The cold air was invigorating.
Moriko had hit the foothills shortly after her encounter with the odd jackrabbit, and as she had climbed them, the air had gotten colder and thinner. At first it was only 'cooler than Wind Country usually is,' but after she went up a few hundred feet it had started to truly chill.
While she had been numerous places within Wind Country, Moriko hadn't ever actually left it. And, well, she was still technically in the country, true; it just didn't feel like Wind Country here. There was no presence of biting heat, no applying chakra to prevent sunburn, no heat beneath her footsteps. Instead the air was...well...
Wonderful.
True, there was still wind, but the bite of it was cold rather than hot, and colder the higher she went. It was that, more than anything else, that told Moriko she was going in the correct direction. The foothills turned into mountain paths, and up she went. These paths were a lot rockier than the ones she had been travelling in the greener foothills, but she found her footing easily, landing lightly with each step.
The colder it got, the more her blood seemed to sing with joy and life. Moriko had never been a particularly joyous person; some would even call her sour, though it would have been more accurate to say 'stoic' to her mind. Clinical, even. Tsukiya was the only one who could evoke true liveliness out of her.
(If one didn't count battle-lust, at least.)
Here, though...
When Moriko woke up on her third day into the mountain range, it was snowing.
She rolled up her tent, tucked it back into its spot on her pack, and stood there for a long while, staring around at it all.
Never before had she seen real, natural snow.
Already, when she woke, the white blanket was draped over the entire side of the mountain she had camped on. It brushed over the trees, both delicate and heavy on the bare branches. Individual flakes alighted to add to the picture, miniscule on their own but part of one astonishing whole. As she stood staring, drinking it in, the snow fell on her as well--light flakes on her shoulders and tickling her eyelids. She blinked to flick them off.
For most people, they would probably melt to the touch. Moriko could hold out her bare hand and let the flakes fall into it, let them sit and collect there, safe and solid still. They didn't melt on her skin, after all. There was no more heat coming from her than she wanted, and she wanted all the heat to stay inside her at the moment, away from the snow.
She let a whole handful of flakes collect, which didn't take long given how fast it fell, and then knelt down and poured them into the dip where her tent had been. Already it was filling, but there was still a slight depression there. Then she stood up and looked in the direction of her destination.
Not the highest peak; not quite. No, the one she aimed for was tall, but not the tallest. What had made her select it as the most likely was the fact that the tip was not one single peak, but split in two and cracked open. It looked like something had ripped a chunk off the top. While it was hard to see if there was anything inside this crack from this range--it was still a little hazy--she felt safe aiming there. And if it was wrong, it was tall enough to give her a good view.
Moriko didn't know if any of these mountains had a name, but this one looked distinctive enough it should. Perhaps she could look it up when she got home.
For now, however, she had to make it there. The mountains were not so close together as she'd thought; leaping from one to the next was rarely feasible, even with a brush of wind chakra. Not unless she were to do so close to the bases, and then have to climb up regardless. So she determined that would be the best route--to find a pathway that led to the base of the correct mountain, regardless of whether it went around or partly over others, and then climb that one.
The valleys she dipped through and the mountains she walked were all still high, snow strewn everywhere. Yet it did not get old, or annoying, in the least. The cold would have been hostile to most, but to a Tsurara it felt like home. Joy. Like she was walking through the climate her people belonged to.
It took many days, most of them uneventful save for foraging for food and snaring small animals for the same, but Moriko reached the base of the split-peaked mountain and began her climb.
It was not that hard, for a ninja, to climb. Climbing a mountain was a slightly different prospect, a little more difficult and lengthy, but not an unreasonable task. Most might have felt the bite of the cold, but...
The snow covered everything, so if there were a path to find, she could not do so that way. No, she had to go on feel and more than once, at this proximity, she stopped uncertainly at a split in the path, unsure which led to the height she wanted and which dead-ended or became largely impassible without excessive chakra use. While she knew, this was the mountain, the sense she'd been following failed now she was close.
Yet she hadn't had to turn back and find another path yet, so perhaps some other sense was taking over.
It was shortly after one such split in the path that Moriko turned up the steep slope again and crested a rise to find the split peak in front of her. She stopped on the rise and stared.
Certainly, it was impressive. She was very high up, she'd known that, but she could see outward in all directions up and down the range. But that wasn't what she was staring at now.
The stone of the split peaks was a blue so dark it looked nearly black. The split was down the middle, and looked as if something had cleaved the two halves apart, then ripped out a huge chunk. What was left stood upright over a hollow, shielding it from the direction Moriko had originally seen it from, blocking the view of it. Snow slid off the smooth sides of the dark rock, only lightly dusting the tops. These looked more like they had been bent over than anything, as absurd a thought as that was. Moreover, the stone would have to be very smooth in order for the snow to not stick--as she could see the angle on both was certainly not absolute, though it were incredibly steep.
The hollow itself looked very much scooped-out. Had there been water rather than snow at this height, it might well have been a lake. As it was, it was a reasonably deep depression that curved downward in a rough bowl shape. The wind blew largely from the direction of the peaks, so there was very little snow in the hollow itself.
Which was probably on some level intentional, as this spot, now that she saw it, felt like it had been created and not simply formed. There was too much intent in it--odd structures formed naturally, true, but it was a little too perfect. Someone or someones had made this. Maybe human, and maybe not. Regardless, it had clearly been purposed or repurposed for humans, as at the center of the hollow sat a shrine. Largely untouched by the elements, it looked only a little weathered.
She stepped down into the hollow, noting the feel of the wind instantly dying, and approached the shrine cautiously.
There was nothing there, she realized with some disappointment when she reached it. Perhaps there never had been. Or whatever it was had gotten tired of waiting, when no Tsurara approached for centuries, and left. She stood, staring at it. Someone had carved a snowflake into it, at some point. Not the family name--when this was made, they probably didn't have a writing system yet, only their own language--but an indicator.
Now what?
Well. She might as well rest and ponder her next move. There was nothing here, no, but she had exerted a lot of energy to get here, so she might as well sleep here tonight, at least. Moriko pulled out her sleeping bag, unrolled it, shucked her cloak and pack, and lay down.
~
Moriko woke in the dead of night.
Normally, this would mean absolute darkness, save the wash of stars above. She'd done it before. But there was a glow that was making it impossible for her to sleep instead. Specifically, coming from the shrine she had set down next to.
A pale blue glow, highlighting the whole shrine. Not a soft one, either--it didn't hurt to look at, but it was certainly bright enough to leave her casting a shadow on the rock.
She stared at it. There was no apparent source, and inspecting the area without touching it didn't reveal anything of any particular interest. She was operating on her own now, since the old songs died out before the actual trial itself, whatever it might be. But this certainly looked like more than 'nothing's here.'
Of course...that didn't mean it was what she was looking for. It could be a demon or something like it, trying to take advantage of a weary traveller...
But then, she'd just been asleep. If anything wanted to come after her, there was no need to wake her up and do some strange glowing thing.
