PillowChalkBirds of Perdition
#1
   

I am Tsukino, but the dead will forever commit me to the name Chizuru Funai. I have just turned fifteen, and I would like to confess something cruel I did when I was even younger. This cruel something that I believe serves as the black ledger for keeping tabs to the karmic debt I pay to this day.

Oddly enough, this piece of my childhood likes to bubble up from the depths of my mind more often than the recent horrific incident that night of ████ █████ ██; and if someone were to ask me which memory I preferred, I would reply with "Would you rather to split open your thumb with a kitchen knife or be sliced through cleanly by a katana?" ... but I digress.

Our family had a pair of pet lovebirds, Shio and Asahi. Shio meaning "salt" because, as you would expect, the colors of her plumage were speckled with soft shades of grays and whites reminiscent to the seasoning. Asahi —"morning sun" in the regional Shengese I spoke—boasted a lovelier palette of yellows and reds just like a mango. They coexisted with us in a silver-wired bird cage cleverly tucked to the corner of the dining room. That way we could not forget to feed them during the mornings and evenings we dined together.

Again, coexist. I repeat it because I wish for you to look upon it with scrutiny. All they did was nestle against one another, whistle a few pretty notes while living off the generosity of my parents; and undermining the daily labors of my twin brother and me in caring for them. When we had to feed them or clean their cage of droppings, I felt bitter when they squawked in complaint at us. As in their perspective, we were interlopers encroaching upon their nest. The pair were mother's main source of entertainment at home. Father was often working in his studio, and Chiaki and I went to school until the mid-afternoon. At the time, I felt they were no more valuable than pieces of furniture.

And this was my flimsy line of reasoning for one afternoon while Chiaki and me were cleaning their cage. Asahi was in his regular snobby mood along with Shio cajoling him from their swinging perch. Him, nipping at my fingers several times while I was busying changing out the lining at the bottom of their cage with some dried grass trimmings. Brother had left momentarily left to throw away the old ones.

One more bite-- the webbing between my fingers-- before I snatched up Asahi and, with my small fist, began to squeeze his tinier body in a fit of anger. Tighter, yet tighter still. I could feel the crunching of his hollow bones and his eyes bulged out from its sockets. Yet I didn't care. I only wanted to repay the accumulated pain he had delivered to me in kind all at once.

A pink froth spilled out from his agape beak not too long after he stopped convulsing. It was fluffy like cotton candy, and I just stared at it dribbled from his mouth and onto my knuckle.

"Chizu, what have you done?" Chiaki had said trepidatiously off of the corner of my vision and snapped me from out of my stupor. I was smart enough to have reclosed the cage door prior to this event as Shio was now reacting wildly to the death of her mate; throwing herself against the bars of the cage. Brother had set the cage from its stand and onto the ground before she had the change to tip it over.

We glanced at each other in a way similar to telepathically communicating; an unspeakable, strong bond between twins since as we grew together in the womb. Mother liked to say that our umbilical cords were the red strings bounding our fates together eternal. Chiaki and I had the same idea in mind of disposing of Asahi's body.

We decided on burying him underneath the crawlspace of the house. Next to one of the wooden pillars supporting the foundation. If this was not bad enough, we had forgotten to pray for his soul as he returned to the life stream.

Both of us gave a lame excuse of Asahi flying away out of our carelessness— it was all my fault, but Chiaki was kind in shouldering that burden with me. Mother was unrelenting when spanking us raw with a bamboo stick and sending us off to bed that night without supper.

Shio died a week after of loneliness.

. . .

Have I not repaid that debt to you, Shio? Asahi? Have you not taken enough from me? My parents? My village? My peace of mind? Why must it have been me to have survived that night after the failure of the Ensō Ritual that took Chiaki away from me?

The Sinuipo Massacre.

   
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#2
[Image: Zs29VUT.png]
Since I developed a craving for a particular dessert those nine months I've carried you in my belly. Mikan Daifuku, a kind of Shengese confection where a thin layer of mochi is wrapped around the sphere of an orange made of sweet white bean paste. When I was younger, your grandmother used to make it for your uncle and I in the early summer; often we traded each other for parts as he were more partial to the filling when I preferred the flesh. Unfortunately, as you would soon discover yourself, Vdalion is not a hospitable climate for a fruit meant to grow in tropical weather and so I often traveled southward to the bottom of the mountains where the fruit grew abundant. I helped myself to making several fruit baskets, and during these trips I conceptualized what you would look like compared to the fruit.

Would you have red, rosy cheeks like the speckle-seeded strawberries? Or beady eyes like the plump grapes I picked from the vines? If I were not careful enough, would your skin bruise as easily as a banana's? I was often teased by your father for stuffing my cheeks full like a chipmunk's when eating from my basket of forages. All preconceived notions of me being an elegant and fragile tea maiden of Dal'Thala had be awash when it came to you. 

I ate rather slovenly because I wanted you to develop a versatile palette. From the elegant, light dishes of Dal'Thala to the heavier meals found in Aphros; peculiarly enough, these variations extended out even to how they made pizzas. May the Huntress down the small cult of few who actually enjoy pineapple on Aphrosian-styled pizza. They be a witch.



...

You were there to keep me company during that horrible mistake of resigning from the retainership of House Caewynn. I feared that the sharp eye of Queen Aurona might see you protruding from beneath the obi of my kimono. In retrospect, I wish she had. Perhaps your life would have been a lot more different if she--no, if your foolish mother-- had persisted on staying rather than chasing after an indecisive man. Did you hear your mother during her most embarrassing moment of being rejected? I wound my arms around you and sobbed the following night in the scarcely decorated apartment I got a day after my resignation.

Don't follow in your mother's footsteps and let someone validate your worth with honeyed words and poetry. Things like that are for the doves.

