[Otogizoushi] A Thousand Years of Bliss
Jul. 29th, 2009 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreA Thousand Years of Bliss
By: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet theme: 30 - and our fingers they almost touched
31 Days Theme: July 30 - for I have made her prison be her every step away from me
Fandom: Otogizoushi (anime)
Characters: Hikaru, Seimei
Words: 1955
Warnings: spoilers, but it's an AU, so.
Notes: for this challenge with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
measuringlife.
..........................................................
Her brother was away on a mission when Hikaru was told she would be married again. She watched her mother's fan spread as she listened, their clan crest painted on the folds in variegated shades of red and pink to match the topmost layers of her robes, and wondered if she should say something. Her parents might call it off if she protested; there was no sense in another life lost when the other two met their respective ends beneath the shadow of Rashomon, their hearts removed so cleanly the culprit could only be supernatural.
A brazier imparted warmth. Ice prickled on the hagi outside, and the air smelled like cedar and pine, and a deep, floral overtone drifted from the charcoal where her mother set the incense. Hikaru felt the cold rise through the wooden floor and her five layers, all white. Someone gathered her hair, and a comb pulled, snicking at the ends where it found a tangle.
Who? Hikaru thought frost should have clouded from her mouth when she spoke.
Her mother's charcoal eyebrows raised. Abe no Seimei.
Hikaru's breath caught in her throat. She knew that name - everyone did, the maids, the ladies, the commoners; her brother uttered it rarely, only ever with malice.
Your father thinks we are saved at last.
Raiko had left the house two days before with Tsuna at his side, bound for the northern territories on order of the Minister of the Right. Hikaru wondered if her father had arranged the commission to have her brother out of the way, as he knew her brother's opinion on Seimei's part in the curse on their house. Misfortune did not visit the houses of the Saga Genji, or the Murakami. It did not cast its shadow upon Yorinobu's wife. Only theirs.
Only Hikaru.
She was expected to welcome him on the night before the beginning of winter. Her mother's black eyes reflected Hikaru's pale face, and did not blink, though her brows dipped as much as her cosmetics allowed, and her powdered forehead creased ever so slightly. Not long ago her face wore that same expression as she announced Hikaru's first marriage, murmured that she was too old to remain unmarried, and perhaps it would put an end to her unfeminine pursuits - the flute, the bow. She would have made a fine priestess, they said, if she were the issue of a lesser family or a shrine keeper-- but she was an official's daughter, so why could she not excel in her letters instead, in poetry, in painting?
Arguing had gained Hikaru nothing then, so she bowed for the third time and said she would, of course, see him when the moon rose above the line of cypress at the edge of their property. It was his own life Seimei intended to spend, though she wished he would waste it without her involvement.
The snap of her mother's fan closing, perhaps in satisfaction, made Hikaru feel sick.
*
Arrangements were made for the wedding cakes, the wine, a new set of bowls were commissioned, and Hikaru was given several new robes all shades of scarlet and pink, and a deep green for the innermost layer. The long, pleated hakama were bright red like camellia blossoms, and the letter tucked into their folds was written in fine calligraphy, though the words were conventional, merely referencing the appropriate poems and an intent to see her. She wondered if he truly wrote it - if his talents extended to writing without sight, or if another had written it for him, and who that might have been if the latter were true. It was said Abe no Seimei was accompanied at all times by a little girl he called Mitsumushi, who appeared to be twelve or thirteen, and responded to no one but her master. She cannot hear mortals speak, rumor had it. She is his medium for all things of the next world. Others said she was no medium, but inhuman herself, perhaps a spirit or a demon, or one of the Master Diviner's famous shikigami who were compelled to serve Seimei, and only him, and no story Hikaru knew had explained the nature of strange spirits like that.
If that were true-- would the spirits be witness to their joining? Would it be his astral guardians that saved him from the curse that waited in Hikaru's shadow?
Her mother made the three layers of white robes she would wear, and Hikaru wondered if that little girl would accompany her new husband during all of his visits and wait on the other side of her shutters. She made her own pleated trousers of a fine maroon silk that appeared brown in the lamplight, red in the sun. Their best curtains were arranged in her room, and the most expensive laquered chests and drawers brought out of storage and arranged just so, and new robes were laid upon her sleeping platform. When the night of her first meeting with him cast its dusky curtain over their home, incense was set around her room that left the air sweet and sharp. She didn't know what was in it - scent alchemy was another art she lacked finesse in - but it lulled her, made her eyelids feel heavy while she dressed in the thin white layers of her nuptial robes.
Do not trust Abe no Seimei, her brother said before he left, his fingers a shadow on her screen. The scent reaching past her screens, across her room, reminded Hikaru of the incense Raiko used to perfume his robes, and if she closed her eyes, she could see the points of his shadow fingertips where they pressed against the bamboo. Father won't listen, so you must, Hikaru.
