[BF24] One Night in the Garden

[Dienekes22]

It was the dead of night, when the darkness is heaviest. A mother walked through her castle, which was silent save for the servant’s soft “my lady” whenever she passed. Her destination was her son’s room, several floors above where it overlooked the expansive garden that made up most of the estate. When she reached it she slid the panel open quietly, but letting it bump slightly so the boy might start waking.

He protested, of course, when her soft voice brought him out of his sleep.

“Come to the window,” she said, beckoning him to his feet.

“It’s too dark,” he said with a voice deeply tinged with sleep.

“It is in the darkness that the ancestors join us,” the mother said to her son.

The boy now stared down sleepily into the garden. The scattered torches, most barely kept aflame, cast long, eerie shadows through the trees and the plants.

The mother continued, “Do you see them? Their spirits dance in the shadows. Look closely, you can see them weave between the blades of grass, and there, they dance among the cherry blossoms.”

The son rubbed his eyes. He didn’t see anything like that.

“That’s just the wind,” he said, eager to get back to bed.

“No, no, look closer,” the mother said, aware he was pretending to do so to placate her. “This is their garden, my son, and we are its caretakers. When we are gone your children, and their children, will care for it. And so here we will be together.”

Now she pointed her son’s attention to the stone dragon statue that loomed above the water, bathed in darkness, only the faintest outline visible above the inky black of the pond.

“My mother’s shrine is there, just beside the great guardian. And next to her, just there, is my father’s. Do you see, my son?”

The son nodded, leaning against the windowsill. The graves were clustered together around the base of the statue, one of a number of growing clusters of stones inside the garden. He knew these two from many lectures he received from his mother. Almost daily she would walk him through the garden and point out the shrines for many relatives long gone. He did not protest the repeated lesson because he knew it brought great comfort to his mother.

“Where will you place my shrine?” she asked him for the first time.

He did not know how to answer. “I will place it by grandma and grandpa,” he said after a moment.

“But there is so little space there,” she said, “and your children will not be able to set you next to me.”

“Then I will place you there,” the son said, pointing out to an open plot of grass uniquely visible from his window, framed by the limbs of the cherry blossom trees, “and when I miss you I will come here and watch for your spirit to dance in the trees.”

The lady rested her hand on the shoulder of her son, “That is a fine place.”

The son continued, “And there is also plenty of space for me, and we will always be together.”

The mother stood, ready to send her son back to bed. The son, still peering into the darkness, caught the slightest hint of movement down below.

“There!” he whispered excitedly, “I think I see one!”

The mother leaned over her son to see. Her figure caught the torchlight enough for her silhouette to be just visible in the otherwise utter darkness of the bedroom. He meant to ask which of the ancestors he had spotted, but he did not get a chance. A sudden, piercing wind fluttered not even a handsbreadth from his ear.

The son then felt his mother’s hand on his shoulder, tighter than a vice, and he tried to shirk away in pain. She stumbled backwards and gurgled strangely. The son looked up in shock to see the faintest outline of his mother’s silhouette grabbing desperately at her neck as she collapsed. She hit the floor so hard the attendants waiting outside did not wait to be called. The torchlight banished the night and revealed the single arrow that pierced the mother’s throat. The length of it twitched hard as she tried in vain to breathe through the bright red blood that spluttered groggily in a thick pool on the floor. The boy’s eyes were wide and his breathing labored like his mother’s in the shock and horror of that moment. He watched the arrow heave, unable to tear his gaze away. He did not see her vacant eyes reflect the torchlight or see her lips belch blood as she tried to say his name.

In moments many soldiers would spill into the room with their swords drawn. They would surround the boy and whisk him out of the tower toward the inner sanctum of the fortress to wait for his father, the shogun. He would wait there for some hours while the assassin was tortured and broken, and only then would his father appear and they would sit together in the aftermath of the rending of their home.

But for now, the boy could only scream.

–

The shogun stood with his son in the clearing beneath the cherry blossom trees. Set into the ground in front of them was the shrine for his wife. The shogun wore his armor, and an extra sword was strapped to his waist. The boy had been there for some time when the shogun found him, and he waited in silence for a while before speaking.

“Hideyoshi,” the shogun said to his son, “I have a gift for you.”

The boy glanced at his father, but was unwilling to look away from the shrine.

The shogun knelt next to the boy, unhooking the extra sword. He drew it from its scabbard, the long blade flashing brilliantly in the sunlight.

“I would have liked to see you receive your first sword under different circumstances,” he began, “Now, I will speak and you and your mother will listen.”

“This blade I have named Lament, so that you will remember what your enemies will regret what they have done to you when you. You will turn your lamentations into their lamentations, and they will know no peace. You will return to this spot and train with this blade until it is as much a part of you as your mother, and then you will take up my armor and my banner and they will become yours.”

The boy Hideyoshi turned to his father, who offered him the sword. He took it with trembling hands and held it for a moment, nearly dropping it. It was heavier than he expected, and the blade fell awkwardly into the grass.

This made the father smile, and he took the sword and placed it back in the scabbard.

He stood over the boy, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “In time we will be together here in the garden, my son. On that day, when your mother and I embrace you once more, my heart will be glad. But for now we must be warriors.”

And so the father and son stood together in the garden until the shadows grew long and the darkness of the night chased them inside.

[Scribonius]

Well this is definitely different.

Concept: 8 Lots of meaning here. I want to rate this higher, but the idea isn't a new one, I've seen it before in many manga caps and stories.

Form: 8 I like the form, and the core framework is very good.

Voice: 5 Narration and character in this are very good for the most part, but some of the dialogue just doesn't feel right: “This blade I have named Lament, so that you will remember what your enemies will regret what they have done to you when you..." This line alone just stopped me cold. I had to re-read it three times, and it still doesn't make sense, like you were editing it, stepped away, and forgot what you were working on (I have done this before, myself, so I get it)?

Style: 15 Overall, this is a good read but suffers from consistency in the character dialogue.

[MadMario]

CONCEPT: 8
FORM: 9
VOICE: 7
STYLE: 16
PRESENTATION: 7

Though it is a well-known storyline, the good wording for describing the location and characters still make this a very compelling read. The pace between calm dialogues and the traumatic event are perfect in length and proportions.
One can immediately relate to the characters and wants to know how it goes on.
Deducting one point in Presentation for flaw in dialogue.

[FEEB]

Concept 8. Effective premise if a little predictable. The irony isn't lost on me that this is the same opinion you've already received.

Form 7. I like the structure and it's all executed fine but I do think it could be a little shorter for what it is.

Voice 5. I'm split right down the middle because I like the direction you're taking and I LOVE the way I can map out the whole location in my head as a MOC; sort of your Ran-inspired Japanese thing I loved seeing on discord with a bunch of extra stuff showing up in my mind's eye. On the flip side it feels a little overlong, big words, a little pretentious. I'm biased because I treat brikwars as a playground for high-effort shitposts, and I inject any human elements in after the fact for characters I fall in love with instead of baking it into the premise.

Style 14 I liked it