(immediately follows 'Utakata')
These are to be released quietly in Japan, to be discovered at the appropriate time to lead into Kashikoi (six half hour episodes, in twelve parts).
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~ Into the magistrate's simple palace ~
柿 (kaki)
Or Persimmon.
The Powhatan name for the fruit
which for some reason grows abundantly in both places.
The magistrate sits on his throne reading the book, symbols on pages lighting the room as it empties into the night. Day and night, he continues reading, the guards ageing, the village becoming overgrown and flowered.
As the eras fade, the village fades within a growing city, gone.
He sits reading, engrossed, ageless. The room covered in dust and web, himself lost beneath where he does not move, until a shadow crosses the page, which for the first time darks the symbols.
He looks up and sees her.
He smiles with soft love in his eyes, closes the book and bows.
She - "I've traveled a very long way. I hope not to trouble your great house for accommodations, the night. To depart the morn."
Magistrate - He examines her, "I know you."
She - "You know me."
Magistrate - Staring, then a smile, "Please. My home, be humbled and aged, is yours as far beyond the morn as you would wish it."
She - Glancing to the book, then back, "A reader ?"
Magistrate - Almost nervously, shy, "Indeed at times, I am."
She - Pausing to stare, a smile, "Will you read to me tonight ?"
Magistrate - A long held bow, "You are my queen."
________
She lies in bed, stretched perhaps conspicuously as he sits in a chair bedside, Akari and Mariko standing on either side of him.
Akari - Whispering in his ear. looking at Mariko, "Tell her a love story ..." They turn and fade away with Mariko's giggle, taking hands.
Magistrate - Listening, then watching his guest a moment. "If one would not mind a more modern tale."
She - Smiles, "One would not."
Magistrate - With excitement, "Excellent." He opens the book, reads and smiles a moment, then at her, "It is a tale of two daughters. One in Heaven, and one in Hell, yet bound together always by their love."
('Ituri' by Pain Teens)
As he reads through the night, the pages turn over writhing sheets, in the last she is joined.
________She awakes to the sounds of strings plucked.
Through the window a mist passes gently, the market filled with life in it's gusts, then emptied again to age. He looks to her then to the rough breakfast and tea and the bedside table.
Wrapped, she sits up and drinks as he continues to play.
Through the castle, mists and shadows pass with echoing tones. Mariko and Akari hold hands running and laughing out the front door to the mist.
Their echoing stops and laughter fills with the music. The guest smiles, the host continues as she snacks the greens on her plate.
____
Akari points into the air with shooting fingers shooting while Mariko rolls her eyes and sits watching, listening to the tale. Akari points at the sun with her finger and shoots to the sound of a true shot
They browse the wares in the market, sampling occasionally too much. A swirling black form passes, leaving the empty village in its wake before life returns cold from the mist, all looking after.
From within the swirling, a deep rumble as a kiln burning, the sound of debris churning within, absorbed and ground by dervish, feeding a flame in it's chest along with all the color around it.
Akari takes Mariko's hand and they watch it approach the palace, drawing its color into age, gliding in steady path furiously paced until standing before the great door, aging it.
The nearby trees shake toward, losing leaves, ground into it's fury.
It raises it's arm to pound, leaning in and striking the door three times, with deep echo, each sending a crack further up the greying surface.
The magistrate opens the cracked door to greet, the book open in one arm. The churning thing stares with a grinding growl, almost metallic.
Magistrate - "You must be thirsty."
Within the dervish a face begins to form, the chaos settling into rough black clothing, never quite formed, as his face. He nods.
Magistrate - As they enter, he pages through the book. "Do you ... care for tales of the blade ?"
A deep rumble from the guest, his head turned toward angrily.
Magistrate - "Indeed who does not ? This !"
He whips his finger down the page drawing fire into the shape of a sword, blade upright, the pommel atop his finger tip, blade upright and turning slowly.
Magistrate - "Is the blade of Miyamoto Musashi."
He looks to the guest staring back into his eyes, emotionless beyond a sense of rage.
Magistrate - "In it's archetypal form of course but you see it isn't just who he was ..." He drops the blade into his fingers, twirling the handle between dramatically but non threateningly in his motionless arm as he examines the guest.
Magistrate - "... nor was it his tale of fingers." The blade returns to fingertip, his gaze returning to the blade.
A deep rumble from the guest as form fades and returns, anger in the eyes. Tea is prepared as they sit, spirits prepare and pour, spinning between task, the sword still on the his finger tip.
Magistrate - "It's how he forged his blade. And what ..." His eyes return to guest, "... he forged it from. Metallurgy."
The dervish stares angrily at the magistrates eyes until all is settled and the attendants spin away to dust. Akari and Mariko stand behind him now, each with a hand on his chair.
The magistrate turns the bladed finger over hand, twisting wrist sharply the whipping arm over, slamming the blade into the floor, hilt upright at his side. He draws the finger back over to turn back a page, looking to the guest,
Magistrate - "And there inspires our tale."
~ an asteroid burns across the sky ~
Miyamoto Musashi drinks his drink on his porch in the late dusk. He spots an asteroid flying across and into the distant land with a quiet sound.
Musashi - Staring at it's distant landing place while Mariko and Akari walk from the wall behind. "There are two thousand eyes which have seen this. And not one a sleeping guard ..."
~ A gate guard at distant Edo falls off the end of his pike spar, jolting back awake while the asteroid flies over unnoticed. He returns to slump ...
Akari flies her hands over the distant path of the asteroid, exploding with her arms apart.
Musashi - "And now they wonder what to do ..."
~ A woman runs through the deep wood pursued, coming out to see the war at sea. The sound behind, she runs desperately for the docks.
Musashi - Standing and walking to the cupboard, "Yet how many will go ?" He pulls a dirty robe of hard cloth. "How many will wonder what if ?"
~ Another woman is dragged to a village center, stones gathered.
Musashi - "Who will be met and how ?" He removes a dark wide belt.
~ Western pirate ships round the horn, approaching a convoy from India.
He stares at a mount of two blades, one broken, one not. The tipped half of the broken bound at the base as a knife with trailing red fabric. The other half is tipped as a cracked gouge across the blade, sharp at the break.
Musashi - "How much skill will be seen for this ..."
~ The palace samurai notice the flight, and seem to know what to do. They prepare full blade and armors before departure on horse.
He takes the unbroken blade, holds it high with a bow, then taking the broken blade pieces and tucking them into either side of his robe, a bit of the fabric bind hanging over the belt.
Musashi - "And always still the question which hangs ..." He looks over the travel hats, choosing the broad woven cone.
~ At a distant dock a woman stops to watch it fly over. She takes a drink and flips a coin to the slumped guard before entering Edo's gate.
Musashi - Putting on the hat hung well over his face, seeing through the broken weaves, "... will I at last meet my Buddha in the road ?"
He departs, followed by the spirits into the dark night.