But how?
Her brother's silence stretched many breaths before he withdrew his hand and Hikaru heard the roll of his flute on the floor before he caught it. The melody he played when he picked it up made her throat feel tight and her tongue too large in her mouth, and she told him to stop, that playing one's own funeral dirge before embarking on a trip would bring him terrible luck, and he laughed in a subdued murmur, and told her to remember the notes, the inflections.
Hikaru remembered. She would have taken the flute from its box and played, but she heard her father's voice welcome their guest and knew it was too late.
The brazier didn't burn warm enough to make up for the lack of her lined robes. She waited on her platform, curtains raised to face the stands and screens that separated her room from the hallway, and felt her fingertips chill, her toes, the tip of her nose. A robe with short sleeves was brought to her, pink brocade stitched with plum blossoms and branches, but it didn't repulse the chill, and its cedar scent only reminded her of the trees outside in the dark, with their covering of frost.
Seimei's arrival was quiet, and he was not accompanied by a little girl, but by her father, who had extended his arm to guide the other man's steps and parted the curtains with his own hand. He wore a deep magenta brocade, boldly-patterned black trousers, and a mask the rumors had neglected to mention - perhaps because it was so strange, so blatant an eccentricity, that everyone knew of it and therefore did not speak of it.
Or, perhaps they feared it. Hikaru was reminded of the demon masks seen at new year's banquets; he wore a ceremonial wig just like the dancers did at such events, but the wooden disc covering his face was painted white and carved with such precision it seemed to change expression when Seimei advanced past the oil lamp on its stand and sank down to his knees beside the platform. He held a fan in one hand, folded precisely, the handle black and shiny, and a red, knotted cord dangled from the end and trailed on the floor like a snake.
Hikaru lifted a sleeve to shield the bottom of her face. His blank smile reminded her of the ingratiating grins of other men who regaled her with poetry and tried to push behind her screens. Was she to bed a demon?
When he did not speak, or even move, she lowered her sleeve. Perhaps she had misunderstood what her parents told her. "Are you here to purify me?"
He reached back, pulled; the strings over his ears went slack, and he caught the mask with his other hand. The shaggy wig slid from his shoulders and landed with a rustle, revealing dark, silky black. "Your circumstances inspired my sympathy." Lore said Seimei had served more than a dozen emperors for more than a hundred years, but the face he revealed was no older than her brother's, and perhaps more handsome. "I have yet to marry. The choice was obvious."
Hikaru covered her mouth again. His voice sounded familiar, but she could not place it. His eyes drifted to follow her sleeve, then snapped to meet her gaze again, and she said: "You... aren't blind."
"I've never claimed to be." His hand was warm when it rested on her fingers, slipped beneath her sleeve, and caught her when she twitched back. One of his nails was worn down, and the other fingertip callused, hardened by the handling of go stones. The fingers of her right hand matched his; he smiled when he pulled it away from her face and felt the ridge, his eyes narrowing slightly, his mouth full and drawing the attention of the shadows. "It is a persistent rumor - much like the curse you are supposed to bear."
The tightness in Hikaru's throat made her feel sick. The lamp light shined on his hair, drew her eye, and when he moved, she smelled ceremonial incense and coldness from outside, cypress and woodsmoke caught beneath his wig, perhaps. "Lord Seimei, this is no laughing--"
"Mansairaku," he said. He released her right hand, holding the other between both of his, warming her fingers until they tingled. "That is the name I was born with."
Hikaru stared at the glint dancing across his eyes with the pulsing of the lamp flame, her lips dry and slightly parted. She knew that name too, though he was another figure she only heard of, as she was not invited to accompany her father to events which merited a performance from Mansairaku, the most gifted dancer of their time, sought after by emperors, ministers, the patriarchs of the Fujiwara. An apt name his family bestowed upon him, she'd heard it said; to watch him dance is to sample the pleasures of the heavens.
Mansairaku rose, but only to join her on the sleeping platform. He didn't let go of her hand. Their knees touched, and she felt hot, as if the heat of a fire were creeping from his hands to hers, along her arms, under her robes. The platform had fooled her into thinking he lacked height, yet she had to lift her face to meet his eyes, and only did so at the prompting heat of his fingers beneath her chin.
He tilted his head down, the tips of their noses close, and his whisper warmed her lips. "Now that I have told you my secrets," he said, eyelids lowering, "It is only right for you to reveal yours."
Surrendering didn't bother Hikaru as much as she thought it should.
.......................................................................
I think this is a bad execution of my original idea, so I don't think I'll continue it. Motivation flew out the window about halfway through, in any case. The title is a reference to Mansairaku's name, a sort of literal meaning, though it should be 'ten thousand.' The Manzairaku dance is traditionally performed at the beginning of a new reign to promote peace and such.
