Who: Amaterasu (amaterasunokami) When: Sunday morning, 6/6 Where: Her and Triton's shared home What: A moment of reflection and remembrance
It wasn't difficult to rouse herself from sleep so much as it was to leave her still sleeping Triton. Even in this age when she was more of a name and far less the deity she once was, the call of the sun rising was one that Amaterasu still felt down to her very bones. With a few softly murmured words to ease her heart back into a restful slumber, she eased herself from their bed, slid on an awaiting robe of silk and padded quietly through their home.
So many things had changed in so short a time. She was not so foolish to believe that either brother would be so embracing of change, not when it was something that even still warred within herself. But the world around them continued to change. It moved forward consistently and without hesitation. The old ways were lost to the past, or twisted and contorted until they were beyond all recognition. Even immortals faded in time, and she had long since accepted that it was only a passage from world to the next, and that her own time would come one day. With the heaven's blessings, that day would be many, many years from this time. But until that time came to pass, why should she deny herself the happiness that she found with someone who stood outside of the gilded cage her position and her family kept her to?
She wasn't. It was that simple. Love was more than reason enough.
Gathering up a few things, the Goddess moved silently over beautiful hardwood floors and outside through the dew drenched gardens that were nearing their prime in the warm warm clime. The night sky just began to show the first ribbons of lightening where the ocean touched the heavens as her feet first sunk into the cool, white sand. A light breeze twisted teasing fingers through her loose hair as she gracefully lowered herself onto beach and faced the horizon.
Tall sticks of pungent incense were stood in the sand between her and the ocean and lit, an armful of chrysanthemums laid out before her. Bowing forward, she sent blessings of good health and happiness to her brothers and the others of their pantheon, known to her and those who walked silently through the ages. Remaining as she was, Amaterasu's thoughts moved to those of her mother and her father. Ages upon ages had passed where she had walked alone, her mother lost to the madness of the underworld, her father to the loss of his wife. How she envied Triton, and his family, his obvious love for his family.
Silent as the waking world around her, the Goddess prayed to her mother and to her father. A request for forgiveness, but more importantly their blessing. The smoke of the incense wafted around her before carrying her words to the heavens above, the sea to the underworld below. She told them of her love for the gaigin, of the unexpected happiness she had found at his side. She asked for their understanding, to look past bloodlines and tradition, if only for their daughter's happiness.
But even as she asked for these things to be given so freely, there was no mistaking the undertone of steel laying beneath her pleas. It was the proper thing to do, to respect and honor those who gave you life, but she was also Amaterasu --the Goddess who had shouldered a heavy mantle of power and ruled in her own right for so long. She would not be denied her happiness, nor the man who was responsible for that happiness and contentment that she held on so tightly to, nor the fruit of their love that now grew beneath her heart. It seemed wrong, to share her recent knowledge with anyone but Triton, but it was a 'conversation' long overdue, and it soothed the Goddess' mind and her soul for the moment spent as closely with her mother and her father as she could.
Again, she asked for their blessings for her brothers, for her, for the man who held her heart and the child that would come from their love before she straightened back up to watch the first tendrils of sunlight dance across the ocean's dappled surface. Rising just as gracefully as she had knelt, Amaterasu gathered up her flowers, taking care to crush one of them between her fingers so that the individual petals could carry on the early morning breeze with the incense smoke as an offering to her father, the rest were tossed in offering to the receding tide.
"Arigato, Chichiue"
"Arigato, Hahaue."
She stood there for a moment longer, basking in the early morning sunlight with the cool ocean lapping gently at her feet and dampening the silken hem of her kimono, before turning and heading back towards the house. There was time yet to crawl back into bed alongside Triton, and time later yet to share her surprising, but very good news.