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kiraman · 3 months

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I. PROLOGUE The faraway nearby

Since first thing that morning everything was spoiling her mood, making her broody and angry. Everything. It annoyed her that she had overslept, squashed into a hard mattress on the floor; stiff and numb from the cold, even with a woolen blanket thrown over her. She had not slept at all last night, vexed by the sharp stench of an airless, stuffy cabin, the sea air dripping through the slats bloated with its own salt. The area below decks was deeply unpleasant. Dozens of men sleeping on rows of hammocks with the smallest amount of space between them – 14 to 16 inches of space allowed for each hammock. There was little ventilation at all and the whole place smelled rank, a combination of poorly washed clothes, old food, sour ale and sweat; she had laid under her thin sheets, wakeful and restless, and when dawn had broken blue and purple over the ocean, she had somehow dozed off; when next she had arisen, everyone was already awake, bustling about the ship, the air throbbing with their laughter.

Mizu was annoyed by the cold, congealed salt beef and dry biscuits she was served for breakfast by a man who tore away from his rum to toss the plate her way with a malevolent sneer which made her hand curl into a fist. She was annoyed by the sly looks of contempt thrown her way as she quickly wolfed down her meal over the deck, refusing to gift her attention to anyone around her, watching the spumes of the white-capped waves lashing the side of the ship as it slashed the seas, instead. She was annoyed. Cold. Stiff. Her muscles knotted against the strain of disuse. She ached for her sword, wishing, fiercely, that she could train, longing for the mountains and the cliffs, but here, where the eye met nothing but the endless skies and open horizon, she could only sit cross-legged on the deck and mediate the hours away, her mind frantic and furious even in complete and absolute silence, plagued by the same image over and over again: her blade in her hand, rippling in the air, tearing into warm flesh, offering death: the wind whipping against her cheek, muscles tensing; a sharp, shallow breath choking in her throat; exhaling. The killing sword making a hissing silver arc, slashing the air with its promise; her pulse pounding in her veins; she moves, suddenly, quiet, like the wind; like lightning flaming the sky. A man’s head topples off his shoulders and a fountain of blood sprays the earth. Red. Red and black with death. Relief. A void. Fragmentary ecstasy, something incomplete and then, a hunger for more, more, more. In her mind, she opens her eyes, and breathes. Afterwards, she sits small and submissive to the greater order; she is not yet done. Something more is needed. In her mind, her mouth fills with blood. She gasps.

She shut her eyes against the glare of the sun.

The horizon had already grown red, sunlight streaming in a narrow band above the waves. The warm, spring weather and cheerful, vibrant chatter filling the air around her, did not improve her mood. She still did not enjoy being here. She still glared and grunted at every glance and question thrown her way, as she had done since first her foot had set upon the ship. She did not speak their tongue and did not mean to entertain them with her otherness; her strangeness; they were to her, as strange and alien as she to them, and she did not wish for their company. When anger and discomfort had sat with her too long, the tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs, Mizu made her way down to the lower decks and stood near the railing of the quarterdeck, stiff, motionless, her left hand unmoving and heavy at her side, the other one on the hilt of the dagger she now carried beneath layers of cloths, a dead thing, sleeping, yet always, half-alert, tensing; one eye peeled open, laying in wait, like a snare. Her fingers coiled around the silver pommel. Her mouth pinched. She leaned out over the ocean and breathed in the fresh salt air, filling her chest with it. The splash of seawater sprayed her cheeks. She sighed, and for a moment, forgot her anger.

❛ — oi, you there! do not lean out. About-turn and scram! ❜ A huge-bellied, broad-shouldered grotesquely tall man with a tangled gray beard and pockmarks on his cheeks strode over, and snapped something that made no sense to her, without taking the stick he was chewing, either from hunger or to kill time, from his mouth. Mizu, violently torn from her moment of peace, turned around slowly and icily gazed at him through her glasses, her face veiled in the shadows cast by the wide brim of her hat. ❛ — you deaf or somethin' you heel? Scram! back to your deck. ❜ he spat out his stick and rubbed his beard where the drying sweat irritated him. Mizu blinked. The first thing that came to her mind was that he stank. His skin was blotched and scratched from his broken nails, and there were stains all over the front of his pants. They stood there, under the heat of the sun for a moment, sweat beading at the back of her neck, slowly, and then, he spat again, like an overbloated frog chasing flies, she thought, like a pig, scuffing in the mud; he moved to grab at her, and in the blink of an eye, her hand shot out and caught him by the wrist, violently shoving him away. He blinked with the shock of it, evidently not expecting to be refused; he thinks me less than him; he thinks me beneath him, somehow; she realized, only with mild surprise that the sneer now summoned upon her lips did not betray. This pile of dung, thinks me inferior. Mizu stepped towards him forcefully, her eyes flashing like mirrors in the sun, and he immediately backed away, the narrow line of his mouth (chapped and bitten by the cruel winds) puffed out into a disdainful sneer that she suddenly craved to wipe right off his face with such fervor, it took every last bit of her willpower not to cut him open right then and there, her hand shaking with the effort of holding back. He hacked, saliva trickling from his clenched teeth and barked something at her again, feigning bravery, taking another step towards her once she halted her step to near motionlessness, eyes narrowed to slits, watching his every movement; he made to shove her towards the stairs leading to the other deck but Mizu did not badge under his shoving; he clawed at the front of her haori, but she whipped away and intercepted a blow that would have caught her by the throat, ferociously sank her nails into his wrist and held his shuddering arm at bay, and smashed her other fist into the man’s belly. He gasped, surprised and blinked, and she quickly shoved him away with a flick of her wrist, then kicked out viciously; he whirled, dumbfounded, and Mizu closed in on him, ready to grab at his throat, but the sudden sound of bells and metal beating on metal tore the air. Discordant. Piercing. His eyes went to the decks bellow, and he hissed something vicious between those yellowed, rotten teeth, and with a grunt, walked away and back to whatever hole he had crawled out of.

