lumberlady | Prismatica IC Contact

[Unfortunately, Konoha has time for her mind to wander while Tanjiro makes his way to the farm. If he'd gone home... Why had he been so unlucky as to come back so quickly? He must feel awful, getting able to see his family and friends but then end up back here... And was he alright? He'd sounded a bit...

But then he's there, and Konoha finds that she tears up at the sight, lurching into a trot to meet him halfway. Maybe they hadn't known each other as long as some others have in Lunatia, but... The way they had met, the similarities between their worlds, and his kind nature had endeared him to her far more than she'd expected. Leaning down with a dip of upper spine to put herself more in reach, she pulls him into that hug even tighter, no yet noticing that only one of his arms is around her when she's making up for it with both of hers.]

Welcome back- !

[The dose of chroma calms her down in a way, keeps the tears from falling and instead just making her eyes overbright, practically lifting the smaller human off the ground with her embrace.]

I thought you got to go home, Tanjiro-san... I'm so sorry...

[He wasn't like some people she'd met, who claimed to be dead or to come from worlds they didn't wish to return to. He deserved to return home properly, but... Even still, she's selfishly glad to see him again.]

[He's entirely content to let her lift him off the ground-- it wasn't hard with how short he was and how tall she was. He's laughing, though the sound is definitely damp, and he raises his wrinkly old man arm to kind of drape it over her since he can't quite use it for hugging.]

No, it's... I did go home, I did, and... We did it, it's okay now. Nezuko's human again, a-and, and Muzan's dead, and we did it, Konoha-san... [He's sort of burrowing against her as best he can as he rambles, smiling so hard his face hurts even if he's absolutely crying. He really ought to stop doing this sort of thing to people.]

[At the very least, once she realizes she's pulled him entirely off the ground and may be hugging him a bit too tight... Konoha does put him back down. If she pulled away, she might notice the discoloration in his eye, the strange, withered appearance of his arm, but... she can hear his tears muffled against her shoulder, feel her kimono growing a bit damp, and she's not about to deny a young man some dignity. Instead, she lets him bury his face against her slightly warmer body, one hand moving to cup the back of his head in a gentle, maternal motion, biting her lip as a few tears of relief slip down her cheeks.]

Your sister isn't a demon anymore?

[Despite how similar their worlds were, his life was so different in that way. He'd picked up a sword, taken on a life or death task...

And it was done? It was really done? Then he deserved to cry as much as he wanted.]

Congratulations, Tanjiro-san... I'm really proud of you...

[He's crying because he's happy, more than anything, but getting to say it, and having Konoha repeat it back for him to agree with just... It feels like he's finally popped the balloon of stress and anxiety in his chest that's been making it hard for him to take a full breath for four years. He nods, making a vaguely affirmative sound against her shoulder, but then he's pulling away just enough to smear his good hand all across his face. He's still smiling so hard his face hurts, and he's definitely still crying, but he wants to look at her when he says it again.]

She's human! She's human, Konoha-san, finally...

[He's smiling.

Konoha is no stranger to tears, no matter the motive behind them. She cried easily, felt no shame for wearing her emotions on her sleeve... and she's not about to judge anyone else for it. When she catches sight of his strained smile and tear-stained cheeks her gaze softens immediately, reaching up with one hand to gently wipe away some of the tears he'd missed.

It's hard to find words for something she hasn't seen with her own eyes, but has obviously affected him so strongly. She'd seen the sense of responsibility he felt, seen the strong determination in him that day when they'd lounged on the veranda and he'd curled up against her pregnant belly, and so to see him having accomplished it...

She can only think of one thing to say, fighting past the Lunatian verbal magics to speak their own tongue.]

Otsukare-sama, Tanjiro-san.

