#Scorpion4Lyfe

[thefreelanceangel]

A Scorpion's Song

Bearing the instrument into the empty halls took all of her strength. She could not sling it about like any other burden; it needed to be handled gently, the weight managed, not merely endured. And she'd born burdens enough in the past years, this one too many, one too heavy for her.

Her knees buckled; she sank to the floor, feeling the old, crackling tatami give beneath her slight weight. Trembling with weariness, she kept her hands locked about the wrapped weight in her arms, held hard against her belly, until she and the floor reached their tentative agreement.

Gently, Kyako let the koto slide down her thighs to rest on the dusty floor. Her arms ached, relieved of the weight. She sat on her heels, flexing her fingers, and looked at the empty hall. The golden eyes she'd inherited, that she hated with all her heart, swept the water-stained tatami, the tattered remnants of shoji. When she twisted to stretch her lower back, the ink-and-plaster mural stretching high overhead mocked her with memory.

Yes, the scent of fresh plaster and wet ink existed only in her thoughts, but oh how vividly she recalled those smells accompanying the slap of plaster on the wall, the chatter of her sisters as they mixed ink, the distant bustle of feet moving throughout the Soshi home. On that day, with their fate only bearing down upon them but not yet present, the household and Kyako's life held only the banality of peace.

She exhaled, untying the silk, and smoothed it away from the strings of her koto. With a few delicate adjustments, Kyako tightened the twisted silk strings that needed attention, folded the silk wrapper back to let the instrument gleam, and sat on her heels. Her nails caught briefly on a string when she reached to pluck them; she watched mutely as blood welled from her fingertip.

When had she last knelt by her koto to play?

Kyako's mask moved slightly; she wiped blood off onto the hem of her skirt before reaching up to adjust the lay of heavy silk across the bridge of her nose. Even being here, here of all places, where she'd first been given her mask, taught the meaning of it, had the pride she wore it with instilled in her... She could not simply remove it. Would not. Not even here, where she'd vowed to keep her face all, save the kami and the spouse she'd never managed to obtain.

A laugh sounded, in tune with the string she plucked.

"I broke that vow, Mother," Kyako said aloud. "Not as you feared. I have never taken the mask from my face in public. But the man who fathered my child saw my face in the three nights we shared. And I saw his." Her mask shifted again as her golden eyes warmed. "Ryuki inherited his eyes, the kami were merciful in that. She is well, last I saw."

Her fingertips stroked over the strings, careful not to draw notes from them just yet. "I left her. As you did me. I wonder if your reasoning differed from mine." Kyako curled a fingertip, plucking a string with the tip of her nail. "I wonder if it matters."

...or if it ever would.

Rational explanations, after all, did not change the actions they sought to clarify.

Her family, save for one estranged daughter, were still dead, after all. Her household, those who'd contributed to a household, to the thriving of a samurai family, were still dead. All of them.

Except for her.

Kyako closed her eyes, adjusting her posture, and laid her fingertips on the strings. Notes drifted through her mind, forming into chords, and she recalled a song that she'd first learned a decade prior, living on sufferance in a household that displayed her as a novelty.

With the first notes she plucked, blood stained the strings, running down her fingers to soak into the dusty tatami, to bead on the polished wood of the koto. Kyako fed the abandoned household with blood and music, head bowed over the strings.

In the light of the lantern she'd set in the hall, she moved her hands across the strings. A few drops of blood from freshly sliced fingertips flicked over the koto, staining the tatami.

And she felt them gathering, drawn towards the light of her lantern, the warmth of her blood, the life that she brought back into the long-abandoned Soshi hall.

Not many remained, she'd not expected the household itself to linger in the walls once painted by their hands only to be stained by their screams.

Those that came... She knew.

Kneeling to her left came Hideyuki who cleaned fireplaces and carried water, his strong forearms always tensed in her memory, his broad hands occupied with loads of wood, buckets of water, a heavy stone to repair one of the wells.

Beside him, her father's favorite man, Ichiro. Kyako recalled so little of him, save as her father's shadow. And the hands which had clasped her own when she, as a very small child, stumbled and fell. He'd helped her to her feet, wiped away a tear, smiled at her insistence on smoothing her clothing down. He'd laughed, too loudly for the halls, and never apologized.

Kyako's chest tightened as she felt him beside her.

His name rested on her lips, unspoken, and Kyako's hands continued to move across the strings.

Nobu.

Under his eyes, she'd sat for months to learn the very instrument she now played. Under his eyes, she'd embroidered and read, studied and played. Under his cool grey eyes, for the earliest years of her life, she'd walked to her bed with Nobu at her right shoulder, three strides behind her.

Nobu stood beside her, behind her, with his arms crossed. Just as he'd stood the day they broke down the front gates, waiting for the command to be given to get her safely out of the compound.

And it'd been Nobu, behind her, who'd taken the blade intended to take her life.

One note after another, played in sequence, and music rippled through the room. Kyako played on, adjusting the placement of her fingertips, using the tips of her nails when the strings sliced too deep. Every string she touched turned a brilliant red, fading into a dull rusty brown, tiny droplets of blood rising in a spray that stained her pale hands as she continued to play.

Her offering to those who'd died in these halls--pain and music and blood.

And their acceptance of it... She felt it.

They listened to the music, taking as much from her presence as she took from theirs, and Kyako's mask shifted delicately as she smiled.

Even when no Soshi lived, something of them would remain.