One winged angel
The festival of Reistide commemorated the memory of burning of the draima Rei by the Seraphim with a great bonfire. All the children had wooden effigies of the terrible witch to throw into the fire, all the children except Deakon. He enjoyed the bonfire and the fireworks but he never wanted to burned the draima, as it was called, he looked at the red scar on his arm, because burning hurt.
The whole Taira clan used the bonfire to roast potatoes and hares dipped in mud that was succulent and sweet once the shell was broken. Deakon stood beside Aeris, his mother, she held his hand tightly and her blonde hair reflected the dancing fire. She was crying.
The clan was drinking and even the dour Senshi were lighthearted, Reistide was a joyous festival and everyone enjoyed it. The girls wore elaborately decorated robes fastened tight that the waist and patterned with herons, and the boys had their hair oiled and tied into topknots, everyone except Deakon.
Deakon stood at the fringes with Aeris, different and separate from the clan. They rejoiced at the fire, in the light, in the idea that they had been saved from a witch by the Seraphim.
Deakon feared the fire because burning hurt.
Nevertheless Reistide was an important festival to clan Taira and the whole of Darie. Tonight in Dramathen the emperor married a Princess, and to the south in Aatoria a great feast was held at the Academy of St Baatori, where the Seraphim themselves remembered their glory. Deakon knew it, but the crackling of the fire threat to him and the glass eyes of the wooden doors looked at him a reflected the fire back at him with hateful stares. He would have run back to the tower of Shiro but his mother held him firm. She always made him watched the fire, no matter how scared he was, and once she lifted one of the embers and held it against his forearm though he screamed and screamed, remember Deakon, she said, fire burns.
Across the fire some of the children were playing daemon tag. Kennichi wore a tengu mask his big eyes made cruel by glass lenses. He was dancing and cavorting, chasing the others with exaggerated movements. Deakon didn't want to join them as they laughed and played, passing the wooden doll amongst themselves to keep away from Kennichi. He didn't even want to watch them but he had little other choice, the Senshi were kind but disliked the feel of Deakon's golden eyes upon them.
The children were circling Kennichi now as he lunged at them, one of them, Kagura, had started to chant, "burn the witch, burn the witch," they held the doll aloft, it wore mourning grey and the hair was burgundy thread, the glass eyes were yellow. "Burn the witch, burn the witch!" The doll was obviously Deakon. People prepared to dolls, called Ningyo, months in advance, and Kennichi had spent time on his. Deakon, like everyone in the clan, had made one. It sat with its sisters on his mother's display. One of the Senshi made Ningyo of ancient Tayu out of porcelain so far it was like glass, and warm to the touch. He dressed them in the finest silk and used real hair for their heads stop his Ningyo highly prized and never thrown on the Reistide fire. He had given a set of 12 to the emperor for his wedding, and made a little soldier for Deakon that was his pride and joy, he had even had a small sword cast for him.
"Burn the witch, burn the witch!" The children were chanting quickly, and the doll was a blur of grey between them. Kennichi was cavorting jumped up to grab the doll. He looked clear at Deakon before he threw it on to the bonfire. "Burn, witch, burn." The chant changed.
Aeris grabbed Deakon’s hand a little tighter and glared daggers at Kennichi. He pulled off the tengu mask, holding it above his head and whirligigging around like a Senshi at a dance. His wooden shoes were clacking on the packed earth of the courtyard. The flames were reflected on the white upper walls of the castle, and his shadow cast demons on the packed stone of the courtyard walls. “Burn the witch,” he yelled and cavorted, his look was derisive. The other children joined him, yelling and dancing though they didn’t look at Deakon and didn’t know Kennichi’s hate, even children from the farms that surrounded Shiro, who Deakon didn’t know, were capering and shouting “burn the witch.”
Kennichi’s mother, Hazuki, and her sister, Mitsuki, joined the chant but the object of their attention wasn’t red haired Deakon but Aeris with her long white hair, and who was so pale and thin. They wore the folded robes in bright pastels, but Aeris wore grey. Deakon had grown up with their enmity but still had no idea why.
The doll was almost burnt to nothing. Deakon looked up at Aeris, her knuckles were white on his arm. “Let’s go inside.”
Aeris dropped Deakon’s arm and gathered her marble hand inside her grey sleeve. “You can’t be weak in front of them, Deakon,” she said, “never let them see that they effect you, that their barbs sting. They keep us here at sufferance because of your father, never forget that, but don’t let them see that they draw blood.”
Aeris stood in front of them, in front of Hazuki and Mitsuki as they whirled and danced with the children, chanting, “burn the witch.”
