Private Becoming The Dragon

[Inosuke Ashina]

A T R I S I A
WATCHMAN ASHINA
ATRISIAN OCEAN // TSUMA ARCHIPELAGO
Ishida Ashina

NO WAVE WILL SHATTER THESE SCALES
​

Cool Atrisian winds kicked up salted mist from the breakpoints of ocean waves, sprayed them lightly over the deck of the Natsushima. Once, it was a formidable wartime surface ship serving under the Kitel Phard Dynasty during the unification. Now it was little more than an elderly machine, good for little beyond floating and fishing. A relic half as old as Atrisian society, kept together for over a millennium by sailor's ingenuity and what must have been millions of credits in cumulative upkeep. Passed down through generations of inheritance and transaction, and the subject of a millennia's worth of repair and replacements. Inosuke passed the least eventful parts of the long journey pondering whether or not the vessel could truly be considered the same one that aided the unification of this world all those years ago. Was it the sum of its parts, or the identity attached to it that made it what it was?

During the first few days, Ashina spent his nights defiant of sleep, acquainted well with the futility of restfulness. Sudden reunion with Henna Ashina followed by an equally sudden departure had more of an effect on him than he'd ever admit. He occupied those restless nights amusing himself wandering the dank, shadowy depths of the Natsushima, trying to isolate fact from fiction, hearsay, legend, and myth. No easy task, as the fishermen either were unaware or indifferent to the past, and the historians of the time wrote with an eye for pleasing the dynasty. Though he hadn't mentioned anything of it, he suspected Ishida might share the same indifference to the ship's history and provenance. Inosuke, though, couldn't help but be awed.

On the morning of the sixth day, after yet another breakfast of fish and soup, both Ashinas were stood on the deck near the edge of the bow. They'd been watching the horizon, seemingly impassive of anything else for a extended period of time. Their lack of any other discernable action coming off as eccentric to the ship's many denizens. It wasn't just this morning, either. It was every day, something about either Ashina evoked question and confusion. Sailors working nearby spared occasional glances, made occasional comments about the pair of archaically dressed islanders. Atrisia may have had a globally standardized language, but the sailor's particular dialect was far removed enough from both the standard and Ashina to hide at least a fraction of the words they spoke.

"What the hell are they doing? One wave willing, they'll get sent overboard."

"Didn't Chen say they were Jedi? Maybe they're meditating or something."

"That doesn't look like meditating."

"I heard they were from Hebo."

"You don't say? No wonder they're so eccentric."

"You ever met anyone normal from Hebo, Bolin?"

"I've never met anyone from Hebo who didn't know that Tsuma wasn't the whole world."

Sailors laughed crudely, affirming their own opinions about the luddite islanders. Yet they were all unaware of the keeness Jedi possessed in all senses. Their remarks nearly broke Inosuke's concentration. "Ignore them," he advised quietly in the pairs own native dialect. Both eyes retrained themselves on the horizon, disregarding what bits he had understood of the insulting inquiries. Focus returned to full capacity, scrutinizing the edge of the waters with mystical intensity. An exercise in farsight, the goal had been to spot land before the crew or the ship's own navigation systems could do so.

"There," Inosuke asserted, though made no gesture or indication. "A Garasu Bird nests between the branches of a Black Pine." Though they were miles from the event, Ashina could see it happening and subsequently feel the direction and distance it happened from him. Tsuma was close, he was seeing it, yet it hadn't even appeared on the horizon.

"Search for it."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

The ship was so aged, that with just one touch she could understand its networks, travel along with their points of strength until all the weakest sections were exposed. In just minutes, she could break it apart to splinters. With lips drawn in a tight line, she deeply considered doing so as the banter between sailors continued meters away from the siblings.

"Ignore them,"

"They're not wrong." The part that bothered her the most was the truth in the reflection of Hebo. It was old, buried in tradition, and largely ignorant of the galaxy around them. Genichiro had done an excellent job securing his family’s claim to their village, but his focus was so myopic that he’d almost damned Ishida to a similarly insular life.

