Inspiration?

This piece is to accompany this, as a birthday tribute to Rich:

Toshi stood rigidly beside his father, paint box in hand. He was supposed to be concentrating on the brush strokes, watching the careful form of the trees, the sweeping kimono of women, all captured in perfect balance with coloured dyes.

They were not his colours.

When he was alone, his eyes could see. They saw the world as it had become. Alone, the colours of the garden muddied, the kimonos aged and faded, and the trees, burned. At night, his haunts were ravaged by Akuma, rising from the lake, tearing up the roots of his people. At night, Toshi cried.

But today, as all days, the colours brightened, for Japan remembered the world as it should be. The women floated along the water’s edge, the trees rustled alongside the calming ripple of the crystal waters, and all was well.

Journey For Journey's Sake

Gaṇeśa sat back against the rock and smiled. It was warm, now that he had passed through the cloud which enveloped the mountain base, and the sun tingled against his weathered skin. They said he was elephant, but today, he was lithe and thin, although he had worn a sheen of sweat by the time he came to rest. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Slowly, still smiling, Gaṇeśa closed his eyes. It had been a good climb, one which he’d felt with joy as his bandy muscles had strained and burned. Indra and the others had laughed at his plans to climb the mountain.

“Ha! Old man, you’d never make it! Your hide would wither before you reached the top! Besides, why go to all that trouble, when everything you ever wanted is right at the tip of your fingers here?”

For the Gods were growing lazy and complacent; when the mortals place their everything upon your plate, you have no place for toil or worry. But Gaṇeśa was discomfited with gluttony, beginning to miss the humble serenity of mortal flesh. And so, he climbed.

They said that elephant would shift your obstacles. They were mistaken. Oh, he might help you to remember the drink-hole, but you’d have to walk the distance on your own two legs.

Deep within the silence, the methodic crunch of tired footfall wound its way up the mountainside. Gaṇeśa stretched his legs out before him, and watched the path, though it would be a good while yet before the climbers were in sight. The cloud was thicker now, forming a thick wet blanket, and the footsteps shuffled along uneasily, feeling for the worn tread of the path beneath them. Gaṇeśa remembered the choking of the cloud – though it had been thinner then – hitting his lungs. His hand twitched. How easy it would be to wipe the sky clean. But the sun tingled against his skin, and he remembered the climb. No.

After a while, Gaṇeśa tore his gaze from the white world below and stood. There was a tree a little way over the hill, and bound to be some deadwood for a fire to welcome them.