Categories > Anime/Manga > Fruits Basket > The Prince of Snows
Dawn stretched thin fingers across the lake, and slowly, the forest awoke. There were no birds to greet the day with bursts of song, and no friendly woodland creature appeared to lend a touch of charm to the scenery. The forest remained dark and chilly, and gray mists retreated from the lake to wrap around the gnarled black tree trunks. Every now and then a branch would crack and a high, ululating cry would cut through the mists, sending a flock of squawking winged beasts into the air, and an occasional hundred-fanged creature would crash through the undergrowth, growling through both of its throats as it bore down on its smaller, equally vile-looking prey.
A mouse scampered by the shore, showing no sign that he noticed the abominations in the forest at all. He burst through the mist and stopped, standing upright on his hind paws to gaze across the lake, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air speculatively. His pure white fur took on a silvery sheen against his dreary surroundings, and the feeble sunrise was reflected in his eyes. Deep violet eyes that shone with too much intelligence for an ordinary rodent.
"Something's different," the mouse muttered. He padded to the very edge of the lake, letting the water lap up against his legs and tail, and examined the markings he'd made out of twigs and colored stones some days ago. "Five inches, maybe six."
He gazed up at the sky, his little face looking grave as he observed the coppery tang in the air and the ominous gathering of clouds. Even his fur felt as if it were standing on end. "An electrical storm. The second one this week. Something must be disturbing the barriers again."
His musings were interrupted by a heavy, rustling noise. A creature vaguely resembling a boar but twice as large and endowed with three lethal pairs of tusks lumbered out of the forest. It stopped at the sight of him, and squealed menacingly. Unafraid, the little mouse stood his ground, his gaze cold and steady as he stared the creature down. Not this again/, he thought, silvery whiskers flicking in irritation. Time and again, he'd demonstrated his off-limits status to the inhabitants of the forest, and the last time he'd reminded /this particular monster that he was the wrong prey to mess with, the monster had ended up with a paralyzed jaw and a gushing eye. In fact, he could still see the ugly scar underneath one yellow slit. It seemed, though, that the monster hadn't learned its lesson yet. His annoyance deepened. How he loathed these dumb, unthinking brutes, but he was well aware that their stupidity was precisely what kept them from turning him into their favorite chew toy. Unlike the monsters in the forest, he was cursed with a body that was small and weak and impossible to conceal in the darkness. His mind, however, was far from weak, and it worked swiftly now to assess the danger he was in. Horned boars sank like rocks in the water, but he probably wouldn't be able to swim far enough before the boar reached him. But there were other ways. Without breaking his stare, he calculated the distance between him and the twigs he'd planted in the ground to serve as a measuring device. A quick swerve to grab a twig between his teeth, a well-timed leap the moment the boar moved to skewer him, and perhaps that lovely, tender spot right below the ear. He wouldn't kill the wretched thing, but the pressure point was guaranteed to make it wish that he had.
If the boar had attempted to surprise him while he was sleeping, though, he'd have killed it in a heartbeat.
The boar snuffled and squealed again, and the mouse tensed, ready to spring. However, the complete lack of fear in its would-be plaything appeared to have unnerved the boar, and a moment later, it turned and shambled back into the forest.
The mouse sighed, glad that the boar had not pressed the issue. While most of the monsters in the forest had learned to give him a wide berth, there were always a few stubborn ones, and the coming storm was bound to stir up a few tempers. But he was simply in no mood to fight. Besides, a voice in his head added mockingly as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water, the monsters should know better than to pick on a small animal with a reputation for being vicious when cornered.
Especially one who could not be killed.
His eyes hardened as he stared down at his reflection, and with a flick of his tail he turned and scurried toward the forest, but went still again when a nearby bush shuddered. It was ripped apart the next moment, and a rat of immense proportions emerged. The rodent was as big as a small deer, its coarse, black fur poking up in patches on its back between the scales of its armor, and its tail ended in a ball of bony spikes. It chittered and hissed at him, baring teeth as long as his body, all four eyes glowing red, but the little mouse regarded it evenly, unimpressed by its display. "If you're done asserting your superiority over me," he said blandly, "I'd appreciate a ride."
