#vignettes of a time in Wep'keer!

[journeyofthemoonprophet]

Yawa insists on keeping her eye on you, at least for the next week, maybe a little longer. She says it’s in case your wounds get infected, or prove slower to close than she expects. You did fall from the heavens and outrun demons, after all.

“Healing takes time,” she insists, pushing back your collar to check the dressings on your shoulder. “You’re already doing well, but it won’t do you any good to leave before you’re ready.”

You don’t know how to tell her that it may take longer than a week for anything else to heal. If those parts of you ever will at all.

.

It turns out your actual clothes are with Yawa’s apprentice, who is in fact the ‘Kuki’ that Akemi is friends with. She’s an odd sort, glancing away even at the barest hint of eye contact, and usually whispering in someone’s ear when she speaks. Perhaps that’s why it catches you off guard when she addresses you directly.

“I’m working on something for you,” she says, staring firmly off to the side instead of anywhere near your face. “But if you try to peek at it before I’m done, I won’t give it to you, or give you your clothes back.”

Well, that’s... a warning. For a moment you’re not even sure how to respond. “Uh... okay?” Kuki seems satisfied enough, and disappears up the ladder once more. You look to Yawa, hoping she can explain what the hell just happened.

“Bah,” she huffs, “Kuki hates people watching her work. Especially when she’s sewing.” You can’t see her mouth, but you can hear the wicked grin in her voice. “Though if I were you, I’d heed her warning well. Unless you want to run around in borrowed clothes for the rest of your life.”

.

Your dreams are still haunted, both by ghosts and the monsters who slaughtered them. There’s a night in particular where you wake up with the phantom feeling of icy hands on your throat, desperate crying and demonic cackling ringing in your ears. This time, you’re alone, and the upstairs remains still and silent.

You take Pillow Talk up in one hand and carefully push yourself to your feet. (Slowly; you really don’t want to get caught because you fell flat on your face). You’re careful not to alert the others as you slip into a nearby pair of boots and take one of the blankets with you out the door. The cold bites through you even under the blanket, but the wind is still and the sky is clear. Good enough.

You don’t exactly know where you’re going, but thankfully you don’t have to wander too far before you find a place that feels enough out of the way. You know the patrol will likely catch you again, especially with what you’re about to do, but hopefully you’ll at least get a few minutes to yourself.

The moon above is bright, gleaming in a pale gold shape over the cliff and down onto the snow. It makes you incredibly homesick.

You lift Pillow Talk to your lips, and the first quiet notes cut across the chilly air. You play with no particular melody in mind and just let the music carry you from one note to the next, spinning a lonely tune of deep loss and deeper regret.

.

The next morning, Yawa asks if you’re feeling up for a short walk. You know that she knows, but you figure it’s better to play along, and you pull yourself to your feet. Seeing as Kuki is still up in the loft, Yawa is bringing you along to market, tasking Akemi with keeping watch of the place while the two of you are gone.

“It’s just across the square from here, so it’ll be good exercise for both of us,” she insists, tossing you a pair of boots, “besides, fresh air does a healing man wonders.”

For an old woman her age and size, she’s surprisingly quick. You have to remind her more than once that you’re not only still sore, but not used to the snow and currently walking in boots a size too big. You figure you must look especially strange to the other villagers: golden haired and bare-faced, stumbling to keep up with a woman that looks four times your age. Yawa either doesn’t notice or care, merely talking with the merchants as if nothing is amiss and handing you more things with each conversation.

“Should I be wearing a mask?” you mutter to her at the menagerie of eyes upon you. She smacks your shoulder and cackles a laugh, and you start to wonder if you’ve made a joke or are the butt of it.

.

Akemi begs you to play something. She wants to know what the music of the gods is like, and you have to know how it goes, right? You remind her that you are but one man with a flute and not an ensemble of celestials, but she insists, even promising to teach you a few from the poncles in exchange. (You did, admittedly, try to get a hint at what Kuki is working on, but when Akemi asked if you had been threatened yet, you distracted her by getting her to sing one of the poncles’ nursery rhymes.)

You eventually relent (after shooing Akemi off of the end of your flute twice, lest you accidentally burst her tiny ears), and thankfully your muse is a lot easier to find than you feared. You keep yourself to some of the simpler melodies, as some of your favorites still feel just a bit too sacred to touch right now. Akemi sways happily from your knee, seemingly just pleased with the music.

At one point, you realize you’ve slipped into a tune from much further back in your memory. It’s an old working song, one you’ve heard your own mother hum to herself many times when you were very small. For a moment, you’re a bit paralyzed to be playing it, but then you hear Yawa quietly humming to herself, and somewhere upstairs a foot tapping in time.

.

The nightmares seem here to stay, and every time you break loose you find yourself unable to fall back asleep. Just your due, you suppose, given how many ghosts have been made at your hands. At some point, though, you find that while you still wake up exhausted and shaky, you’ve started opening your eyes to the sunlight.

