foxinthestars (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foxinthestars) wrote2010-11-05 12:00 am
foxinthestars) wrote2010-11-05 12:00 am
Entry tags:
Day 4
I am back on track and flashback day has begun, despite my occasional attacks of taking-for-freaking-ever (both in unit words and in unit time) to complete simple tasks (such as "get stuck in a cave and start yakking").
Little formatting notes: when you see a weird pair of recap paragraphs, that's meant to be a chapter break (we always started and ended Mirrorverse chapters that way, but I'm writing this in one big file intending to disaggregate it later), and then when the backstory comes, I'm trying to mimic the format Kati used in episode 27.
“There’s a cave here; we can at least get out of the rain,” Nuriko said, pointing. A sudden blast of wind on their soaked clothes cut deep with cold, further recommending the idea.
“We have to leave some signal outside for the others to find,” Hotohori told her.
“I’m on it.” She started peeling off her red coat. As Yui edged along the rocks, Hotohori stayed behind to help, but Nuriko pointed him forcefully toward the cave again. “You, inside.”
Yui climbed into the cave. It was formed of smooth, weathered rock, and after a neck of several paces, opened up into a round room with a dirt floor. The gray light filtered in dimly to reveal the walls, but the upward reaches fell away into shadow before a ceiling was visible. In the middle of the floor, stones were arranged in a fire-ring, and a stack of firewood and supplies stood in one spot against the wall. “Someone must use this place,” she said to the sound of Hotohori’s footsteps behind her.
“If so, then someone will find us,” he said. A loud crash echoed from outside, and he turned back to look. “It’s Nuriko; don’t worry.”
He arranged wood in the fire-ring---there were even bundles of dried grass for tinder---and Yui found a pouch with flint and steel. It occurred to her that neither of them had ever done this themselves before, but still she tried striking it over the tinder; after a few tries she was able to produce a shower of sparks. The grass caught more easily than she expected, and she was already nursing a small fire when Nuriko followed them inside.
“They should be able to see that,” she announced, then looked around and up. The firelight now revealed that the chamber was very tall, but no light entered from above. “This place is convenient.” Her tone wasn’t quite a happy one, and although the firelight cast strange shadows on her face that made it hard to judge, Yui thought she saw a skeptical frown. Maybe it seemed a bit too convenient...
From outside came a roaring that at first sounded like thunder, but grew in intensity until the walls of the cave shook with it. “What’s happening!?” Yui cried.
Nuriko ran back toward the entrance, but before she could reach it, blackness slammed down over it, blotting out the window of light and sending a massive shudder through the mountain. Then, silence.
Yui, Hotohori, and Nuriko are trapped in the riverside cave, but as the Seishi give themselves over to their remembrances, its darkness may reveal more of them than light. However, the blackness in which Mitsukake finds himself is far more terrible.
Having lost half their number when Seiryuu’s Sei Miboshi set a fearful demon upon the ship carrying them to Hokkan, the Sei of Suzaku search for the comrades who take shelter and await them. They as yet know nothing of Miboshi’s true plan and its fearful consequences for both Suzaku and Seiryuu.
Nuriko shoved with her shoulder against the enormous boulder that had fallen, completely sealing the mouth of the cave where she, Yui, and Hotohori had taken shelter. Her feet dug furrows in the dusty floor of the cave, and Yui and Hotohori put their shoulders to it too, as if their strength was significant compared with hers, but the rock would barely budge a millimeter before the dust slid beneath them, and this time sent Nuriko crashing to her knees.
“It’s not the power, it’s the traction,” she huffed. “I think we’re stuck.”
“The others will see the signal outside and sense our presence here,” Hotohori said. “With all of us together, surely...”
“And in the meantime hope this isn’t a trap,” Nuriko added.
Yui turned back to the interior room of the cave where the small fire was glowing. Suddenly she started; “Oh, the fire!” She ran over to it, and it was still small enough that she could pull the larger logs out from under it and stamp it out with the end of one. Doing so threw the cave into almost total blackness, until only a vestigial red glow remained, not enough to reveal anything except itself.
“Yui!” Nuriko objected.
“We don’t know if air can get in, or how much there is,” she insisted. “The fire would burn it up. If it gets dangerously cold, maybe...” From a medical standpoint, she actually thought hypothermia would be a better last-ditch bet than asphyxiation, and abandoned the ‘maybe.’
