[Dream Log] All Our Yesterdays
Who: Pain and people who would be near him as he sleeps (so probably Madara, Yukari . . . others?)
Status: OPEN to Tsuchisato, ask if you want in. ♥
Style: Action; Comment spamming allowed; Multiple threads allowed -- time paradoxes
Where: Tsuchisato
When: Week 2, Day 4
Rating: R, just to be safe.
Warnings: War and death; mentions of rape.
[ A raid occurred in the village today.
Nagato had heard the voices yelling and the stomping of many feet (there was always the stomping of many feet before people disappeared), but he was inside, curled before the wood stove at the front of an inn, in the warm spot where the heat leached a little and twisted its way through the wooden boards. The owner had offered him work washing dishes in the back room, until such time as someone with larger hands came along to replace him. The back room was hot and crowded and smelled like soap and dirt and food and sweat. Mother had smelled like soap; when she bent over him, he had smelled her hair, which smelled clean and nice, like good soap. The washing-room was different; more metal, and the soap was washed through with other, stronger odors, like men's armpits and old food and the water was hot enough to blister Nagato's hands and leave them red, so maybe he was smelling himself a little, too. This was a good job, though. He wanted to buy a present for Konan. He looked in the stores and saw ribbons and tortoise-shell combs. Jiraiya-sensei used to buy them candy pieces to sit on the tongue and dissolve down. Nagato wanted, really, to buy her that blue kimono he had seen a woman threading a needle through, with the outfit on her lap, but he could burn his hands for five years and never have enough for that.
There was an old man with a few grey wisps of hair and a limp in one leg which made him hobble about, and all the children had thought it was very funny, how he walked and talked (in such an old way), but he sort of smiled at them all and had nice words for them and would occasionally produce a piece of candy from a coat pocket. The old man drank a lot and sometimes went to sleep in the middle of the street, which the children all found very funny indeed. When the raid came -- the Leaf shinobi and others -- the old man disappeared. Nagato saw him outside the gate, swaying from a tree, with his legs dangling and a rope around his neck, and blood running down his mouth from where they had cut out a couple of teeth. It was then Nagato heard someone say the limp had been because he had debts to shinobi which he had not paid (to the foreigners, who owned them all), and they had beaten him and broken his bones.
There was a small girl. Younger than Konan. She disappeared in the raid, too. She had always worn her hair in a strange style that was lopsided and heavy on one end, though she thought it fashionable. Nagato had seen her feeding the scrawny, ill chickens which the villagers raised to kill; the chickens were no good and made everyone sick, but it was a poor time. The girl had no debts, no taxes, but they took her as well. They tied up her hands and took off her clothes and she cried, and something happened Nagato did not understand.
The raid ended, and Nagato saw the after-effects, and felt them in the hush that came over the village. (He had not dared go outside when he had heard the voices, the feet; Jiraiya-sensei had trained him one year before, but that had been for self-defense, not the strength enough to fight off a horde of enemies.)
--
It is afterwards.
It is night.
The rain has begun to mist the air, and the cicadas screech, and the paper lanterns glow. Nagato stands in the wake of the destruction, as if he thinks he will find something; feel something in the air. Listen for the song of a hungry ghost in the wind, perhaps. A voice calling for food. A voice asking for justice. But there is only the wind. Only the sound of the whistling through the rain that blows his hair into his eyes.
One of the shinobi dropped his hitai-ate on the ground.
The eye of a leaf emblem stares upwards, through the trees.
Nagato clutches it. Lifts it. And something that has been creeping towards him, creeping into him -- into all his interstices -- goes further, goes deeper, sinks lower. This. This. This he cannot name. This he has no word for. This which made Yahiko punch the wall and swear in anger. Which made him declare that he would be God, that the condition now was intolerable (is intolerable). This sense of wrong. What there are no words for. Only the wind through the trees, and the leaf eye of the metal -- which catches the moonlight and shines.
Victims have the longest memories of all.
I am told my setting in this dream is not adequately specific. It's night. It's rainy. There's wind. There were fires, but they're burnt out now. Dead bodies. Village. Paper lanterns in the village should be adding some light. Some houses may be burnt/smouldering in the distance. Nagato standing outside the gates holding a hitai-ate. ETC. Standard fare.
The first part is for the reader's reference/for the dream as a literary-ish piece, not because it needs to be responded to, since people can't see it. It's meant to add setting and place details.