Moriko moved her sleeping bag off to the side, and shed anything that wouldn't help in a fight--meaning everything but her clothes, cloak, and weapons. She moved all of this out of the dip the shrine sat in, and then stared at it for a moment longer.
Well then.
She reached out and touched the glowing shrine.
The second her hand hit the cool stone, the light flared, making her cover her eyes with her other arm. The shrine shuddered under her hand, and started rising. She lifted her arm and squinted through the glow to see it lifting, lifting, as if it were a plunger in a bottle being pulled up by some unseen force.
But it was not sitting on nothing, or floating--instead, there was what looked like a spiral staircase underneath it. As the light started to fade, Moriko lowered her arm to inspect it.
Yes, it was indeed a staircase, leading downward. Her eyes narrowed as she considered her options again. Again, it was like something wanted her to go down there, and it didn't make much sense if it was hostile. Well, she could in fact concoct a number of scenarios where it was, but they made increasingly less sense and had increasingly less support and reason behind them. So heading down did indeed appear to be the proper path forward.
She stepped onto the staircase, the stone smooth and cold like the rest of the rock around. There was of course no snow as she descended, as she was going down into the mountain she'd been climbing. Around her was the light, softly glowing, but it highlighted nothing of any particular interest. There didn't appear to even be any carvings in the rock--just a tightly coiled staircase, spiraling down. The rocks, underneath the light, had the slight impression of scraping against each other from the whole thing lifting, but that was about it.
It was only about five minutes before the stairs bottomed out and she hit a pathway. The path opened up very quickly into a cavern, and she stopped and stared.
The cavern was massive. Even the word didn't do that justice, in fact--her family compound could have fit inside a dozen times over, even before stacking on top. With a jolt, Moriko realized that most of the mountain was in fact hollow save the top. It had not only been carved out but also largely hollowed.
Had people done this? Or some other manner of being?
The pathway led around the rim of the cavern, with an overhang that looked out on the rest, and then had a fairly steep ramp about a quarter of the way down that went down to the bottom less than halfway around from where she stood. The sourceless blue light was coming from odd symbols on the walls that gently pulsated. They looked like pictographs more than any language she knew of--you could vaguely see the shape of a rabbit or a bear or a deer in the etch of them.
Moriko followed the path, opting to neither rush nor dawdle. Certainly, this was promising. So was the colour, of course--but the rest of it seemed like an awful lot if it wasn't genuinely what she had been looking for.
Of course, that didn't mean the spirit was still there.
It took her maybe a half hour or more to reach the bottom, though she was tempted when at the top of it to slide down rather than shuffling. She vetoed that option with sense, mind; it was very likely she was about to need all her chakra and shouldn't use any up keeping herself from smashing into the ground.
At the very bottom, which probably corresponded to roughly the base of the mountain, there was another, deeper depression. No, Moriko realized as the brighter pulse of the light glimmered off it. A lake. It was smooth and completely still from the lack of wind able to reach her, a perfect mirror.
She leaned over it, and it reflected her perfectly from the similarly pale blue of her hair to the vivid indigo of her eyes all the way down to her black boots.
Actually, was there a glow under it? She leaned in closer, still carefully edging around the water. It was a deeper blue than the walls, not nearly so icy a shade. With just the slightest tinge of purple to it, for that matter, rather than the hint of green in her clan's shade. Or was that just the reflection of her eyes--
The water rippled, and Moriko stepped back too late to avoid a massive limb swiping at her back and yanking her down into the water.
It was deep. Deep enough that she had to revise her estimate of being at the base of the mountain while threading her chakra to let her breathe underwater. This lake was far too deep for the ground to be anywhere near the base of the mountain.
More pressing was the formless black mass, vaguely creature-shaped, gathering in front of her. It looked nothing so much like a cartoon drawing, black and spiky with an ill-defined shape and giant glowing eyes. They were not red, however, but instead the same purplish blue she'd seen from the top.
Very similar in shade to her own, in fact.
She blinked at it, and it blinked back.
The mass slowly shifted into a form. It looked closest, if she had to pin it, to a fox--maybe? Though its 'neck' had too many jagged edges on it to resemble it properly. Still, the ears--well, the limbs were long, and the 'paws' too large and flat to match. And it didn't have a fox 'tail' either, at least until she looked again.
What it definitely had was strength. She could feel it from here as she floated, maintaining breathing and depth both with her chakra, though she supplemented the latter with a bit of treading water.
The water itself was at least pleasantly cold.
The being, whatever it was, seemed to detect what it was looking for in her, as it rumbled a bit in what sounded like an approving tone. The flat 'paw' darted out again and lifted her up, pulling her out of the water and the being piling out after her. It deposited her on one shore and coalesced on the other.
Out of the water it was easier to get a grip on its size. It didn't match the sandworm or even come close from what she could recall, but it was significantly larger than any other real animal she'd seen. Maybe the size of a whale, based on what she'd read about them, one of the biggest ones.
Could it speak, or were they going to be doing interpretations back and forth?
"It's been a long time," the being rumbled. It cocked its head, the movements vaguely catlike more than anything. "Tsurara?"
"Yes," she said, opting to head around the lake to get closer if they were going to have a conversation. Aside them, it was dead silent in here, and there was an echo, but it would be a better idea, certainly. "Are you..."
"Most likely if you are here you have been looking for me," it said, its fluffy tail swishing. The movement struck her as thoughtful more than anything. "At one point your people stopped coming. The last of you did not say why, though I had the impression they considered it too much of a risk."
"It took a while to get here--but there wasn't that much risk," Moriko said. Then she revised her statement. "Well. There was the sandworm. And I think I'm lucky I ran into that--moon rabbit, I guess? Since he said there was something dangerous out there during the new moon."
She halted a dozen meters or so from it, and it chuffed at her.
"Yes," it said. "That would have been dangerous. As would a sandworm. I killed one once, long ago, but it took a great deal out of me--for something so small as one of you, very dangerous indeed."
She felt a little foolish, now; this being was basically just acting like a person. Despite appearances, it did not give off an air of menace at all. Power, yes, a lot of that. But no malice.
"Do you know how long ago the last one of my family came?"
It cocked its head one way, and then the other. "I sleep a lot," it said. "So. I have a vague idea, of course. Many of your lifetimes, quite a few of what you would call 'centuries.' At least a half dozen. Maybe more."
Six hundred years was a long time, all right. No wonder the stories were vague.
"But," it continued, "you are here for a purpose--obviously. To unlock the true power of ice. Yes?"
"Yes," Moriko said, bracing herself. A trial, undoubtedly; that was how these things supposedly went.
"Why?"
She blinked up at it. "Why?"
"Yes."
It waited patiently, watching her. Actually, that shade may have been exactly the one of her eyes, to the hue. It was a little...she wasn't sure if that meant anything at all.