“Enough!” the princess Ekeade said as she cross the courtyard to the bonfire. She spoke with a clear ringing voice that carried across them all and silenced them. “I urge you to remember that the armed Senshi that surround this place are here at my leisure, for the protection of my sister and myself. If you continue to behave like children and pagans I will have the Senshi raze this place. This is my place, Hazuki, and it would do you well to remember that.” Ekeade was as solid as a rock as she faced the entire clan, like Aeris she wore mourning grey, and her long grey hair was silver white in a coil down her back. She wore no patterns or jewels but she made the clan women look plain by comparison. “I allowed you your pagan festival, and I will allow it to continue, but if there is a single mention of the word witch I will have that brat of yours staked and hung for an hour for each time the word is said.”
Hazuki’s face tightened, her eyes narrowed and her mouth thinned to a small line. “You imperial bitch,” she shouted, “my son is heir to Clan Taira, you would not dare do such a thing. His father was Taira Korin, beholden to serve no one but the emperor himself.”
Ekeade’s laugh was icy. “Meifu is my beloved brother, and you dare presume to play him against me. Sakuya.” A tall Senshi walked up to Ekeade, “cut off her hair.” She whirled on her heel, “Aeris, I wish Deakon to attend me.” Deakon looked up at his mother who nodded, “and Kennichi, my threat still stands, if anyone here says that word you will hand by your shoulders like your father before you.”
Her robe, the obebe, gathered in pleats on the ground behind her in a grey swathe like a shadow that swirled around her as she took her tiny bird steps. The wide belt, her obi, was gathered in the D’Cevni rose, and though her shoulders were an open invitation to attack, no one here would dare.
Deakon looked up at Aeris, she was so pale it looked as if she was made of crystal or marble, and although she wore the finest dove grey silk against her white hair it looked drab. Her eyes were a pale washed out blue and instead of looking at either Deakon or Ekeade it looked as if she stared into the ether. Even Hazuki’s ire, from across the bonfire, had no meaning to her. Despite all the people in the courtyard, Aeris stood alone.
Deakon dropped his hand, and bowed to his mother before he left the courtyard be the west gate to catch up with Ekeade. She had not slowed her pace as she crossed along the path of rhododendrons to the bridge that led to the steps to the temple. Beyond the temple, a long a dirt path, beyond the boathouse even, was Ekeade’s small house, surrounded by golden hornbeam trees, proudly showing their golden autumn foliage. It was nearly two miles from the castle to the house where Ekeade lived alone with her sister, and their only servant Velasca. Deakon loved Ekeade’s house more than the castle of Shiro because he loved the people more.
For the entire walk Ekeade had said nothing, but mouthed a blessing as they passed the temple. She walked quietly with tiny bird steps and there was no weakness or fear in her. Aeris would have watched the trees for attackers but Ekeade feared nothing.
Ekeade’s sister, Draima, met him on the veranda; the weather shutters were wide open to the autumnal night and the screen doors revealed a warm and merry light inside. Where Ekeade was grey Draima was black, and it was only when the two of them sat side by side it was possible to recognize them as sisters. Other than their colouring they were very alike, the shape of their faces and their pale skin was alike, but where Ekeade was tall and broad, Draima was small and slender, and the features that were large and loose on Ekeade were small and fine on her sister.
Draima sprang up when she saw him, her long loose black hair swinging and swaying behind her like a banner. She was dressed like Deakon, in wide pleated trousers tied at the waist and a crossed over shirt held in place by the trousers. Her tiny white feet were bare. “Joyous Reistide, Deakon,” she said as she wrapped her arms about him and kissed him on the cheek. Deakon didn’t know why a draima like her would celebrate the feast of a draima’s execution, yet she did. Judging by the shelf behind her Draima too had made a Ningyo doll. She pulled back and put her hands on her slim hips as Ekeade removed her sandals and entered the house. “Well haven’t you anything to say to me?”
Deakon grinned at Draima’s capricious nature, at how quickly she lightened the ominous tone of his mood cause by Kennichi’s chant. “Joyous, Reistide, Drai.” He said.
Deakon sat beside Draima on the veranda beside the square cloister. It was a small garden barred off from the clan lands by a veranda that completely surrounded it. To the left of them was a giant rock that the house had been built around and a burning rope was tied about it for light. There were only three doors that led to the garden, one which led to the house’s private temple, one that led to Velasca’s room, and once that led into the house proper, to a passage called the lamp hallway. Ekeade was across the house in the cherry atrium moon shrine, it was likely that she was praying for the soul of her late husband, Yoshikatsu.
