Eitsu's Nine Lives (永津の九生) [yuri/GL yokai reincarnation story]

32 - Chup-tuk

A/N: Minor NSFW

***

The country of Chup-tuk was almost permanently under snowfall. Stands of pine and fir trees stood in silent clusters across the landscape. There were very few roads; small trails appeared and led to nowhere, glowing lights provided apparent guidance before vanishing.

With Tsubaki's hand curled around her elbow, Eitsu walked through the snow without the slightest hesitation, following ancient paths in her head. Occasionally, their feet would meet rock, and looking down, Tsubaki could see carved paving stones, the square patterns resembling the designs on Eitsu's robes.

They came to a frozen lake, the ice so clear that when they walked out onto it, they could see, far down into the depths, the frozen shapes of fish, and below them, the carved stones of buildings.

"What is this?" Tsubaki asked, her breath frosting in the thin air.

"Nu-kando," Eitsu said. "That was the place where I was born." She scored shapes on the surface of the lake with her nail. "... Luck really doesn't last forever."

"It's only a start," Tsubaki said.

"Hm."

They wandered away from Nu-kando, no destination in mind. Tsubaki lost track of time, as she followed Eitsu, hand in hand, across the snow, scrambling and jumping over the gigantic remains of stone faces and animal statues, down amongst the dark fir trees. She felt tiny in a vast place, even Eitsu seeming somehow huge and distant. They pause between some enormous stone fingers, the only visible signs of a stone hand buried in the earth and snow.

"Let's keep going this way," Eitsu said. "The ocean isn't far."

She was right. They arrived quickly, the grey water oddly calm aside from a few fleecy caps of sea foam. It was soothing, somehow. Unlike the blue waters to the south, the ocean beside Soraki and Kinhama, Tsubaki felt a wave of peace come over her. At the same time, her limbs felt heavy.

She was tired. Even now, her fingers finally entwined with Eitsu's after so many years (so many deaths), the past was not something that would simply vanish. How heavenly it would be, to simply walk out into the water, the two of them, as if they were actors in a play about forbidden love, and as they disappeared, the audience would clap and cheer, and then go home. It was only a play. It was only fiction.

Could we dissolve into the water and cease to exist?

Tsubaki took a deep breath, her lungs filling with frigid air.

Or could we, finally, be happy?

She realised Eitsu was staring into the water with a distracted frown. "Eitsu-sama, is something wrong?"

"This place..." She let go of Tsubaki's hand and crouched down to scan the water. "I have a memory of something happening here... Argh, why can't I remember? It was... a hundred years ago? Someone was here..."

Thank you. Thank you.

Leaving Eitsu to rack her brains, Tsubaki wandered down the stony beach, dreamily watching the water under her feet, over her feet, caressing her ankles, her shins...

"Tsu-bo!"

Eitsu lifted her bodily from the water, panicked. "What are you doing? That's dangerous!"

"Ah. Sorry, I wasn't thinking." She patted Eitsu's face reassuringly. "I wasn't trying anything. I'm sorry for scaring you."

Eitsu's jaw clenched.

"Tsu-bo... You know... I really don't know what I'm doing. I told Aya-chan that I would keep you safe, but how? I'm a kami and I don't know how to keep you safe." The arms that held Tsubaki aloft trembled, and perhaps Eitsu might have admitted, if asked, that it wasn't because of the cold, or because her arms were tired. "I'm so used to people chasing after me, I don't know what... Tsu-bo..." Her usually cheeky voice had thinned to the whine of a frightened cat. "Tsu-bo, how do I keep you safe? No... How I do I keep you next to me? Should I drive you mad again, until I'm all you think about? Is that the only way? Tell me it's not!"