Heavenfall

Careful not to disturb the dolls, Kaze made his way to the precinct of the kami not so much to speak to them as to find a place to work quietly. He sat, resting his spears on the ground to his left, and produced a knife and piece of wood from his pack. Then he set to work.

Dawei walks by.

Seeing Kaze there, and seeing what he is about, he nods and finds himself a place to sit, as well. Mirroring Kaze, he produces a piece he's been working on--the Nezumi carving--and grips his knife strangely, finger along the side of the blade, as he refines it yet further (Woodcarving 32), bringing out details of fur and fiber.

In comparison, Kaze's grip is more like a man ready to murder as he works the point through precise grooves, producing the kanji that contained the words. In a moment it is finished. He takes a moment to breathe before he begins the next one, noticing his fellow-shadow for the first time.

He nods to Kaze with a smile, shifting forward slightly to get a better look at the Seppun's work. "Ah!" he says in delight as he makes out the rat-man. "A rat-man! Excellent!"

Dawei nods.

"It's been coming out of the wood across the whole trip, and I've been touching it up pretty much every time we camp."

He looks at Kaze's work. "What're you carving?"

"The new words." He tries to say it off-hand, but there is an air of deep satisfaction in the undertone. "The wood is their medium; they last longer that way." He nodded firmly. It was so.

"There've been many; which words are these?"

Dawei gestures towards the piece. He does not seem able to read it.

He shifted, picking up his spears so he could sit closer to Dawei and show him his work.

"Amid spring's swelter
Fifty snowbirds winging south
Borne on just one wind"

Poetry roll=12

The kanji in the wood looped and flowed in a surprising cursive style that was somewhat more pleasing than the poem itself.

"It's good carving," Dawei says. "But I think we found earlier that word-art is not something I do well."

He shrugs.

"Still, it's good to see this kind of thing. Much better than many other things that could be seen."

"Not as good as your rat-man, surely." Kaze sighed. "In time, maybe my skill with words will equal the skill with wood that you have now. Then, perhaps the words will accomplish something....would be worthy of enduring." A second sigh. "That would be nice."

"Practice, my friend. It's all practice."

Dawei pauses.

"That, and patience. It's not a thing that has to be done all at once, or should be. Like I said, I've been working on this one across the entire trip. Those I carved for the Emperor, or the Lord Hantei, took weeks and weeks to do."

He smiles.

"One of them took a solid month, and only happened after I broke several pieces of wood trying to find one that had the right image in it."

"So the wood has the image inside?" Kaze leaned closer to the Nezumi, peering at it. "How...how powerful a metaphor."

"I've found it so, that the carving releases what is present rather than imposing a vision upon it."

The carved form of the Nezumi stares back at Kaze. Although it is still not polished, the wood has something of a sheen to it, somehow, where Dawei's knife has smoothed it away.

"So I don't know that it's a metaphor so much as the truth I see. Though I will admit that others might see more clearly than I do."

"A metaphor in the sense that you release the potential of the wood, just as they...the Kami, that is...they release the potential in us. Or we in each other." He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Dawei. "Something to consider. Though if there is someone better able to see the heart of the wood, then I surely don't know them."

"Huh. I'd not considered that idea."

Dawei looks at the Nezumi figure, idly scratches his chin with his thumb.

"Maybe that is a thing to think on in your poetry, that we are ourselves the wood. But who would be oak, and who cedar? Whose wood crawls with grubs and such? Whose rots dry? Whose burns with the sweetest smoke--who must still die to bring such joy?"

Kaze raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. "Seppun-sama, you...have given me much to think about." A pause. "I...acknowledge that some may be rotten in this world. I have known men I have come to understand were abnormally cruel. But to be burned away? What sweetness is to be found in ash?"

Kaze turned his confused expression from the Nezumi fully to Dawei.

"Neither the wood consumed nor the woodworker is made whole in the flame."

"True. But you have cooked over open flame, I know, and know that the different woods yield different smokes--some better suited to some foods than others. And I've once or twice kindled fires I soon wished I'd not.

"But, as I said, I've not a gift for word-art. You, though, I think do. Think on it a time, perhaps."

Kaze, biddable as ever, did just that, face scrunching cutely with the effort. Doji had told him not to do that sort of thing, of course, but...well, she was a long way away.

"Different woods...different smokes. Hmmm...."

Then his face un-scrunched and eyes opened wide. "Are you saying that there are some people who would smell differently, because their spirits are not in-tune with ours? That they have other goals or ends? People here?!"

His face is cute when he does that, thinks Dawei.

But, at the question, he merely shrugs. "I'm not certain," he says. "As I said, the word-arts aren't mine. But it may be a thing about which to be concerned."

His own brow furrows.

"Still, it is a chilling thought, and one my heart has probably considered, even if my mind did not realize as much."

Kaze nodded and then said quietly:
"I shall think upon it. In the meantime, well...perhaps I can help you with your words, Seppun-sama. And you can help me with my wood. How's about that?"

Dawei does a double-take.

Was that a proposition? he thinks.

"I...I'd be happy to."