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If a bird falls in a forest and nobody is there to find her broken body at the base of the tree, does she really fall?
Sara doesn’t really know.
All she knows is searing pain. Pain that burns into flesh, down to the bones, as she is struck to the ground. She is but a bird dashed upon the rocks at the base of a cliff, fallen from grace. Too far gone to be retrieved, to be saved.
All she sees is red. Red, like the colour of blood that has spilled across countless battlefields. Red, like the stains on her hands from all the lives that she has taken. Red like the dendrobium that blooms in the wake of a battle. Red like the mask she wore, given to her by the Shogun — a sign of the Electro Archon’s trust, a sign of the life that she had been given.
(She wonders if dendrobium would bloom here in the middle of the Tenshukaku for her. No, it would not. Her death is hardly worth the beauty of the scarlet blossoms. Her failure does not deserve remembrance. There is no honour in her failure.)
The eternity that she has fought so hard for, her Shogun’s eternity, she will never see come to fruition. Her Vision, which has saved her once, is useless. It doesn’t grant her a part in her Shogun’s eternity and it doesn’t save her from falling this time.
Her eternity would be darkness.
She failed to protect her Shogun.
Sara deserves nothing less.
Sara knows nothing more.
It has been weeks.
Weeks of pain and darkness and tasting cold ice in the back of her throat as blood threatens to swamp all of her senses and drag her under into a freezing ocean. Her body had recovered well, for the most part. Scars and bruises are all the evidence of her failure. Feathers would take longer to regrow, but her wings were whole again.
Sara isn’t sure who healed her — Inazuma has a fair amount of talented healers, but they had done a spectacular job. Her servants told her that she had been unconscious for nearly a week, avoiding the worst of the pain as her body recuperated.
Some small part of Sara wishes that she had been awake for it. If she had been awake, then she would have felt. And if she had felt then she would at least feel better about her failure than she does now — like the pain of recovery might be punishment enough for her failure. Perhaps if she had felt the process of healing with her own fingers, seen the bloodied bandages with her own eyes, known the stitches holding her body together, then she might believe that she was healing.
All she feels is broken.
Like bones which had never been set, allowed to regrow at wrong angles and painful shapes. Like the jagged edges of a broken dish, glued back together with pieces missing — never quite right, never quite whole. She has scraped herself raw against the sharp edges that have never found completeness again.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that she should do more than laying here in her bed, curled against herself. She should resume her workouts, her patrols, her training. But she can’t.
A dozen meters away, on the other side of the far wall where usually an open window allowed sunlight to stream in, dozens of arrows litter the courtyard grounds. They jut out of the ground like sticks of incense in a censer, offerings for the death of what Sara had. Not a single one had reached the row of training targets set up in the courtyard.
Every time that Sara had lifted her bow, hands trembling not with exertion but with something that Sara has no name for, she was back. The dirt courtyard was paved with wooden floors, fine wooden walls, and tapestries papered over the stone walls.
She nocked an arrow, training her sights on the circular targets just down the courtyard, and then drew the bow. Fire shot up her arm, spears of ice piercing through skin like she was made of nothing more than paper. La Signora towered over her, a blizzard of taunting malice and nothing but a cruel sneer on her face. Reflected in the maelstrom of ice and snow, she saw the Raiden Shogun standing there behind her, unarmed, unemotional.
Sara was the last line of defence between her almighty Shogun and this intruder. Anger raged in Sara’s chest, always low simmering and suddenly fanned into a blaze.
By the time Sara came back around, shaking and drenched in sweat, she was on the ground, bow abandoned.
Every time.
Even now, every muscle in her body still aches, stiff and sore with the reformation of new muscle and flesh. She can still feel the lance of ice under her skin, pinning her to the ground. There’s nothing more than a jagged scar halfway up her forearm now, but every time she drew her bow, she was back in that moment.
In a fit of frustration and rage — mostly directed at herself, she ended up breaking her bow, smashing it into many pieces over her knee and beneath her feet. The weapon, though having survived many battles, did not survive the strength of Sara’s rage. What use was a bow if Sara couldn’t even wield it?