Status: OPEN to Tsuchisato, ask if you want in. ♥
Style: Action; Comment spamming allowed; Multiple threads allowed -- time paradoxes
Where: Tsuchisato
When: Week 2, Day 4
Rating: R, just to be safe.
Warnings: War and death; mentions of rape.
[ A raid occurred in the village today.
Nagato had heard the voices yelling and the stomping of many feet (there was always the stomping of many feet before people disappeared), but he was inside, curled before the wood stove at the front of an inn, in the warm spot where the heat leached a little and twisted its way through the wooden boards. The owner had offered him work washing dishes in the back room, until such time as someone with larger hands came along to replace him. The back room was hot and crowded and smelled like soap and dirt and food and sweat. Mother had smelled like soap; when she bent over him, he had smelled her hair, which smelled clean and nice, like good soap. The washing-room was different; more metal, and the soap was washed through with other, stronger odors, like men's armpits and old food and the water was hot enough to blister Nagato's hands and leave them red, so maybe he was smelling himself a little, too. This was a good job, though. He wanted to buy a present for Konan. He looked in the stores and saw ribbons and tortoise-shell combs. Jiraiya-sensei used to buy them candy pieces to sit on the tongue and dissolve down. Nagato wanted, really, to buy her that blue kimono he had seen a woman threading a needle through, with the outfit on her lap, but he could burn his hands for five years and never have enough for that.
There was an old man with a few grey wisps of hair and a limp in one leg which made him hobble about, and all the children had thought it was very funny, how he walked and talked (in such an old way), but he sort of smiled at them all and had nice words for them and would occasionally produce a piece of candy from a coat pocket. The old man drank a lot and sometimes went to sleep in the middle of the street, which the children all found very funny indeed. When the raid came -- the Leaf shinobi and others -- the old man disappeared. Nagato saw him outside the gate, swaying from a tree, with his legs dangling and a rope around his neck, and blood running down his mouth from where they had cut out a couple of teeth. It was then Nagato heard someone say the limp had been because he had debts to shinobi which he had not paid (to the foreigners, who owned them all), and they had beaten him and broken his bones.
There was a small girl. Younger than Konan. She disappeared in the raid, too. She had always worn her hair in a strange style that was lopsided and heavy on one end, though she thought it fashionable. Nagato had seen her feeding the scrawny, ill chickens which the villagers raised to kill; the chickens were no good and made everyone sick, but it was a poor time. The girl had no debts, no taxes, but they took her as well. They tied up her hands and took off her clothes and she cried, and something happened Nagato did not understand.
The raid ended, and Nagato saw the after-effects, and felt them in the hush that came over the village. (He had not dared go outside when he had heard the voices, the feet; Jiraiya-sensei had trained him one year before, but that had been for self-defense, not the strength enough to fight off a horde of enemies.)
--
It is afterwards.
It is night.
The rain has begun to mist the air, and the cicadas screech, and the paper lanterns glow. Nagato stands in the wake of the destruction, as if he thinks he will find something; feel something in the air. Listen for the song of a hungry ghost in the wind, perhaps. A voice calling for food. A voice asking for justice. But there is only the wind. Only the sound of the whistling through the rain that blows his hair into his eyes.
One of the shinobi dropped his hitai-ate on the ground.
The eye of a leaf emblem stares upwards, through the trees.
Nagato clutches it. Lifts it. And something that has been creeping towards him, creeping into him -- into all his interstices -- goes further, goes deeper, sinks lower. This. This. This he cannot name. This he has no word for. This which made Yahiko punch the wall and swear in anger. Which made him declare that he would be God, that the condition now was intolerable (is intolerable). This sense of wrong. What there are no words for. Only the wind through the trees, and the leaf eye of the metal -- which catches the moonlight and shines.
Victims have the longest memories of all.
I am told my setting in this dream is not adequately specific. It's night. It's rainy. There's wind. There were fires, but they're burnt out now. Dead bodies. Village. Paper lanterns in the village should be adding some light. Some houses may be burnt/smouldering in the distance. Nagato standing outside the gates holding a hitai-ate. ETC. Standard fare.
The first part is for the reader's reference/for the dream as a literary-ish piece, not because it needs to be responded to, since people can't see it. It's meant to add setting and place details.