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The Peony Lantern

The Peony Lantern

The evening air still held the heat of the day. In the distance, Shinnojo Ogiwara could hear the music from the festival, filtering up the narrow street, interspersed with faint adult laughter and high piping children’s voices. Earlier, he had gone to the shrine and left his offering for his wife. She was dead many years now. His daimyo had had a hand in their marriage, bringing the two families together, and Ogiwara had never had any complaints about her. She had been an easy woman, easy with her smiles, easy with her care, easy to grow to love. She had made life easy, for him and later for their children. She had died easy too, slipping away quietly after a quiet sickness.

His grief for her had been easy as well, just as quiet and simple to slip into the pattern of as she had been.

His love for her had been a samurai's love. It had not taxed him or drawn his attention away from his duties. It had been, like her, an easy thing. Easy to pick up, easy to set aside when duty called for it. He had thought losing her was easy as well. Too easy he sometimes worried but his children had needed him and his lord had needed him and life had gone on and she had become an easy memory, soft but not demanding in his chest. When he had left his offerings earlier for her, he had been grateful that even her loss, she had made easy on him.

He wasn’t sure why he was standing outside his town house, feeling so very -

Lonely.

In life, you accepted what you were given by the Wheel of Fate. He had always been stoic, dealing with what was in front of him. He had not been created to be a dreamer, a poet. He was his daimyo’s rock, steady, reliable and unimaginative. He knew that. It was something he could, and often was, proud of. Yet here, in the quiet warmth of the evening, feeling the cotton of his yukata sticking to the skin between his shoulder blades, hearing a celebration he could not find it in him to join in the distance, he felt as if he had missed something, somewhere along the way. He felt - restless. Lonely and restless.

His children were all gone. He’d given them better lives to go to. His lord surrounded himself with younger men these days. The countryside was quiet. There was no need to ride out and defend anything. Ogiwara felt as if time was slipping past him now and he had nothing left to do with it. Some of his friends, the ones that had survived their youth, had joined monasteries, preparing themselves for their eventual death and turn on the Wheel but Ogiwara couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not yet. He was still too young for that. Too old for his past life yet too young for his future one. Caught like a toad in tree sap, trying to move yet having nowhere to go. He fought the feeling but it was a gradual growth inside of him, harder to ignore when the world was silent as it was now. Day by day, month by month, it slowly ate away at his heart.

He had given his life to his lord and his duty, to first his father and then his children. He had held nothing back from them and now, when they did not need him, he realized he had nothing of himself left for himself. What did a man do, when he had nothing but himself left?

On the street outside, a light bobbed. He frowned at it. He had thought the street was empty only moments ago and yet, as if pulled up out of the cobbles by his thoughts, suddenly there was a lantern. He had thought everyone else was at the celebration but now, moving - no, floating along, there was a golden pink light, shaped fanciful into a peony flower. For just a moment, as he recognized the lantern’s shape, he even thought he could smell it, the flower, not the lantern. Absentmindedly, he watched it drift closer to him in the evening covered street. It seemed to be coming from a very far way away, so much farther away than the small stretch of street it drifted across and it flickered as it came, sometimes dipping out of existence entirely before bravely flickering back to life, the golden pink glow of it immeasurably fragile in the dark shadows around it. In his mind, he knew it was only a peony painted lantern, carried by some noble’s servant to light their steps in the evening darkness.

Something in his chest still held his breath each time the light disappeared and silently cheered encouragement each time it stubbornly came back to life after.

In time it resolved itself, growing steadily brighter and more sure of itself and, following behind its light, came the soft clacking of wooden shoes on stone, faint and strangely melodic in the night air, like spring rain falling on bamboo chimes. Again he smelled a floral note in the air and, enchanted by the strange fancy his mind was making of such a mundane event, he inhaled it deeply. Every moment was fleeting. He had learned early to enjoy what moments came while they were there - even, perhaps now, an older man’s suddenly awake imagination that painted an evening with a god’s brush for a few seconds of time. Foolish perhaps, but who was there to see it but himself?

As he thought it, the lamp came close enough that he could see what it cast its light for and his chest suddenly closed over entirely as his world seemed to spin sideways and then stop entirely.

She was beautiful.

Ogiwara had been to the Shogun’s palace before. He had been to the Emperor's palace. He had seen the most beautiful women in the land gathered together, dressed in the most elegant silks opulence could give them.

They looked like sparrows held up against the hawk that glided behind the peony lantern.

She was physically beautiful. She was physically so much more than beautiful. Poets made songs around skin as moon glow beautiful as hers and wrote plays over the darkness of her hair and the bottomless darkness of her eyes. But there were other women in the world with moon skin and night fall hair and midnight shadow eyes. What made her beautiful, Ogiwara thought, watching her glide along serenely behind the peony lantern carried by her scuttling servant girl, was how she moved. She didn’t trip along gaily, light like a young coltish girl, new as morning dew to the world and all it held. Nor did she melt along, a woman of the world who was used to being adored, content in her circle of attention, doted on to the point of becoming alabaster. No. She moved like the hawk he had first thought of, drifting on the wind under the power of her own wings, all of her contained and drawn from only inside of herself, sure of the place she had created before her as she moved into it. She moved, he thought, like an empress that had never known an emperor.

It made her beautiful enough to stop his heart.

Standing silent at his garden gate, he doubted they saw him as they approached on the street and then slipped past him. He never knew what made him open his mouth but the words had to be said, whether anyone but the night heard them or not. As the pink gold glow from the peony lantern passed like a pool in front of his garden gate he whispered:

“What a lucky man I am. For dawn has decided, early, to rise and then pass in front of my lowly garden gate and only my eyes are here to see it.”

It was a clumsy poem. He’d never been good at moon reading nights in his diamyo’s gardens or at petal parties when the trees came into bloom. He lacked the ability for word play that could turn one sentence into three different meanings and he was too sturdy with his chosen words for flight. Still, he knew when a moment called for a poem and this evening was a kind of magical beauty that needed to be remembered and marked properly.

The soft tak-tak of the woman’s shoes stopped. In the shadow and light from the lantern, for a moment, her skin was as golden pink as the light. She did not turn her head toward him, eyes dark pools in the shadows of her face. For a moment, it was quiet. Even the sounds of the festival were gone in the evening air. And then:

“What a lucky woman I am. For someone has mistaken my lonely wind-blown candle for the hope of a morning dawn and, almost, only my ears are here to hear it.”

The lady’s voice was low and soft, too deep to belong to a young girl and there was a sweet accent touching the final edges of each of her words, a half-heard song in the fall of them. The servant holding the lantern was bent low in the lady’s shadow but she was a second set of ears. Ogiwara found it unique that the lady would acknowledge that. In the magic of the gold and pink tingled evening, it was a strange thing, like a window left open before a rainstorm. The light around the woman paused, the shadow around the servant girl did as well. Ogiwara found himself outside of both. He was a widower and neither poor enough to need a second wife, nor wealthy enough to afford a mistress. He had never seen the woman in front of him before. Her voice though, like her movements, ran sure as river water of itself before her and his chest ached in a way he had never felt before, like a tongue burned by snow for the first time somehow wants to prolong the feeling.

“The walls of my house are sturdy shelter,” he said, not sure which answer he hoped to hear. “If a candle needed a place to rest from the wind for a time.”

Her face did turn toward him then and there was light in the darkness of her eyes like sunlight across rippling river water. Barely, the tips of her pale lips lifted, such a small thing and yet he felt the burst of pride inside his chest, that he was the cause of it.

She paused, a single long moment, and then she, carefully, lifted the very low hem of her dress and stepped from the street up to his garden walk. The click of her shoes was soft in the darkness.

He smelled flowers. She was not much shorter than he was.

“A candle, brought in from the wind, glows brighter once it is safe.”

“My walls are safe but not fire resistant,” he pushed the gate open and marveled that he could speak in more than just words for once. “Let us bring the candle in.”

Her name was Otsuyu. She did not give him a family name. Perhaps she was a nobleman’s wife, recently moved to the town. Perhaps she worked for one of the upscale teahouses. She did not tell him and he did not ask. The world outside, celebrating Obon, did not matter to them. Instead, she sang for him and he had the servants make the tea for her that he usually saved for his diamyo’s visits. They talked of books he had only half read and plays she had only half watched and, together, they laughed, softly, for the life they’d not noticed passing them by in those moments. She was older than his children, younger than he was and her smiles and laughter were fleeting, making each moment he caused one to be a moment of pleasure for himself. She wove poetry out of the small decorations he’d collected to hang in his house and he folded little pigs for her out of paper he’d been using for ink blotting, feeling foolish until her delighted laughter at the little speckled creatures filling her moon-glowing palms made the air sweet. When he reached for her, she came, skin cool against his in the heat from the summer air. Her servant waited on the other side of the screen and the gold and pink glow from the peony lantern, slipping past the paper wall was the only light in the room as Otsuyu opened her arms and drew him down to her on his bed.

“Your moon skin is cool,” he told her and her voice in the dark whispered back:

“So warm me with your own.”

He did.

She did not slip away after, content to rest with her head on his chest and his fingers tangled in her hair and he felt something stir in his chest that felt dangerous. It felt alive again.

She did stir, just before dawn, rising and drawing her robe around her. He rose with her and added his own over hers and she did not refuse it. Something dangerous bubbled in his chest again. If felt like hope.