Its ears pricked, and a moment later the giant rat was crouching low, allowing the mouse to jump on its back and settle on top of its head, his little paws gripping the rat's fur. The mouse could feel the weight of the rat's vague, scattered thoughts flowing sluggishly around his mind, as if he was suddenly doing the thinking for both of them. It was another peculiarity of his curse, this ability to communicate with other rodents, no matter what size. Like every other creature in the forest, their thoughts ran mostly toward eating and killing and how not to be killed, but he found the rats to be generally more intelligent than the other monsters, in a sneaky sort of way, and as long as he brought them to places with good eating-easy enough, as they ate practically anything-they obeyed his will quite beautifully.
They darted swiftly through the forest, in and out of burrows and over and under twisted arches of tree roots, scurrying past thick webs of giant spiders where some poor, quivering thing hung wrapped tightly in silk, past acid-clawed tigers lying in wait for breakfast, past a blood owl perched high above, whose eerie green eyes rolled as it followed their progress. The sight of the little silvery ball of fur on top of the giant rat's head was enough to make them think twice about giving chase, and the two made their way through the forest relatively undisturbed. They stopped only once, when an earsplitting yowl made the rat twist around and bare its fangs defensively. A bright orange blur streaked across their path and landed on a nearby root, resolving itself into a fire-colored cat, shining reddish-gold despite the lack of light. A completely ordinary-looking housecat, otherwise. It hissed and spat at them, the fur along its back spiking up and its tail slashing from side to side. The giant rat hissed back.
"Don't," the mouse warned. "It's useless."
He gazed down at the ill-tempered feline in disgust. The cat was a newcomer in his forest. It appeared several days ago, yowling furiously and tearing through the woods in the grip of panic until it collapsed at the foot of a tree. Sensing fresh blood, the monsters had surrounded it, and it had taken the mouse the better part of an hour to drive them all away, with the help of the giant rats. He'd approached the cat to ask if it had been hurt-not the smartest thing he'd ever done, he had to admit, and all he got for his trouble was a wound across his back where a claw had swiped at him before he could dive into a crack between two tree roots. He'd searched the face hovering above him for the slightest glimmer of human intelligence, but the slanted eyes were completely feral. The eyes of an animal. The mouse soon gave up on finding any semblance of reason in the beast, and the cat joined the ranks of the forest denizens who kept mistaking him for a helpless little creature. The cat was considerably more persistent, though, attacking him every chance it got. Once, it even chased him up a tree, and the mouse watched in disbelief as it attempted to follow him all the way to the tip of a branch. He was flatly amazed that so much stupidity and single-mindedness could be packed into one orange bundle of fur. Even the monsters would have hesitated to pursue him that far. The branch broke, of course, and the cat plummeted down with a howl of outrage, while the mouse, riding on top of a leaf, glided smoothly toward a neighboring tree. Still, the cat would not give up, and the mouse had to marvel at the well-spring of hatred and bile that could prevail even over a cat's natural preservation instinct.
Kill or be killed. The cat had obviously taken the law of the forest as its own personal quest, and the mouse would have been only too glad to oblige, either way, if it weren't for the curse binding their souls to their present forms. They could fight for all eternity, the cat and he, but neither would destroy the other. There would be no escape for either of them down that path.
No escape, not even in death.
A shadow darkened the mouse's eyes. "Stupid cat," he bit out.
He urged the rat forward, believing that even a proven idiot like the cat would have to think twice about taking on a rodent that could easily swallow it whole, but once again he underestimated the creature's foolishness. Glancing back, he saw the cat bounding after them, its claws unsheathed as it leaped from root to root in hot pursuit. Silvery whiskers pressed back in exasperation. Unbelievable... He curbed the rat's instinct to turn around and tear the impertinent creature to shreds; there were other ways to get rid of orange-furred nuisances. At his signal, the rat jumped upon a low cluster of branches hanging in their way, forcing it to bend backward nearly to breaking point. When the cat came within pouncing distance, the rat leaped away, sending the branches snapping right back into the cat's face. There was a sharp crack of wood hitting flesh, followed by a pained wail that faded away as the distance lengthened between them.
The mouse shook his head. "Some never learn."
Their journey proceeded without further interruption, and the gloom grew marginally lighter as they neared the edge of the forest. They came to an odd sort of clearing, more like a hole torn out of the forest's flank, with the faintly stale scent of the lake drifting in the air. The rat chittered and bucked, and it took the mouse all his concentration just to keep it from turning tail and scurrying back into the forest. He couldn't blame it, though. There was something strange about the clearing. The air was sweeter here, the light brighter. Even the vegetation was different. Instead of gnarled trees and black brambles and spiny-leafed crawlers with bitter roots, the ground was covered with tall grasses and low shrubs, and here and there he could see white and yellow dots waving daintily among the grass. "Flowers?" he wondered, half doubting what he was seeing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anything like it. Certainly nothing in the forest or the lake could produce something as innocently lovely as a flower.