I lied to your Aunt Xenara that I had been alright. Her blindness had been a blessing for me in as she did not notice I was pregnant with you. Another selfish thing I have done that I deeply regret; she would have taught you far better than I, the art of tea ceremonies and the mystery of the leaf. A medic far skilled than I, she might have noticed that I was also sick.

Finding myself in a coughing fit just a couple of months before your birth, I used my hand to cover my mouth and discovered that the phlegm had been black. Black with a consistency like tar. My mind had reeled back like a video cassette to the memory of a younger me. When I had gone by Chizuru before assuming the name of Tsukino.

You likely do not remember this, but I often enjoyed interacting with you while you were nestled in my warmth. Singing to you, conversing about idle things, and even revisiting old memories. It was during this that I had confided to you about the massacre that happened during my village in Sheng called Sinuipo. Where a ritual that called for the sacrifice of your uncle Chiaki and one of the elder gentlemen to usher another decade of prosperity for our home. What had seemed like a success had proven a catastrophic failure as the following night, the barrier between our realm and the spirits had thinned to the point where evil spirits ravaged Sinuipo; those who did not die by the fel-demons were driven mad by black smog that covered the ground and turned on each other. 

I watched your grandmother's head get crushed in a demon's mouth like a crystal candy. Your grandfather had ordered me to hide away under the crawlspace of the house while he ran into the fray to find the mayor. He never returned. I held my breath for as long as I could waiting for your grandfather, but my lungs were so small that I inevitably inhaled some in the exertion of running away. Sitri, your adoptive grandmother and a faeborne had found me and nursed me back to health with aid of a shaman to purge the effects from my circuits.

But never did they predict it would come back. Not like this.

I never intended to keep you away from your father, but during the war between the mountains and ... everyone else when necromancy was openly practiced there, I had trouble finding the right time to meet with him. We exchanged letters before in the past-- or rather your father ghosted me-- but I knew the gravity of the situation would be the most potent if I showed in person. So I did with a cloak, an invisible potion, and by the luck of my Goddess I caught him while he was returning home from a meeting with his counsel.

He was as stoically handsome as I remembered, but I smoldered such feelings before they caught flame. Arguably another error of mine, but I had planned in mine to return to Sheng and consult with Sitri about finding a shaman that specialized in the ailment I had. Something I also refrained from doing. Maybe had I been more honest, he might have known someone to treat me. But biases against Vdalion had lingered, especially when their Emperor had held me captive. Twice.

Were you cold during those final months of my secret stay there, my beloved? I tried my best to stick to the fireplace and bundled up ... but your mother is as attuned to the cold as a fish is to swimming through land. This annoyance on top of the pain of childbirth had been worth it when I first held you in my arms.

Such a heavy infant you were; I supposed that's from the giant blood running through your veins courtesy of your father. As I predicted with strawberry cheeks and large eyes like grapes. I was initially worried at first when you didn't make a peep. You just looked out into space with those wide eyes and an expression of 'Where am I?' You reassured by latching your chubby fingers around one of my own. Everything was going to be alright, I thought with a weak smile. In these fleeting moments of happiness, even I can be blissfully ignorant of my mortality.

My mind flitted through many a Shengese names, but would it really have been fair to you if you got picked on for having such a strange name? You needed something befitting the mountains you have been borne in, and so I quickly exchanged names back and forth between a midwife for suggestions. One in particular stood out to me like a stalk in a bed of flowers.



Estrid. She told me it meant fair and beautiful goddess. How fitting considering your cherubic chubby features made Nemea's willowy wiles pale in comparison. I hoped you grew up to honor that name.

For the first few years, I kept in correspondence with Sitri on finding a suitable shaman to treat my sickness. Your father would visit occasionally between running an empire and diplomatic affairs-- but I was happiest when I had you all to myself. I managed to bribe some of the merchants into smuggling Shengese clothing to dress you in. I recalled once that you tried to dress yourself and ended up toddling to me with your yukata on backwards! Such a silly girl. Much to my dismay, and perhaps your development, I may have overexposed you too much to the eastern language. You developed a peculiar way of speaking Brittonian after I began teaching you, and I feared it might have become a habit that carried over in your later years. Regardless, I doted on you all the same and was prudent in teaching you the craft of making tea along with the ceremonies; it was bittersweet going through the motions again, and I might have been rusty ... 

During one of these ceremonies, was when I fell into another horrendous coughing fit. So horrible that I momentarily convulsed on the floor. My lungs felt like they were filling up with cotton wettened with alcohol, and even as a servant tried to help me to my feet, I couldn't breathe until a medic with wind magic arrived to resuscitate me. 

I knew I could not put it away from much longer. I had to go to Sheng myself.

"Mo'm, whe're go'ing?"




"Mommy is very ... homesick, you see. She has to go back home to speak with grandma about something."


"Etri co'me too?"



"No, Estrid. You have to stay here and look over your father while I'm away. He needs you here. Far more than you realize."


"Guweh... wan't co'me too! Mee't gran'ma!"


"Not this trip, dear. I promise to come back for you when I'm over this homesickness. Please take care of your father in my place. You're a big girl, are you not? My big girl."


". . .snff."


"That won't work on me this time, Estrid. No tears. Look-"


I offered my iron folding fan Breeze Dancer and my unfinished tea recipe to her as tributes to her tantrums. She did not take to the latter much, but the ornately decorated war fan with an illustration of sakura trees and scattered petals distracted her. Thankfully, the edges of the war fan had dulled over the years from neglect. I was never a fighter.

"Hold onto these for me while I'm away, okay Estrid?" I had fell into my native language with the young girl.


"... okay! You better not take long, Mom! Father and I will be waiting!"


...

Forgive me for failing you, Estrid.
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