“To keep the moon warm,” he told her as he draped it around her shoulders. The light from the lantern on the other side of the wall was starting to fade and it was very dark where they stood close together in his room.

“It is a fine robe,” she told him, fingers touching its fabric and then his chest and he felt something thud painfully on the other side of his rib cage from where her fingers glided like falcon feathers.

“It is,” he agreed. He’d been wearing it to the festival. You dressed your best for those kinds of things. Her hair was dark across the shoulders of it now and he reached up to lift it back. Last night had been a poet’s tale but the day was approaching and life wasn’t a poet’s work. Still, he couldn’t resist adding: “I have more. If a candle should need another.”

In the dark, he felt her look more than saw it. Her hands came to rest on his arms, light as the morning dew surely forming outside. For a moment, it was quiet. And then:

“How often should I come?” her low voice whispered in the dark. He felt the way it coiled down through him and realized, as short as the night had been, he had only one answer:

“Forever.”

In the dark she gave a moment to the word, felt the way they both heard it ring, soft and yet deep as a monastery bell lost in the mountains between them.

“How long will you wait?” she asked. He realized there was only one answer he wanted to give.

“Forever.”

The word hung in the air a second time, sinking deep. She lifted and her lips pressed to his. For a moment, he tasted earth, deep and dark and cool. Then she was drawing away in the dark, slipping out of the room and the fading light of the peony lantern slipped away with her. Ogiwara stayed where she had left him until dawn was already creeping under the shutters of his windows.

It’s light was beautiful but not as beautiful as the light from the peony lantern.

The day crawled past. It was still Obon so he had no solicitors, no headmen, to deal with but there were still correspondences to be dealt with. There were invitations from friends.

He left them where they lay on his desk and sat out in the garden as the day slowly inched past.

Ogiwara was good at waiting. It was what made him such an asset to his lord and what made him such a stable samurai - but he had never felt as stretched thin as he did while the day crawled its agonized way past him. Corpses on the battlefield, he thought, moved faster as they settled in to rotting. He wished he had asked Otsuyu for something of hers, a hair comb or a slip of silk. In the light of day, the night previous seemed hard to believe in, full of the longing certainty and logic that only existed in dreams. She had said she would come again but polite words were creatures of their own, slipping nooses and forest traps to find their escape. As sturdy as he was, he knew there were other samurai that offered more. Lords that offered more. Last night, thinking of their own personal dead, perhaps they had both been lonely and so found each other that way. Tonight, he would again be lonely, he thought, but that was not enough to offer a woman like Otsuyu.

He rose and ordered a feast prepared for that night. Not the kind you invited friends to, with ample food and drink. He ordered the kind of food that might please a single person, a woman who traveled with a fanciful peony for a lantern. Sweets and delicates and light foods that would be cool in the heat of the evening. He ordered flowers. Not an excess but the rare ones that were more beautiful for being individuals in their vases. He had his futon changed out, brought down the one, and the quilts, he saved for special guests, kept in storage with their sweet herbs and silken covers. He ordered the house cleaned, top to bottom, sent his servants to buy new tatami mats even though it wasn’t the season for them. He was not rich but he was not poor and he had no reason to spend money on himself. Let him spend it on her.

On the hope of her.

If she did not come…

If she did not come it would be ash in his mouth.

But if she did?

If she did he would give her what she was worth for as much as someone like him could.

The afternoon came on and he found a strange clenching in his stomach, one he recognized, with surprise, as both excited anticipation and held back dread. It was a new feeling to him. He had felt both before, but never together. He was surprised to find he almost enjoyed the pain.

“Quite a lot of activity in your house.” It was his neighbor, Satsuo, and he said it as Ogiwara stepped outside his gate to make sure the step up into it was level and swept clean. “My servants tell me you’re expecting someone. Is your wife coming back to check on you?”

Satsuo was too nosy, a palace official that had retired, or been retired, and spent his days trying to remember how it felt to order others around. They were not on bad terms, he and Ogiwara. They had both watched the world pass them by and there were evenings when there was comfort in sitting together with sake between them, pretending it hadn’t. For that, Ogiwara accepted the prodding half-joke and gave him the politeness of a response.

“My wife has no reason to come back. She finished well here.” And, because of their friendship, he could add: “Beside, if she did come back, it would be to check on her children. There is no need for her to check on me.”

Behind him, in the courtyard of his home, the cook’s voice rose for a moment before muttering back out over one of the baskets brought from market by a servant boy.

“A man is only worth the children he leaves behind,” Satsuo intoned before he slipped another look at Ogiwara. “You look strange, my friend. I would swear you were waiting for an Obon ghost. Who is the fuss your house is making for?”

“I feel strange,” Ogiwara admitted, something he wouldn’t usually have done but - there was a great deal today he would not usually have done. What was one more thing? “But there is no lonely ghost coming. I am waiting for the moon to fall tonight.”

The fanciful statement left his neighbor stuttering and, for the first time, Ogiwara felt the power in word poetry on his own tongue. Satsuo pried more but there was nothing more to tell him and so Ogiwara did not. If she came tonight - she would come. If she did not -

The moon might as well fall for him. He had no thoughts beyond that.

The day slipped away and as evening came on, Ogiwara sent his servants to bed or to their own families. He had no need of them. There was nothing he could not provide for Otsuyu himself. What little he might need, her servant could provide.

And - if she did not come - he needed no one but himself there to witness it.

He took his position by his garden gate as the shadows lengthened into sunset.

Satsuo tried to wait with him but Ogiwara was a samurai and his neighbor was only an official. It was not hard, without saying a word or making a gesture, to make it clear his company was not welcome. His neighbor slipped away into his own house, murmuring evening words, after only a short attempt.

Ogiwara waited.

Evening fell.

The last of the sun disappeared.

Night slipped quietly forward on slippered feet to spread its darkness.

Ogiwara stood under the single lantern he’d left lit near the gate and watched the moon start to rise. Behind him, in the silent house, the food sat in its dishes, waiting for someone’s touch. Ogiwara waited as well.

Though the soft night came a faint sound.

The soft tak tak of wooden shoes over stone.

A glow, golden pink, drifted to him along the empty street.

Ogiwara stopped breathing.

Again, the light seemed to come from much further away than where he knew it must have rounded the corner of the street to be visible. As it had last night, it bobbed in and out of sight, extinguished one moment, appearing again the next. This time however the sound of wooden soles attended it, falling like water drops even when the light wasn’t there to guide them. Steady and sure and coming to him.

It was far too long before he saw the whisper of silk and darkness and the moon-pale hint of Otsuyu’s beautiful face. Without willing it, he smiled and she raised her bottomless dark eyes to his - and smiled in return. It was a quiet smile, a small one, but it was private and for him only. His heart jerked to life in his chest again, painful and welcome, and he held out his hands for hers.

Moon skin, just as cool and pale, slipped in to fill them.

He could breath again.

And, perhaps he just imagined it, but her eyes looked just as relieved as his felt.

He led her into his silent house and her servant brought the golden pink glow of the peony in with them.

The moon had come to Ogiwara’s house again, and there was no wind strong enough to threaten to blow it out.

Again, she left before dawn and, again, he did not ask where she went or who she went to. If she wanted to tell him, when she wanted to tell him, she would. It was enough for him that she had come.

That she promised to come again.

He let her go and, as dawn rose, he finally slept for the first time in two days. Under the light of the morning sun, he slept well.

He woke when his servants came to tell him there was a priest at his gate. It was true, Ogiwara hadn’t gone to the temple yesterday to leave food for the spirits of his ancestors. As he washed and dressed, he admitted that he should be taken to task for such a misstep. While he had left offerings the first day of the festival, he had neglected his family duty the second. His food had been prepared for Otsuyu instead. He felt the guilt of that - but not the regret. He would tell the priest he would make up for it today. Tonight the spirits would be guided back to the underworld, following their lanterns. Ogiwara hadn’t lied about his wife. If she visited at all, she visited their children. But there were other ancestors and he would be sure they were properly honored before their ghosts drifted away into the darkness, following the floating lanterns back to the sea.

The last thing he wanted, now that he had found Otsuyu, was a lingering spirit causing harm because it had been neglected.

He met the priest in the garden, where the older man waited, even though Ogiwara had told his servants to bring him inside and give him something to eat and drink. To his surprise, his neighbor was there as well. He gave Satsuo a look but the other man ducked it and kept the priest between them.

For the first time in many years, Ogiwara was aware of the weight of his swords. He always wore them when greeting visitors. He said it was to honor his guests but anyone that studied history knew better. It had been habit, not thought, that had put them on him to greet the priest. Seeing Satsuo using the robed man as a shield, Ogiwara stepped clear of the overhang of his roof and rested lightly on the balls of his feet as he greeted the two.

The proper greetings were exchanged, the offer of tea was turned down, pleasant conversation about the festival filled space. The priest was not here about Ogiwara’s offerings. He didn’t even mention them or their lack. Instead, face grave, he finally came to the purpose of his visit.

“Samurai Shinnojo I believe you are in the kind of danger that only I can protect you from.”

Ogiwara let his hand fall to the hilt of his sword. It was a samurai’s work to protect himself and others. If the priest was here, that meant the threat he mentioned was not physical. He had come about the offerings after all.

That didn’t explain Satsuo’s presence.

