Fishing (open)

[Schala]

Katar sat by the side of a small stream with a fishing rod in her hand.

She was comtemplating how much her life had changed since the escape from her village and her arrival on Youkai Mountain. She had first met a kappa who said many youkai did not like humans, but wasn't that obvious? And then she had to say she was a youkai, because apparently she looked like one of...them.

Those horrible humans. Those dreadful people who had burned down her house and killed her parents. All because certain types of youkai ate humans. She herself did not, but she didn't object to anyone who did. Yes, it would hurt to lose a friend or family member, but that was just the food chain. Surely the fish Katar was going to catch was going to be missed by other fish, but that was nature. You couldn't change it.

What really bothered Katar was that the humans had gone after every single youkai in the town! Katar only knew one of the human hunters, and he had said that there weren't that many of his kind. It made her mad. And the added fact that he had been a friend of hers, not a close friend, just a friend, and that he was most likely dead by now. Would humans ever change?

[•Sweet Requiem•]

+ SWEET REQUIEM +
••• CALL ME SWEE •••

Though art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
- Bible, Daniel v.27

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She dreamt of motion, of the rocking of one body against another, of visceral pleasure let loose in a wave of wild singing; she dreamt of the physicality of scents, smells good and bad, a mixture of life that drips down the edge of a blade and lands red, lands dark. Blood, it surged through her veins, thundered in her ears and coursed down to curl into a knot beneath her belly. Arousal was sharp, but fleeting. Pain grounded her, turned the tumultuous chaos of her dreams into a surreal bath of tenderness, of warm hands, human hands. So vividly she remembers those human hands, so clearly the rough callouses which slide over her sleek, slender frame.

A knife, once. Now a woman, a girl-child, caught between two shapes with no where else to turn. She had lied in stillness for seventy years, untouched, forgotten among the crumbling bones of her master, of her owner -- she would never truly remember those eyes again, never remember the stiff smell of male sweat, of a sheathe of hard leather creased over with oil; still, she yearned for tight, dark places, for niches carved from the lives of others. Still, she craved, craved blood, as wet and red on her tongue as the berries of spring bursting between her searching, reaching fingers. Sweet Requiem -- a song of death, a threnody to the dead and dying, killed by her swipe, by her own body. Caught between two other worlds -- one before the change, one after, she remembers only what her instincts tell her, force her tongue to curve over syllables she only half remembers in her sleep.

Language falls apart when she reaches for it, memory held behind a mist of forgetfulness; and yet she is here, and she is real. Vicious, true beauty -- visceral and cruel in the sharp angles of her hips, in the narrow curves of her shoulders, the tilt of her head as she gazes so forthrightly through the shadows, pierces it with eyes accustomed to darkness. The sun rises, warmth along her back, waking her from her unrestful fit of sleep -- she circles and circles, stalking the thoughts that trail blood in her dreams, follow it into the waking world only to forget.

Frustration is not new to her. This life is not new. Two decades of this torment, and she has run herself into madness, walking the tight-wired line of a sharpened blade -- blades, blades, they dance in her vision, ache in her very blood! She wants without knowing, aches to become a different shape, the old one, the familiar one, and yet cannot understand that the veil parting one life from this new one is the existence she has carved for herself: Tsukumogami, and the word is a foul thing on her tongue, misunderstood and tossed aside in frustration.

She walks because she has no other option, she lives because she cannot conceive of a way to kill herself. Her lungs contract, force air up into her nasal passages, lets her breathe in the beautiful scents of the morning, let's her accommodate the brilliant light with each puffy breath of air she sucks greedily in between her lips. Such a strange contradiction, this silence and this need!

Without conscious knowing, her feet lead her true, lead her down paths of memory she wishes she could remember; Sweet Requiem -- a stamp, a tattoo, an engraving on her pearly white flesh screams her name, her identity and her tongue savors the name as it rolls from one arching letter to the next. Between one curve and the next, she has made herself a personality, built herself again to suit this new shape. Complexity comes with this rebirth and though she is often confused, often wary, she moves through the fog of mysticism and emerges whole, emerges beautiful though very few would think so -- her little spiraled horns are edged with metal, gleam sharply, though they themselves are harmless. Metal runs through her veins, with the blood she craves to see on the ground. Without thoughts, without sound she yearns for company, and instinctively the power coiled within her guts unfolds itself, blossoming like a night-blooming flower, delicate and light, unable to bare closer scrutiny. It uncoils it's vines, it's tendrils of knowledge reaching outward, outward, seeking what she wants, seeking what it needs to fulfill. Company, someone, anyone. Tell me who I am, and the harshness of the desire spurs her on as needles seem to pierce into her heels, making her walk, when she would have lain within the folds of the hills for eternity. If she ceased to move, would the power transform her youkai body and make it another shape to suit the mood? She wondered, she wondered, even as the power reached out, tugged directly at the heart, hooks dug deep beneath the flesh. It calls, this thing she wants, and she follows, for it is one of her gifts, this ability to pierce through the shadows of doubt and see true.