She felt around for the firewood and the cache of supplies behind it; she remembered seeing a blanket. Working without vision, every sound seemed sharper; the firewood logs scratched and clunked together as she touched them, the blanket sighed and rustled as she found it and pulled it out. “Over here by the wall,” she said, shaking the blanket to guide their way with some noise. Hotohori’s sword was still strapped on her back and pressed between her and the wall as she sat down against it.
“Hotohori-sama, can you find my hand? There.” They came over together. Yui heard the motion and felt another body sit down beside her and press close. Their hands took the blanket; from the confident quickness she was sure it was Nuriko. The blanket came up short as she pulled it over.
“I think it’s sideways.” Yui ran her hands along the edge, found the corner, and fumbled to turn it without tangling it, but they at last got it situated.
“Hotohori-sama?” Nuriko’s voice came from right next to Yui’s head, confirming the conclusion.
“I’ll be all right.”
“I’m in the middle, you won’t be breaking the rules,” she said.
“I’m not that cold.”
Nuriko sighed.
As abrupt as she could be with Hotohori at times, commanding him to huddle under a blanket with her was apparently beyond the threshold of decorum even now. Yui couldn’t help a flash of bitterness at Taiitsukun’s injunction; surely he would take the opportunity in that case, but nothing for it for now. It would be best, she thought, to keep everyone talking---as long as they were talking, she could know that they were safely healthy and alert---but thinking of a conversation starter on demand wasn’t so easy. “Do you think we’re in Hokkan yet?” she asked.
“Hard to say here in the mountains,” Nuriko admitted.
A long paused followed. That one didn’t work... Yui tried to think of another gambit. “It’s amazing to think about this time yesterday,” she said. “We were all still in Konan. You and Chichiri were still in the palace.”
“I still intended to stay there,” Hotohori admitted.
“Do you wish you had?” Nuriko asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“I remember looking out at the hills where you said there were metalworks. I thought I had so much to learn about Konan, let alone other countries.” From there, Yui thought, there were a lot of questions she could ask to keep a conversation up.
“Oh, I just knew that because I’m from that part of the country,” Nuriko said.
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. A little of the smoke you were seeing was probably Father’s furnace---he’s a silversmith, or at least he was last I knew.”
“I didn’t know that,” Hotohori said.
“We could have stopped and visited,” Yui remarked.
Nuriko gave a mirthless laugh. “That would be awkward.”
Yui understood her blunder, even if only vaguely, and tried to think how to recover, but Nuriko spoke up again first.
“They don’t know about me, that is. And especially the name...”
“The name?” Yui remembered Nuriko’s real name, Chou Ryuuen...?
“To them I’ll always be Kourin, and Ryuuen will always be someone else.” She laughed again, just a little more humorously. “That’s one way to pass the time: tell embarrassing stories about ourselves.”
If that was going to be the game, Yui tried to think of one she could tell about herself, but a desire to avoid ones that prominently featured Miaka left slim pickings.
“I don’t see anything for you to be embarassed about,” Hotohori said with gentle firmness.
“I’m not, really, but you worry about what other people would think,” Nuriko said.
“Even the two of us?” Yui asked.
“That’s true... Except for Tamahome, the three of us have been together the longest, after all.”
“Think, also, how long we knew each other without actually knowing each other,” Hotohori said.
“Oh, I knew you better than you think; you just didn’t know me.”
Yui thought she heard a slight sound of him catching his breath.
Nuriko quickly moved to cover it over. “Anyway, I was going to tell my story, right? Here it goes...” Think of it as karmic repayment for what Chichiri told me...
*******
When I was little, there were three of us children; I was the youngest, and the only girl, and the next youngest was Ryuuen. Our oldest brother was old enough to help father in the shop ever since I could remember, and when he was around, he always wanted to act responsible, so he could be more like another parent than a brother. Ryuuen and I were closer in age---not very close, but closer---so he was the one I latched onto.
Looking back on it, I can only imagine how much I annoyed him. Everywhere he went, I wanted to go too. Everything he did, I wanted to do it too, and I was a headstrong kid with a loud voice. I think our mother humored me just to save herself headaches, but Ryuuen... Well, it isn’t that he was always happy about having me for a shadow, or that we never fought. When I think about it, I don’t know what it was about him. We had a lot of fun together. He would take care of me, but without acting so much like he wanted to get above me. If he told me not to follow him, it was just because he didn’t want me to, not because he thought I wasn’t supposed to. Putting it all together, somehow I knew that he was the one who understood me and who I could trust, and if he and I were together, things would always be fine.
Of course, eventually he got old enough to help in the shop, too. That was boys’ work, not girls’ work, but I was still the same kid and didn’t want to be left behind. I’m sure someone was getting ready to put their foot down with me, but the way it turned out, they didn’t get the chance.