.
By: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet theme: 30 - and our fingers they almost touched
31 Days Theme: July 30 - for I have made her prison be her every step away from me
Fandom: Otogizoushi (anime)
Characters: Hikaru, Seimei
Words: 1955
Warnings: spoilers, but it's an AU, so.
Notes: for this challenge with
measuringlife. ..........................................................
Her brother was away on a mission when Hikaru was told she would be married again. She watched her mother's fan spread as she listened, their clan crest painted on the folds in variegated shades of red and pink to match the topmost layers of her robes, and wondered if she should say something. Her parents might call it off if she protested; there was no sense in another life lost when the other two met their respective ends beneath the shadow of Rashomon, their hearts removed so cleanly the culprit could only be supernatural.
A brazier imparted warmth. Ice prickled on the hagi outside, and the air smelled like cedar and pine, and a deep, floral overtone drifted from the charcoal where her mother set the incense. Hikaru felt the cold rise through the wooden floor and her five layers, all white. Someone gathered her hair, and a comb pulled, snicking at the ends where it found a tangle.
Who? Hikaru thought frost should have clouded from her mouth when she spoke.
Her mother's charcoal eyebrows raised. Abe no Seimei.
Hikaru's breath caught in her throat. She knew that name - everyone did, the maids, the ladies, the commoners; her brother uttered it rarely, only ever with malice.
Your father thinks we are saved at last.
Raiko had left the house two days before with Tsuna at his side, bound for the northern territories on order of the Minister of the Right. Hikaru wondered if her father had arranged the commission to have her brother out of the way, as he knew her brother's opinion on Seimei's part in the curse on their house. Misfortune did not visit the houses of the Saga Genji, or the Murakami. It did not cast its shadow upon Yorinobu's wife. Only theirs.
Only Hikaru.
She was expected to welcome him on the night before the beginning of winter. Her mother's black eyes reflected Hikaru's pale face, and did not blink, though her brows dipped as much as her cosmetics allowed, and her powdered forehead creased ever so slightly. Not long ago her face wore that same expression as she announced Hikaru's first marriage, murmured that she was too old to remain unmarried, and perhaps it would put an end to her unfeminine pursuits - the flute, the bow. She would have made a fine priestess, they said, if she were the issue of a lesser family or a shrine keeper-- but she was an official's daughter, so why could she not excel in her letters instead, in poetry, in painting?
Arguing had gained Hikaru nothing then, so she bowed for the third time and said she would, of course, see him when the moon rose above the line of cypress at the edge of their property. It was his own life Seimei intended to spend, though she wished he would waste it without her involvement.
The snap of her mother's fan closing, perhaps in satisfaction, made Hikaru feel sick.
*
Arrangements were made for the wedding cakes, the wine, a new set of bowls were commissioned, and Hikaru was given several new robes all shades of scarlet and pink, and a deep green for the innermost layer. The long, pleated hakama were bright red like camellia blossoms, and the letter tucked into their folds was written in fine calligraphy, though the words were conventional, merely referencing the appropriate poems and an intent to see her. She wondered if he truly wrote it - if his talents extended to writing without sight, or if another had written it for him, and who that might have been if the latter were true. It was said Abe no Seimei was accompanied at all times by a little girl he called Mitsumushi, who appeared to be twelve or thirteen, and responded to no one but her master. She cannot hear mortals speak, rumor had it. She is his medium for all things of the next world. Others said she was no medium, but inhuman herself, perhaps a spirit or a demon, or one of the Master Diviner's famous shikigami who were compelled to serve Seimei, and only him, and no story Hikaru knew had explained the nature of strange spirits like that.
If that were true-- would the spirits be witness to their joining? Would it be his astral guardians that saved him from the curse that waited in Hikaru's shadow?
Her mother made the three layers of white robes she would wear, and Hikaru wondered if that little girl would accompany her new husband during all of his visits and wait on the other side of her shutters. She made her own pleated trousers of a fine maroon silk that appeared brown in the lamplight, red in the sun. Their best curtains were arranged in her room, and the most expensive laquered chests and drawers brought out of storage and arranged just so, and new robes were laid upon her sleeping platform. When the night of her first meeting with him cast its dusky curtain over their home, incense was set around her room that left the air sweet and sharp. She didn't know what was in it - scent alchemy was another art she lacked finesse in - but it lulled her, made her eyelids feel heavy while she dressed in the thin white layers of her nuptial robes.
Do not trust Abe no Seimei, her brother said before he left, his fingers a shadow on her screen. The scent reaching past her screens, across her room, reminded Hikaru of the incense Raiko used to perfume his robes, and if she closed her eyes, she could see the points of his shadow fingertips where they pressed against the bamboo. Father won't listen, so you must, Hikaru.
