Noriko's eyes would reflect in the moonlight glow as she stared bullets into the building from afar, a foreign beast she had yet to give her attention despite having spent three days... nearly four now in the town of her birth. Despite her origins this place was no more than another place far from what she considered her true form, yet with those bated breaths in the forest she had realized just what was holding her back from making the steps to the door step. She had spent so long away from her "home" that she had forgotten what it truly was. Her fingers would grip around a corner just a little ways from the doorstep that she had exited so long ago.
With another deep breath she'd tip her hat forward, the googly eyes staring in every which way as she adjusted her kimono. And with that she had nothing more to delay... step after step in tune with her heartbeats she'd make her way to the doorstep, rasping her fingers against the entrance. Knock. Knock. Knock. What did she expect to hear when she opened it? A welcome home from her family? An unenthused response to having left her family behind for ten years... what did she know she hadn't interacted with another human in forever... Knock. Knock. Knock. What's taking them so long?... anxiety began to set in again. She would almost turn to leave before stopping herself just short.
A steady metronome echoed through the garden. Her eyes lulled from side to side, another sleepless night followed by a new sleepless morning. What day was it? She couldn't say. Nozomi grabbed a handful of fish food and stuck her hand into the pond. A colorful canvas of scales bob up to the surface, endless amounts of koi fish coming to greet her. The purple haired girl ran her fingers across Tatsuo's scales, quietly humming to herself as the days flew past her. When did she last leave? She couldn't remember. It didn't matter...her fish was here. She needed to be there for her fish.
Thunk...thunk...thunk...
Her eyes stuck to the door.
Thunk...thunk...thunk...
Nozomi's face contorted. She gave Tatsuo pat then stood up to head to the entrance.
Squeeeaaak....
A solid minute must have passed before she said anything but it felt like hours. A thin shroud of fear and doubt eating at her mind as the familiar figure stood there. Fog covered her mind, a deep suffocating fog controlling her thoughts. "....Noriko?" Her voice cracked. Small, trembling sound that flowed on the air. ".....I must be going crazy...."
Noriko could only stare back into the purple mess that made up her sister's hair, the thing that always stood out to the blonde sage. It wasn't often she had thoughts about her sister... or at least she didn't while she was up in the grand mountain of the toads. There was much to learn there, much to follow, here there was no such guides or sages instead there was just her instinct. Compared to the cracking voice of her twin, Noriko's would flow as softly as the wind on the air, "You're looking well." Despite her careful voice her expression wouldn't be as stalwart, a mixture of regret and serene that couldn't seem to make up its mind. Her fingers would trace the rim of her ridiculous hat as she pulled it off her head, revealing her equal golden mess of a mane.
Her hat would rest on her torso as its eyes seemed to wander endlessly, "Mind if I take a step inside? I've been outside for a few years now." She'd let out a callous laugh as she adjusted her footwork, staring back into her sister's eyes.
Nozomi rubbed her arm quietly, her eyes running up and down the form of the child now grown who stared back at her. Insanity came in many forms; fear, paranoia, euphoria, anguish....Nozomi slowly reached out and patted her sister's arm before recoiling just as fast. Her eyes clouded over, a deep contemplative look washed over as waves upon waves of regrets rested on her shoulders. Inside....ah yes. "You should...come inside." The fish keeper stepped to the side, pushing the door open for her to enter the garden. Nozomi swam through the never ending thoughts of her mind, drowning further and further into her subconscious the longer she saw that form in her vision. She walked over to the pond, grabbed a fistful of fish food and stuck her hand back in.
"I didn't...You're really here, aren't you?"
She stared deep into the murky water, her eyes folded from the depths that surrounded her. Tatsuo floated up to the top, grazing the purple haired girl's hand in a calm soothing gesture. Nozomi took a deep breath, hunching her shoulders down into the pond before looking back up at the sky. "We went out...looking for you...where were you all this time?"
She would look over her sister's expression, she was a hermit... but even she understood the emotions of her sister. The realization that someone you thought was gone for good had returned most of not been good for her poor twin's heart. Little did Noriko know of the stakes of the situation as she entered the empty home, only the feeding of the kois bringing air to the thin atmosphere. The sage would stare towards the sky as her sister brought up memories she would rather forget. She had been spirited away... that much was true but the offer had promised she would return one day, which she did... thought she had expected it to be much sooner. "Ahhh..." The frog would sit by Nozomi who kept staring into the unknown, Noriko trimming her fingers through the water, "Well I received an offer too good to refuse... but hey! I'm home now and if the town keeps up how it is I might not be able to leave for awhile..." There was a certain emotion coming from Noriko's voice as she talked about not being able to leave, clearly not happy about being stuck in the village.
She'd turn her eyes over to Nozomi, gazing her up and down before looking into the water alongside her... the toad couldn't help but wonder if they saw the same thing as they peered into the abyss of the water, "How has the family been? I don't even remember what our parents looked like!" She'd let out another laugh, avoiding the topic of where exactly she was.
"Well I received an offer too good to refuse... but hey! I'm home now and if the town keeps up how it is I might not be able to leave for awhile..."
Nozomi furrowed her brows.