“How am I threatened?” he asked and now Satsuo finally exhaled a breath that shook and stepped forward.

“I saw your guest last night, Shinnojo. I was curious. You were so secretive. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw who was visiting you in the night. You were right to call her the moon.”

It wasn’t something that pleased him to hear but Ogiwara couldn’t pretend he was surprised. Satsuo had been an official. It had been his life to put his nose into every corner of other’s lives. He should stop now that he wasn’t an official anymore but Ogiwara knew how hard it was to leave behind the habits of your past.

It didn’t mean he felt like sharing Otsuyu, not even in conversation. All he did was nod in response. The priest took over.

“Your neighbor has been watching out for you. On Obon, ghosts roam the streets, looking to cause mischief and harm. Your neighbor, fearing for your safety, peeked in one of your windows once the woman came inside.” Ogiwara sent Satsuo a look and it was enough to have the man hiding behind the priest again. Everyone there knew Satsuo’s peering had nothing to do with worry over Ogiwara’s safety.

“Shinnojo-san, you are sleeping with a ghost,” the priest said.

Ogiwara snorted before he could stop himself. The priest was too old to be offended.

“I apologize,” he told the old man. “Whatever my neighbor has told you,” he glared at Satsuo, “for whatever reason, is a waste of your time. My visitor last night was living.”

Satsuo surprised him them, actually coming around the priest and, more shocking, going to his knees in a bow. His voice shook but even Ogiwara would be lying if he did not call it sincere.

“My friend, we have lived next to each other for years. I swear to you on every single day that has passed between us, I have not lied. Yes, I spied on you and the lady. I was greedy for your experiences. But I swear to you, I swear it - when I looked, you had your arms around a skeleton, living flesh to rotting and another rotting corpse sat in the corner with a flower lantern. Cut off our friendship. But do not let that creature into your house again tonight. I will beg.”

It would have been easy to dismiss Satsuo. It was what, with his whole chest, Ogiwara wanted to do. The man had intruded into things that weren’t his place and worse, he spoke against something that Ogiwara…

That Ogiwara wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to living without. Otsuyu made him feel again. He had forgotten what that had felt like.

Except Ogiwara was a samurai. Emotions weren’t what was important. Emotions were a trap. He knew that. And, finally, he understood why. Because it tore deeply inside of him to ignore them now. He still wasn’t sure he forgave his neighbor. Instead, he looked over the man’s lowered head at the priest.

“What should I do?”

The priest told him.

Again, Ogiwara prepared for the coming evening.

The day passed too fast. Long before he was ready, the shadows of the day were stretching into the quiet darkness of the evening, lit only by the distant trails of people carrying their lanterns down to the river, to set them adrift to guide the spirits back to their proper place in this world.

Ogiwara stood in the center of his garden and he waited.

Across his gate, almost lost in the growing darkness of the night, a simple paper ofuda fluttered, restless in the breeze.

Inside his garden, Ogiwara could not see the street. If the peony lantern appeared and fought its way through the dark to him tonight, he could not tell.

What he did hear, as the night settled low over the buildings, was the soft tak tak of wooden shoes approaching in the darkness.

It sounded, now that he listened, like fingers of bone, trying to find a way in past the wooden shutter of a window.

The sound came to a stop outside his closed gate.

The world, buried under distant stars, seemed to hold its breath in silence for a very long, thin-stretched exhale of time.

She was out there, on the street, having come expecting his lit lantern to guide her to his gate and him waiting for her. Instead, she had found darkness and the gate closed against her. Ogiwara stood in the darkness, halfway between the house and the gate and listened. His heart felt dead in his chest and yet his ears still strained for the damning sound of her shoes, clicking away from him forever into the darkness. Instead, after a moment, it was her voice that slipped in, finding its way easily through the wood without lifting.

“My lord,” a question and a call and he felt something stab him deeply, anger and longing. He was being a fool, keeping her out there for no reason but a spying neighbor. And yet - he waited.

“My love,” she called it softly again and it caused prickles to run over his skin. On its own, his mouth started to open but he shut it. There was the soft sound of her steps, clicking low in the night. One step that brought her almost to the gate.

“Ogiwara,”it was too much.

“Otsuyu,” her name was somewhere inside him, a curse or a prayer or a cry and it strangled between all of them as it came out of him. It told her he was there. He couldn’t bear the thought of her thinking he had abandoned her to the night.

“Won’t you open the gate for me, Ogiwara?” she asked him and there was a tremble in her voice he’d never heard before. It hurt. She should not tremble. Not a woman like her.

“Won’t you open the gate and come in, Otsuyu?”

That was the question. A mortal woman would be able to step past the protective charm on the gate.

A ghost would not.

If she was mortal, she only had to step inside and he would love her for the rest of his life.

If she wasn’t -

What would he do if she wasn’t?

Step through, he silently begged her. Make a fool of me and a priest and a neighbor with too much time on his hands. Step through and come to me. The silence beyond the gate waited.

He could not see the golden pink light of the peony lantern.

“I cannot,” she finally whispered and the wood of the gate took her voice and made it hollow.

The rice paper building he had been creating of hope fell inside of him without a sound. He closed his hand over his sword hilt. He had felt anger moments ago. Where had it gone?

“Why me?”he asked the darkness and the darkness answered softly.

“You were lonely. And searching. As lonely and searching as I was. I was lost and fading and you offered me shelter and strength. When I am with you, I am - happy. I don’t remember what I was before but - I do not think I was ever happy. Not as I am with you.”

“What were you going to do to me?” that came out rougher, the anger coming back for a moment. She whispered words that made his heart ache - but if her body had been a lie, why not her words too, all the more painful because he wanted them to be true? “Eat me? Kill me? Suck all my life away and leave a husk behind? Tell me, Otsuyu,” his voice shook now and it was with anger. “What were you going to do to me after I had loved you?”

“Ogiwara,” his voice was a sigh full of tears as it slipped past the gate. “I was going to love you. Forever. Just as you asked.”

It stole the anger from him, drained it in a rush like a sudden wound sweeping all the blood from his body. He felt old. And cold. And as if he would weep. She was dead and he was alive yet he felt as if he were the one dying. He had no words left for her.

She filled the silence between them instead. Like the wind, it crooned low and thin between the cracks of the gate.

“Shinnojo Ogiwara, you said I could come to you forever. But now the warmth you once gave me has been stolen away by your newfound coldness and I am again as lonely as the moon you once compared me to. You said you would wait for me and yet your gate is closed to me and your heart offers me no more shelter. I am a dim candle and soon the wind will snuff me out forever. Yet I cannot hate you. With you I have felt a life I did not feel even when alive. I hope it torments you for the rest of your life, that you have left me out here in the dark and cold, abandoned and alone. I hope you remember for the rest of your life that you are the one I will love long after I have finally reached my turn at the Wheel. I love you, Ogiwara. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Her voice died down into a silence that wept it was so brittle and lost. There was no other sound from the darkness of the gate. She was gone.

Gone.

Gone and he was alive. Tomorrow the sun would rise. He would live. He would live tomorrow and the day after and the day after and he would never hear the soft clack of wooden soled shoes outside his gate or inhale peony from a woman’s skin.

His life would go back to what it had been before Obon.

His house would be empty again.

He would be empty again.

Love, real love, was a curse. It tore a man between his duty to his woman and to his lord. But there was no lord that needed him anymore and the curse was that love lost was more painful than love never known.

He strode across his yard to the gate and he knew each step that he took was a decision he was making. He made it, over and over, until he reached the wood and ripped the gate open.

Outside, in a pool of golden pink light, Otsuyu waited for him with eyes as bottomless as the cold sea and as full of precious liquid.

“You didn’t leave?” he asked and it was raw and breathless in his throat. She gave him her small smile, somehow, past the tears in her eyes.

“You told me I could come to you forever.”

“Otsuyu,” another decision, one that was easier to make than it should have been, had him past the barrier of the gate and had her crushed close to him in his arms. She made a little sound, laughter and tears and despair and buried her decayed face against his shoulder. He smelled old earth. He smelled peony. He smelled rot. He smelled moonlight. Tears wet the fabric of his robe and he held bones and he held a soft hawk of a woman. He said her name again and did not let go. He felt her fingers in his robe and she did not either.

Time stopped mattering.

Eventually though, still unwilling to let go of her, he freed one arm, reaching out to rip the ofuda loose from his gate. Her fingers, barely there on his arm, stopped him before he could.

“No,” she whispered against him. “It is too late for that. I cannot return to pretending to be alive.”

He settled his arm around her and let what she meant sink past what she had told him.

Another decision.

Again, it was far too easy to make.

“Then where?”he asked.

Finally, she drew back from him and she was the form he had known the first night. Reaching down, she took his hand in her moon pale one. Her eyes were very dark when they looked up at him.

“All that is left for us is my home now.”

Her home. The dead didn’t have houses. They had graves. Ogiwara took one last look back at his own house, giving himself that moment to remember. Remember all that had come before, all that he had been. He exhaled. Looking down at the woman in front of him, all shadows and peony light, he nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The next morning, Satsuo was horrified to find his neighbor’s gate swinging open and the man’s servants looking in vain for their lord. Ogiwara wasn’t hard to find though. Not if you knew where to look.

