rlm@0: By Luriko-Ysabeth rlm@0: iac@tangle.org rlm@0: rlm@0: Frame: Pieces of Her Soul rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: There are two things I have known since before I can remember. rlm@0: rlm@0: Firstly, that I loved Kinomoto Sakura. rlm@0: rlm@0: And secondly, that she would never care for me the way I did for her. rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: One can grow accustomed to anything when one is a child, I hear, no rlm@0: matter how odd, no matter how painful. rlm@0: rlm@0: And truly, it doesn't hurt that much, not now. Knowing that someday she rlm@0: will go to someone, probably some man, in whose arms she fits, whose rlm@0: house she graces, whose life she completes -- she deserves this, if it rlm@0: will make her happy. She deserves a wedding out of fairytales and a house rlm@0: out of dreams and a husband out of a maiden's longings, and a place in rlm@0: which her soul may fly as fast and as far as I know it can go. rlm@0: rlm@0: (He had best be worthy of her, he had best make her happy, or -- he rlm@0: shall answer to me.) rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: Maybe when my body changes and blossoms, and strange elixirs sing in my rlm@0: blood, it will be harder to remember this, as it was hard for my mother rlm@0: to understand it. rlm@0: rlm@0: Mother... you never did understand, did you? You never forgave your rlm@0: cousin Nadeshiko for wedding a kind man and bearing *him* two children in rlm@0: whom there is a perfection. rlm@0: rlm@0: Yes, two. rlm@0: rlm@0: It... fits, doesn't it, that as Sonomi loved Nadeshiko, Sonomi's child rlm@0: should love Nadeshiko's children? rlm@0: rlm@0: Yet, even beyond their differences, my feelings for the one are nowhere rlm@0: near as strong as for the other; even though there are reflections, each rlm@0: in each, there is just no comparison. rlm@0: rlm@0: It is nothing to Touya's detriment. He is... earth, distilled and rlm@0: refined to all that earth is, a mingling of all five, protecting, rlm@0: guarding, warm under the sun, cool with the night, fertile ground for rlm@0: small lives, endlessly renewing itself even as it is endlessly worn away, rlm@0: enduring for long years harsh and soft by turns. rlm@0: rlm@0: Earth, inexorably drawn to the moon by the forces of gravity, even as rlm@0: the moon is drawn to it and it is drawn to the sun... rlm@0: rlm@0: It is no fault of earth that I chose to look up instead of down, and rlm@0: gave my heart to a distant star. rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the star, just by burning rlm@0: as brightly and as gaily as it did, called my heart out of me. rlm@0: rlm@0: It would have been... easier, had I wanted the earth. I might even have rlm@0: had it, if not all to myself. rlm@0: rlm@0: But Sakura-chan is -- *Sakura*. There is nothing more beautiful or rlm@0: interesting to me, nothing that I would rather see. For just a moment of rlm@0: her in motion, limbs full of their own grace as she runs towards the rlm@0: goal... I would sell the whole earth for that to hold in my hands and rlm@0: call forth those feelings from my heart each time I gazed upon her, and rlm@0: count it well spent in the bargain. rlm@0: rlm@0: And I have that, and a thousand others besides. rlm@0: rlm@0: I love my mother dearly, but she can act foolish beyond measure. She rlm@0: loved Nadeshiko, perhaps even as I love Sakura-chan, and wanted nothing rlm@0: more than to be with her forever. rlm@0: rlm@0: If Sakura-chan were to dwell in my house, eat at my board, sleep in my rlm@0: bed, then no one in all the world would be happier than I am. rlm@0: rlm@0: But even now, I am happy. rlm@0: rlm@0: When Nadeshiko married Kinomoto-san, my mother was hurt and jealous; I rlm@0: don't think she had ever thought that Nadeshiko might want someone else. rlm@0: rlm@0: And because she was angry, she went away and never saw her again. Where rlm@0: is there sense in that? Where is there reason? rlm@0: rlm@0: I like o-sushi. It is good to taste and filling to eat. But just because rlm@0: I cannot have o-sushi, shall I refuse to eat o-musubi? Shall I turn down rlm@0: chazuke? They, too, are filling to eat, and their taste is not bad. rlm@0: rlm@0: Sakura-chan will offer the greater part of her soul into the keeping of rlm@0: some lucky other person, to hold and to nurture. rlm@0: rlm@0: But that's all right. The sun is bright. Water is wet. Rocks are hard. I rlm@0: love Kinomoto Sakura. She will love someone else and be happy. rlm@0: rlm@0: And I will be happy that she is happy. rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: I don't think Mother ever quite understood that. We were vacationing rlm@0: once, on an island. I woke up very early one morning and went down to the rlm@0: beach as the sun was rising through the clouds. The water shone for a rlm@0: moment like silver and steel, and the clouds were all shot with pink and rlm@0: orange and mauve and gold, and the rocks curved down into the water as rlm@0: the gulls arced out beyond them and the breeze came salt-laden