What use was Sara if she couldn’t wield her bow?
All that she knows is that she has to protect the Raiden Shogun. But she couldn’t even draw her bow now.
What good is she if she cannot protect the Raiden Shogun?
Is that her punishment?
To be stripped of her usefulness? Stripped of her purpose? Cast aside and forgotten like the broken remnants of her destroyed bow, left out to weather the elements by herself.
Again.
Her wallowing is interrupted by the sound of dishes clinking against each other as someone picks up the tray of untouched food that servants had left at her door this morning. The sound of dishes feels like the crash of steel in the middle of battle. She winces at the sound, suddenly loud and grating in her ears, which had grown accustomed to the quiet after all this time.
“Ask the kitchens to prepare some food.”
Footsteps retreat down the hallway, dishes clinking with every step.
Her head snaps upwards. It’s the Raiden Shogun.
Even in her dazed and sprawled out state, she knows that voice. Sara is certain of it — she knew from the first word that was uttered. It’s the same voice that saved her when she was younger, the same voice that granted her a vision, a purpose.
Her vision lays to the side of her bed, along with her mask— the only speck of light in an otherwise darkened room.
What good is it though? Power in the hands of someone who could no longer even hold her weapon?
A waste.
Sara doesn’t have time to ponder that thought any longer, though. The blacked out door to her room slides open, letting the warm light from the hallway spill into the room.
Blearily, Sara pulls herself upright. The Raiden Shogun stands before her, bathed in a halo of warm light. Her eyes aren’t quite adjusted to the light anymore after spending so long in the darkness and Sara fixes her gaze on the edge of the Raiden Shogun’s shadow instead. She’s hardly worthy to be in the same room as the Raiden Shogun, nevermind look directly at her. Every muscle in her body protests as she forces herself into a kneeling position on the floor next to the bed.
It’s the first time that she has seen the Raiden Shogun since her fall from grace at the Tenshukaku. Even the brief glance that Sara catches of the one who had given her purpose feels like she is committing treason. She drinks in the glance like she is parched and the sight of the Electro Archon is the very water of life.
She wonders if it was by the Archon’s command that she had been healed or if someone else had taken pity on her — put her back together to live out her accursed existence in the shadow of her downfall.
“You haven’t been eating.” The words are not accusatory, not a question, but a statement of fact.
“Raiden Shogun-sama,” Sara greets, her voice hoarse from disuse. She presses her forehead into the floor in a deep bow. A part of her cringes away from how much of a mess her room must look like, how much of a mess she must look like. She should be more tidy in her wallowing.
She must be here to announce Sara’s punishment — exile, perhaps? Or execution? Oh, perhaps to strip her of her rank first and to pass on the title to one of her subordinates. That brings a frown to Sara’s face. Sure, she had personally trained each of the troops in her unit, but none of them could hold a candle to what she once was. Regardless, the new general would be lacking.
Or maybe it wouldn’t be one of her subordinates at all. The Tenryou commission had fallen low before the Shogun and her adoptive father imprisoned for his treason. It would make far more sense to pick a new general from somewhere else, untainted by the corruption that followed the Kujou family name.
“Sara.”
The sound of the Raiden Shogun saying her name sends a jolt down Sara’s spine like she had just been struck by lightning. It’s not the first time that Sara has heard the Raiden Shogun use her name instead of her title, but every time that she does, Sara feels like she has been blessed. Like the heavens and earth know her name, and perhaps this would be enough.
(It would never be enough.)
“Yes, Raiden Shogun-sama?”
“I thought I had made it clear before that when we are in private that you can refer to me as Ei.”
This throws Sara off more than anything else. She’s truly unsure of what to do with such an honour. She had been hesitant to use it, even in private, when she had been whole and unbroken and worthy.
In her current state, she isn’t sure what to think.
“My apologies…” The words get stuck in her throat, trying to claw their way out even though every fiber of her being screams that she shouldn’t. “... Ei-sama.”
The corner of Ei’s mouth quirks upward ever so slightly.
“You haven’t been eating, Sara. Do you want to tell me why?”
