>>31162
Heads it is.
___
The moon shines callously over the night, uncaring of your woes.
Your sandals slapping loudly on the paving as you run with all your
might, filling the night with their rhythmic cracks.
Not slowing down in the slightest you leap down the steps, with a
clatter you land and charge onwards. Silhouetted by a tree in the
distance you see the shape of a girl standing on a tree stump, a
silhouette of Youmu.
Joy bursts forth inside you, somehow you knew she would be here. In
the shade of that ancient cherry tree, by that gnarled old stump where
the two of you whiled away a year together playing chess. Half
remembered names and faces of your life tickle your brain, within you
the memories of life stir and you recall a time when you felt this all
before. Love.
Straining every ounce of your will you draw closer to her where she
stands on the stump watching over the garden, her back turned to you.
"Youmu!"
She doesn't turn.
"Youmu, I can't even begin to apologize to you." Her silence damns
you further, if she would turn and shout at you. Stab you with her gaze
and lash you with her tongue, that would be better than this crushing
silence.
"Youmu... I don't know what to say. I can't begin to describe how
sorry I am, all this time and I could've even see. See what was in
front of me....." You swallow hard, a lump is rising in your throat
making it hard to speak.
"Death made me forget, forget what this was. But I know now. You've helped me Youmu, you've let me remember ..... love."
Why isn't Myon with her?
(
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bgcrg1q7iqA play this now)
You take a step closer, then another and then another. You can't
see Myon anywhere around here, you know that Myon is her other half and
can't travel far from her body.
"Y-youmu?"
The callous light of the moon shines off of the cord extending from her neck to the tree branch.
This, this is too cruel. This can't be true! Yet even as you reach
for her pale hand your own passes right through, in life Youmu was one
of the few people you could touch due to her ghost half. Desperately
you snatch at her, trying to clutch at her clothes desperate to make
contact with her. To feel her warmth, to know that this is a lie. A
horrible lie.
Wailing you dash yourself over and over into her body, every time
you pass straight through without so much as making her rock. Her blue
eyes, dead like those of a doll. A trickle of blood running from the
corner of her mouth.
For hours you scream your loss on that tree stump, as if your
ghostly tears could bring her back to you. The cries resonated through
out Gensokyo, that night every living thing felt the icy chill of loss
listening to that desperate keening.
Days have no meaning in this timeless place. Cursed forever to to
be dead, yet undying in thought and memory. For all eternity would you
face this loss, death could offer you no comfort. Not even Yuyuko's
power over death could offer you respite despite your frenzied begging.
So you hold onto one hope, one impossible hope. Every day you
return to that tree stump in the garden of the dead, to await her
reincarnation.
For the rest of eternity you swear to maintain your lonely vigil
until she's back beside you. Even if the stars burned out in the sky,
even if all the oceans in the world dried up and even if the moon was
worn away to dust.
If it takes for ever, you'll wait for her.
