Chapter Text
- A FLOWER OF FLIGHTINESS
“I write, erase, rewrite…”
A single camellia falls atop a Kaedeharan kamine, the lone fluorite perching itself on softwood just as an ink brush disturbs the grass beneath it.
Somewhere too far away to be nearby and too close to be elsewhere , a white cat stretches between two geta.
“Erase again, and then…”
The hand does not catch what escapes its grasp, neither does the brain. Pale fingers ghost the parchment and when it hits… he squints. He squints, then he laughs but it is interrupted by a yawn. He laughs once more, the sound teetering more in the realm of a bird’s song than a lone madman’s shanty. What a trifling existence it is , he believes, to be indoors during siesta season— to fuss over ports and codes and ships instead of cradling yourself in Teyvat’s springtide womb .
Not in this life.
Somewhere too far away to be nearby and too close to be elsewhere , a white cat bolts through a court of sprawling halls.
“A...”
The denouement of a poem is what punctuation is to a sentence, varnish is to a painting, he remembers hearing from an old master. The immortalization, the bombshell. Conclude the poem. Rework that conclusion. Be content, for a little while. Rework it again , he was taught.
“poppy…”
But he never was one to play suffering artist. The antithesis of art is agony , he always countered in his mind. Thus, regaining the pen, he glides black onto the washi like a haphazard dance. Complete.
“blooms.”
Satisfied with another piece, he resigns to dozing off ‘til he hears a crude meow.
Before him, impossibly pale and fuzzy, lay the wide-eyed mammal. It inches closer and closer as his equally-ivory, bare hand beckoned it, finally closing the distance on his robed lap.
“Good afternoon, little one,” he hums. Like a fine-tooth comb, his fingers brush through its fur with ease. If he could not have a pillow (his nape kissed the rough trunk of an ume), he was alright with the fragment of a cloud aloft his thighs. “I did not expect these still winds to carry you here.”
In response, the cat burrows its face deeper into his clothes. With his weakness to small animals earmarked, no shyness opposes his throat as his words come out in coos. “In truth, you have caught me at a bad time if you wish to play about. I believe I can accompany you, though, if it is lounging you seek.”
Another meow escapes the cat’s lips, this time much more soft and endearing than the last. The sound, so disarmingly adorable in his mind, causes him to unmask his porcelain teeth through a smile. It is an unconscious gesture, one he is used to performing in audience chambers and dinner meetings for his father and the government’s men and the sleazy traders’ dogs… but rarely has he ever flashed it so genuinely. It is only when a light breeze tickles his teeth that he realizes that he must steel his heart, lest the doziness leave his body.
His gaze, enraptured by a flash of flying pink, catches another camellia in the act of descending. The flower falls into the koi pond, gently like the ground deity’s offering to the water god. Peace. Art. Languor. It is idyllic moments such as these that he cherishes. With the spring’s bounty, ink, paper, and a gentle creature in his midst, how could he ask for more?
“Little one, come follow me into my sleep,” the cat’s flesh is soft to the touch, a fact that he enjoys. He also finds that their breathing patterns have synchronized along the way. Another smile threatens to unravel itself, but he catches it unfolding and instead clears his throat, readying himself for a lullaby.
“Over the wintry
Forest, winds howl in rage
With no leaves to blow.”
The heir’s airy voice ghosts the wind, impossibly light like a whisper impersonating a melody. He reaches over slightly to watch the cat’s face, its whiskers sinewy and expression as lethargic as he imagined. Its previously bright eyes now blink lazily, irregularly, and it coaxes him to sing ever softly into the breeze.
“On this mountain path,
where the red leaves lifeless lie…
My heart calls for a companion,
echoing the deer's cry...”
The cat has lost itself to slumber now, heavy and peaceful on his lap, and he readies his body for the same fate.
His faint hums die out…
His burnt eyes shut tight…
His tense muscles soften up…
He thanks Benzaiten for the afternoon spent bathed in art, ready to wake up to the setting sun…
Truly, everything is in place ‘til a human’s exhalation tickles his cheeks.
Through the hazy filter of drowsiness subdued, he sees an ashy blonde; he sees red. But most of all, he sees a resounding, brilliant purple reflected in a half-moon stream.
When it truly registers in his half-awake mind that before his eyes lay a person, his body seizes up in shock — disturbing the animal that made a chaise of his lap. It growls lightly in disdain, the unpleasant snarl swirling his heartstrings.
