http://clampfix.fanworks.net/rgv-fix/shashi.txt </head><body><pre>Sashi's Story "Wait. . ." The words die on my lips, unspoken, as Ashura sweeps past in a flurry of white and gold. Left alone again with a handful of empty hopes, cracked and leaking like a smashed basket of fragile eggs. I lean against the wall gingerly, to ease the burden from my swollen ankles and aching back. The mound on my middle rises, a grotesque alien feeding off from my body "But had I not hoped for this? That a baby might mend the tear between us, Ashura, a husband and wife only in name. I would have welcomed the pain and the suffering had this been the product of love--cherished it dearly." I whisper to the wall in a burning confession that consumes my lungs and sets my brain afire. "All I had wanted from you, since our wedding night, had been one look of sincerity, of warmth." I wade to the window, my joints creaking like an old man's, for some air. Perhaps some fresh air will clear my head, help me see a new method--I had tried so hard to make him love me, and in speration, in vain hopes to arouse his jealousy, had I turned to ishakuten's arms. And afterward, I had scrubbed myself a thousand times with scented rose water to wash off the filth of his touch, which linger, an ugly splotch staining my soul. A figure wrapped in blinding white catches my eye below in the garden labrynth, skillfully weaving through the narrow passages of pink briar rose toward the center square. The mutiliated hair, chopped to the shoulders, was wrapped into a high pony tail with a strip of satin white, its ribbons rippling in the wind. Kaolin!--such a mystery. I never could figure out why she would so openly wear a sign of grief and mourning. She stops for a moment to kiss a pale, blossoming bud, seeming to whisper soft words of encouragement. A girl who had rejected all suitors without a single glance--the ice maiden who will waste away in spinsterhood. "Sashi." Kendappa-ou enters softly, without knocking. I turn away, sinking into the bower of soft cushions with a tired sigh. Someone please get this THING off of me. I willed my hands to become transparent in vain, dreaming of shoving my them inside my womb to strangle the unborn child Ashura so desperately wants, an heir. "What is it Kendappa-ou?" She has on a freshly made dress of peacock silk and had coiled her lovely waves into an elaborate coiffeur, beaded with tiny crystals and shimmering pearls. Utterly lovely--and foolish, as I had been. She believes I cannot hear her, alone in the middle of the night, sighing over the young Yama of the Yasha Clan. Young, handsome, hopelessly crude Yama who has no place in this palace like Taishakuten--like me? "I was simply wondering if you would like to hear some music." "Thank-you, but no." Her ballads had been a trap which sprung efficiently at my naivete. She had been the one who had convinced me, with her requested songs from Ashura, that he, my cold husband, was hopeless in love with me, feeding my childhood dreams. How I hate him now--love him so. Yes, since the first day I had laid eyes on him, I had believed that I would be the one to unlock the secrets of his so-called burning heart. " I think you should save your songs for Yama." The pretense of teasing nauseates my stomach, and I fear I might hurl at Kendappa-ou's feet--will I be able to bear that humiliation? With a idiotic grin, she curtsies. "Ashura. Ashura. Ashura. . ." I cannot stop chanting his name, a charm. Perhaps he will hear my pleas from somewhere deep inside. My Lord. My Love. My cold, stone Angel. Tired. So so tired. I close my eyes only for a moment, yet when I reopen them, the morning had already passed on the late afternoon. The sun makes leafy patterns against the tapestry hung walls and falls across the bed, spilling a golden rectangle on to the carpeted crimson floor. Ashura. I must tell him of my true feelings. Once he discovers the depth of my love, he will love me back--it must be so! To trumpet my flaws and my doubts in the open air. . . Yes! There must only be truth between us; he will understand. He will forgive me for my betrayal--I know it to be so! He might have married me for my seal, but I will make him love me. I push bulk heavily off the reclining cushions and hastily thow on a silk wrapper, running out clumsily to find him. And I do, not so far away. I strain to hear the whispered exchanges in vain; impatient, I order my feet to grow wings. Ashura. God. He stands there before my cousin Kaolin's door, hunched. The silky hair of liquid obsidian cascades over his trembling shoulders, curtaining his face, as he gazes off into the shadows. He turns, slowly in my direction, open and vulnerable for once like a little lost boy wearing his heart on his sleeve. Each line in his smooth face cry of unbearable agony; its starkness holds me captive. However, it is the eyes, shimmering with unshed tears, reading my soul, reading into the future, which renders my mind wholly incapable of thought. Had he ever been this beautiful? No, not even in the wildes dreams of her fevered imagination. Yet, even as I watch, his face undergoes a gradual transformation. The expression becomes shuttered, hidden behind a thick curtain, as the familiar, carefully constructed mask slips back on. The eyes harden, becoming mirror-like, and I can no longer see the soul inside, only the reflection of my hideous body. His figure straightens, regal, as he offers me the strength of his arm--perfunctory. I regard the outstretched arm, silent. It shook me; how he could soeasily have two lives and two personalities. I open my mouth, trying to speak the truth, trying to confess the sins which blacken my soul, and find that I cannot. He had never been mine. The truth--his truth--dawns upon me. A ruby haze dims my eyes; pressure builds in my lungs, demanding to be release, caught in a flood of roaring fire. "Do you love me?" I ask, though I know his answer. "Of course. You are the mother of my child, my wife." "Yes," I repeat faintly, "Of course. How silly of me to forget." I link my arms through his, smile for public apprearances. So cold. A statue. I am sick of crying at night, calling out to a person who will never be there, and the pillow is an equally cold companion at night. "Tell me the truth." I dig my own grave. "Do you care about someone else?" Silence; for the first time, he has no glib, ready answer. "Well," I insist, "Is it my cousin?" "This is the truth, if you want it so greatly." The expression which next dawns on his face chilled me to the bones. His face would forever haunt my nightmares, so filled with anger and hatred, all directed at me. "I can love none." "Please take me back to my chambers." my whisper is barely audible. "Ashura-ou." </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>