Post by Charlotte Shimizu on Mar 17, 2024 1:44:53 GMT
Charlie regarded the door to her mother’s workshop with more than a little hesitation. It was a small outbuilding in the back corner of the property lot, but it was almost big enough to be a small apartment on its own. Sighing and trying to banish the feeling that she was an errant child being called to account for her misbehavior again, she knocked on the door.
“Enter.”
Charlie pushed open the door, swallowing her nerves and inhaling the incense that permeated the space. She hadn’t spent much time in her mother’s work space - not since her mother had realized that Charlie hadn’t the patience for the fine detail work involved - so she felt like an intruder. The small forges she used for working with precious metals were off to one corner, and her mother was descending the ladder from the upper level where she kept her regalia work.
“So what brings my savage daughter all the way to my workshop instead of waiting at the house?” Melissa asked, a wry smile on her face as she crossed the room to embrace Charlie.
Charlie sighed, leaning into her. “Mother, I…” From the depths of her guts, a sob choked off her words. “I am lost. I spent so long trying to show that I am Japanese that I forgot to show that I am still your savage daughter… and I don’t know how to show both.”
Melissa remained silent as she held Charlie, her hand making soothing circles on Charlie’s shoulders as the young woman wept.
“My dear girl…” Melissa started when the tears ebbed to quiet hiccups, her own tone soft. “No one can doubt you are a daughter of the Principal People. It is shown in your red skin and your uncut hair. But, my savage daughter, you are also a child of your father’s Rising Sun. I cannot tell you how to show both. Neither can your father, because we do not walk your path. Your brother has chosen his own way, and I do not see you making the same choice easily, and your sister watches you to see if your choice will work for her. I may show you what our people do, but I cannot tell you how to show it alongside what your father’s people do.”
Charlie heaved a shuddering sigh, resigned to the answer she’d always known, and expected, really. Her parents had always informed and educated her and her siblings, but had left it to the children to choose how it was shown for them. David had virtually given up on presenting himself as Japanese, even eschewing most things from Japan, and her mother was right. Charlie couldn’t do that. She had persisted.
She had persisted to the point, she admitted to herself, that she’d almost forgotten that she was still Cherokee too. No, not forgotten; it was a more insidious form of lapse. She’d come close to considering it less important, defining herself only in Japanese terms.
Maybe Pax had been right to caution her about using ‘haafu’ to describe herself so much.
“Who is Pax?” her mother asked, dropping into English, making Charlie realize that she’d actually spoken her last thought aloud.
Charlie quickly averted her gaze, but knew her mother would see right through her, especially with her cheeks going hot again. “He’s just a new friend at IWF…” she demurred, feeling unaccountably sad. She hadn’t seen him since before the OKC show, and she didn’t expect to see him before High Stakes. He’d called after his movie premier, but she’d been locked up in her room with Hannah and Rini reviewing footage of her opponents and erstwhile-partner. She’d also been having a minor panic about meeting April Madrox the next day. Since then, between training, fan events, and everything going on with the Murder, Charlie barely had time for herself. Even now, Rini was running interference with Hannah so the little-sister-turned-manager wouldn’t incite Charlie to sororicide.
“A good friend?” Melissa prompted with a slight smile, which only made Charlie shift uncomfortably, the heat from her cheeks spreading down her neck and up her forehead. Her mother shook her head, dismissing the question. “Nevermind… Come with me. Your cousin and I have something for you.”
With that prompting, Melissa turned and climbed back up the ladder and Charlie had no option but to follow after. The scents of cedar and sage grew heavier as she climbed into her mother’s favored work area. Charlie knew it wasn’t that her mother disliked working with the lapidary or smithing tools, but Melissa had always preferred beadworking, and only branched out to have a steady income.
“Em! She’s here!” Melissa called, and Charlie turned around to see her cousin poke her head out of a curtained area Charlie didn’t remember being there… but then recalled that Melissa had started training her cousin after her attempts to interest Hannah had failed, so it wasn’t too surprising that things had changed with the addition of an apprentice.
