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‘there are a million ways to tell the same story. Our job as jaseliwu is to find the one the listener needs to hear. Not necessarily the one that makes them the happiest or the one that gives them the most information, but the one they need to hear to do what they need to do.’
there was a truth that ebbed and shifted but never died.
the Whispering Blade’s power didn’t come from its density alone. Its cutting power was a product of the wielder’s precision. The swordsman had to have such deeply perfect control over his jiya that he could sharpen its edge to a single molecule, allowing it to slide through any substance, no matter its density. The technique was a feat of human skill and focus that could never be replicated in a lab.
‘I am the blood of gods,’ he said to the assembled crowd, ‘as are all of you. The moon and ocean fear no change.’
Her father always said there were things you couldn’t train into a fighter—spirit, courage, the ability to be something bigger than oneself. Robin wasn’t like the hundreds of koronu who claimed bravery and selflessness. He would honestly die to protect the dirtiest beggar in this slum. It was ridiculous, it was beautiful, and it sent a terrible anxiety clawing through Misaki.
It wasn’t a question of whether or not he was going to die. It was a question of whether he would die quickly, with all his spirit intact, or slowly, after the evils of the world had ripped and beaten every shred of optimism out of him.
“Most strong things are rigid. If you are water, you can shift to fit any mold and freeze yourself strong. You can be strong in any shape. You can be anything.”
“Why don’t you try taking responsibility for the things you can control instead of the things you can’t?”
“The moon shines down on dewy fields. In my hometown, Beyond this mountain and the next, An old man used to play a driftwood flute. The sun, long since sunk beneath the sea, Shines in the Mother’s mirror through the night. My grandparents are dewdrops on the grass and notes on the wind. Whisper, little sound, through the field, Murmuring of all that we cherish, Sighing for all that we mourn. My parents are dewdrops on the grass and notes on the wind. Quiver, little sound, through the field, Weeping for what is past, Laughing for tomorrow’s joy. You and I are dewdrops on the grass and
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You learn over time that the world isn’t broken. It’s just… got more pieces to it than you thought. They all fit together, just maybe not the way you pictured when you were young.”
listening never made any man dumber, but it’s made a lot of people smarter.”
She may never have loved Takeru, but he fascinated her, in the way that powerful theonites always fascinated her. It was why, when her parents told her she was going to marry a Matsuda, she thought she might grow to love him. Love might grow out of awe. But after all these years, Misaki still studied her husband the way one studies an animal from afar. Searching. Searching for understanding or common ground. Never quite finding a connection.
You just lectured Mamoru about not being strong enough to fight through his doubt. You’ll beat your son into the ground, but you can’t be bothered to fight for yourself?
Yet, before their disbelieving eyes, the clouds swirled together and formed a funnel above the shore. Even though Misaki knew it was human fonya, even though she did not believe in sky gods, it looked for all the world like the dark finger of a god, extending earthward.
“They’re like leaves…” Mamoru said. A flurry of yellow leaves, buffeted by breeze, never quite touching the ground. “Well, they’ve come in the wrong season. Autumn dies in the teeth of winter.” Uncle Takashi nodded to his brother. “Let’s put some more red in all that yellow.”
Uncle Takashi’s fury intertwined with Tou-sama’s cold precision to form a new creature, long enough to cover half the pass. It was the teeth of winter. It was poetry. It was God in water.
Too late, Misaki thought as the world blurred. Too late. Her aching jaw opened wide, but no air came. Only suffocating darkness.
I wasn’t made to run, Mamoru thought. “Face me, fonyaka.”
A decade later, a fifteen-year-old Hiroshi would become known as the youngest swordsman ever to master the Whispering Blade. What the world would never know, was that he was the second youngest.
“A life of dangerous adventures might seem worth it now, when you are young and seemingly invincible, but one day, you will have children, and you will not want that life for them.”
Then he left, as he had the day of Misaki’s first miscarriage, as he always did. She watched him go, wishing he had hit her.
“You lost your right to my obedience when you stopped being a man!” Misaki cut him off. “If you want me to go back to the house, you’ll have to fight me. I’ve stood by too long while you disgraced yourself, but this—this is the last time you will be weak in front of me. One of us is going to rest here with our son. Draw!”
His death left me shaken, flayed, like nerve and muscle exposed to the air.”
“You think I killed your children,” Misaki said, “like your father always said.” “I think you saved my wife,” Takeru said.
a person’s tragedy doesn’t define them or cancel all the good in their life.
