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you wake up to war.
it is not a pretty sight. it is not glorious. it is bloody and brutal.
you watch your comrades fall, felled by spears and swords and arrows. you watch them fall to strikes of lightning larger then anything you can hope to command.
this is war.
this is war, and your enemy is a God.
when you are little, before there is all that pressure put upon your young shoulders, you are happy. there is a boy. his name is gorou. he is your best friend. you love him like you love no others.
(there is a rumbling beneath the earth.)
gorou persuades you to have fun. when he is around, you do not sit in a stuffy little room with a shackle of pearls around your throat. you run amock in the wilds of watatsumi. your home. you collect sango pearls and eat kuzumochi made by the shrine maidens drizzled with dollops of kuromitsu and you read books, stories about the might of narukami ogōsho-sama and how she felled gods and monsters alike with a single sweep of her naginta.
(pearls are formed under pressure.)
you meet a girl. her name is kujou sara-san. she is a representative of the tenryō commission, along with her onii-san, kujou masahito-san. she shoots arrows. she is made of crackling lightning and dark feathers and hollow bones. you smile at her. she does not smile back.
(when your back is turned, she stares at you.)
(beautiful, she thinks.)
the war effort is not going well.
the troops are exhausted. you can see it in their faces. you try your best to boost morale, your bake-kurage bobbing amongst the the prone bodies of your fallen comrades. it seems hopeless. it is hopeless. but you cannot give up yet.
because they need you.
you, with a garland of pearls wrapped around your throat, a noose, and a shackle. you, with bones of sea salt and lightning and frostbite. you, who plays at god, not because you want to but because you have to.
you.
she visits you in your dreams.
she smiles at you.
"you will being justice to your people, my child."
you wake up.
watatsumi hides a deadly secret behind its pretty pearled walls and pastel glamour. it is something all the people know, but never speak of.
you do not talk about the things that bring ruin.
unlucky number 4. four lightning strikes. four of orobaxi's fangs. four sango pearls. little things. little things.
"the people of watatsumi once came forth from the darkness, and thus bade farewell to the long dreams of the deep. they escaped the prying gaze of the dragonheirs in the dark, walking the glimmering coral stair into the realm of daylight. it is said that at that time, the ocean people would take a single seashell as remembrance for their clan. and as for those who had lost theirs, they would be welcomed into a new family."
the grand stories of how watatsumi was formed.
your mother takes you aside when you are small and says, "do not let the light tempt you. you are destined for greater things then this."
when you are little, you learn of the watatsumi omikami. he brought light to your people.
you fear him.
you love him.
you hate him.
the water heeds your every command.
the tenryō commission arrives to take your vision. you do not let them pass.
(kujou sara stops and stares.)
(look at what you have become.)
the dragonheir still slumbers.
when you are small, your parents hire a fortune teller. her name is astrea megistus. she does not tell you your future.
"dracanae somnolenta," she says, instead. "sleeping dragoness."
"do you know what you are, little one?"
this is war.
this is war and you cannot possibly win.
she who slew orobaxi. she who split the skies in her anger.
this is war.
you cannot possibly fight her.
this is war.
but you will. because you have to.
(you are not a god.)
(look at what you have become.)
the next time you meet kujou sara, you are on opposite sides of the battlefield. but she is beautiful, all crackling lightning and dark feathers and hollow bones. you smile at her. she does not smile back at you.
(but later, when the battle dies down, she kisses you among the hidden trees of chinju forest and her lips taste like umeboshi.)
and still, the dragonheir sleeps on.
you sit at the round table, surrounded by friends and subordinates. the map is splayed out before you. red crosses mark where the fallen are. the map is littered with red crosses.
"we can't go on like this," you hear someone say.
everyone stops and stares.
oh. did you say that?
"kokomi-sama," gorou whispers. "kokomi-sama, don't--"
"my apologies," you dip your head. "i do not understand what came over me. you were saying, kaida-san?"
(you can't go on like this.)
bad things come in threes.
the shogun. the vision hunt decree. the fatui.
unlucky number 4.
(look what you have become.)
you close your eyes. you can almost hear the waves.
the dark sea. the godless land. it goes by many names.
your people, who once bowed to no God. your people, suffering under the vicious tyranny of a celestial being.
you, with ties to both.
trapped in your sweet slumber, you dream of peace. of love. of joy.
all those things the Godless have never seen. they will never see the light.
you will bring it to them, then. you will bottle lightning and brave storms. you will part oceans and stand in the eye of the hurricane.
you, with the might of the ocean. you, who will not bow down to a mere fake, who never saw the horrors of an unknown land. you, who lived in darkness.
you, with a sweet smile. you, with the pearls hanging around your throat. you, who has fashioned your own noose.
you, who will surely, surely hang for your crimes.
you, who dared to stand up against the might of a God.
you, who has loved and loved and loved and lost.
you, who has lost and lost and lost and loved.
you. you. you
you
and still, the dragonheir sleeps on.