“Char! We were hoping you’d have time before your next show!” Emma said, grinning as she stepped out from behind the curtain, but keeping it closed behind her. Charlie immediately felt on edge. The pair of them had cooked up something and were about to inflict it on her.
The feed begins with a view of unfamiliar feet in simple black Mary Jane flats, and the recognizable voice of Hannah Shimizu muttering curses under her breath. The camera pans up to show Hannah looking more than a little irritated.
“C’mon…”
“But Tsuki, your mother and cousin could be upset about us filming in their -” This time Rini’s voice comes from off-camera.
Hannah whirls around to face the camera, cutting Rini off. “If Ma and Emma didn’t want us filming in the workshop, then they shouldn’t have held up my client using her as a mannequin!” Hannah retorted hotly. “This needed to be done hours ago…”
The camera followed Hannah from inside a house out into what looks like a back yard with an oversized two-story shed in the back corner. Hannah sets a brisk pace, making Rini jostle the camera to keep up.
They find Charlotte on the upper level of the outbuilding after carefully navigating the narrow ladder to ascend. The room was lined with bolts of all kinds of patterned fabric in myriad shades and jewelers drawers filled with beads of all colors. Charlotte herself is fully decked out in traditional Cherokee regalia while another young woman fusses with the fit of the dress, belt and sash.
“Charlie!!!” Hannah exclaimed, her golden skin going ashen. “If you were changing your gear, I should’ve -”
“Relax, Hanners,” Charlotte responds calmly. “Emma just needed someone to play model for her latest work and I happen to have similar measurements.”
“Though I do have something for her if you’re that concerned about it…” the woman identified as Emma adds, peeking around Charlotte.
“We can deal with that later,” Hannah sighs, waving her hand dismissively. “Charlie needed to get her promo shot like… two hours ago to allow for editing.”
Now it’s Charlotte’s turn for her face to lose its coppery color. “Shit. I thought I still had time!” Charlotte whirls on her cousin, the movement making a muted jingling. “Em! Get me out of this!”
Hannah makes a noise of frustration as she steps out of frame. “No time, Char. Just do it live.”
Charlotte grimaces even as Emma starts carefully removing the beaded ornaments and feathers from Charlotte’s hair. “So… first, I’ll apologize for the informality here. As you can see, my cousin’s getting ready to submit her entry for the Trail of Tears Art Show that starts April sixth. It’s actually her first time entering by herself and not as an assistant to my ma.”
Emma carefully puts the accessories in a neat pile as Charlotte speaks, and murmurs something to Charlotte that makes her nod. Charlotte takes a brief moment to shake her hair loose, the long walnut-colored strands cascading well past her hips. “I know it’s also probably weird to see my hair down, but again, helping my cousin meant a temporary hairstyle change.” She runs a demonstrative hand through a long tress, showing the true length of her hair when not disguised by her usual braid.
“Those that don’t know probably don’t understand why I’ve never cut my hair. Long hair is hard to maintain, hard to keep untangled, difficult to clean, and can lead to headaches because it’s so much weight on your head and neck. I don’t say I avoid all those problems… I even add to them because having long hair in wrestling is just asking to have it ripped out by the roots… but it’s important to both my cultures that my hair remain this long.”
Charlotte toys with the lock, twirling it idly around her fingers then brushing it flat. “Everyone’s seen how it’s viewed in Japan. It started as a loss of rank and privilege, then became symbolic of moving on from one phase of life to the next, either through retirement or motherhood. What you probably don’t know is that the women of the Ani'-Yun'wiya' only cut their hair for mourning.”