When the rat would go no further, the mouse sighed and jumped down. "Thank you for taking me this far." But the rat was already a vanishing shadow even before he could finish his sentence.
The mouse shrugged. His courtesies were wasted on the monsters; even Ritsu had said as much. But the courtesies weren't meant for them. Year after year of living in the forest and fighting for his survival had stripped him of everything he knew himself to be. There was no room for honor, respect or civilized behavior in the forest, and countless times the mouse had felt the instincts of the animal he appeared to be threaten to pull him down into the quagmire. But something inside him continued to struggle against the pull, and despite the promise of release in mindless bestiality, his spirit resisted the completion of his transformation into a common animal. So he clung to the old, half-forgotten rituals of courtesy, holding himself to the dimly remembered principle of honor as much as he could. It was the only thing that kept him apart from the monsters in the forest-the tattered remains of his own humanity.
And in the end, Ritsu had understood.
The mouse shook his head, annoyed with himself for indulging in self-pity, and set himself to exploring the clearing. The grasses towered over him, vivid and fragrant. The squat bushes turned out to be /amakaji/-sweetberries-and he even found one or two adorned with clusters of ripe berries. Emotion welled up inside him, and it took him several moments to recognize it for what it was: pure, unadulterated wonder. He plucked one of the shiny purplish-red berries and blinked at the flood of purple juice that poured over him when his paws poked right through the skin. He nibbled at it, and the sweetly tart flavor stirred hazy images from a dusty corner of his mind.
..."what's this one?"...
..."amakaji/, your highness. very ornamental and very delicious. would you like to try some?"... /
Realizing that he'd polished off the berry, the mouse stared bemusedly down at the mass of sticky, purple fur on his front. He turned toward the lake to wash the juice off, but was distracted by the sight of a huge reddish rock jutting up from the ground. The rock was strangely smooth and rounded, its peak curving in the air. He circled it curiously, and found that the other side ended not in another slope as he'd expected, but a hollow cavern, with its ceiling growing steadily larger as it curved inward and downward from peak to ground. The mouse frowned in bafflement.
/... "we're to plant these /amakaji around your favorite pagoda, your highness, so you'll always have sweetberries to snack on when you're reading."...
... "thank you. that's very kind of you."...
..."y-your highness! what are you doing?"...
... "helping plant the berries, of course." ...
He shook his head free of the disturbing images. As he pattered toward the lake, his eyes fell upon one of the white-petaled flowers that had fallen on the ground, and his steps slowed.
..."earth-stars. common weeds but very good for fevers. your highness, please, you don't have to dirty yourself doing this work. you have gardeners to do it for you-"...
... "don't pull them up."...
... "y-your highness?"...
... "earth-stars aren't weeds. being able to cure fevers is better than just being nice to look at, don't you think?"...
Violet eyes narrowed. Why was he thinking these useless things? He really was as big an idiot as the cat. With an angry flick of his tail, he dove into the water and paddled around until all the purple juice had been washed away, then he stood at the shore and shook himself until his fur fluffed out and he resembled a silvery-white puffball. An odd flash in the ground caught his eye, and he crept over for a closer look.
An object was buried in the ground, and all the mouse could see was a bit of polished wood and an inch or two of smooth, yellow surface. It was the weak light glinting against the patch of yellow that caught his attention. After a pause, he began to dig until he had uncovered the object, then he stood back, his heart pounding harder than it did when the boar had confronted him.
The object was a kendama, a child's toy. Despite the scratches and water stains, the burnished wooden handle with its little spike and cups still gleamed brightly, but not as brightly as the ball that had once been connected to the handle by a piece of string, because unlike the handle, the ball was made of pure gold. With shaking paws, the mouse pushed the kendama's handle upward until it flipped over, and there, painted upon the other side in a childish scrawl, were two words.
Yuki Sohma.
The mouse shuddered and looked up at the clearing. But it wasn't a clearing. It was a garden-a lush, green garden with rows and rows of poppies and roses and yellow bells. The forest was not a forest but a grove of fruit trees stretching graceful branches over a pagoda, the smallest in the entire garden, with a friendly red roof and curving benches just the right size for a little boy to curl up in with a favorite book and a favorite toy. Even the lake had disappeared, and in its place was a sprawling palace of white marble pillars and elegant walkways of ornately carved wood where lords and ladies passed by and smiled at him kindly, and beyond the walkways and marble pillars and halls of gold was the tower, where the king stood to survey all he ruled...the king...his father...
