a sneer spreads over the swordsman's lips, the bridge of his nose crinkling as if he smells something foul— and in a way, he does. yone has never encountered someone who so gleefully participates in the breeding of despair. it disgusts him. "the azakana do not haunt you, but they trail behind you like wild dogs with hungry maws, eager for you to feed them. i will end you and the agony you carve in this world."
This is not part of the script. This is an interruption.
At least the peak of the final act has already run its course. The heads have unfurled from the shoulders of his actors, and petals fall slowly through the air. It is the resolution now, the quiet ending. But now there’s him. It is not what Jhin intended. It is not what he envisioned.
And yet, improvisation is the soul of a good show, isn’t it? Jhin reminds himself of the fact, and it is not hard to lean into the dialogue of the spectral onlooker. The azakana have been interwoven into Jhin’s work, their images pulled apart and used to decorate his canvases. He wears their face upon his own— distorted and elevated to suit the tastes of the virtuoso. To think they are his audience, too. The creatures of myth and song, seated wide-eyed and hungry at his show. Jhin is not surprised, but he is delighted all the same.
Something whispers to him from the wings, a feeling in the back of his mind that the threat is more than just words, and that he is in danger. But Jhin has never been one to run, but rather, to smile from behind his mask and stand proudly, palms open and Whisper humming its song.
“Are you not moved?” he asks. “Do you not see the beauty?” It is soft and lovely. They smiled as they died. It is a death that blooms from the earth and faces the sun as it waltzes across the sky. Jhin chuckles, sharp and weightless like a shard of broken glass.
“If not this, then what?” he asks. “What is art, if not a dying scream?”