*******
PS: I wonder why DW's spellcheck doesn't know "disaggregate"; I love that word.
6712 ★ 50000 (13.42%)
Little formatting notes: when you see a weird pair of recap paragraphs, that's meant to be a chapter break (we always started and ended Mirrorverse chapters that way, but I'm writing this in one big file intending to disaggregate it later), and then when the backstory comes, I'm trying to mimic the format Kati used in episode 27.
“There’s a cave here; we can at least get out of the rain,” Nuriko said, pointing. A sudden blast of wind on their soaked clothes cut deep with cold, further recommending the idea.
“We have to leave some signal outside for the others to find,” Hotohori told her.
“I’m on it.” She started peeling off her red coat. As Yui edged along the rocks, Hotohori stayed behind to help, but Nuriko pointed him forcefully toward the cave again. “You, inside.”
Yui climbed into the cave. It was formed of smooth, weathered rock, and after a neck of several paces, opened up into a round room with a dirt floor. The gray light filtered in dimly to reveal the walls, but the upward reaches fell away into shadow before a ceiling was visible. In the middle of the floor, stones were arranged in a fire-ring, and a stack of firewood and supplies stood in one spot against the wall. “Someone must use this place,” she said to the sound of Hotohori’s footsteps behind her.
“If so, then someone will find us,” he said. A loud crash echoed from outside, and he turned back to look. “It’s Nuriko; don’t worry.”
He arranged wood in the fire-ring---there were even bundles of dried grass for tinder---and Yui found a pouch with flint and steel. It occurred to her that neither of them had ever done this themselves before, but still she tried striking it over the tinder; after a few tries she was able to produce a shower of sparks. The grass caught more easily than she expected, and she was already nursing a small fire when Nuriko followed them inside.
“They should be able to see that,” she announced, then looked around and up. The firelight now revealed that the chamber was very tall, but no light entered from above. “This place is convenient.” Her tone wasn’t quite a happy one, and although the firelight cast strange shadows on her face that made it hard to judge, Yui thought she saw a skeptical frown. Maybe it seemed a bit too convenient...
From outside came a roaring that at first sounded like thunder, but grew in intensity until the walls of the cave shook with it. “What’s happening!?” Yui cried.
Nuriko ran back toward the entrance, but before she could reach it, blackness slammed down over it, blotting out the window of light and sending a massive shudder through the mountain. Then, silence.
Yui, Hotohori, and Nuriko are trapped in the riverside cave, but as the Seishi give themselves over to their remembrances, its darkness may reveal more of them than light. However, the blackness in which Mitsukake finds himself is far more terrible.
Having lost half their number when Seiryuu’s Sei Miboshi set a fearful demon upon the ship carrying them to Hokkan, the Sei of Suzaku search for the comrades who take shelter and await them. They as yet know nothing of Miboshi’s true plan and its fearful consequences for both Suzaku and Seiryuu.
Nuriko shoved with her shoulder against the enormous boulder that had fallen, completely sealing the mouth of the cave where she, Yui, and Hotohori had taken shelter. Her feet dug furrows in the dusty floor of the cave, and Yui and Hotohori put their shoulders to it too, as if their strength was significant compared with hers, but the rock would barely budge a millimeter before the dust slid beneath them, and this time sent Nuriko crashing to her knees.
“It’s not the power, it’s the traction,” she huffed. “I think we’re stuck.”
“The others will see the signal outside and sense our presence here,” Hotohori said. “With all of us together, surely...”
“And in the meantime hope this isn’t a trap,” Nuriko added.
Yui turned back to the interior room of the cave where the small fire was glowing. Suddenly she started; “Oh, the fire!” She ran over to it, and it was still small enough that she could pull the larger logs out from under it and stamp it out with the end of one. Doing so threw the cave into almost total blackness, until only a vestigial red glow remained, not enough to reveal anything except itself.
“Yui!” Nuriko objected.
“We don’t know if air can get in, or how much there is,” she insisted. “The fire would burn it up. If it gets dangerously cold, maybe...” From a medical standpoint, she actually thought hypothermia would be a better last-ditch bet than asphyxiation, and abandoned the ‘maybe.’
She felt around for the firewood and the cache of supplies behind it; she remembered seeing a blanket. Working without vision, every sound seemed sharper; the firewood logs scratched and clunked together as she touched them, the blanket sighed and rustled as she found it and pulled it out. “Over here by the wall,” she said, shaking the blanket to guide their way with some noise. Hotohori’s sword was still strapped on her back and pressed between her and the wall as she sat down against it.