Sara’s mind spins furiously, trying to figure out what the Raiden Shogun — er, Ei, was really getting at. Has the food been poisoned? It was not unheard of to be executed with poison — not the way that Sara would have chosen to go, but if it was granted by the Raiden Shogun herself, then she would accept any means. This meant that Sara had been delaying her execution by refusing to eat! She had simply now felt the mood to eat anything. She wasn’t trying to be clever and avoid execution — and now she was here to personally ensure that her punishment be doled out with no further delay.
She remains silent. Nothing that her exhausted mind could come up with feels like a sufficient answer. She keeps her eyes fixed firmly on the edge of the Raiden Shogun’s shadow instead.
“You were recovering so well earlier. I had hoped to see you return to administrative duties by the end of the month if you were feeling up to it.”
Surprise makes Sara raise her head to look at Ei. Even shadowed, Sara can see that she is being serious. There’s no duplicity, no malice, just… Ei.
“Tell me, general, what is wrong?”
Sara’s jaw snaps shut. She can feel the force of the motion reverberate through her skull. There are half a dozen thoughts that race through her mind, clamouring to be the first, clamouring to be the one to reach her voice.
She shouldn’t think herself too friendly with the Raiden Shogun, that’s right. The Raiden Shogun is the Raiden Shogun, and Sara is-
General?
The Raiden Shogun couldn’t possibly be referring to her. She is hardly a general, barely a soldier. Nothing more than a broken tool to be discarded. There is no use left in her.
She had failed.
She is broken.
“I- I’m not your general anymore.” It hurts her more than she would like to admit to say it.
One of the Raiden Shogun’s eyebrows raises faintly. “I never received any notice of resignation.”
“But-” Sara flounders, at a complete loss for words. This is definitely not what she was expecting.
“Are you resigning, Sara?”
There’s her first name again. Some feeling rises in Sara’s chest, threatening to carry her off entirely.
“I am unworthy, Raiden Shogun-sama.”
If the Electro Archon is displeased with the return of the use of her formal title, she doesn’t say anything. “Have I said that?”
It’s a trap, and Sara knows it. She bites her tongue. The Raiden Shogun has not said anything of that sort. To claim that she did would be treason at best, to deny that she did would be admitting something that Sara does not want to admit because she can think of no other reason to explain her existence.
To be plagued with nightmares of her failure and pains in all the places where she is broken — that is punishment. It can be nothing else.
“I am broken. There is no place in your service for a broken general.”
“What makes you say that?”
Sara knows that it is not the Raiden Shogun’s intention to sound placating. It’s an innocent question, but a wave of emotion, one that Sara does not have the faculties to identify, one that has been long simmering under Sara’s skin, rises like a wave, swamping her.
“I cannot hold a bow anymore.” The admission tears at Sara, like she’s ripping a part of her soul out and offering it to her Archon like a sacrifice on a bloody altar. “I cannot shoot any arrows without reliving my failure. Ice grows in my bones and every time I raise a bow and draw it to strike down your enemies icicles pierce me before my arrow even leaves my grasp. I close my eyes and I’m there at the Tenshukaku again and all I know is how I failed to protect you. My most basic duty and I could not fulfill it.”
Her words leave her body in a ragged gasp and she sucks in a shuddering breath, trying to regain any form of composure.
“I am broken.” And there’s nothing that she can do, no power in her bones that can fix it. She had tried so hard. Her efforts were laid bare all over the courtyard. Little grave markers for every attempt, every failed attempt. “You deserve a general to lead your army who is better than that.”
There’s a long silence.
For a second, Sara thinks that Ei has left all together, coming and going in her mysterious way, but the Archon speaks up again.
“Are you familiar with the art of Kintsugi?”
“Where you fix broken pottery with gold dust?” The sudden change in topic has Sara reeling, surprise colouring her tone.
“Yes. You highlight the breaks in the pottery with gold dust and it forms a work of art even more beautiful than what it had been before it had been broken.” Ei’s voice grows wistful. “Someone who was very dear to me once told me that people are like pottery. As tempting as it is, failures and imperfections are not something to be hidden. She said that they are proof that you have lived — however traumatic that may be and survived.”