"Well," she said, after a second, "I need to. There's a lot going on right now, and the way I can be useful is to be powerful--"
It clicked, and she stopped. "I do not want that answer," it said. "I don't care for politics, or anything of the like. The wellness of your family, perhaps. But you are a daughter--and, as far as I can tell, sometimes son--of the Tsurara. I would have you be honest rather than be virtuous. There is a reason we are underground."
It turned to the lake, and Moriko followed its gaze. It was once again perfectly still, a flawless mirror. The most natural mirror, in fact; the water was pure and clear, and the image perfect.
"The mirror," the being said, "is one of the most revered objects. On its face, that might seem strange to higher beings such as you and I. How silly we think it is, to see an animal attack its own reflection! How funny they are, not realizing that is merely an image! After all, we know what a mirror is. It is merely light, a mere impression of what is really there. So much is ascribed to them--fear, anger, mysticism. But it can only ever show you what is there.
"I am not here to tell you anything else, that there is anything particularly sacred or mystical about this or any other mirror. Nor to scare you with some portent or image I cast on it. I would not even if I could. Instead, child, I want you to look, and I want you to tell me the real reason you as a person are here. Whether or not you think I or anyone else would find it virtuous."
Moriko stared at her reflection, this time halting just at the edge to take in the whole thing. Who was she? What was she?
Well. Violent. She'd always known that. From the time she was young, she'd been violent. She'd been quite small the first time she'd hurt someone, and had never suppressed that. Sure, she'd been acting in defense of a cousin when she cracked that boy's femur, but she'd also enjoyed it.
Vain. Not in exactly the same way as most of the family, no. Most of them cared deeply about their appearances and impressions for the sake of it, simply because. But Moriko cared about looking a little different. About being a little different, truly. About not being just another Tsurara.
Her family would say, there's nothing wrong with being just another Tsurara. They were a well-respected clan, salt-of-the-earth type people. Reliable, dependable, steadfast. Permafrost. You could count on a Tsurara for competence and capability, without too much ambition. They wanted to be capable, but not amazing; they wanted to be competent, but not exceptional. Tsurara liked how things were when they were stable and wanted to keep them that way.
Moriko...hated that.
Her family had no ambition. No ruthlessness. No drive. If there was one thing that set her at odds with the rest of them, it wasn't having been a 'hellion' as a child, or her insubordination, or even some sort of desire to be contrary. No, the root cause of the fracture was that Moriko, alone of her family, wanted to soar. She wanted to shine. Everything else was just a symptom.
The Tsurara did not want to push boundaries. And Moriko wanted to excel. Everything she had done in her life of any substance was to that end--she wanted to be someone, wanted to be recognized, wanted to reach for meaning.
She wanted people to know who she was, and look at her, and say, 'I wish I was like her.' All the while knowing they could not possibly be, because she was too good, too luminary.
Since she was violent and craved it, the path to excellence was clearly through said violence and blood and battle. And fortunately for her--there was a perfect opportunity.
Why skulk around and stab people in back alleys if you could stand in front of your enemies and lead the charge of the righteous and justified, be lauded instead of hunted, be showered with deeply-earned praise? Why hold back? Why sandbag? Why should she be anything less than the absolute best she could be with no fetters?
Moriko had not realized she was crouching to stare at the water, but she stood and shook herself off, facing the giant being.
"I want power," she said. It tilted its head, inviting her to go on. "I want to be the best. I want people to know they can't reach what I am. I want people to, when they think of my family, think of them as being related to me because of who I am. I want to crush anyone that gets in the way of that--which includes the shadow hanging over Sand right now. That's my village, he had me poisoned for being a potential threat and he's in my way. He thinks I'm a threat? He has no idea what kind of threat I could be. And I will be that threat! I will join my power to the others and I will stomp his stupid head into the fucking ground! He will be powder!"
She was shouting at the last, and had to stop to catch her breath--more from the exhilaration of it.
She had never voiced that type of rage before, never voiced that ambition. Tsukiya probably knew much of it, if not all, but to him she didn't have to say it. Never had she had to say it out.
The being chuffed happily at her. It didn't seem upset in the slightest.
"There is the honesty," it said. "That is exactly what I wanted. Is it difficult, these days, to move past the pretty surface?"
"For us it's a lot of appearances," Moriko said after a second more of catching her breath. "Superficial--looking pretty, you know..."
It made a thoughtful rumble. "I see. That is a shame. I had wondered if that was it, if you had become the fallen snow instead of the wild storm. The surface beauty of your bloodline is a gift and a curse. But in you I see the wild storm, the blizzard of blackest night. So many people associate ice with beauty and stillness that they forget how dangerous it can be. It is both, of course, but it sounds a long time since your clan has embodied that."
It got up and padded over to undearneath the outcropping high up, and she followed. Its steps were noiseless, though hers gave a dull echo on the rock. The water from the lake had dripped off her entirely now, as if by some force, and run in rivulets back down to its home silently.
The being halted and sat back down, its motions not precisely foxlike or catlike but still of some great deft beast.
"There is, of course, one sure way to unlock the heart of the wild blizzard," the being said. "That is, of course, open combat. Though not against me directly--it would be far too much for any mortal. I will create shades for you to fight. Be warned: this is not shadow-boxing. They are capable of hurting you, should you lose focus."
Moriko took a deep breath and exhaled, then nodded. "I understand." She couldn't keep the grin off her face at the anticipation of battle. In many ways, she had been hoping for something like this.
She stepped out from underneath the overhang to the open area. The figures the being conjured were also black shadow, with white eyes, and they were vaguely human. Each of the three looked like they were carrying a shield and lance, the eyes slits in a helmet.
"Ice only," the being said. The first of the figures moved, and Moriko lashed out with a whip of ice.
It contacted the figure, and scored a blow, but the lance stabbed out and she had to move to avoid it, twirling her own makeshift weapon away and having to let it go when lightning crackled through it. It disappeared in motes of indigo, her chakra dissipating. She aimed for the ground and stomped on it, making ice spread out from her foot and coat the battlefield, halting well before the lake. The figure advanced, slipping only slightly.
What was she supposed to do, anyway?
There was so much space here--not just around, but up. How could she use that?
The lightning came close, the lance not as much, but the other two figures were as yet unmoving, and she felt as thought she were failing some kind of test. Though she could not determine what.
She flung a hand forward, the other making seals, and shot icicles out at her attacker. They impaled it, stabbing through the shadow as if piercing armour, and it swayed, then evaporated in puffs of black smoke.
Just in time for the next to charge her, stronger and faster than the first, and narrowly missing her with the lightning--the follow-up stab with the long lance nearly scored a hit.
Could she use the height at all? How, if she could only use ice?
...Well. Ice was the thing she had perfect control of, which was evident enough when she lashed out again, pressing the attack with a hailstorm. The figure held its shield up to block the worst of it, but she still scored some hits.
So how to use perfect ice control to gain height? She couldn't make the ice under her feet--
Wait. Yes, she could. Moriko had done that mere moments ago. Did anything say that had to be on the ground?
