Face of Flowers, Face of Flesh

by Yoon Ha Lee/Moto Maratai

Dedicated to Tamori Shosei,with thanks to Daidoji Gisei, Ikoma Uitukake, and the RicePaper Societyfor their help.

Feel free to repost wherever. :-)

At the border of the Changing Lands, in the shadow of the Wall, thepeasants talk about one family of Crab retainers, minor samurai, whowalk into battle wearing nothing on their heads helmet, no mempo,nothing but their hair and their eyes and their fierce smiles. Theyare not berserkers, and there is little enough history of madness, fora Crab family. They die young, too, but that is true of many Crab.Their daimyo makes allowances for their refusal of helmets.

Sometimes the peasant grandmothers and grandfathers tell a story, whenthe new moon beats black against the sky, about why this is so.

At the border of the Changing Lands, in the hidden heart of night, amallet tapped endlessly, relentlessly. Silver-bright it was in a pale,strong hand. "Tell me if you know this story, O my heart," said awoman-thing, uncannily tall even for a thing of the Changing Lands,between her strokes.

One hand held the mallet. One hand held fast a mempo of stark steel;one hand more, a mempo of red leather. The fourth and last handstroked the cropped black hair of a girl, her face narrow andthoughtful as she watched the woman-smith, the woman-thing.

"Once in the clan of the Crab, you who are Rokugan's living wall,there were two men. One was high-born, the other common-born, sons ofthe same father. Even that blood was not sufficient to keep themtogether, those faces of stone and storm."

The woman-thing's voice grew softer, punctuated by ever-gentler taps:One for the mask of metal, one for the mask of skin. One here, and onethere. Balance, balance, in all things, even here. The woman-smithdid not love sunlight, or fire, or sovereign jade. The heat of bloodand the quenching of decay, the bright mallet--these were the tools ofher forge.

"Face of stone," said the woman-thing, "face of storm, the masks ofclan and duty and family, of betrayal."

"Osano-wo's sons," said the girl, no longer dreaming. The girl hadtwo hands and two eyes, and was yet untouched by Taint. In her handsshe carried a dai-tsuchi, ponderous next to the woman-smith's mallet.The eye of jade in dai-tsuchi's haft shone with a bright, desperatelight. It did not waver; neither did the girl's hands. Yet the girlstayed her strike.

"Then there is no need for me to retell it for you." Themallet-strokes gradually became more rapid. The woman-thing's voiceacquired the hiss of quenched steel, the whisper of twilight winds."Do you know the other story, the twin to the one we are not telling?"

"I know it," said the girl.

The woman-smith spoke on, even so. "Once in the clan of the Crab,you who are Rokugan's living wall, there were two girls. One washigh-born, the other common-born, children of the same father. One wasborn to a samurai's wife, a shugenja of the Crane, amid silk andincense and chanted blessings. The other was born to a common woman, avillager, amid straw and smoke and children's cries."

One stroke. Another. The mallet winked, silver-bright, wicked.

The girl's knuckles upon the dai-tsuchi grew white with strain. Herface remained still, like stone beneath rain. "The common woman is ofno importance," she said. There were no traces of dreams in her voice.They had been washed out of her years ago. "Tell me of the samurai'swife, the shugenja of the Crane."

"Once of the Crane," the woman-thing amended. Her mouth curved inpleasure. "Oh, the shugenja could not help but love her Crab husband,that stranger to whom she had been for some pittance of clan alliances.Despite his coarse hair and his rough hands, he was kind to her, afterhis fashion, and he cherished her beauty.

"But she saw what the Crab's unending battle did to him, oh, she did,and she despaired that her small magics were of small use to him. Hehad his tetsubo and his dai-tsuchi with its eye of jade; he smiled tosee her baubles of carven pine and tasseled silk, but he did not takethese with him to the battlefield. As her belly swelled with theirfirst and only child, that high-born daughter, her husband took solaceelsewhere."

The girl's breath huffed out. She did not interrupt.

"After the girl was safely born, but before the birthing-bloodsloughed from her entirely, the woman walked into the Changing Lands.For in her husband's face, she saw that he considered her a frailthing, a pretty thing, to be protected but not trusted with the work ofhis clan, and her heart turned hard within her. And there--" Onestroke. Another. "--there, she learned smithing. She knew she couldnot return, for her husband would revile her. Yet she could, if theworld and its wheel smiled upon her one final time, bestow a gift uponher husband's daughter, a gift of dark warding against the things thatwalk the Changing Lands. And for this purpose, she watched from afar,and waited for her husband's daughters, both of them, to become women."

One stroke. Another.

"And the gift?" asked the girl, her face impassive. Her gaze moved tothe mempo of steel and the mempo of leather, which shimmered withuncanny heat. The shadows where eyes and mouth would smile from behindthe mempo were deep, dark, endless.

The woman-smith had embossed patterns into each mempo. Upon the mempoof steel, flowers bloomed lushly from curling vines, an oddly festivemotif. Upon the mempo of leather, the vines produced only thorns,sharp and curved like the moon's dying phase. She withdrew her fourthhand from the girl's hair. "A face of flowers for you, O my heart,"said the woman-thing, "to wear into battle. A face of flesh for your half-sister, which you must nail into her skull with this mallet.Whatever fate, whatever monstrosity comes out of the Changing Lands toclaim you, it will taste her instead of you.

"And now, my daughter--"

That narrow, impassive face cracked: a smile. "I am not yourdaughter," said the girl. "They say we do not look much alike. Butyou left when she was so young, how would you know?"

"But his dai-tsuchi, the eye of jade--"

"I am my mother's daughter," said the girl. She lifted the dai-tsuchihigher. "So I stole it. But I am my father's daughter. So I camehere."

"His eyes, his dark eyes," said the woman-smith blankly, staring atthe girl's face. All four of her arms were motionless, that moment.

The girl--half-peasant, entirely Crab--swung the dai-tsuchi. Herstroke was true, and there came none to answer it. "I lied," shewhispered. "Not for my father, oh no. Nor for you." Oh, her sister,her sister: They had grown up in the same household, shared the sameroom--on opposite sides of those painted paper screens, to be sure, butthe same room nonetheless. She had not wanted to subject her sister tothis meeting.

The jade was softening. Her heart had not.

Sometimes the peasant grandmothers and grandfathers tell a story, whenthe new moon beats black against the sky, about why this is so.

The samurai tell the tale, its heroine, the other way around. Thenagain, samurai always do.