The shadow that Sara has been staring at shifts as Ei paces softly over to one side of the room. She stops in front of one of Sara’s many Electro Archon statues.
“You are not broken, Sara.” The way that Ei says it is something that Sara wishes so desperately she could believe. “You survived. This is normal. You are worthy, regardless of whether or not you can wield a bow. You are simply unwell. You will recover. ”
“Command me to be well.” The words tumble out of Sara’s lips, unbidden, and immediately her jaw snaps shut. It’s too late. The words have already escaped past the once stalwart walls of her heart. It’s obvious that she is the broken pottery here, and Ei would be the potter to put her pieces back together.
Ei stares at Sara, her expression unreadable.
Sara bows her head. She has overstepped, and she knows it. “My apologies, Raid-”
“-I cannot,” Ei interrupts Sara before she can continue and whatever plea for forgiveness Sara might have dies in her throat.
“I’m sorry?” Sara doesn’t know what else to say. The idea that the Raiden Shogun cannot do something shakes something deep within Sara. In her mind, the Raiden Shogun can do anything that she sets her mind to. The idea that she cannot feels like blasphemy.
It is easier to believe that she will not.
“I cannot,” Ei repeats, voice wavering.
Years of being the hunter in search for any sign of weakness in the enemy flank or within her own troops has Sara seizing on the moment instinctively. Anger flashes in her veins like a spark in a forest that has gone without rain or reprieve from the harsh rays of the sun for far too long.
“You can! Command me to be well and I will be it!”
The look that Ei gives her in return is withering. Not in the way that Sara is used to — the sharp glare of her superiors, which has always felt like a boot on her back. There is something broken in Ei’s gaze and it's enough to suck all the oxygen out of Sara’s lungs, leaving the spark of anger behind to suffocate in a broken void.
“I cannot,” Ei repeats slowly. “I am not that Raiden Shogun.”
“You are the Raiden Shogun,” Sara insists.
“Enough.” There’s no malice in Ei’s voice, just the simple command. “I cannot command you to be well, no more than I can command the sun to rise or time to stop flowing.” There’s a slight hint of something else in her voice, bitterness perhaps, something in her voice that suggests that she has tried before.
Tried and failed.
“That is something you have to do for yourself, not for anyone else. Not even for me.”
Sara remains silent, willing herself with everything that she has left to remain still. She is the Shogun’s general. Was her general. Is still her general?
Now she is… nothing. She has nothing left.
What good is a broken weapon when even the owner refuses to reforge it? What good is broken pottery when the potter refuses to put her back together?
Sara would have endured the fires of forge and kiln, hell and heaven, to be made whole again, be made well again. But the Raiden Shogun cannot.
Will not.
“I don’t know how,” Sara whispers brokenly. “I am not strong enough to recover on my own.”
“You are capable of moving past this, of far greater things. You do not have to be alone, my dear general. ”
But she is. She is so so so alone.
Alone in her brokenness. Alone in what strength she does not possess.
“I do not,” Sara swallows stiffly. She has never contradicted her god before, in any matter. “I do not believe that.”
Ei sighs.
"They say that the faith of thousands of mortals in their god grants their god the power to do the impossible," Ei states with no hesitation or hint of musing. She says it plainly, like one might when talking about the natural laws of the world.
Since the electro archon has said it, Sara understands it as her god's word as law.
Ei's words are soft, barely rising above a whisper, but Sara hears them like the Electro Archon is speaking directly into her ear, into her heart, into her soul. Ei stares at the tengu general, body and spirit which had been once broken by spears of ice which had pinned her wings to the ground like some do with butterflies and pins of steel.
Sara bows her head deeply, unwilling to meet her god's gaze. Her broken form is held together, held upright, only by the strict etiquette that had been carved into her since she was young by her adoptive family. She had already lost her composure multiple times in front of the Raiden Shogun. She refused to embarrass herself any further — to show weakness in front of the Raiden Shogun was a crime in and of itself. Her father would have made her kneel outside in the courtyard as discipline in return.