[journeyofthemoonprophet]

Yawa is, in fact, quite cross with you running off before sunrise. She does admittedly relent a bit when you explain the prophecy (even if you do exaggerate a tiny bit on how urgent they usually are), but she’s still upset about coming down from the loft to find you missing. You haven’t been scolded like this since your own grandmother caught you trying to climb a counter twice your height.

Apparently she’s mostly worried about the rest you’re getting... or, perhaps, the rest you’re not getting. Even when you do manage to sleep through the night, she doubts there’s terribly much rest behind it. You want to argue with her that even before this, you never slept as long of stretches at a time to begin with, but you still apologize for worrying her.

“Just be easy on yourself, dear,” she sighs, reaching up to ruffle your hair. “And maybe take a nap at some point.”

.

As you promised Akemi, she shows you through the parts of Wep’keer you missed yesterday. To your surprise, a few of the people from yesterday ask after you, seemingly pleased to hear you’re doing better today. You suspect they’re used enough to this with Kuki, especially with Akemi sitting on your head.

You still can’t tell how most of the villagers quite feel about you on their own. More than likely they just think you’re utterly strange, but in a way that makes them curious. The ones brave enough to talk to you seem especially drawn to your face, but in a menagerie of masks with the neighbors being small silhouettes, you suppose it’s a rare commodity.

“Maybe they find you handsome,” Akemi whispers, and you can’t tell if she’s making a joke or an actual suggestion.

.

“Can I ask about...?” You shift your lunch bowl to one hand, loosely gesturing with the other to Yawa’s mask.

“I’m surprised you haven’t earlier,” she muses, settling next to the hearth with her own meal. “It’s how we stay close to the spirits, protected from the evil ones and connected to the good. Wear them since we reach five years old, when we’re gifted our first. You’ve probably noticed the children with them.”

Five? You knew from the gods that mortals in Nippon live much shorter lives than those of the moon, but it still strikes you as incredibly young. “How do the gifters know what to pick for them?”

Yawa offers a casual shrug. “The same way a parent knows what to name their child, I suppose.” That could mean so many things, and yet at the same time, you think you understand.

.

You doubt it'll work, but you do try to honor Yawa’s suggestion for a nap in the afternoon. Even if you don't end up getting any sleep, it might at least do some good to sink your chin in your hand and rest your eyes for a bit. Especially with how rough your nights have been lately...

At some point in the stillness, you hear Yawa chuckle to herself. There’s quiet footsteps behind you, and you force yourself not to react as she settles a quilt around your shoulders. You never do fully doze off, but you're content to sit by the hearth and let your mind drift to the crackle of the fire and the shuffle of chores.

.

“Be honest with me,” you ask Akemi one evening, studying her from her perch upon your knuckles. “The first night... did you really come to see Kuki, or were you following me?”

Akemi hems and haws as she sways back and forth. “Well, you said all of your friends were...” She can’t finish the sentence, making a noncommittal noise as she forces herself to move on. “... which meant you were all alone. And you seemed like you could really use a friend here, too.” There’s a beat, then she adds one more thought: “Especially since you thought the Oina were going to kill you.”

Leave it to a child to bruise a man’s pride on top of the rest of his wounds. Maybe it’s good that said pride is no longer too numb to actually feel that particular punch. “Thanks Akemi.”

.

You are working the knots out of your hair when Kuki finally emerges from the loft. She glances away when you reflexively look up, hugging whatever she has close to her chest. This time, though, she’s braving peeks out the corner of her eye.

“Duck your head a bit?”

An odd request, but you comply, even shutting your eyes for good measure. Kuki nestles something on your head, and you blink your eyes open when you feel something settle over your shoulders and down your back. She takes a step back as you reach behind you, pulling around a length of cloth with the ends cut and dyed into feathers like a great wing. Actually it’s not one wing but two, draping around you like a veil.

“If the demons are going to hunt you,” Kuki says, “then you are going to need a way to hide.” Wait, did she...? You go to reach for whatever’s holding it on top of your head for a better look--“Yours is not for your face.”--and immediately put your hands back down. She stoops to hand you a bundle, and you do your best not to look her in the eye as she places it into your arms. “We asked the spirits for their blessing, as with any mask, but I don’t know what they’ll do for someone who’s already close to the gods.”

The bundle is your actual clothing, good as new. Seriously, you can’t even find where they had originally been torn. She’s even replaced the straps on your geta. Kuki fidgets when you get to your feet, but calms when you offer her a grateful bow. “Thank you, Kuki. Truly.”

Kuki’s words have left her, but she does offer you a little bow back. Only when she disappears back up the ladder again do you dare investigate. Your hands feel the shape of a beak, and when you pull the entire thing from your head, you find yourself staring into the carved face of an eagle.