Bafflingly, this memory begins from the eyes of a man with fluffy hair and a bronze bell-collar, jangling as he jerks back away from a tiger-eared woman with a guan dao... a fraction too late, as it pierces his ribs and into his heart. He squeezes his eyes shut, teary with pain--
--and Natsume opens her eyes again, gasping, with tears running down her cheeks. She's still for a moment, staring up into the nothingness above her, before she takes a breath and pushes herself up with the thought that she's "failed again."
The space around her is dark but not oppressively so; in fact, the black floor seems to stretch on forever into nothingness. The only things in view are a series of massive red torii gates, all in a row, marking a path to... somewhere, melting into the darkness. Before them sits a stone statue of a nondescript fox in a purple bib, a golden dish hanging from its mouth. Within the dish is a gently pulsing mass of red flesh that looks suspiciously like a human heart.
Natsume urges herself up and to keep going, staggering towards the gates; she's exhausted and her stomach cramps painfully, but she continues.
Or... tries to; the iron tang of the bloody muscle hits her before she can move much farther past the statue, and she regards it with-- terror, almost, sweat beading on her brow. There's a little voice in her head, whispered, that says, it's the easiest way. You don't have to keep suffering like this.
Her own little voice, internally whispers, don't, but it's too weak to change anything.
The hunger overtakes her. A fox's paws move forward and a fox's drooling jaws part in greedy desire, climbing onto the statue pedestal. The heart's beat quickens, as if it senses the predatory intent of the creature inches from snatching it up. The whispers are silent now. Something in the darkness watches, eager and everywhere at once.
The fox freezes.
... and she blinks, standing before the statue with a hand over her mouth, carefully considering what she almost did. The heartbeat slows to a soft thump, relaxed again, and for a long moment Tanuki simply watches the muscle contract.
Instead of hunger, resentment fills her gut. "... you can't possibly expect me to take the easy way out now, Hahaue," she says. The darkness gives no response. The whispers do not return.
She carefully steps around the statue, and continues into the long darkness of the beckoning gates.
Natsume was long used to this, by now. She didn't-- couldn't-- grow apathetic to it. All lives she lived affected her. She wasn't capable of being unaffected, no matter how hard she tried to steel her thoughts or shield her heart or prepare herself for the coming trial.
It didn't stop her from trying, of course; perhaps that was why her failures kept ratcheting higher and higher with each new scenario, why each iteration of trying to distance herself within the confines of the body she shared failed with swift and painful certainty, why she struggled more and more to keep those walls up in the face of everything she was presented.
I think maybe you're missing the point of this, Xiao had said to her early on in the last incarnation with him, and she ignored him then. What did a dog know? He'd been quiet since the end of his cycle, in any case, so why was she even thinking about him?
Perhaps, too, this was why such bone-deep exhaustion permeated her entire being. It shouldn't: having no physical body meant there was nothing to exhaust.
One's mind and soul can become just as exhausted as their body, Cecilia's soft voice whispered around her. You should rest. Your magic--
"That's enough," Natsume said aloud, and the gentle tittering in her brain of various voices were suddenly silenced. She waited a moment to see if it would return, but only silence awaited her, and she started walking towards the familiar gate-lined path.
"... And I'm hallucinating now, I see."
She glanced at the heart, slowly beating its dish, and delicately brushed a fingertip over it as she passed. The hunger burned at her gut, but she no longer felt starved or desperate or any of the things that so plagued her last cycle. Perhaps that was the reward of possessing "desire" and "instinct" both; the shivering mass of flesh only stirred vague uncertainty in her.
Her path took her once more into the dark, far and away, until she no longer felt the pads of her feet against the unending floor or the looming presence of the gates or the open and empty darkness.
It was a slow thing, but familiar, when awareness returned to her, body stiff and uncomfortable as she tried to push herself up, vision hazy in the dim light,
her heart stuttering like a dying rabbit,
every hair on end,
every inch of skin alive with prickling electricity.
Something's wro--
You dare?
A noise like a thundercrack echoed through her skull and though she hadn't the awareness to understand what had happened the force of it sent her flying back, her slight body skidding over the ground until she was forcefully stopped by something solid at her back with a painful, sickening crunch.
She wheezed desperately for breath, collapsed entirely onto her front, and laid there in aching stillness until the pain was such that she could manage to move her arms. Not without difficulty: something was definitely broken, somewhere, and iron-scented warmth blossomed from the back of her head as she pressed her shaking fingers to the wound and slowly poured her healing into it just enough to stop the bleeding and reduce the pain. Just enough to think again.
Not that that helped anything, when awareness returned enough to show she was back where she started, that whatever it was she'd encountered had purged her from that physical plane and back through the gate. She slowly pushed herself up, limbs shaking, and stared down the dark path, eyes wide with anxiety.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tail 1
Re: tail 1
She was a bird, presented with an insect. She looked away.