Her jaw tightened, turning her glare from the men back to the sea. Tenseness coiled its way through her muscles, and she rolled her shoulders to shake it and resume the activity Inosuke had invited her to participate in. “I don’t want our island to be like this boat.” She muttered, her tone sharp. “Just good for floating.”

Inosuke was focused on the faraway land they sailed for instead of the conversations that encircled them. Seemingly unbothered by Atrisia at all.

Unlike her brother, who’d returned back to their planet several times even in his exile, this was the first time in years that Ishida’d visited. For the past six days, she was wary of the exchanges between the sailors — not because they thought their passengers as odd, but because she was worried they might have some correspondence with their father. If he knew she’d returned, and with Inosuke, would he hunt them both down? Would she be dragged back?

"Search for it."

Questions about Genichiro’s reach danced around in her mind, and as much peace and safety that Inosuke exuded, she still felt anxious when she looked toward the invisible shoreline.

“Just a Garasu Bird?” Her words were tighter than she might have liked, her nerves tightening the vowels as they slipped out. She looked at him for a response, but his expression was listless, the lines of his face relaxed and calm. The spray had made his face wet, and brunette strands stuck to his cheeks.

“I keep expecting worse.” She admitted, flexing her fingers against the guardrail.

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

"They're not wrong."

"I know." Undeniable was the fact that the ways of Ashina were steeped in both willful and nonvolitional ignorance. It was one of the few places left in the galaxy, let alone in the Core, that remained so nescient. Even those among the most remote areas in the outer rim had more knowledge and contact of the wider-world than even the most affluent among Ashina.

Twenty years ago, a surface ship docking at Tsuma to trade would have been unheard of. Even more so, was that the farthest Island in the archipelago now being home to the region's only spaceport. Though even that was limited to local defense force coverage and the very occasional freight landing. Too far to be visible from Ashina, and quiet enough to never spark a concern.

Before his mothers near-death from his birth, Inosuke's people had scarcely known the wonders of modern medical technology. In a way, his arrival into this world heralded the adoption of limited modern luxuries. Still, no holonet and few outsiders strangled information of the beyond to a trickle of hearsay and rumors. Yet, even those precious pieces of information were relegated to the fringes. Many didn't know better, and likely wouldn't care if they did.

"I don’t want our island to be like this boat. Just good for floating.”

The older Ashina took the younger's comparison of the ship and Tsuma as a confirmation of his earlier suspicions. "Islands do not float," Inosuke challenged cryptically. "In any case, this ship and our home are both defined more by their provenance than their superintendence." Inosuke had lived long enough that the importance of 'why' had become more relevant than that of 'what'. An urge to further lecture that very point began to materialize, though when his awareness of her uneasiness became more and more potent, he reconsidered. After all that had occurred, he should have suspected her hidden apprehension for a would-be homecoming.

“I keep expecting worse.”

"Yes, I sense your trepidation," he proclaimed. A brotherly hand clasped itself over her shoulder, though his regard did not break from the distant, glittering horizon. "Do not let anxiety poison your outlook. There is risk, but you must take obstacles as they come. Fretting over what is only a possibility will do nothing beyond inhibit you further." A small shift in his voice spoke volumes of the experience he had with that very struggle. No one had ever been around to give him that same advice, he had to discover it for himself. Though he wouldn't elaborate, Inosuke hoped to save his sister the consternation and grief he experienced over the near thirty years it took for him to learn just that.

"Focus. Garasu Bird. You will not see worse unless you search for it."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"Islands do not float,"

“You know what I mean.” Ishida grumbled in a rush, her eyes narrowed to slits and she looked diagonally down to the deck. Inosuke’s lexicon was far more traditional than his younger sister’s, as was much of his conduct. As esteemed as he was in Ishida’s eyes, he had an affinity for history that she didn’t mirror. Of course, she had a respect for tradition and legacy, but she more actively inserted modernism into her aesthetic, behaviour, and subsequently her ambitions. From small details such as taking the time daily to apply sharp eyeliner — details that Aiko Hayata had insisted she carve out time for, stating “Femininity is a herald of the modern age” — to using a datapad to maintain communication, to keeping eyes out for new applications of Ashina Steel in weaponry that could be used against The Brotherhood. Or otherwise. Something that would increase the scale of use and production.