Charlotte offers the camera a dry half-smile. “What’s that, I hear you asking, but Charlotte, you’re Cherokee… Not that weird word you just said. The fact of the matter is that Cherokee is the name we were given by others. In that specific example, it was the Creek people who called us that, which meant ‘people of a different speech’. The Choctaw called us Tsalagi, which meant ‘people living in a land of many caves’. So what does Ani'-Yun'wiya' mean then? Without going into all the ego-centric variations, it boils down to ‘The Principal People’... When we still lived in our ancestral lands of the south-east, we were the first to greet the sun every day…”
Charlotte snorts in amusement. “Isn’t it funny that the two cultures I come from place such importance on the rising sun? Japan, in Japanese, is called Nihon, which everyone by this point knows gets translated to ‘land of the rising sun’. And yet here I am, dealing with two sides that don’t seem to mix well, trying to find the balance between them.”
Emma brings over a screen and Charlotte ducks behind it quickly. In short order, Emma hauls the screen away, the dress Charlotte had been in over one shoulder, leaving Charlotte pulling her hair out from the neck of her red tank top.
“Honestly, I’m kinda dreading this match. Not because of the people in it, no… I’m worried I’ll focus on one person when the danger is coming from another. I’m worried I won’t stay grounded and get myself eliminated. There are threats from every direction and one wrong move, one badly timed jump, will send me to the end of the line. Sure my spot in Iron Maiden isn’t at risk, but the last thing I want is to spend the whole match in that coffin they call a Maiden and only come out to find the match is over. So I can’t be last in if I want any sort of chance at High Stakes.”
Charlotte sighs, pulling her hair back and twisting it at the nape of her neck to make it stay back at least a little while, the fine brown-black strands clinging to her hands. “I’m also not sure I’d want to start off in the ring for the Iron Maiden. Going bell to bell might seem like great cred, but it’s punishing as hell… I mean… unless one of the starting two manages to get a pin before any of us get into the match. It’s always a risk in this sort of contest, but with the caliber of women I expect will be there? It’s not likely.”
“And who do I expect to be there?” Charlotte asks, continuing the line of thought. “It’s easier to say who I don’t expect. I don’t expect Mimi, Candy or Nancy. Out of the other seven? If I had to pick who made it into the Iron Maiden with me and April Madrox? I’d eliminate Itami, Caroline and Serenity.”
“I’d eliminate Serenity for obvious reasons. Nat and-or I will probably make short work of her after clearing out the Performance Center fluff. Like… I get feuding, and it does take two for a fight to go as far as you two have taken it, but shit… Do you want a chance at the title or not? If you wanna just hurt people, go do your Fight Club shit somewhere else… like… I dunno… Neo-Honshu or something. They’re always looking for a good gaijin to be the bitchy heel for their women's division.”
Charlotte pauses thoughtfully before continuing. “Itami… Frankly, I’m not even sure she wants to be in the Iron Maiden, for all she showed up at that huge mess that started Odyssey a month ago. Since she threw her proverbial hat into the ring, she’s done nothing to show she actually wants it. Is she expecting to just coast in because she said she wanted in? I don’t care what your boyfriend - or whatever that Winters guy is to you - told you; you gotta actually do the work to get the cookie, sweetheart. You wanna fuck around, you gonna find out, honey. Fucking around with your chance to get the belt is the fastest way to find out you don’t get that chance.”
“Finally, I’d eliminate Caroline. Again, I’m not sure her heart’s really in it. Sure, she made that splashy announcement about when she’d be coming back and why… And I know she’s at least trying to earn her spot, which is more than can be said of others in this match… But it really only seems like a publicity stunt from where I’m sitting; all words and no real ability to back it up. I suppose she might squeak in, but she’s been out of the ring for… how long’s it been? Oh…” Charlotte blinks then looks surprised. “Only since Halloween Hell? Shit, was she actually in that six-woman match? I barely noticed her…”
Charlotte seems to wave the rest of that line of thought away. “I’m probably wrong about who’ll make it to the Iron Maiden. Knowing my luck in these things, Nat’ll be eliminated and I’ll wind up eliminated faster than I want to, and stuck in a Maiden, praying that I don’t end up in the same situation as Mai did last year. My high flying skill is more of a liability in this match than an asset, but as I’ve always said… No risk, no reward. We’re on the bullet train to High Stakes… And there are No Damned Brakes.”
