Intertwined

One - The Warriors

The girl, more of a woman than a child but no more than 17 years of age, sat up on the dusty hill, surveying the village that resided down in the valley through cadet grey eyes, and relishing the slight breeze that tousled her rust coloured hair. As she watched the farmers toiling away in the fields below her, she became increasingly oblivious to her surroundings, so much so that she failed to notice the growing chill in the air, until she sensed someone watching her. Rising at a somewhat leisurely pace, she turned on the spot to see her younger sister, Yowai, standing before her.

Whilst the girls were sisters, it can not be said they looked alike – their only similarities being their lean frames, their tanned skin, decorated in silver scars and dark tattoos, and their grey eyes (although Yowai's were cinereous whereas her sister's held tints of azure). Other than that, the sisters were completely different; in age, the first girl was 2 years older than Yowai, in height, Yowai was considerably smaller than her older sister and whilst the older sister had long, rust coloured hair, the younger of the two had chocolaty hair cut into a short, choppy bob that ended just below her jaw. Born to the Warrior clan, they both had scars, it was an unavoidable thing within the clan, but whilst the older girl only had a few of the silver scores on her left shoulder, carved into her when she was just a child, that she sported proudly and found strength in, Yowai had considerably more that she preferred to keep hidden from the stares of others. They also both had tattoos, a signature part of anyone's appearance in the clan, but whilst Yowai only had one, a small cow next to a sheep to always remind her of her home tand her family that her father had gifted to her for her 13th birthday, her older sister's right arm was covered in swirling tendrils of black ink and there was a thick black band sitting above the scars on her left arm like a halo.

"Isamu," Yowai began, waiting for the older girl to prepare herself for the coming news, "Isamu... I don't know how to tell you this..."

"Spit it out Yowai," Isamu retorted playfully, taking her sister's arm and guiding her to the edge of the hill before sitting down together.

"Father is dead."

"And what of the clan?" asked Isamu, pushing away the grief that had instantly crashed over her.

"Isamu... don't. Not right now..."

The older girl sighed before starting again, "And what of the clan, Yowai?"

"Is that all you care about‽ Our father is dead and that is all you care about, really‽" shouted Yowai in her annoyance before turning sheepish once again.

Sighing, Isamu wrapped one arm around her sister and drew her closer, displacing the hair that lay on her shoulder in order to rest her sister's head there.

"Yowai, look out to the horizon," Isamu whispered gently to her sister, gesturing with one hand and tenderly stroking her sisters hair with the other, "each evening, the sun dies and each morning, the moon dies but they're never truly gone – they always rise again, don't they?" She felt her younger sister tentatively nod her head into her shoulder before Yowai pulled away and looked up at her, with tears in her eyes.

"The clan is yours, Isamu – it was always going to be," Yowai murmured.

"Don't cry, Sister. Please don't cry," Isamu moaned but just as she finished speaking, the tears that Yowai had been desperate to hold back spilled over, cascading down her cheeks like a waterfall, "I'm so sorry..."

Biting her lower lip, Isamu took her younger sister's hand in one of her own and pulled a sharp-looking dagger from her pocket with the other. Gently pushing up Yowai's sleeve, Isamu pressed the edge of the blade against the girl's skin and tightening her grip on Yowai when the girl began to resist. Muttering her apologies again and again and again, Isamu dragged the blade against her sister's forearm and left several shallow cuts before dropping Yowai's arm. The older girl stood still, watching as her sister continued to cry, noting that she was more of a child than a woman, through emotionless eyes that hid how disgusted she was in herself for hurting her own family.