(no subject)

[moonsheen]

Soi Fong braids her hair an hour before dawn, and she unbraids when she sleeps; which sometimes a few hours after midnight and sometimes not at all. All the same she wakes up with it undone, the stringy lines of it slick on her back. It’s not got much weight or substance to it. It’s just been groomed viciously. It’s divided between merciless fingers. It’s plaited with much spite—every morning. Plaited and bound under white cloth; then knotted sharply around the gold hoops that once belonged to someone else. They were her grandmother’s. A most prized possession, and before that a most lovely accessory, for once they were worn by a lady, who hung them from her many curls, and must have taken pleasure in the way the metal loops bumped against the soft, dark skin of her back…




“And suppose romance is dead?” Ukitake Jyuushiro held the sword an arms length away from him. He measured the distance, noticed the tremor in his left wrist and at the next parry switched hands and turned his heels, and then spoke from the other direction, over his shoulder to his friend: “You have to admit we might outlive it.”

He blinked at the next strike, which was hard enough to ring his blade. “Nonsense!” cried Shunsui. “And nonsense, and utter madness. You are just saying that.”

“Am I now—ah!”

“To catch me off guard!” Shunsui leaned into the press of their blades, before whirling back. “My dear,” he said, striking again. “I am sorry but your jaded rhetoric simply. will. not. reach me. I am deaf to it. In one ear. In both ears! In—ah.”

Ukitake smiled, sword presented once more by his left. “...a little distracted, then?”

“These things,” said his defeated friend, heavily. “Are immortal. More so than we—and anyway what are you going to tell her--”

Here, with proper drama, his eyes turned to their audience: a thin little girl, who hadn’t made a sound, simply watched them with her wide black eyes. She sat obediently on the hillside. It was likely she hadn’t moved since they'd begun. “—when she grows up to be a stunningly beautiful young woman?”

“…well,” said Ukitake, sheathing his sword. Smiling at the girl, he nodded. She began to stand. Grass fell from her hands and her lap--she'd shifted after all, it seemed. “I’ll tell her she can marry whoever she’d like.”

Comments

[artemis-winter.livejournal.com]

I have envy and love for the above.

[ex-rong.livejournal.com]

That is awesome.