lumberlady | Noctium

[Yet another person has arrived with her own mirror. And after a few days of disorientation and more importantly mourning what she now realizes is the inevitable truth she's more than ready to attempt to move beyond it.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to see anything quite happy enough she does finally get one brief moment. What follows is a voice message accompanied by a picture shortly after.]

Since I got the chance to see your family I wanted a chance to show you mine. Here's Jack.

[Attached is just a moment from one of the better memories. It's Ashi clinging onto Jack's back, arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders.]

[It's precisely because someone else has since gotten a memirror and then messaged her that Konoha is able to realize quickly how it is this is happening. Though because she doesn't know what came to pass in the interim, not realizing the sadness that might accompany it...]

M- Miss Ashi, that's Jack- ?!

[Her tone... might not be the most appropriate. Still, just reacting from the photo-]

He's just as handsome as you said!

[Ashi doesn't seem to notice the tone of the voice more than she notes the reaction. She can't help but laugh on her end.]

Thank you. He's the best person I've ever met. I'm only sorry I don't have a better picture.

No, that's a perfectly good picture!

[Also, look at that cute smile on Ashi's face, too? And his top knot!]

He looks like a proper samurai and everything...

[She huffs out an amused breath.]

I guess that's why everyone knew him as just the Samurai in the future.

[Ashi is thankful this is voice as she turns to the memirror in her lap. She's holding it in her lap at the moment, seated cross-legged on her floor cushion before her laptop once again.]

I didn't realize what that meant of course. I do understand some now though.

"The" samurai... There aren't many?

[Such a strange concept, to someone whose warrior elite was... basically all samurai. But then again... obviously their worlds weren't the same, so...]

No, not at all. There were many who could fight but there was only one Samurai. It was far more common in the past than the future where I'm from though.

[Though if Konoha knows of a time when there were more...]

You must be from a time more like his own then. I wasn't there for long but his father was a samurai as well. He was a very kind man too.

So your world is... a future world, and his world is a... past world?

[Wait, this is more complicated than she thought?]

[Ah. Had she not explained that before? Thinking on it Ashi realizes she probably hadn't since she hadn't ever delved too in-depth with anyone on the whole time thing. Likely because she only now understand it better herself.]

So.

[... Okay, how did she explain this. She pauses to mull it over and finally admits with a sigh.]

It's kind of a long story. Jack was trying to kill this evil spirit -- er, a demon? Youkai? A being named Aku.

[So far, so good?]

Aku used one of his powers to open a time portal to throw Jack into the future, a future where Aku ruled over all. That's the time I come from.

[...]

It's kind of messy, isn't it.

[It's never quite struck her how messy the whole situation is before now actually. One kind of just accepts these things and rolls with it when in the middle of it all.]

Oh... Yeah, that does sound like a long story...

[Not that she's opposed to that, but. Just give her a minute to wrap her head around some things...]

I've never heard of a youkai that can change time like that... this Aku must be really strong...

[But also... how much more star-crossed their romance is now... ?][Is that how timelines work?]

He was. I don't really know the full story of where he came from. I don't think Jack wanted to dwell on that part.

[Maybe Jack had intended to tell her all of that some point after the wedding? With all the rebuilding the kingdom needed there had been precious little time for much in-depth talk of the past.]

And I'm afraid I didn't think to ask. ... Maybe I didn't want to dwell on it either.

Well... I can't really say anything about that...

[Konoha's voice turns... very sympathetic at that idea, and though she definitely does imagine some people (who just don't know what love is properly!) might insist that surely you should know everything first about your partner, but-]

I didn't ask my husband plenty of things until after we got married. Sometimes you don't want to dwell on it... and if you don't have to... I think that's fine...

I think... I've never been sure what to ask. Before Jack I didn't know much after all.

[She sounds a little sheepish.]

I didn't even know what a deer was. When I first came here and the device asked me for a name I could only tell it one creature I knew the name of for certain.

[Hence the ladybug username.]

Oh... I definitely meant things like "what was your childhood like" or "where did you get that scar" or "why are you so afraid of fire"... I guess it would be hard if you have to start from "what's a deer"...