And Yuki Sohma curled himself up into a shivering ball of white as the memories surged up from the darkest recesses of his soul and drowned him.
A mouse scampered by the shore, showing no sign that he noticed the abominations in the forest at all. He burst through the mist and stopped, standing upright on his hind paws to gaze across the lake, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air speculatively. His pure white fur took on a silvery sheen against his dreary surroundings, and the feeble sunrise was reflected in his eyes. Deep violet eyes that shone with too much intelligence for an ordinary rodent.
"Something's different," the mouse muttered. He padded to the very edge of the lake, letting the water lap up against his legs and tail, and examined the markings he'd made out of twigs and colored stones some days ago. "Five inches, maybe six."
He gazed up at the sky, his little face looking grave as he observed the coppery tang in the air and the ominous gathering of clouds. Even his fur felt as if it were standing on end. "An electrical storm. The second one this week. Something must be disturbing the barriers again."
His musings were interrupted by a heavy, rustling noise. A creature vaguely resembling a boar but twice as large and endowed with three lethal pairs of tusks lumbered out of the forest. It stopped at the sight of him, and squealed menacingly. Unafraid, the little mouse stood his ground, his gaze cold and steady as he stared the creature down. Not this again/, he thought, silvery whiskers flicking in irritation. Time and again, he'd demonstrated his off-limits status to the inhabitants of the forest, and the last time he'd reminded /this particular monster that he was the wrong prey to mess with, the monster had ended up with a paralyzed jaw and a gushing eye. In fact, he could still see the ugly scar underneath one yellow slit. It seemed, though, that the monster hadn't learned its lesson yet. His annoyance deepened. How he loathed these dumb, unthinking brutes, but he was well aware that their stupidity was precisely what kept them from turning him into their favorite chew toy. Unlike the monsters in the forest, he was cursed with a body that was small and weak and impossible to conceal in the darkness. His mind, however, was far from weak, and it worked swiftly now to assess the danger he was in. Horned boars sank like rocks in the water, but he probably wouldn't be able to swim far enough before the boar reached him. But there were other ways. Without breaking his stare, he calculated the distance between him and the twigs he'd planted in the ground to serve as a measuring device. A quick swerve to grab a twig between his teeth, a well-timed leap the moment the boar moved to skewer him, and perhaps that lovely, tender spot right below the ear. He wouldn't kill the wretched thing, but the pressure point was guaranteed to make it wish that he had.
If the boar had attempted to surprise him while he was sleeping, though, he'd have killed it in a heartbeat.
The boar snuffled and squealed again, and the mouse tensed, ready to spring. However, the complete lack of fear in its would-be plaything appeared to have unnerved the boar, and a moment later, it turned and shambled back into the forest.
The mouse sighed, glad that the boar had not pressed the issue. While most of the monsters in the forest had learned to give him a wide berth, there were always a few stubborn ones, and the coming storm was bound to stir up a few tempers. But he was simply in no mood to fight. Besides, a voice in his head added mockingly as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water, the monsters should know better than to pick on a small animal with a reputation for being vicious when cornered.
Especially one who could not be killed.
His eyes hardened as he stared down at his reflection, and with a flick of his tail he turned and scurried toward the forest, but went still again when a nearby bush shuddered. It was ripped apart the next moment, and a rat of immense proportions emerged. The rodent was as big as a small deer, its coarse, black fur poking up in patches on its back between the scales of its armor, and its tail ended in a ball of bony spikes. It chittered and hissed at him, baring teeth as long as his body, all four eyes glowing red, but the little mouse regarded it evenly, unimpressed by its display. "If you're done asserting your superiority over me," he said blandly, "I'd appreciate a ride."
Its ears pricked, and a moment later the giant rat was crouching low, allowing the mouse to jump on its back and settle on top of its head, his little paws gripping the rat's fur. The mouse could feel the weight of the rat's vague, scattered thoughts flowing sluggishly around his mind, as if he was suddenly doing the thinking for both of them. It was another peculiarity of his curse, this ability to communicate with other rodents, no matter what size. Like every other creature in the forest, their thoughts ran mostly toward eating and killing and how not to be killed, but he found the rats to be generally more intelligent than the other monsters, in a sneaky sort of way, and as long as he brought them to places with good eating-easy enough, as they ate practically anything-they obeyed his will quite beautifully.
