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Death is a fickle thing.
Death is a fickle thing and not something Yae Miko has to worry about as she rests under the shaded tree. Its purple leaves dance with the breeze, their melody slow as the wind is calm today, under the shaded tree.
She is young, she is bright, and she is resting.
Yae is resting alone, today, as her friends are off, exploring or working, she doesn’t know. Her eyes are closed, and her nose twitches as a leaf lets go of its branch and drifts onto her face. The breeze changed the direction of its choreography, it seems.
It’s getting cold out.
Yae Miko is tired, and is resting.
She’s always sleeping, her friends will say. When she’s with us, it’s like she’s never fully here. They don’t understand that while Yae is resting, she is waiting.
She is waiting for Ei. She is always waiting for Ei.
Ei, who’s spent her time training from dawn to dusk, the sun seeming to rise and fall whenever Ei was ready to rise and fall. The same Ei who would overwork herself to exhaustion and turn around and please the public with a smile, her face ridden with scars buried down in places not even Yae could reach. Ei’s scars were buried, locked away, and Yae had no way of discovering the key.
It’s getting increasingly more difficult to see Ei nowadays. Her work begins to surround her, blade sharp and mind even sharper. Yae Miko has always preferred to relax.
Yae knows they’re becoming worlds apart. They are opposite ends of a magnet that’s being pulled farther away, and it’s getting harder to come back and pull Ei back. She’s waiting, she’s resting, and her friends are right; she’s never fully there.
Another leaf joins the first on the ground, this one dancing its way near Miko’s left foot. It finishes off its portion of the soft dance, one final bow, and it joins Yae in her resting. Her head is perched up against the tall tree, the shade gracefully drifting, her arms are crossed and her feet are relaxed. She’s comfortable.
Yae is comfortable and she’s becoming increasingly farther from the point of staying awake.
The sound of music is heard in the distance, giving a nice tune to the dancing tree and the near-sleeping kitsune as the secluded area off of the shrine gives off a pleasing view of the world surrounding it. Inazuma has always been the prettiest shade of purple.
Yae sighs her final sigh before allowing herself to leave her mind for a while, to get some proper rest and a brief reset before she joins the real world again. Before she leaves the secluded tree and shows up to her friends in a slight daze, where Ei is nowhere to be present.
She falls asleep with her dearest companion’s name on her lips.
“Ei.”
-
Ei gets done with her training as her dearest friend is off sleeping at the tree.
The sun is going to set soon and Ei’s worked for a good twelve hours, and oh is she is tired. She is tired and wants nothing more than to close her eyes for a long while, shut her consciousness off for a bit and catch up with the rest that's raced ahead of her, reaching close to the finish line when Ei has barely started the race.
She exhales, the exhaustion making its way past her lips as she packs up, setting her things down in the corner of the combat room. She makes her way out the door.
I’m so tired.
-
The trip to the newly built Grand Narukami Shrine is a short one, and by the time Ei gets there, to their special tree, her friend is still there, eyes still closed and body still relaxed.
Ei’s eyes wander as she looks over the scene, and she realizes again how beautiful her friend is.
She’s done this before, traced Yae’s features with her eyes until her brain loomed over her with a snap out of it! And the feeling of being ready to collapse just about hits her across the head.
This time, however, it feels different. Exhaustion has drifted away from her mind, and the butterflies in her stomach make themselves apparent when the falling sun hits just the right spot on Miko’s face.
Oh.
Has she always looked this beautiful?
She has, and Ei already knows this. She knows this and she’s becoming increasingly more aware of it by the minute. She doesn’t completely understand what it means, the butterflies, and the tracing and the thoughts of Miko long after the sun itself had set, and the people of Inazuma had gone to sleep. She knows it’s related to love, something that got her friends all giggly even now, after knowing what it was for so long.
Ei had thought love was supposed to be more obvious, with red faces and sweaty palms and wandering eyes. She didn’t know it could be late night thoughts and soft gazes as she watched the other rest.
Ei doesn’t want to call what she feels love, because she’s seen how it ends. She’s seen the dejected glances and words of pity and pain and nothing good in the results. She doesn’t want to call her secret looks and special space in her heart love, because then she has to admit how in love she actually is. She has to put the final piece into the puzzle and finish the end result.
Ei is not ready.
The wind picks itself up and Ei snaps out of her trance again, her mind thawing itself as she makes her way next to Miko. She sits down.
Ei sits down and rests her head on the base of the tree next to Yae, turning to face her and tracing the Miko shaped pattern again.
She closes her eyes with the longing to kiss her.
But she didn’t want to admit it was love.