Charlotte’s hand comes up to cover the lens, and the feed cuts. It’s later released with Cherokee and Japanese voice-overs.
“Enter.”
Charlie pushed open the door, swallowing her nerves and inhaling the incense that permeated the space. She hadn’t spent much time in her mother’s work space - not since her mother had realized that Charlie hadn’t the patience for the fine detail work involved - so she felt like an intruder. The small forges she used for working with precious metals were off to one corner, and her mother was descending the ladder from the upper level where she kept her regalia work.
“So what brings my savage daughter all the way to my workshop instead of waiting at the house?” Melissa asked, a wry smile on her face as she crossed the room to embrace Charlie.
Charlie sighed, leaning into her. “Mother, I…” From the depths of her guts, a sob choked off her words. “I am lost. I spent so long trying to show that I am Japanese that I forgot to show that I am still your savage daughter… and I don’t know how to show both.”
Melissa remained silent as she held Charlie, her hand making soothing circles on Charlie’s shoulders as the young woman wept.
“My dear girl…” Melissa started when the tears ebbed to quiet hiccups, her own tone soft. “No one can doubt you are a daughter of the Principal People. It is shown in your red skin and your uncut hair. But, my savage daughter, you are also a child of your father’s Rising Sun. I cannot tell you how to show both. Neither can your father, because we do not walk your path. Your brother has chosen his own way, and I do not see you making the same choice easily, and your sister watches you to see if your choice will work for her. I may show you what our people do, but I cannot tell you how to show it alongside what your father’s people do.”
Charlie heaved a shuddering sigh, resigned to the answer she’d always known, and expected, really. Her parents had always informed and educated her and her siblings, but had left it to the children to choose how it was shown for them. David had virtually given up on presenting himself as Japanese, even eschewing most things from Japan, and her mother was right. Charlie couldn’t do that. She had persisted.
She had persisted to the point, she admitted to herself, that she’d almost forgotten that she was still Cherokee too. No, not forgotten; it was a more insidious form of lapse. She’d come close to considering it less important, defining herself only in Japanese terms.
Maybe Pax had been right to caution her about using ‘haafu’ to describe herself so much.
“Who is Pax?” her mother asked, dropping into English, making Charlie realize that she’d actually spoken her last thought aloud.
Charlie quickly averted her gaze, but knew her mother would see right through her, especially with her cheeks going hot again. “He’s just a new friend at IWF…” she demurred, feeling unaccountably sad. She hadn’t seen him since before the OKC show, and she didn’t expect to see him before High Stakes. He’d called after his movie premier, but she’d been locked up in her room with Hannah and Rini reviewing footage of her opponents and erstwhile-partner. She’d also been having a minor panic about meeting April Madrox the next day. Since then, between training, fan events, and everything going on with the Murder, Charlie barely had time for herself. Even now, Rini was running interference with Hannah so the little-sister-turned-manager wouldn’t incite Charlie to sororicide.
“A good friend?” Melissa prompted with a slight smile, which only made Charlie shift uncomfortably, the heat from her cheeks spreading down her neck and up her forehead. Her mother shook her head, dismissing the question. “Nevermind… Come with me. Your cousin and I have something for you.”
With that prompting, Melissa turned and climbed back up the ladder and Charlie had no option but to follow after. The scents of cedar and sage grew heavier as she climbed into her mother’s favored work area. Charlie knew it wasn’t that her mother disliked working with the lapidary or smithing tools, but Melissa had always preferred beadworking, and only branched out to have a steady income.
“Em! She’s here!” Melissa called, and Charlie turned around to see her cousin poke her head out of a curtained area Charlie didn’t remember being there… but then recalled that Melissa had started training her cousin after her attempts to interest Hannah had failed, so it wasn’t too surprising that things had changed with the addition of an apprentice.
“Char! We were hoping you’d have time before your next show!” Emma said, grinning as she stepped out from behind the curtain, but keeping it closed behind her. Charlie immediately felt on edge. The pair of them had cooked up something and were about to inflict it on her.
