Ushinatta Josei (Solo)

[Lillith]

Ushinatta Josei (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI6N803NC44&feature=related)

1949

I am eternally told of my fortunes, I am eternally reminded that my life of prosperity was a gift. I am indebted to my suitor and family for the luxuries I am allowed, the life I am thus permitted to live.

If you had told me then what I know now, I would not have come to this island with such fire in my eyes and water in my lungs, drowned by the potential and the sorrow of being betrayed by my family. They sold me to the nobility of Scara Brae for the portent of gold and salvation they presumed such a trade would bring.

Of their future, I know nothing, for they are gone to the mists of time, and I cannot find trace of them in the fleeting glimpses of the land I once called home. I long to be able to stand before them one day, a woman of righteous power and austerity, and tell them without trepidation that they were wrong to ever doubt my pallid little nose and squat posture - that they were wrong to think I would never amount to the same prosperity as their first born son.

I am lost in the dreams of youth, torn between the Geisha I shall never be, and the harlot I am teetering to become. If anything has been revealed to me in these long years of isolation from the culture I adore, it is the simple yet effective reminder that I am merely a woman, eternally longing to find a place to call my own.

A woman eternally longing to be lost no more.

A woman who longs to be found.

[Lillith]

I was born Lillith Kazumi in the village of Tokyen, twenty three years ago to the day. My mother and father were humble shop keepers, who sold low-quality silks and spices to the local hotels and restaurants to keep their innards splendid and their patron's bellies full and hot. Within the cultural circle of the valley and it's surrounding households, they were respected, but not altogether powerful or of a stature high enough to be comfortable, to be allowed a day of rest or a moment to tolerate being.

When Mikado their first born son, and my brother lost to time was born, their fortunes changed a little. He became the gear that turned the wheel of the family business, and he soon took to the mantle of our father, like a fish to water in the cold mountain streams. I was born eight years later, just as father became ill and mother could suffer the callouses and grind of the dye stones no more. They gave the ownership, money and future of the shop to Mikado, and left me as the serving girl to tolerate his enigmatic waves of ego and power.

A year passed, and Mikado grew ever more fearful that one day I might be noticed, and power would pass to him. It took me many years to recall, but when I was eight, he whispered into my father's ear of the Okiya in the nearby town of Sutorimu, thus sealing my fate. Weakened and fearful of losing his minute empire, I was torn away in my brother's 'caring' arms and taken to Sutorimu, but not to the Geisha house.

The journey by sea to the distant island of Scara Brae remains eternally brazen in my mind, and the image of my brother's face as he leered over me and proclaimed his victory still haunts me in my sleep. I would find myself on a distant shore in the arms of a family that cared but did not understand why I could never love them in return.

[Lillith]

Scara Brae was a stark contrast to Akashima. It is commented in many circles that the 'land of the rising sun' is nothing more than a collection of wooden huts and natives in floral dresses, pretending to be civil when in fact, the steam driven empire of slate and brick is the savage land. As a girl, used to the cold wrap of the stream around her feet in summer and the sakura blossoms scattering through the air in spring, the ugly sight of the new world harrowed me.

For every moment I remembered in the bamboo glades gathering fallen lengths to build, I was cornered in a street or alleyway begrimed with dirt, refuse and discarded waste, looking for a way to fend for myself between the chores beset me by my 'mother.' For every delicate scent I recalled, I found my nose assailed with a fattening 'treat' or a meaty, oily broth preferred to me by eager, grubby hands on street corners.

I missed Tokyen, even though it hurt to recall the village hall of the temple on the hill which tolled it's great kane* at the rise of the sun. Whilst I was trained in Akashiman arts, and came closed to the dream all girls in my home land had of becoming Geisha, I also learnt the ways of the Scara Brae nobles, and by the age of twelve, I entered what equated to the meiko stage of their hierarchy, their own hidden ways.