"In any case, this ship and our home are both defined more by their provenance than their superintendence."

“With a few upgrades, each could be both.”

But the topic was reoriented back to the task at hand before she could argue further her visions for grandeur improvements over Ashina. There would be time for that later, she suspected. For now, she had to appreciate the generosity of her brother’s patience and time, and the instruction he delivered her.

His words were surprisingly soothing, and she couldn’t help but consider many a conversation she and Bernard had about the future and all the stresses that lived there. How often they overthought the negative consequences and the potentials of wrong that could come from missteps.

Her teeth clicked together and she nodded in solemn understanding.

She responded with silence. There would be no worse unless she searched for it. And if she searched hard enough, she risked creating what did not exist only to fill her own paranoia. She sighed out her anxiety, feeling a looseness push through the tightness that had bound up her muscles. As a first step, she felt that exhale grow in her belly, push through her lungs, throat, and then finally balloon through her mouth until it floated away on the ocean breeze. It was careless, consumed by the wind and floating harmlessly. Twisting, tossing, spreading, turning into the natural current and growing more and more impressive until it flattened right out of existence. As if it had never been born from her, and had always been a part of the zephyr that travelled along with the boat and toward Tsuma.

Everything other than that breath fell away. The breath was something that belonged to life, and her life was connected to all else. She just had to concentrate and seek it. The exploration was demanding, consuming, and pulled her centre forward so she lost her own relativity in the pursuit of the air that had once belonged to her.

Eventually, that breath and its brothers ruffled the feathers of a large bird with a beak that was as thick as two fingers stacked. It looked perturbed, rose from its nest, preened, and settled back down.

Ishida cracked a genuine smile.

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

"You see? It is not so difficult," Inosuke remarked knowingly. Though he didn't see her shift in expression, he could sense their mutual observation just as clearly as her previous apprehension. His mind's eye pulled back, away from the happenings of a far off place, realigning with his physical gaze. Everything he could already see simultaneously with distant clairvoyance suddenly became more defined now that focus had become singular. Across the glittering wine-dark sea, a faint silhouette broke the days long monotony of the featureless horizon. His hand retreated from her shoulder, raised to indicate the distant shape with an outstretched finger. "Now look there." Even from their current distance, the rocky shapes of Tsuma and its many mountains were unmistakable.

Every passing hour saw the shape growing larger, color and details coming into discernable form gradually. Hebo stood overtly among its sister peaks, monolithic and foreboding. The peak's coat of snow remained as blatant as ever, stoically defiant of the island's waning summer. Neither of its neighbors appeared anywhere near as brazen, though it could have merely been Inosuke's own connection to pinnacle making it seem so. Even now, whilst reprising his return for what was now a fourth time, staring at it evoked a tiny sense of intimidation. Far too miniscule to properly interpret, let alone properly feel, it only left him with a mystifying emptiness he couldn't explain. A phlegmatic mask coupled with shielded feelings would keep his sibling from catching onto anything.

Natsushima drifted slowly upon an isolated cluster of docks at the end of a narrow spit. Dockhands moored the docile leviathan to wooden posts with synthecord, subsequently scrambling from procedure to procedure in an attempt to beat the oncoming crowd of ignorant gawkers and eager customers. They lost, forced to endure the crowd as an unwitting obstacle. For many it was the largest ship they had ever seen, though just as many others had seen it before. The vessel wasn't one of the usual emissary boats, coming with goods and info to a newly, slightly open-minded Tsuma Archipelago. Suspicions and rumors of its repeated arrival drifted among the crowds clamor, but nothing was concrete. The only certainty was the fish they were willing to trade.

