Comforting Touch - Sayo/Kokin
2206.06.
Kokindenjunotachi hadn’t realised how late it was, and now she’s regretting it.
She’s spent the day in a meadow in the woods, listening to the birdsong of early summer, the chicks in their nests and their parents and siblings nearby. The trees are in full leaf, the forest floor dappled white and yellow and purple between patches of green. Insects had darted between the flowers or up into the sky, and she’d been occasionally visited by squirrels, ravens, and deer - and her fellow swords. She’d enjoyed it, surrounded by nature, with words flowing from her brush to the page. So much so, that she hadn’t realised the sun had begun to set on her.
She peers into the growing shadows, her tachi eyes faltering her. A shiver runs down her spine.
She should call out for help. With her voice - someone would hear her, she wasn’t far from the Citadel, after all. Or her magic. Jizou would hear her if she called him with her magic, even if he were worlds away, and the bond between them would allow him to appear at her side in a heartbeat. But she doesn’t - she can’t. The words are locked in her throat, at war with each other.
She had hoped she would be over it by now. The tunnels were so long ago - worlds and lifetimes in the past. They might as well have happened to another sword entirely. But perhaps she’d been too newly human then, their darkness leaving an imprint on her mind as if her metal had still been soft. And maybe this form is too new as well, only months old, because the fear still there, like a serpent in her mind, coiled beneath the roses of the day. Waiting for her.
She closes her eyes tight, heart racing in her chest, trying to decide what to do. The longer she stands here, the deeper she’ll fall into worry, and the likelier it is she will need to call Jizou and, oh, she doesn’t want to bother him, even if he’s said she isn’t a bother, not for something as silly as this-
There’s a rustling in the undergrowth nearby, and she whirls around, eyes sharpening against the shadows. Something that makes a sound is tangible, and she can fight tangible, an enemy is something she knows how to deal with-
“Kokin-san?”
She finds herself standing in front of a shadow, but one of a friendlier kind. Sayo Samonji looks up at her with wide, worried eyes. Somehow, he’s the one to find her here.
“Kokin-san?” he repeats, his voice soft. “Are you… okay?”
Kokindenjunotachi drops to her knees and throws her arms around the tantou’s shoulders.
“O-Sayo,” she says, fighting back tears.
She won’t cry, not in front of Sayo. She’s a tachi, and one of his older brothers. She has to be strong, for him. He needs her to be strong.
Still, she clings to him, shivering.
Sayo raises a hand, and brushes it against her neck.
“It’s okay, Kokin-san,” he whispers against her ear. “I’m - I’m here. I’ll protect you.”
She can feel his uncertainty through his shoulders, as though he’s looking for something to strike at, for whatever enemy might be lurking. But the only enemy is in her mind, and that’s not something he can cut. So instead he holds her awkwardly, so much smaller than she is, and pets her hair until she can manage to let go.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I’m sorry, O-Sayo. I should be strong for you.”
He blinks, and she can feel it along her skin, her scales. Then, his hand still twined in her hair, he presses his forehead against hers.
“It’s okay, Kokin-san,” he says again. “I… want to be strong for you, too. And for all my big brothers. So you can depend on me, too.”
“I feel so silly,” she whispers. “It’s my own fault - I lost track of time…”
Sayo’s lips brush her forehead, and his hand finds hers. He squeezes, and she squeezes back, her thoughts back under control, her panic beginning to subside.
“Do you have everything?” he asks her.
She nods. She’d put the book she’d been writing in and her writing utensils in her pocket when she’d gotten up, before the panic had set in.
Sayo squeezes her hand again.
“Good,” he says. “Let’s go home, Kokin-san.”
She stands, because she knows she can do it. She feels silly - even sillier than before - for having made such a big deal out of something so small.
But Sayo’s presence sends the shadows back again, even as the sun sinks, and the sky turns mottled purple, then blue. He guides her through the forest and down the mountain path, until the lights of the Citadel become visible through the trees. And the whole time, he doesn’t let go of her hand.
“Thank you,” she says quietly. But even that is enough to break the silence between them.
Sayo looks up at her, his expression just visible in the dark. He looks as though he doesn’t know what to say.
So instead, he just squeezes her hand, and presses up against her side.
“I’m here,” is all he says.
But it’s all she needs to hear.