Letters to Kong’huo: Black and Blue
The sky was dark over Thunder Bluff as she stared up to the night sky, the cloud cover thick and blotting out the stars leaving the world mostly dark aside from a few lights that were on the central Bluffs. Those flames flickering were the only ‘stars’ the evening had to offer and it didn’t help that sinking pit that was cold and heavy in her chest and growing with its icy grasp by the day. There was no real control over the emotions that were building in her chest as the dark night offered no light but oh how she was trying to grasp onto the strands of light that she carried. There were few sounds coming to the tent at this time of night as the rest of the world seemed to have fallen asleep in the blanket of darkness that was heavy and unrelenting. With the door of the tent open she stared outwards, a pad of paper there in front of her and a pen in her hand though it shook as she tried to find the words that were running through her mind so very quickly. It was hard to grasp upon all of them especially as they seemed to move like lightning around in her mind and it was all just out of her trembling grasp. “Why...why does this h-have to be s-so hard to write…” With Wei beside her as a heavy and warm reminder that she at the very least wasn’t completely alone, she looked down to the paper once more. ‘My dearest Kong’huo, A darkness has come down onto the Bluffs tonight, not even a star to guide me and at this moment I so desperately need it. Captain Splitshield is with calf, as I was told formally today, and as an effort to repair the trust between us she has asked that I help her in finding a name for the little one that is yet to be. I was so happy when she asked me this, really, because I didn’t think the silence between us would really ever be broken beside pleasant conversation. She also wanted to have me tell you that when you get back she wants to work on you becoming a Guard...I think I have told you that already. I am at a loss for coherency right now, I am sorry.’ A sniffle broke the silence in the air as she shut her eyes with a wrinkle of her nose, a tear breaking through her closed lids and streaking down her cheek and losing itself in the fur before it could fall away from her face. Adjusting her glasses upon her nose she smoothly wiped at her eyes which seemed far more practiced than it should have been. Sometimes you get too used to crying. ‘I was so happy, but in the evening afterward I found out something from Malourn that broke my spirits entirely. I am lost in a mixture of emotions from anger to fear and the pressure of them hanging down hurts. Rhedin herself suspected me in the death of my sister, in the mutilation of the others within Bluepaw. She honestly thought that I was involved in all of that...I still cannot process that. I...how could anyone think that I wanted to hurt Lau? She was so much to me. She was a part of my heart and soul and had been there for me for so long...how could I be involved with killing my own sister? Is that why she demoted me? Because she thought I was dangerous and malicious? I don’t know what to do Kong’huo, I feel so lost right now and I don’t know what to do. Do I just shrug off the information that Mal gave to me and just go along with what the Captain, former Captain, wants? But how could I? I need your guidance and I need your strength right now. It has been so long since I have heard from you that I am starting to worry needlessly. I know that you can handle yourself but… I hope that you come home soon, I see your face everywhere and my heart aches with the past month that we have spent apart. Every day is difficult because even now I keep finding myself cooking too much, looking to clean your clothing as well, looking for you at the forge. Please, come home soon and come home safely. With all the love in my heart, I hope that you are doing well.
Your Skyflower.’
Dropping her quill to one side she shuddered, trembling there where she lay and rolling over onto her back to stare up at the blank sky. She was struggling, trying so desperately to be strong as she stroked the locket at her throat and the flower that was resting in a safe place beside the bed. To anyone passing by it would have been an odd sight, for sure, to see her laying with the door to the tent so widely open and just staring up at the pitch black of the night sky, but anyone passing by likely would have left her alone aside from precious few. The pitch of the heavens above her did nothing for her mood, as his words echoed through her mind. Look for the stars and they would guide him home, or guide her to him. But there were no stars for her to look for, there was nothing up there this night to give her that guidance that she wanted so badly. How much she just wanted to run off, to go home and try to find him. To spend however long she needed going to each of the Temples and to just run into his arms and never leave them again. to where the word made sense and the pain of everything she was thinking would just leave her. Comfort, she needed comfort. Instead she had her fears that had settled into her rather clearly. Had that malicious rumor had it to Kong’huo’s ears? Was that the reason that he had left and the excuse of Jyukko just a reason to leave? He would never lie about her, but...what if that was why he had never asked Mei to go with him. Was that the reason that he had left her there at the Bluffs instead of taking her with him like he had back to the island in the first place? Had she been somehow sullied in his eyes and he was trying to escape her? Somewhere, deep in her mind, she knew that the thoughts had no evidence. There was no proof nor reason to think what she was and yet they just kept coming and they kept on cycling stronger and harder with each pass by. It was a vicious cycle she had found herself in as she stared up hopelessly at the night sky. Another tear ran out of the corner of her eye, nearly at the verge of sobs where she sat in the cacophony of silence around her. It was thunderous and loud, deafening and only the roar of her thoughts to break through it and cause it to simply become louder. Was she going to hear from him again? Was this his way of trying to end things without having to face her breaking heart? Was this how she was going to lose him? Laying thousands of miles away and staring up at the sky while he was getting his life back together? She had been left before, she knew that pain and it knew her so very well...it was crushing and all consuming and looming over the horizon like a beast that could not be felled. “A-are y-you e...ever come...coming home?” The words choked out of her tight throat and were punctuated by a sob given to the iron curtain of the night. Trembling there where she lay, Wei-feng moved closer in his sleep to be a heavy grumbling reminder that she wasn’t completely alone, a snort given into her ear as he shifted his weight before that heavy head came to rest across her stomach. Her hands moved to his head, stroking through his fur as she began to cry, mourning a loss she was not certain of.