They darted swiftly through the forest, in and out of burrows and over and under twisted arches of tree roots, scurrying past thick webs of giant spiders where some poor, quivering thing hung wrapped tightly in silk, past acid-clawed tigers lying in wait for breakfast, past a blood owl perched high above, whose eerie green eyes rolled as it followed their progress. The sight of the little silvery ball of fur on top of the giant rat's head was enough to make them think twice about giving chase, and the two made their way through the forest relatively undisturbed. They stopped only once, when an earsplitting yowl made the rat twist around and bare its fangs defensively. A bright orange blur streaked across their path and landed on a nearby root, resolving itself into a fire-colored cat, shining reddish-gold despite the lack of light. A completely ordinary-looking housecat, otherwise. It hissed and spat at them, the fur along its back spiking up and its tail slashing from side to side. The giant rat hissed back.
"Don't," the mouse warned. "It's useless."
He gazed down at the ill-tempered feline in disgust. The cat was a newcomer in his forest. It appeared several days ago, yowling furiously and tearing through the woods in the grip of panic until it collapsed at the foot of a tree. Sensing fresh blood, the monsters had surrounded it, and it had taken the mouse the better part of an hour to drive them all away, with the help of the giant rats. He'd approached the cat to ask if it had been hurt-not the smartest thing he'd ever done, he had to admit, and all he got for his trouble was a wound across his back where a claw had swiped at him before he could dive into a crack between two tree roots. He'd searched the face hovering above him for the slightest glimmer of human intelligence, but the slanted eyes were completely feral. The eyes of an animal. The mouse soon gave up on finding any semblance of reason in the beast, and the cat joined the ranks of the forest denizens who kept mistaking him for a helpless little creature. The cat was considerably more persistent, though, attacking him every chance it got. Once, it even chased him up a tree, and the mouse watched in disbelief as it attempted to follow him all the way to the tip of a branch. He was flatly amazed that so much stupidity and single-mindedness could be packed into one orange bundle of fur. Even the monsters would have hesitated to pursue him that far. The branch broke, of course, and the cat plummeted down with a howl of outrage, while the mouse, riding on top of a leaf, glided smoothly toward a neighboring tree. Still, the cat would not give up, and the mouse had to marvel at the well-spring of hatred and bile that could prevail even over a cat's natural preservation instinct.
Kill or be killed. The cat had obviously taken the law of the forest as its own personal quest, and the mouse would have been only too glad to oblige, either way, if it weren't for the curse binding their souls to their present forms. They could fight for all eternity, the cat and he, but neither would destroy the other. There would be no escape for either of them down that path.
No escape, not even in death.
A shadow darkened the mouse's eyes. "Stupid cat," he bit out.
He urged the rat forward, believing that even a proven idiot like the cat would have to think twice about taking on a rodent that could easily swallow it whole, but once again he underestimated the creature's foolishness. Glancing back, he saw the cat bounding after them, its claws unsheathed as it leaped from root to root in hot pursuit. Silvery whiskers pressed back in exasperation. Unbelievable... He curbed the rat's instinct to turn around and tear the impertinent creature to shreds; there were other ways to get rid of orange-furred nuisances. At his signal, the rat jumped upon a low cluster of branches hanging in their way, forcing it to bend backward nearly to breaking point. When the cat came within pouncing distance, the rat leaped away, sending the branches snapping right back into the cat's face. There was a sharp crack of wood hitting flesh, followed by a pained wail that faded away as the distance lengthened between them.
The mouse shook his head. "Some never learn."
Their journey proceeded without further interruption, and the gloom grew marginally lighter as they neared the edge of the forest. They came to an odd sort of clearing, more like a hole torn out of the forest's flank, with the faintly stale scent of the lake drifting in the air. The rat chittered and bucked, and it took the mouse all his concentration just to keep it from turning tail and scurrying back into the forest. He couldn't blame it, though. There was something strange about the clearing. The air was sweeter here, the light brighter. Even the vegetation was different. Instead of gnarled trees and black brambles and spiny-leafed crawlers with bitter roots, the ground was covered with tall grasses and low shrubs, and here and there he could see white and yellow dots waving daintily among the grass. "Flowers?" he wondered, half doubting what he was seeing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anything like it. Certainly nothing in the forest or the lake could produce something as innocently lovely as a flower.
When the rat would go no further, the mouse sighed and jumped down. "Thank you for taking me this far." But the rat was already a vanishing shadow even before he could finish his sentence.
