as always but dry as a desert. Peishin often thought this place should be a desert, but apparently one's inner world didn't adhere to the laws of nature.
An animal crouched a few feet from him.
It was a long, sleek shape, with a round head and large yellow eyes. It was staring at him, ears flat against its skull, muscles tensed as if ready to leap. Though it was lying on its belly and he'd never seen it stand, he guessed that it would be a huge, powerful animal.
Peishin was standing in the shade of a mushroom. No grass grew here for reasons unknown, but he was glad as it gave him somewhere to sit and still keep the cougar in sight. He settled with his back against the fleshy stalk (trunk?) of the gigantic fungi.
He waited.
The cat continued to stare at him. He stared back.
The day grew older, the light fading from noonlight toward evening. No stars showed above, but the sky began to glow like a limited aurora. Peishin kept glancing up and then back to the cat.
As he wondered to himself why the light changed he experienced a strange feeling. It was the kind of feeling you got when standing at the top of a cliff, a kind of inner voice that said jump, the kind of feeling that made you make foolish decisions despite knowing the consequences. Ask the cat, it said.
So he did. "Why does the light change?"
"The sky reflects your strength," the cat answered.
"In what way?"
"As your strength wanes, so does the day. It is brightest when you feel at your best and darkest when you approach exhaustion."
"Why is it never night?" he asked.
"As you die, so will the day."
He felt a little chill at that despite the heat. "Does everything in this world reflect my feelings?"
"Most things."
"The grass?"
"Your sense of self-worth."
"The weeds?"
"Your hesitation. Your ill-confidence. Your fear. As you feel worse about yourself the weeds grow and strangle the grass. In time the grass regrows and the weeds retreat."
"What about the mushrooms?" he asked.
"They mean you're a freak."
He laughed. "I suppose everyone's a little strange inside."
"Indeed." The cat was silent for a few moments. "It's good to finally talk to you."
"And you. I suppose you know all about me."
"No, I don't. We were deaf to each other before today."
"That's interesting," he scratched his nose. "The textbooks didn't mention anything about that. They said I wouldn't be able to hear you, but not the other way round."
The cat shrugged. "My name is Sabishi Kokoro."
"Mine is Peishin Louh."
Sabishi Kokoro rose to her feet, and Peishin noted that his earlier guess was correct. Grass that grew to his hip level barely brushed her stomach. Her shoulders were perhaps at the same height as his, maybe even taller. He wondered how much she weighed.
She stalked over to him, her padded paws making the barest of sounds. Her eyes never left his. Tail curling and uncurling, she sat at his feet.
"I will call you Louh," she purred. "You will call me Kokoro."
"That sounds good."
"I've been waiting for this moment for a long, long time."
He smiled. "So have I, but it's strange. I don't feel like I expected."
"In what way?"
"I thought I'd be ecstatic. Instead I'm..."
"At peace?"
He nodded. Impossible for a cat to smile, but all the tension had gone from her powerful body giving him the same impression of pleasure. She leaned forward and he raised his hand to grasp the hair of her neck in his fist.
"I feel like I've found something I've been missing all my life."
"You have."
"I feel like I can do anything."
"You can."
***********
A quiet room.
A light boarded floor. Wood-and-paper walls, two dim, two leaking light from the corridor and outdoors respectively. A solid board ceiling.
A tatami mat leaning against one wall. Sheets neatly folded as an anchor at its base. A large bookcase with four faded books. A rubix cube not yet completed on the top shelf. An ocarina sitting in front of a flask of sake and a bottle of Human alcohol.
A sheath seventy centimetres long, brown, dull, empty.
A zanpakuto resting in long-fingered hands.
A Shinigami, kneeling, eyes closed, quiet, breathing evenly.
An atmosphere of calm contemplation. Of slow and deliberate preparation. The crawling-flesh sensation of balance between cold, churning uncertainty and hot, vibrant determination to succeed.
Peishin Louh opened his eyes and fixed them on the blade.
His mind focused on the edge, ran back and forth across the infinite sharpness, caressed it like a whetstone until it sang in his soul.
It was as much a part of him as his voice or his heart, but until today he had never had the courage or the power to accept it completely. It was his anger, his fear, his love and his hate. It was everything in him that would stand and fight and cut and kill.
It was the part of himself he kept sheathed in his deepest soul.
