[ Action | Open ] 🌙 Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. - Buddha

[its_dad_sanzo]

Who: Open to all!
What: Koumyou Sanzo's arrival in Genessia.
Where: The Bay
When: Mid-November
Warnings: Nah. A single manga panel of Koumyou's death, but it's super not-graphic by itself.

But ultimately, impermanence is our only truth.
Koumyou's eyes opened. He didn't remember closing them. The last thing he remembered was telling a young Kouryuu -- Genjyo Sanzo -- to be strong... and the briefest sensation of being taken apart. His head had come off before the pain could truly set in. And now he was... here. Staring up at the ceiling of a... cave?

The priest blinked, and lifted his hands above his face. They were both there. He patted his shoulders, and the familiar crinkle of the Seiten Sutra greeted him.

This was not what he'd expected of the afterlife. If he'd expected anything at all. Reincarnation? Even he wasn't sure. But if he was to be reincarnated, what was he doing here in this familiar body, in these familiar robes, with his Sutra?

The Sanzo priest sat up and looked around. For once, his eyes were fully open and sharp, with no one to observe him. A box fell into his lap from atop his bamboo breastplate, and he blinked down at it. How peculiar! Death had left him a present, it seemed. How polite of it.

He opened the box and sifted through it, perfectly content to sit in his pod for a while as he did so.

Eventually, he wandered out of the cave, and shielded his eyes against the sun with one hand as several birds took off from nearby trees at his appearance. A few crows, and... several small, colorful birds? Hm. They were certainly pretty, against the blue sky...

Comments

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole opened his mouth to answer and paused. He looked around suddenly, fidgeting hands still. Listening- no seeing something that no one else could.

"It is better I don't tell you," he said, relieved. There was someone else who knew more and could explain it better than he could.

"The birds know, they'll tell who needs to know. You'll know soon. Oh, and you aren't dead. Well you are, but you aren't. To some you are, to you, you're not."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Oh, of course," Koumyou took the explanation of his death-but-not-death in stride as perhaps only he could. "Who needs to know... will they be coming here, then?"

[hugs_for_nugs]

"Yes, they will. Soon, I think." Cole was pleased, Koumyou was not disturbed or confused by what he told him. That made it so much easier.

"Need to know? Needs to know, knowing, kneeling- There are two and now one." Cole shook his head. "You will know when they are here and tell you. They will tell you better, it is important they do, not me."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, this looks like a nice place over here," Koumyou started forward at a leisurely stroll, heading for the park area. A breeze played with his robe; the ends of the sutra and his hair, even making the end of his long braid sway a little. "You'll stay and keep me company while I wait, won't you?"

[hugs_for_nugs]

"Yes. Of course." Cole followed after him, hunched and awkward, the brim of his hat turned against the breeze. He watched Koumyou as they walked, still untangling many many threads. If he was careful he could pick them apart and maybe these memories and thoughts would not be so much.

"How are you the moon and not the moon? Light but not? You are solid but not, like the Inquisitor, but in a different way. And why the rabbit?" Cole wrinkled his nose. "I don't want to think about the rabbit."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou found a park bench and sat on one end of it, tactfully choosing the side that would place Cole up-wind of his smoke. He sat very elegantly, knees together, his free hand still 'propping' up his opposite elbow, exposing a lot of arm-warmer. He took another slow drag.

"Mysteries for the ages, I suppose," the Buddhist high-priest continued to take Cole's odd words completely in stride. The moon and not the moon, light but not, solid but not. It was like the boy was a koan, personified. But one thing stuck out, a break in the pattern. "The Inquisitor?"

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole perched on the very edge of the bench, hands clenched over his knees. He looked this way and that, head swaying as he looked and felt for any disturbances nearby. There was so much here, so many hurts and fears and those to be feared. There were many that stood in their own webs of memories like Koumyou or Alley, but Koumyou was one of the most receptive he was likely to talk with, so he was here.

"Yes- Oh, the Inquisitor. She is my friend and much more. Meddling, mending, fixing the world and watching it break. She is hero and savior and criminal and busy-body and- and many things, so many people think so many things." He paused to put his thoughts together. "She is my friend, we saved the world but we didn't. There is the world and another to still bring back. We will do it."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Hm," Koumyou eyed the end of his pipe. It was almost used up already, which was fine with him. He liked to smoke in short sessions, not continuously.

