The Malaise of a Melancholy Mind [P]

The gnashing teeth of an early fall fell heavy on the coastline of Rice Country. Below a sky of immutable gray, the sea roiled and raged sending ranks of whitecaps against the shore in an unending quest to devour the land. Tanbogakure now waged a two-fronted war; one with the bandit king to the south and one with mother nature to the north. Yet, ensconced in the highest room of Okada Castle, such troubles fell from the fore. This evening not even the howling wind of the leeward gale could distract the increasingly inebriated Yasahiro from his next drink.

In the lantern-lit room, one would be forgiven for thinking it a storage room, not an office. Papers littered the three desks, books lined the wall, and the large map at the center of the room had long since been covered by half-drafted edicts and dated reports. Behind the largest and messiest desk, hidden amongst a few bottles, sat the leader of Tanbogakure. His once tidy beard zipped this way and that with a life of its own, his hair fell down to his shoulders in a single mat, and the former fire in his eyes had long since dimmed from fatigue. Indeed, the man looked more like an inanimate fixture in the room than a living breathing person with the only clue to the contrary being the occasional wave of a hand to ward off a persistent mosquito. 

Asahi, where are you?

The samurai's younger cousin never arrived in Rice Country. Months and months had long since passed when the two were supposed to meet up, and yet nothing—the man seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Perhaps a year ago or so the older cousin would have set out in a quest to find his younger counterpart, but now such a quest had been made impossible. To leave would mean surrendering all he had built thus far which, admittedly, wasn't much but it was his and that counted for something in a life bereft of achievement.

He took a drink.

The whole room swam before his eyes, and the room shifted into a memory. Instead of the mess of his office around him, he now stood in an all-too-familiar courtyard. At his feet a body and a growing pool of blood; he had been in this same moment a thousand times before. His heart threatened to beat through his chest, his mind raced, and a feeling of mounting dread crept up his spine with the building anticipation. Then he heard it, the scream of his mother followed by darkness, and then he was back in the office—life continued on.

He took a drink.

And another.

And another...

Outside the storm raged on without regard for those in its path.
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Exit.
TWC: 463
+463 words to Clanless Pureblood
+ 8 ap

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