The feed begins with a view of unfamiliar feet in simple black Mary Jane flats, and the recognizable voice of Hannah Shimizu muttering curses under her breath. The camera pans up to show Hannah looking more than a little irritated.
“C’mon…”
“But Tsuki, your mother and cousin could be upset about us filming in their -” This time Rini’s voice comes from off-camera.
Hannah whirls around to face the camera, cutting Rini off. “If Ma and Emma didn’t want us filming in the workshop, then they shouldn’t have held up my client using her as a mannequin!” Hannah retorted hotly. “This needed to be done hours ago…”
The camera followed Hannah from inside a house out into what looks like a back yard with an oversized two-story shed in the back corner. Hannah sets a brisk pace, making Rini jostle the camera to keep up.
They find Charlotte on the upper level of the outbuilding after carefully navigating the narrow ladder to ascend. The room was lined with bolts of all kinds of patterned fabric in myriad shades and jewelers drawers filled with beads of all colors. Charlotte herself is fully decked out in traditional Cherokee regalia while another young woman fusses with the fit of the dress, belt and sash.
“Charlie!!!” Hannah exclaimed, her golden skin going ashen. “If you were changing your gear, I should’ve -”
“Relax, Hanners,” Charlotte responds calmly. “Emma just needed someone to play model for her latest work and I happen to have similar measurements.”
“Though I do have something for her if you’re that concerned about it…” the woman identified as Emma adds, peeking around Charlotte.
“We can deal with that later,” Hannah sighs, waving her hand dismissively. “Charlie needed to get her promo shot like… two hours ago to allow for editing.”
Now it’s Charlotte’s turn for her face to lose its coppery color. “Shit. I thought I still had time!” Charlotte whirls on her cousin, the movement making a muted jingling. “Em! Get me out of this!”
Hannah makes a noise of frustration as she steps out of frame. “No time, Char. Just do it live.”
Charlotte grimaces even as Emma starts carefully removing the beaded ornaments and feathers from Charlotte’s hair. “So… first, I’ll apologize for the informality here. As you can see, my cousin’s getting ready to submit her entry for the Trail of Tears Art Show that starts April sixth. It’s actually her first time entering by herself and not as an assistant to my ma.”
Emma carefully puts the accessories in a neat pile as Charlotte speaks, and murmurs something to Charlotte that makes her nod. Charlotte takes a brief moment to shake her hair loose, the long walnut-colored strands cascading well past her hips. “I know it’s also probably weird to see my hair down, but again, helping my cousin meant a temporary hairstyle change.” She runs a demonstrative hand through a long tress, showing the true length of her hair when not disguised by her usual braid.
“Those that don’t know probably don’t understand why I’ve never cut my hair. Long hair is hard to maintain, hard to keep untangled, difficult to clean, and can lead to headaches because it’s so much weight on your head and neck. I don’t say I avoid all those problems… I even add to them because having long hair in wrestling is just asking to have it ripped out by the roots… but it’s important to both my cultures that my hair remain this long.”
Charlotte toys with the lock, twirling it idly around her fingers then brushing it flat. “Everyone’s seen how it’s viewed in Japan. It started as a loss of rank and privilege, then became symbolic of moving on from one phase of life to the next, either through retirement or motherhood. What you probably don’t know is that the women of the Ani'-Yun'wiya' only cut their hair for mourning.”
Charlotte offers the camera a dry half-smile. “What’s that, I hear you asking, but Charlotte, you’re Cherokee… Not that weird word you just said. The fact of the matter is that Cherokee is the name we were given by others. In that specific example, it was the Creek people who called us that, which meant ‘people of a different speech’. The Choctaw called us Tsalagi, which meant ‘people living in a land of many caves’. So what does Ani'-Yun'wiya' mean then? Without going into all the ego-centric variations, it boils down to ‘The Principal People’... When we still lived in our ancestral lands of the south-east, we were the first to greet the sun every day…”
Charlotte snorts in amusement. “Isn’t it funny that the two cultures I come from place such importance on the rising sun? Japan, in Japanese, is called Nihon, which everyone by this point knows gets translated to ‘land of the rising sun’. And yet here I am, dealing with two sides that don’t seem to mix well, trying to find the balance between them.”
