Title: I Can Lead You
Author: Rana Eros
Challenge: Fairy Tales
Author's Notes: Here, have a mash-up. Title taken from George's "The Track Through the Woods."

~~~~

At night, the full moon calls to him. Hisoka slips from his ageless bed, dresses in the dark, walks out to where the sakura flowers ceaselessly. There's a sliver of moon waiting there for him, jagged-edged.

"They say the moon drowned once," Muraki murmurs, face upturned beneath it, both white as something long dead. Hisoka says nothing, and Muraki lowers his head with a smile. "Will it be drowning tonight, I wonder?"

He walks off among the trees. Hisoka follows, dropping neither stones nor breadcrumbs, leaving no trail forward or back.

This far into the wood, there's no way out.

END

Title: Soft the Snow Comes
Author: Rana Eros
Challenge: Fairy Tales
Author's Notes: Oh, look, another double drabble inspired by an Andersen fairy tale from yours truly. Try to hide your surprise. Betaed by Eliza.

~~~~

The oni built a mirror once, made it of spite to reflect all the things they hated in the world, which was everything. Then they squabbled over what to do with it and it slipped from their fingers and broke, shards scattering on the wind.

Those shards struck any number of people, working their way under skin, into eyes and hearts. They magnified the flaws of whatever they reflected. When pointed outward, that meant family and friends, and those people grew cruel and hateful, withdrawing from their loved ones. When pointed inward, that meant people were forced to see their own evil. Most died of what they saw.

Not all the ghosts were left to rest, however, and one man, good and kind, was made to reap the dead until his tears flushed out the splinter obscuring his vision. He was too kind, however, and the splinter was lodged deep, and while he prayed for forgiveness, he thought himself unworthy. Nor could he let the love of his friends console him, when he saw only his flaws.

When he could bear no more, he began to pray instead for numbness. Winter heard him. He didn't resist when its ambassador came.

END

Title: Love Song
Author: Rana Eros
Request: For kohakutenshi, who requested, "Hisoka, music."
Author's Notes: Betaed by Eliza. Title taken from the Rilke poem of the same name.

~~~~

In life, music was a distant thing heard during village festivals. There were no radios, no instruments, in the Kurosaki household, and while servants would hum under their breath, nobody dared sing.

The silence couldn't distract Hisoka from the press of other people's emotion. He learned to listen for the rhythms in the wind, the high and low notes of the old house creaking, the percussion of footsteps and rattle of carried objects. He could sink into sound, anchor himself against the pain of contact.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki says.

Hisoka focuses on the music of the voice, lets Tsuzuki touch him.

END