Mizu sneered disgustedly. Her blood was boiling, anger clawing at her veins, that hunger, that thirst left unsatiated, like barbed arrows tearing her open; a wound festering, like a fever deep inside of her. She hated him. She hated this ship; their stench and filthiness; their arrogance and detestable manners. More than that, she was shamed; shamed to share their blood; shamed that they, too, looked at her like she was no more than mud stuck to their heels: unclean; unwanted; strange.

Gritting her teeth, she turned around and stood near the railing, trying very hard not to let her rage explode into a fever that she would never be able to abate.

At dusk it had been feeding time again and the cooks began passing steaming cups of gruel and water which to Mizu, stank and seemed brackish. This was the first time she had actually bothered to come down to the kitchens for dinner, but her stomach ached and her mouth felt dry. She was still silently bristling, but at least the lining up for food and water had been unusually calm. Bowing her thanks, she gathered her cups and went to sit near the slats and beams that made up tiny windows at the side of the ship. She picked at her plate without much jest, feeling strange eyes boring into the back of her neck, but not turning around to meet them.

Then the apelike man —unshaven, filthy, stinking still, worse than he had that morning, dripping in sweat and with a fresh bruise upon his pockmarked cheek—chopped in violently, kicked at the table where she had sat, and took her ration right out of her hand while the others sat in stunned silence to see what would happen. The world around her seemed to ripple and come to a screeching halt. Molten darkness fell over her, piercing and violent, like invisible pinchers squeezing her throat.

Slowly, too slowly, like sand flowing through an hourglass, she pushed her chair back, then stood up and with languid, stiff movements removed her hat and glasses and neatly set them down where her meal had been. The air in the room seemed to thicken. Rain suddenly began to lash the windows, trickling down the glass and filling the room with its cries. A sudden gush of movement, and her hand was at his throat, choking the air right out of him; a sigh filled the room, gasps and flashes of lightning; a furious chill rushing through the world around her; harsh, muffled voices from somewhere far away and the sound of her steps as she landed blow after blow, moving like a serpent, noiselessly, lightly, disarming him with no more than a blow and a violent strike against his jaw which cracked under the heel of her palm. He reeled, howling with rage, and Mizu landed on her feet, perfectly controlled, face hard and cold, devoid of any flushes of effort.

He came at her blindly, slow, like a fish thrashing about on the banks of a dried up river, and she leapt, backing away, laughing; her voice dark and violent, came rushing like a river, flooding the cabin, and as he stood to limp away and in shame, she kicked out viciously, sending him tumbling onto the floors. Then, there were lights through the blackness that had draped itself over her like a burial shroud, and strange voices, calling her out of the depths of her rage.

Slowly, too slowly, she straightened her cape and carefully put on her glasses again, clearing her throat. She put the chair back at the table, and was about to gather her hat and leave the kitchens, when, in the corner, Mizu saw to her amazement that one of the men was offering the cup of gruel and the water that she had presumed lost. Blinking, she took it and thanked the man curtly. He nodded in understanding, and with a faint, parting shake of her head, Mizu walked away.

She did not see him again. She would not see him for quite some time.

Not until much later, after they had made port at Batavia and something darker had come calling her name, desperate, frantic, dogging her every footstep. She never looked behind her out of fear. Out of terror of what she would see following her in her own shadow...

#blue eye samurai #mizu blue eye samurai #bes mizu #u know what! its happening. im gonna write about her journey to london. look out for her adventures folks they r coming bc s2 is SO far #mizu #my child making friends (huh...) everywhere she goes #stay tuned for part 2. she's gonna meet a very Special Lady on this boat & that's a spoiler. Hideous Acts will be committed.#this doesn't end until you die.#my writing #my writing.#writing tag.

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