The sound of footsteps approaching sends tension lancing through Sara's unhealed muscles. The answering spike of pain is enough to make her wince. A gentle hand cups her cheek, drawing her face upwards so that she has to look up at Ei. The feeling of a hand calloused over the years with the weight of sword and spear alike against Sara’s skin is deceptively gentle but so so familiar.
Sara couldn't tear her eyes away even if she wanted to, and she wants nothing more than to drown herself in an ocean the colour of early dusk in Ei's eyes, in hopes of absolution.
"What can you do then," Ei's voice drops to a murmur, "when a god places her faith in you?"
Is it supposed to be so quiet after an Archon — the one that Sara has dedicated her entire life and existence to, changes her life so soundly, so thoroughly, and so wholly?
Sara can still feel Ei’s touch lingering on her skin. She wonders, how could hands who have killed so many on the battlefield hold her so gently? How could hands accustomed to holding swords and spears hold her not as a weapon but like something far more delicate, far more precious?
Ei had held her gaze for a few moments longer, allowing an eternity to pass between them as Sara drank her fill of her Archon’s presence. Sara drank until her thirst had been slaked and Ei pulled away with a small smile, something bubbling up in her expression.
Hope, perhaps.
Disjointed memories swam before Sara’s eyes. For a second she’s in the Tenshukaku again, fire and ash flooding her senses. The ice ws melting, cold water running down her body and washing away the bright red of dendrobiums, leaving behind a river tinged in pink. The familiar feeling lifted her broken body from the floor.
Ei was the one who had carried her out of the Tenshukaku and to healers.
Ei didn't say anything else as she turned and left. Some part of Sara wanted to reach out for the retreating figure, but Ei’s question, rhetorical as it may be, had swept Sara up in tides of warmth. She was buoyed by an indescribable feeling of lightness as revelation washes over her like a cleansing rain after the fire.
In the wake of Ei’s departure, there’s a thin wooden box left in the doorway. Sara isn’t quite sure when it had been left there — her eyes still fixed on the figure of Ei’s smiling visage in her mind. She blinks and where the Electro Archon had been, the box now sits, crackling faintly with purple sparks. A reminder that Ei really had been her and not unjust some fever dream that Sara had imagined in her addled state.
Moving from her kneeling position makes every joint and bone and muscle creak in protest. She is far too stiff, but she makes it to the box. Reverently, she runs a hand down the smooth surface of the box, sending purple sparks scattering up her arms. The sparks leave a soft tingling feeling as they disperse and Sara welcomes it.
Anything is better than the pain and aches she has had.
Carefully, she cracks open the lid, one eye closed in apprehension. A small part of her suggests that there might still be some kind of a lethal trap on the inside. Instead, she finds her bow. Last she saw it, it had been over a dozen pieces out in the courtyard, destroyed beyond repair. Now it sits, whole, in her lap.
The workmanship is remarkable. She could hardly tell that these had been those broken pieces. In awe, Sara picks up the bow, turning it over in her hands. Bits of purple and gold arc across the weapon, looking like lightning branching across it.
She gives it an experimental bend. The bow holds, flexing under her grip. Whatever had been done to the bow to repair, it was not just putting the pieces back together. Holding the bow in one hand, Sara feels like she could shoot further with this — if she could still shoot.
Ei’s words echo as she turns her better-than-before bow over in her hands. It’s a weapon, yes, but now it looks more and more like a work of art.
What could she do with Ei’s faith?
Ei's faith is not the cure for all of her wounds, Sara understands this as much. She knows that she isn't suddenly all better because of what her god has told her. Ei's faith is the long drink of fresh water after struggling for so long. She wants to be Ei's general, to be worthy of the worthiness Ei sees in her.
Ei's faith is the gold Sara will bind her wounds with.
A twinge in her arm makes her rub at the scar absentmindedly. Whatever ice that still lingered under her skin seems to thaw as purple sparks scatter across her skin, leaving feather light kisses wherever they leap.
There are no dendrobiums which bloom in the Tenshukaku.
She had survived.
Sara begins to string her bow.