Satsuo and the priest found him in the graveyard, lying at the foot of a grave with a smile on his face. As dead as the skeleton half buried in the ground of the grave that he had his arms wrapped around.

The Peony Lantern, also called Botan Dōrō, is considered one of the three great ghost stories of Japan. Imported from China in a book of mortality tales, the Peony Lantern was rewritten in 1666 by Asai Ryoi and the story became, and remains, wildly popular since then. A myriad of rewrites of the story have gone on to spawn plays, movies, books, dramas and manga. It’s a horror story, it’s a love story, it’s a warning, its a wish.

Please forgive the cultural mistakes I’ve made (and any editing mistakes, I just finished this and haven't had time to let it sit long enough to edit it). I hope you enjoy my gift of this version of The Peony Lantern. All reblogs of this are greatly appreciated and the best response possible. Happy Halloween.

#the peony lantern #botan doro #ghost story #happy halloween #paranormal #folklore #original fiction #short story #original story #fanfic #please reblog if you enjoy it #halloween gifts #obon #obon festival #samurai #this turned out to be 18 page long #which is about 13 pages longer than I thought it would be #I hope you enjoy it #short story fail

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segami-ido · 10 months

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A bit late to post in time for the Cotton Drifting Festival date for this year, but I wanted to do a charming little bit of art for it.

#mion sonozaki #higurashi #higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi when they cry #when they cry #sonozaki mion #fanart #digital art #clip studio paint #ひぐらしFA

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vulpes-fennec · 1 year

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Prythian's Fantasia 🎪 (Ch. 2)

Summary: It’s 1889. Desperate to save her ailing mother’s life, Feyre strikes a bargain with ringmaster-witch doctor Amarantha. As the Archeron sisters join Prythian’s Fantasia and head for the World’s Fair in Paris, they begin to realize the circus’s magic runs far deeper than its enchanting nightly performances.

Read: Masterlist | AO3

***Elain***

London’s finest—including the Archerons—arrived at Prythian’s Fantasia in a procession of stately carriages and well-mannered coachmen. The middle class bundled together in exposed horse-drawn wagons, rumbling and jostling over cobblestone, while the poor came on foot. Regardless of their mode of transport, everybody had to be dropped off at the edge of a short lawn and line up at the gate.

Prythian’s Fantasia was nothing at all like the previous circus shows Elain attended, which were humble little events. She had first spotted the flag-tipped peaks of the circus tent cresting above buildings from across the Thames. Now, up close, it towered overhead, light pulsating under its vertical white and plum red stripes.

“Hurry up!” Elain’s heeled slippers squished into the rain-drenched grass as she tried to keep up with Feyre. A tall gate encircled the circus, complete with swirling brassy motifs and a proud display of “Prythian’s Fantasia” over the entrance gate.

How a traveling circus managed to erect gas lamps and a tall gate around its premises was beyond sound logic. Despite these firmly established characteristics, Prythian’s Fantasia lacked substance, as if it were a whimsical dream on the verge of waking up. Perhaps it was the faint sound of instrumental music drifting in the frigid air. Or perhaps it was the golden light and friendly murmuring beyond the gates that drew Elain in, like a moth to a flame.

A peculiar ticket booth was the last thing standing between them and the festivities. Nestled between brassy gates, the booth’s entire exterior seemed to be made of clock parts: translucent faces with Roman numerals of all sizes, burnished gold cogs and gears, onyx hands, wiry mechanisms. The surface shifted and clicked, as if the entire ticket booth was a clock.

“Tickets, please!” If the incessant ticking and clicking bothered the young woman with twinkling teal eyes in the booth, she did not show it.

“Yes, here they are!” Feyre excitedly handed over the crimson slips. Coppery-brown hair shifted in the light as the ticket attendant scrutinized the tickets. Feyre was holding her breath anxiously. Thankfully, the attendee ripped the “Admit One” tabs off before handing them back to Feyre.

“Welcome!” The girl clapped her hands twice. “Enjoy your evening at Prythian’s Fantasia! Next! Tickets, please!”

Feyre was giddy with delight as she pushed Elain through the well-oiled gates. The delicious scents of savory butter and sweet caramel hooked snagged Elain’s attention. To her left, an open air, plum-red tent housed several portable cooking apparatuses on wheels. The setup reminded Elain of the street food vendors who hawked hot buns, jellied eels, mystery soups, and sausage on London’s streets, except this outdoor cafe was spanking clean. And it sold delightful things: salted nuts, crystalline candies, treacle-drizzled apples, hot coffee, and what looked like puffy white clouds on a stick.

“Oh, I’m so hungry,” Elain exclaimed, turning towards Nesta with a silent plea in her big brown eyes. “We should have some refreshments before the show begins!”

Nesta relented, purchasing a small bag of sweets and one of the cloud sticks. Elain and Feyre delicately pulled on the cotton material, eyes widening in amazement at its fluffy texture. “It’s sweet!” Elain gasped with delight.

“And it melts in your mouth!” Feyre added, grabbing another piece. “Nesta, you must try it!”

“You’re right,” Nesta agreed, her gray eyes lightening as she took another bite. “Perhaps we can buy another one. They call it cotton candy.”

“Cotton candy indeed,” Elain sighed, unable to stop eating the sugary cloud.

Cheerful orchestral music played in the distance, the catchy tune tempting Elain to dance. Folks of all classes milled about, partaking in the treats or boisterously appreciating all the fine touches of Prythian’s Fantasia. Children chased each other in little groups, delighting in the amount of open space available to play. While there were more attractions—Elain heard several circus goers babble excitedly about the optical illusion and fortune-telling tents somewhere around the corner—it was in their best interest to locate good seats.

Nesta swung open the plum red flap, revealing a colossal circus tent that lived up to the circus’s outlying grandeur. Rows of seats—actual seats, not just wooden benches—circled the massive ring, the lowest platform already filled with patrons. Thick metal beams stretched high into the air, parallel to thin ladders that led up, up, up onto small platforms. A web of ropes and bars criss-crossed just shy of the plum red and white-striped ceiling, promising of acrobatic performances to come.

“Up the stairs,” Nesta chided as Feyre and Elain stopped to gawk at how the circus ring was a shallow, matte-black tub instead of dusty dirt. The Archeron sisters settled on the seventh row up, with Nesta and Feyre sandwiching Elain protectively. The tent had five entrances, and Elain wondered how the performances would enter without a designated backstage area.

After several minutes, the lights dimmed, cuing the audience to quiet. Click-clack, click-clack. Heeled boots strode crisply across the floor, so dark that it seemed to swallow up all light. A yellow spotlight singled out a woman at the center of the ring. Dressed in a fitted gold bodice and cream breeches tucked into knee-high black boots, the woman’s crimson-painted mouth smiled, stark against her bone white skin.

“She’s wearing breeches?” Elain blanched slightly. No woman dared to wear breeches.

“She’s wearing breeches,” Nesta said in amazement next to her, leaning forward with marked interest.

Clearly this woman did not care what the audience thought of her, based on the way she tossed her flowing, plum red hair over a shoulder and tilted her chin with regal air. A crimson jacket, with its hem brushing the curve of the woman’s waist, was made more feminine with a cinched waist and black lace edging the lapels and cuffs. She seemed lovely…and powerful.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Amarantha, and I am Prythian Fantasia’s ringmaster.” Amarantha’s lilting voice confidently amplified across the vast space, just like magic. “Are you ready for the greatest show on earth tonight?”

The crowd burst into a mixture of polite applause and raucous cheers. Elain clapped lightly, while Feyre whooped loudly in response.

“I’m very pleased to see you as well. Without further ado, let the circus begin!”

Music kicked up from a hidden orchestra. Lights and a gaggle of performers exploded into the ring. Acrobats in brightly colored suits walked on their hands, with legs and feet perfectly pointed in the air. Unicyclists cut tight corners, weaving between performers comically wobbling on tall stilts with striped pants artificially elongating their legs. Pairs of smiling dancers twirled streamers, stepping in precise, synchronous rhythm.

The glorious display was simply too much to take in, as Elain’s eyes could barely focus on one act for five seconds before darting towards another. As for the matter of the lights…were the red, green, and blue beams a product of electricity? But even then, how was it possible for the lights to be so clear, so multi-colored?

After several successive songs, the organized chaos of performers disappeared off into the sidelines. The ring darkened again, and silence fell in anticipation for the next act. The pitch-black darkness weighed heavily with the presence of hundreds of souls. She could no longer tell which way was up or down, what was in front of her or even behind her. It was a heart-pounding, sweat-inducing oppressiveness.

But then…a spark. A tiny sign of life down in the ring. Someone seemed to have struck a match.

Fire danced its way into a sparking, fizzling circle that grew larger and larger. Drums began pounding in the background, the powerful beats sending vibrations through the seats.

A shadowed figure twirled a flame-tipped rod at high speeds, cycling the ring of fire through the air before gracefully tapping the rod on the ground. Upon contact, a circle of fire erupted, creating a wall of fire burning so hot that Elain felt heat sear her face. She gasped when three people stepped out of the flames: a woman with a bird mask, and two men—one with a fox mask, the other with a feline mask. The blazing inferno dimmed slightly, just enough to cast an orange glow over the audience.

The two male performers lit their staffs, and began moving to the beat, effortlessly passing the staff between hands, threading it over shoulders, under arms, and between legs. Fire was contorted into multiple shapes, streaking through the air like a glowing serpent. Surely any lesser-trained performer would be scorched, but these performers danced with fire unbothered.

