Louder Than Thunder [Private]

Time flows like the perennial river. Time rides the crest of a wave in the sea. Time sleeps and wakes up. Time walks and Time runs. Time races and stand still. Time has future and past.. Time creeps and ticks.. It's day and night, darkness and light.. Time blinks like an eye, and it beats like a heart.. And Time can make anything vanish just as soon as it has come.

No matter what one endures, no matter where one wanders, no matter how much one begs and pleads for time to simply stop..

It ticks on.

This ran through one sugiura in particular's head in an endless and vicious cycle. Left alone with her thoughts, this sugiura meditated, and to a degree, tortured themselves.

They stared, seemingly forever, up into the canopy of trees above. The goldenrod beams of light that pierced through the autumn veil cast diamonds into the twilight covering below. The breeze was cool, and almost somber as it drifted lazily, tossing various leaves from the blanket above in a whirlwind dance around the singular occupant of the forest.

This singular occupant in question lay stretched out with her hands behind her head in the flowing grass, the various stalks and blades of the plant life around her brushing over her being as if to comfort her.. The very earth itself seemed to resonate with her thoughts, and respond in kind, creating a protective hold around her as she sank into the soft earth slightly from the presence of her weight on the untouched ground. Her red eyes were closed in thought, and her pale skin shone with the few rods of sunlight that touched her being through the variable spiderweb of cover above. One might not notice her at all from simply passing through, were it not for the bright white coloration coming from her hair, short but vibrant, and from her robe, long and flowing all the way down her body. Some have criticized her choice of dress, calling the type of robe she wore “inappropriate” for a knight of her stature. She didn't pay much mind to these comments, however. It was her body, and she felt no shame in the deep v-shape in the center of her robe. She saw no issue with showing off a bit of her body. Frankly, she was proud of her form. Why hide it? She let a soft chuckle float into the afternoon air at the thought. Good. She was still able to laugh.. She was glad of that fact. It had become difficult to find moments like this.. moments of reprieve.. as of recent, at any rate.

Kameko sighed out, breathing a whisper that carried a million emotions into the wind. All she wanted was to sort everything out. How she felt, how she worked.. Her past, her present, and her future.. Her current employer and her former one.. Everything was a duality.. Everything was a choice.. and she hated it. She despised every second of her conflict, and wished for it simply to end.

Had she considered ending it the.. short way? Yes. Most certainly. The thought had crossed her mind many a time.. And she had attempted it on an occasion or two, she'd admit. The promise of an eternal rest within the cloak of an oblivion she was fully prepared to meet head on sounded almost too good to be true. However.. Kyoubou had other plans for her.. and no matter what she attempted, the end would not come.. Not by her own hand, apparently.. She was trapped here in her suffering.

Perhaps it was for the best.. a true knight would never consider dying anywhere beyond the battlefield. A TRUE knight would wish only for a valiant and fitting end to their service..

But she wasn't.. truly a knight anymore, was she?

Her betrayal of her people had pretty much caused her to abandon that title.. A Shadow. That's what she was now. It's all she was good for in this stage. She had no honor, and no claim to her old title.. her old life.. or even, in her opinion, her own name.

Her hands moved, cupping her face as she slowly sat up, leaving her imprint to bend her torso over her knees, her body shaking in silent anguish, her hair tossed messily about her hands.

“Dammit...”

She swore to herself, cursing her very existence at this point. She tried to hold herself back.. but she could not.. And for the first time in what it seemed like years... For the first time she would like to admit at all...

”Dammit..”

Against all honorable or valiant codes of conduct

”D...dammit...!”

Against all logic, against all reason..

”D..damn... d..d.. I...”

Kameko wept.

She wept for herself. For her clan. For those who would never forgive her, and for those would be so foolish that they might allow her atonement yet. For those who knew her every crime, and those who were ignorant to them all. She wept for things gone by, things yet to come, and things in the now.. the things torturing her very fiber.. her very bones quaked with the resonating sorrow she felt in every shuddering breath between bitter, mournful sobs.

Why.. had she come this far..

Why had she come this far... This far from grace, from faith, from loyalty...

Why had no one stopped her?

Where was her honor?

Where was her peace?

Where were her allies?

She knew not.. and as the forest echoed with the distressed calls of a woman utterly broken.

It was apparent.. that she may never know.

Her cries were not simply for herself, but for every object, every ideal, every soul who she had sworn allegiance to... Only to ultimately betray. It was the call of one who had lost it all, except the one thing she desperately wanted to lose. It was a call that was silent, reserved, contained. And yet, at the same time..

Loud.

Echoing.

Undeniable.

It was more silent than a pin drop and yet, somehow...

Louder than thunder.