[For a long second after she congratulates him on his hard work, Tanjiro can't breathe. His smile falters and he brays a drawn-out sob of a sound, and just... allows it. He raises his arm and cries into his elbow, and it's short-lived, but for a solid thirty seconds he just cries, and he's actually startled by how good it feels. He's never really considered himself the type to withhold emotion, and he's certainly done his fair share of crying, but maybe this was a little different. Being congratulated by a friend for something he'd been fighting for for years was certainly reason enough to let go of what he didn't quite realize he was holding onto.]

[At least briefly. He's never been one to cry for long, either, and maybe that's why he did it fairly often, like a sudden downpour of rain on a summer afternoon. It's barely a minute before he's rubbed his face again and just smiling up at her, whole in a way he didn't realize he hadn't been for years.]

Thank you, so much, Konoha-san. [A beat, and he looks past her toward the Farmstead.] ...ah, but, really, I'm so sorry for not being here when I was supposed to be.

[Sometimes... You just have to let it out.

Konoha's smile stays on, softening as he dissolves momentarily into tears and she releases him from her embrace in order to instead smooth down his hair, giving him time to just cry. He'd been working really hard, hadn't he? Worrying about his sister this whole time, when he'd been stuck in Lunatia unable to do anything about it...

When he's done, she's just there smiling (and thinking- wait... why had one his eyes changed colors?).]

You had way more important things to do than plant eggplants, didn't you... ?

[The very idea that he would still be worried about not showing up to work on the farmstead makes her laugh a bit helplessly, clapping him on the shoulders with a few tears of her own sparkling in the corners of her eyes.]

I'm not going to accept that apology this time, okay?

[He huffs softly at her, puffing his cheeks out and reaching up to paw at her face, struggling a little to smudge a thumb under one of her eyes.]

Okay, but... I'll work double next time. Eggplants are important, too.

[Konoha isn't about to lose this round! Tanjiro might be a wonderfully polite young man, but he's also just... kind of killed the emperor of demons and saved his sister? Shaking her head, Konoha smiles through her own emotions, reaching down to try and take his hands in hers and hold him still a moment to impress her word upon him.]

They're nowhere close. I was just worried about what had happened to you, but now that I know you're-

[Safe?

Except one of his arms feels... wrong, and Konoha looks down in surprise only to be confronted with a hand that doesn't even look like it belongs on his body, wizened and limp. She doesn't recoil, merely releases her grip to instead hold him in the palms of her hands, her brow furrowing in confusion before she looks back at his face.

- Oh. Now that she looks clearly... One of his eyes is a different color.]

... What did happen?

[She can guess, but.]

[LET HIM THINK EGGPLANTS ARE IMPORTANT, OKAY... He doesn't quite realize what she's startled by when she frowns at his beef jerky arm, at first, and he has to look at the hand for a moment, himself. He pales, just slightly, his posture folding inward.]

...ah, that's... [He isn't quite looking at her, but raises his good hand to tap beside his right eye, and then the wrist of his left arm.] They were both lost in the fight, but... I succumbed to Muzan's demon blood for a little while, so they grew back. Once he was gone, they stopped working. [He's mostly worried it's going to affect his ability to be helpful. He doesn't mind the losses in and of himself.]

[The lack of eye contact gives her pause, more so than the actual words he uses. Quietly, Konoha listens to his explanation, tries to make sense of it. So... he lost his eye and the arm in the fight, but because of demon blood they'd grown back... but now, with that demon gone...

She thinks she gets it. Enough to change how she holds his hands, allowing her to slide her thumb along the edge of his withered hand. It was somewhat disconcerting to feel, seeing his other hand and knowing it should feel the same way, having felt that very same hand warm and comforting along her belly the last time he'd visited, but...]

So you can't feel this? Or see out of that eye anymore?

[He'd done it to save his sister. It's not like she could say that the price wasn't worth paying. Not like she couldn't say that she wouldn't give the same, or more, if it meant saving her parents, her husband, or the children she hoped to bear.]

[There's a smile on his face almost immediately at the question, and he shakes his head.]

