sunshine and city lights, open

### ▪ @anyone ▪ wheeee~

he had heard it said that sunshine and city lights would guide the lost ones home. Unfortunately, Hanaye Suoh belonged to the one singular clan that this rule did not apply to.

It wasn't atypical for the oblivious kunoichi to often get lost but she had to admit that this was one of her worst "ventures in to the great unknown" as her father liked to put it - her mother just called it "foolishness" and "the reason that you're always late to dinner," accompanied by a fond scowl and a reminder to ask her sensei for a map sometime soon. But her mother's gentle nagging had culminated in to nothing: the girl was just as lost as she had been three days ago and two days before that and three days before that. In fact, she was more lost than she ever had been in her life, she admitted to herself. Iwagakure was more parts "hidden in the rocks" than it was "village" to her constant chagrin: from where she stood at the base of a particularly sedimentary-looking boulder, she saw no village, only rock.

She suspected that she had grown to love this game of hide and seek she played as the sun's rays trickled away behind the tall mountains. Her mother easily dismissed her daughter's lack of familiarity with her surroundings as ignorance or even daftness but Hanaye knew herself better than that. She ended up lost and cold and tired after long days of training along a slippery mountain course all too often but if she really feared it and deeply despised it - like one who slipped from complete oblivion in to sudden consciousness might - then she wouldn't come out to train day after day. And that was where most people's logic often failed: it was oblivion that she slipped under as she wandered, like a drug, but she was aware that she slipped in to a mindless state every day as her mind drifted off to the clan underground and the blacksmith shops, imagining the forging of her very own puppet or to the chuunin exams, imagining the fights and the stadiums standing in an imposing fashion, just the way her brothers had told her once. Sometimes she even dreamed of winning the tournament, of twitching a finger and sending senbon flying from the tail of Neko-chan. And then she blinked - all it took was a blink - and her mind retreated from the white stoned building with the competition floor decorated with sparse trees.

And the other half was the delicious awareness she felt as she awoke from her dreamland. She didn't know where she was, she only knew she was where she needed to be: a new sunset, a new adventure and she would never be lonely or bored. She examined the rocks and the paths, Neko-chan dancing in front of her in a haphazard, amusing fashion as the blonde twitched her fingers. Experiences had eventually culminated themselves in to a strategy - to get to a high point and look for the imposing stone mass that was Iwagakure. And thus the steel tail of Neko-chan dug incisions unto the mountains in front of her, extra security though she could apply herself well enough using chakra. Climbing was slow enough to not demand attention but at the same time so methodical that she could not slip in to a daydream: instead, she lingered in the middle. She focused on nothing in particular, neither visions nor reality able to possess her as she climbed like  bird. Heel in to crevice. Control chakra. Repeat. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the top of the mountanous hill and she was much closer to Iwagakure than she expected.

A reckless idea flashed through her mind like a lightning bolt and then siezed it in an iron clad grip that left no room for discussion, negotiation or change. She was a mere hillside away from Iwa, standing at the top of a slope with a wheeled mechanism in hand. The thought was reckless, stupid at worst but she knew she would enjoy it. Adventure and art went hand in hand, she had discovered. Art was emotion and expression and what was more expressive than actions? Terror, fierce enjoyment, freedom and passion released themselves when she explored. Danger was but an outlet, mere and fleeting in the grand tale that was life. And so she accepted the idea, welcomed it, even, and she balanced herself, chakra strings wraping around the feet of Neko-chan, on the wheel of the automaton. Wind flowed by as she veered at breathtaking speeds, her heart pounding against her ribcage in a lurching drumbeat. And then the automaton and girl hit a bush and went flying, shock registering as the girl's breath snagged in her throat and she flew through the air, morphing herself in to a position that would allow her to avoid damage when she collided with the ground.

Seconds later, the girl's blonde head arose from the dirt road, bruises on her cheek. Well, there were rockier places to land in all of Iwagakure.