Well, I recently finished the book I had been writing and was all happy. And then I sat down at my computer the next night and was all like “oh crap I have nothing to write.” So to alleviate boredom, and partly because this concept had been bouncing around in my head for a while now, I wrote this original short story, Choice.
What is it about? The story of a young woman whose life is turned upside down in a shocking series of events (etc.) set in a rich and fulfulling fantasy background (as rich and fulfilling as a short story’s background can be -_-). I won’t be posting the whole thing at once, since it’s too long, but I’ll put it up in sections. Please please please comment and/or criticize as you see fit. I put stuff here so you all can read it and then give me feedback. It’s part of improving my writing style and flow.
A brief note before commencing the story: this is set in a Japanese-type environment, and so many of the characters address each other using Japanese honorifics. You ask why, and I reply that the honorifics impart a good sense of context and relationship between the characters. If you’ve never heard of these, the format is {character’s name}-honorific. Here’s a brief rundown of the honorifics implemented in Choice.
kun - Modernly used by male students or people who grew up together to address one another as a display of affection, but this functionality is not used in Choice. The other meaning, the one that is used in this story, is superior-to-inferior - a commanding officer would address his subordinate using kun, for example.
san - The Japanese equivlanet of the English Mr., Mrs. Ms., etc. It’s used much more extensively in Japanese than Mr. and the like is used in English, though, and even enemies can be addressed with san. In Choice, it is used in the context that though it does not really imply equality between the user of the honorific and the one being addressed, it does not indicate superior-to-inferior, deference, etc., so it is used in the sense that equals address one another as san.
sama - This is the respectful equivlanet of san, and is used when addressing someone of much higher rank than you are. In the commanding-officer-talking-to-the-subordinate example, the subordinate would probably address his commander as sama. It can also be used to address someone you have a crush on.
dono - Very respectful, even moreso than san, the effect in Japanese conversation is “Milord {character’s name}.” It can also be used to indicate deep respect and humility.
Now without further ado…
Choice
An Original Short Story by Mengde
Dramatis Personae
Janus, disciple of the Order of Vision (unknown age, male)
Toyame, priestess of her Master’s shrine (twenty years of age, female)
Toshimichi Ukina, foremost warrior of the kingdom (forty-four years of age, male)
Kosuke Masahige, seventy-fourth Emperor of Creation (seventy-six years of age, male)
Tenkan, initiate of the Order of Vision (twenty-two years of age, male)
Okita, leader of the Order of Vision (forty-one years of age, male)
Heigöro, military scientist of the kingdom (fifty-three years of age, male)
Lit by the full moon, the sky cast a steady white glow down upon the holy shrine. Priestess Toyame placed the last of the night’s wards and retired to her room. It was not her night to lie with the Master; the honor was held tonight by Priestess Muhaya. Her keen intellect told Toyame that she should experience jealousy at Muhaya reveling with the Master, but just as it always had, the presence calmed her and told her it was of no consequence.
Toyame had neither mother nor a father. She had been born of their union, certainly, but she did not recognize either as a guiding figure in her life. Whatever village had seen her born in it had been razed to the ground when she was still too young to remember any details of it. It had been the Master that had saved her, the Master that had brought her to the shrine and raised her. She did not feel as though the Master was a parent so much as a constant companion in her life.
Oftentimes her awareness would detect the signs of jealousy at her beauty in the other girls at the shrine, repressed by the presence. She was tale and pale, with a flawless complexion and deep blue eyes. Her body was perfect, every feature seemingly unearthly in its beauty. Her long black hair descended to the small of her back, and light skittered over it as if it was too afraid to touch it lest it tarnish it. The other girls could not boast that they compared with her.
The presence did not suppress pride so much as it did jealousy, but it did suppress arrogance, so Toyame went about in a mixed kind of superiority, feeling better than the other girls at the shrine but unable to lord it over them. She would be self-centered and something of a vixen should she not be under the guidance of the presence, so if it allowed her to be vexed then her situation would have vexed her in the extreme. Still, the presence was there, ever watchful and ever guiding. She thanked it daily, but at the same time there was a hollowness in her thanks, one that she could not expunge no matter what purification she underwent or how many times she lay with the Master.
Visitors often came to the shrine seeking shelter or companionship. None came seeking worship. Toyame often wondered why. Did they not know of the great God that governed them all? Could it be that their belief was not universally shared, as the Master assured them it was? But when these questions came to mind, the presence would always soothe her, and reassure her that these were silly things to worry herself over.
