AN: Kubo and the Two Strings belongs to the wonderful team at Studio Laika. Please do go see it if you haven't already. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a famous Japanese narrative, but for the duration of this fic, I will be drawing on elements of Studio Ghibli's The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

"Pay careful attention to everything you see. If you look away, even for an instant, then you may forget."

These were my mother's favourite words, ones she had inherited from hers. She would repeat them, every day, as she sat in our garden, gazing down at the world below. It was almost a mantra, a spell, like if she said the words out loud, enough times, she would remember. Her bright eyes would become dark and stormy, her brow creased, showing flashes of a different time, a different place. Then it would pass, and her eyes would become luminous again, a polished mirror of our lunar kingdom, her brow smooth with an eternity free of worry.

As a child I was fascinated by the mystery behind their meaning. My mother was a woman of few words. These were among those she would deign to say, with force, and conviction. Sometimes, they were accompanied by stories, or rather, fragments of stories of an world different from the one I knew. When I was very young, she would sometimes sing a song with a strange melody to coax me to sleep. By the time my sisters were born, she had lost that too. I would sing in her place to my sisters, to my father, and they had been amused. But when I sang to my mother, in her moments of stupor, something would change, and she seemed less my gentle, quiet mother, and more a terrifying stranger.

I didn't understand. Had she been cursed, perhaps? Was this an extension of her punishment, to be marred by its memory even as she took her rightful place in the Heavens? There was reason I was capable of conceiving for her to be haunted by such a cruel, ugly thing in her long life.

The moon was beautiful. The pale light would set our silver palace aglow, every stone, every step adorned with its radiant kiss. The trees in our garden blossomed year round, each soft, perfect petal displaying her full glory for all to admire. The fruit was sweet, ripe, overflowing with juices. My sisters and I were clothed in the finest moon-silk, content to rustle around our home in the heavy robes, playing with our silk balls. Exquisite music floated through our halls, my father being especially fond of the shamisen. On rare occasions, when she was in a lively mood, my mother would play for us, and rarer still, she would teach my sisters and I. Only I developed sufficient skill and more than a passing fancy for the instrument in the end.

I still believe it is because of my song that I grew to become my father's favourite, rather than my skill as a warrior.

And there was magic. On the moon, we were gifted, we were powerful. We could bend and shape the world according to our whim, paint our palace a different picture every day, each more fantastical than the last. Meanwhile, humans, with their brief lives, and their pain, and suffering, squirmed and scrabbled around in the dirt beneath us.

I could not understand my mother's desire to be with them. And my father's words on the subject dripped with venom.

With every day I grew older and wiser, my mother faded, and her words with her. They no longer held any interest for me. My sisters and I would laugh, or sigh at her suffering. To us, she was a pitiable creature who was blind to the beauty of our realm. Though she had outbursts, lamenting the lack of "warmth" and "love" and "life" in the moon, and in her daughters. We dismissed them as the mad ranting of a woman who had known too harsh a punishment, for too long. How terrible a crime she must have committed in her youth to be condemned to this, I would say. And my sisters would nod in agreement.

I didn't know those words. All I knew was of the moon, and of my perfect life. I had no understanding of this "warmth" or "love" or "life" as my mother did. She seemed so much more alive in those brief moments of confusion, but to me, they weren't worth a world of suffering.

There came a time when even my father, grew concerned over a human warrior's growing strength. My sisters and I were sent to dispatch him, and eager to display my power, I landed long before my sisters. For the first time in my long life, my feet touched ground.

For the first time in my life, I saw the stars that the moon's brilliance had veiled from me. For the first time in my life, I wept, the taste of salt and bitterness on my tongue. I fought for my life, and revelled in the savage joy that was finding a worthy opponent. I looked into his eyes, and he gazed into mine.

For the first time in my life, I felt warmth.

AN: Sariatu's story reminded me of Kaguyahime's and this was born. Her voice is rather more cold and formal than in the film, but I like to think that she thought and sounded like her father and sisters before, and that it took her a while to shake the habit.