hakanai | dragoncalled Sample Thread

[Even for someone as calm and accepting of fate as Yoshitsugu, this situation has been a very difficult one to deal with. He'd been content in the prospect of his end at Takatora's hands, happy to know he would die with the help of his dear friend, but then...]

[Well. What could he do now but follow the flow and let this situation play out? See where it led? Though his mind was restless and filled with questions and concerns, Yoshitsugu had followed the call that bid his feet move and ended up in this huge warm cavern after a long walk. Stopping for a brief moment, he wonders about the sense of comfort it immediately brings him before shaking his head and finishing his journey. There are eggs here of all kinds, all colours and sizes, and the flow is telling him that one belongs to him. Not that one, or that... no, no... yes.]

[It's small, his one, an off-gold egg that is almost lost amongst the others here. Yoshitsugu walks past the much larger ones nearby, not caring to look at any other visitors to the cavern, and sits cross-legged on the floor next to the tiny depression.]

[And because the urge is strong, and there's no need to fight it, no need to fight the flow, Yoshitsugu reaches out and touches the egg's shell.]

[It's not immediate, but is very close to being so. There's a little rumbling sound from within that instinctively makes Yoshitsugu reach out and hold it in his hands, cradling it, and that seems to be cue for the little life inside to really start fighting to get out. The shell cracks open rather quickly thanks to its energetic struggles, and as it falls apart it reveals a tiny, messy creature of myth. Or not. Because you can't call it a myth if it's alive in your hands, attempting to look up at you with still-clouded, muck-covered eyes that somehow manage to be the most captivating Yoshitsugu has ever seen. Isn't that interesting? Like a dream, except this most definitely isn't.]

Ah... [He brings the little dragon, for dragon it definitely had to be, closer to his face. It makes a trilling sound in response, and something in Yoshitsugu grows unexpectently warm.] Something flows between us, doesn't it? Unfortunate for you, but you'll have to deal with it.

[Resting it in just one hand, he starts to clean it slowly with the sleeve of the other. The flow is without conscience, free of notions of good or evil, and is kind and cruel in equal measures. It has now tossed him into something even he could not have predicted, something so wild and unbelievable Yoshitsugu might as well be the character in someone's fantasical story. A dark start followed by the birth of a new life, a new bond, and for the first time in his life a very uncertain future. What else to do but accept his fate? He and this little one, this precious dragon that someone reached deep into his heart, were in this together now, come what may.]

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[Of all people to be resurrected after the end of his world, why him? He is worn, replaceable -- not like Lord Nagamasa was, or Lord Ieyasu is. Was.

Takatora has survived more loss than he ever wished to, and while he will continue to do so -- what else can he do? He owes it to his departed family and friends to live on -- he almost feels numb with the crushing, terrible enormity of what has occurred.

And yet.

Yet, there is something driving him on, a glimmer of hope in his desolation. There is a connection that thaws a piece of his frozen soul. He chases it like a drowning man chases air, and finds himself stepping into the Heart of Nuren.

As calm washes through him, easing the weight on his heart, his footsteps grow sure as he walks past eggs of all shapes and sizes. He does not notice anyone else in the cave as he kneels by a lilac-blue egg the size of a small boulder. Reaching past the runes, he places one gloved hand against the plated shell, feeling the imprint of the raised patterning trailing down the egg. He closes his eyes.

Inside the egg rests the source of that connection.]

All right. It's you and me. We can't let their deaths be meaningless.

[Takatora removes the long scarf wrapped around his neck and creates a sling for his egg out of it. One he rolls his egg into the material, he ties it to himself using study knots. He stands up. His precious burden is heavy, but this weight is a comforting one, the last promise of a future. He is strong enough to bear it.

Then he sighs. What now? He's out of his depth.]

[And of course, the voice that drifts over from another point in the cavern is all too familiar.]

[Yoshitsugu has finished cleaning off the tiny dragon by now, and gently placed her on his shoulder. She's newborn and weak in many ways but is nonetheless holding on with a little effort; a first show of independence, which is good, but he's nonetheless super aware of her presence when he stands up and looks around. Ah, yes... there. Yoshitsugu closes his eyes, touches the scarf he's wrapped around the bottom half of his face. Remembers the final moments of Sekigahara and the final wish Takatora had fulfilled for him; seppuku, enormous pain that Yoshitsugu is grateful for, all under a tearful blue gaze.]

[The dragon... no, Tsubaki, mottled with a red as deep as the camellia, chirps feebily.]