Who is this man who disturbs his sanctuary? It is a person he has never seen before, with an appearance just as unusual as he is enigmatic. He does not look like one of his father’s usual guests, and a new servant of their estate ought to know better — ought to know basic etiquette, that is. With strikingly crimson robes and a humbly-woven scarf, with his knees folded to meet his own drowsy eyes, with bold bandages adorning his limbs, with that trickster’s smile… he did not have a clue.
When his fallen-leaf eyes meet the unfamiliar man’s hilt, very much with-sword, his destiny seems sealed. It was a bold move for sure, to assassinate an heir within his own manicured garden grounds, but the day’s stars aligned in this criminal’s favor. The household was embroiled in a grueling conference; servants busying themself with masters and masters busying themselves with guests and guests busying themselves with tedium. Kazuha’s crown was as good as rusted bronze wherever tedium was involved.
So he lays here, finally charged for his life of luxury. He is about to die, but he cannot find it in himself to scream.
Yes, perhaps he was right. Better a short existence than a trifling one, no?
Not in this life.
“First, it was that little streak of red. But yep, I see it now. It’s your eyes…” There are orchids bent over the gingko trees, lavenders skirting the koi pond’s edge, plumerias bred to soothe hearts, but none are as viciously violet and reflective as this stranger’s eyes.
He has read about stained glass before — those things shaped in Mondstadt and Fontaine for tinted light to tell tales of saints — and he thought their resplendence met no match ‘til today. Everything else — his raspy voice, the glimpses of scars peeking through simple robes — are just as beautiful, yes, but they seem to lag behind the arresting gaze of his amethysts. Perhaps he’ll never venture into a jewelry parlor again; not when he’s seen the glory of a wild gem. “They betray your soft face.”
How could this man prompt a discussion about eyes and not realize the brilliance his own carry?
The answer is still foreign to Kazuha, but what’s certain is this: the man’s intense stare will kill him before that sword ever unsheathes itself. Whatever steel his weapon is forged from, be it the sharpest jade, will lie second only to this man’s irises.
The few words exchanged by the executioner have been said, the strained courtesy of small-talk a feeble reminder of the victim’s humanity, and he is ready to die by such beauty (just as he lived). Yet the blow, the strike, the sharp pain preceding the disembodiment of a skull does not come.
Instead, the stranger finally blinks, light lashes fluttering in tow with the falling dew of the pondside reeds. Even in the heartbeat his eyes take to vanish, Kazuha’s heart finds it in itself to ache — to mourn, because he still does not know when he’ll last be swept by their hue. The stranger blinks again, doe-eyed (Kazuha’s heart stings again, when it should not), and a veil of absurdity thickens the free-flowing wind.
“I… pardon?” It is now his turn to gape tongue-tied, like his mouth has dizzied itself untying cherry knots. He sits now, tricked into appearing like the dumb one, when it is this stranger’s words that could make no sense in a conceivable world.
“S’alright, they’re still pretty little things… But I think I’d much prefer them to be blue. Blue just like the sea.”
“Um, may I know—”
“And there you are, kitty-kitty.” Ah . Finally, something that made sense. If this darling creature was his, it was Kazuha’s guilt to bear for keeping it. Now, in his eyes, something has settled — he was at the very least a guest. Yes, one of his father’s guests from those faroff lands with faroff names, the foreign ports baptized with foreign monikers with foreign meanings he’s never cared to learn — not now, no — because if you call something what you cannot understand it’ll seem centuries away. This man is from a land he’s never seen nor known; that’s why he speaks strangely and acts strangely and has eyes the strangest and prettiest he has ever perceived.
Sometimes the most indecipherable things are the most bewitching. This fact has often tempted him to cease that resolute indifference.
“What did’ja think you were doing, runnin’ away from me like y’did?” The presumed visitor asks his presumed kitten, but all the snow-furred creature bestows in response is its quick darting out of the garden. Kazuha prepares himself to witness a scolding, to hear the reprimandings of a master towards its prodigal pet, but all the man does is grin sheepishly in acquiescence.
“See y’later!” He waves and laughs . He waves and laughs at the long-gone kitten and Kazuha wonders what good it does for his father to keep this caliber of company — to shake hands with a man with his tail caught so unabashedly between his legs.