I can lift the arm, but I can't feel anything below the elbow, and I can't see out of the eye at all. [To demonstrate, he picks up his arm via his shoulder, and his forearm dangles uselessly.] But I'd do it again in a heartbeat, no question.

[There’s no helping the sympathetic wince when she watches his forearm and hand dangle limp from his elbow, only moving because of the physical connection rather than actual intent. No helping the softening of her gaze when she looks closer at his eye, the discoloration and messy blur between iris and pupil. But she understands.]

Mmm. She’s your sister.

[And family... an arm and an eye when you could have died, could have failed, was nothing.

She’s sure it had been dangerous, going against demons. Far more dangerous than what she was familiar with, with the threat of hungry wolf pack that had left the bite scars on her left arm, the idea of starving bears unable to hibernate and landslides or floods-]

And... Giyuu? Miss Kocho? Are they alright?

Edited 2020-08-18 23:44 (UTC)

[His only surviving sister, but he doesn't usually come forward with that statement terribly often. That she's his sister at all is more than enough, anyway, so he doesn't bring it up, only nods.]

[His expression stalls, and his whole posture tenses for a moment. He'd forgotten Konoha had met Giyuu and Shinobu... He closes his eyes.]

...Shinobu-san didn't make it. Giyuu-san lost his arm, [He waves his right hand absently.] ...he and Shinazugawa-san were the only pillars to survive. [It kills him that so many people so much more skilled who fought and suffered so much longer were lost. That even in dying, Muzan took so many.] Shinobu-san played a huge, irreplaceable role in Muzan's defeat, she and Tamayo-san developed the medicine we gave Nezuko. It's what... turned me back, and it's ultimately what made Muzan weak enough for us to defeat him.

[Konoha is strangely grateful, in that moment, that he just answers her. There have been plenty of people she’s met in Lunatia, in the Circle, who seemed to want to or think they ought to shield her from harsher realities, as if her positive nature and tendency towards smiles meant that she couldn’t handle such things... instead of that simply being the way she decided to handle things.

The world could be cruel, and unforgiving. People die. Bad things happen.

But the world was still beautiful despite. Still worth loving and living in.]

... Ah. Miss Kocho did seem smart... But I’m sorry.

[Sorry that so many had to die to do what needed to be done. That he had to see it. Live it.

What would Giyuu do, now that he had lost his sword arm? Would he finally rest? There’d been something about him, when she’d watched him work the fields, that made her wish he could have a simpler life. Maybe now... ? Tanjiro, too...

And so she resolves to smile again, soft and subtly. Takes his hands again, even if he couldn’t feel one of them.]

Do you want to pray? I have some incense... and I need to today anyway.

[He intones something vaguely affirmative, to acknowledge her apology even if he didn't necessarily feel right accepting it. It wasn't like he was all Shinobu left behind. Kanao, Aoi, the triplets... Inosuke hurt far more from the loss of Shinobu than he did. It wasn't that he didn't hurt, far from it, Shinobu had taken them all in more than once. She'd been the one to create the final medicine to cure his sister. To cure him, when Muzan's final ploy was to turn Tanjiro into the King of Demons. Without her, they never would have succeeded.]

[He shallows his breathing to keep from crying again, because he's really had quite enough of it. As prone as he was to cry for others, it did no one any good, for as much as some days he wanted to just never get out of bed and cry about all the hardship and unfairness in the world.]

[He jolts when Konoha takes his hand, seeing her take his left and not feeling it. He looks up to her, taking a moment to digest her question before curling the fingers of his right hand around hers.]

...that would be wonderful.

[It's not something she can fully understand. It's not her world, not her friend, her comrade... But she has to say it anyway. Shinobu and Giyuu had been in her life only briefly... but she was still sorry. Still had wished for better for them.

So she smiles for Tanjiro, because he's still here. Even if she's sorry for him, that he is here, and not back in his world where he belonged, with his once-again-human sister.]

Mmm... I bought some new incense, it smells really nice.

