these_lines1 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} these_lines1) wrote,@ 2007-12-02 21:57:00 |
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Naruto. Yugito Nii. 010. Years.
Title: Ghosts in Daylight
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Years
Word Count: 588
Rating: PG-13
Summary: On Kumiko’s days off, she woke screaming and drenched to the bone in a cold sweat as visions of burning eyes and burning trees and burning bodies ran a dizzy race through her head, the guilt clawing a home for itself inside her heart.
Author's Notes: None.
Kumiko watched as the first year passed.
Caretakers drifted in black robes through the empty rooms of the temple, ghosts in daylight, their bare feet making soft susurrations on the floors. They came when the sun rose over the horizon, fed the girl, changed her diaper, and carried her through the halls, often leaving her to lie alone under the dead branches of the cherry tree.
The child was silent through the days, wide blue eyes already full of an unnatural consideration. Silence reigned throughout the temple, the only sound the soft ‘swish’ of the caretakers’ robes and feet, the muffled trickle of the moat around the temple. The caretakers would feed her one more time and put her back in her crib.
When the sun set, the caretakers hurried from the temple, closing and barring the door behind them, shadows chasing them as they swept like ravens down the road and into the faraway lights of Kumo.
No one stayed after dark, for that was when-
Kumiko saw it every night, but the creeping dread was never any less strong, never less painful.
Black fire crawled across the floors like creatures scuttling across the floors of silent seas, voices- shrill and hoarse and deep and high all mixed in one- whispering to each other, filling the silence.
When Kumiko listened hard enough, she could hear her dead captain’s voice in the flames.
And then, as the fire slipped across the white sand courtyard, wreathing the dead tree in inky outlines, the sounds of claws ticking on wooden floors came to her, and a shape, black and shifting like mercury on glass, appeared behind the screens, shadows playing on the rice paper. White eyes glowed luminescent in the darkness.
The stars were blotted out, the only light in the world those two burning circles of radiance. Two tails drifted back and forth like willows in a storm, and the shadows of hands, of bones dripping flesh, splayed out across the closed doors.
Yugito- or the Nekomata, she wasn’t sure which- roamed the halls every night as the ANBU around the temple shivered and rubbed their hands together to destroy the sudden chill. Some rocked back and forth, hands pressed to their ears to blot out the voices of the dead. A few cried tears that froze as soon as they hit the ground.
Kumiko did neither, only watched as the demon paced back and forth, caged by the girl’s heart beating inside its fiery body. She watched, burning the black tree and the white eyes and the ragged scraps of flesh on bone into her memory, a testament to what they had done.
‘You’ll grow up to be a tool, alive only because no one’s managed to kill you yet,’ she thought to the girl inside the beast, ‘and everyone will hate you even when you save them. And you’ll spend the rest of your years walking the line between being a human weapon and blowing your own brains out.’
Every night, the Nekomata walked in silence, and Kumiko watched until the day came, when the demon faded from view under the pale light of dawn, and the girl lying inside her crib opened too-old eyes.
On Kumiko’s days off, she woke screaming and drenched to the bone in a cold sweat as visions of burning eyes and burning trees and burning bodies ran a dizzy race through her head, the guilt clawing a home for itself inside her heart.
Yugito’s birthday came, and no one remembered it.
Title: Ghosts in Daylight
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Years
Word Count: 588
Rating: PG-13
Summary: On Kumiko’s days off, she woke screaming and drenched to the bone in a cold sweat as visions of burning eyes and burning trees and burning bodies ran a dizzy race through her head, the guilt clawing a home for itself inside her heart.
Author's Notes: None.
Kumiko watched as the first year passed.
Caretakers drifted in black robes through the empty rooms of the temple, ghosts in daylight, their bare feet making soft susurrations on the floors. They came when the sun rose over the horizon, fed the girl, changed her diaper, and carried her through the halls, often leaving her to lie alone under the dead branches of the cherry tree.
The child was silent through the days, wide blue eyes already full of an unnatural consideration. Silence reigned throughout the temple, the only sound the soft ‘swish’ of the caretakers’ robes and feet, the muffled trickle of the moat around the temple. The caretakers would feed her one more time and put her back in her crib.
When the sun set, the caretakers hurried from the temple, closing and barring the door behind them, shadows chasing them as they swept like ravens down the road and into the faraway lights of Kumo.
No one stayed after dark, for that was when-
Kumiko saw it every night, but the creeping dread was never any less strong, never less painful.
Black fire crawled across the floors like creatures scuttling across the floors of silent seas, voices- shrill and hoarse and deep and high all mixed in one- whispering to each other, filling the silence.
When Kumiko listened hard enough, she could hear her dead captain’s voice in the flames.
And then, as the fire slipped across the white sand courtyard, wreathing the dead tree in inky outlines, the sounds of claws ticking on wooden floors came to her, and a shape, black and shifting like mercury on glass, appeared behind the screens, shadows playing on the rice paper. White eyes glowed luminescent in the darkness.
The stars were blotted out, the only light in the world those two burning circles of radiance. Two tails drifted back and forth like willows in a storm, and the shadows of hands, of bones dripping flesh, splayed out across the closed doors.
Yugito- or the Nekomata, she wasn’t sure which- roamed the halls every night as the ANBU around the temple shivered and rubbed their hands together to destroy the sudden chill. Some rocked back and forth, hands pressed to their ears to blot out the voices of the dead. A few cried tears that froze as soon as they hit the ground.
Kumiko did neither, only watched as the demon paced back and forth, caged by the girl’s heart beating inside its fiery body. She watched, burning the black tree and the white eyes and the ragged scraps of flesh on bone into her memory, a testament to what they had done.
‘You’ll grow up to be a tool, alive only because no one’s managed to kill you yet,’ she thought to the girl inside the beast, ‘and everyone will hate you even when you save them. And you’ll spend the rest of your years walking the line between being a human weapon and blowing your own brains out.’
Every night, the Nekomata walked in silence, and Kumiko watched until the day came, when the demon faded from view under the pale light of dawn, and the girl lying inside her crib opened too-old eyes.
On Kumiko’s days off, she woke screaming and drenched to the bone in a cold sweat as visions of burning eyes and burning trees and burning bodies ran a dizzy race through her head, the guilt clawing a home for itself inside her heart.
Yugito’s birthday came, and no one remembered it.
