WOTD Flash Fiction: The Fall of Night

For Reyukai,

I have never been a poet, nor a scholar, in spite of my current pretensions to the position I now hold. No soldier can manage to be a man of both deeds and words – long centuries have proven that to master one takes away one’s ability to practise the other effectively. I am inadequate to the task at hand, yet I shall endeavour to give what I can.

To put a chronological date upon our initial meeting is beyond me. I kept little track of dates during my long sojourn in Japan. Suffice to say, I remember the time as being one which led me to both you and Kiku, my wife; I remember it as the glory of early spring in what they now call Yokohama, the Festival of the Blossom, and the beauty of the mountains as the night gathered over them.

Kiku was the only daughter of the Shõgun of Watushi First Province, beautiful to me and to her father, but renowned less for her looks and more for her outspoken nature – by outsiders, considered unseemly for the daughter of a noble house. Yet Kiku was an only child,  and much belovéd. Her nature was not curbed as she was the light of her father’s life. When she chose to share with me the shame of choosing the life of the ronin, she caused that light to extinguish, and it left only darkness and poison in its wake, and her father sent for a weapon of revenge.

The weapon he sent for was you.

How long did you track me, Reyukai? In the long years that followed, you never explained to me the full tale. How you stalked me like a mountain predator, learning my every move and weakness, to perfect the moment of your attack; how the Kindred of the West were unknown to you, and how you sought long for each fragment of information that you could glean. When at last the moment came, were you as sure of your success as you were of every other deed you accomplished?

Somehow, we were so alike, you and I. Perfectionists, never content with second-best.

How close did you come to dealing me the Final Death? I have never told you that Charon the Boatman stretched his hand to me that night; by no sound or touch did you give yourself away. Only that extra-sense which marks the soldier from the poet alarmed me to your presence, and only the gifts of the Garou that were once given me saved my unlife.

Shock, anger, admiration. You were honour-bound to complete your contact; we were ninja and samurai, bitter enemies in a long and terrible struggle. We both know you would have died fearlessly rather than surrender to me. That was the reason why I did not give you the choice. Kiku returned to speak with her father, and he released you from the contract you were bound into.

What pulled us together, Reyukai? Your ever-present struggle to better yourself, to be the best you can be at your vocation? My respect for your courage and confidence? Yet the temptation had taken you. You had witnessed things beyond your ken - Celerity, Potence, Presence – things you found you wanted. They were the disciplines that once Hamilcar displayed for me, and could be yours if you dared to reach for them.

You asked me to teach you, and I understood. Hamilar was a master of Presence, but it was his power and speed that ached to emulate. He told me, ‘I will turn you into the greatest warrior that Sparta has ever seen’, and I wanted, needed, to believe him, even though it meant my survival, when all around me perished in battle and honour.

Unlike Kiku, you refused the position of ghoul. The blood-bond would have taken too much of you away from yourself, I have always understood that; for that reason my pPresence was never used upon you. Instead,  you trained under my teaching for a time, and I trained, also, for you taught me much that I did not know. When the time came for you to accept the embrace, you did so willingly and fearlessly, wishing the gifts that being Kindred would bestow.

No words are ever enough for the emptiness with which the new Kindred wakens for the first time. To lose the sun, to lose taste and hunger, these things can be bourne. But to lose touch is terrible thing. No longer can you test your strength by hardship, no longer does pleasure hold meaning. Such a loss defies comprehension, yet It is the sacrifice that must be accepted, and you bore it with your inscrutable courage never cracking. it created another thew that bound us together, Reyukai, that of discipline.

We remained in Japan for over two centuries; ronin, both of us. As the European cultures began to encroach upon our solace, we left for India, Russia, Eastern Europe. We found ourselves in France, where you met the bearer of this letter, and at last in Italy, were I retired into my fortress of academia, to study and document the long-lost days of Lycurgean Sparta.

Now Gehenna is upon us. You will need all the discipline you have learned over the years, Reyukai, all the courage that I have seen in you. When Troile awakens, the days of Clan Brujah are over. I fought at the fall of Carthage: I felt her final frenzy, and I was there at the end. I saw the stain of her fury sink into her bloodline for all of its generations to come. When she awakens – and she stirs even as I write! – so will every rage I have denied for so long come roaring through my blood.

I thought you ash once before, involved in espionage deep in the Boer war. This time, be on your guard. If our final days are upon us, then let us perish as befits elders of this clan, not as the pitiful, savage remnants that rant in the streets of Los Angeles, but with the nobility and integrity that we have sought to preserve throughout the long years of our friendship.

Hold to your government, your defiance of Troile’s final staining, and let us face, fearless, the Fall of Night.

Reading: Darren Charlton’s Timberdark, which I’m sadly not enjoying as much as the first one. At a hundred pages in, it still seems rather vague and directionless, but Wranglestone was good enough that I’m still holding out hope.

Watching: Thanks to my son playing Helldivers II (which he’s really enjoying), we re-watched Starship Troopers, which remains utterly, gloriously silly. Props for Clancy Brown and Neil Patrick Harris (two actors who can do no wrong, in fairness) but please, people, DO remember that it’s satire, it and the game both…

Playing: Second Baldur’s Gate playthrough and am rather disappointed in the Dark Urge character, who’s background really wasn’t a surprise and who seemed rather tacked-on. Still loving the game though, and still finding lots of stuff that I missed first time around!