Elain’s eyes were drawn to the man in the fox mask, who she now just realized was shirtless. His toned body gleamed in the orange light as he reached into a basket and tossed one, two, three, four balls into the air. The fire must have added a few degrees to the room, for Elain was suddenly feeling hot at the sight of his fine muscles and braided red hair glowing like molten ore. The pounding drums became one with her heart as Elain stared, enraptured.

The foxy man simultaneously set the four balls on fire and extinguished his staff with one final slash. Elain’s jaw dropped when he began to juggle the flaming balls with his bare hands. Surely this was impossible, she thought. Perhaps the man had covered his hands in a protective coating.

Her attention shifted to the woman, who had exchanged her staff for two massive fans in each hand, both ablaze with blue flame. Her mouth curved sensually under her bird mask as she fluttered the fans, twirling them deftly with quick wrist movements. Her free-flowing long red hair, similar to that of the foxy man’s, did not catch fire.

Again, the woman moved as if she was one with the flame, bending her knees and shifting her shoulders gracefully around the blue fans. She pranced around the arena, light as a deer, and lifted her hand as if she were blowing a kiss to the audience…she blew fire. A solid jet of flame that set a tall torch ablaze, then another, and another, as the lady made her way round the ring.

Was this a lady, or a dragon who had donned pale skin and a burgundy gown? The way she breathed fire so effortlessly…surely there had to be some match up her sleeve, a sleight of hand that struck flint and sparked the torches. Elain wished the fire act was longer, but it seemed that the circle of blazing torches had set the stage for the next performance.

***Feyre***

The hour had passed in a magical blur. Trapeze artists and acrobats had just finished swinging through the air like nimble monkeys on a vine. The audience—and Feyre included—had held its breath in fear as men and women in leotard tights leapt, somersaulted, and swooped through the air, with no net available to save them should they fall.

Feyre had been tempted to shield her face, to avert her eyes so that she would not have to bear witness to a performer splattering on the ground like an egg. She was not immune to gripping Elain’s hand like a vice whenever an acrobat seemed to soar just shy of the catch bar. Waves of relief would soothe her fears when performers not only caught the bar, but also managed to swing back up and execute somersaults mid-air.

Now, frightened gasps broke out in waves as a massive beast prowled onto the arena. Large as a horse, with a thick, shaggy brown body and a wolfish head, it had several ladies fainting on sight. What a strange creature! Like most things in Prythian’s Fantasia, it was unlike anything Feyre had ever encountered before.

The beast circled around the arena with feline grace, allowing the crowd to view its full glory. Surely the attendees in the first few rows were regretting their decision to sit so close as they shrank back against their seats upon the beast’s fearsome approach. When it passed by Feyre, she could make out sharp black claws scraping the ground, as well as the massive teeth poking out from its maw. Elain trembled next to her.

Crack! Amarantha strode onto the ring, armed with a whip and cool as a summer lemonade. The beast snarled, its emerald green eyes glowering viciously at the ringmaster. With a flick of Amarantha’s wrist, the beast sat on its haunches.

The crowd murmured in awe at how a woman could control such a dangerous animal with a simple gesture. The ringmaster did not have to wield the whip when she ordered the beast to jump through the hoops and nimbly navigate the obstacle course. Upon her cue, he would even let out a hair-raising roar that kept the audience on its toes.

While everybody else was preoccupied by the beast’s tricks, Feyre was busy studying its features. Working out how to replicate the ripple of muscle, the fine texture of the hair, and the strange proportions of its body on paper. While others found the beast frightening to look at—Elain, for example, was covering her eyes—Feyre thought the creature was fascinating.

The beast act was relatively short; the arena falling into darkness soon after. But Feyre did not fear the dark. Right now, she could see stagehands rushing to set up the ring for the next performance, thanks to perfect night vision. In fact, she’d spent countless hours manipulating shadows to shield herself from danger in London’s shady hovels. She’d even mastered darkness into something corporeal, strong enough to open a door or swipe money off the table.

The power of the night was what Feyre called it, not wanting to ponder too much where her capabilities came from.

Light flashed and thunder crackled like an avalanche, causing Feyre to jump out of her seat this time. And standing in the newly lit circus ring, amidst clouds of billowing violet smoke, was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

A magician, judging from the looks of his black top hat and his fitted black suit with silver threading. He gallantly bowed. And upon straightening his back, the man’s uniquely blue eyes seemed to pick her face out amongst the sea of people. His mouth quirked into a feline smile, sending an electric jolt down Feyre’s spine.

Feyre blushed, though she had no reason to. Everybody else was fixated on him. So why did he find it particularly satisfying that she was staring?

He could not be any older than thirty, but his expression seemed to carry the weight of a man who had lived countless lifetimes. The circus seemed to employ performers from all over the world, yet Feyre was most intrigued by this man’s origins. With his black hair carefully slicked back and his warm brown skin, it was clear this man was not English.

The magician swept his top hat off his head, turning in a circle to show the audience its empty contents. Because out came a sizable hand-held mirror, a lush bouquet of roses, a broadsword, a silk blanket, and finally, a rush of pure gold coins pouring into a seemingly endless waterfall.

The crowd clapped appreciatively as he placed the mirror, roses, and sword back into the hat. As for the pile of coins on the ground, the magician threw the silk blanket and waved his hands with flourish. Feyre watched the lumps under the cloth and the ground carefully, wondering if she could catch his sleight of hand.

But when the magician plucked the silk blanket off the floor, the coins had completely disappeared. It was as if those objects had been squirreled away into a pocket between worlds. He tucked the blanket back into his hat with a smug smile.

“For my next set, I require a volunteer from the audience.” His voice was deep and sensual, with a slight rolling accent.

Feyre’s hand shot up like lightning. Oh please, please, please, she begged silently. There were so many other volunteers in the audience, but this was her one chance to get closer to him.

“Put your hand down,” Nesta hissed. The magician glanced towards her again, but to Feyre’s immense disappointment, he selected a young man and an older woman at random.

After briefly allowing the volunteers to introduce themselves to the audience, the magician gave both a deck of cards.

“Thank you for your participation. Please check the cards to ensure a complete deck, and affirm to the audience.” The magician smirked. “Wouldn’t want anybody to accuse me of foul play.” The deck must have been arranged by suit and number, for both volunteers affirmed loudly that the decks they held were regular playing cards.

“Now, both of you shall shuffle your cards, and then fan them out. Like so.” He adjusted the older woman’s cards by maneuvering her hands, causing Feyre to suddenly feel a pang of jealousy. The woman, old enough to be her mother, looked ready to swoon at the handsome magician’s gloved touch.

Upon his instruction, the volunteers picked a card at random from each other’s deck. “Examine the card you’ve selected, and then show the audience. I shall close my eyes, of course.” The magician enunciated clearly as he strode around the volunteers slowly.

The magician placed his hands behind his back and closed his eyes, patiently waiting for the volunteers to display their card. The man held a nine of spades, the lady held an ace of diamonds.

“Excellent. You, sir, have selected a nine of spades. And you, madam, have selected an ace of diamonds.” Both of the volunteers’ eyes widened in shock, for the magician was several yards away and his eyes were still closed. The audience clapped appreciatively.

“Before we can move onto the next act, we must set the cards free.” Confusion was written across the volunteers’ faces. The magician raised an eyebrow in response. “What, never had to release your playing cards? Well, all you have to do is toss them into the air.”

Feeling somewhat foolish, the volunteers reluctantly cast their deck of cards into the air. In a blink of an eye, the numbers and suits fluttering to the ground were replaced by a small colony of brown bats, squeaking and flapping their wings as they took to greater heights.

“Impossible,” Nesta said in disbelief as the audience roared with delight. “Those were a standard deck of playing cards! Bats?” Feyre watched the bats as they settled on the tightrope wires. From the way they hung upside down, still chittering, the bats were very real indeed. She could have sworn the magician was looking at her again, seconds before he turned to the volunteers.

“Please step onto our magic carpet, so I may transport you to a delightful world.” He smoothly set out the silk blanket from his hat. “Fantastic. Close your eyes, and on the count of three, you may open them again. One…”

Shadowy mist began to appear out of thin air, roiling over the magic carpet. Feyre jolted up in her seat.

“Two…” Feyre’s heart thundered in her chest, recognizing the unnatural movement of shadows. The magician had the same capabilities as her.

“Three.” The volunteers opened their eyes and looked around them with a renewed expression of wonder.

“Such lovely flowers,” the lady gushed. “Oh, the butterflies are magnificent! This grass…such a vibrant green and freshly trimmed…” She bent down and seemed to pick something up from the ground.

Meanwhile, the man walked with a swaggering step, as if the ground was shifting underneath him. “Oh hoh, finally on the high seas!” he crowed. “Give me your looking glass, mate! We must search for treasure on the endless horizon!”

Feyre was vaguely aware of the audience clapping and shouting more questions at the volunteers, who answered them happily. She barely registered the volunteers waking up and thanking the magician profusely for such a life-like illusion. Hell, the magician had continued to perform a slew of magical feats, each more impossible than the last, yet she could only sit stunned.

