Avarice Blacksteel

Karesansui

None of his escort had directly spoken to him. Aran had begun to find this unnerving. Heavily chained he had been escorted to this surprising courtyard garden by four men. Arms both fastened tightly behind his back in the traditional method, encircled in hemp as he was becoming very accustomed.

They did not wait for their charge to comply nor did they give him clear instruction. He was simply struck hard behind the knees until he knelt on the pavement. He was much bigger than the men who harried him, however he was in no position to retaliate effectively, and only sought to comply.

They shackled him by his collar to a ring set in the pavement, and retreated. The chain being too short to allow him to rise. He had little recourse but to kneel and wait.

Aran gazed about. The day was as always cold, the clouds overhead seemed darker and more oppressive than usual, almost as though they promised snow or rain. Aran looked up and studied the somber skies. He wished they would promise something, rather than nothing at all.

A quick glance about him told him there was much beauty here. Though traces of ugliness remained, the occasional bullet hole pitted into concrete evidence of past violence, the sinuous curve of razor wire on high.

This romantic garden had been once no more than a prison exercise yard. Deep within Mobilong prison, a place for desperadoes and human trash. Now it stood transformed, manicured, bright river stones neatly arranged in beds. Conifers that still survived in the unseasonable cold manicured and shaped for beauty. There was a pond, and in lieu of koi fish Aran detected the presence of large European carp, silver and muddy dark, some with flashing mirror scales that swam sluggishly below.

Aran was studying the fish intently as Dahlia entered. He had been told they could be good to eat only if one knew how to prepare them. That carp were one of the only fish that had to be hung and bled to attain any decent edibility.

She had at last completed the winter fox kimono Aran immediately noticed, and wore it today with numerous other layers to keep out the cold. Traditional wooden sandals clunking on the concrete to signal her approach.

Dahlia turned about almost playfully as Aran looked up, traces of a rare smile on her ruby lips. “It is Kitsune the fox, symbol of Inari.” She beamed with pride.

“It is very nice. Skillfully done.” Aran replied respectfully. Words almost feeling alien to his tongue, for he was rarely asked to speak.

He again gazed forward at the pond very aware of her closeness as Dahlia sat down next to him on the bench. Her voluminous silken garments brushed his flesh invitingly.

He was still dwelling on the events of the evening before last, Dahlia’s tears, her lack of emotion. This tiny Japanese woman broke all the rules of what Aran had decided a woman should be, in many ways just as Aurianne had. He wondered too of the archer’s fate as he sat on the cold flagstones.

“This is Karesansui gardens, or in your tongue, Japanese rock garden.” Dahlia informed. “This style of garden became popular in Japan in the fourteenth century thanks to the work of a Buddhist monk, Musō Soseki who built zen gardens at the five major monasteries in Kyoto.

These gardens have white sand or raked gravel in place of water, carefully arranged rocks, and sometimes the rocks and sand are covered with moss. Their purpose is to facilitate meditation, and they are meant to be viewed while seated on the porch of the residence or as we do now. I come here often to meditate.”

Aran nodded, he didn't feel like another lesson in Japanese culture. He hadn't paid attention in high school and he didn't feel like doing so here.

The anger of his predicament simmered as he sat surrounded by controlled niceties. It was then it occurred to him, in a flash of wild thought, her culture; it could not be just a pine tree allowed to grow to its own natural stature or devices; it must be shaped, sculpted. There could not be a haphazard arrangement of stones and rocks; they must be moved and placed strategically. He was in essence the same. He was something that Dahlia desired to shape.

She would bind him in hemp and chains, just as she twisted wire about the branches of the bonsai pines to conform them to her own standard of beauty. The warrior struggled with this thought. It burned him deep and shamed him. He had never felt more slave. He wanted to rage and scream.

Dahlia had sensed the sudden change in her captive pet. She moved away to the other end of the bench and regarded him with a careful eye. However she did not comment on his discomfort, instead calling her little ones to come play in the garden.

Aran sat motionless and silent, occasionally lifting his green gaze to watch the two little girls at play. Dahlia’s attention was on them also. Here almost, the rest of the world had ceased to exist along with the ebb and flow of time. Some men perhaps could have given in to its allure, and bowed to Dahlia’s chains. However Aran found he could not do so. He longed to be free, to repossess Blacksteel, and rekindle his honor amongst his clan. To sit with his brother by the fireside and battle as he always had to live. In his heart he could never be this diminutive woman's bound possession. He would escape, though he knew not how.

“Thorne created all this for me.” Dahlia finally said, voice breaking into the peals of joyous laughter of her children. “He wanted me to have a piece of home.”

“I take it he liked Japan.” Aran answered, shifting his knees on the cold concrete as they were beginning to hurt him some.

“Yes, very much, he too would come here to think, times were not always so easy.”

There was another protracted silence at this juncture. Aran’s nose itched maddeningly, and the hair blowing across his face was not helping the sensation subside. He shifted his weight again and tried to brush at the offending itch against his broad shoulder.

“Many of the Finks were imprisoned here, or had been at one time or another.” Dahlia continued. “When the first of the major violence erupted in Adelaide, the Thebarton compound was no longer safe. Thorne took his gang and they left for this place. There were riots, and fuel shortages, and the police and prison guards had already abandoned the compound mostly. Thorne and his men freed the prisoners, some went their own way and some stayed. A few days later came the strike on Adelaide. I do not understand if Thorne knew, or if we were just lucky. I was carrying Kokoa then in my belly, and I was so afraid...”

Her words trailed off, Kokoa and Koemi were playing by the pond trying to attract the attentions of the gliding lazy fish below.

“There were men who hated my husband, men of the law. Judges, politicians, policemen. After the chaos and people had settled at the Bridge there were men who wished harm on my husband and the Finks. Rival gangs like the Hells' Angels and the Banditos. There was little time for peace. Even fortified here we faced frequent attacks.

My husband only wished to broker a peace, he had already had enough of the senseless violence, especially after little Kokoa was born. Thorne should not have listened to them. All they told was lies...”

Aran though hardened by the way he had lived could register the woman’s pain. The closest he had come to personal loss was that of his own parents. Though he had not directly witnessed their fate. He knew his brother had, and he had never pressed for any of the details, and Sven had never furnished that information. It had been a matter largely unspoken between them.

Dahlia had still been talking but Aran distracted had missed part of her dialogue.

“...He should not have gone. The peace meeting was a sham. They tricked him, lured him into the Bridge just, to...cut, him, him...down.”

She fell quiet then, her head in her hands. Perhaps tears streaked her face, that he could not see. Her husband’s loss had obviously been a torment to her, and it was difficult to pick up the pieces and continue on.