Who: Usami Minako & Chae Baeksa @decthless Where: a secluded balcony
Some said the stars whispered to the scions of house Usami. Minako found they often screamed. Too high above to grasp, because she was so very short and they were very tall. But so loud. Silver-veiled martyrs, condemned to spectators, but she knew the feeling, and so she understood them. They spoke the same language, deciphered in ink, immortalized by her brushstroke. Such was their covenant. They shouted from their light-blessed lungs, and the wind carried their voices down to her, and she ensured they were heard. Always had. So then, why had they grown silent now? Minako spread her charts across the balcony, neatly lining them map by map into an uninterrupted chain of paper. Then, she knelt before them, supplicant and reader, her eyes flitting from the floor to the sky over and over, the way a rabbit poked her head out to peer for predator or kin. “Too much chaos,” she whispered to herself. “You’re all rattled, is that it? Scared into silence? I understand.”
Her hand lifted towards the sky and followed the lawless lines of a cluster of constellations, reduced to patchwork with so many holes. Half the words missing. Her pointer finger extended towards the brightest, as if beckoning it to reply to her. The dark pools of her eyes swallowed their light, but softened their splendor, her pupils wide open. She watched and observed and waited, but nothing replied, and so she dropped her hand and sighed sadly. Minako gathered her hair in her hands, the gold-silvered strands slipping through her fingers, and tied the tresses back with a ribbon. No distractions. Then, she tried again. Over and over, until a faint stir pulled her back into the now. Footsteps behind her. The hair on the back of her neck raised. Minako’s head snapped towards the origin of the sound, her mouth parting, then closing again. The most beautiful creature she had ever seen looked at her, and she didn’t think she liked it. Too much splendor, taking away from the star’s light. He’d even captured their glow in the silk spill of his hair. Greedy. For a moment, she merely stared, eyes growing large. Then, like a thread snapped, she remembered herself and scrambled to her feet, bowing. “My Lord. My most sincere apologies for taking up so much room. Do you need space?” Practised syllables fell from her lips in a chaotic deluge.