Title: Purple
Author: Icassica
Universe: Bleach
Theme/Topic: Unohana and her qualities.
Rating: K. It's all safe for the kiddies.
Characters: Unohana Retsu
Warnings/Spoilers: Soul Society Arc for the fact she's mentioned. Whatever. If it doesn't make sense you're not there yet.
Word Count: 646
Time: Twelve minutes.
Summary: Purple. A colour of many contradictions. But who can be the colour with a thousand meanings?
Dedication: Bekki, my friend for telling me to do something with colours.
A/N: A result of boredom. This is Retsu's and by the way, I spell things the Japanese way, SURNAME then FIRST name. It's more proper and I like it. So ummm…Yeah. Deal.
Distribution: Warn me please but then you'll be free to take. Just a word of warning; please don't try and pass it off for your own work. It's unfair and it's not going to help you or me. I don't mind if you stick on the moon if you credit me somewhere even if it's really small at the end. Rant over...
Purple: Unohana Retsu
Purple. The colour of royalty and peace and pride and honour and dedication. Purple is also Unohana Retsu. She stands for everything it stands for; prideful dignity and modesty with power and peaceful dedication.
But purple is also the colour of the bruise, deep and throbbing and painful and of deoxygenated blood, the sign of lifelessness and it is the colour of the growing storm, deep and swirling and angry.
And Retsu also stands for that; her gentle hands can become killer hands with the same techniques to save and to kill. Her eyes can grow cold and lifeless and her soul is gone when she is sad or lonely. And her anger is harsh and terrifying and deep and swirling and rage filled like the storm. But it is also short-lived and easily forgotten, even if the lesson remains.
Retsu was a lonely child; kept indoors with her books and forbidden to play. Some may wonder with such a childhood how did she come to be so caring and loving. The truth is simple; She took her cold, uncaring mother's example and did the opposite. Where her mother was cold, she was warm. Where her mother shouted and created, Retsu soothed and complimented. And so her talents for healing came to the fore.
"Mother Retsu" they called her at the Academy or "Mama 'Su" from those from the lower districts of Rukongai. And it was true. Unohana Retsu is a born mother and the colour purple is about nurture and gentleness and tenderness from the heart. Her skills, painstakingly honed over many centuries are for protection and to defend, to heal and to repair not for causing pain and torture or killing and destroying.
When her anger came it was always in the defense of someone else, to protect them and not to harm their attacker. And it still is today. Her skills protect the divisions and while the other divisions will ride to war and to battle, her squad will remain behind. Whole. Intact and ready to heal and to defend the body if not the mind.
But her anger, with all its swirling magnificence is rarely needed. Her gentle words carry far greater weight than shouts of rage ever could. Even the rowdiest eleventh division member can be made to lie down and submit with a single word or glance from the woman who embodies the colour purple.
And she does. She wears it on her body and in her skin. Purple eyes, from deepest, darkest plum as warm as an onsen or chips of palest violet colder than the Winter Solstice. Delicate hands, with purple tracing the life route through the life-giving hands. Not pink lips but purple, words of gentle honour and dignity staining as they exit.
Traditional and upstanding and steadfast. Unohana Retsu is indeed those qualities in the flesh.
But purple can also be pride and passions of the flesh and chilling tales. It can be deep secrets and forbidden love. And Retsu has those qualities too.
She has her pride for her work; when she pulls a Shinagami from the jaws of Death when others would have failed, she is proud. And she is passionate for love and for art and for things no doctor or healer should care about. Her dark secrets are dark indeed and chilling to the bone. Her lovers, though few in number are most certainly forbidden for one such as herself.
Purple is a colour of many contradictions. Pride for the cause and pride for the bearer. Passion for the work and passion in the bedroom. Power in the skill and power in the wielding. Purple is steadfast in some meanings but they can change from shade to shade.
But then again, Purple and Retsu are made for each other. Because Unohana Retsu is a woman of many contradictions too.
Number two in a list of thirteen or so...Reveiw please.