This time, with the seals for it, she stamped on the air. And this time, the ice spread from her feet in the air--going longer a path, instead of just outward. Chakra kept her light as she sprung onto the pathway, sliding over it, pushing with her chakra out her feet to keep making the path in front of her, angling up.
Lightning hit the path, and she dissolved it more quickly, cutting it off, narrowly avoiding getting zapped. That didn't seem like normal lightning; it was pure white, like the eye slits on the shadows. She made seals with one hand and flung an ice shard, razor-sharp, too fast for the second shadow to dodge or block, and like the first it went down when impaled.
The third was even faster and stronger, a real combatant, but the ice was singing in her blood now. Moriko wove her paths over the battlefield, higher and higher, without needing the seals to control it now. Instead she thought and formed them for a bind, only with the height advantage made it into a weighted net.
Trailing it behind her like a curtain, Moriko flung the net at her foe, swatting it to the ground when it leapt upwards with uncanny height almost dismissively.
That didn't end it; it could still attack, so she changed tacks and dove off the path, dissolving the ice behind her, and landed in mid-air.
Because she didn't need the paths--her flawless ice control didn't depend on the amount of ice. No, she could do so with any amount.
Such as skate blade, flush against the bottom of her boots.
Twirling in midair, she danced between heights, evading strikes and, when she got a little further down, stabs, and executed what she would later realize was a perfect three hundred and sixty degree spin to fling a diamond storm of ice shards at the last shadow.
It crashed to the ground, frozen there briefly before fragmenting into motes of vanishing shadow.
Moriko landed on the ground, exhilarated, knowing she was grinning but not breathing hard at all. She was, she knew, alight and flush with excitement at the possibilities that were now ringing through her head, now that she could skate through the air as if flying.
"That was beautiful," the being said, padding out to come sit in front of her. It blinked large eyes the shade of hers. "I don't think I've seen anyone use the air that way before. You are indeed the blizzard. I bestow upon you the power of it, to do what you have done here anywhere, without needing to seal. Your ice will be more resilient to forces such as heat. I think that may be of some use."
As it spoke, the blue glow surrounded her, thought not painfully, and then faded after a moment. A chill ran through her and settled comfortably into her core.
The heart of ice.
"Thank you," she said. It seemed right. "I have no idea if any of my family will find their way here any time soon again. But some will, eventually."
"I will be very surprised if they impress me as much as you have, Tsurara Moriko," the being said. She had not told it her name, nor had it evinced that knowledge previously--but then, it had said many things that it had no apparent source for. "You are certainly worthy as an heir of the clan."
"That--" She hadn't said she was that yet, either, and 'thank you' seemed inadequate to keep saying. It chuffed again. "Were you expecting me, by the way? For mystical or non-mystical reasons?"
That blink was definitely catlike, slow and amused. "No. I have no omens, no prophecies, no senses that cover the distance you set out from. If you're referring to the colour of your eyes and chakra matching mine? I believe in your parlance that is called 'a fortunate happenstance.' I await any Tsurara who makes the journey, and I sense you only when you reach the peak of my mountain. That you were the first in many a year and so impressive: fortunate, but not preordained."
Moriko exhaled. "Good, I think," she said. "I don't think I could stand a force like 'fate' being real."
"It does strike me as a truly unpleasant concept," the being said. "We make our own way in this world, regardless of what we are. Life, in the end, no matter its form, is what shapes the future--not fate. Go in good health, Tsurara Moriko."
"Thank you," she said again, because this time it made sense. She paused, and instead of winding around to climb, she stepped into the air on her skates to start winding her way up.
Before she did, though, she looked back at the being making its way back to the water.
"Should I, uh," she said awkwardly, "be making some kind of offering...? I really don't know. It feels like I should offer something."
"There is certainly no need," the being said, cocking its head. "I am not a spirit that needs offerings. I am a guardian of water and ice; those of ice are my special charges. A Tsurara no more needs to make me an offering than you do the north wind."
There were, after all, strange forces in this world no one understood--why shouldn't some of them be benevolent?
"Then I will just wish you a good rest," she said, and bowed. It bowed back to her, an inclination of its head, and slipped into the still lake without disturbing it at all.
Moriko watched the lake for a moment, though she was too far away and at the wrong angle for a reflection, and then turned back upwards, skating a path that wound at a comfortable angle so much faster than climbing. She kept the skates, staying barely above the stone, with a last glance at the mirror lake on her way out.
She could've sworn she saw two glowing eyes, vivid indigo, one of them winking at her.
Then she cleared to the stairs and went much faster up than she had come down, not bothering with the individual steps. The sun was peeking over the horizon when she reached the open air.
Moriko took a moment to gather her sleeping bag and other supplies, and touched the lightly glowing rock in farewell. The staircase shuddered again, and recessed, and soon it was only a shrine with a snowflake, sitting in a depression atop a split peak mountain. When it came to a full rest, the glow faded out.
She faced the south and west, homewards, double-checked she had everything, and leaped into the air on her skates.
Going the direct route would be so much faster it wouldn't be funny, and she wouldn't have to touch ground til sight of Sand.
~
She reached the compound two days after leaving the peak, a fraction of the time it had taken her to get there, sneaking into the city just before dawn.
Tsukiya was sleeping in their room when she reached the door, and she paused to study him.
His dark blond hair framed his face, a strong jaw and nose he was growing into just like she was the angled frame of her face. He was not getting as tall as she was; she was passing him there, but he had stronger definition to his build, muscled well without being obnoxiously so. Deft hands--something she knew first-hand--resting atop the covers. Objectively, he was as handsome as she was beautiful. She knew that was objective because she'd heard people whispering about both of them.
But that wasn't why he was the one she'd picked. No, it was because that same violence was in both of them--because there was a resonance. And their chakra apparently agreed.
Moriko sat on the edge of Tsukiya's bed, which almost immediately made his eyes flicker open, beautiful pale blue. How strange, on some level, that he was the one with the icy eyes. What would their children someday look like?
"Hello darling," Tsukiya murmured, tugging himself up into a sitting position and blinking hazily at her. "You're home. Success, I take it?"
"Yes," she said simply. "Tomorrow I join the revolution. Today, though..."
"Rest?" he said. Tsukiya was not like some boys, in that he was obsessed with getting under her skirts.
"No," Moriko said. Just because he didn't obsess over it--that didn't mean it couldn't--but she knew better than to voice this angle of stumbling thoughts. "I--are we alone?"
"Your mother is not home," he said. "...Moriko? Dear?"
Moriko was already sliding off her travel clothes. Tsukiya's gaze on her was a certain kind of hungry that sent a shiver of anticipation over her.
"Today," she said, wording it slowly and carefully, "it's us. Okay? I know I love you, and I know you love me."
"I do," Tsukiya said, without a touch of hesitation. "I love you more than anything. Are you..."
She stepped out of her skirt, and his breath caught. She dropped it and went over to him, where their beds were pushed together. "Yes," she said.
They didn't make it under the covers, but neither one of them minded that.