Whatever she wishes, she can find, if she had the courage to walk far enough, to endure long enough.

With nothing for her in the bleak expanse of her future, Sweet Requiem knows only time, and follows this line -- follows until it leads her true. A fishing rod held in two hands, tugging lightly as if it were part of a symphony of song, tugging, tugging, tugging at her own heart strings, her own desires, playing them like a lyre, a violin, song as sweet, as desperate as the one that blares loudly in her own head. Yes, yes, -- she smiles, though it is more a baring of her teeth, though it is more threatening than she knows; her eyes are intense, hooded and split, pupils as narrow as a cats, as slanted, and curved. She would purr if she knew how. She would look harmless if she could manage it.

Instead, with nothing between the two but the air with which they breath, Sweet Requiem eases forward on nigh silent pads, her toes sinking into the ground, quieting her approach, though she does not intend on hiding herself. "Hello." her voice ungentle, rough like a cat's tongue, as if the next syllable will roll off her tongue in a purr, a guttural growl of desire. Head tilts but the eyes do not blink, but stare, stare as if by merely moving away from the woman, the girl, the female, it would disappear like the smoke of her dreams. Stay, she thinks, she pleads without knowing, and reaches out toward that fishing rod, her fingers lightly plucking at the line, a strange sort of resonance echoing in the lines of her blood when it responds.

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word count;; 1133
tags;; Katar
OOC;; Hope you don't mind me butting in ;3

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[Schala]

Katar turned at the sound of a girl's voice. What she saw was a vicious-looking youkai. She assumed the girl was a nekomata judging by the shape of her ears, but she was wearing an evil smile - a VERY evil smile, and her eyes just completed the ghastly look.

Nevertheless, Katar rarely jumped to conclusions when hanging around youkai, and so she decided this girl was by chance not her enemy.

Then she did something very strange. The youkai sat down and plucked Katar's fishing rod as if it were a stringed instrument. Because of this, a really big fish happened to nab the bait and swim away. But Katar was too interested in what the other girl was up to to notice.

"Um...hello," she said in a somewhat timid manner, unusual for her.

[•Sweet Requiem•]

+ SWEET REQUIEM +
••• CALL ME SWEE •••

Though art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
- Bible, Daniel v.27

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When she had been other, when her shape had not had hands, but claws, teeth and fangs, fangs that swept through the whirlwind of hate and cut at flesh, Sweet Requiem had sung a song; her leather had been formed to produce the eerie song of death, singing as it swung, singing as it cut, singing as it killed. It was the torment of her existence, this song -- to listen, to create something beautiful out of something terrible. Though anyone who knew how to use a tool well enough knew that tools were not in themselves, evil, only neutral; that her existence had geared her toward the former is not something she had ever firmly grasped in her mind. Until now.

Yes, now -- when the world was singing to her, when her own voice was muted by the sheer magnitude of the earth's voice. The wind rattled the branches, shaking them fiercely -- the tap, tap, tap echoed in her veins, of the heartbeat that throbbed within her chest. Echoed down the line, a fragment yes, but a song nonetheless she had been trained to listen for, and her eyes slid to the side, followed the invisible wind by the path of it's course, followed it down into the hard earth, the swishing of the currents --- vibrating to the very fingers which had plucked at the fishing rod. The resonance warmed her, made her smile, a softer reflection of the first baring of teeth -- sweet, tender, a child's awe in the face of something so fantastically beautiful she had no words for it; she listened to it, heard it in the very blood she had been gifted, remembered harsh leather binding her body, of the wind slipping roughly through the holes and singing --- god yes, the singing.

There was glory in the singing, and there was glory in this. Her eyes flicked up, chartreuse and cat-split, tilted to the side in that curiously neutral sort of way; curiosity had not yet risen, for she was held in the grasp of this music, of the beauty of a voice that was not a voice. In it was the voice of the very earth, of the chanting, ethereal strength of the land which gave them life; though she was an instrument of death, she was part of this life -- and without the means to speak out and become materialistic, she was spiritual. By merely existing, she knew the path of music, the path of the voice which spoke to her very soul -- spoke in silence to every soul.