She was not naive to think magicians had actual powers. Parlor “tricks” followed a specific set of steps that, when coupled with proper showmanship, created the impression of magic. Perhaps the volunteers had been strategically placed actors, all in cahoots with him.

The whole night had been surreal, though. Feyre would have chalked it up to the thrill of going to a circus show until she recognized the magician’s shadow magic as her own. Oh, Prythian’s Fantasia definitely carried otherworldly power under the guise of pure talent. If the magician possessed such remarkable magic, then ringmaster Amarantha’s power was surely leagues above the performers.

Realizing the rumors of Amarantha were legitimate was like striking gold in a riverbed. Feyre’s heart soared like the trapeze artists: hope existed for her mother, for her family!

The magician had one last illusion up his sleeve: he threw a handful of glittering dust. Light dropped away to reveal the night sky above, as if the circus tent’s canopy had been lifted away. A multitude of stars twinkled in the backdrop of eternity, the moon’s crescent sliver an exact copy of the one that waited for circus goers outside.

The night sky had always comforted Feyre, and despite all her efforts, she could not quite capture its magnificence on canvas. And now the magician had replicated it effortlessly.

The golden lights gradually returned, but the magic lingered in the air like a suspended cloud of stardust. A standing ovation, thunderous drumming of feet on the floor, cheers and whistles filled the air. Feyre didn’t want to leave just yet, but Nesta and Elain were urging her to move along.

It was raining again by the time the Archeron sisters found their family carriage, cold droplets splashing down onto Feyre’s shoulders. Their carriage was just as frigid, and Elain clung to Nesta for warmth.

“That was such a delightful show!” Elain exclaimed. “Please send Isaac my thanks when you see him again, Feyre.”

“Of course,” Feyre murmured as she peered out past the rivulets of water streaking down the window. The distorted lights of Prythian’s Fantasia grew more distant with each step the horses took. Once they faded from view, Feyre closed her eyes and smiled quietly at the thought of the magician’s charismatic eyes. Questions were lingering on the tip of her tongue, and she would see that they were answered.

✨

Tags: @velidewrites @reverie-tales @highladysith @shadowsxgwynriel @foxwithagoldeye @sunshinebingo @jealousveronya @corcracrow

#feysand #nessian #elucien #acotar #acotar fanfic #feysand fanfic #nessian fanfic #elucien fanfic #Prythian's Fantasia

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felixcloud6288 · 4 months

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Higurashi: Abducted by Demons Chapter 2

After how tense the last chapter ends, we need to get back to lighthearted hijinks. Cue the titties.

And I'm absolutely certain the girls were plotting to get Keiichi in that outfit from the start.

I get why Rena had a moment here. It was genuinely cute.

If anyone's interested in the game they played, Rich Man Poor Man or Daifugō can be played with a standard French Deck. You use the standard 52 cards and a joker. It's best played with 3 - 5 people.

You deal the cards evenly to all players. Whoever goes first can play one of six starting sets: one card, a matching pair, a three-of-a-kind, a four-of-a-kind, a five-of-a-kind (requires the Joker), or a set of sequential cards. The Joker is a wild card and can be used in place of other cards.

Players then attempt to play the same type of set but they have to play a set with a higher rank. If you either cannot play anything better or don't want to, you can pass your turn. Once all players either cannot play anything or don't want to play anything, the round is over and whoever played cards last gets to play a new starting set.

The winner is whoever empties their hand first while the loser is whoever is last to do so.

Extra note: Card ranks work like most standard card games except 2 beats an ace and 3 is the weakest rank.

This arc really pushes the Keiichi-Rena romance angle.

Keiichi and Tomitake are surprisingly good at handling guns.

It's still the first arc and the story still has to introduce everything and get us to care. So that's why Tomitake is hanging out with everyone during the Cotton-Drifting Festival. The story needs to establish who he is, his goals, his dreams, etc. so that it hits harder when he's found dead the next day. Later arcs won't need to do this since we'll already have rapport with them.

This chapter also introduces the basic premise about the bigger mystery going on. Rena mentions Oyashiro-sama, the guardian deity of Hinamizawa. Then right after, Tomitake and Takano tell Keiichi about the series of murders and deaths that have occurred and which are the crux of the whole series.

It feels kinda strange rereading the description of each incident because they're all so bare-bones, especially the one about the woman who was beat to death.

And at the end of the chapter, we meet Detective Delicious Oiishi. Notice that when he shows his badge, the actual prefecture name is hidden so the author doesn't have to bind the location of the story to anywhere real.

NIPA BEAM!!!

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Spoiler Discussion

This arc pushing the Keiichi-Rena romance stuff is likely because it has to speedrun so much as the first arc. The tragedy at the end won't hit as hard if we don't establish how close Keiichi is with Rena.

As I mentioned, Keiichi and Tomitake are good at handling guns. Keiichi had bought a gun and would shoot things to destress and he got in trouble with the law when he intentionally hurt people with it. Meanwhile, Tomitake is a sniper.

I think the Cotton-Drifting festival serves an unintended purpose for the people of Hinamizawa. As we learn later on, everyone in the village and people who frequently visit it are infected with a localized brain parasite. While it is generally benign, the host will often suffer paranoia and hallucinations when under heavy stress. This is called Hinamizawa Syndrome. The symptoms can be reduced or even reversed when the victim has a sense of security and trust with their community.

The festival is a time when all the villagers come together to celebrate and affirm their ties to each other. Throughout the chapter, Keiichi is actually experiencing just that. He's been stressing out because of what he's learned, but spending time at the festival with his friends relieves that stress for him.

Meanwhile two of the previous incidents were caused by people suffering from Hinamizawa Syndrome who felt entirely isolated from everyone. In fact, Keiichi will develop symptoms in this arc because he believes himself isolated from the village as well.

And Rika's ominous comment is the first hint that she knows more than she appears. She knows this is the last day they'll be able to enjoy in this world.

And the message she wrote on Tomitake's shirt was "Let's do our best next time." She's probably already given up on this world and that message is meant for the next Tomitake she meets.

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#higurashi no naku koro ni reread #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni

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live-digital-love · 2 years

Note

Utsuro and Akane at the fair

You've waited so long for this, and all I can do is apologize.

♡ Utsukane | Fair Headcanons

It isn't anything new that Utsuro is a very... tired and lethargic man. He won't move a muscle for days, hardly even breathing, unless Akane asks him to do so. Even then, there are times in which he'll only manage a blank stare before going unresponsive again.

Thankfully, those are only the bad days. Akane wouldn't know what she'd do if that was all the time...

On the average days, she can convince him to actually get up and move around. On good days, he'll even agree to go somewhere with her to stretch out "those sad little bones," as she cheerfully puts it. Today, she wrote him a list of places she thought might be fun, and he cast a lingering glance at one in particular: a travelling fair that happened to be in town.

Akane only really considered what he would even be able to do once they got there. Rides might be fun, but wouldn't he make them malfunction waiting in the line? Maybe. Let's not risk that until later, to not rise too much suspicion, hm?

Next option was the festival games, which... also. Were not an excellent option, as he can't exactly play them fairly. To be fair, the fair itself doesn't play them fairly because they're rigged. Wouldn't two "unfairs" make it a fair competition, then?

To Akane's surprise, Utsuro was the one who picked out a game. The lights surrounding the booth caught his attention and he wandered over to it. It was a stand that had towers of bottles to be knocked down. Usually, some of the bottles are glued or stuck together so that they can't all fall.

But Utsuro simply took one of the balls and handed it to Akane.

She was pleasantly surprised now, looking between him and the ball curiously. "Huh-? You don't want to at least try?"

"... Everything would fall. Even if I dropped it."

"Right. But why are you giving it to me? I can't win anything."

In lieu of a response, he leaned in far too close, a hand drifting by her side to guide her near. He gently guided her hand to point at a corner of one of the bottles.

"... There," he mumbled. "Hit it there."

His slurred words rang through the haze that ebbed on her mind. It grew stronger whenever he drew too close, and could linger for days or weeks at a time. She always welcomed it eagerly.

But now, it drew away once he moved.

... He's allowing her to do it on her own.

Any toys they won through this process would have been given to Utsuro to hold, though Akane herself offered to do so. He seemed very content with a certain stuffed bear in particular. He got to keep that one.

She also introduced him to what cotton candy was, after she found him wandering away again to look at a stand. He stared blankly at the treat up until it was in her hands. As they sat down at a table not too far away, she could have sworn he actually looked... pleased with the small piece she put on his tongue.

#dra #danganronpa another #danganronpa another: another despair academy #akane taira #taira akane #utsuro #utsuro dra #this feels unfinished but i can't think of anything else so take it.#♡ ~ asks answered #♡ ~ headcanons

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lesbixch · 2 years

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guys do you understand how good higurashi is ive said this like 8 times but the fact that the watanagashi festival gains a different meaning / thematic significance in successive arcs is just so good . like in onikakushi ur kinda led to believe the cotton drifting is a weird if harmless aspect of the festival and the worship of oyashirosama itself is the scary part, relating to the curse . in watanagashi arc u get additional knowledge that recontextualises why oyashirosamas curse would happen on the festival, as the cotton drifting we participate in was once “gut spilling” as a sacrifice to oyashirosama, and so on. in tatarigoroshi we get the sense that the festival is more of a cover for whoever wants to commit murder without witnesses, since this is the one day in the year you should be able to walk around more freely. then all the way in matsuribayashi as we learn more about hanyuu too, cotton drifting is recontextualised as a nonviolent, kind way to seek and bestow forgiveness on each other without sacrificing another person. even with its bloody history the festival comes to stand for the kindness and compassion that the kids and villagers learn to show to one another after years of ostracization and cruelty and suffering … we drifted cotton down the stream and were cleansed of our sins…….. what once was scary and malevolent is now understanding and forgiving ….. READ HIGURASHI!!!!!!

