Has Bai Taidao Come Down the Mountain Today?

When the first snow of the year fell in the mountains, the absurdly long odachi was asleep.

Calling it sleep was not quite accurate. A sword had no eyes, nor did it dream in the orderly way humans did. It simply lay across the dim hall, letting the chill creep slowly over its black lacquered sheath, letting the mountain wind circle the many layers of buildings before squeezing through the gaps in the wooden doors to tell it some not particularly fresh news.

For instance, the stream had iced over, the monkeys had failed to snatch any snacks from the tourists today, and an old tree halfway up the mountain had finally lost a branch beneath the weight of the snow. Or the family at the foot of the mountain who had welcomed a baby last year had come to pray once this year, carrying the child in a swaddling cloth. The child had weak lungs, but a loud cry, and did not look like someone who would fail to live long.

The news came in all sizes. Some things were worth remembering, while others could be forgotten as soon as they were heard. It was used to the mountain wind's rambling, and used to humans coming and going.

But that winter, just as the wind was finishing its story, it suddenly asked, "When did you first begin to hear?"

The odachi fell silent for a while.

It could not remember.

There were no clocks in the mountains, and no one before the gods counted the years for a sword day after day. It only knew that it had once awakened in a fire, then awakened many times in the snow. Humans had covered it in black lacquer, wound it with mountain gold, and carried it to the end of a long mountain road. Later, the tolling of bells, blessings, footsteps, and prayers layered over one another like fallen leaves covering the mountain soil, gradually pressing its originally hazy consciousness into shape.

By the time it truly understood what "itself" was, it already had a name.

Kashiwa Tachi.

The name sounded rather imposing, and it was quite pleased with it.

It did not think much about why the mountain wind had asked that question in that particular year. Perhaps the wind was simply bored, or perhaps something had quietly changed over the course of those long years. The divine blade, which did not yet have a body, turned over in a way that did not exist and continued listening to the soft patter of snow on the eaves.

Put in human terms, it might have lazily replied, "That was so long ago. Who remembers?"

But the exact opposite was true.

It remembered a great deal.

It was just that those memories were too long and too tangled, like fallen leaves in the mountains that could never all be gathered up. To trace them back, one would have to start with the very first spark.

Intention: For archiving.