[Dream] Winter

[parousian]

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Everything falls and dies in this season of cold.

When the earth is hard under foot, frozen like the sun that stretches its light but cannot reach the world. And it is only right that the warmth has been taken from the earth, when your heart has been frostbitten through -- a hard, cold thing in your chest that sinks into the lungs and lances through breath. There is frost forming all inside of you, little crystals like the snow under your feet, and you wish it could freeze you in place like the children found blue and waxen in a snowy ditch seven nights ago; their small fingers were claws in the air, grasping for warm hands that would never find them again.

You will never forget the stillness of grief in the camp that night, how heavy and wet it settled like the snow they were found in; the ringing sobs of women with muddy knees, eyes bleeding anger and clear salt-tracks that glittered in the glow of funeral pyres built by sonless fathers with battlefield eyes.

(Spring would come if they released the nestlings from the shade of their mothers' wings. They could not nest forever, and would become men, would take on the rites of Uchiha pride, fan the flames, feel the heat, see the world in shades of red and black; and winter would have an early end, or so they believed. But a tiger hid in Uchiha skin, crept through their camps with quiet paws, whispered the secret of early Spring to one thousand hands waiting under the shade of trees where nestlings waited their time to fly with bright eyes. How brutally they were slaughtered, how fast the kill. And the tiger, in wait, licking a smile off its face.)

And you stood breathing in the ashes of murdered children who still filled the air, falling into snow and turning the world grey. Soot filmed in the sea of red and black looking back, screaming for justice in the midst of war, for answers you could not give (you just turned seven and ten, but when you live in between battlefields, you are blessed if you live to see thirty springs) when there was a traitor in your midst.

(We must have justice, Madara-sama. They have taken our sons. Our Spring is no more, and there will not be another Spring for many years. What will you do, Madara-sama? What will you do? There is a traitor tainting our blood and our pride, we must take from them what they took from us. We must have them dead the way they took our boys. Revenge is not enough for what has been done to us, killing is too merciful. They must suffer as we suffer, feel the gravity of their crime and taste the ashes we have swallowed, know its burn, how it scalds when it is breathed into the lungs.)

Their anger was livid and alive, armed with kunai ready to stab; and it was for love that you made your resolve. You would hunt down the tiger with your own hands, tear its hide off its back and make it stand trial before all that you love and all that you are, this clan through which you live and breathe.  You would make a stew of its flesh, hang its head next to the clan's flags.

Love, how it feeds the fires that warm the tents, breathes life into little children that will grow strong under the shadow of banners that bear the family crest; the fan that stirs embers into flames that grow bright under night skies where you count the stars and make wishes upon the ones that fly.

(You stood under the stars five winters ago, and she was soft like the snow that melted on her curved lashes and smelled like plum flowers; the most beautiful blossom in the clan, given to you as a wife. How lucky you were that you were born under the same night sky. You threaded your small hands together and wished for a son.)

Love, how it grows to a rage, boiling like the weight of her betrayal and their eyes chaining you down with justice in one hand and ice in your blood.

(You promised us justice, you promised us revenge, you promised us the head of a tiger and its poisoned offspring. The seed was pure, the egg was not, you are not to blame for the taint of her blood.)

Love, how it blinds when justice flashes through the air and the blood of your sons spill fresh and red and steaming into the ground, like the blood of the boys lost seven nights ago, killed by your wife's traitorous tongue that she licked the enemy's sweat with; you wonder if she ever loved you as you loved her, or your children who now lie in the snow with their heads cut off, their eyes glassy and wet as they stare at you in shock.

(Father, what have you done?)

Love, how it scorches your eyes when they immolate, and she burns screaming, the bitter scent of death filling the winter air (everything falls and dies in this season of cold) and there is no victory here, no satisfaction that comes with justice and revenge; the salt runs into your heart and fills it teeming with tears you withhold in front of your clan, who watch with stony eyes set upon the execution's stage.

"Should any one of you betray our clan in any way, I will have your head and extinguish your blood. I will show you and your offspring no mercy, regardless of who you are to me. I will not tolerate treachery!  If any one of you should object to this standard, you may step forward and give me your head this moment!"

They are silent and fearful with their eyes grown cold; winter is in their vision because they do not know whether to condemn you for your traitor wife, or to sympathize that you now suffer as they suffer and taste the ashes of your own blood, feel how it scalds when it fills the lungs. They look at you with their arctic eyes and your wife is burning and your sons are gone.

Lost like theirs.

Lost like you when you leave for the battlefield with a war fan in one hand and a scythe in the other, the blood of your family in your eyes and pouring down your face, a river that does not stop like the flowing of the tears in your chest. You can drown on this, the way it fills your lungs and you think a monster does not deserve to be alive, and think it a fine day to die for justice for all those boys frozen in the snow with their hands outstretched -- what were they reaching for?

"Oniisama! Oniisama! Onii--" His eyes are wide and surprised and there is too much concern for a monster when he clutches your arms, catches you when your knees give out with the roar of the ocean in your chest that comes out of your mouth. It is not a battle cry, which is filled with fire and lightning and everything else, but empty and stormless with grief, copper on the tongue.

You cry as you have never cried before.

Until you are all emptied out.

[ There is salt in his throat and blood carving down his cheeks when he wakes; and it is all too fast that he disappears into thin air with a flick of the fingers before his lovers wake. ]

[art credit | Lily ]