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #AND SATOSHIS ROLE IN THE STORYBIS SIMILARLY EXPOUNDED UPON AND DEVELOPED THRU EACH ARC AGH #HWTC TAG #GORE T

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feytouched · 2 years

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28, 9 and 18 for the asks! <3

28. an unusual song that’s your favorite?

first thing to come to mind was france gall le temps de la rentrée... forgive me french speakers i don't think this is all that unusual but! it's a bop! alternatively: any vocaloid song covered by reol. their voice scratches my brain

9. which do you prefer, cotton candy or funnel cake?

never had funnel cake so cotton candy wins by default, but i do enjoy it! brings back strong associations of summer festivities while being a child and begging my parents to buy me a helium balloon (always in the shape of a dolphin)(preferably pink) and then holding onto the string like my life depended on it because i already saw like 4 or 5 balloons on the loose, drifting higher and higher over the street illuminations and fading into the dark sky. face all sticky with melted cotton candy. marching band drums resounding in my little heart. yeah

18 has been answered, thank you so much my dear!

i'm still sick and bored, please send me asks

#answered

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amquirk-blog · 2 months

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Eileen Fisher Light Zinc Gray Drift Silk Organic Cotton Button Front Dress Sz.XL.

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sweetish-original-story · 4 months

Text

Chapter 16

As the sunlights soft, honeyed rays gently drifted into the window pane of Dulce's damp and dull apartment. He had fallen asleep on the edge of his brand new bed. All but one of the blankets were new as well, with pillows to match. Simple cotton and hemp formed a near flat horizon. The corners were neatly tucked, only interrupted by the fraying of his oldest blanket peeking out from undwrneath it all.

He took a deep breath to get his bearings and savored the scent of sweet lemonade, no doubt coming from the fragrance sticks he had splurged on last week. He looked over to it, neatly placed on the pre installed drawer space that has come with the apartment. He had gotten those sticks for only 2 shells during an 80% off sale at the corner shop down the road. He has been eyeing them for a long time and he was filled to the brim with sweet satisfaction at his purchase.

It was only accompanied by an old photo of his family placed in a frame made of layered leaves and pine tar, and a particularly fun and kooky looking sugar crystal he had found years ago. The shape and color seemed to form a near skeletal head, and the impurities from its formation has given it a ring of orange flowers around its head and a slightly uneven, curly moustache. It would no doubt taste like an overripened banana if used, but it still brought him joy, so he decided to keep it.

He took another deep breath before deciding to stand. He had only needed 3 minutes before he was ready to rise and start his day. When he rose, he slowly reached his arms up to the hole in his ceiling, hearing several pops from his spine as the blood in his body started to rush though his veins in anticipation of his natural routine.

His own power felt electric, he let out a loud fiery roar from deep within his gut in satisfaction. The neighborhood strays heard this from outside, and slowly hobbled back to their comfy corners and cozy cardboard, as while for Dulce this was a wake up call, for the animals, it was the dinner bell.

His mind was clearing up as he walked over to his window and opened the blinds to let the soothing sun warm up his skin. While his elderly neighbor in the building next door was at first disturbed by the daily occurrence of seeing a shirtless, fat, war torn thug outside her window each morning, she had since set up the mirrors in her home to reflect his presence into to the one in her own bathroom where she could hide in a corner out of sight and watch. For the neighborhoods safety of course. Something she's been doing very diligently ever since her late husband moved on from this world.

A particularly pink beebird with bright red cheeks noticed the open window and started singing a joyous tune before fluttering down to land on Dulce's elbow. He looked down at the little thing and quietly spoke, as to not blow it away; "Well good morning Little Brother. How are you today?" He slowly lifted the tiny little thing up to his face to get a closer look. "I didn't see you around yesterday morning? Were you busy starting trouble?" The bird hopped around ant twittered a sassy response, before opening it's mouth wide, signalling that it was hungry.

He couldn't help but chuckle, as it reminded him of when he first found it. It was maybe the size of a pea when it was a baby, and he only found the poor thing when it was pushed out of its nest by its mother, straight into his lemonade. He raised it out of pity and sympathy, though he was extremely surprised when it made it past the first few days of life. Now it was the size of an apricot (give or take a few feathers) andgreedy to boot.

At this point, the bird started hopping in frustration, nibbling on the tip of his nose as if it were a treat. "Ow, okay okay I got it, you're starving! Mabye if you didn't bully the snakes all the time you wouldn'tcome home so hungry!" He turned around, deaf to his neighbors quickly muffled squeak as his festive holiday rubber duck boxers were on full display. "Let's go get some breakfast huh? You want that Bubo? Food? Hungry?You wanna eat-eat?"

At the recognition of the words 'Bubo', 'food', and 'eat-eat' the pink puffball whistled in delight and hoped up to his shoulder, eagerly awaiting it's luxurious meal of nuts, seeds, and the occasional berry. Luckily it can hunt snakes on its own, so the thing it was sitting on that was obviously its giant ugly bald mother, could eat its own snakes without sharing and being hungry all the time. Bubo knew this was the case as it's finally big and round and healthy like a good bird should be, unlike when Bubo was little. It still hasn't figured out how to stop his mama from picking out the feathers it tries to stick onto her, but he is certain that if he can fix the first thing, he can easily convince his mama to stop being a nudist at some point.

Bubo tucked into it's owners neck as they listened to the sounds of its mother, Dulce, humming his favorite tune, backed by the percussion of scoops and sizzles and the rythmic chops of a knife on the cutting board.

Bubo could tell he was putting almonds in it. Bubo hated almonds, but if he didn't eat them, he got no berries.

#candy #original character #fasion #original writing #soundcloud #sweetish original #romance #sweetish upload

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sketchmenot-art · 2 years

Photo

Rena Ryuuguu - 夜を引き裂いた

夜を引き裂いた - Yoru o Hikisaita (Slash the Night)

Drew Rena from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When They Cry)!

Happy Watanagashi / Cotton-Drifting Festival!

Thought I would draw Rena! She’s one of my favorite characters from the series! ✨

Higurashi is a pretty important series to me. It was one of the first “mature” anime I had seen and it genuinely freaked me out when I first saw it! It was also super fun and exciting to unravel the mysteries of the various arcs of the story as I continued watching it! Very nostalgic~ 🧡

The series also has incredible music from the visual novels to the various anime! What are some of your guys’ favorites music tracks from the series? ✨

Done with Clip Studio Paint EX June 19, 2022

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wiltedrosewritings · 5 months

Text

BETWEEN COMFORT & CHAOS | 001

wc: 2k

tense & pov: present, third person

tracklist:

002 | 003 | 004 | AO3

Inconveniences.

Small, quaint, little blips in a routine.

Like tiny, little lint balls lining the inside of a shirt - a shirt that had been practically flawless prior to the misfortunes of laundry day; discomforting, irritating, but miniscule enough to dismiss. To learn to tolerate.

Inconveniences.

Small, quaint, little blips in a rushed run-down of a formerly organic routine.

The first of which, a missed alarm - correction, it would have been ‘missed’ if so it had run in the first place. Rin, however, had forgotten to turn the dial on her bedside clock the night prior.

It rang around 9 AM, instead; a rise time for off days.

Today is Monday. The opposite of an off day.

Rin stumbles out of the cushioned embrace of her bed, entangled at the ankles by a knot in the sheets, which she doesn't became aware of until the solid wood of the floor slaps her chin.

The unanticipated impact leaves her breathless for a number of seconds, before she releases a long and painful groan. Her ribs contract at the slightest twist, in response to what Rin can only imagine is a developing bruise, as she starts up and towards the adjoining bathroom.

She scrambles for her cellphone amidst the sheets that billow around her like a dress, or a cloud.

When she lifts the screen to her line of sight, she squints through the dimness to find its display of a low battery warning. There's another painful blow to her cheek, only this time it's not from the dense, solid wood, rather the weight of realizing she'd forgotten to plug it in the night prior.

Unfortunately, this is not the first occurrence. She makes a habit of sleeping the night with her phone at the foot of her bed, unplugged. At first, only ever intends to scroll her socials mindlessly for increments of half-hours until midnight falls; means to lay it on its charging port by then, but more often than not, drifts into slumber before that point. In the morning, it's always the same; she reprimands herself, promises to never do it again.

The next night, unsurprisingly to everyone but her, she does it again. Jennie, her teenage sister, jokes that her forgetfulness will one day be her demise; says something along the lines of "She'll forget the date and place of her funeral."

With about 20% residual battery (estimating up, for the sake of optimism), her screen illuminates. A sort of squawk leaves her parted lips as she reads the time. A squawk like that of a goose with its tail feathers catching light.

She’s up, now, legs squared determinedly. Yet, she trips clumsily over sleep-drugged feet while they wrestle with the persistent tug of the sheets who plead Stay, just this once.

