This hurts.
I never expected such pain.
Then again, I've always known that the truth hurts.
Her face, so crystal, so perfect, like a sleeping angel. She doesn't
look
dead at all. But she is, and that reality keeps clawing at me like the
paw
of some vicious animal.
Tearing.
Ripping me apart from the inside out.
Slowly I lift her up, carry her into my tent and lie her on my bed. I
turn
and close the tent flaps and look back at her body, limply sprawled
across
my covers.
A fleeting memory of her, all draped in my blue cloak, kneeling on the
end
of my bed. I speak but one word and she sheds the cover, and I swear I
showed some sort of emotion the way I kissed her....
But it's gone in a second, and the pain comes back, my memories
refreshing
it like cool water to a dry throat.
I sit down on the bed and arrange her arms in something resembling
normal
positions. One on her stomach, her fingers, though cold, still draping
gracefully from her unsupported palm. Her other hand - I place it to her
face, the tips of her fingers brushing her lips - but that reminds me of
a
time when she was crying, ready to roll over and muffle her sobbing in
that
hand - so I move it to lie beside her.
That's more comforting.
Now she really looks asleep.
Asleep, not dead.....because she can't be dead.... not really.
I cringe at the word. She can't be dead. The one person I did everything
I
could to protect while still saving face...... It just can't be her.
I lift her head a little, turning her face to me, and I claim a kiss
from
the lips that I don't believe are eternally motionless. She is cold,
unresponsive. There is a clenching pain in my chest and I stroke her
hair,
longing suddenly for her fingers tracing through my bangs, her arms
around
my neck, like it always was......but she doesn't move.
Something cold strikes the back of my eyes, an awful icy, burning
sensation
- like something trying to break out. I close them, still bent over her.
My eyes jump open when something warm and wet splashes on my hand. My
vision
is blurred through the wash of liquid clouding her face. I raise a
shaking
hand to my left eye and it hits me like a slap in the face.
I'm.........crying?
I haven't cried since I was a child - since my mother died. I refused to
let the emperor see me cry. I never let misfortune make me break down.
I don't think I even rememeber how to cry. I was so small the last time
I
shed tears.
I rub my eyes, trying to quell the flow, but it keeps coming. I look
down
at her motionless body and the stream turns to a river. An aching
foreign
sound quells up in my throat, and it chokes out, a low gasp in the empty
silence of the tent. I put a hand to my mouth. I don't remember that.
But
the slight familiarity places Suboshi in my mind. When Amiboshi's ki
dissapeared. He was...sobbing.
I fruitlessly blink back more tears. What's wrong with me.....? I know
that I cried for my mother because I loved her. Why am I crying over
Soi?
I look down at her, another low sob escaping me. A second slap in the
face.......
Love? Soi?
I close my eyes. It couldn't be! I was so careful this time!
And in the dark of my closed eyes I can see her face, a gentle smile
hovering on her lips....one for me. I strain to remember that picture
and
it comes to me clear as day. The first time that she told me she loved
me.....
It's years too late but I can hear her say it in my mind, and now, for
the
first time, my heart could burst with joy at hearing those words.
It's on the tip of my tongue. I can taste the words.
I want to wrap that beautiful young girl that she was in my arms and
kiss
her and tell her that I love her too.
But it's years too late........... I was seconds too slow.....
I open my eyes again. A dead girl on my bed....
There is a dead girl on my bed and she looks like she's sleeping....
There's my broken heart, bleeding all over my bed....
There is a broken man sitting in this tent.
His name is Nakago.
Let him be. He's very busy watching his soul fall to peices....
------------
My lord, this one is just a tad depressing, don't you think?
Oh well, I like it. I haven't felt quite this good about a sad Nak/Soi
peice since my initial revision of Godalmighty!
Hurray for me!
Please e-mail me at bryon.fife@sympatico.ca with comments or questions.
I love feedback, just please don't flame.
Arigatou!
Taiitsu no Miko~*~
