FicWad

/Book One: Princess Tohru/

Three Months Ago


Kagura was not running away.

Or so she told herself, as she lay listening to her mother's snores and the creak of the bed as her sister shifted position. Her gaze flickered to the window, covered entirely by a curtain of thin slats except for a slit of dark sky. She could have suggested that they leave the window open at least for tonight, but evenings in this accursed land brought a cold draft, and her mother and sister would have been instantly suspicious if she'd insisted on trying to sleep while shivering underneath the blanket. She tried to remember how long it had been since supper, and decided to wait a little while longer.

She wasn't running away, although she sometimes wondered if she wasn't being completely honest with herself. Life in the settlement had become nearly intolerable. People went around with grim faces and spoke in low, tense voices, and she wondered just who they thought were listening in. The rocks? The scraggly trees? Maybe the little gray lizards skittering around the huts were actually conspiring against them and planning a massive attack, starting with the systematic decimation of the local gnat population. She'd made the mistake of voicing out those thoughts once, and the reproachful silence she'd received felt a thousand times worse than if they'd yelled at her to keep her mouth shut. Her mother had nearly disowned her. The Ashari had suffered much in the past years, and by Kami, they had earned the right to be as dour and suspicious as a bunch of old hags. As an Ashari who had lost her father and brother in the riots that had driven their people out of their homeland and into the open sea, Kagura ought to be more respectful of her people's grief and deep mistrust of anything unfamiliar. And she was. Kami knew there were still nights when she woke up shaking and crying, memories of death and violence dancing before her eyes. She knew she would never be free of them, even if she lived for a hundred years. She would never, ever forget the pain of losing someone she loved.

She closed her eyes. Kyo...

Her mother snorted and turned on her side. Kagura froze, but her mother slept on. She exhaled slowly and unclenched her hands. They felt so cold and damp she wondered why her sister wasn't complaining about the chill. Now that the moment had come, she realized she was terrified. A part of her mind was jumping up and down frantically and demanding that she think about what she was about to do. What did she know about this place? Nothing, except that it was much, much bigger than the sun-kissed island she'd once called home. This land looked as if it could fit fifty sun-kissed islands. What did she know about navigating through forests and surviving bitter nights and tracking down quarry that could move much faster than she could and had already had a good two months' head start? This was insane. She didn't have the faintest idea where to go or where to turn to for help. She'd be lost and freezing to death within a week.

The image of a scowling, fiery-haired boy flickered in her mind. Kyo...

Her eyes flew open then narrowed into determined slits. This was something she had to do. Besides, it wasn't as if she was going on this journey empty-handed. She could hunt and fish. She could build a small hut of her own if she needed to. She could cook too, no matter how much Kyo ranted about her trying to kill him with her cooking. And if any robbers tried to bother her-well, she was the only one who could beat up the Ashari's best fighter to a ragged pulp after all. She could take care of herself. And what she didn't know, she'd just have to learn.

Oh, who was she kidding? Anything was better than staying here and slowly going crazy just waiting for news to trickle in. She was sick of constantly worrying and pretending everything was fine so that people would stop accusing her of being an oppressive mother hen. For once, she was going to something about it.

So I'm not running away/, she concluded her argument against her conscience. /I'm doing the right thing. /As she had always done ever since she was a child, she turned to Kyo for confirmation, and his voice quickly responded: /Run away? When you can just beat everything up half to death? Violent apes like you never run away/. She'd beaten /him up half to death after that remark, and it was only later that she realized that he'd actually complimented her, in his own gruff way. Tears stung her eyes. /Oh Kyo, I miss you so much/.

Go to him, Kagura/, a gentle voice whispered in her mind. /Find him.

She knew that voice. It was almost as familiar to her now as Kyo's voice. She'd heard it the first time many months ago, during one of those interminable nights aboard the ship. She'd been crammed into the cargo hold along with the other refugees, up to her knees in sick, miserable people. Finally, unable to endure the moans and the sour smell of sickness and sweat any longer, she'd fled to the deck and stood at the rail with the wind whipping her hair, eyes staring sightlessly into the impenetrable darkness, breaths coming in shallow gasps. She clung to the rail, fighting off the desperate urge to crumble into a million pieces right on there on the deck and cry and cry and never stop crying. The darkness was inside her, and she had no more places where she could run and hide. She had never felt so alone.