It was at that time my adopted family began to talk of my future. They had brought me for a fair price, and they did not outweigh that or blame me at any point. Whilst in later life they would chastise me with the burden if ever I disgraced them, and disgrace them I would, I was given fair and kind words of encouragement to prepare myself for a debut. At sixteen, it was customary to throw a ball and dance or sing before the court of nobles and the Queen herself.

Whilst it would be nothing akin to the Spring Dance of the Okiya, or the verdant celebrations in the hannamachi of the capital city, I had a sparkle in my eye and come sixteen, I was no longer a daughter of Akashima, and every bit the rising star of Scara Brae's maelstrom world of cheap wine, cheap linen dresses and political backstabbing.

[Lillith]

The débutante ball was the mark of social mobility. I arrived wearing a kimono and the traditional garb of a meiko, although it felt treacherous and wrong to do so without the correct training and ritualised upbringing in a real Okiya. The citizens of Scara Brae did not understand this transgression, and I was to be the Akashiman girl presented as sport to the jealous rivals of the Tolsten household.

The elegant carvings on the banisters of the house splintered my fingers as I descended the wide staircase, with the crowd of guests at it's foot gaping in awe. Delicate, coy make-up adorned my face, and a green pin and headdress glittered beneath the light of the chandelier. I expected, for all those years, that this moment would horrify me more than it did. I felt awash with adoration, and although the guests did not understand my coy nature and my dismay, I felt they admired a culture they did not understand.

Slowly, I felt the Akashiman girl awash with hate drown in her own sorrow, and I embraced the Scara brae life style with eager and open arms. The sound of the Shamisen faded, replaced instead with the humdrum furore of conversation, echoey folk and jazz and the lively hiss of steam and industry which purveyed the city. I lost the memories of the cold streams in which we let the long sheets of cloth drain of excess colour, and found them replaced with the bubbling yet stagnant water of the Market Square fountain.

Most of all, I replaced my imaginary Geisha sister, my older mentor, with my new found friend, the red-headed Ruby, who stole my breath away at my own debut. When I descended the stairs and shook hands with a thousand strange faces, discussing my name, dress and language with absolute non-entities, she emerged from the throng and took my hand.

"Excuse me gentlemen, but the lady must prepare for her dance," her accent twanged, clearly disguised by the pretence of acting. She stole me onto the porch, a shy and meek smile on my face, and an eager grin on hers.

"I have waited four years to be able to speak with you, Lillith, and four years more I shall wait before I can tell you the truth." I feared for my safety, only in the puerile sense of being surprised, and beguiled by her ways. We talked for hours about the Tantalum troupe, and it's ties with Akashima, and how I was part of a regal web of coincidences that would unite us both in the coming years. How she could know, and how she could be so sure, I did not understand, but she placed in my hand a jade comb, which I still use today, and pledged sisterhood to me in all walks of life.

I returned to dance, her hair and feathers spinning in my mind, her accent and wit hooking me into a pledge of allegiance without resistance.

That dynamic duo so infamous now, was born the moment I left Akashima behind.

[Lillith]

By the time I was twenty I had met with Ruby only a handful of times to share drinks and conversation about the noble houses and their kin. I had learnt the full extent of this new way of life by then, and had already become bored of the gluttony and excess, and the ever expanding waistline of the corporate greed that ensconced it's matriarchs. Living under my mother's thumb became unbearable, and it was on a summer's eve, devoid of Sakura, or the distant dreams of the Okiya, that Ruby told me the truth she swore to tell that night at the ball.

"You are one of the Aria-borne." It rang through the crisp air like a portent of doom, cutting the dying of the light like a magical blade ringing through armour. "Have you ever felt a spark inside, or heard a singing in the distance when no-one in a million leagues opened their mouth?"

Her smile was almost daemonic, and her cheeks flush with crimson like her dress. I had always heard strange things, and seen strange reasoning ever since I was a little girl, but had taken to believing that it was the taint of Oni or the innocent tricks of the more chaotic, but harmless kami.

"Yes..." I replied to her, and she smiled.