[Topic Entered/Left]
Moriko had hit the foothills shortly after her encounter with the odd jackrabbit, and as she had climbed them, the air had gotten colder and thinner. At first it was only 'cooler than Wind Country usually is,' but after she went up a few hundred feet it had started to truly chill.
While she had been numerous places within Wind Country, Moriko hadn't ever actually left it. And, well, she was still technically in the country, true; it just didn't feel like Wind Country here. There was no presence of biting heat, no applying chakra to prevent sunburn, no heat beneath her footsteps. Instead the air was...well...
Wonderful.
True, there was still wind, but the bite of it was cold rather than hot, and colder the higher she went. It was that, more than anything else, that told Moriko she was going in the correct direction. The foothills turned into mountain paths, and up she went. These paths were a lot rockier than the ones she had been travelling in the greener foothills, but she found her footing easily, landing lightly with each step.
The colder it got, the more her blood seemed to sing with joy and life. Moriko had never been a particularly joyous person; some would even call her sour, though it would have been more accurate to say 'stoic' to her mind. Clinical, even. Tsukiya was the only one who could evoke true liveliness out of her.
(If one didn't count battle-lust, at least.)
Here, though...
When Moriko woke up on her third day into the mountain range, it was snowing.
She rolled up her tent, tucked it back into its spot on her pack, and stood there for a long while, staring around at it all.
Never before had she seen real, natural snow.
Already, when she woke, the white blanket was draped over the entire side of the mountain she had camped on. It brushed over the trees, both delicate and heavy on the bare branches. Individual flakes alighted to add to the picture, miniscule on their own but part of one astonishing whole. As she stood staring, drinking it in, the snow fell on her as well--light flakes on her shoulders and tickling her eyelids. She blinked to flick them off.
For most people, they would probably melt to the touch. Moriko could hold out her bare hand and let the flakes fall into it, let them sit and collect there, safe and solid still. They didn't melt on her skin, after all. There was no more heat coming from her than she wanted, and she wanted all the heat to stay inside her at the moment, away from the snow.
She let a whole handful of flakes collect, which didn't take long given how fast it fell, and then knelt down and poured them into the dip where her tent had been. Already it was filling, but there was still a slight depression there. Then she stood up and looked in the direction of her destination.
Not the highest peak; not quite. No, the one she aimed for was tall, but not the tallest. What had made her select it as the most likely was the fact that the tip was not one single peak, but split in two and cracked open. It looked like something had ripped a chunk off the top. While it was hard to see if there was anything inside this crack from this range--it was still a little hazy--she felt safe aiming there. And if it was wrong, it was tall enough to give her a good view.
Moriko didn't know if any of these mountains had a name, but this one looked distinctive enough it should. Perhaps she could look it up when she got home.
For now, however, she had to make it there. The mountains were not so close together as she'd thought; leaping from one to the next was rarely feasible, even with a brush of wind chakra. Not unless she were to do so close to the bases, and then have to climb up regardless. So she determined that would be the best route--to find a pathway that led to the base of the correct mountain, regardless of whether it went around or partly over others, and then climb that one.
The valleys she dipped through and the mountains she walked were all still high, snow strewn everywhere. Yet it did not get old, or annoying, in the least. The cold would have been hostile to most, but to a Tsurara it felt like home. Joy. Like she was walking through the climate her people belonged to.
It took many days, most of them uneventful save for foraging for food and snaring small animals for the same, but Moriko reached the base of the split-peaked mountain and began her climb.
It was not that hard, for a ninja, to climb. Climbing a mountain was a slightly different prospect, a little more difficult and lengthy, but not an unreasonable task. Most might have felt the bite of the cold, but...
The snow covered everything, so if there were a path to find, she could not do so that way. No, she had to go on feel and more than once, at this proximity, she stopped uncertainly at a split in the path, unsure which led to the height she wanted and which dead-ended or became largely impassible without excessive chakra use. While she knew, this was the mountain, the sense she'd been following failed now she was close.
Yet she hadn't had to turn back and find another path yet, so perhaps some other sense was taking over.
It was shortly after one such split in the path that Moriko turned up the steep slope again and crested a rise to find the split peak in front of her. She stopped on the rise and stared.
Certainly, it was impressive. She was very high up, she'd known that, but she could see outward in all directions up and down the range. But that wasn't what she was staring at now.
The stone of the split peaks was a blue so dark it looked nearly black. The split was down the middle, and looked as if something had cleaved the two halves apart, then ripped out a huge chunk. What was left stood upright over a hollow, shielding it from the direction Moriko had originally seen it from, blocking the view of it. Snow slid off the smooth sides of the dark rock, only lightly dusting the tops. These looked more like they had been bent over than anything, as absurd a thought as that was. Moreover, the stone would have to be very smooth in order for the snow to not stick--as she could see the angle on both was certainly not absolute, though it were incredibly steep.
The hollow itself looked very much scooped-out. Had there been water rather than snow at this height, it might well have been a lake. As it was, it was a reasonably deep depression that curved downward in a rough bowl shape. The wind blew largely from the direction of the peaks, so there was very little snow in the hollow itself.
Which was probably on some level intentional, as this spot, now that she saw it, felt like it had been created and not simply formed. There was too much intent in it--odd structures formed naturally, true, but it was a little too perfect. Someone or someones had made this. Maybe human, and maybe not. Regardless, it had clearly been purposed or repurposed for humans, as at the center of the hollow sat a shrine. Largely untouched by the elements, it looked only a little weathered.
She stepped down into the hollow, noting the feel of the wind instantly dying, and approached the shrine cautiously.
There was nothing there, she realized with some disappointment when she reached it. Perhaps there never had been. Or whatever it was had gotten tired of waiting, when no Tsurara approached for centuries, and left. She stood, staring at it. Someone had carved a snowflake into it, at some point. Not the family name--when this was made, they probably didn't have a writing system yet, only their own language--but an indicator.
Now what?
Well. She might as well rest and ponder her next move. There was nothing here, no, but she had exerted a lot of energy to get here, so she might as well sleep here tonight, at least. Moriko pulled out her sleeping bag, unrolled it, shucked her cloak and pack, and lay down.
~
Moriko woke in the dead of night.
Normally, this would mean absolute darkness, save the wash of stars above. She'd done it before. But there was a glow that was making it impossible for her to sleep instead. Specifically, coming from the shrine she had set down next to.
A pale blue glow, highlighting the whole shrine. Not a soft one, either--it didn't hurt to look at, but it was certainly bright enough to leave her casting a shadow on the rock.
She stared at it. There was no apparent source, and inspecting the area without touching it didn't reveal anything of any particular interest. She was operating on her own now, since the old songs died out before the actual trial itself, whatever it might be. But this certainly looked like more than 'nothing's here.'
Of course...that didn't mean it was what she was looking for. It could be a demon or something like it, trying to take advantage of a weary traveller...
But then, she'd just been asleep. If anything wanted to come after her, there was no need to wake her up and do some strange glowing thing.