Physical alliance credits chimed as it was exchanged from one hand to another. Inosuke thanked the captain in the Atrisian standard dialect as he handed over his fare. They exchanged no further words, both appearing equally apathetic toward the other. Inosuke returned to Ishida, hands gingerly placing a hood over his head. "We have a long walk ahead of us," he informed. "Once the boarding ramp falls, we will follow behind the crew and slip out as they're negotiating. Put your hood up. We do not want to advertise our presence in the unlikely case someone is present who would recognize us."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida’s sight travelled beyond the preening bird, seeing how far she could go. To get here, she’d followed her own breath. What if she could transfer her awareness beyond herself, to The Force’s infinite reach? She’d made it to the trunk of the tree, about to explore through the network of roots (although she was fast becoming dizzy) when her brother’s voice broke concentration.

"Now look there."

Frustrated, her brows sloped inward. She’d made such progress, look where?

Involuntarily, her sight pulled back into the present and her immediate surroundings. A scowl was ready to be painted, but she held fast to her expression of neutrality and instead followed her brother’s indicative point.

A weight she didn’t know she’d been carrying, stress of some form, melted from her shoulders and filled her whole body with a weight that seemed to solidify at her joints. It immobilized her long enough to stare out at the shorelines of her home. Part of her wanted to express how unready she felt: With a shattered katana and the task to confront Genichiro — but she remained trepidly silent.

In a haze that left her somewhere between wholly observant, and distantly apprehensive, Ishida merely lingered around her brother as he went about the expected exchanges that covered their travels, and set them on new ones.

On Inosuke’s command, she concealed the brightness of her hair with her hood. Most Ashinas had dark hair, like her brother, father and grandfather. Whiteness didn’t settle until they were aged. Ishida’s unnatural white in her youth was from their mother’s side of the family.

The pair of siblings remained poised nonchalantly, patiently, off in the distance as the crew went about their boarding practices. Shouts from the deck to those on the dock to coordinate the drop of the ramp. It was unnatural at first, after so much time away from Atrisia, to see humans exchange communication so gruesomely, depending solely on volume and gestures. But their methods got the job done.

By the time the ramp clapped against the dock’s wooden base, the crowd had stepped back enough to remain unharmed. At the foot of the ramp, three officials gathered with poses that demanded respect and boasted authority. To meet them, crewmen with holes in their clothes sauntered down the ramp with bravado that could only be fostered in quasi-isolation.

When the two groups started gesturing, sweeping to the length of the ship and preparing a walk-around, Ishida glanced to her brother. It was a brief exchange, but it was enough to carry them forward and slink down the ramp while the official’s backs were turned.
They were quickly swallowed by the crowd that had gathered to board or ogle the ship, and Ishida maintained diligence to stay close to Inosuke lest this turn into a lesson on evasiveness.

The nearer she stayed to him, the further her mind could wander. With each step, her senses were assaulted by nostalgia. The smells of fish, the feel of uncaringly paved streets, the sound of the local dialect, the lack of white noise that belonged anywhere on Denon, Coruscant, or even Prosperity. It was almost home.

“How often have you travelled here? They still do not recognize you?” Ishida asked, side-stepping a shopper who was reviewing their list of must-gets from the market that day.

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

“How often have you travelled here? They still do not recognize you?”

"I have the advantage of being far less interesting than the leviathan in port," Inosuke ventured, his forward regard hidden by the verge of his hood. Nonurgently weaving through the dense crowd, he held his next point until further from collective earshot. "Many know us only by name. In passing to those unfamiliar with our image, we appear no different than anyone else." The signature, indescribable elegance granted by the Ashina line was easy to miss when scrutiny was absent, and no one stood to remember every face they saw en passant, especially in a crowd. Every dockside throng had different dna, and the details became muddled in the clamor. Memory's impermanence dictated he was little more than a ghost with each departure from the loading ramp.

