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Relics are strange things, the way that symbols can tell a story. An owl, a cross, tattoos, eyeglasses -- bits and pieces of a patchwork world that grows increasingly and disconcertingly young.
The sun seems to move quicker with each day that passes, and Fuu isn’t sure now whether it’s the world moving faster or if she’s moving slower. Needless to say, her destiny has become less of a destiny than a series of events that she can’t ever quite catch up with.
When she worked at the tea house, it seemed like the day never ended. She used to count the hours by each dumpling, by each cup, wondering when something would happen. Fuu believes in fate, in some way -- but there’s a reason she deals in dice, coins, charms. Skewing fate is hard, but why not try? Just in case.
And then 100 theoretical dumplings disappeared, limbs went flying, swords speeding faster than the blink of an eye, and everything was burned to the ground again.
It’s strange, the way that fire can almost magically move the things it never even touches, like a myth or a folktale.
The way things have been going, Fuu thinks one fanciful night, the only one awake lying on a temple floor, that maybe one day someone will read her story.
The Diaries of Fuu Kasumi: Traveling ...
Will she be a folktale, a symbol like the Kishibojin charm on Sara’s shamisen?
“You better not hold us up tomorrow,” Mugen grumbles from a few feet away.
Fuu jumps, thinking she was alone in her thoughts.
“I concur,” Jin adds in a soft voice.
She snorts and rolls over, closer to Sara.
“What are you two awake for then?”
Mugen laughs, low and dismissive. “Don’t worry about us,” he says.
She hears him roll onto his back with a dull thud and readjust his wiry limbs; he yawns violently (only Mugen could yawn violently), like a tired dog.
Jin just stays exactly where he is, as still as night, and she can tell he’s closed his eyes again.
Fuu rolls onto her back too and looks at the ceiling as if it might have stars, folding her hands behind her head.
“You ever think,” she says softly, “that maybe our fate is in the stars?”
“What the hell is she talking about?” Mugen mumbles softly to Jin, fabric rustling as a shin is kicked.
Fuu can hear Jin roll over away from them and sigh.
“Oh,” Mugen growls, his voice dangerously sarcastic, “too good to talk to us?”
“You’re ruining the conversation, Mugen,” Fuu hisses.
“What conversation? You were rambling about stars or something.”
“You’re impossible.”
“C’mon. Let me switch places with you.”
“No. You are not getting near Sara.”
“Weird charm.”
“What?” Fuu replies, her eyebrows raising in the dark where she’s been frowning.
“You know...” Mugen says, and then pauses, as if in thought. No, that’s impossible. “That charm for her dead kid or whatever.”
“Mugen!”
“The child isn’t dead,” Jin says, his voice suspiciously lucid.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mugen grumbles, and then snorts. “Either way, what is that shit. I mean, the broad’s hot, but...”
“You’re too nosy,” Fuu huffs, rolling over again toward Sara.
“I’m nosy?” Mugen laughs. “You’re the one always askin’ about the past and shit like that.”
Fuu wants to deny it. What a thing to be accused of -- wanting to know characters -- no...riff-raff -- like Jin and Mugen. As if she cares about their pasts.
Blue tattoos... sadness?
“He has a point,” Jin reasons objectively, “and it’s called a Kishibojin.”
“That a fancy curse word?”
“No, it’s a legend,” Fuu offers patiently.
“A legend?”
“Well, a story.”
“What the hell’s the difference?”
“One’s exciting and one’s ordinary,” Fuu replies self-righteously. “A legend is something everyone knows, but a story is just something everyone has.”
Eyeglasses... are they real?
“Who cares,” Mugen says dismissively, yawning again. Fuu can practically picture his bared teeth.
“I don’t know,” Fuu says softly.
“You’re quite introspective tonight,” Jin comments neutrally. Then again, everything Jin says is designed to be neutral. Regardless of how softly he speaks, however, his comments are usually rather loud.
“Hmph,” Fuu asserts, crossing her arms over her chest even though they can’t see her. “I’m just thinking. Besides, you guys asked me.”
“No,” Mugen interjects, “I said you better not slow us down tomorrow.”
“How’d you know I was awake to begin with?”
“Heard you breathing all funny,” he replies. “What’re you thinkin’ about anyway?”
“I told you,” Fuu replies, “stars.”
“Ain’t no stars here.”
“Yes, the stars are out there,” Jin agrees.
“Well, fine, you jerks,” Fuu cries, standing up and making her way to the door. “Then I’ll go look at them out there by myself!”
Mugen just snorts and rolls back onto his side dispassionately; Jin sighs and curls into himself.
Jerks. That’s what they are. Losers and jerks.
Fuu goes out to look at the real stars. The sky is clear tonight, and they’re there in all their glory -- little relics that make stories, memories, seasons, images.
They link together against the black, and Fuu smiles. She says softly to herself, “They’re pretty.”
Maybe one day, people will read her stories for the weather reports. It’s important whether it was sunny in December or June; whether the stars came out one night in July or whether the clouds covered them up in September. It’s important whether the road is icy, or whether it’s dry. It’s important how they leave their footprints, how they remain in places they’ve long since left.
She leans over the banister dreamily, looks at the studded sky, and sighs. It’s pretty. It’s always been pretty.
Inside, Mugen is snoring; Jin is breathing softly; Sara can’t even be heard.
Fuu blinks heavily, and thinks of a better title for her story: The Diaries of a Traveler.
Turning away, she smiles as she heads back inside.
For once, Mugen’s advice is sound: it’s time to go to sleep, because she still has a lot of walking to do.