Toyame lay down upon the sleeping mat in her room and tried to compose herself. The presence always told her that if she was beautiful enough while she slept and had no dreams she could remember, it would please the master and she might lie with him the next day. Every night she composed herself thus and tried her hardest not to remember her dreams. It was difficult, though. Of late she had been having strange vision-dreams, the sort that were not easily or wisely forgotten. She could never lie to the Master nor conceal anything from the Master, so when the Master inquired as to what dreams she had been having, Toyame came straight out with her vision-dreams. She spoke of a one-eyed man in black, though how she knew he had only one eye she was uncertain, as she never saw his face. The Master’s face became serious, and Toyame was afraid she had upset the Master. The Master did not inquire as to what dreams she had been having after that, and the presence reassured Toyame it was for the best.
Sighing ever so slightly, she settled beneath the light blanket, placed her hands upon her breast, and closed her eyes. I shall be perfect for the Master.
“Indeed, many would say you are perfect.”
Toyame started and sat bolt upright, staring at the figure that had come into her room.
He was dressed in a black robe that covered him from navel to ankles. His feet were wrapped in grey bandages to protect them from the elements. His hair, which was at least as long as Toyame’s, was a dark grey. He was sitting with his back against the far wall, right leg stretched out, left leg pulled up so the knee was level with his shoulder. His left hand, with its long, delicate fingers, was placed against the floor; his right rested upon the long, curved sheath of his sword. It was a katana, the iron silver-inlaid hilt touching against the wall next to his head, the tip of the lacquered black sheath balanced against the floor. His face was hard-set, handsome in a cruel fashion.
Toyame stared into his eyes.
His left eye was cold, a light shade of blue. A few shades lighter and it would be the eye of a madman; as it was, it showed a degree of intensity that was not so much unpleasant as it was frightening.
His right eye socket did not possess a human eye. Rather, it held a metal one forged from silver. It had no iris or pupil, but where the two would be there was a glyph burned into the metal. Toyame’s training as a priestess told her it was the glyph of Vision, forbidden arcana that involved the past, the future, and how the two interacted with one another. She perceived that the glyph was also inlaid in silver upon the hilt of the man’s katana.
“Who –”
“I say that you are fatally flawed,” he cut her off. His voice was deep, slicing through the chill air like a blade. “You seek perfection for the wrong reasons. What is gold if it is cast into a dagger for use in a demon’s ritual? What is the diamond that is left in the rock? It is fruitless, wasted.”
“What do you go on about?” Toyame asked shrilly. Her rich, velvet voice sounded strained and pathetic in her own ears.
The man’s left eye looked around the room, drinking in every detail, but his right eye stayed fixated upon Toyame, its unblinking gaze staring balefully at her. She felt naked before it, so intense was its effect.
“What might have been,” he went on, “is not what is happening now. That much is clear, though I would wish differently. Cast your last prayers, woman. This place burns tonight.”
Toyame sprang to her feet and grabbed her staff, which was leaning against the wall opposite the man. It was fine mahogany, layered with a seal to prevent it from ever being broken and to aid in fighting demons. “I will insist that you leave, sir.”
A grin spread across the man’s features. “The night is only just beginning, little priestess. I will insist that I stay.” He rose to his feet in an almost languid fashion, but there was a power in his movements that belied the loose, soft way in which he carried them out. His grip upon the hilt of his sword tightened ever so slightly as he raised it so that its guard was level with his eyes, the sheath pointing straight down towards the floor. He placed his thumb against the glyph of Vision upon the blade’s hilt, and it began to glow an ominous red. The glyph on his right eye, too, began to glow, and a similar glow seemed to emanate from his chest, almost invisible through his black robes.
“I would not want to see you injured, sir,” Toyame warned him, trying to control her wavering voice.
By way of reply, the man launched himself at her in a motion so swift she was unsure whether she had seen it properly or not. The runes stopped glowing as the sword, which was a moment before straight out in front of him, fell behind him in his charge. He held it in a reverse grip, so that the sheathed blade protruded outwards in his wake while the hilt preceded him by the barest distance. Toyame swung her staff in a downwards arc that would have cracked him upon the dome of his head, but he dodged with uncanny speed, and, having come within range, delivered her a blow to the abdomen with his sword’s hilt. She collapsed, stunned, to the floor. The presence screamed at her to get to her feet and defend the shrine and the Master, but she found herself unable to obey.
“You will be able to move again shortly. I would not see you perish. When the flames I set purify this place, do not go the front entrance, for falling timbre will block your way. Rather, go to the shrine pagoda, climb it, and use your height there to leap over the compound fence. Waste no time in ascending the pagoda, for it is sentenced to destruction the moment you set foot upon its roof.”