Perhaps Kazuha has stared at him too gravely, however, because the man’s eyes darken and jaw stiffens. With a sharp delicateness to his moves like the ruffling of a swan’s pale feathers amidst a raging storm, he then asks: “Y’know… they say the sky is only blue because it reflects the seas, meaning heaven is the moon to the oceans’ sun. Ain’t that a curious little cycle? Who calls the shots, then, between Amaterasu and Ryujin?”
Proposed to him was a question of religion; a matter of philosophy. Was this man’s vocation in the scholarly arts? They were eccentric folk, those new thinkers… all armed with enough wit and bravery and charm to climb society through thin vines.
“The duty falls to neither one of the deities you have mentioned. Inazuma is the land of thunder. Therefore it is Raijin’s child, and we are his children. That is how it always has been, and always will remain.” Kazuha answers, poised and awake. Surely this was a matter of no debate.
“Said like a good little nobleman.” His words are best said with a snarl, but they are delivered without it. “Not to bite the hand that feeds me, but you folk sure are stiff. Now I reckon your eyes are better off brown like stones.”
Ah. He remembers the wakizashi standing guard at the man’s hip, with a scabbard too Inazuman to be well-feigned and lacquered wood too worn to be freshly-peddled. If philosophers in this era concerned themselves with the perfection of peace, what need would one have for a sword? Perhaps he was not a theorist — alright. The mystery persists.
“Y’got me here thinking I could write a poem about ya, the boy with the blood-stained streak and the color-changing eyes.”
Poetry.
Po-e-try .
“You enjoy poetry? Truly?” He flashes his porcelain again, laying waste to the taunts and the biting chill of spring. Nature must confess it: Kaedehara Kazuha’s passion, though rare, burns brighter than any thawing cold. “Do your talents lie in waka? Renku? Oh, or haiku?”
“Huh. I didn’t know y’could do that.” The man stares again, impressed as though he’s won his favor. It is to Kazuha’s succor that his father cannot see him, lowering himself to celebrate his leisurely pursuits as a wagging dog does at the park. “I take it back, little prince. The crimson of your eyes are shinin’ through. It suits you.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll find that I’m full of surprises, just like ya.” His pale hand stretches out in anticipation, pale and gorgeous like a marble carving despite the calluses and scars. “The name’s Tomo, I’m a samurai doin’ a job here for your household.”
He has never met a man, or a samurai nevertheless, so cavalier in his manner of speech; especially in addressing him. It is relaxing.
“Thank you for your service.” The little prince keeps it curt. “I am Kaedehara Kazuha. Do you write your own verses?”
“Sayin’ it like that gives me far too much credit. I only dabble.” He smiles, though it is not sheepish this time. It is oddly proud. “Want me to churn one out right now?”
He has always known poetry to be much more than a minute’s work of labor. It is perplexing.
The samurai smirks, standing to find a nearby branch and folding his knees back again to dip the stick in his vial of ink. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes, four — the twig dances unabashedly lavish parchment, leaving its pigmented mark where it does not belong. Kazuha’s mouth stands agape in disgust, but his expression does little to make it halt.
Nine strokes, ten strokes, eleven strokes, twelve — it waltzes scratchily now, aching for a finer edge, and he must wonder: does an air of arrogance truly coat me so heavily, that this man could not stop and ask me for a pen? He asks this, but he knows he cannot stomach the answer. “Here y’go.” He waves and slurs and eats his words in ways Kazuha never can, never can because he is an heir, a Kaedehara, the estate’s prince born for politicking and negotiating.
“All done.” He is lackadaisical in everything, it seems. Even in putting away the misused branch. “Give it a look, will ya?”
Kazuha is horrified, breaking the rivulets of hope he had held for the piece. It is avant-garde, he had comforted himself. But what is avant-garde must first be art. And the letters are as crude and large as one can expect from such a makeshift writing instrument, but it is not the unrefined penmanship that causes the heir’s disdain. No, it is the poem itself… in its entirety.
“The taste
Of rain
—Why kneel?”
The stranger, samurai, Tomo bellows. But Kazuha cannot find the joke.
“S’alright, y’can tell me how much ya like it later, when the sun falls at the momiji tree.”
The stranger, samurai, Tomo should not be trusted. But Kazuha finds himself wanting to unveil his indecipherable world.