Inosuke Ashina was a name the decades had gradually drowned in muck obscurity, and the guise that appellation wore was now even more unknowable. Genichiro's first born was hardly a man when he was sent into a traitor's exile, only spared the punishment of slaves by noble privilege. Now in a time that felt equally short and immeasurable, he was nearing his fourth decade of life. If anyone outside of the Kurokawa circles recognized him, it would be an omen of unprecedented supernaturalism. Aside from a few select individuals, all but one of which had since justly perished at the Watchman's blade, no one had been the any the wiser.

"Lately I have possessed the notion that being recognized may strangely turn out to be of little consequence in my case," he added ambiguously. Curiously, it didnt' stop him from taking extra measures against the possibility. Outcomes were uncertain, the Force's usual clairvoyance had as of late been troublingly unclear. "For yours, however, we will exercise additional caution." A young woman with bright hair stood out much more than an aging man with the same colors as everyone else. Furthermore, unlike her brother's, Ishida's name and face were still fresh in the zeitgeist. "We will be taking a less traveled Kaidō. Ten hours opposed to six." Spoken as if ten hours on foot wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was a long, but not unheard of distance for the inhabitants of Tsuma. "I hope you haven't been taking wider-world transportation for granted."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Ishida hummed a small laugh at her brother’s monotone delivery of something that might have otherwise been a joke. It had been days together, and Ishida realized just then, that they hadn’t shared any laughter. For so long, that was normal to her — days, weeks, months of emotionless discourse were expected. But after four years in the core, she’d become more emotional and happiness came easier.

At the mention of additional caution, Ishida self-consciously reached up to make sure her bangs were still pinned back and away from her face. She’d slicked her hair as tightly as she could on the boat, and knotted it to sit low against her neck. No whiteness stood out from beneath her hood.

It had almost been five years since she’d left Kurokawa Castle. In the early days, she and Genichiro still connected. She’d give him updates now and then about how her Jedi training was going, and he’d appeal to her sense of honour and tradition to have her return home. When it came too into conflict with the direction she was going, and who she wanted to be she had to stop. Especially once she learned the truth of Inosuke’s exile.

"We will be taking a less traveled Kaidō. Ten hours opposed to six."

“Ten hou–” The words died on her lips, mouth agape, and her shoulders slumped.

To her right, a woman at a fruit stand offered a wave to get the travelling pair’s attention. With a firm voice, she promised the best-priced produce and the bright orange sphere she showcased in her palm, Ishida felt the pull of temptation. But it would be careless to succumb so easily to early interactions, and she looked away instead. The saleswoman turned her focus to the next person in the crowd, swapping the orange fruit for one that had yellow points on it.

"I hope you haven't been taking wider-world transportation for granted."

Truly, she had taken transportation for granted. Even the giant boat had been condemned by her expectations.

As if the pack on her back knew how long ten hours was, it sagged, and she shifted it across her shoulders with a forlorn sigh. “I have.”

The next stretch of minutes, maybe the first hour, was silent again. Ishida consumed herself with awareness of being home and got lost in the way the stones felt beneath her feet, the scents that carried in the air, and the calls of the garasau birds through the treetops.
“I have to tell you something —” Ishida broke the silence. “I wanted to tell you earlier, I wanted to find you after Coruscant to talk about it, but you were ——”

Her sentence faded, twisting away through the breeze that picked up around their feet and rolled along the road.

“Long after your exile, I was little, father adopted someone named Qi’yon. We were raised together, like brother and sister. Father even gave him the Ashina name, and welcomed him to the clan.”

Her eyes were on the horizon, though it wound and curved. The pathway was so untravelled it was unkept, and the edges blurred between grass and stone. “He left after we graduated from the school of The Carp.

I always thought he’d come back. But —” she sighed. “We met again on Coruscant. And he’s with The Brotherhood now. Fighting as a mercenary for them.

We fought on Coruscant, and I fell back to father's training. I hurt him and pushed him to the brink, I felt him fall to the darkside.