Toyame tried to speak, but found herself unable to manage even that.
“I will be waiting for you when you emerge from the ashes,” the man concluded. Without another word, he slid open the door to the hall leading to the Master’s chambers.
It took several minutes for Toyame to recover from the blow she had been dealt. As soon as she could move, she grabbed her staff from upon the ground where it had fallen from nerveless fingers and made for the Master’s chambers. The presence told here there was nothing less she could do for the Master than sacrifice herself in his defense. Doubt flooded her mind. Would such an effort prove to be enough, enabling the Master to strike down his opponent or at least get away?
Surprise took her as the presence lashed out at her for such disobedient thoughts. Pain shot through her breast as her heart was squeezed by some invisible force, warning her that she should not question the presence.
The presence has never hurt me before. Why now? When she stopped for even a moment to reflect on her situation, Toyame realized that she was not only thinking disobedient thoughts, but her mind was flooded with emotions the presence normally suppressed. Could it be losing its power?
Another wave of pain struck her, and the presence reprimanded her again.
She arrived at her master’s outer chamber to see the entrance door closed. Sliding it open, Toyame nearly fainted at what she beheld within.
Her sisters were scattered throughout the room, all dead. Some had been decapitated, others simply drawn in half. Uniformly, the wounds showed no blood. Upon closer inspection, Toyame saw that they had been cauterized at the same instant they had been inflicted. That told her the stranger’s blade had a heat enchantment upon it. The Master had told her that heat enchantments were specifically designed to allow infliction of wounds without drawing blood. They were a favorite amongst assassins that preferred to leave not a trace of their handiwork. Those dark figures would kill their targets and then secret the bodies away, to be buried or fully cremated. Making an enemy disappear became much easier when there was no blood to identify that they had been murdered.
Is this stranger an assassin like the ones the Master told me about? What does he want here?
Toyame flew to the door leading to the Master’s inner chamber, where the Master and whoever was chosen to lie with the Master reveled and did as they pleased.
Praying that the Master would not banish her for opening the inner chamber door without explicit permission, Toyame slid it open, brandishing her staff.
Muhaya lay dead at her feet, a long slash from right shoulder to left hip having spelled the end of her. The stranger was standing before the Master, who was clothed in the traditional robes of God. The Master’s open, softly beautiful features contrasted strongly with the sharp, handsome ones of the stranger. Her enemy now held his sword in his left hand by the sheath. His right hung at his side.
Upon seeing her, the Master’s eyes grew worried, and the Master told her, “Flee! This man means to kill me and you as well!”
The stranger spat contemptuously upon the ground. Toyame clenched her teeth in rage against the desecration of the Master’s holy inner chamber.
“Heathen priest,” the stranger rasped.
“How dare you address the Master as such!” Toyame cried. “The Master is no heathen!”
The man looked over his shoulder at her. His dual gazes bored into her skull, and his mouth widened in a maniacal grin. “Is he not?”
“You defile the Master!” Toyame shrieked. “You address the Master with a common pronoun!”
The grin widened even more. “We will see how you view your precious Master once his influence over you is dead and gone.” He turned back to the Master. “Heathen priest. I shall give you a moment to pray to your forsaken God before stating your crimes and delivering your punishment.”
“God is with me always,” the Master retorted. “I need no time to pray, for he is here, witnessing this butchery.”
“Then let him know that you are guilty of harboring this girl for your own purposes, keeping her under the influence of magics damned by the Emperor, and refuting her right to Choice. For these crimes I sentence you to death.”
Toyame screamed and lunged with her staff. The Master simultaneously reached into his sleeve for one of the protection sutras he kept there.
The stranger was faster than both of them. In one fluid movement he loosed his sword from its sheath. A harsh red glow lit the air as the blade came free, its smoldering metal glowing a deep orange. Before the Master could cry out or ward off the attack, the Master was sliced through the chest by the stranger. Cleaved in twain, the Master fell to the ground, killed instantly.
As the sword exited the Master’s already-dead body, the stranger spun on the balls of his feet and brought his weapon around in an arc that connected with the tip of Toyame’s staff. The tough mahogany, strengthened even further by the seals the Master had placed upon it, proved no match for the weapon it faced. Toyame’s eyes widened as the smoldering blade of her foe slashed into the wood and swept clean through. The enemy struck with such force that his blade not truly connecting with her weapon was of no consequence. Her attack deflected, Toyame tumbled to the ground, her coordination momentarily gone.