Both Deakon and Draima sat in silence on the wooden veranda, a tray with iced kir and two cups sat beside her, as they sat and watched the stars. The constellations seemed very far away and dimmed. Without saying a word Draima reached across the polished wood of the veranda and took his hand. They lay back on the floor and stared up at the sky. After a long silence Draima spoke, she was always the first to speak. “Tell me the names of the stars, Deak.”
When they were younger naming the stars had been a favorite game, he would make up names and stories to accompany them, and Draima would stare at him with huge black eyes and believed him utterly and completely. In the eight years since Draima had come to Shiro Deakon had mostly learn the real names of the constellations and the real stories that accompanied them, but he knew that Draima didn’t really want to know about the stars.
“He called me a witch.” Deakon said staring up at the Vega constellation. “He had them all calling me a witch.”
Draima turned on her side and stared at him with huge black eyes like an abyss. “Do you want me to hex him?” Her grin was impish and her lips sticky with sweets. Her skin was like chalk in the lamplight, and corpse-like, her hand in his was cold. “I’ll give him night terrors to turn his hair white, and unable to tell them because of the chattering of his yellow teeth.”
Deakon smiled at her. “Oh, my heart,” he said, “you always know exactly what to say.” Her eyes seemed to drink him in and he always felt that she was much older than her years; at twelve years old Draima was ancient well beyond her lifetime, and sometimes Deakon felt like a child before her, though he was older. “When we grow up shall we run away to distant Dathyl and elope?”
She was quiet for a moment, “you know I love you, don’t you, Deak?” She rolled back unto her back to stare at the stars, “I’ll always love you, you know, but…” he fell silent and he didn’t press her. After another long silence she spoke again. “Do you think he’s right? That you are a witch?”
Deakon’s answer was succinct. “There are no male draimae.”
“I suppose you’re right, “ she said, “Maybe I just want to have you like me.”
“Maybe,” Deakon said.
“You’re not like them,” she continued, “the minds of the clan are like open books to me, but your mind is a closed book to me, and in a language I can’t read. I do love you, you’re the other half of my soul, but you are different from the clan.”
Her answer angered him and he did his best to keep it from his voice. “Really?” After a small silence he said, “You’ll be sending for the Seraphim nest to test me, no one is more qualified than the Seraphim, after all they have hunted the draimae for a thousand years.”
“Are you angry?” She asked.
“Not at you,” he said calming down and focusing on the constellation called Aeka for an ancient Aatorian queen. “At Kennichi, at the Seraphim, at Reistide and at myself. I think Aeris is slipping away from me.”
“She’s been through a lot,” Draima said, “she’s not clan, she’s not even darin. She’s Aatorian. She left her home and family to be with your father and he died before you were born. She was a princess, her brother became King of Aatoria and she gave all that up and he died. She was brought here after his death, she didn’t speak the language and no one here welcomed her. Most of them can’t even say her name.” She took a deep breath, “she does her best to protect you from what she knows. If she sees assailants in every shadow she has her reasons.”
“She never speaks of my father.” Deakon said, “I don’t even know his name or how he died, or why Hazuki hates us so. I often think that it would be better for Aeris if I had never been born, if she’d never met my father and never left Dathyl.”
“That’s a stupid thing to wish, Deak, you can’t change the past. I can ask Ekeade to suggest that you both go to Dathyl if you want.” She suggested.
“I thought of that,” Deakon said, “I used to ask her but she always says no.”
“The Seraphim are more prevalent in Dathyl, and they have strong holds all over Aatoria. She may be a princess but the Seraphim were always outside the law.”
“I’m scared, Drai,” he said “I don’t know what I am and I watch my mother slipping away from me, driven by this paranoia I don’t understand and the hatred of the clan. She gave up everything to join a husband she adored and lost. I’m scared that where she’s going I can’t protect her, and that no matter how much I love that I’m going to lose her into the darkness that gets closer to her daily.” He used his free hand to cover his eyes; “she put a bell along the door so it rings when you open it. We don’t share a room with anyone else and we live below ground. The only window we have is barred and she has it laced with wires so if some tiny goblin attempted entry…” he fell silent, “I wrong her.”
Draima curled up alongside him like a cat, laying her head against his chest, “no, Deak, you love her, and you fear for her. You love her so much and now she’s slipping away from you so fast and you don’t know how to stop it.”
“And you say you can’t read my mind.” He said, even though she lay against him she still held his hand, and he knew Ekeade would murder anyone else for the presumption of so little, but Ekeade feared Deakon and the odd simpatico he shared with Draima.
“I don’t need to read your mind, love.” She laughed, her laugh was oddly adult, “I ought to know you well enough to guess what you’re thinking,” there was a long silence between them and then she sat up, “shall I tell Velasca you’ll be staying the night?”