The mouse shrugged. His courtesies were wasted on the monsters; even Ritsu had said as much. But the courtesies weren't meant for them. Year after year of living in the forest and fighting for his survival had stripped him of everything he knew himself to be. There was no room for honor, respect or civilized behavior in the forest, and countless times the mouse had felt the instincts of the animal he appeared to be threaten to pull him down into the quagmire. But something inside him continued to struggle against the pull, and despite the promise of release in mindless bestiality, his spirit resisted the completion of his transformation into a common animal. So he clung to the old, half-forgotten rituals of courtesy, holding himself to the dimly remembered principle of honor as much as he could. It was the only thing that kept him apart from the monsters in the forest-the tattered remains of his own humanity.
And in the end, Ritsu had understood.
The mouse shook his head, annoyed with himself for indulging in self-pity, and set himself to exploring the clearing. The grasses towered over him, vivid and fragrant. The squat bushes turned out to be /amakaji/-sweetberries-and he even found one or two adorned with clusters of ripe berries. Emotion welled up inside him, and it took him several moments to recognize it for what it was: pure, unadulterated wonder. He plucked one of the shiny purplish-red berries and blinked at the flood of purple juice that poured over him when his paws poked right through the skin. He nibbled at it, and the sweetly tart flavor stirred hazy images from a dusty corner of his mind.
..."what's this one?"...
..."amakaji/, your highness. very ornamental and very delicious. would you like to try some?"... /
Realizing that he'd polished off the berry, the mouse stared bemusedly down at the mass of sticky, purple fur on his front. He turned toward the lake to wash the juice off, but was distracted by the sight of a huge reddish rock jutting up from the ground. The rock was strangely smooth and rounded, its peak curving in the air. He circled it curiously, and found that the other side ended not in another slope as he'd expected, but a hollow cavern, with its ceiling growing steadily larger as it curved inward and downward from peak to ground. The mouse frowned in bafflement.
/... "we're to plant these /amakaji around your favorite pagoda, your highness, so you'll always have sweetberries to snack on when you're reading."...
... "thank you. that's very kind of you."...
..."y-your highness! what are you doing?"...
... "helping plant the berries, of course." ...
He shook his head free of the disturbing images. As he pattered toward the lake, his eyes fell upon one of the white-petaled flowers that had fallen on the ground, and his steps slowed.
..."earth-stars. common weeds but very good for fevers. your highness, please, you don't have to dirty yourself doing this work. you have gardeners to do it for you-"...
... "don't pull them up."...
... "y-your highness?"...
... "earth-stars aren't weeds. being able to cure fevers is better than just being nice to look at, don't you think?"...
Violet eyes narrowed. Why was he thinking these useless things? He really was as big an idiot as the cat. With an angry flick of his tail, he dove into the water and paddled around until all the purple juice had been washed away, then he stood at the shore and shook himself until his fur fluffed out and he resembled a silvery-white puffball. An odd flash in the ground caught his eye, and he crept over for a closer look.
An object was buried in the ground, and all the mouse could see was a bit of polished wood and an inch or two of smooth, yellow surface. It was the weak light glinting against the patch of yellow that caught his attention. After a pause, he began to dig until he had uncovered the object, then he stood back, his heart pounding harder than it did when the boar had confronted him.
The object was a kendama, a child's toy. Despite the scratches and water stains, the burnished wooden handle with its little spike and cups still gleamed brightly, but not as brightly as the ball that had once been connected to the handle by a piece of string, because unlike the handle, the ball was made of pure gold. With shaking paws, the mouse pushed the kendama's handle upward until it flipped over, and there, painted upon the other side in a childish scrawl, were two words.
Yuki Sohma.
The mouse shuddered and looked up at the clearing. But it wasn't a clearing. It was a garden-a lush, green garden with rows and rows of poppies and roses and yellow bells. The forest was not a forest but a grove of fruit trees stretching graceful branches over a pagoda, the smallest in the entire garden, with a friendly red roof and curving benches just the right size for a little boy to curl up in with a favorite book and a favorite toy. Even the lake had disappeared, and in its place was a sprawling palace of white marble pillars and elegant walkways of ornately carved wood where lords and ladies passed by and smiled at him kindly, and beyond the walkways and marble pillars and halls of gold was the tower, where the king stood to survey all he ruled...the king...his father...
And Yuki Sohma curled himself up into a shivering ball of white as the memories surged up from the darkest recesses of his soul and drowned him.
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