"That is the sound of The Aria, a silver sea realm from which all creativity, culture and song springs into the world and many worlds beyond our own. You cannot hear it now because you closed away the source to the stagnation of our own culture. Do you understand me?"

I shook my head and took stock of the bustling crowds of evening patrons and harlots as they criss-crossed the square beneath the balcony we sat on to drink and watch the sun set. It was our usual table in the nautical themed Olde Harbour Inn, before it degraded into a common tavern years later.

"You cannot hear home, or The Aria, because you have forgotten what home is, or where it lies. Join us, be part of the Tantalum, show us the glory of Akashima and the culture you have come to hate - through doing so, you will awaken the powers within and become the woman you have for so long sought to be."

I thought tentatively for several silent minutes, taking to counting the ivy leaves on the wall behind us for distraction. I felt suddenly stupid, cautiously aware that Ruby was right. I had forgotten Akashima, despite being taught the westernised interpretations of dance, song and the 'Geisha' way, which had become nothing more than a name for a painted harlot within the slums of the island's city. Was I a fraud, and thus weak?

"Come with me to Akashima, and show me what I have missed, then I shall consider joining this 'troupe."

A month later, we arrived for the first time in the Uncle Sei's tea house, a building I had never been permitted to enter as a young girl, and looked down at Tokyen from a position of power and splendour for the first time in my life. It rekindled in my a sense of purpose, and a sense of destiny. The jade comb she had given me years early tightened my hair and clumped it back from my eyes, and I glared down at my past and burnt it free of sorrow.

I became my own meiko, and through the troupe, I would show Scara Brae what Akashima was, is, and forever shall be.

Glorious.

[Lillith]

The Tantalum troupe welcomed me with open arms in the first year of my joining. They did not accuse, look or hate me for who I was or ask silly questions beyond polite curiosity about my appearance, origins or culture. If anything, they knew more about Akashima than I did, and all from instinct, travel or education. My background allowed me to act, sing and dance the traditional dances of Akashima within the troupe almost instantly, and I slotted into the repertoire of cheap literature, exotic tales of Aleran wars and classical plays as if it were a role given to me at birth.

The three years that have passed since have seen me slowly become more prominent, and my acknowledgement of my culture has given me the strength, passion and drive to continue. I feel like a Geisha, even though I will never be one, and I feel as headstrong as the Shogun of the ancient tales, even though I am never permitted to claim that title. I wield tanto and kunai like the shadow walking shinobi, and claim defence of the land I call home through the acceptance and worship of it's cultures.

We travel to Sei's tea-house often, and look down over my home village with fond memories and saki addled minds. I have even persuaded Duffy to wear a kimono and stroll down the main merchant roads of Scara Brae with full make-up, and the troupe have embraced me as a female figure just as much as Ruby.

It was only a year ago that I finally began to feel whole. When I met Willard at Lady Gregory's Summer Ball, I felt meek and shy and young again. He was a well-travelled man who had spent as much time in Akashima and the cities as he had in Scara Brae, and spoke fluent Akashiman to fill the holes in my still shaky trade-speak.

His first words still ring true in our relationship, "Sakura wa,-jōde wa naku, taki ga utsukushii shūhen ni wa motte imasu."** I wrote it on a sheet of parchment as soon as I was able, and keep it folded under my pillow as a reminder of the beauty of poetry, and the beauty of him.

Of course, in polite society one does not chose a bride and simply take her, a year of courting and subtle advances passed us by before his family and mine took to discussion and 'sold' his pledge with a handsome dowry that I never personally saw. His polite moustache and stubbled expression asked me to marry him not three days ago, and whilst I write in contention of all my personal beliefs, I do not think I could ever come to chronicle my life in this book in such a way if he had not given me so much happiness.

I would not be able to write, if his marriage proposal had not set me on the path to self-discovery once more.

[Lillith]

Not so long ago my fears were confirmed. Whilst I longed to be a simple victim of chance, all the ill in my life was given an evil face to blame. When Lucian Lahore rose to prominence once more in the troupe's life, Duffy, Ruby, Blank, even Pete were given shattering news. Everything that had happened to them, had been his doing all along.