[She takes him by the right hand to lead him into the house, to the small altar placed in the corner of the main room where she silently lumbers down to her belly, reverently reaching into a small drawer to pull out matches and sticks of incense. Carefully arranged across the surface are bromide cards the Prismals had produced several series of depicting the Moonblessed who contributed to certain missions and activities... and amongst the faces of those that have left Lunatia, those who said they were dead in their worlds...

There's two familiar faces from the Demon Slayer corps, which Konoha gently moves to the forefront, next to a few fractured pieces of thick eggshell nestled on a piece of soft silk. The remains of what she'd thought might be a child, but instead... was just a flower. She didn't know what else to do with it.]

Here... My husband prays the way jinba of the mountains do, but I learned the human way, so...

[So she hands him the incense, letting him take the lead.]

[He sits on his knees beside her, watching her sort through her bromides, and remembers he has one of Zenitsu. He frowns slightly at the broken piece of egg shell, shoulders going tight. That was one thing he really didn't know how to react appropriately to-- he could never understand Konoha's grief over bearing a flower as opposed to the child she so desperately wanted.]

[He claims the incense as it's offered, and realizes he can't light it without setting it down, because he only has one hand. It frustrates him for a moment, but he places it carefully in wherever it's meant to burn to light it. He's... learning a lot about how to just ignore his left arm, already, which makes him glad he's right-handed. His attention goes from the incense to the bromides, and he shifts them so Shinobu's slightly overlaps Giyuu's.]

...Giyuu-san never smiled much, I imagine you knew that about him. When I woke up-- I was unconscious for three months after it all... When he came to see us, he'd cut his hair because he couldn't pull it back one-handed, and I got to see him really smile.

[If they're ever able to return to their worlds on purpose, if they're able to bring anything with them... Konoha would have to choose her bromide collection. The carefully collected cards that contained the captured images of the people she's cared for, that have helped her, that she's learned from, that she's loved. ... Never mind the lewd flavor text the Prismals put at the bottom of the cards, it's the pictures she wanted.

There's a moment after she hands him the incense that Konoha realizes- how inconsiderate of her. He only had use of one hand now, but... Even though she almost takes it back to light it for him, she sees him manage, and... he was going to have to get used to moving like that now. So she stops herself from helping, even if she can't help but hover a bit ready to help if needed.

Until he moves to the bromides and her gaze follows, softening. There had been something sharp in Shinobu's undercurrent that put her a bit on edge, picked up on the woman's dislike of animals that had slightly overlapped with her appearance, but... she'd seemed strong. Dedicated. Intelligent.

And apparently, she had her to thank for Tanjiro still being alive, for him being able to return his sister to normal, so.

She lights incense for her, placing it carefully beside Tanjiro's.]

He didn't, did he...

[The most she had ever seen was just the slightest hint of a twitch upwards in the far corners of his mouth, and it had been so quick she almost doubted she'd seen it at all. ... Still, it had been something she treasured.]

I'm really glad that maybe... he'll get to hold something other than a sword now. He actually did really good with a hoe, you know?

[That earns a laugh out of Tanjiro, because he can't picture it.]

Really? I mean, not to say I don't believe he'd be good at field work, I just only ever saw him with a sword... [Now he's wondering what it will be like for him after it all. He was in the Corps longer than Tanjiro, but started at the same age... Would he be able to adjust to a normal life?]

[Would Tanjiro be able to readjust?]

[He nudges the corner of Shinobu's bromide.]

...Shinobu-san was a little scary, at first. But she took really good care of us, even when she first wanted to kill Nezuko and didn't like that I was traveling with a demon without express permission. Even when I was on "trial"... She still was the first to ask about the situation, and I'd broken my jaw really terribly so she gave me water with painkillers in it. She's really a very kind person... [A beat, and his brows knit together.] ...she was.

Edited 2020-08-20 02:42 (UTC)

Mmm, really. I'd wager all that swordwork actually makes someone pretty good at farming, if you ask me...