With a last, lingering glance over the physical blade he was ready. He took a deep breath that trembled only slightly in his lungs and did something that would be impossible to describe to another living being.
He left Soul Society behind and stepped inside an altogether different world.
He'd seen it before, of course. Sometimes in the bloody urgency of a losing battle, sometimes in the clinical patience of meditation, sometimes when he swung his sword in victory, and sometimes as he cared for it with cloth and oil in his squad barracks.
Occasionally he'd seen it in the fog of inebriation, and he'd seen it as his blood leaked out of his body, steaming in the red-pink-white snow-slush of the Human world or onto the clean white stones of 12th squad's training grounds.
The details remained pretty much the same no matter what the circumstances might be, except for one noticeable variant. The time was rarely the same. even though there was never a sun, the time varied from sunrise to sunset. Never night, save for once, when he had really thought he was going to die.
For these reasons he always checked the sky first.
It was bright enough to be midday.
There was grass underfoot, a sea of yellow. Strange weedlike plants poked out, reaching up past the grass with two or three heads and blue, thorned stalks. Blue and white mushrooms grew to the size of trees. Above, the sky was purple, cloudless, but it stirred and rolled like fire.
There was no sound. No movement, not even wind, but the grass swayed gently as if there was one. It was a scorching day as always but dry as a desert. Peishin often thought this place should be a desert, but apparently one's inner world didn't adhere to the laws of nature.
An animal crouched a few feet from him.
It was a long, sleek shape, with a round head and large yellow eyes. It was staring at him, ears flat against its skull, muscles tensed as if ready to leap. Though it was lying on its belly and he'd never seen it stand, he guessed that it would be a huge, powerful animal.
Peishin was standing in the shade of a mushroom. No grass grew here for reasons unknown, but he was glad as it gave him somewhere to sit and still keep the cougar in sight. He settled with his back against the fleshy stalk (trunk?) of the gigantic fungi.
He waited.
The cat continued to stare at him. He stared back.
The day grew older, the light fading from noonlight toward evening. No stars showed above, but the sky began to glow like a limited aurora. Peishin kept glancing up and then back to the cat.
As he wondered to himself why the light changed he experienced a strange feeling. It was the kind of feeling you got when standing at the top of a cliff, a kind of inner voice that said jump, the kind of feeling that made you make foolish decisions despite knowing the consequences. Ask the cat, it said.
So he did. "Why does the light change?"
"The sky reflects your strength," the cat answered.
"In what way?"
"As your strength wanes, so does the day. It is brightest when you feel at your best and darkest when you approach exhaustion."
"Why is it never night?" he asked.
"As you die, so will the day."
He felt a little chill at that despite the heat. "Does everything in this world reflect my feelings?"
"Most things."
"The grass?"
"Your sense of self-worth."
"The weeds?"
"Your hesitation. Your ill-confidence. Your fear. As you feel worse about yourself the weeds grow and strangle the grass. In time the grass regrows and the weeds retreat."
"What about the mushrooms?" he asked.
"They mean you're a freak."
He laughed. "I suppose everyone's a little strange inside."
"Indeed." The cat was silent for a few moments. "It's good to finally talk to you."
"And you. I suppose you know all about me."
"No, I don't. We were deaf to each other before today."
"That's interesting," he scratched his nose. "The textbooks didn't mention anything about that. They said I wouldn't be able to hear you, but not the other way round."
The cat shrugged. "My name is Sabishi Kokoro."
"Mine is Peishin Louh."
Sabishi Kokoro rose to her feet, and Peishin noted that his earlier guess was correct. Grass that grew to his hip level barely brushed her stomach. Her shoulders were perhaps at the same height as his, maybe even taller. He wondered how much she weighed.
She stalked over to him, her padded paws making the barest of sounds. Her eyes never left his. Tail curling and uncurling, she sat at his feet.
"I will call you Louh," she purred. "You will call me Kokoro."
"That sounds good."
"I've been waiting for this moment for a long, long time."
He smiled. "So have I, but it's strange. I don't feel like I expected."
"In what way?"
"I thought I'd be ecstatic. Instead I'm..."
"At peace?"
He nodded. Impossible for a cat to smile, but all the tension had gone from her powerful body giving him the same impression of pleasure. She leaned forward and he raised his hand to grasp the hair of her neck in his fist.
"I feel like I've found something I've been missing all my life."
"You have."
"I feel like I can do anything."
"You can."