I hoped to have been left unscathed, but his dark whisperings had driven my brother to jealousy, and driven him to persuade my father to sell me to the highest bidder without care. What would I have become, if I had stayed in Tokyen and been given the business as was customary in the village? Would I have become a Geisha, sold truly to an Okiya, and been the greatest? Would I have done nothing but sell silk and spices to weary patrons who worked just as hard for their rice as I?

That is the highest price one can pay for failure - not death, nor loss, but having the option taken from you to decide on a fate for yourself. I will never know now what I would have been, I can only feebly craft the resemblances of dreams in my life without hope of ever accomplishing them. I strive to be like a Geisha, but can claim nothing more than chastised obedience and artistry in my movements and performances, without any of the regalia or the customary status.

I can use intellect and wisdom to ordain emergency, logistics and war with the organisational skills and keen mind of a Shogun, without ever becoming a leader, a warrior or a sceptred son. I can fight and slay oni, and lead a thousand battles to the mists of legends, but I shall never be given the mantle of fame.

I will draw on the ancient arts, and wield hidden weapons to slay the enemies of the Tantalum and of the good minded people of Althanas, but I shall be eternally an unnamed assassin, a sultry woman who skulks hidden through the dying light to claim souls in unknown names. I guess that I am more rightfully these titles than a true claimant, for I live them in conviction that is unbreakable.

I cry in the rain beneath a feeble umbrella, clad in the kimono Willard brought from the Okiya I once dreamt of joining, and I feel at a loss. Even now, with marriage on the horizon, I am one step closer to fulfilment, yet two steps back into the past. What must I do to shed the memories that hold me back, what must I do to unleash the true power of the Aria in my mind? I cannot love Akashima any more than I do already, I cannot pay homage to it's culture or mimic it's peoples and traditions any more faithfully. I feel like a traitor at home or away, a fraud in either land yet a puppet of both.

I must return there, and show Tokyen that it's lost daughter has found herself, show the sakura and the koi karp in the lake on the cliffs that she has not forsaken it, that she has not proclaimed another temple as her own.

[Lillith]

There is a tradition in Akashima, each year the orphans of the poorer villages travel to the city to climb the high steps to the Temple of Shinkyru. They ring the tiny bells and lay blossoms from the farthest reaches of the state at the foot of the great statues and pray endlessly for good fortunes to smile on them.

In Scara Brae, the Tantalum Troupe takes in such orphans and gives them hope, food, comfort, warmth - it gives them a family.

In Akashima, the monks of the High Temple wait until the seventh day of pilgrimages before opening the temple gates and welcoming the children into the warmth. I was once amongst them, my eyes blue and bright and weary, my feet muddied and blistered from the long journey - my sandals were long lost to the culling mud slides and rock faces that had once been the mountain trail.

The monks promises bunrei to the children, and spiritual ascension should they fall short of the mark. They gave us nothing more than a Spartan meal and hope. I remember the journey back to Tokyen and my sick parents, it was a long and soul destroying trek, a hollow walk through emptiness that left me defeated and unable to cry for many years.

I had waited for a year to be able to attend, and placed all my hopes in a poultice to heal father's gait and mother's heart, but returned empty handed and as broken as they were. I guess Lucian found the moment ripe, and sewed the seed of destruction at my lowest time. How could a child defend herself against such betrayal, against such overwhelming hatred and selfish actions?

What did I do to him to warrant such a painful sundering, what did I see in the future that could warrant this savagery?

I still do not know, but I remember the cold stone of the temple and the jade dragons which wrapped themselves around the heights of the hall and roared metaphorically at the patrons in their homage to the kami and wonder, what would have happened if I had been given an answer of truth from the monks - what would have happened if they had given me more than rice and sweet ice.

