1. Episode of the Peacock and the Crow
The snow crunched under her boots as she shuffled along towards the encampment while she deposited more wood into the weak fire that she had compiled. The fire crackled in response to the additional faggot she added to the small pit she had managed to create despite her obvious surroundings. The faggot she discarded into the fire revealed to be thick, decaying boards of wood that she had meticulously extracted from the adjacent barn’s walls and floors. Though this one seemed to be bare as compared to the last barn she stayed in, ushering half of the animals outside to where she had to take solace in sleeping next to bosk dung to retain warmth since it was so cold. She had returned to Dyval to find her former owner’s cabin had been sold and the former remnants of her Pani identity either abandoned or sold. No word or acknowledgement… in his own way he had liberated her.
The cabin was a footnote in her history, another seed of pain planted and reaped into her irreversible memory.
She ran through the Northern Woods a great distance, apathetic to the branches and shrubs which scratched her limbs and to the fallen trees she tripped over. She did not even care if a larl or Kur assaulted and devoured her. She was beyond the syncretism of both her cultures which she depended upon for survival, having been consequently abandoned by both. Her spirit and beauty were always accepted, but like a jewel in an Ubar’s ring, she was a showpiece; an object for men to display at will. Where was the honor in that?
Even Lord Nishida, who had later sold her mother’s contract to the Karian slaver who witnessed her at the Tyros-Cos victory banquet all those years ago did what he wanted… and she assumed he was her father.
Or was he?
Apparently, her mother had been with another man before Suyuan’s conception. A one-named ashigaru named Goro who was fiercely loyal to the daimyo. To reward him, Lord Nishida indefinitely loaned him Mizumi briefly after her debut as a contract woman. Even Lord Nishida saw to it that his own women would be put to use even amongst his own men. But, it was not revealed, even to Mizumi herself was was that she had an allergy to the sweetener which was usually added to the wine of the noble free woman that contract women utilize to deter unwanted pregnancy. Most children of contract women begin as mistakes anyway. The formula proved useless and Mizumi’s belly swelled with child. Lord Nishida, who had stolen Mizumi’s virginity and had legal rights over her body, believed the child was his and confined her for the duration of her pregnancy.
The pleasure house manifested a rival contract woman whom loathed Mizumi and her success. Her name was Sumomo and she had a peaceful, lovely demeanor with a proud high brow, expressive eyes, and an oval mouth which was twisted into a perpetual smirk. Sumomo was ambitious and cruel, but also very cunning. Because of her, Suyuan was often switched and Mizumi often scolded by the Okaasan. But, Lord Nishida remained steadfast in his devotion to both. The ost woman executed a plan for Mizumi to find disfavor with the daimyo and she observed the reserved, kind woman often to seek out her weakest point and strike like the proverbial snake she was. Her opportunity came.
Mizumi was discovered in the arms of Goro by Lord Nishida, due to Sumomo’s precise and careful planning. From that moment on, the idyllic world of that the then seven year old knew was shattered.
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She was preparing for her Obioki ritual, being permitted to attire herself in the traditional obi that adult women wore and commence rigorous training in the contract women arts. According to the priests and diviners, a seven year old girl was no longer considered part of the world of the gods – of fantasy, dreams, and blessings. She was growing up and had to begin to accept duty and responsibility. The mirror which reflected the image before her revealed a comely little girl with a soft, heart-shaped face, unscarred then and eyes which revealed irises of honey-brown to amber shade. Varying eye colors among the Pani people were uncommon, but not unheard of, due to lessening isolation with mainland Gor over the years. Ki smiled with her as the platinum-haired slave remained untouched by the years.
“Little Mistress does look very beautiful. You will be very strong after this and no longer a fragile child. You will bring your mother honor.” She stated, admiring her charge.
“Ki, after this ceremony, will I still be able to play with my friends? Like other children?”