Moriko moved her sleeping bag off to the side, and shed anything that wouldn't help in a fight--meaning everything but her clothes, cloak, and weapons. She moved all of this out of the dip the shrine sat in, and then stared at it for a moment longer.
Well then.
She reached out and touched the glowing shrine.
The second her hand hit the cool stone, the light flared, making her cover her eyes with her other arm. The shrine shuddered under her hand, and started rising. She lifted her arm and squinted through the glow to see it lifting, lifting, as if it were a plunger in a bottle being pulled up by some unseen force.
But it was not sitting on nothing, or floating--instead, there was what looked like a spiral staircase underneath it. As the light started to fade, Moriko lowered her arm to inspect it.
Yes, it was indeed a staircase, leading downward. Her eyes narrowed as she considered her options again. Again, it was like something wanted her to go down there, and it didn't make much sense if it was hostile. Well, she could in fact concoct a number of scenarios where it was, but they made increasingly less sense and had increasingly less support and reason behind them. So heading down did indeed appear to be the proper path forward.
She stepped onto the staircase, the stone smooth and cold like the rest of the rock around. There was of course no snow as she descended, as she was going down into the mountain she'd been climbing. Around her was the light, softly glowing, but it highlighted nothing of any particular interest. There didn't appear to even be any carvings in the rock--just a tightly coiled staircase, spiraling down. The rocks, underneath the light, had the slight impression of scraping against each other from the whole thing lifting, but that was about it.
It was only about five minutes before the stairs bottomed out and she hit a pathway. The path opened up very quickly into a cavern, and she stopped and stared.
The cavern was massive. Even the word didn't do that justice, in fact--her family compound could have fit inside a dozen times over, even before stacking on top. With a jolt, Moriko realized that most of the mountain was in fact hollow save the top. It had not only been carved out but also largely hollowed.
Had people done this? Or some other manner of being?
The pathway led around the rim of the cavern, with an overhang that looked out on the rest, and then had a fairly steep ramp about a quarter of the way down that went down to the bottom less than halfway around from where she stood. The sourceless blue light was coming from odd symbols on the walls that gently pulsated. They looked like pictographs more than any language she knew of--you could vaguely see the shape of a rabbit or a bear or a deer in the etch of them.
Moriko followed the path, opting to neither rush nor dawdle. Certainly, this was promising. So was the colour, of course--but the rest of it seemed like an awful lot if it wasn't genuinely what she had been looking for.
Of course, that didn't mean the spirit was still there.
It took her maybe a half hour or more to reach the bottom, though she was tempted when at the top of it to slide down rather than shuffling. She vetoed that option with sense, mind; it was very likely she was about to need all her chakra and shouldn't use any up keeping herself from smashing into the ground.
At the very bottom, which probably corresponded to roughly the base of the mountain, there was another, deeper depression. No, Moriko realized as the brighter pulse of the light glimmered off it. A lake. It was smooth and completely still from the lack of wind able to reach her, a perfect mirror.
She leaned over it, and it reflected her perfectly from the similarly pale blue of her hair to the vivid indigo of her eyes all the way down to her black boots.
Actually, was there a glow under it? She leaned in closer, still carefully edging around the water. It was a deeper blue than the walls, not nearly so icy a shade. With just the slightest tinge of purple to it, for that matter, rather than the hint of green in her clan's shade. Or was that just the reflection of her eyes--
The water rippled, and Moriko stepped back too late to avoid a massive limb swiping at her back and yanking her down into the water.
It was deep. Deep enough that she had to revise her estimate of being at the base of the mountain while threading her chakra to let her breathe underwater. This lake was far too deep for the ground to be anywhere near the base of the mountain.
More pressing was the formless black mass, vaguely creature-shaped, gathering in front of her. It looked nothing so much like a cartoon drawing, black and spiky with an ill-defined shape and giant glowing eyes. They were not red, however, but instead the same purplish blue she'd seen from the top.
Very similar in shade to her own, in fact.
She blinked at it, and it blinked back.
The mass slowly shifted into a form. It looked closest, if she had to pin it, to a fox--maybe? Though its 'neck' had too many jagged edges on it to resemble it properly. Still, the ears--well, the limbs were long, and the 'paws' too large and flat to match. And it didn't have a fox 'tail' either, at least until she looked again.
What it definitely had was strength. She could feel it from here as she floated, maintaining breathing and depth both with her chakra, though she supplemented the latter with a bit of treading water.
The water itself was at least pleasantly cold.
The being, whatever it was, seemed to detect what it was looking for in her, as it rumbled a bit in what sounded like an approving tone. The flat 'paw' darted out again and lifted her up, pulling her out of the water and the being piling out after her. It deposited her on one shore and coalesced on the other.
Out of the water it was easier to get a grip on its size. It didn't match the sandworm or even come close from what she could recall, but it was significantly larger than any other real animal she'd seen. Maybe the size of a whale, based on what she'd read about them, one of the biggest ones.
Could it speak, or were they going to be doing interpretations back and forth?
"It's been a long time," the being rumbled. It cocked its head, the movements vaguely catlike more than anything. "Tsurara?"
"Yes," she said, opting to head around the lake to get closer if they were going to have a conversation. Aside them, it was dead silent in here, and there was an echo, but it would be a better idea, certainly. "Are you..."
"Most likely if you are here you have been looking for me," it said, its fluffy tail swishing. The movement struck her as thoughtful more than anything. "At one point your people stopped coming. The last of you did not say why, though I had the impression they considered it too much of a risk."
"It took a while to get here--but there wasn't that much risk," Moriko said. Then she revised her statement. "Well. There was the sandworm. And I think I'm lucky I ran into that--moon rabbit, I guess? Since he said there was something dangerous out there during the new moon."
She halted a dozen meters or so from it, and it chuffed at her.
"Yes," it said. "That would have been dangerous. As would a sandworm. I killed one once, long ago, but it took a great deal out of me--for something so small as one of you, very dangerous indeed."
She felt a little foolish, now; this being was basically just acting like a person. Despite appearances, it did not give off an air of menace at all. Power, yes, a lot of that. But no malice.
"Do you know how long ago the last one of my family came?"
It cocked its head one way, and then the other. "I sleep a lot," it said. "So. I have a vague idea, of course. Many of your lifetimes, quite a few of what you would call 'centuries.' At least a half dozen. Maybe more."
Six hundred years was a long time, all right. No wonder the stories were vague.
"But," it continued, "you are here for a purpose--obviously. To unlock the true power of ice. Yes?"
"Yes," Moriko said, bracing herself. A trial, undoubtedly; that was how these things supposedly went.
"Why?"
She blinked up at it. "Why?"
"Yes."
It waited patiently, watching her. Actually, that shade may have been exactly the one of her eyes, to the hue. It was a little...she wasn't sure if that meant anything at all.