Why should things ever be easy? [He says softly, to her and to himself too.] Let's go with the flow.

[And so he strides, looking ever so calm but with an expression unusually somber (at least as far as his eyes show). Whatever this reality is, and whatever their reasons for being here are, the fact remains that they are here. Breathing and whole, in a world made of legends, where fate dictates they meet again in a place where they can be allies again.]

Takatora.

[For a moment, Takatora thinks he is imagining the apparition that appears by him. Strangely enough, it is the tiny newborn dragon on Yoshitsugu's shoulder that proves it is not his imagination at work.

He feels unnaturally calm, when he knows that he shouldn't be. His lips shape a name he has not uttered even to himself for two years. Not since he buried Yoshitsugu in two pieces.]

Yoshitsugu.

[He stares. Then Takatora grabs Yoshitsugu by the wrist and pulls the other man out with him as he heads outside of the Heart of Nuren.

Absurdly, it is a relief when, once outside away from the serene magic of the cave, he staggers as his grief hits him full force like a physical gutting. His eyes go wide and he sobs, dropping Yoshitsugu's arm. He gasps:]

Y-Yoshi--

[Yoshitsugu bows his head, giving unnecessary confirmation, before gently raising a hand to his precious charge and taking Tsubaki into it again. The little dragon, newly born and very confused, squeaks unhappily when he puts her down onto the floor, but he gently strokes her head in reassurance. Not for long. He isn't completely certain about what is going to happen next, but considers a certain action likely enough that putting her somewhere safe away from himself necessary.]

[That done, he straightens and turns to Takatora again. Meets his gaze.]

The camellia grove was real, and so is this. [Out here, outside of the cave's calm where all are unprotected from their feelings and history, Yoshitsugu closes his eyes.] Takatora.

[He says nothing more, just waits.]

[It took Takatora a year for the sensation of his sword cleaving straight though Yoshitsugu's neck to leave his nightly dreams. It took a year to forget how it felt to carry Yoshitsugu's head in the cradle of his arm with Yoshitsugu's limp body slung over his shoulder.

It feels like no time has passed, and he is there on the field of Sekigahara begging Yoshitsugu to live, powerless to stop Yoshitsugu choosing to die for Mitsunari, losing the last of his loved ones–

Before he knows what he is doing – having automatically registering that Yoshitsugu's dragon is safely set aside -- Takatora turns to his once-departed friend and his fist meets Yoshitsugu's face. Not hard enough to do real harm and avoiding all tender, vulnerable features, but nonetheless a punch. Immediately after he clasps Yoshitsugu in a desperate hug, weeping helplessly.

His egg, sturdy as it is, remains safe in the sling. Within there is movement, perhaps responding to Takatora's distress.]

You... y-you're alive...!

[The punch, of course, hurts. Takatora is a very strong man and the strike backed up with all the emotion and hurt he is feeling, the consequence of what Yoshitsugu had asked him to do at Sekighara; had Takatora not immediately grasped his friend and held him tight, Yoshitsugu might have fallen over. Instead he merely winces.]

[Expecting the punch, he had chosen not to try and avoid it. It was well deserved.]

Alive again, yes. The flow has taken an unexpected path. [One life given for Mitsunari, willingly; that one was over. This was quite firmly a second.] I am not inclined to fight it right now, Takatora.

[Pragmatism says that they both need rest and recuperation, time to figure this out. But it's also an emotionally driven desire. They both need this, and for all the pain Takatora knows right now, they always worked together in perfect harmony. It's a familiarity that will do them a world of good while the flow's destination is unclear...]

Y-Y-Yoshitsugu...!

[Helpless, all he can do is cling and sob. Yoshitsugus is solid, not a ghost, not a memory -- they are the same thing, sometimes -- and he can feel the rise and fall of Yoshitsugu's chest. His throat is tight, every breath aches.

It hurts, but it hurts in an agonisingly good way: as the ice-cold numbness of his heart recedes, the sharp sting is nothing more than feeling returning, a renewal.]

[In this new world, with its new flow that Yoshitsugu cannot well perceive yet, thinking about what might come is useless. Right now the only thing that matters is the moment.]

[So he'll remain quiet for now, wrap his arms around Takatora and hold him close. Let him cry it out. There's a deep well of emotion there neither of them could ever have expected to be unthawed within Takatora's lifetime, but it is what it is.]

[One step at a time.]

dragoncalled Sample Thread - Bonds & Dragons

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