Lady Snowblood

Note: This is a descriptive piece of short fiction I wrote some time ago. Only in hindsight did I realise the similarities between the piece and the ending of the legendary Japanese movie, Lady Snowblood. Regardless, the similarities exist whether I saw the movie before or after, whether it was intentional or not, thus the title.

Planted to the wooden bench, studying the darkness that had been blessed by the heavenly light of the moon, she shivered in anticipation. Her gaze followed the curves of the rolling plains blanketed in snow, as they meandered into the growing darkness. The wind guided the snowflakes westward, like pilgrims in search of fables in a foreign land. The moonlight's curls of silver tendrils crawled through the pine-wood arms of the ancient trees, shining on the hauntingly beautiful landscape that lay before her, not yet ensnaring her, giving her comfort as she listed just at the edge, tears springing from her eyes. The moon’s lustre reflected off the pearlescent snow; pure and pristine taunting the snowflakes as they swayed in the milky, purple sky, as if performing a gentle schottische in the wake of a tinted darkness without any depth or dimension. In the distance lay a small garden, a garden that looked as though it had been forgotten, a plain pasture now, with remnants of former glory peeking out, nibbling at her toes, the cool scent of an amalgamation of fresh dew and withered mature wood tantalised her fading soul. The miniature trees now stood naked, and the alien ivy had conquered the innocent bushes, and the lanterns were now thick with moss. Yet the only order present was the sound, the only sound other than the spectral song of the sharp wind. It came from a light grey stone water ball, polished by the endless flow of water that was poured over it. Within it, a wooden ladle that would slowly fill up as the clear stream of water cascaded down into it, like a blessing from the lands above the sky. Once the ladle was satisfied, it rhythmically descended into the shallow water, and its opposing end gently struck the smooth gray stone, and the process repeated. The soothing nature of that very sound, eased her, as a foreign blackness started to shroud her eyes, like the onset of an eternal dark glaucoma or like the slow arrival of midnight.