But how?
Her brother's silence stretched many breaths before he withdrew his hand and Hikaru heard the roll of his flute on the floor before he caught it. The melody he played when he picked it up made her throat feel tight and her tongue too large in her mouth, and she told him to stop, that playing one's own funeral dirge before embarking on a trip would bring him terrible luck, and he laughed in a subdued murmur, and told her to remember the notes, the inflections.
Hikaru remembered. She would have taken the flute from its box and played, but she heard her father's voice welcome their guest and knew it was too late.
The brazier didn't burn warm enough to make up for the lack of her lined robes. She waited on her platform, curtains raised to face the stands and screens that separated her room from the hallway, and felt her fingertips chill, her toes, the tip of her nose. A robe with short sleeves was brought to her, pink brocade stitched with plum blossoms and branches, but it didn't repulse the chill, and its cedar scent only reminded her of the trees outside in the dark, with their covering of frost.
Seimei's arrival was quiet, and he was not accompanied by a little girl, but by her father, who had extended his arm to guide the other man's steps and parted the curtains with his own hand. He wore a deep magenta brocade, boldly-patterned black trousers, and a mask the rumors had neglected to mention - perhaps because it was so strange, so blatant an eccentricity, that everyone knew of it and therefore did not speak of it.
Or, perhaps they feared it. Hikaru was reminded of the demon masks seen at new year's banquets; he wore a ceremonial wig just like the dancers did at such events, but the wooden disc covering his face was painted white and carved with such precision it seemed to change expression when Seimei advanced past the oil lamp on its stand and sank down to his knees beside the platform. He held a fan in one hand, folded precisely, the handle black and shiny, and a red, knotted cord dangled from the end and trailed on the floor like a snake.
Hikaru lifted a sleeve to shield the bottom of her face. His blank smile reminded her of the ingratiating grins of other men who regaled her with poetry and tried to push behind her screens. Was she to bed a demon?
When he did not speak, or even move, she lowered her sleeve. Perhaps she had misunderstood what her parents told her. "Are you here to purify me?"
He reached back, pulled; the strings over his ears went slack, and he caught the mask with his other hand. The shaggy wig slid from his shoulders and landed with a rustle, revealing dark, silky black. "Your circumstances inspired my sympathy." Lore said Seimei had served more than a dozen emperors for more than a hundred years, but the face he revealed was no older than her brother's, and perhaps more handsome. "I have yet to marry. The choice was obvious."
Hikaru covered her mouth again. His voice sounded familiar, but she could not place it. His eyes drifted to follow her sleeve, then snapped to meet her gaze again, and she said: "You... aren't blind."
"I've never claimed to be." His hand was warm when it rested on her fingers, slipped beneath her sleeve, and caught her when she twitched back. One of his nails was worn down, and the other fingertip callused, hardened by the handling of go stones. The fingers of her right hand matched his; he smiled when he pulled it away from her face and felt the ridge, his eyes narrowing slightly, his mouth full and drawing the attention of the shadows. "It is a persistent rumor - much like the curse you are supposed to bear."
The tightness in Hikaru's throat made her feel sick. The lamp light shined on his hair, drew her eye, and when he moved, she smelled ceremonial incense and coldness from outside, cypress and woodsmoke caught beneath his wig, perhaps. "Lord Seimei, this is no laughing--"
"Mansairaku," he said. He released her right hand, holding the other between both of his, warming her fingers until they tingled. "That is the name I was born with."
Hikaru stared at the glint dancing across his eyes with the pulsing of the lamp flame, her lips dry and slightly parted. She knew that name too, though he was another figure she only heard of, as she was not invited to accompany her father to events which merited a performance from Mansairaku, the most gifted dancer of their time, sought after by emperors, ministers, the patriarchs of the Fujiwara. An apt name his family bestowed upon him, she'd heard it said; to watch him dance is to sample the pleasures of the heavens.
Mansairaku rose, but only to join her on the sleeping platform. He didn't let go of her hand. Their knees touched, and she felt hot, as if the heat of a fire were creeping from his hands to hers, along her arms, under her robes. The platform had fooled her into thinking he lacked height, yet she had to lift her face to meet his eyes, and only did so at the prompting heat of his fingers beneath her chin.
He tilted his head down, the tips of their noses close, and his whisper warmed her lips. "Now that I have told you my secrets," he said, eyelids lowering, "It is only right for you to reveal yours."
Surrendering didn't bother Hikaru as much as she thought it should.
.......................................................................
I think this is a bad execution of my original idea, so I don't think I'll continue it. Motivation flew out the window about halfway through, in any case. The title is a reference to Mansairaku's name, a sort of literal meaning, though it should be 'ten thousand.' The Manzairaku dance is traditionally performed at the beginning of a new reign to promote peace and such.
.