A knife twisted in her back, that terrible aching feelings that screamed in the face of every vision she could have foreseen. Of course...of course...The fish keeper pulled her hand out of the pond, rubbing her arm quietly. Her eyes traced her sister's reflection. What a terrible, complicated feeling stuck in her gut as she found herself surrounded by the never ending waves that crashed down on her mind. Nozomi's stomach sloshed in pain as the dread knife plunged straight into her heart; killing any hope or prayer than she could have saved.
"....they're...all gone. I'm the only one left..."
She looked up into Noriko's eyes, a strange endless quiet swirling behind her pupils. "Are...are you going to leave me again?"
"They're all gone." Words too better to bear as the elder twin bit her tongue for but a moment letting those words soak into the air as she was forced to stare back into her sister's eyes. A strange emptiness amongst the hurting inside. Noriko was hesitant to answer truthfully, she didn't like having to sit around a village she didn't feel like was her home. The loud noises, the people, the idea that people think going outside is dangerous making her sink inside. She only felt at home amongst the sounds of nature, the chirping of toads, the hissing of snakes. Yet... that wasn't where home was, that's where she was most comfortable.
She'd place a hand on Nozomi's shoulder, "I'm not going anywhere..." Her voice still awfully serene for the situation as she stared away from Nozomi for but a moment before looking her back in the eyes. "I didn't know our parents... our family... was you know..." She'd rub her shoulder before taking her hand off Nozomi, letting her feet sink into the water as she placed her hands by her sides, "But I don't have a reason to leave now... people need me here, you need me here. So I can't leave. I trained for most of my life... what's the point if I can't use that to help the people who need me... who care about me." She'd motion her eyes over to Nozomi, away from the bottomless abyss of water. "Maybe that's the lesson I was sent here to learn..."
So many things needed to be said, so many years they had to catch up on. But the words stuck in her throat, that terrible, never ending feeling that tore through her mind. Who was she to say anything? They haven't met up for years...she must have had her own life, her own world to explore...anything! Nozomi stared starkly at the pond, quietly petting Tatsuo as her mind wandering between the multiple things they have drifted apart. Did she even remember her? Nozomi took a deep breath, shutting her eyes tightly.
Noriko would tent her fingers in her lap gently, just moments from clasping them together as she spoke in that all too knowing tone... for somebody who knew little about how this world worked. There was a silence between them, a distance that couldn't be crossed so easily. What could she say? How could she explain it? With a deep breath she could only take baby steps across this massive chasm and perhaps try and lighten the air between them... what was so thin became thick in a moment's notice. "Well... the toads have a hidden land where they thrive. I was brought there to study a technique that would take years of practice to master."
It wasn't a good answer. What was? What was reasonable cause to leave your family behind? Training probably wasn't what Nozomi wanted to hear... but she had mastered it... at least to the level that she could learn without real practical training. And while she wished to be in the warmth of the mountains away from the strife of humanity she would rather be with her sister at now in this moment, "I've figured it out... to the extent that I could there... at least that's what they had told me but now I'm realizing the old sage probably sent me here for other reasons than training..."
Nozomi held a long and complicated expression, vision starkly pressed into the endless rainbow of scales just below her hands. She wasn't here just for training? Was that why she came here originally? The fish keeper's eyes would remain firmly shut, the slow metronome of her mind drifting her thoughts far far away from the koi pond. "We should have stayed here just a little longer...." Noriko was going to come back. Why did they leave to go find her someplace they weren't allowed at? Tatsuo bubbled up the surface, peaking his eyes up at the unfamiliar face in their yard.
He thumped his tail against the toad's feet, poking back up to see if she reacted at all.
Noriko could tell from the blank expressions of her sister that something was wrong, deep and forlorn thoughts stirred the pot of her mind brewing a stew of unreasonable proportions. One couldn't change the past, time would keep going onward regardless of how hard you tried to stop it... so why worry about things that are out of your control? The sage would stand up from the pond resting a hand on Nozomi's shoulder, what could she say? What should she say? She hadn't learned the words to deal with this problem... "You can't change things that have already happened... in times like this I like to think about what I have in the moment." There were little dangers in her life but whenever someone threw her a curveball there was something important to think of, "We have the house, the fish, the moon and the stars... and we have each other." She'd give a smile down to Nozomi offering her a hand to get up from the pond.
Nozomi took Noriko's hand and pulled the toad behind her.
Into the long darkened hallways that were filled with dust and mildew, into the endless corridors of empty rooms that haunted her vision, and then deposited Noriko into one of the many spares. She wouldn't talk. The words didn't come to her. Instead she laid out a Futon and then walked back out to the koi pond, letting the water swirl between her finger tips as she fed the fish. It wasn't as though she hated Noriko...someone being here made it feel less quiet...
What could be said? What needed to be said? The dusty and stained halls would look especially decrepit with the damage from the beast attack, as if they had suffered a thousand years of neglect in but a moment's time. For once in her life Noriko felt the weight of her emotions, she couldn't speak either. Between the two of them it seemed a lifetime of struggle had happened, and even worse Noriko couldn't relate to it... what did she remember about her parents aside from bits and pieces. There couldn't be any wider a gap... but those first steps were a start and perhaps with time they could truly a become a family again.
Noriko would find comfort in the futon, taking off her hat and setting it aside and laying down onto the fold out mattress. She could hear the faint sounds of swirling water, an endless abyss of unknown yet to be explored. Though she couldn't know what Nozomi saw in those waters... she could only hope what she found made her happy, and in the morning they could make strides towards becoming family again.
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