She looked up from her position upon the floor to see the stranger press his weapon’s smoldering blade into the opulent blankets of the Master’s bed, setting them ablaze. Involuntarily, her gaze flicked to the Master. He lay there, dead, his wounds not even bleeding.
What?
Toyame had done the unthinkable. She had referred to him – no, the Master – using a common pronoun. Such an act indicated the utmost disrespect.
“You are beginning to feel his hold on you weaken, no?” The stranger barked a harsh laugh. “Remember what I told you. Climb the pagoda. The main gate offers nothing but death.”
He sheathed his sword and moved swiftly out of the room. By the time Toyame picked herself up, he was gone.
Toyame felt no sadness at the loss of the Master. Why she did not she was unsure. Perhaps it had to do with the way he had treated her and the rest of her sisters – mere objects, pawns, stairs that he might ascend to a goal. She had long known of some of his darker ambitions, but never had she questioned them, for the presence would always soothe her and tell her that the Master would never do any of the things about which he murmured in his sleep.
Now the presence was silent, possibly dead. Could it have really been the Master’s way of keeping her and the rest of her sisters in line? Toyame had never thought about it.
No, that was wrong. She had thought about it a great deal, but always the presence would reassure her and tell her that such thoughts were merely fancy, things of no consequence.
Has this man done me a good turn?
Aflutter and choked by the fumes of the blaze that had already spread to the outer courtyard, Toyame forgot what the stranger had told her and made for the main gate. A moment before she ran through it, she recalled the stranger’s words and stopped at once. No sooner had she done so than did the gate collapse in a tumbling wave of flame and wood. If she had taken two more steps she would be pinned beneath the rubble and would certainly burn to death.
Turning about, she fled the main gate and ran to the shrine pagoda. The only stone structure in the entire compound, it alone stood against the blaze. It was two stories, with a small door set in the ceiling of the second story that led to the roof, to be used in case of a fire. Toyame did not bother to reflect that the door was about to serve its intended purpose, but instead applied her intellect to calculation. She would have to leap with a good amount of power at a precise angle in order to clear the high walls of the compound. The compound itself stood upon the summit of a large, gently sloping hill, so if she rolled when she landed she would be all right.
Entering the pagoda, Toyame ran pell-mell up the flight of stairs to the upper level. She felt the air grow hot as the flames shot through the dry summer grass surrounding the building.
Opening the door, Toyame scrambled onto the sloped surface of the roof and found her footing, clasping her staff for balance. Looking down, she saw that she was surrounded by a sea of flame that would devour her if she made the slightest mistake in her jump.
Again Toyame had forgotten the warning of the stranger, but she remembered it again in time to save her life. Waste no time in ascending the pagoda, for it is sentenced to destruction the moment you set foot upon its roof.
Toyame heard a horrible creaking sound. Turning her head to locate the source, she observed with no small amount of fear that one of the great trees in the rear courtyard had been eaten through by the flames and was falling. It was high enough that it would impact the pagoda as it fell and crush Toyame to jelly if she did not jump.
Jump she did. In two strides she arrived at the edge of the roof. With the third she planted her foot firmly against the edge and pushed off with all her strength.
Toyame could not remember the jump. All she could recall was falling, seeing that she had cleared the fence but would hit the ground head-first.
Two feet from having her skull crushed by the impact, Toyame came to a sudden halt.
The stranger had been waiting for her, just as he had said he would be. He had caught her as she fell and had saved her life.
He set her gently down upon the ground. Clasping his hand to his weapon’s hilt, he again placed his palm against the glyph there. It began to glow that same red again, as did the glyph upon his right eye.
For a moment he stood silent, and the next he removed his hand from his weapon and took in its grip Toyame’s hand. “We leave now,” he said brusquely. “The demons inhabiting the nearby hills will gather to see where the flames have come from, and I would rather not have to fight some of the more powerful specimens I saw.” He looked her in the eye, but he did so with his left eye, not his right. “I see many questions in your eyes, but you must keep them in check until we are at a place where we can talk safely. This is not such a place.”
Toyame did not stop to consider the implications of the night’s happenings. It was beyond her how things could change so dramatically in less than an hour. All that remained was for her to react and to survive. Taking preemptive action now was useless.
She let the stranger pull her to her feet and ran with him as they fled the shrine.
More later. As I said, I’m posting this up for your enjoyment and so I can get suggestions for improvement. With this story, I’m experimenting with a stiffer, more formal kind of language, and the characters are supposed to be very serious, so there aren’t many contractions to be found, especially in their speech. Until next time.