[Lillith]

I guess the irony of it all, even as I write in calligraphy as beautiful as any Geisha's, is that I have become more than just a relic of Akashima, or a traitor to Scara Brae. I am equally part Scara-Braen, and equally Akashiman. My attire is floral, traditional yet functional. Steam and dim-sun mingle together to form the antiquated backdrop to my life, and performance, song, murder and nobility are every day occurrence like sweeping or cooking or visiting old friends.

I have taken my role as one of the Tantalum to heart as of late, and before I am married I will have found a suitable companion for my proposed return to Akashima in the Fall. I have sent parcels with tokens of my patronage to three suitors, and will test them all in due course in the grandiose Citadel of Radasanth. I will keep this diary written and stocked with those exploits, even if it means becoming decrepit and disjointed as my body cracks and withers from the continuous flick of the quill.

The Troupe requires the mithril deposits in the cliffs near Tokyen, the ultimate irony of all I suppose. I must mine the very heart of my home to ensure that the prospects of my sanctuary now are ensured. If we do not defeat Lucian, then it will not just be Scara Brae that is in trouble, but the very foundations of Akashima, Corone, Alerar, Salvar, even perhaps the might of the blade-singers of Raeiara.

In the Akashiman tongue, I am an Ushinatta Josei, a lost woman. I hope to rekindle the search I started all those years ago, arriving from the ship to the cobble stones of a strange hell. I hope, that in my loss, I find the time to rekindle my passion for the world and reconnect with home - a journey, I much expect, that will only begin when all is ending.

A journey that shall be ignited and instigated when I walk up the aisle, and when the bells of the Great Temple and the Shamisen's melody call me back to the land beyond the sea.

[Lillith]

愛は、時間の海に、失われた
子供時代、遠い記憶、
憎しみ、つまり燃料mの中心、
宋、メモリのドライブ。

概念、その扇動こと、
ウェディング、楽しい雨の時、
姉妹、私の債券割れない、
家族、私の遠い結合チェーン。


Love, lost to the sea of time,
Childhood, a distant memory,
Hate, that which fuels my heart,
Song, the drive of memory.

Notions, the things that instigate,
Weddings, times of joyous rain,
Sisterhood, my bond unbreakable,
Family, my distant binding chain.



* Kane - Bell.

** Sakura wa,-jōde wa naku, taki ga utsukushii shūhen ni wa motte imasu - The Sakura falls around you in fear of your beauty.

[Revenant]

Full rubric, full commentary requested.

STORY

Continuity (8) – You do a good job of filling in all the details in this thread. I got a good impression of who the Tantalum are, who Lillith is, what her story is, and how it all ties together.

Setting (5) – Decent, but the style of the thread didn’t lend itself well to the good, solid imagery that would have given you a better score.

Pacing (7) – While the posts didn’t necessarily flow from one to another in subject matter, the even flow that you maintained throughout made this easy to read.

CHARACTER

Dialogue (7) – The only point of dialogue in the thread was simple and engaging. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was pointed enough to draw me along.

Action (5) – Again, the way this thread was written didn’t leave much in the way of impressive action. It was decent.

Persona (8) – You really portray Lillith’s internal conflict and shifting nature well. She comes across as strong willed, but unsure of her identity. Unless that’s what you weren’t going for, in which case let me know and I’ll drop your score accordingly.

WRITING STYLE

Technique (7) – Using the journal style to recount a back story in interesting and works pretty well here.

Mechanics (9) – I saw only one, maybe two errors mechanically. Good job.

Clarity (4) - I’m unfamiliar with some of the terms you use, and while I appreciate staying with the flavor of the theme, it makes it frustrating to have to look up what you mean. You add footnotes for some of the terms to explain what they mean, which I appreciate, but you put them at the end of the thread rather than at the bottom of the post. I didn’t realize that until I got to the end and as able to actually go back and figure out what you meant. Some other terms though, like meiko, are unfamiliar, used often, and never footnoted. While the culture may be familiar to you, I don’t know all about it and thus am left floundering in places.

WILD CARD

Wild Card (5)

TOTAL: 65

Overall, another enjoyable read for Lillith.

Lillith Kazumi receives 655 exp and 130 gp.