Whittling Away - Seppun Dawei

[Canary]

Another piece of wood, taken from what would have fed the fires, sits heavy in my hands. I turn it over in them, running my callused fingers over the grain lightly, feeling where the splinters are ready to stab into me. I don’t blame them; I’m going to carve them away soon enough.

I don’t feel his face in the wood so much anymore. Certainly not as much as I used to, when I carved the one figure that The Seppun still has in her home, the one Akagi can’t look at for long. I can’t look at it long, either, even if it is as much my work as he was theirs whose face it bears.

Ah. There it is. I found what this chunk of wood has in it for me to find. I won’t be filing all of the points away, after all. No stag worth the name lacks for them, and it is the Stag that Hantei-ue has taken as the Clan’s sign that waits for me to release it.

I lift my knife again, as I have so many times before, and set its edge to the wood. It has no less experience in this than I do, really, its blade having been the one I used to carve the images of the ten Kami for the Emperor after His accession, the one I used to carve the images for Lord Hantei at his marriage to Kinsen. I carved a toy for their son, as well, a small figure of a clever hunter—but I can be forgiven my little vanities, I think.

The blade shaves away a little bit at a time, first smoothing out the edges so that I can work with the wood. I’ve had to do the same to a few people in these past years, teaching them the quiet ways that Akagi had me cultivate even while the Kami had their contest. There are warriors in the Stag, certainly, brave fighters who face their foes openly. But they can only go where they are directed, and I am the one who shows them such ways.

There have been fights, even since the Emperor ascended and Lord Hantei set up his home near Seppun Hill. Some of the filthy Noriaki have kept themselves apart; the ones that have sworn in or given up that hated name, I tolerate, and at least one of them has proven herself…acceptable, but not all of them have had enough sense to accept the rule of the Kami. Not all of them have seen the way things have improved with them here, with their knowledge given to us—and, yes, their swords on our behalf. And those that have not have seen their ways to graves. I’ve sent enough of them there, been the shadow striking from behind them once and more than enough.

Flesh cuts so much easier than the wood, really. But the wood is not so hard to wash off as the blood that flows.

Still, sometimes, the cuts can heal. And maybe a scar is not so good as true flesh, but it stops the bleeding, at least.

With each pass of the blade, a little more wood falls away. A little more of the stag inside it shows forth. It’s like that with the kids, the Seppun youth who tried to follow me for a while and couldn’t but pressed on, anyway. Youko is especially promising; she’s long and lean and lithe, and she stalks through the woods more quietly than the deer. She doesn’t have the power to put behind the blow, not yet, but she sticks with things, pushes herself in ways that the rest…don’t. I appreciate it greatly.

I know she’d like it if I appreciated it more, appreciated it differently. I know, too, that The Seppun has been thinking about legacies, about ensuring that the Tribe—no, the Family—endures after her life ends. And the Lord Hantei has, I am certain, spoken with his smaller sister—she and Nanzi have been frequent visitors here, and he to them—about using such things as a way to cement bonds. It makes enough sense, and I will do as I am bidden, but I have no heart for it.

I have no heart for anyone, truly, still. And I wonder if I ever will.