THis isssss, the other one… ye, it starts below
“N-no!”
Helpless, she thought. Her face was a statue beneath her jingasa, vandalized with shadow.
“Please! Please…” the man whimpered, dirty knees clutched to his chest. “Just take them back! Here! I have them here! Please…”
Every word from his quivering voice was tainted with the accent of the inner city. Dark alley walls surrounded them, dim amber light only just seeping over the edges of the adjacent buildings. His condemnation, two silver necklaces, were a shining light cruelly sapped by the coal black world.
One foot fell in front of the other.
I will not forget.
She reached the necklaces, the cobbles underfoot folding their chains in curves. The steel at her side became present.
Her left foot stepped to the side of the man, movement pushing apart cloth and metal.
“No, please…please…please…” the words shook his body with each release.
Last time wasn’t like this. Without thinking her hands had reached her center, raised above the neck of the man.
Pause.
Motion returned to her body, eyes snapping back to focus.
He wasn’t going to run, he wasn’t going to fight,
This will all be over soon.
The man no longer pleaded but cried, the sobbing choked in the stained wrappings on his thighs. It was a messy sound, beaten, terrified, child-like.
She breathed.
Her whole body shuddered as she stepped back into the street. Despite an abundance of warm fire and lamp-light, the night was cold and overbearing. Thick cloth bunched under her dō, a simple leather plate covering down to the base of her ribs.
The cloth swept out to her wrists, where her body temperature stopped before reaching her fingers. Slowly, she rubbed one hand back and forth against the other. Her left wore a glove, but her right was uncovered.
Like water against a dam.
The tip of a bloody white cloth poked out from a pocket at her waist. Clutched in her bare hand were the two silver necklaces.
She opened her palm to look down at the pendants, which dangled off the edge of her hand. They were the only thing to distinguish each by, where the chains fell messily over each other in her fingers.
These are brilliant work, but…
She stopped, as if someone had whispered close to her ear.
Another shudder took her suddenly. It was time to go.
The nature of the necklaces would be none of her business, in any case.
The shop was crowded, though not with people. Tall shelves lined the walls, each brimming with objects of all characters. Cases with simple frames and soft fabric held the nature of vials and other similar trinkets. There were only a few lamps, casting a pale light over the room and its oddities.
If she was being honest, her expectations involved some form of welcome, questions even. But standing on the small woven mat in the shop’s entrance, she found little but silence awaiting her return.
“Hello?” Her voice broke slightly, but the word was clear.
“I have returned with the necklaces!”
The store had made her uncomfortable the first time she had stepped through its doorway, and not much had changed since then. The lights still had a way of making the shadows seem…
Green.
Her attention was suddenly drawn as the shopkeeper threw open a side door, which slammed dangerously into a wooden shelf adorned with carvings.
“You’re back!” The shopkeeper wove towards her through the rows of cases. “And you say you have the necklaces?”
“I do.” She held out her hand, letting them slip out from her fingers onto the small counter beside her.
“Thank you so much,” The shopkeeper bowed her head slightly, “You don’t understand how dear these are to me. Here,”
Quickly and carefully scooping up the necklaces in one hand, her other held before her a simple metal ring.
“I want you to have this.”
Her ungloved hand reached out and curled around the gift. She mimicked the shopkeeper, who gently released it into her hand.
“You won’t see anyone else with something like that.” The shopkeeper turned and stepped towards the nearest case, laying the two necklaces down in the fabric base.
“Thank you, again.”