[Because who doesn't know what a deer... wait-]

You... don't have deer in your future world place? Or you just didn't know the name?

[Big difference there...]

Oh! Ahaha, of course! I'm sorry, I should have thought of that.

[She hadn't quite forgotten how odd she might be compared to others. The thoughts of childhood questions hadn't completely occurred to her. A lot of things didn't until there was a reason for them to though.]

No we definitely had them. I imagine anyhow. I had never been outside by that point though and had never seen them.

Oh, phew...

[After their talk about young children... She just had to make sure. Still-]

It sounds like Jack's um, what would you say original time? Might be nicer for people... If there's magic for him to go to yours, maybe you can find some to go to his?

Well... it's a little complicated. The way I ended up in his time was through magic actually but...

[Konoha wouldn't think less of her, yeah? No, she couldn't imagine that from the jinba. She seemed so kind, far too kind for judgements. Not that Ashi would blame her.]

You see. Aku was [mmph, by the way the words come out of her mouth this time it's clear she dislikes it] my father. I was the one who opened that second portal and I can't do that anymore since Aku died.

[How far should she go in explaining? Was it too much?]

... And, well. Killing your father in the past has some consequences. [Her tone softens.] I don't think I can go back.

[... Well, having a father that was apparently... evil? explained part of why Ashi was so strong seeming, and how she'd been so sheltered as to not have seen a baby or know what a deer was called, but-

It takes her a second to (she thinks) wrap her head around the timeline here... So... Ashi got them... back to the past? Well, Jack's present? And now they're... stuck there?]

It's... Is it so bad? To not be able to go back... ?

[Because she'd said "magic"... the other consequence of killing one's own father doesn't quite register]

[Er, well... mmph. Ashi naturally assumes she means is it so bad to be stuck here.]

I don't mind being here. It's not bad or anything but --

[What should she admit to here? She wants to be thoroughly honest.]

I was sort of in the middle of getting married. So.

Oh, no, I meant back in your-

[Wait

Wait, wait- !]

You're getting married right this minute?!

[- Sort of]

I was.

[There's a bit of an emphasis on the was.]

If I hadn't come back here again ... I don't think I would exist right now. I'm not sure how I ended up coming back here but --

[... Oh!]

I'm sorry! I was so excited about the mirror and showing you Jack and all... I did go back for a while. I think it was a few months? Since we last talked, I mean.

[She's way too used to this going back and forth in time and space thing.]

No, don't be sorry? Your wedding got interrupted!?

[Okay, at least the few months explanation makes this make a little more sense... Even if... she doesn't get the comment about existence, unversed in time and space like Ashi was.]

And you exist plenty fine!

Unfortunately.

[The second response though... Ashi gets how it's confusing. Heck she's lived through it (or... not?) and it's confusing to her too. She sort of just knew instinctively what was happening to her in the end. Maybe because she had been sort of expecting it?

And yet somehow it really tickles her that Konoha is so adamant about it. Or flustered? She's not sure but the jinba is so certain Ashi exists 'plenty fine' that Ashi herself can't help but laugh.

... Should she be laughing in the middle of talking about a missing wedding and her failed existence? Who knows.]

I definitely do exist here, I know that much!

But when you went back... you went back to the moment you left, right? So- So when you go back... You'll go back to the wedding! No problem.

[Admittedly... Konoha had sort of missed the implication, because she... has never had to imagine timelines in that manner. Even parallel worlds and those sorts of concepts that came up in these worlds, she stumbles over them, but-

Is it for the best? Who knows. She's just excited about weddings.]

If you need, I can pinch you!

... Maybe.

[She sounds very unsure about that. She gets it though that Konoha is being comforting or perhaps just thoroughly unsure how one even stops existing in the first place. And in Ashi's opinion it isn't important that someone else completely get the whole "I don't exist so there isn't any going back" thing.

She'd rather focus on the nice points. Like the wedding, which leads her to:]

Do you want to see a picture? Of the wedding. Or... well him, I suppose.

[Then again she hadn't seen herself, has she. This was her memory after all.]

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