Trampling over miscellaneous objects scattered around her bedroom floor, she reminds herself of the urgency with which she must clean her room, but it's only one of many tasks on her immediate to-do.

Right now is not the time.

Her tail’s on fire. Heart’s pumping erratically. Adrenaline saturating her system. Heat flushing her cheeks and nape.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

The second inconvenience of the day is a diluted cup of coffee, served not in her usual thermos, but in the first vase she could salvage out of the pile seated at her sink.

The amber liquid’s aroma falls flat and drowned over her palette; a cloud of candied cotton dampened by humidity on what should have been a sunny festival day.

Groceries, her mental to-do list elongates. Don't forget coffee for tomorrow. Don't' forget coffee, a voice in her mind recites obsessively.

Running groceries today tops all other items on her list in terms of priority. It's more urgent than the cleanliness of her bedroom. She cannot survive another morning living off crackers and a few pinches of coffee grounds. But even more urgent, she must catch her bus and make it to work before her boss hears word of her tardiness.

Rin shuts her eyes, her grip strangles the ceramic handle of the mug as she forces the gulp down, despite the objection of her palette.

She heaves a sigh upon succeeding, and brings the pads of her thumb and forefinger to pinch the bridge of her nose, in a bid to discourage a growing migraine.

Inconveniences. How even the ones you train yourself to dismiss grow unbearable under the right measure of pressure. They keep adding, amounting; a string being pulled, stretched, tensed until it snaps clean. Retracts and slaps you on the cheek. Leaves a red mark, blotchy with blood.

She makes up her mind. Determinedly decides that today is not her day, could not be, will not be. There is no redeeming it, for the more she recites it in her head, the further it continues to manifest itself. Until she's too deeply caught in the whirlpool to convince herself otherwise.

Days like such make her wonder how many inconveniences, exactly, it would take to conclusively alter the course of one’s fate?

The notion isn’t foreign to Rin. She’d read testimonies before, about people who’d been lead away from a tragic fate by some minor and random inconvenience – a blip, or glitch, or something that absolutely shouldn’t have happened, that wouldn’t otherwise have happened, on any given day. Say, the person whose car breaks down on the commute to work, who later discovers through a news report that a shooter unleashed havoc at their work-place, claiming the lives of a dozen victims. A dozen. Could have – would have – been a dozen-and-one if by some stroke of luck, or misfortune, their car had not broken down.

In light of those rare, almost ordained cases, Rin attempts to see light in even the worst possible conditions. Today, though, her optimism is gasping for breath, attempting to match pace with her dashing body. She left it in the heaps of blankets at the foot of her bed.

Silver linings fall dull and mute.

Everything seems to serve as an obstacle in her blazing path.

The keys get lost. Shoe laces become undone. Chatty neighbor happens to step foot out of the house at the same time as Rin; there goes ten priceless minutes of Rin nodding incessantly and feigning a polite smile all the while trying to end the conversation that should have never begun.

Left shoe still undone, her legs slice through the chill morning fog, as she sprints down her neighborhood street. Leaving the rosy-cheeked, grey-haired lady chatting to herself. (She doesn't notice until Rin's five doors down; never really talks to others to hear their perspectives, but rather feel self-important from the influence of their audience)

Rin's worn satchel is pinned under her arm. A young golden sun tints her cheeks with some life, as it streaks in between buildings.

A green bus slows near a couple of gathered people. A half-a-second before it comes to a complete halt, it pries its gates open with an elongated creak.

Rin’s still sprinting a few blocks down. Her chest is galloping, short of air; it burns in that oxygen-deprived way. The fine muscles of her calf, do to. As if they are wearing away under the erosion of acid.

Her pace slows from fatigue and resignation. Starts imagining what's the worst that could happen if she were to half-ass a last minute call-out from work. Stands like an awkwardly placed tree amidst the street, swaying, bag sliding down her frame, shoelaces sprawled over the concrete like roots burying her there.

The breath she gathers to lift her voice and plead for a bit of patience is knocked out of her lungs before the words form at her lips. Her palms slaps against the cold concrete on either side of her already bruised chin, her cheek suspended by mere inches.

The culprit lies on the ground, by her feet, groaning and clutching his knee.

Rin’s lips whisper a forlorn “Noo!” as her eyes watch the bus pick-up and drive-away. Tears pool on her lash line, either from the frost biting her face or in response to the overwhelming frustration that comes with the shattered expectations of what should have been a ‘normal day.’

Normal days are never extravagant, until you are deprived of them. Until you are reminded they are not something inherently owed to you, and that much like all things, they too can be deprived.

Chord snapped, patience drawn thinly, Rin sits up, heated and ready to pounce. Her sharp eyes lock onto the wrecker. She’s made up her mind. She’s ready to name him the culprit of all the inconveniences of today.

When she glances over at the soon-to-be-subject of all of her projected frustrations, that’s when she feels it. The sharp, stinging slap of the metaphorical rubber band against her cheek.

Her throat chokes with the threat of a sob. Just when she thought the day could not possibly get worse, it does.

The biggest inconvenience yet.

The bane of her existence.

A subject she’d sought refuge in never, ever, seeing again.

There’s a distinct luminescence haloing his crouched figure. Could be the early morning sun, beaming over the neighborhood. Could be a concussion. Regardless, it's dizzying. Has this optical illusion effect of making the subject in her field of vision double, like when she'd wear 3D glasses to the cinema.

Rin blinks incessantly. She can’t bring herself to trust her sight. Can’t believe she body-slammed into him of all people. In the seven years she’s spent living in the neighborhood, not once had she brushed shoulders with him.

The last time she'd seen him had been at their high school graduation ceremony - which must have been nearly six years ago, now.

Weighing the abstract concept of time in her shaken mind, she finds it hard to palate how much time has lapsed, and how little he appears to have changed. Like a stand-still capture on a polaroid square, he's just the same.

He scrunches-up his nose in disturbance, and turns over his hand to the palmar side, eyes peeling over his newly acquired abrasion. As the seconds lapse, the adrenaline in his system wanes, and the sting of scraped flesh starts settling in.

He winces and diverts his attention from it, gathering that looking at it only will make it hurt worse.

Dark brown eyes meet Rin as he finally acknowledges the collision. The reality that he’d somehow inconvenienced someone even further than the day had started to inconvenience him.

The halo persists through Rin’s desperate blinking. Futility lies in her attempts to clear her field of vision, as she rubs the dorsal sides of her hands over her eyes in a bid to remove what she believes is only a pesky little speck of dust, a lash, or even a tear.

Inquisition curves his healthy brows but the curiosity quickly dims, becoming replaced with a sour frown. A distasteful grimace. Reality and recognition strike him. But worse than the reel of memories snapped onto the film player of his mind, is the Earth spinning vertigo that comes on as his eyes trace over the aura emanating off her. Brighter than the sun.

Loud-bright. Like a mallet smashed against a bronze bell within his head. Like he’s suddenly developed synesthesia and every glimpse of light is painfully loud.

Rin dances her gaze around, reading the disinterested people who brush hurriedly past. They appear awfully dull in demeanor and appearance in relation to him. Absent of any halo, they are akin to gray bodies blurred into the background scene of the lens of a camera.

Slowly, and fearful, Rin draws her gaze back to him. Traces over the halo.

That’s when her mother’s voice rings across her head, like an ominous tolling bell, indicative of an end. An armageddon. Her armageddon. When I met your father, it was like I could see for the first time.

Rin wouldn’t call this newfound sight, rather sudden-onset blindness. She feels like her optic nerves are being torn by the fibers. Imagines this distortion is was what cats see on a daily basis. Understands why they constantly want to strangle and mangle anything within their vicinity.

She wants to strangle him. Toys with the idea the more she looks at him. The more the lights dizzy her.

Somehow, she places the fault in his hands. She's still run by a childish instinct, to want to kick his shins and run away from his stupidly handsome frown. He had always felt like too much to handle, to understand, to wrap her tiny adolescent mind around. Now, older, and hopefully wiser, Rin still defaults to running away from complexity. Likes to coax life with a broad brush, shoving worries under her bed like monsters to run from, behind closet doors, into the margins of tomorrow.

She figures that if she continuously runs, the problems will never catch up to her. But, she’s only selectively ignorant to the snowball effect. Hopes it amasses enough to crush her at once and allow her no room for reflection on how things could have – should have -- been.

His lips almost mouth Don't run. Fear-stricken. Please, don’t run.

Instead, he voices (cracking voice): “I think I’m having a stroke.” Then braces his clumsy weight against the nearest wall. His breathing quickens, mirroring the alarming panic blaring within Rin.

“What are the chances that we are both having a stroke at the same time?”

He lifts his worried gaze, a bead of sweat forming on his temple, complexion awfully pale. Rin thinks he might just hurl. “What are the chances that you are my soulmate?”

It’s funny, because Rin didn’t see this coming – Rin didn’t see much of today coming, but certainly not what happens next.

Rin is the one that hurls. Chunky acid made its way up the column of her throat without as much as a warning. The contents – whatever it was she managed to down while standing in the fridge light last night.

All over his lavish shoes.

#kth #bts kth fanfic #kim taehyung #non-idol kim taehyung #bts kth au #bts kth #bts fanfiction #bts au fanfic #childhood rivals #lighthearted #soulmates #comical #fluff #bcnc series #bcnc #michie writes #michie writes kth series

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