and the scenery was of departure (Mushishi, Ginko, various themes)
Title: and the scenery was of departure
Fandom: Mushishi
Subject: Ginko and assorted others
Themes: #3 - Late night conversation, #6 - Promise?, #22 - A favour, #24 - True friends stab you in the front, #25 - Forgiveness
Disclaimer: Mushishi is not mine, which is just as well.
(a favour)
Ginko finds the water's chill depressingly familiar, though this time the only power dragging him downwards is that of the sea. Just as familiar - if far more welcome - is the grip of a small, strong hand around his wrist. When they break through the surface, Ginko almost expects moonlight, not the angry greeting of the storm.
Eventually the storm ends, as abruptly as it began. Ginko's box is lying safe in the fishing boat when he climbs onboard; he sighs in relief, and Io laughs. "I saved it first," she admits. "Thought I should do you that favour, at least."
(forgiveness)
Ginko does not visit Shinra again. There are many reasons why - he has no cause to do so, the house is out of the way, he wishes to respect Shinra's dislike of attention - and it does not matter which of those, if any, is most important.
This does not stop the inevitable letter from arriving, years later, to confirm the predictions that Ginko first made to Adashino. That much is unsurprising. What Ginko finds unexpected is the accompanying sketch, an ink-brush study of a girl with an ageless smile; it is that, not Shinra's careful words, which feels like forgiveness.
("true friends stab you in the front.")
( From the start, Nui makes these things clear: that she may offer unspoken sympathy but never comfort, that she may teach him but will not be his teacher, that whatever Yoki might be looking for he will not find it here. So despite the walks in the woods and the informal lessons, Yoki expects only to wake up alone.
Nui knows - though she sometimes wishes to think otherwise - that none of this will make anything easier. But the alternative is to make promises that will, by necessity or inevitability, have to be broken; and that would simply be too cruel. )
(promise?)
He goes back two years later, and stays only three nights. "You'll visit again, right?" Miharu asks. Ginko knows, even if he does not remember, that Miharu's tone was different two years ago. He wonders if he had expected anything else.
"It'd be nice to come back in the autumn," he says, and they all know it means nothing.
It is summer, which makes it easy to leave. Two years ago Suzu might have made him promise to return, if not in words then at least with a pleading gaze; now she merely smiles, and waves him on his way.
(late night conversation)
They will meet again one summer, or perhaps in late spring, when the world is green and bright with life. As before, he will hear her biwa before he sees her.
The story she sings will be the one that he told her years ago, by the light of a candle that could never hope to mimic the sun. Initially Ginko will not recognise its new form, the words not muffled through paper walls but rising strong and clear in the afternoon air -- but when Amane ends her song she will look up and smile, knowing that it is him.
Fandom: Mushishi
Subject: Ginko and assorted others
Themes: #3 - Late night conversation, #6 - Promise?, #22 - A favour, #24 - True friends stab you in the front, #25 - Forgiveness
Disclaimer: Mushishi is not mine, which is just as well.
(a favour)
Ginko finds the water's chill depressingly familiar, though this time the only power dragging him downwards is that of the sea. Just as familiar - if far more welcome - is the grip of a small, strong hand around his wrist. When they break through the surface, Ginko almost expects moonlight, not the angry greeting of the storm.
Eventually the storm ends, as abruptly as it began. Ginko's box is lying safe in the fishing boat when he climbs onboard; he sighs in relief, and Io laughs. "I saved it first," she admits. "Thought I should do you that favour, at least."
(forgiveness)
Ginko does not visit Shinra again. There are many reasons why - he has no cause to do so, the house is out of the way, he wishes to respect Shinra's dislike of attention - and it does not matter which of those, if any, is most important.
This does not stop the inevitable letter from arriving, years later, to confirm the predictions that Ginko first made to Adashino. That much is unsurprising. What Ginko finds unexpected is the accompanying sketch, an ink-brush study of a girl with an ageless smile; it is that, not Shinra's careful words, which feels like forgiveness.
("true friends stab you in the front.")
( From the start, Nui makes these things clear: that she may offer unspoken sympathy but never comfort, that she may teach him but will not be his teacher, that whatever Yoki might be looking for he will not find it here. So despite the walks in the woods and the informal lessons, Yoki expects only to wake up alone.
Nui knows - though she sometimes wishes to think otherwise - that none of this will make anything easier. But the alternative is to make promises that will, by necessity or inevitability, have to be broken; and that would simply be too cruel. )
(promise?)
He goes back two years later, and stays only three nights. "You'll visit again, right?" Miharu asks. Ginko knows, even if he does not remember, that Miharu's tone was different two years ago. He wonders if he had expected anything else.
"It'd be nice to come back in the autumn," he says, and they all know it means nothing.
It is summer, which makes it easy to leave. Two years ago Suzu might have made him promise to return, if not in words then at least with a pleading gaze; now she merely smiles, and waves him on his way.
(late night conversation)
They will meet again one summer, or perhaps in late spring, when the world is green and bright with life. As before, he will hear her biwa before he sees her.
The story she sings will be the one that he told her years ago, by the light of a candle that could never hope to mimic the sun. Initially Ginko will not recognise its new form, the words not muffled through paper walls but rising strong and clear in the afternoon air -- but when Amane ends her song she will look up and smile, knowing that it is him.