It is the voice of history, the voice of the land, of the rain pounding on the ground, in the knots of hunger which eats at your stomach. How long since she had eaten? How long? How long? She could not remember and dismissed it, feeling herself rocked against the gentle thrum of life and the resonance that simmered in the very marrow. She smiled, yes, she had smiled as the symphony rose up -- begun at the plucking of the fishing rod, to the fish which had been able to get the food and swim free. Freedom! What a heady, intoxicating thing. To be free, cutting yourself from the stings of your history -- from the very land which had succored you. It seemed passing strange to wrestle yourself free from the thing which gave you strength, yet she ached for it -- to be reattached to the thing she had been cut from.

She was a creature of metal and steel, and yet given blood by the very magic of this land, she had become part of it, parcel to the wind's voice, to the world's turning. Her eyes had been opened to this song, to see the strings where they had begun, and where they would go. In the end, it was the voice of the future, singing back through the tunnel of eternity, telling everyone it would be okay. It was a song that consumed her, made her feel as if everything truly was going to be okay. She would find it, find her, him, whatever it was that she was searching for unbeknownst. Eventually the weapon would be picked up, for sure, for sure.

Music from one corner, music from the next, always around and around, dangling from her still fingers, waiting for the next movement to stir another current of air, to sing, to sing -- how she loved to sing, but to sing now, would she dare? Would she dare open her mouth and speak of her dreams, of the blood that tastes so fine on her tongue? No, no, and she tempers herself, thinks of fleeing, frightened by the eyes which look at her, which stare at her so; Purple eyes, a reflection of timidity spirals out of control, throws shadows into the circles, the round pupil, the curved iris. She stares back -- -Um...hello, -- and the voice is rough, less like music, more like the physicality of their bodies. Human almost, but not quite. What is she, this demon, this Youkai, with lips almost smiling, almost not, trembling on the edges of both whims and frightening Swee: which way would they turn? The voice is hesitant, and she fears to speak. And yet, and yet -- she wants to know, wants to feel, to taste, to see with understanding, comprehension lighting her eyes, her heart.

There is nothing there now, but the surreal, enigmatic satisfaction of the song that slowly, inevitably fades from her mind -- the wind slows, the cold comes back though the sun is so brilliantly shining above them, warming them. It is a love unlike she has ever known, but she must speak or fail! Speak, speak! Tsukumogami or not, she must speak, to rid of this fear, to find; it is the first step which is always the hardest, but Swee has been walking for a long time, following two decades of dead ends. This would be but another, but she knew that in stepping this way, in giving herself, opening herself, perhaps, the path will open to a new direction. No smile but the shyness which curves her eyelashes, makes her fearful of repercussions as she shifts her toes, moving from her crouch to kneel, to feel the hard earth beneath her knees. Had she once been part of this? She wondered, she wondered, "Who are you?" she asks, voice as rough as before, as feral. There is a wildness in her eyes, an untamed curve to the quivering muscles which tighten beneath her skin. Her hair is in tangles, rough and snarled; but her eyes, they crave, they're open, wanting, wanting -- she leans forward, head tilting to the side again, a strange sort of tick as she eases forward, gets perhaps too close. "Who are you?" she asks again, reaching out to tap the woman's forehead, those blood-soaked locks reminding her, familiarizing a memory just out of reach. "Why do you have blood in your hair?" a question, a trembling of her lips as her voice slips over her tongue with unfamiliar sounds -- nothing like the music she sings, but enough, let's hope, enough.

word count;; 1206
tags;; Katar
OOC;; Poor thing, she's so confused.

[Schala]

The baring teeth of the youkai disappeared as she closed her mouth, and her eyes opened up more. She asked Katar twice who she was, and Katar answered.

"My name is Katar Sailuneran. I live here."

The timidity in her voice was gone; she now spoke with normal, if not somewhat sharp, tone. She was wary of this new youkai, not knowing what her intentions were, and she looked like she could do quite a bit of damage.

And she seemed to be getting awfully close. Katar shied back a little bit as the youkai reached out to touch her when she spoke again.

The question of blood in Katar's hair came as a shock. No one had ever inquired about anyone's hair color from what she had seen.

"My hair is naturally red, thank you."

Now it was Katar's turn to speak.

"And what is your name?" she asked.