Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Celestia]

---

Depression


Her breath was shallow. Her eyes downcast. Her hair, an unkempt mass of unwashed strands, hung over her face and shoulders. She had not bathed in days. She had not eaten in days. Her white kimono, stained with blood, was torn and filthy. Yoshi had returned home from the shrine of her ancestors three days ago and went immediately to her private alcove that held her altar dedicated to the worship of her ancestors. Here she stayed night and day. Sleeping and waking. She prayed, meditated, and wept.

Her prayers had not been answered. Her mother had not returned.

Servants came and offered her food. She chased them away. Himeko was left to do as she pleased without supervision. On the forth day Yoshi arose and left the alcove. She walked the grounds of the estate looking more and more haunted. Day and night she wandered the streets of the village like a Yurei. The villagers grew frightened, saying the ghost of her mother had returned to exact her vengeance. The household staff begged her father to do something. They were concerned that the spirit of her mother had possessed the girl and was feeding on her life-force in an effort to return to the land of the living.

Each time Ikrua approached his daughter she looked at him with those haunted eyes and he shied away. She looked too much like her mother.

Weeks passed and the household grew morose. Yoshi would disappear for days at a time only to return more haunted than before. The servants fled at her approach. She smelled bad. She slept outdoors. She ate nothing.

Then one morning, before sunrise, a servant heard someone in the bath. She peeked in and found Yoshi immersed in the steaming water. She looked at the woman and smiled slightly.

“Please. I would like assistance to wash my hair and then perhaps something to eat?”

The woman grinned and hurried to assist.

Over the next week Yoshi slowly returned to her family and household. She ate her meals in silence. Prayed and mediated daily. Worked in the garden and studied the writings of her ancestors. The urn containing the ashes of her mother still sat where it had been left weeks ago. No one dare touch it. Yoshi ignored it.

She took up her instruction of her culture with Himeko again, but with a calm spirit and less frustration. It was as though she began to reconcile within herself the truth of the loss she had experienced. From time to time her father would catch her staring at the urn near the stairs.

He would give her time…

There was plenty of time…


To be continued…