"It sounds like you two have some very important work to do," the priest took a final drag of his pipe, and then tipped it over and flicked it, sending hot ash to the ground. He tucked the pipe away, back into his sleeve, before exhaling the last of the smoke.

"It seems like I still have a job," Koumyou sighed, touching one end of the sutra on his shoulders meaningfully. "Even after a death-that-isn't. I'm glad I don't have to try to save any worlds, too. It sounds like such a hassle."

[hugs_for_nugs]

"Yes. You still have a job," Cole replied, suddenly deadly serious. "Many here do. Many good come here, but not all. There are too many I can't help."

He shook his head, oversized hat brim flopping around.

"It is still... Mostly safe. Calm, cheerful, cold in places but mostly warm. I can't save it or him now, so I help. What will you do?" He bent down and tilted his head so he could look up at Koumyou.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"What will I do? Wait, it seems like," Koumyou smiled, and reached into his sleeve again. This time, he produced a few sheets of bright orange paper, miraculously unwrinkled despite their storage location.

"Do you know how to fold paper airplanes?"

[hugs_for_nugs]

"No!" Cole tilted his head even further to stare at the bright paper, holding his hat on with a hand on the metal cap. "What's an airplane?"

Thedas was not the most advanced of places, Cole had not gotten around to learning about the technology of other worlds either.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Well, a real airplane carries many people through the sky," Koumyou held out one of the sheets of paper for Cole to take. "Paper airplanes just carry themselves. Would you like to learn how to fold one? The sky is nice and blue, today."

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole didn't know what the color of the sky had to do with folding paper, but he accepted the offered sheets and straightened up to stare down at it. Hm. He turned it around carefully, fascinated by its loud color.

"Yes. Please," he answered after he'd finished staring at the paper.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Okay, do what I do," Koumyou laid out one of the sheets on one of his thighs and started folding, much slower than usual so Cole could easily keep up. He made each fold crisp and sharp, and when it was done he held the paper plane up between thumb and forefinger and threw it.

It sailed out into the blue sky, and the number of memories -- his and others' -- associated with that imagery...

[hugs_for_nugs]

Cole imitated Koumyou slowly, carefully, folds clumsy and crooked. His finished plane had one wing much shorter than the other and a dented tip. It looked mostly like it was meant to.

He didn't throw his, his gaze fixated on Koumyou's plane instead. He'd seen this before and he saw it again, in reality and recalled from the mind of another. It was more beautiful, meaningful, and painfully bittersweet in memory, it felt sharper than the real plane gliding slowly on the breeze.

"I don't really consider myself qualified to pass on teachings. But I do make pretty good airplanes.," Cole repeated. "He asks if it's boring- no it just takes a moment to reply. A child watches it's hard to read his face. Gold and violet, orange and blue, The opposite colors enhance each other's beauty."

Cole shakes his head, the memories are the same but from different eyes, they're hard to seperate.

"It's a clear sky, but it smells like rain."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou took hearing his own words, as well as other details of the memory, in stride. One of his dearest friends had been a youkai who could tell someone's future after touching them; this sort of thing wasn't that odd, to him.

And of all the Sanzos left after Tenkai's and Goudai's deaths, and even those who came after his own death, Koumyou was the most... well, zen. By far.

"And that is why orange planes can only fly in blue skies," he added cheerfully.

Perhaps that was why he and Ukoku had gotten along so well, come to think of it. The moon and the night.

[hugs_for_nugs]

"That- maybe? I can't see him clearly. I don't want to." There were some well beyond help and did not deserve it. Many threads in that web lead to one such person. Cole tried not to dwell on that.

"...I see," he went on, like he'd said nothing else. "It is a lesson?"

Cole lifted his own plane and tried to toss it like Koumyou had. His dived for the ground at once.

"Oh."

[its_dad_sanzo]

"One of the few I'm qualified to teach," Koumyou laughed, and held out another sheet of paper for Cole. "Here, we'll fold slower this time."