A Song in Spirit: Prelude 1
"Himiko! Have you hung the seaweed out to dry?" A mother called out to her daughter, who nodded in agreement. Himiko is a mute girl, or rather, unable to speak in any local language. Whenever she tries, it just sounds unintelligible and foreign. It is not the common tongue Shingo of the Coalition her home belonged to, nor Elderspeak, that which they speak on the opposite side of the sea enveloping Himiko’s home island. An old woman in the village said that it sounds beautiful, almost enthralling. As the young girl was folding sheets of cloth hermother walked over to her, a woman who would be the spitting image of a worrywart whose frame was lithe and petite, when standing next to her daughter only crow’s feet could tell their ages apart. Due, in part, to Himiko being a bit taller than the average teenage girl, and her mother having a rounder, softer face than most other women. Himiko took a second to look up from the blanket she was holding, it was more a patchwork of wild silk woven together by herself, she had found a small colony of worms living in a tree not far from their farmhouse. A hand met Himiko’s aloof face and rubbed her cheek. Something in her mother's eyes conveyed an emotion somewhere between bewilderment and worry.
"I’ll never get used to this." She said, and after a long pause which bordered on awkward, she continued. “Would you mind helping me with dinner before your father gets home?” Himiko nodded as her mother stared at her for a few more seconds before getting back to working on skinning the recent catches of fish, leaving Himiko alone with the blankets again.
Himiko herself felt a bit uneasy about her current condition, if that even was the right word for it, she had felt a lot different due to the way she looked, not to mention the fact that she couldn’t speak properly. People didn’t treat her like she was human, almost as if whatever made her this way changed the inside as well as the outside. The people around her village often spoke past her when she shopped with her mother and otherwise ignored her, when not acting like they were close to her to garner attention from any visiting traders. It was the most likely reason for her aloofness, the way she would often pretend like she really wasn’t present was in a way some form of payback. That said, she was not hard to look at, not necessarily because of her facial traits, there was simply something about her; the most attention she did get was indeed because of this, as many of the more brazen boys would coo rude things at her, somehow expecting that to pass for wooing. Her best and only friend was not native to the island, a noble boy from the Elder's Ring who visited the island upon the solstices, when the massive Kaijuu would gather in the nearby waters to mate and court each other. The sight of the massive sea serpents curling around each other, scales shining in various colours as the sun ascended and descended made her home a decently popular tourist spot before summer sweltered the island; what with the neighboring Jeju Island being military property and the coast having a less picturesque feeling to it. The noble boy was from the Eunhaeng family, a family that is very prestigious, but not the wealthiest. He would often come to her home during the day and help her out with the fishing, a crackshot with the bow like him couldn’t help but show off by consistently almost hitting the fish, but she mostly enjoyed his company due to the air of normalcy. Just hanging out was a great feeling, and the few weeks every year they met felt like vacation from the subtle alienation of her everyday life.
She went inside her family's house again, it was a small cottage with only a hall, which acted as kitchen and sleeping quarters and a small storage room next to it within which they stored most of the years catch. Her mother had laid out a filleted fish to be put on a pan for tonight’s dinner but forgot to put literally anything else on the tiny wooden table by the fire. Himiko would have been any kind of cross about it but wasn’t in the mood for being frustrated so she went into the storage to look for some radishes and maybe some oil, while musing on whether to make soup, or if spices would be too expensive to use. A cursory glance at the contents of the storage room told her more than she needed to know, there were many things there, but few of any kind, and she realised that the reason her mother had put out only fish was because that was all they should spare. But fraternizing with rich boys from the mainland had its advantages, the noble boy had brought with him a bunch of spices from his house one day earlier this year, as a sign of gratitude from his mother to Himiko’s, for feeding, housing, and entertaining her child for that time. The foreign and expensive spices would have been sold long ago had it not been for Himiko’s mother’s own principles, that woman would rather sell her house than her honour, it seemed. Either way Himiko was hungry, and not eating the spices was more of a disgrace in her mind, so she brought some well-smelling spice mix from some hopefully as well-smelling far-away place, with which she would make soup for tonight, planning to make up for what she wasted later.
She felt a bit of drowsiness creep upon her as she was dicing some wild-grown onions, preparing for the fish; she had done almost all her chores and she made sure she woke up early to check on the silkworms outside their farm, all of this left her well more than tired now that she had time to do something less tiring for her. She was contemplating whether she should go over to her own part of the hall where her futon was waiting for her while the food was boilingand catch a nap while waiting for her father, her mother mentioned she’d join her soon either way. She put the water in a bronze bowl over the small fire she’d made and looked at her futon with lazy intent, and as she strode closer her mother entered the doorway, clicking her tongue at Himiko.
