(no subject)
Title: Connection
Series: X
Genre: Gen
Rating: G
Characters: Tokiko, Tohru
Word count:893
Notes: Set pre-canon, a few years before Tohru leaves the Magami house. This is a very late fanfic for the 'kage-nie' challenge at the togakushishrine.
Summary: Someone leaves an anonymous present for Tokiko.
Tokiko had a doll with rosy porcelain cheeks and long black hair that caught the sunlight when she went out into the garden with that morning, tucking it under one arm.
Reaching a low stone wall, she sat down and held the doll up in front of her, staring at its face with curiosity.
It wasn't just a doll. It was a mystery.
That morning she had woken up to find it sitting just outside the door of her room, propped up against the wall. There had been a note, too, in neat, graceful script: For Tokiko.
She thought she recognised the handwriting, but when she tried to catch her sister's eye at breakfast, Tohru's gaze barely skimmed over her, and much less over the doll in her arms, seeming far more interested in the pickles and rice laid out on the low table for breakfast.
Eventually she just asked her: "Do you know how this got to my room?"
Tohru shrugged and replied with a noncommittal "Who can say?", and that was no answer at all.
Trying to get information out of Tohru could be like getting blood from a stone, especially if she was in a retiring mood, and Tokiko knew that a full reply was unlikely. Sometimes she thought that Tohru had taken the Magami clan's secrecy too much to heart, clamming up reflexively even in the absence of danger.
It could have been someone else who had left it there for her, but she doubted it. Tohru was a good liar, albeit that withholding information came more naturally to her, but she wasn't perfect, and Tokiko knew that Tohru hated pickles with every fibre of her being.
***
Tokiko left the doll in her room when she went to her lessons - her real lessons; it wasn't a school day - and its glassy eyes seemed to follow her balefully as she went.
There were no books at a Magami's magic lessons. The traditions were passed down orally, except for those occasions where one had to be shown the layout of a certain warding circle, or the precise locations of certain magical hot spots throughout the country. Even then, the instructor was more likely to sketch out the diagrams on paper in front of her students and then burn it in the fire than to draw out an old, carefully preserved scroll from the folds of her kimono sleeve.
Today they were covering some of the ways for a shadow sacrifice to avoid the effects of a curse sent to the ones they protected. It was the nectar mixed in with the bitterness of the sacrificial role; pay attention, said the instructor, because putting yourself in the line of fire is not the same as throwing your life away.
Tokiko and the other student there - a cousin a year older than her - scarcely needed to be told to concentrate harder.
When it was finished and her head buzzed with information, Tokiko bowed to the instructor and made her way out of the training room, trying to engrave every last detail into her memory.
Tohru was leaning on the wall outside with an arm folded behind her head, seemingly enjoying the sunshine. When she saw her sister, she smiled.
"You're doing well with your studies, Tokiko."
"Thank you." Tokiko blinked owlishly behind her glasses, both surprised and pleased by the praise. It was no trivial thing to be complimented by her sister, not when Tohru was clearly the most adept sorceress in the clan. Besides, Tohru simply wasn't given to false flattery.
"You've covered the basics of becoming a shadow sacrifice, haven't you?"
"Yes," Tokiko replied, watching her sister's face with curiosity.
"And you're moving on to some of the finer details now?" Tohru asked, although it was more a statement of fact than a question.
Tokiko nodded.
"With that sort of thing," Tohru said, a little awkwardly, "it doesn't do to get the basic spells wrong. But it's difficult to test to see if you really know them."
"That is a problem," said Tokiko, slipping past to lean against the wall too. "The teacher said that there are some ways to try it out...but we'll be leaving those till much later on. There's plenty of time."
Tohru looked down. "Maybe."
Why wouldn't there be time? was the question Tokiko didn't bother to voice. They stood there for a moment. Tokiko rocked back and forth on her heels.
"Do you remember the time my arm got broken?" Tohru said.
***
The doll was a pretty little thing. Tokiko wasn't much one for dolls, but this one was well made, and articulated even down to the extent of defying tradition. Pushing back the sleeve of its kimono, she felt the joint at the elbow and then its wrist, and then its individually sprung fingers, cold and tiny under her own fingertips.
She set it down on the floor, and stayed there in front of it for the next fifteen minutes, chanting under her breath. After that, she got carefully to her feet, stretching her cramped legs.
Scooping the doll up, she regarded it searchingly, turning it around and around but not seeing anything that caught her attention.
Then she reached out with her right hand and deftly snapped the doll's left wrist.