And then...she wasn't alone anymore.

She didn't quite know how it happened, but suddenly a woman was standing beside her, gazing out to sea, her white cloak fluttering behind her like a pair of wings. Her sea-blue eyes shone with a soft, kind light, and her red-gold hair streamed out like a splash of sunlight against the darkness. Despite the woman's mysterious appearance, Kagura felt no fear or resentment at her intrusion, only an odd sort of comfort. As if just by being near her, the woman was sharing her own warmth and strength with her. Kagura didn't think to question her presence, and for a long moment they simply stood side by side in companionable silence while the tension drained out of Kagura's body. After a while, the woman turned to her and smiled. "It'll be good to be home."

Kagura looked away. "I don't have a home. Not anymore."

To her surprise, the woman laughed, a happy sound that reminded her of summer afternoons. "Home begins here, Kagura-chan," she said, pointing to her chest. "'Home' is a place and time that matches the contours of your heart. When you know your heart, you've found your home."

Then she brushed back Kagura's hair in a sweetly maternal gesture, and Kagura found herself closing her eyes and throwing herself into her welcoming arms. She must have dozed off then, because when she opened her eyes she was curled up on the deck with her back to the railing, and Kyo was kneeling beside her, shaking her by the shoulder. "What kind of idiot falls asleep at the edge of a ship?" he said disgustedly. When she apologized, he curtly informed her that her mother had sent him to look for her, just to make sure she hadn't flung herself overboard or something equally stupid. She asked him if he'd seen a red-haired woman in a white cloak, and he gave her such a look that if she hadn't been feeling disoriented at the moment, she'd have kicked his sorry ass all over the deck. When she told him so, he snorted and turned his back on her.

He stalked back to the cargo hold with her trailing behind him. Even irate, Kyo moved with the lithe, rolling grace of a natural hunter. She watched him, and her heart swelled with so much emotion that her chest ached. "Kyo," she called.

He glared at her over his shoulder. "What?"

/When you know your heart, you've found your home/. "I love you so much."

He blinked, surprised that she'd said the words without trying to squeeze the life out of him in one of her exuberant-and extremely painful-bear hugs. Instead, she smiled at him until his face flushed. "Get away from me," he snapped before stomping away.

Kagura's smile stayed with her for the rest of the night. The red-haired woman was a dream, of course-she was too ethereally lovely to be real-but she was a dream Kagura clung to during difficult nights. Sometimes when the nightmares came, the woman would appear and take her hand, speaking to her gently, telling her not to be afraid. Then she would lead her out of her nightmare and into a soft, calm place, and Kagura's sleep would be peaceful again.

But Kagura wasn't sleeping now, and if she were, her sleep would be far from peaceful. For the past week she'd been having the same dream. It wasn't one of her usual nightmares, but it was a nightmare just the same. Kyo was there, his face looking as if it had been carved in stone, and his wine-colored eyes that usually snapped with temper or burned with the light of battle struck Kagura as oddly desolate. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear him, and he wasn't looking at her but at someone behind her. Then he turned and walked away until he vanished into the mist. She cried out his name and tried to follow, but a heavy hand lay across her shoulder, holding her back. She nearly wept at the wrenching familiarity of the scene. Kyou looked exactly like that the last time she saw him. And just as it happened before, she heard a voice speaking behind her.

"Let him go, Kagura. No one is allowed to come between a warrior and his quest. You know this."

It was the shuucho, Kazuma. Chieftain of the Ashari. The quiet authority in his voice and the unyielding hand on her shoulder was all that kept her from tearing free and running after Kyou. She bent her head and covered her face with her hands to hide her anguish. The mist thickened and surrounded her, and when she looked up, she could see nothing but shifting shadows. The hand on her shoulder tightened, hard fingers that felt as if they were tipped with claws digging into her flesh until she cried out in pain. She was suddenly aware of a low growling coming from the mist, the rasping sound of something slithering on the ground, and a sharp, nauseating smell, like rotten flesh and sulfur. The claws pierced her skin and blood flowed down her arm, but she couldn't move. The voice spoke again, and even the voice had changed, becoming something between a soft hiss and a high-pitched shriek. "Let him go, Kagura," the voice urged her. "The boy is cursed. You know this. The child of sorrow does not deserve a place among our people."