Whenever Deakon slept in Ekeade’s house he was placed upstairs in the kouta room meaning that he’d have to cross a corridor to the room where Ekeade and Draima slept. In her own way Ekeade may have adored Deakon and trusted him with Draima, but she didn’t trust him that much. When he was sleepless he would sit with a small tallow lamp and read, though there was a library downstairs, or play Ekeade’s kouta until Velasca came up to wake him. Sometimes he slept. Whenever he slept he dreamt. In close proximity to Draima he always dreamt.
That night he stood in the ruins of an ancient city devoured by a forest he had no name for. Tree roots and grass had thrown up the paving of the path. Vines had split open the walls of the stone houses and branches poked through glass windows. Algae or moss obscured statues and carvings lichen. Although the houses were built in the Darin style they were built of stone, the storm shutters were copper long since rusted through, and the screens were glass. This city had been beautiful once, and although greatly altered by the Forest it was still beautiful just in a very different way. This Forest felt threatening but oddly, as if it was trying not to be, as if it was trying to slough years of violence for him, and only for him. That was clear in the odd clarity of dreams. The Forest was alive and conscious and was trying it’s very best to welcome him, but couldn’t really remember how.
One of the paths was lined with yellow roses and it was cleared to show him the way. Although the city had obviously been abandoned for centuries someone or something had pruned the roses. Deakon was not in any way afraid. Not here, not in this place.
He walked along the rose lined path, his fingers brushing the smooth surface of the blowsy flowers. At the end of the path was a staircase that seemed to climb to the heavens, the stairs fixed into the hill with wooden beams and huge oak trees tied with ofuda prayers lined the path. Knowing what was necessary of him, he climbed the stairs.
He climbed for a while, enjoying the smells and odd light of the Forest when an old woman in a black shawl stopped him. She was spinning thread between her forefinger and thumb with spittle. “A long way from home, dearie,” she said and she seemed to speak in many languages instantly but he understood them all. “You must have come a long way to be here in the Forest.”
“I dream,” he told her, “my body lies sleeping in Ekeade’s mansion in Shiro in the Taira lands.”
She made an understanding noise, even further from home that I thought you were. Be careful to follow your thread back, or you’ll be lost here amongst the ghosts and the roses. You take care now, dearie,” she lifted the ball of unspun thread and began to descend the stairs into the dream twilight.
“Thank you. Obaasan,” he said to her back, calling her grandmother, though he didn’t know if she’s been as kind as she seemed. He continued to climb.
After a while he came across a second woman on the steps. She was matronly with thick brown hair tied up in a loose knot, and she was knitting. “Why hello, young man,” she said adding a cable needle to her wool and click clacking as she sat on the step and looked at him. “It must be pressing business to have brought you to the Forest.”
“I dreaming, Obasan,” he said calling her aunt, “I’m coming here in a dream because this was the path I was shown.”
She looked at him clearly, then held up her knitting, “this will fit you, lad, and protect you on the way, just mind you remember the kind lady that gave you it.”
“Thank you, obasan,” he said taking the sweater she had given him.
She stood up and dusted herself down, “now mind how you go.” She, like the old woman before her, descended the stairs.
By the time he reached the maiden he was expecting her. She was practicing with a long black sword, dancing back and forth as if fighting off unseen opponents. “You’re not supposed to be here.” She said, sheathing the sword at her hip. She wore a leather kirtle and a leather brassiere with chain mail hanging from it. Unlike the other women she was a warrior.
“I dream, onesan,” he said calling her sister, “I go only where my dreams lead me.”
“Don’t put such stock in dreams,” she said, “dreams are the tool of the enemy. Dreams betray.” She said.
“The dream brought me here and I must climb on.” He told her, “though I do listen to your words, onesan.”
“If the Forest welcomes you then so must I,” she said, “but it asks more than you can give. It is what it does. All our gifts are double edged, and we don’t give you what you want,” she clearly eyed the sweater that the matron had given him, “we give you what you need. Go on, Deakon, but be warned.” Then she was gone before he asked her how she knew his name, and she didn’t descend like the others, but between one blink and the next she had vanished.
Deakon took the last few steps up to a small temple under a wooden arch. A woman all in white sat in a pool of moonlight, even her hair and her skin were white, and there was a cloth over her eyes. “so have you chosen?” She asked.
“I didn’t know I had to choose.” He said.
“You must choose,” she said, “or all is lost.”
“I don’t understand,” he argued, “what do I have to choose?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, “only that you make the choice.”
“I can’t choose if I don’t know what the choice is.”
“One or the other, it is irrelevant, just choose.”
He woke up with a start and found himself sitting up. Clutched in his hands was a black woolen cable knit sweater.
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