Emma brings over a screen and Charlotte ducks behind it quickly. In short order, Emma hauls the screen away, the dress Charlotte had been in over one shoulder, leaving Charlotte pulling her hair out from the neck of her red tank top.
“Honestly, I’m kinda dreading this match. Not because of the people in it, no… I’m worried I’ll focus on one person when the danger is coming from another. I’m worried I won’t stay grounded and get myself eliminated. There are threats from every direction and one wrong move, one badly timed jump, will send me to the end of the line. Sure my spot in Iron Maiden isn’t at risk, but the last thing I want is to spend the whole match in that coffin they call a Maiden and only come out to find the match is over. So I can’t be last in if I want any sort of chance at High Stakes.”
Charlotte sighs, pulling her hair back and twisting it at the nape of her neck to make it stay back at least a little while, the fine brown-black strands clinging to her hands. “I’m also not sure I’d want to start off in the ring for the Iron Maiden. Going bell to bell might seem like great cred, but it’s punishing as hell… I mean… unless one of the starting two manages to get a pin before any of us get into the match. It’s always a risk in this sort of contest, but with the caliber of women I expect will be there? It’s not likely.”
“And who do I expect to be there?” Charlotte asks, continuing the line of thought. “It’s easier to say who I don’t expect. I don’t expect Mimi, Candy or Nancy. Out of the other seven? If I had to pick who made it into the Iron Maiden with me and April Madrox? I’d eliminate Itami, Caroline and Serenity.”
“I’d eliminate Serenity for obvious reasons. Nat and-or I will probably make short work of her after clearing out the Performance Center fluff. Like… I get feuding, and it does take two for a fight to go as far as you two have taken it, but shit… Do you want a chance at the title or not? If you wanna just hurt people, go do your Fight Club shit somewhere else… like… I dunno… Neo-Honshu or something. They’re always looking for a good gaijin to be the bitchy heel for their women's division.”
Charlotte pauses thoughtfully before continuing. “Itami… Frankly, I’m not even sure she wants to be in the Iron Maiden, for all she showed up at that huge mess that started Odyssey a month ago. Since she threw her proverbial hat into the ring, she’s done nothing to show she actually wants it. Is she expecting to just coast in because she said she wanted in? I don’t care what your boyfriend - or whatever that Winters guy is to you - told you; you gotta actually do the work to get the cookie, sweetheart. You wanna fuck around, you gonna find out, honey. Fucking around with your chance to get the belt is the fastest way to find out you don’t get that chance.”
“Finally, I’d eliminate Caroline. Again, I’m not sure her heart’s really in it. Sure, she made that splashy announcement about when she’d be coming back and why… And I know she’s at least trying to earn her spot, which is more than can be said of others in this match… But it really only seems like a publicity stunt from where I’m sitting; all words and no real ability to back it up. I suppose she might squeak in, but she’s been out of the ring for… how long’s it been? Oh…” Charlotte blinks then looks surprised. “Only since Halloween Hell? Shit, was she actually in that six-woman match? I barely noticed her…”
Charlotte seems to wave the rest of that line of thought away. “I’m probably wrong about who’ll make it to the Iron Maiden. Knowing my luck in these things, Nat’ll be eliminated and I’ll wind up eliminated faster than I want to, and stuck in a Maiden, praying that I don’t end up in the same situation as Mai did last year. My high flying skill is more of a liability in this match than an asset, but as I’ve always said… No risk, no reward. We’re on the bullet train to High Stakes… And there are No Damned Brakes.”
Charlotte’s hand comes up to cover the lens, and the feed cuts. It’s later released with Cherokee and Japanese voice-overs.
Well howdy there pardner.