But..

With you alive, and him — I want to get him back somehow. You didn’t know him, but would you help me? If we were to find him again, try and draw him back to Ashina? He’s not blood but it’s close, and we could be a family.”

 

[Inosuke Ashina]

For the whole of Ishida's disclosure, Inosuke remained in keeping with the traditional Ashina reticence. Silent, unabated forward gaze, and a delay in acknowledgement so drawn out that one could err that he hadn't been listening at all. Clearly, all too clearly did he hear what she had to say, however. Nearly every sentence was tainted with its own deleterious serpent, coiled malevolently around the verges of comprehension. Delivered all at once, it verged on too much, even for one as intrepid as the elder Ashina. Had he not known any better, he would have thought it a bad joke. Genichiro Ashina adopting was hard enough to believe, let alone legitimizing someone from outside of his precious bloodline.

Consequences born from that fateful confrontation between father and son had taken two forms Inosuke wasn't wise enough to anticipate; Ishida and Qi'yon. Where one brought a never avowed joy and semblance of hope, the unbeknownst until this moment other spared not a moment to manifest indignation and doubt. An overlapping shame for the vestigial envy tied the feelings together into a morose parcel, buried beneath a guise of stoic indifference. In time it would die there, like most every other feeling associated with that nostalgic place had long ago, though he knew his sister wasn't as willing to dig the proverbial grave.

"A family?" Inosuke inquired, almost mumbling. "It is an exorbitant ambition, to see such a thing reconstituted." Inordinate ambition was the wont of every Ashina before them. Why would the youngest be any different? He was unmoved by the existence of another, but swayed by the severity he heard in every syllable, attesting to how important this really was to Ishida. "I will," he affirmed before clarifying, "For you and for our name."

An intermissive silence built tension. "I implore you not to misunderstand, however. I do not share your yearning nor your optimism for the mending of our family. Ashina is broken. This Qi'yon, our only relation will be that of mutual failure-heirs. A recurrence."

A sharp exhale from tight nostrils punctuated the sullen proclamation, heralded further response. "Your path is still malleable. Mine is not. I will aid any pursuit you ask of me, I owe you that much. If you wish Qi'yon brought back to the side of Ashla; I will aid you. That, however, is a crossroads I will be unable to pass. Do you understand?"

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"I will," "For you and for our name."

Deep gratitude rolled through her, and her fingers curled into her palms, flexed, and released. It was an overwhelming sensation, vindication, but she knew better than to be flamboyant with it. The last time she’d been overtly emotional with her brother, he’d held her at arm’s length and barely flashed his teeth.

Just a small noise of happiness hopped out her mouth.

Which was met with silence.

“Thank you.” She looked over to him briefly, before matching his affinity for looking forward. The pathway was clear and stretched on and on and on. One dusty footfall after another, they walked it.

Only eight and a half more hours to go.

“Maybe not reconstituted.” Ishida speculated, reflecting on the conversation she’d had with Bernard about Genichiro Ashina. His redemption could mean a change and the failure to achieve redemption could mean…

..It was still theoretical and never finished in her mind. The daughter of the patriarch couldn’t fully bear it, so she cleared her throat: “Something different. Something ours.” Her voice sounded crisper than she felt, reinforced by her forward-facing walk. It had to be different than the world her father had created, a world of darkness and violence. Hurt that had driven their family apart. If she were to be heir to Ashina, it would have to change.

But if it changed, would she continue to be the rightful heir? Or would Inosuke take up that mantle?

Would she be able to let that go, after being raised with her name being the final prize to earn and protect?

She frowned and pushed that thought aside.

“Crossroads?” She asked, and focused instead on the words he delivered, remaining in the present. “I don’t understand.

Help me understand?

A version of Ashina is broken, but it wasn’t always. And it doesn’t always have to be what we knew, or what we were raised with.”

The corner of her mouth pulled up for a flicker of an instant before her expression neutralized to something more disdainful. “We certainly know what not to do.”