#mindform

WRITING PORTFOLIO

HOUSEKI NO KUNI.

cinnabar counts three moons in the sky tonight. twilight still lingers when they emerge from the cave underneath hollow cape to make the nightly rounds.

it is a pointless self-soothing habit from a less bearable time. the island was never in need of a night watch; cinnabar was merely in need of an assignment. a desire for purpose in lieu of guiding instincts. the years roll by regardless, so they might as well go on with their duty.

they wander. wading through the wetlands, ankle-deep in water and mud. the roots from failed tree stumps linger just below surface level, and might cause someone less familiar to trip and fall. only the soft rustling of the vegetation suggests movement beyond their own; the bugs scurry on their way across the water, the branches, along each blade of grass.

a minor interruption to the meditation, but no matter.

nothing of substance to find in the wetlands tonight. there almost never is. many hundreds of years ago, they might expect to find traces of battles that took place during the daytime. it stirred no excitement then, and elicits no feelings of nostalgia when they think of it now. the waters here ran deeper once.

cinnabar continues east. the rolling hills are solitary even in the day. the last of the tall, white flowers sway in the breeze, reaching for the last days of blue skies before winter chokes the life out of the earth completely.

but no dead flowers from the years before remain. organic life rots, and breaks down eventually. wishing not to disturb this gentle cycle, cinnabar makes an early turn for the school, lest the mercury that is continuously congealing in the air around them cause any further damage to this moonlit scene. yet another failure of this form. they shall have to think of the flowers again in winter, in dreams.

it’s a short walk. cinnabar passes the school, making no observation beyond its sameness. the building looms quietly over the landscape. everyone is asleep inside, and safe for now.

the clouds roll slowly overhead. only two moons remain visible; great white eyes peering down over the land like phos, whose eyes were ground to a fine dust somewhere up there on one of those moons, once did. it’s been more than half a century since then.

they keep their distance from the school, and anyone within it who may suffer harm from being near them. it’s the long way around en route to the cord shore, but cinnabar has nothing if not time. it’s still far from daybreak.

the grassland thins out gradually, gives way to the sandy beach that stretches along the southernmost tip of the island. a familiar haunt on lonesome nights.

footprints remain for a little while in the damp sand, before they’re washed out to sea along scattered gem fragments, small rocks, and various invertebrates. nothing noteworthy.

they count aquamarine, citrine, and peridot among the smaller rocks. some larger pieces, but they lack any distinct features, having been softened and dulled by the rolling waves against grains of sand. when the sky is clear, and the land is illuminated simultaneously by all six moons, the pieces, however small, shine brilliantly against the dark sea. tonight the light barely registers. hopeless, they think.

a gem of familiar tint rocks back and forth in the receding tide, plants itself firmly in her mind as an infectious memory. impervious to diseases, as all inorganic matter is, cinnabar is familiar enough with the concept of invasion to recognise a breakdown of their defenses.

phosphophyllite. scattered to pieces and buried right below her feet. each agate leg at right angles on opposite sides of the island.

and lazulis’ head, with several chunks of it lost in the heat of the moment. even as they picked up the pieces, cinnabar could not shake the thoughts of  what horrid outcome would result from any attempt to piece it back together.

arms only in name. abstract appendages, horrid golden instruments with roots digging deeper and deeper into the last remaining part of the phos they once knew, the last vestiges of their namesake gemstone body.

cinnabar doesn’t know the precise location of each shard of the body. there might be hundreds, buried in precise locations for safekeeping until the master decides on a course of action, and with each piece, a severed slice of consciousness. the self completely ruptured. though it’s not as if they were in unity before then. the sinful nature and ugliness of their betrayal is nearly palpable, as if cinnabar could reach their hand into the dark, murky water and somehow feel its infected tendrils grazing against their limbs, prying for an opening.

-

a crack breaks them out of thought. they peer down, and find a small spiral shell cracked under the sole of their shoe. a hundred tiny pieces, some interspersed with flecks of color, seeping into sand.

they’ve nearly exhausted the stretch of beach by now. standing afore the cliff at the end, cinnabar makes a final observation of a chunk of red ruby at the very peak, which catches the moonlight at a precise angle to ignite itself inward and out with a red glow.

when it drops, it will make a fine addition to rutile’s collection.

they make sure to pass over the western side of the island before returning to the cape, though there is no practical need for this beyond extending the duration of their patrol. as they peer up at the sky they are met with a dull vastness, blotchy with slow-moving clouds, rather than a consuming darkness. two moons remain, and there is an indistinct hue of light ascending across the horizon.

so ends cinnabar’s night watch: with nothing to report, as always, and only a scattered mind to gather– a piece of it buried alongside each of phos’ fragmented selves, perhaps.