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| WaterDragon |
Some time ago I posted this, tableau I have since begun to add to the story, this is the story so far.
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Silent the ragged ronin drifted across the dawn grey stones, Colourless in the dark, the dark marks on the girl's back as she hung limp from the chains securing her to the damp moss covered rock. He freezes, hand on his sword as a guard walks quietly across the veranda, his patrolling made indolent by the late hour.
Carefully stepping in the indistinct scuff marks, the ronin crosses the gravel garden towards the limp girl. She whimpers as he reaches to touch her matted hair, blood has made black marks on the now pale grey stones beneath her dangling body. Her eyes puffy from the weeping, face bruised from hard slaps. Her Back, oh her beautiful back, scarred, split and welted. Deep gashes on her buttocks from the thin rattan canes, her thighs also scarred and marked, deeply cut and bleeding dark colourless trails down her body.
Lovingly, gently he releases her ankles, then wrists, she moans quietly as she falls into his muscular arms. Pausing only to gaze close into her pain filled eyes, lifting her carefully, silently the ronin carries her back across the stones into the forest.
At the edge of the forest something makes the ragged man pause, he turns to gaze at the house and garden. The first pink light of dawn had begun to give colour to the borders of camellias round the veranda as it chased the zodiacal light from the sky. The beauty of the flowers contrasting with the savage marks on the girl's body, and the white hot fury in his heart. With a sigh, he turns and plunges into the dark trees with his beautiful, damaged burden.
Deep in the forest, in a small shelter a girl lies on a palliass made from ferns and bracken; outside quiet crackles from the small fire reassure her. Her back feels better now as the herbal poultice does its work. It is several days since she was chained to the rock, and much of that time is lost in a dreaming, echoing daze of pain and fear, but shot through the hallucinations the image of a man bursts.
Turning her stiff and sore neck, she takes in the shelter. The bent boughs and woven thatch forming an uneven dome but warm and dry within. Through a low opening outside, a glimpse of the thick forest, with a wisp of woodsmoke drifting past. Twisting herself to see more she squeaks with pain, and as darkness took her the same man's rugged face appeared at the opening.