“Did you intend to leave the fish laying like this?” Himiko rubbed the bridge of her nose, her mother was right, but was also right there to finish cooking so Himiko didn’t really see the issue. She turned back, and the two exchanged glances, the mother gazing with a bit of scorn and Himiko looking back as if saying “You do it then”, and then they both sighed, at each other and with each other. The mother went out to bring in the linens, mentioning it in passing as she did and Himiko begrudgingly began cooking again. But as she did her mother called for her again, but not as agitated or even as loudly as Himiko expected. Himiko looked at her futon, weighing the option of going out or simply ignoring her mother and going to sleep, more out of spite than any actual weariness. But her mother called out again, and now she sounded more urged, or as if she were pleading, it didn’t sound right either way. Himiko dumped the fish filets into the hot, spiced water before striding out half-hurriedly. When she got out of the house and into the small garden, three men stood near the house, looking sternly, both at her mother and in the direction of Himiko. Two of them carrying large swords in sheaths lined with engravings of water, and blue armour that looked to be worth about as much as the house Himiko lived in. The armour seemed unnecessarily heavy, being made of what solid stone.
Meanwhile the one in the middle looked quite different, he wore blue makeup around his eyes like traveling theatre artists did, but with lines that seemed to evoke an image of terror. He bore a long blue dress, as that of a noble, which seemed to give off light with his every breath, either by design or as if his breath fuelled the shimmering. Himiko felt she had to prevent herself from laughing at the absurdity of the situation, or at least the sudden nature of it.
“Good day Himiko, I am Cheong-Di, The Elder of Water." The absurdly decorated man said matter-of-factly, further abstracting the situation. Himiko huffed a bit, but it sounded more like a stifled chuckle, while looking to her bright-red mother for some confirmation that this wasn’t a prank of some sort. The man standing in front of her was one of the leaders of the Elder’s Ring, a nation that thought of her home island as its own but made no real claim to it. He was a powerful conjuror at that, as the other Elders he governed with were. He simply stood there eyeing her with a face that resembled a volcano, stern as rock but without any stability. She looked from her mother to him and only now realized that the fabric of his robe was reacting to his sheer magical power, making more sense than it simply being woven out of some kind of shining silk. Her mother tried to speak but the Elder silenced her immediately, still staring at Himiko.
"I am aware that you cannot speak Elderspeak, nor Shingo. Yet I would like to hear you talk." He spoke in a calm manner, as if nothing in the world could bother him. Yet she couldn't shake this strange feeling that he was on edge, almost prepared to strike, like a coiled snake. Himiko looked away, instead looking at the two men behind the Elder, standing at attention with two hands on the pommel of their blades, which upon closer inspection were of impressing size. She took a moment to think of what was best to say, but could only think of one thing
"Sel Fereaquos a neul?” Her voice was lean as silk, even though she hadn't spoken in a long time, and her words seemed even more soft and alluring. For every word she spoke she could see the Elder's calm slowly dissolve and whatever was boiling beneath the crust of his composure was soon to break the surface. His men lost their composure for a second, before fixing their gazes on Himiko’s mother. "Amazing" was the only word that escaped the Elders mouth, as he seemed exhale the word. "I beg your pardon. What was that?" Himiko's mother asked, stepping a bit closer to her daughter, she had not been blind to the sudden change in behaviour and maternal instinct had more sway over her than fear did. Cheong-Di slowly turned his gaze to her, holding it while his men stepped to his side. Himiko reached to grab her mother’s hand, stepping towards her but before she knew it, one of the men shot forth and grabbed her mother by the neck. He was fast as lightning, it barely took him five seconds to wrestle the woman down and incapacitate her, he moved as if he was wearing nothing, and his stone armour did more to assist his swift takedown than hinder it. The sudden nature of what transpired shocked Himiko, and her body seemed to turn on autopilot and run, as fast as her legs could carry her. But she could hear the Elder say something as if he was already heading away, then the scramble of armour and soon her hastened breath took her focus, while the stone grinding upon itself came closer. Eventually one of the soldiers caught up and managed to issue a blow to the back of Himiko's head. She did not black out immediately, but the dull pain throbbed away all her other senses, as if she was instantly thrust underwater. When she fell to the ground, she could hear herself lulling silently while a lukewarm stream of blood began to trail its way down her cheek and drip onto the ground below. As Himiko could see the grass around her blur while the blood ran into her eyes, a silken white strand with small scriptures inched its way from her mouth and into the air, she could see it in her mind’s eye, floating ever upwards while her real eyes shut. It seemed to exude a silent murmur as it rose and dissipated into thin air, along with Himiko's consciousness.