#some hcs and stuff on shiromoris life teehee

[eagehaunting]

Mystery March 2021 day 18: Flower

She had been alive for a long time, even longer than she realized at first. It was difficult to keep track of. Her memory scarce and littered with centuries that flew past her icy prison. The glacier she was held in slowly cracked, melted away into rivers. Her roots drank eagerly, her body growing again.

If it wasn’t for the small animals and larger humans that took interest in her ‘home’, she would have been trapped much longer.

But hot blood splashed, and new strength gave the ancient roots the ability to twist and squirm.

Until her body was finally released.

Her kimono was bleached and stained. The once red fabric, woven from the loose strands of many nine tails, lost its luster. Her father, the kitsune, would be disappointed.

Perhaps the red was sucked from it, stabilizing her long enough to live through immobilization and eternal winters.

When she finally stepped foot, and was met with water, she wondered what changes occurred over her expansive life. Parts of her old realities eroded, both from the ice and the food provided by a new guardian that saved her life.

She chose to categorize her life by the names she bore.

The first name... was long since forgotten. She had been forced to shed it when her fields grew weary, and only once flower remained of her. The sun was hidden by the rotten trees, and the skies covered by clouds of hatred.

When she bore her first name, she was sure she would die. Alone, perishing after years of survival. With no one left to appreciate the beauty and life she tried so desperately to sustain.

Then, a golden sheen of white fur surrounded her. A deep, playful grin that she couldn’t return.

A kitsune, her guardian, her father. The gifter of her precious red kimono.

Yellowing teeth glisten from the glow of his closed eye, before it sank down upon its paw.

The blood that trickled down her petals was intoxicating. Rich in flavor and texture, strong in the power given.

Her roots shot out. They claimed the trees. A field of red petals burst out from the branches, and her new form came.

And feasting upon the blood of her father, she was gifted a name. Akaihana.

A name she wore with pride. One that echoed through her forest along with tantalizing chimes. Bells, animal calls, a singing voice. Her father mimicked anyone, and together, they consumed armies.

Her heart was new and full, filled with a gleaming red. Powered by the deep crimson of human fools, and the delicious scent of her fathers essence.

Akaihana was grateful. Akaihana was willing to return the favor of life.

Her father smiled and sang to her, easing her through the process of learning to walk when she realized she could. Shifting into a form that resembled the humans. A way for Akaihana to lure in love stricken fools, earn riches and worshiped by wine drunken followers, and able to flee with her core if needed.

Akaihana never saw the point, but she was grateful to be gifted her fathers old clothes. She took on her duties well, learned even faster. She would make her nine-tailed father smile proudly upon her, and any corpse she brought for him.

It wasn’t long before Akaihana became hungry. The red of her trees lost their luster, the color draining until she became a sickening white. Purple and ivory bark turned tired and blue. Akaihana came to hate that blue, and sought to replace it with its warm reds again.

But no amount of blood or bodies would help her become warm again.

No, it was her fathers blood that helped her retain that beauty.

And in his immortal youth...

He became afraid, wary, secretive.

Her father looked upon her with disdain, even whilst upon her branches.

Akaihana only realized when her hatred for blue intensified. Her father left her in a single night, and returned while she starved. When he returned, a warrior cloaked in frost was with him, carrying a sword that made her branches cold and stiffen, made the life wilt and decay under its icy gaze.

Her father brought death upon Akaihana’s forest. The warrior coming directly for her, after her core.

The body her father instructed her to maintain, in order to save herself and flee, it was now her downfall.

The warrior didn’t kill Akaihana, however. Although she was convinced the blue human would have.

She didn’t realize it until she awoken again, this time with polluted air filling her lungs and making her white leaves shrivel in disdain.

The smell of rot wafted off skeletons. Their muscles and flesh stripped away by the force of her blue roots stabbing into them.

Only when she left the prison did Akaihana realize how much time had passed. She was bombarded, overwhelmed, her weakly pulsing heart straining to give her the energy to run from an unfamiliar reality marked by unfamiliar terrain and straining noises and smells

A crowd of poorly dressed warriors stood before her prison, waiting for her. Clutching torches, spears, speaking into boxes that had garbled words coming through. She was dizzy as they came close, stabbing their sticks into her.

Then, and only then, did she remember her father. The nine tailed coward who abandoned her for a warrior who incased her in purgatory. The betrayal stung, and the remains hurt worse.

‘Akaihana’ was nothing more than a reminder.

And the grief she felt fueled her roots to seize and strike against the onslaught.

Humans were weak, puny things. And in this new reality, they were even more pathetic. But with every corpses consumed, she found herself able to make out their words and expressions easier. Learning their language with every death.

The crowd was diminished, but she still starved.

Next, we’re the scarce villages. She wiped out entire communities as she followed a trail that she could hardly remember, following a sticky scent that was nearly nostalgic.

Her father was still alive. He had been all over this territory once, he had to be nearby.

She wishes she could sprout a flower to follow, similar to how she found him earlier under the name Akaihana.

But she didn’t have much lead besides the smell she followed.

As she traveled from village to village, word traveled faster. She would hear the occasional human speak of a white forest that was taking over the countryside. With yellow talons and blue bark.

It didn’t take her long to realize that the white forest was her, when she arrived upon a larger village, and the humans bombarded her with terrified screams and offerings to make her leave them be.

Shiromori.

She remembered the first human who uttered it to her, so scared and crumbled on the ground, with wine and riches on a platter made of red wood.

It was delightful, even more so when he and everyone else in the village filled her body with energy and sprouts grew from their corpses.

Shiromori.

Yes, that could be the marking of a new life that she planned to lead, in search of her hateful father.

She will ensure that he knew the centuries of betrayed burning inside his blue barked daughter, and she will plant acres of red trees from the remains of his corpse.

First a forgotten name, then Akaihana, and now, Shiromori.

A name she will wear with pride.