-
Ei begins to isolate herself more, if that’s even possible.
She consumes herself in her work and pushes herself to the point of falling asleep, but it isn’t enough to get Yae and her face out of her head. It is never enough.
Ei still isn’t ready to call it love.
-
“Why are you avoiding us, Ei?”
Yae is the one to speak up, making herself apparent in the combat room, alone with Ei.
“I’m not avoiding you, Miko. I’ve simply been busy.”
“Do you at least rest anymore?”
“I don’t have the time. I’m sorry.”
It was bullshit and they both knew it. It was utter bullshit and they both knew she needed a damn break and wouldn’t allow herself one. The only problem was that Yae didn’t know why.
The silence drifts between them, the magnets getting pulled farther apart as Ei’s head continues to attempt to break them apart completely.
Yae breaks the silence, and Ei swears she can feel the magnets pulling closer.
“I care about you, Ei. We all do,” Her voice trembles, and Ei’s heart drops into her stomach. “ Please, Ei, tell me what’s going on .”
Ei’s heart begins to beat so fast she thinks Yae might be able to hear it from across the room. Yae’s trying to reason with her, giving off a sad smile with an arm out. It makes Ei’s heart hurt.
“I can’t.”
Ei can’t, and she really won’t, because she would rather lie than tell Yae Miko how in love with her she is.
-
Yae just wants Ei to talk to her.
Ei won’t talk and Yae is worried because she loves her, she is so hopelessly in love with her and wants nothing more than Ei to just talk, to tell her what’s going on so she can try to fix it.
She’s holding out her hand and Ei is looking at her like the world has ended around them, like the only people left are those two and they’re destined to be separated. Yae doesn’t care, and she steps closer.
“Miko.”
“Please, Ei. I want to help,” Yae presses, stepping close enough to rest her hand on Ei’s shoulder. She feels the shoulder tense underneath her hand.
“What are you doing?” Ei questions, her voice no more than a whisper as Yae glances at her.
“Trying.”
Ei is so close and Yae’s inching closer, her other hand reaching to cup Ei’s face.
“Miko?”
“I-” Yae starts, but she pauses. “Nevermind.”
What the hell am I doing?
Something’s wrong with Ei and my first instinct when I see her is to try and kiss her? What the hell is wrong with me?
Yae steps back, pink dusting her cheeks as she turns around.
“Nevermind. I’m sorry I pressured you.”
“Miko-”
“No,” Yae interrupts. “I was pushy, and I’m sorry. I’ll be at the shrine if you ever need to talk or anything, okay?”
She doesn’t wait for a response, her feet pacing as she exits the combat studio, leaving Ei speechless.
What is wrong with me?
-
They don’t speak much after that, the almost kiss sticking in Ei’s mind and resulting in an even longer combat practice every day. Ei is so tired.
They don’t talk, until they do, when Ei sinks in her guilt enough to confront her and explain that everything is just a lot and her head is very loud.
Yae is understanding, nodding in attentive detail. She gets it, and she’s still willing to help. Their moment at the shrine is not brought up again. If Yae had locked it away in her mind, Ei doesn’t know. She doesn’t particularly care to find out, either, with the opposite magnets that are the two of them finally being brought back together. Ei’s not willing to pull them apart again, and she doubts Yae is either.
-
Yae does some teaching, Ei does some learning, and the Plane of Euthymia is born.
Yae doesn’t see her for another five hundred years. Their friends are gone, their memories locked away, and Yae is alone. She never forgets her.
-
Yae spends a lot of time thinking, and whether it’s to distract herself from her regret or to try to move on, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to know. It’s becoming visible in her work, when people come to visit with their wishes and fortunes and she’s only half there again. It feels like deja vu.
She sighs when she comes back to the tree. She never forgot the tree, and the tree never seemed to forget her. It was magic, in a way. Its violet leaves begin to twirl with the wind again while its branches tweak up in anticipation. She smiles.
Yae sits down, resting against the tree as she did only centuries ago.
Yae’s fingers twitch when she’s seemingly been brought back to their youth. The last time she saw Ei again at the tree, five hundred years ago. Yae was there first, the leaves with their soft dancing and the wind playing its pleasant tune. She had awoken to her friend’s head on her shoulder, the most relaxed she’s ever looked. It had struck a chord in Yae’s heart, a tender melody accompanying the one with the wind. She had said nothing, only resting her head on top of Ei’s and lulling herself back into sleep with a resting tune.
That had been pressed into her heart and it was remembered as one of the best days of her life.
She misses her.
The tears are coming before Yae knows it.
This time, she’s not resting.