They Wore Cyan War Paint

"Hiyah!"

Voices echo from the sands of the beach through the open window. With each shout, one can hear the power of the water, the strength within the warriors and the renewed hope that not only fills their heart but the hearts of all the islanders whose chattering is now audible to Kizura’s hut. The hut specifically built on the highest hill, furthest from persuasion, the barracks, the chieftain’s quarters. Oh, how Kizura wished they could’ve been further. Even through the window, you can still see the deceptive cyan war paint shimmer in the sunlight. You can still see the waves they manipulate strike and glide according to their will. You can still be seduced.

    Kizura was seduced by the cyan, the power, and the ocean once, when she was still a girl. At that time, she and the other kids would huddle around the windows lining the northern wing of the nursery and watch as the older kids trained to be just like their parents. Early in the morning until evening it seemed as though thousands of beasts took to the shore and tore it to shreds. But it was the unity and intensity that  defined the infantry which ensnared the youth. Kizura had worshipped it. She’d sneak onto the beach during training time, meant only for the warriors, and try her hardest to follow every move, and despite being terribly coordinated, she kept at it. Back at the nursery, she seemed like a prodigy to the other kids. Beaming and flaunting the skills she developed through imitation, skipping meals to struggle through particularly difficult footwork and water manipulation. It’s not as though the nurses had any real hardship cleaning the bath water Kizura left all over the place. They encouraged it. They taught the children how to feel the presence of water, how to enforce their will on it, and how to keep their focus so it’s shape and purpose could be maintained. Grooming is what Kizura would call it now.

    There were forces outside the realm of the island that desired to devour it’s life, the life able to sustain itself, and hold its own. Perhaps it wanted something specific, perhaps it wanted their power, perhaps it simply wanted to see them in despair. Either way, when the unending war with these forces was at a significant height, Kizura, then a fierce warrior and captain, with the rest of her peers, were dispatched as reinforcements. They had been molded into beasts because they had to face monsters, amalgamations, creatures of unearthly proportions. Creatures with daggers for claws, swords for teeth, and a hunger for blood. Their lives depended on the footwork entrenched into their bodies. On the opportunities that presented themselves within the seconds used to dodge some thing’s tail, each other, fire or wind from a maw or wings. But they had their unity and that intensity they admired, and they had Kizura. She dominated the waves, overpowered enemies and saved lives. Her orders were what her friends clinged to, to get them out of a bind or to coordinate them when ambushed and confused. So when she had to be sent home to raise the child growing within her, everyone wanted to kill the second-in-command who could only give his lover her kiss goodbye and promise of return.

Broken.

The day Kizura met the curly black hair and wet cinnamon skin, was the day Kizura lost sea-green eyes and laughter. After that she vowed to never dawn the cyan paint again. And if she could help it, Hikaria wasn’t going to either. Kizura raised Hikaria with fear. There was love, and heartache and strictness. But the fear is what brought her to the highest hill.

And yet, just like when she was a girl looking out the big windows of the nursery, Hikaria gravitated toward the tiny window the second she learned to crawl. It didn’t matter how many times Kizura tried drawing her attention away with birds made out of water flying through the bedroom, or songs of love, storytime, yelling, consoling, food, drawings, Hikaria went back to that cursed window. And what was Kizura to do? Shut the windows, lock the doors, and dispel every inkling of curiosity? How could she, when she was reminded of those sea-green eyes and laughter every time her baby gleamed out the window? How could she possibly rip away that contagious joy, just because it choked her heart? No, Kizura wouldn’t do that. She’d rather teach Hikaria that water is life and is everywhere, that it can help her. Teach her how to work with it, play with it, understand it. Water isn’t a weapon, and neither is she. The hardest part was deterring the mobile influence, islanders, ex-comrades-in-arms, and the elderly chieftain, at the same time.