"Well," she said, after a second, "I need to. There's a lot going on right now, and the way I can be useful is to be powerful--"
It clicked, and she stopped. "I do not want that answer," it said. "I don't care for politics, or anything of the like. The wellness of your family, perhaps. But you are a daughter--and, as far as I can tell, sometimes son--of the Tsurara. I would have you be honest rather than be virtuous. There is a reason we are underground."
It turned to the lake, and Moriko followed its gaze. It was once again perfectly still, a flawless mirror. The most natural mirror, in fact; the water was pure and clear, and the image perfect.
"The mirror," the being said, "is one of the most revered objects. On its face, that might seem strange to higher beings such as you and I. How silly we think it is, to see an animal attack its own reflection! How funny they are, not realizing that is merely an image! After all, we know what a mirror is. It is merely light, a mere impression of what is really there. So much is ascribed to them--fear, anger, mysticism. But it can only ever show you what is there.
"I am not here to tell you anything else, that there is anything particularly sacred or mystical about this or any other mirror. Nor to scare you with some portent or image I cast on it. I would not even if I could. Instead, child, I want you to look, and I want you to tell me the real reason you as a person are here. Whether or not you think I or anyone else would find it virtuous."
Moriko stared at her reflection, this time halting just at the edge to take in the whole thing. Who was she? What was she?
Well. Violent. She'd always known that. From the time she was young, she'd been violent. She'd been quite small the first time she'd hurt someone, and had never suppressed that. Sure, she'd been acting in defense of a cousin when she cracked that boy's femur, but she'd also enjoyed it.
Vain. Not in exactly the same way as most of the family, no. Most of them cared deeply about their appearances and impressions for the sake of it, simply because. But Moriko cared about looking a little different. About being a little different, truly. About not being just another Tsurara.
Her family would say, there's nothing wrong with being just another Tsurara. They were a well-respected clan, salt-of-the-earth type people. Reliable, dependable, steadfast. Permafrost. You could count on a Tsurara for competence and capability, without too much ambition. They wanted to be capable, but not amazing; they wanted to be competent, but not exceptional. Tsurara liked how things were when they were stable and wanted to keep them that way.
Moriko...hated that.
Her family had no ambition. No ruthlessness. No drive. If there was one thing that set her at odds with the rest of them, it wasn't having been a 'hellion' as a child, or her insubordination, or even some sort of desire to be contrary. No, the root cause of the fracture was that Moriko, alone of her family, wanted to soar. She wanted to shine. Everything else was just a symptom.
The Tsurara did not want to push boundaries. And Moriko wanted to excel. Everything she had done in her life of any substance was to that end--she wanted to be someone, wanted to be recognized, wanted to reach for meaning.
She wanted people to know who she was, and look at her, and say, 'I wish I was like her.' All the while knowing they could not possibly be, because she was too good, too luminary.
Since she was violent and craved it, the path to excellence was clearly through said violence and blood and battle. And fortunately for her--there was a perfect opportunity.
Why skulk around and stab people in back alleys if you could stand in front of your enemies and lead the charge of the righteous and justified, be lauded instead of hunted, be showered with deeply-earned praise? Why hold back? Why sandbag? Why should she be anything less than the absolute best she could be with no fetters?
Moriko had not realized she was crouching to stare at the water, but she stood and shook herself off, facing the giant being.
"I want power," she said. It tilted its head, inviting her to go on. "I want to be the best. I want people to know they can't reach what I am. I want people to, when they think of my family, think of them as being related to me because of who I am. I want to crush anyone that gets in the way of that--which includes the shadow hanging over Sand right now. That's my village, he had me poisoned for being a potential threat and he's in my way. He thinks I'm a threat? He has no idea what kind of threat I could be. And I will be that threat! I will join my power to the others and I will stomp his stupid head into the fucking ground! He will be powder!"
She was shouting at the last, and had to stop to catch her breath--more from the exhilaration of it.
She had never voiced that type of rage before, never voiced that ambition. Tsukiya probably knew much of it, if not all, but to him she didn't have to say it. Never had she had to say it out.
The being chuffed happily at her. It didn't seem upset in the slightest.
"There is the honesty," it said. "That is exactly what I wanted. Is it difficult, these days, to move past the pretty surface?"
"For us it's a lot of appearances," Moriko said after a second more of catching her breath. "Superficial--looking pretty, you know..."
It made a thoughtful rumble. "I see. That is a shame. I had wondered if that was it, if you had become the fallen snow instead of the wild storm. The surface beauty of your bloodline is a gift and a curse. But in you I see the wild storm, the blizzard of blackest night. So many people associate ice with beauty and stillness that they forget how dangerous it can be. It is both, of course, but it sounds a long time since your clan has embodied that."
It got up and padded over to undearneath the outcropping high up, and she followed. Its steps were noiseless, though hers gave a dull echo on the rock. The water from the lake had dripped off her entirely now, as if by some force, and run in rivulets back down to its home silently.
The being halted and sat back down, its motions not precisely foxlike or catlike but still of some great deft beast.
"There is, of course, one sure way to unlock the heart of the wild blizzard," the being said. "That is, of course, open combat. Though not against me directly--it would be far too much for any mortal. I will create shades for you to fight. Be warned: this is not shadow-boxing. They are capable of hurting you, should you lose focus."
Moriko took a deep breath and exhaled, then nodded. "I understand." She couldn't keep the grin off her face at the anticipation of battle. In many ways, she had been hoping for something like this.
She stepped out from underneath the overhang to the open area. The figures the being conjured were also black shadow, with white eyes, and they were vaguely human. Each of the three looked like they were carrying a shield and lance, the eyes slits in a helmet.
"Ice only," the being said. The first of the figures moved, and Moriko lashed out with a whip of ice.
It contacted the figure, and scored a blow, but the lance stabbed out and she had to move to avoid it, twirling her own makeshift weapon away and having to let it go when lightning crackled through it. It disappeared in motes of indigo, her chakra dissipating. She aimed for the ground and stomped on it, making ice spread out from her foot and coat the battlefield, halting well before the lake. The figure advanced, slipping only slightly.
What was she supposed to do, anyway?
There was so much space here--not just around, but up. How could she use that?
The lightning came close, the lance not as much, but the other two figures were as yet unmoving, and she felt as thought she were failing some kind of test. Though she could not determine what.
She flung a hand forward, the other making seals, and shot icicles out at her attacker. They impaled it, stabbing through the shadow as if piercing armour, and it swayed, then evaporated in puffs of black smoke.
Just in time for the next to charge her, stronger and faster than the first, and narrowly missing her with the lightning--the follow-up stab with the long lance nearly scored a hit.
Could she use the height at all? How, if she could only use ice?
...Well. Ice was the thing she had perfect control of, which was evident enough when she lashed out again, pressing the attack with a hailstorm. The figure held its shield up to block the worst of it, but she still scored some hits.
So how to use perfect ice control to gain height? She couldn't make the ice under her feet--
Wait. Yes, she could. Moriko had done that mere moments ago. Did anything say that had to be on the ground?