into my rlm@0: face -- that moment, just then, was perfect and eternal, and I was happy. rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: (I tried to take a picture, but it couldn't hold it all and didn't come rlm@0: out that well anyway -- I wasn't as good then as I am now. It's all rlm@0: right; I can still remember most of it, and there have been other rlm@0: sunrises, even if they weren't the same.) rlm@0: rlm@0: Much later, when my mother woke up, I told her how much I liked it rlm@0: there. rlm@0: rlm@0: She offered to buy the house and probably the island as well, so I could rlm@0: keep the thing that made me so happy and come there whenever I really rlm@0: wanted to. rlm@0: rlm@0: But you can't do that. You can't own a sunrise, or gulls in flight. Even rlm@0: if you lay claim to the place where they are. Even if you put a collar or rlm@0: something on the gulls -- even if you put them in a cage, you can't have rlm@0: the beauty of their soaring unless they give it to you (and I can't see rlm@0: how they could if they were in a cage, anyway). rlm@0: rlm@0: So I thanked her, politely, and told her I would rather have a nicer rlm@0: camera and maybe some lessons in how to take better pictures. rlm@0: rlm@0: rlm@0: Many people, when they first encountered a camera, thought that it would rlm@0: steal someone's soul if it took a picture of them. rlm@0: rlm@0: You can't do that, of course. Just one photograph, one frame of film, or rlm@0: even the entire strip cannot be enough for all of a person, in their good rlm@0: times and their bad times, with all their quirks and all their rlm@0: inconsistencies. rlm@0: rlm@0: But you can, in one picture, capture a *facet* of them. Not all. Not rlm@0: everything. But a little piece, one solitary moment of what they are. rlm@0: rlm@0: The more pieces, the more you can assemble something vaguely like a rlm@0: picture of the person they are. rlm@0: rlm@0: And it isn't even stealing, any more than my blurry picture on the rlm@0: island stole the sun out of the sky. It's a record of a gift -- the gift rlm@0: that that person gave to the outside world, of what they were at that rlm@0: moment. rlm@0: rlm@0: I have a picture, of Sakura-chan running, limbs full of their own grace rlm@0: as she runs towards the goal. A crystallized memory of how she looked as rlm@0: she was doing her best, for me and for all of us and especially for rlm@0: herself, that I can look at even when Sakura-chan is not around. rlm@0: rlm@0: It's one of my favorites; I have many favorites, among all the pictures rlm@0: and movies I have taken of Sakura-chan. rlm@0: rlm@0: Someone else will be the recipient of most of her soul, and she in turn rlm@0: will be given that person's soul to have in her keeping. rlm@0: rlm@0: (I'm doing my best to help make sure that that person is someone who rlm@0: deserves that very great honor, and will make Sakura-chan happy.) rlm@0: rlm@0: And when that happens... she won't have as much time to spend with me. I rlm@0: know that. I'm expecting it. rlm@0: rlm@0: Love is infinite. rlm@0: rlm@0: A soul is infinite. rlm@0: rlm@0: Time in a day has a limit of 8, 6400 seconds, according to my rlm@0: calculator. And every one of those seconds is precious, and every one is rlm@0: no longer than it takes to say four syllables (five if you're quick). rlm@0: rlm@0: So time is something you have to divide up. If you have to give time to rlm@0: your family, it needs to come from somewhere else... including your rlm@0: friends. rlm@0: rlm@0: And even... even if she took the time from somewhere that wasn't me, my rlm@0: time with her will always be a gift, not a right. rlm@0: rlm@0: But I'm not unhappy. I'm content -- after all, how many other people are rlm@0: there who don't know Sakura-chan at all? How many other people are there rlm@0: whose closest contact with her is to see her skate by once, on her way to rlm@0: wherever she's going? rlm@0: rlm@0: I, however... I have a treasury of every piece of her soul that she has rlm@0: chosen to give me. Whether she's happy, whether she's angry, whether she rlm@0: is overtaken by surprise or sorrow; all of them are Sakura-chan, and thus rlm@0: all of them are beautiful. rlm@0: rlm@0: And each image, a tiny facet in itself, brings back the memories and the rlm@0: feelings, and the way it was before and after and during -- sometimes, a rlm@0: moment so beautiful it hurt. rlm@0: rlm@0: And even that other person... they won't have all of her. They won't rlm@0: share in many of these, any more than I'll share in many of their images, rlm@0: or either of us will share in most of Touya's pieces of Sakura-chan. Even rlm@0: beyond that, there are parts of Kinomoto Sakura that none other than rlm@0: herself shall ever see. rlm@0: rlm@0: Any more than anyone ever saw some parts of Amamiya or Kinomoto rlm@0: Nadeshiko, as much as my mother wanted to. No one else can own all of a rlm@0: person. rlm@0: rlm@0: So why should I be jealous of the person whom Sakura-chan will choose to rlm@0: love? rlm@0: rlm@0: I, too, have pieces of her soul.