"When the wooden clackers call the audience to attention, the sharp tones of the shamisen cut through the air, the chanter opens the narration, and the wooden and lacquered beings are brought to life by three puppeteers breathing in unison; the world of magic and power over which the puppets have reigned for centuries is only as far away as the dimly lit stage."
--Jane Marie Law, Traditional Japanese Theater
One of the things Subaru had never expected was to take on an apprentice. He had especially never expected that any theoretical apprentice not only might not use onmyoujutsu as their way to interact with the spirits and forces roaming the world, but would instead be the posesser of an immense magical talent which channeled itself through--of all arts--puppetry.
Then again, Subaru reflected, after the way the end of the world had played out, he really had no right to any expectations.
He had no pictures of those who had been closest to him, enemy or ally. No photographs decorated his home, marking the absence of a grandmother, a twin, or a love. None marked the effects Kamui, Sorata, Arashi, and Yuzuriha had wrought in his empty existence. Seiichirou, Karen, Kakyou, even Satsuki and Fuuma... all he could do to honor them was to remember them.
Sometimes he wished the way of the onmyouji was other than it was; while a photograph could in no way replace a laugh, or a touch, sometimes it would have seemed that much less painful to have a photograph to prove that they had existed. An image to show to another, to perhaps share Subaru's keen awareness of what had been lost.
Such a person might have been this new apprentice and his familiar spirit, both of whom were now looking around Subaru's apartment--the former covertly, the latter overtly.
"Not much for knickknacks, are you?" Ukon asked.
Shaman, Chapter 5
by K.Stonham
released 26th September, 2004
Sakon closed his eyes and breathed slowly, deeply, counting his heartbeat as it slowed, easily finding the expected stillness and calm he typically associated with the preparation time before a performance. But then he found it incidentally, in brief moments checking a puppet's hair or smoothing the line of a kimono, adjusting the straps of his shoes or pausing to listen to the hum of the audience before the joruri recitation began. Now he found that peace, that sense of rightness, deliberately, as though it had been waiting there for him all along.
Perhaps it had.
Ukon was in the calm with him. Sakon couldn't see his friend, but knew of his presence by the sheer lack of tangle in his own mind. Alone, he truly did feel like only half a person, bumbling and incompetent. With Ukon beside him, or that one time Rinsuke, the world came into focus, clear and non-threatening. He could deal with things, dissect them, solve problems.
Would you be autistic, alone?
Sakon almost opened his eyes, losing control of the pace of his heart, startled at the voice coming from where no voice had ever before been. But this voice was familiar, and more, there seemed to be a shield, some kind of barrier keeping him from rewaking to the outer world where he sat on the floor of a bare room in the Sumeragi's apartment, meditating.
Slowly the darkness around him alleviated, growing lighter to a gray in increments and then phasing to a deep green. When the Sumeragi's form separated itself from that brightness, the color clinging still to his irises, it came as no surprise to Sakon. The amber dome between himself and the world, too, felt somehow of Subaru's making, gentle, protecting, yet strong and proud, unyielding.
Somehow, too, ...inhuman.
What are you? Sakon asked.
The Sumeragi blinked, then smiled. His form dissolved into motes of light like green fireflies. They drifted on a nonexistant breeze, then from green nothingness, the dragon appeared.
Sakon had seen dragons on television before, in animes or live-action series that had high special-effect budgets. They had been pretty, cute, even comical sometimes.
He'd never been terrified before.
As green as jade, as tall as a mountain, this dragon was ancient and seemed as though it should rightfully be circling the core of the world, a fierce guardian. Despite the Sumeragi's assurance otherwise, this dragon that he was seemed like he would make no more of any mortal thing than Sakon would of rolling over in bed. Golden horns soared into a starless sky and silver whiskers fell as gracefully as tears. A mane of silver fur riffled down the length of the dragon's back, and ineludible eyes, now white, now black, now amber, now jade, watched Sakon who did not know whether to flee or to faint.
Instead he did neither.
Feeling Ukon's silent presence, which though as scared as they both were put on a brave front, Sakon took one step forward, then another. He laid his hand on the scales of the dragon's right foreleg, taloned as it was with immense gold claws. The scales sliced into his hands as he looked up at those eyes. Are you a god?
No. And in this form Subaru's "voice" was deafening, as though his mass of body translated into the vibrations of sound in air. In that sound of rolling thunder there was sadness. Merely the last of the dragons.
Then he was human again, walking towards Sakon. Subaru took Sakon's right hand in his own, turning it over to see the deep cuts scored across the palm and fingers. Blood dripped freely and Sakon knew the hand was ruined.
You didn't flinch, Subaru said without moving his lips, jade and amber eyes raising back to Sakon's. Despite that with this wound you'd never be able to exercise your art again.
Why? Sakon asked, letting the question hold as many meanings as it would.
Because I am have been a Dragon of Heaven as well as one of Earth. Because I was born to this destiny.
The Sumeragi released Sakon's hand and it was healed.
Now, Tachibana, you must learn. Call your friend to you.
He's already here.
Articulate him. If you cannot will this place, your inner sphere, to be absolutely under your control, how may you control what happens outside of it?
Sakon nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating. He felt the weight on his right arm slowly grow and adjusted for it in familiar ways. Opening his eyes, he and Ukon looked at one another for a moment. Sakon smiled at this proof of his measure of control. Ukon gave him a thumbs-up.
You don't like beginnings, the Sumeragi said suddenly.
What do you mean? asked Sakon.
You closed your eyes, explained the Sumeragi, rather than watch the magic begin. Why don't you like beginnings?
Hey, Ukon retorted, you deal with murders happening all around because you have sucky luck like that, and then decide you like beginnings.
Subaru's eyes became sad and distant. He looked away. I don't know if you'd call them all murders, he said, but I have seen many deaths, both before, after, and during their occurances. For me, to look away is too high of a price. Looking away, I would do no honor; I would not remember the way in which each of them met their pain, or their death.
Does no one witness your pain? Sakon asked. The Sumeragi's head whipped back to look at him. No one does, do they?
No, Subaru admitted. I have no witnesses.
No one witnesses the witness, eh? Ukon mused, crossing his legs and putting his hands behind his head. Then he shook a finger at the onmyouji. Well, you've got us now, Sumeragi-sensee, so maybe from now on someone's going to keep an eye on you.
Caveat: I usually romanize the term "sensei," as most people do. So it's not that I am misspelling it, but rather that it's an indication of Ukon's slangy dialect. As to Subaru's apartment versus the house he called "home" in an earlier chapter... I theorize that he keeps both his own apartment (from which he works, as well as where he takes people he needs to shelter, question, instruct, whatever) and Seishirou's house, which is his private dwelling where he is never interrupted because no one knows of it. An outer life and an inner, if you like.
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