“Hotohori-sama, can you find my hand? There.” They came over together. Yui heard the motion and felt another body sit down beside her and press close. Their hands took the blanket; from the confident quickness she was sure it was Nuriko. The blanket came up short as she pulled it over.
“I think it’s sideways.” Yui ran her hands along the edge, found the corner, and fumbled to turn it without tangling it, but they at last got it situated.
“Hotohori-sama?” Nuriko’s voice came from right next to Yui’s head, confirming the conclusion.
“I’ll be all right.”
“I’m in the middle, you won’t be breaking the rules,” she said.
“I’m not that cold.”
Nuriko sighed.
As abrupt as she could be with Hotohori at times, commanding him to huddle under a blanket with her was apparently beyond the threshold of decorum even now. Yui couldn’t help a flash of bitterness at Taiitsukun’s injunction; surely he would take the opportunity in that case, but nothing for it for now. It would be best, she thought, to keep everyone talking---as long as they were talking, she could know that they were safely healthy and alert---but thinking of a conversation starter on demand wasn’t so easy. “Do you think we’re in Hokkan yet?” she asked.
“Hard to say here in the mountains,” Nuriko admitted.
A long paused followed. That one didn’t work... Yui tried to think of another gambit. “It’s amazing to think about this time yesterday,” she said. “We were all still in Konan. You and Chichiri were still in the palace.”
“I still intended to stay there,” Hotohori admitted.
“Do you wish you had?” Nuriko asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“I remember looking out at the hills where you said there were metalworks. I thought I had so much to learn about Konan, let alone other countries.” From there, Yui thought, there were a lot of questions she could ask to keep a conversation up.
“Oh, I just knew that because I’m from that part of the country,” Nuriko said.
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. A little of the smoke you were seeing was probably Father’s furnace---he’s a silversmith, or at least he was last I knew.”
“I didn’t know that,” Hotohori said.
“We could have stopped and visited,” Yui remarked.
Nuriko gave a mirthless laugh. “That would be awkward.”
Yui understood her blunder, even if only vaguely, and tried to think how to recover, but Nuriko spoke up again first.
“They don’t know about me, that is. And especially the name...”
“The name?” Yui remembered Nuriko’s real name, Chou Ryuuen...?
“To them I’ll always be Kourin, and Ryuuen will always be someone else.” She laughed again, just a little more humorously. “That’s one way to pass the time: tell embarrassing stories about ourselves.”
If that was going to be the game, Yui tried to think of one she could tell about herself, but a desire to avoid ones that prominently featured Miaka left slim pickings.
“I don’t see anything for you to be embarassed about,” Hotohori said with gentle firmness.
“I’m not, really, but you worry about what other people would think,” Nuriko said.
“Even the two of us?” Yui asked.
“That’s true... Except for Tamahome, the three of us have been together the longest, after all.”
“Think, also, how long we knew each other without actually knowing each other,” Hotohori said.
“Oh, I knew you better than you think; you just didn’t know me.”
Yui thought she heard a slight sound of him catching his breath.
Nuriko quickly moved to cover it over. “Anyway, I was going to tell my story, right? Here it goes...” Think of it as karmic repayment for what Chichiri told me...
*******
When I was little, there were three of us children; I was the youngest, and the only girl, and the next youngest was Ryuuen. Our oldest brother was old enough to help father in the shop ever since I could remember, and when he was around, he always wanted to act responsible, so he could be more like another parent than a brother. Ryuuen and I were closer in age---not very close, but closer---so he was the one I latched onto.
Looking back on it, I can only imagine how much I annoyed him. Everywhere he went, I wanted to go too. Everything he did, I wanted to do it too, and I was a headstrong kid with a loud voice. I think our mother humored me just to save herself headaches, but Ryuuen... Well, it isn’t that he was always happy about having me for a shadow, or that we never fought. When I think about it, I don’t know what it was about him. We had a lot of fun together. He would take care of me, but without acting so much like he wanted to get above me. If he told me not to follow him, it was just because he didn’t want me to, not because he thought I wasn’t supposed to. Putting it all together, somehow I knew that he was the one who understood me and who I could trust, and if he and I were together, things would always be fine.
Of course, eventually he got old enough to help in the shop, too. That was boys’ work, not girls’ work, but I was still the same kid and didn’t want to be left behind. I’m sure someone was getting ready to put their foot down with me, but the way it turned out, they didn’t get the chance.
*******
PS: I wonder why DW's spellcheck doesn't know "disaggregate"; I love that word.