#okuni things

Tagged by: @guilebled Tagging: @pandoraboa @jxniel @sunmichi @inflorcsccnt @saketohana @magnusxgentem @manorofmuses + whoever else wants to do this! (just say I tagged you) 

Baren in bold, Okuni striked out, both bold crossed out

It was mostly a joke, honestly, to tell people that she though the liquor in the Quicksand was tainted. It had served as little more than an ice-breaker, something to strike up a conversation with a stranger, but over time Okuni’s joking commentary seemed to gain supporting evidence. 

There was the blatant racism, the degeneracy abound, people claiming to be voidsent or ninja or kitsune out loud where all could hear. She’d heard people bragging about having killed people and hidden the bodies, she’d heard people planning to kill people and hide the bodies. She’d seen a man sexually ‘punishing’ his lover in public, and she’d heard a woman threaten to kill her for merely speaking to a man she knew. 

All of it was played so shockingly straight, as if these people truly believed that they were the things they claimed to be, or perhaps they said it all for attention. If the latter was true, they certainly got what they wanted, for no one could possibly ignore such outrageous claims. Or perhaps they could, and she was just bad at it?

It was born of anger, but became something soothing

Needs to keep the claws from her palms

It was born of rage, but became peace

Needs to hold back the tide of hate

It was born of excess time, but became a filler

Needs to fill the idle droning hours

It was born and grew slowly

Needs to practice and master the skill

It was born, and did not fade away

Needs to see more carvings held in her hands

It was born and nurtured faithfully

There was always a quiet sort of majesty to winter mornings after fresh snowfall. Those early hours were some of Okuni’s favorites, and she was eager to go out in order to see to it that hers were the first footprints to press into the cold powder. 

Pleased to find that she was indeed the first soul about that particular morning, Okuni allowed herself a moment to feel the magic of it all. It was the first snow in the Shroud and thus, the Lavender Beds she called her home. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but she could still see the glittering sheets of snow in the fading starlight. Clutching her coat tightly around herself, she put one foot forward, then the other, and let her feet carry her beyond the gates of the yard. 

it was so, so silent. Her breath, her heartbeat, her very presence almost felt invasive to this beauty. For a brief moment, Okuni wondered if she might spot a yuki-onna or some other haunting sight, being up so early. But the minutes ticked by and she saw nothing. No animals, no people, not even the movement of frosted branches on the breeze. There was only the snow, only the sky, only the stars, and herself. 

Sometimes...a lot of the time, actually, Okuni hated her scales. 

It wasn’t just that they were itchy when they were shedding. It wasn’t just that they burned more easily than normal skin, or that they required oil twice a day. It wasn’t just that her tail got in the way sometimes, or that sometimes her horns made brushing her hair a chore as the strands snagged broken, dry scales or pointed tips. 

It was because her scales, or rather, the particular color of her scales, seemed to cause her a fair bit of trouble. Xaela were respected enough on pure virtue of being Xaela, but being a Raen seemed to make her a target of discrimination from her darker-scaled brethren. 

It meant being ignored, it meant getting called names, it meant being underestimated. 

It meant that where she was desperate to get to know others of her kind, dark-scaled though they may be, she was often dismissed before she got the chance. 

Would things be easier if she were a Hyur, or a Xaela herself? 

She’d never been ashamed of her scales before Eorzea. To her, at home, they were a gift from Ryujin, golden glimmering remnants of their heritage, for the Raen had been made in his image. At least, that was the story she’d been told growing up. 

The white-gold of her scales were meant to be beautiful, not a mark of shame. They made her who she was, they weren’t meant to be a target for rejection. They were a symbol of her heritage, her history. They didn’t mean to make her a target of hate, but she’d heard it so derisively, so many times ‘whitescale, milkscale, diluted blood.’

She didn’t think much of him when he showed up. In fact, she’d thought he was a she, and that he belonged to one of her company mates. Feeling obligated to at least keep the thing alive until she could meet with the cat’s owner, Okuni gave the cat food and cared for it for the next few days. 

But there was a problem. 

It wasn’t Sukh’s cat. 

“What? Then whose cat have I been feeding? Oh gods, I have a cat now, don’t I?” 

And so she did, not having the heart to get rid of it or turn it out. He was a cute little thing, sleek black fur and vibrant green eyes. However, she soon recalled why she didn’t have pets before. 

He liked to knock things over, pull things over, and chew on things he’d pulled or knocked over. 

She named him Isonade, after a shark-like creature known for pulling things down to eat them. He filled her days with entertainment, if nothing else. 

She had never been to the Azim Steppe. Indeed, were it not for a fateful encounter in her youth, she probably wouldn’t have known that Xaela existed. But when she looked back on that encounter, it was with wistfulness and nostalgia. 

She’d been a young girl of but seventeen summers, still naive to the ways of the world then. Her task for that summer, every day after sunrise, was to go down to the shoals to collect the red-shelled mollusk that the village used for both dye and food. They were abundant enough along the shoreline, but after a mere few days of being plucked from the waters, their numbers were greatly reduced. And so the young Raen had to resort to other methods, and was quite fortunate that she’d been blessed with the ability to hold her breath for extensive periods of time, even if she’d not received the blessing of the Kojin like her brethren in Sui-no-Sato. 