[It built up muscle, you had to learn patience with repetitive motions from training, it gave you an eye for details and the ability to react quickly if something went wrong... right? She thinks she's on to something.

But that aside... she nibbles softly on her bottom lip as she watches him move the bromide, the image of the young woman captured by Prismal photography, the mysterious little smile on her face hard to read to someone like Konoha, who had only known her a short time. By what Tanjiro says, though...

Her hand moves to find a place on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. Reassuring. Konoha might not have been treated kindly by the local temple monks, who viewed jinba as a lesser form of life than humans, but she'd still grown up with a countryside mix of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs. Which meant-]

Someone who helped that many people... I'm sure their next life will be a more fortunate one.

[He smiles, closing his eyes and leaning toward her just enough to acknowledge her hand on his shoulder. He hadn't really had the time to mourn Shinobu when he heard of her loss, even though the crow calling out that she had died reduced him to tears for a while. They hadn't had time to stop, He and Giyuu had already fought their way through Akaza, he was just glad that Kanao and Inosuke had the small satisfaction of taking down the demon who killed Shinobu (and her sister, but he didn't feel right bringing up Kanae).]

[He draws in a slow breath and smiles at the bromide, then, nodding.]

...I think Kanao is taking up potionwork like she did, to follow in her footsteps, too. Continue her legacy, as it were... I don't think she died with regrets. I hope not, at least.

[It's enough, and Konoha's hand just stays where it is for now, her thumb absently stroking along his upper arm as they sit there and the thin trails of smoke from the burning incense curl into the air and drift across the bromides of people lost, the cracked remnants of the egg she'd carried in lieu of the foal she'd longed for.]

Kanao is her apprentice... ?

[She doesn't consider herself an expert on loss, even with all she has lost, but.

It's just nice to talk about it... to let it out, and take a moment to mourn rather than carry the burden along.]

Mmn, [He agrees simply. A tsuguko was... something specific to the Slayer Corps, he was pretty sure, but apprentice was a pretty close equivalent.]

[He... doesn't like to consider himself an expert on loss, but the fact of the matter was he really sort of was. First all but one of his family members, then several of the family he found on his journey to restore his surviving sister. He didn't really think about it very often, probably because it was just... horribly depressing to consider.]

[He's quiet, though, closing his eyes and just sort of breathing in the incense and the atmosphere. Konoha was so nice to be around, she was gentle and kind and he felt safe being honest with her. It wasn't so much that he was dishonest as a rule, but Konoha was much easier to share things with than probably anyone else he'd met in Lunatia.]

...Shinobu-san was the only pillar in the corps who couldn't cut off the heads of demons, but she developed poisons lethal to them. She was unbelievably impressive, and frequently thought incapable because she was so small. [A chuckle, and he smiles warmly at the bromide-- his eyes are a bit glassy, but the smile is genuine.] I know I never wanted to get on her bad side. [It does feel nice to talk about it, he thinks.]

[Despite the misfortune that had dogged her birth, the hard living and the scars of war... Konoha was still able to smile. And knowing that it was hard for others, for those who'd had it worse than her... She'd always striven to smile even more. When her husband had told her that her presence was like the sun to him, calming and warm, bright and illuminating...

That's all she'd ever hoped to be. So if she could do the same for her friends, for Tanjiro...]

She showed me her sword, when she came over for dinner with Tomioka-san... She sat right there.

[She motions to one of the cushions around the sunken hearth, the same one Tanjiro has likely sat upon before.]

I thought it was a really weird shape... like a hornet stinger instead of a sword. She seemed a bit angry with Tomioka-san for telling me about the Demon Slayer Corps, so she didn't tell me much, but... I guess that explains that, huh?

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a slightly overdramatic icon bc happy tears don't exist in anime form yet

;3; baby...

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SPOILERS for kny manga; i should have added that at the start of this thread whoops

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