Ki was about to answer her when the shoji screens of Suyuan’s room burst open and revealed two ashigaru of Lord Nishida. They were two men Suyuan knew and who personally guarded both Mizumi and Suyuan.
“Yuji-san! Minoru-san! Do you both like my kimono?” The child was attired in a korti of gray-green and vermillion colors, revealing maple leaf designs in expensive fabric. At her obi, she bored a mingled crest of both Lord Nishida and the pleasure house. Unlike other free women, contract women changed their colors and flowers patterns monthly, depending upon the season. It was an expensive, but colorful investment. The kimono that Suyuan wore was for Pani Children’s Festival in which she would receive copious blessings and gifts for becoming a “healthier child on the path to adulthood”.
The one called Yuji stepped forward just as Ki leaped up and began to scold them for their rude intrusion, when he backhanded her and she collapsed to the floor. Suyuan gasped, observing the display with shock when Minoru approached Suyuan and glimpsed down dispassionately at her, “Suyuan.” He stated flatly, more like a command as he addressed her, “Lord Nishida has ordered us to take you to Port Kar where a slaver is awaiting both your mother’s and your personal delivery. He has sold your mother’s contract to him. One day, you will be a collar-girl.”
The news was like a white noise in her head and she blinked for several moments as she attempted to process it, “N-Nani?! What?!”
“We know your mother’s secret and whether or not you knew it yourself is inconsequential. You may be a contract woman’s daughter, but you are not a daimyo’s child.”
Ki clamored over to Suyuan’s side where she wrapped her arms about the young girl’s ankles and wept into the hem of her kimono. Yuji kicked her, sending Suyuan stumbling into the mirror when Minoru thrust some folded garments against her chest.
“Change and then we will depart. If you attempt to run or struggle, we will shackle you and carry you the rest of the way. You are fortunate that Lord Nishida is sparing both yours and your mother’s lives, despite this dishonor she has brought upon you both.”
Suyuan would later learn that her biological father was coerced to commit ritual suicide and Lord Nishida collected his head afterwards as a trophy which only Pani did to enemies. Goro, the roughened, yet scheming ashigaru who actually gave a damn enough to often inquire about his own daughter’s life was killed… because of Lord Nishida’s anger with Mizumi.
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The first frost had broken and the snows would soon follow and with it the difficulty to navigate the forests as they lacked the lucidity of what she sought – the black bird. It was the caw of that beast which had settled into the nettle tree and perched upon a single branch to observe her nearly lethal actions. The cawing rightfully distracted just as she approached the edge while the late summer breeze picked up and idly played with random strands of her tangled, thick blackberry locks. There was no plea from the Thassa breeze to cease her action as she glimpsed down the linear aspect of the cliff. Another jagged rock dislodged itself from the wall and tumbled down into the depths below, splashing as it encountered the currents. She teetered over the edge, glimpsing down into what would be her future when the bellowing of the black bird interrupted her thoughts and her head turned to regard the creature.
That was when she remembered the old folktale of the tengu-karasu which both her mother and Ki had expounded upon. They were fearsome creatures with sharp teeth and claws who hatched from large eggs and resided in nests in the mountains of the Farther Islands where the Pani resided. Despite their frightening appearance, they were good spirits; appearing to humans through thoughts or dreams and rewarding the good and punishing the unjust.
Suyuan narrowed her eyes and scrutinized the creature, noticing a third appendage upon the beast which resembled something of a third leg which was slightly shriveled. Most would regard the beast as deformed but her recollection expounded what her mother’s diviner at the tarncamp shrine manifested to her after her reading her fortune at age three.
“Her life will be changed by the Yatagarasu… the three-legged crow.”
Katsumi was an aged, silver-haired shamaness whom the people visited to retrieve their fortunes. Many said she spoke to the gods, including the Priest-Kings.
“What do you mean, Katsumi-sama? Is it Amaterasu-omikami?”