This time, with the seals for it, she stamped on the air. And this time, the ice spread from her feet in the air--going longer a path, instead of just outward. Chakra kept her light as she sprung onto the pathway, sliding over it, pushing with her chakra out her feet to keep making the path in front of her, angling up.
Lightning hit the path, and she dissolved it more quickly, cutting it off, narrowly avoiding getting zapped. That didn't seem like normal lightning; it was pure white, like the eye slits on the shadows. She made seals with one hand and flung an ice shard, razor-sharp, too fast for the second shadow to dodge or block, and like the first it went down when impaled.
The third was even faster and stronger, a real combatant, but the ice was singing in her blood now. Moriko wove her paths over the battlefield, higher and higher, without needing the seals to control it now. Instead she thought and formed them for a bind, only with the height advantage made it into a weighted net.
Trailing it behind her like a curtain, Moriko flung the net at her foe, swatting it to the ground when it leapt upwards with uncanny height almost dismissively.
That didn't end it; it could still attack, so she changed tacks and dove off the path, dissolving the ice behind her, and landed in mid-air.
Because she didn't need the paths--her flawless ice control didn't depend on the amount of ice. No, she could do so with any amount.
Such as skate blade, flush against the bottom of her boots.
Twirling in midair, she danced between heights, evading strikes and, when she got a little further down, stabs, and executed what she would later realize was a perfect three hundred and sixty degree spin to fling a diamond storm of ice shards at the last shadow.
It crashed to the ground, frozen there briefly before fragmenting into motes of vanishing shadow.
Moriko landed on the ground, exhilarated, knowing she was grinning but not breathing hard at all. She was, she knew, alight and flush with excitement at the possibilities that were now ringing through her head, now that she could skate through the air as if flying.
"That was beautiful," the being said, padding out to come sit in front of her. It blinked large eyes the shade of hers. "I don't think I've seen anyone use the air that way before. You are indeed the blizzard. I bestow upon you the power of it, to do what you have done here anywhere, without needing to seal. Your ice will be more resilient to forces such as heat. I think that may be of some use."
As it spoke, the blue glow surrounded her, thought not painfully, and then faded after a moment. A chill ran through her and settled comfortably into her core.
The heart of ice.
"Thank you," she said. It seemed right. "I have no idea if any of my family will find their way here any time soon again. But some will, eventually."
"I will be very surprised if they impress me as much as you have, Tsurara Moriko," the being said. She had not told it her name, nor had it evinced that knowledge previously--but then, it had said many things that it had no apparent source for. "You are certainly worthy as an heir of the clan."
"That--" She hadn't said she was that yet, either, and 'thank you' seemed inadequate to keep saying. It chuffed again. "Were you expecting me, by the way? For mystical or non-mystical reasons?"
That blink was definitely catlike, slow and amused. "No. I have no omens, no prophecies, no senses that cover the distance you set out from. If you're referring to the colour of your eyes and chakra matching mine? I believe in your parlance that is called 'a fortunate happenstance.' I await any Tsurara who makes the journey, and I sense you only when you reach the peak of my mountain. That you were the first in many a year and so impressive: fortunate, but not preordained."
Moriko exhaled. "Good, I think," she said. "I don't think I could stand a force like 'fate' being real."
"It does strike me as a truly unpleasant concept," the being said. "We make our own way in this world, regardless of what we are. Life, in the end, no matter its form, is what shapes the future--not fate. Go in good health, Tsurara Moriko."
"Thank you," she said again, because this time it made sense. She paused, and instead of winding around to climb, she stepped into the air on her skates to start winding her way up.
Before she did, though, she looked back at the being making its way back to the water.
"Should I, uh," she said awkwardly, "be making some kind of offering...? I really don't know. It feels like I should offer something."
"There is certainly no need," the being said, cocking its head. "I am not a spirit that needs offerings. I am a guardian of water and ice; those of ice are my special charges. A Tsurara no more needs to make me an offering than you do the north wind."
There were, after all, strange forces in this world no one understood--why shouldn't some of them be benevolent?
"Then I will just wish you a good rest," she said, and bowed. It bowed back to her, an inclination of its head, and slipped into the still lake without disturbing it at all.
Moriko watched the lake for a moment, though she was too far away and at the wrong angle for a reflection, and then turned back upwards, skating a path that wound at a comfortable angle so much faster than climbing. She kept the skates, staying barely above the stone, with a last glance at the mirror lake on her way out.
She could've sworn she saw two glowing eyes, vivid indigo, one of them winking at her.
Then she cleared to the stairs and went much faster up than she had come down, not bothering with the individual steps. The sun was peeking over the horizon when she reached the open air.
Moriko took a moment to gather her sleeping bag and other supplies, and touched the lightly glowing rock in farewell. The staircase shuddered again, and recessed, and soon it was only a shrine with a snowflake, sitting in a depression atop a split peak mountain. When it came to a full rest, the glow faded out.
She faced the south and west, homewards, double-checked she had everything, and leaped into the air on her skates.
Going the direct route would be so much faster it wouldn't be funny, and she wouldn't have to touch ground til sight of Sand.
~
She reached the compound two days after leaving the peak, a fraction of the time it had taken her to get there, sneaking into the city just before dawn.
Tsukiya was sleeping in their room when she reached the door, and she paused to study him.
His dark blond hair framed his face, a strong jaw and nose he was growing into just like she was the angled frame of her face. He was not getting as tall as she was; she was passing him there, but he had stronger definition to his build, muscled well without being obnoxiously so. Deft hands--something she knew first-hand--resting atop the covers. Objectively, he was as handsome as she was beautiful. She knew that was objective because she'd heard people whispering about both of them.
But that wasn't why he was the one she'd picked. No, it was because that same violence was in both of them--because there was a resonance. And their chakra apparently agreed.
Moriko sat on the edge of Tsukiya's bed, which almost immediately made his eyes flicker open, beautiful pale blue. How strange, on some level, that he was the one with the icy eyes. What would their children someday look like?
"Hello darling," Tsukiya murmured, tugging himself up into a sitting position and blinking hazily at her. "You're home. Success, I take it?"
"Yes," she said simply. "Tomorrow I join the revolution. Today, though..."
"Rest?" he said. Tsukiya was not like some boys, in that he was obsessed with getting under her skirts.
"No," Moriko said. Just because he didn't obsess over it--that didn't mean it couldn't--but she knew better than to voice this angle of stumbling thoughts. "I--are we alone?"
"Your mother is not home," he said. "...Moriko? Dear?"
Moriko was already sliding off her travel clothes. Tsukiya's gaze on her was a certain kind of hungry that sent a shiver of anticipation over her.
"Today," she said, wording it slowly and carefully, "it's us. Okay? I know I love you, and I know you love me."
"I do," Tsukiya said, without a touch of hesitation. "I love you more than anything. Are you..."
She stepped out of her skirt, and his breath caught. She dropped it and went over to him, where their beds were pushed together. "Yes," she said.
They didn't make it under the covers, but neither one of them minded that.
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