Series: X
Genre: Gen
Rating: G
Characters: Tokiko, Tohru
Word count:893
Notes: Set pre-canon, a few years before Tohru leaves the Magami house. This is a very late fanfic for the 'kage-nie' challenge at the togakushishrine.
Summary: Someone leaves an anonymous present for Tokiko.
Tokiko had a doll with rosy porcelain cheeks and long black hair that caught the sunlight when she went out into the garden with that morning, tucking it under one arm.
Reaching a low stone wall, she sat down and held the doll up in front of her, staring at its face with curiosity.
It wasn't just a doll. It was a mystery.
That morning she had woken up to find it sitting just outside the door of her room, propped up against the wall. There had been a note, too, in neat, graceful script: For Tokiko.
She thought she recognised the handwriting, but when she tried to catch her sister's eye at breakfast, Tohru's gaze barely skimmed over her, and much less over the doll in her arms, seeming far more interested in the pickles and rice laid out on the low table for breakfast.
Eventually she just asked her: "Do you know how this got to my room?"
Tohru shrugged and replied with a noncommittal "Who can say?", and that was no answer at all.
Trying to get information out of Tohru could be like getting blood from a stone, especially if she was in a retiring mood, and Tokiko knew that a full reply was unlikely. Sometimes she thought that Tohru had taken the Magami clan's secrecy too much to heart, clamming up reflexively even in the absence of danger.
It could have been someone else who had left it there for her, but she doubted it. Tohru was a good liar, albeit that withholding information came more naturally to her, but she wasn't perfect, and Tokiko knew that Tohru hated pickles with every fibre of her being.
***
Tokiko left the doll in her room when she went to her lessons - her real lessons; it wasn't a school day - and its glassy eyes seemed to follow her balefully as she went.
There were no books at a Magami's magic lessons. The traditions were passed down orally, except for those occasions where one had to be shown the layout of a certain warding circle, or the precise locations of certain magical hot spots throughout the country. Even then, the instructor was more likely to sketch out the diagrams on paper in front of her students and then burn it in the fire than to draw out an old, carefully preserved scroll from the folds of her kimono sleeve.
Today they were covering some of the ways for a shadow sacrifice to avoid the effects of a curse sent to the ones they protected. It was the nectar mixed in with the bitterness of the sacrificial role; pay attention, said the instructor, because putting yourself in the line of fire is not the same as throwing your life away.
Tokiko and the other student there - a cousin a year older than her - scarcely needed to be told to concentrate harder.
When it was finished and her head buzzed with information, Tokiko bowed to the instructor and made her way out of the training room, trying to engrave every last detail into her memory.
Tohru was leaning on the wall outside with an arm folded behind her head, seemingly enjoying the sunshine. When she saw her sister, she smiled.
"You're doing well with your studies, Tokiko."
"Thank you." Tokiko blinked owlishly behind her glasses, both surprised and pleased by the praise. It was no trivial thing to be complimented by her sister, not when Tohru was clearly the most adept sorceress in the clan. Besides, Tohru simply wasn't given to false flattery.
"You've covered the basics of becoming a shadow sacrifice, haven't you?"
"Yes," Tokiko replied, watching her sister's face with curiosity.
"And you're moving on to some of the finer details now?" Tohru asked, although it was more a statement of fact than a question.
Tokiko nodded.
"With that sort of thing," Tohru said, a little awkwardly, "it doesn't do to get the basic spells wrong. But it's difficult to test to see if you really know them."
"That is a problem," said Tokiko, slipping past to lean against the wall too. "The teacher said that there are some ways to try it out...but we'll be leaving those till much later on. There's plenty of time."
Tohru looked down. "Maybe."
Why wouldn't there be time? was the question Tokiko didn't bother to voice. They stood there for a moment. Tokiko rocked back and forth on her heels.
"Do you remember the time my arm got broken?" Tohru said.
***
The doll was a pretty little thing. Tokiko wasn't much one for dolls, but this one was well made, and articulated even down to the extent of defying tradition. Pushing back the sleeve of its kimono, she felt the joint at the elbow and then its wrist, and then its individually sprung fingers, cold and tiny under her own fingertips.
She set it down on the floor, and stayed there in front of it for the next fifteen minutes, chanting under her breath. After that, she got carefully to her feet, stretching her cramped legs.
Scooping the doll up, she regarded it searchingly, turning it around and around but not seeing anything that caught her attention.
Then she reached out with her right hand and deftly snapped the doll's left wrist.