There was a cave a malm or so off the shore, submerged in water and reaching deep into the earth. It was here that the village held coming-of-age ceremonies for young ones, but it was also here that majority of the red shellfish liked to cluster, and here that she took to filling her basket. She tried to be conservative about it, because the faster the supply ran out, the faster she’d have to get back to other jobs in the village she was desperate to escape. It was overall very boring, until one day she found someone else in her spot. 

She thought him a shark at first, or some kind of incarnation of Ryujin, for he was incredibly alien to her. His body bore scales and horns like hers, and overall he resembled the build of one of the men in the village, but his skin was as blue as the sea, his eyes inky black. She was not sure what to feel at first. There was fright, but also curiosity, and he had noticed her immediately without showing any hostility whatsoever. He looked at her, mouthed something, gave her a thumbs-up, and gestured for her to surface. And so she did, turning out of the cave with a wary eye fixed on this shark-man as they both broke the surface. 

He spoke to her in stilted, broken Hingan, in a dialect unfamiliar to her, but she understood enough to realize he was introducing himself and asking her to not be afraid. 

He was a Xaela, he told her, an Auri warrior and fisherman from a place called the Azim Steppe. The Steppe was home to countless groups of Xaela, and he himself was of a tribe known as the Ejinn. His tribe did not know that he’d followed the flow of a river into the Ruby Sea, just as Okuni’s village did not know of her dawdling here in the cave to avoid responsibilities. 

They struck a fast friendship; he had a bright and easy smile and taught her snippets of his own language, while she in turn helped him polish his use of her own. Together, they’d compete to see who could hold their breath longer (he’d always, always won, at least in the beginning), she’d shown him how to fashion nets of jute, he’d shown her how to cover more distance swimming by using the currents. They shared many things over that summer, many firsts, and indeed he was her first. When the time came for them to part, she felt a heartbreak…not of lost love, because it wasn’t quite love. But of a fond yet sorrowful farewell, of the loss of a friend she knew she’d never see again. She returned to her village that summer with her baskets full of red shells, her head filled with new knowledge, and her heart open and eager to see the world. 

Little did she know, in less than a decade, she’d get to do just that. She still had not seen the Steppe. Wondered if she ever would, really. But it felt just a little closer to home, a bit more in reach. 

The letter’s arrival was entirely unexpected. 

Not only did Okuni seldom receive mail in the first place, but the sender was one she’d honestly presumed dead or at least gone. A dead person writing a letter... That wasn’t entirely what she thought a “ghost writer” was. 

A joke. A bad bad joke. Because accepting that the letter in her hands was for real was next to impossible. But the longer she held it, the longer she stared at the neat lettering that spelled out her name in a familiar hand, the more she was forced to accept it. It was true. The letter was real. He really had written her. 

She did not wait until she was inside her home to tear the letter open, ripping a jagged gash in the envelope in her haste to get to the ink on paper, ink that would tell her why he had sent this damning thing. She pushed open the door to the house, skimming as she walked inside. 

My Dearest Okuni, 

I know that receiving this letter must be something of a shock, to you. 

[That was an understatement.]

How many moons have waxed full in the sky since we last saw one another? I still remember the soft lilt of your voice [Since when had her voice ever been soft, unless she had her customer service voice going?], the hair falling down your back. How my fingers used to tangle in those locks, twisted between my knuckles. I remember the look on your lovely face when I told you I was going on a mission and did not know for how long. And so long it has been, my lovely one. So long that you must have surely forgotten my face by now. 

[How was she supposed to react to that? It all sounded like bullshite, leading up to some sort of apology she didn’t want to hear. Okuni read on.]

Have you missed me in my absence? For I have missed you. I have missed you, and yet I have wronged you. Because when last we met, I lied to you. I lied and told you that I was waging a dangerous war, that I was sworn to secrecy. The truth, my lovely one, is more ugly than any ware. I was not leaving, but returning to something. To someone. 

[Her heart was frozen, frozen, and an odd panic welled up in her chest. No no no no no no no...]

I can never apologize to you enough for what I am about to confess, but you were always a decadence I allowed myself in Eorzea. I asked your hand on impulse, though I had the imprint of that ring already. You see, I had drowned in you so completely that I felt like I had no option. I had to make you mine in body and name. But it was with regret, with self loathing that I never told you I was already--

She could read no more. The excuses, the apologies... she couldn’t stand to read another. She’d read all she needed to, understood all that she needed to. All this time, she’d thought he’d gone on that expedition and died. All this time, she’d felt guilt for moving on from him. All this time, she’d been his mistress. 

What did he expect from her? Forgiveness? Some sort of award for telling her the truth far too late? Had she known, she wouldn’t have wasted her time. 

She would not write back. 

She would not even grace him by finishing the letter. 

She would think no more of him. 

The letter found its way into the flames of the hearth, and Okuni watched the paper curl up and crumble and puff into plumes of ash. Then when it was but embers in the fire, she took a dagger to her hair. The hair he had loved so much, the hair he’d twisted his filthy lying fingers into...

She cut furiously, hacked off hunks and hunks of that sleek black hair. When none of it touched her shoulders any longer, she threw it all into the flames as well. The acrid burning odor hardly mattered. 

No, no tribute. No accolades, no acknowledgement. Nothing that would remind her of him. Perhaps one day she’d stop feeling so tainted, like she needed to follow the hair and letter into the inferno. One day, she’d have a head full of hair that he’d never touched. 

She walked outside and began the trek to the Mists. Any praise or tribute she had was for him instead, the man who she’d come to love in the time since the letter’s sender. He’d never treated her like that, never built their relationship on a lie.