The crow, particularly the legend of the three-legged one was a messenger or symbol of the compassionate Pani sun goddess, Amaterasu who reigned and watched over the world. But, with the arrival of the dour, white-robed men, the sects devoted were outlawed. After the initial “sacrifice” of the men, the beliefs resumed, though with more discretion due to the fanaticism of the Priest-Kings centuries earlier.
“This child is being watched over by the gods… she may never know it, experience it, or even realize it, but she is a vessel, an agent. But, death surrounds her… one man who brings death everywhere has his path interlinked with hers. He too, is an agent. He is the symbol of the crow and she is the butterfly with peacock wings.”
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Suyuan cast another board into the flames as she wrapped the tattered larl fur around her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how much weight she had lost since her absence of the collar and her time at the cliffs. A gim hooted in the distance as she raised her legs up to her chest to settle against her fur and leather poncho which was stained with old blood – whether from hunting the barn urts she dined upon this evening that she had gutted, but there was too much of it and she recalled the pretty slave girl she had to dispose of who nearly revealed her hiding place in the barn. She pressed her lips against the back of her knees, shivering while she remembered the sweet, mellifluous voice about to bellow out for help, “Panther! Panther!” Suyuan’s callused hand clamped down over her mouth and her crude sleen knife performed the rest as she sliced into the tender flesh of her throat and the arterial spray inevitably stained her clothes, hair, and face. She closed her eyes while the bondmaid sputtered, gurgled, and expired in her lethal embrace. Suyuan did not flinch or even weep while she extinguished her life, only proceeding to drag the corpse over to where her compacted sleeping corner was and laid the girl there. To glimpse at the eyes of the dead was a bad omen but she did anyway and noticed that they were blue and open, gaping; staring at everything and nothing. The bondmaid’s face had a horrified expression which would remain frozen before she began to decay. Death was indiscriminate in its expressions at times. The Pani woman performed her last kindly gesture for her by placing her fingers upon her eyelids and closing them so that evil spirits wouldn’t enter her eyes and commenced to cover her with the bale of hay next to her. She genuflected and prayed over her corpse, beseeching her and the gods for mercy with tears cresting upon her cheekbones
She hated killing and this girl certainly didn’t deserve to die, but in matters of survival and avoidance of the collar, her death was necessary.
Now she wore her blood upon her clothes like a badge and even though it was days prior, the girl’s face joined the blur of souls she had killed and sold to survive; a procession of men and women who haunted her Suyuan divested herself of the garment, allowing it to join the other barn boards in the fire. She watched it burn with the numerous faces that haunted her like ghosts, hence why she named herself Yurei… she had died and returned to the world of the living as a ghost; sometimes vengeful, often hungry, though mostly roaming. The world of men was her irrevocable fate and she haunted just on the outskirts of their will. For now, her primary thoughts catered towards the probability of escaping Dyval and finding the man whom the diviner had referred to. As the smoke ascended into the night sky, she stated one word, her breath steadily expelling past her lips as she stated his name, “Crow…” It was he that she needed to find in order to find the root to the strange occurrences which have been transpiring as of late.
Because, she had seen more than one black crow and only one with the third-leg before her attempted suicide… and in Pani folktale, that’s when Heaven intervened on someone’s behalf.
The diviner’s message from her childhood… and her last conversation with Crow before the omens commenced. He brought death which she was aware of. He had to have something to do with the omens… which were yet to be determined in their nature.
But, as superstitious as she was in her later years, why would he be the first one to consider?
Then she recalled Crow’s advice to her before his departure from Dyval; something about life after she had tearfully informed him of a known Pani woman’s suicide from the Impress.
Her eyes became heavy and she laid down next to the large bosk dung pile for warmth and curled up into a fetal position while she attempted to get warm. The gim hooted again as she slipped into unconsciousness, dreaming of her better days in Salernum when she encountered the infamous Black Caste for the very time and how she came to meet Crow.
Crows Murder 
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