She was a snake, presented with a bird. She slithered off.
She was a hawk, presented with a snake. She took to the air.
She was a fox, on two feet, with two hands, with a furrowed brow, staring at the beating offering set before her, below the statue's mocking grin.
Into the dark of the surrounding air, she said, "... I have already lived this. Mother, I have two tails."
The darkness whispered back, Continue again.
Fury bubbled in her chest, but she walked into the shadowed torii-lined pathway once more.
tail 2
tail 3
tail 4
tail 5
tail 6
tail 7
Re: tail 7
--and Natsume opens her eyes again, gasping, with tears running down her cheeks. She's still for a moment, staring up into the nothingness above her, before she takes a breath and pushes herself up with the thought that she's "failed again."
The space around her is dark but not oppressively so; in fact, the black floor seems to stretch on forever into nothingness. The only things in view are a series of massive red torii gates, all in a row, marking a path to... somewhere, melting into the darkness. Before them sits a stone statue of a nondescript fox in a purple bib, a golden dish hanging from its mouth. Within the dish is a gently pulsing mass of red flesh that looks suspiciously like a human heart.
Natsume urges herself up and to keep going, staggering towards the gates; she's exhausted and her stomach cramps painfully, but she continues.
Or... tries to; the iron tang of the bloody muscle hits her before she can move much farther past the statue, and she regards it with-- terror, almost, sweat beading on her brow. There's a little voice in her head, whispered, that says, it's the easiest way. You don't have to keep suffering like this.
Her own little voice, internally whispers, don't, but it's too weak to change anything.
The hunger overtakes her. A fox's paws move forward and a fox's drooling jaws part in greedy desire, climbing onto the statue pedestal. The heart's beat quickens, as if it senses the predatory intent of the creature inches from snatching it up. The whispers are silent now. Something in the darkness watches, eager and everywhere at once.
The fox freezes.
... and she blinks, standing before the statue with a hand over her mouth, carefully considering what she almost did. The heartbeat slows to a soft thump, relaxed again, and for a long moment Tanuki simply watches the muscle contract.
Instead of hunger, resentment fills her gut. "... you can't possibly expect me to take the easy way out now, Hahaue," she says. The darkness gives no response. The whispers do not return.
She carefully steps around the statue, and continues into the long darkness of the beckoning gates.
tail 8
Re: tail 8
It didn't stop her from trying, of course; perhaps that was why her failures kept ratcheting higher and higher with each new scenario, why each iteration of trying to distance herself within the confines of the body she shared failed with swift and painful certainty, why she struggled more and more to keep those walls up in the face of everything she was presented.
I think maybe you're missing the point of this, Xiao had said to her early on in the last incarnation with him, and she ignored him then. What did a dog know? He'd been quiet since the end of his cycle, in any case, so why was she even thinking about him?
Perhaps, too, this was why such bone-deep exhaustion permeated her entire being. It shouldn't: having no physical body meant there was nothing to exhaust.
One's mind and soul can become just as exhausted as their body, Cecilia's soft voice whispered around her. You should rest. Your magic--
"That's enough," Natsume said aloud, and the gentle tittering in her brain of various voices were suddenly silenced. She waited a moment to see if it would return, but only silence awaited her, and she started walking towards the familiar gate-lined path.
"... And I'm hallucinating now, I see."
She glanced at the heart, slowly beating its dish, and delicately brushed a fingertip over it as she passed. The hunger burned at her gut, but she no longer felt starved or desperate or any of the things that so plagued her last cycle. Perhaps that was the reward of possessing "desire" and "instinct" both; the shivering mass of flesh only stirred vague uncertainty in her.
Her path took her once more into the dark, far and away, until she no longer felt the pads of her feet against the unending floor or the looming presence of the gates or the open and empty darkness.
It was a slow thing, but familiar, when awareness returned to her, body stiff and uncomfortable as she tried to push herself up, vision hazy in the dim light,
her heart stuttering like a dying rabbit,
every hair on end,
every inch of skin alive with prickling electricity.
Something's wro--
A noise like a thundercrack echoed through her skull and though she hadn't the awareness to understand what had happened the force of it sent her flying back, her slight body skidding over the ground until she was forcefully stopped by something solid at her back with a painful, sickening crunch.
She wheezed desperately for breath, collapsed entirely onto her front, and laid there in aching stillness until the pain was such that she could manage to move her arms. Not without difficulty: something was definitely broken, somewhere, and iron-scented warmth blossomed from the back of her head as she pressed her shaking fingers to the wound and slowly poured her healing into it just enough to stop the bleeding and reduce the pain. Just enough to think again.
Not that that helped anything, when awareness returned enough to show she was back where she started, that whatever it was she'd encountered had purged her from that physical plane and back through the gate. She slowly pushed herself up, limbs shaking, and stared down the dark path, eyes wide with anxiety.
This was "compassion"?
tail 9
CELESTRIALS/ETC