A/N: Hello! This is based off an ancient Japanese folktale "Tsuru Nyobo" (although it deviates from it a bit). HijiMitsu, tragedy & romance. I do not own Gintama nor this folktale, all rights belong to their respective owners. Thank you for reading!

~meowmeow814

Snowing. Drifting, lilting, and then the fall. Snow is the blanket on babes that steal away their breaths in their sleep. The pure magic that lull the scissors into cutting the strings too soon.

A silence reverberates down the valleys, through the forests, above the mountains, into the hearts. It booms with the deafening of nothing, the nothing that echoes so in the world of the living.

A broken piece of the snow, a tainted stain on the snow, a frozen crane upon the snow. Downy and gentle wings ripped apart savagely in a hunter's trap and the smooth wings rupture into a break of bones. Pain meshed through feathers as the bird is crushed in the raw net. A scarlet shadow lies below.

Snip. The crane sloppily tumbles out, a disheveled mess of cracking wings, sticking legs, choking feathers, into his arms. He gathers her together. Wordlessly, he lifts her, light as light, and trods his way back to his hut through the clogging beauty.

Days, weeks, months, seasons. The plum blossoms drift into dappled sunlight and into blazing star-fire momiji as the crane is nursed by the raven. But no matter how many times he breathes back life into her by day, she remains frail the next, the pale feathers withering into more silver slivers of softness, that small glow of life fading into more blanks.

He traces the delicate wing with a faint touch, wincing as a few more feathers spiral to the ground. The crane rubs her crown upon his cheek, fluttering as a few more smiles grace his face. A sigh escapes the wind, bitter with the coming of winter, sweet with the coming of deathly, embracing cold.

At night, the silent moon glows, moonshine pooling in every crevice and over every surface. He knocks the slide, he wants to see her, to touch her, to love her, but when he enters, only a kimono and scattering feathers remain. Only a thanks and memories remain.