"Don't call him that," Kagura whispered.

The voice laughed mockingly. "I call him as I will. Go ahead, but no matter how hard you search, you will never find him. Your eyes will never see, nor your ears hear. He is lost to you forever."

"No," Kagura tried to say, but her throat closed up at the sight of the eyes-cold, yellow reptilian eyes watching her from the mist. They seemed to grow until they filled the world, and she opened her mouth to scream-

And she would jerk awake, trembling and covered in a cold sweat. Kyo. Something bad had happened to Kyo. But what? Nobody in the settlement would listen to her, let alone help her find him. They already believed her half-insane with her obsession with Kyo without her adding bizarre dreams of monstrous reptiles and disembodied voices. She'd also realized, with a frisson of alarm, that the red-haired woman who'd saved her from her nightmares before had not appeared in this dream. Had she been overcome? Was the monster too powerful to defeat?

Then on the seventh night since the nightmare began plaguing her, the woman appeared, coming between her and the horrible slitted eyes in a flash of white and gold. When the brightness receded, only Kagura and the woman remained.

"Forgive me for not coming sooner, Kagura-chan," the woman said, her voice soft with regret. "Some dreams not even I can protect you from."

"Kyo...what's happened to Kyo? Tell me, please!"

The woman shook her head. "I don't know. He has gone beyond my sight. But there might still be time, and he will need you before the end comes. You have to go to him, Kagura-chan. You have to find him."

And Kagura knew what she had to do.

It wasn't anything particular-perhaps it was the way the moonlight slipped through the slit in the window or the persistent chirping of the crickets, but Kagura suddenly knew it was time. She pushed the blanket aside and sat up, wincing as the bed creaked a little under her weight. She padded silently out of the room, glancing one last time at her mother and sister before slipping out the door, and darted toward the family shrine, with its crude portraits of her father and brother. The altar doubled as a trunk where they kept the sacred linens, and Kagura set the portraits aside, opened the trunk and pulled out the pack she had prepared yesterday, then returned the altar to its original state. She closed her eyes and murmured a prayer to her father and brother for guidance, then pulled her boots on and wrapped herself in the brand new cloak she'd bought at the market in Mizaka-a heavy, woolen thing that reminded her a little of the cloak the red-haired woman always wore. She carefully unlatched the door, and let herself out.

She'd gotten as far as the main street-or the wide dirt road that passed for main street in the settlement-before she was stopped by someone calling her. "Bwee?"

She looked down and smiled. "Keero! You've come to say goodbye?"

The small brown piglet sat on his haunches and stared at her with soulful eyes. Kagura bent down to pet him. "I'm sorry, Keero, but I can't take you with me. To be honest, I'm not even sure where I'm going myself."

"Bwee!" The piglet's face took on a distinctly stubborn expression. Kagura sighed, recognizing the look from long experience with a certain cantankerous red-head. She glanced around at the darkened houses. She had to admit, not too many would be willing to adopt an infant wild boar. She'd found him in the same marketplace where she bought her cloak. He looked so miserable hunched up in a cage, with a sign advertising a succulent wild boar, so she'd traded one of her most prized possessions-a pair of silver earrings belonging to her grandmother-just to rescue the poor thing, but when she tried to set him free in the closest thing to a forest they could find, he only turned around and followed her back. The others in the settlement, including her family and Kyo, made fun of the little boar and its completely un-boar-like devotion to a human being, but by then Kagura already belonged to Keero, heart and soul.

To be honest, she really didn't want to leave him behind. Somebody might just get a hankering for roasted boar one of these days. She smiled wryly at the piglet. "All right, you win. You can come along. Maybe when we get to the forest you'll change your mind about staying with me." Keero snorted his opinion of that, and she chuckled. "Really, Keero, sometimes you remind me of me. Now come on. We've got one last thing to do here before we leave."

Girl and boar made their way down the silent street until they came to a large house by the side of the square. Kazuma-cho's house. Kagura stared misty-eyed at the home of the man who had treated both her and Kyou with affection and respect, even when nobody else would. She and Kyou owed him so much. "May Kami bless you always," she murmured softly. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and carefully slipped it underneath the door. Her disappearance would likely cause a furor tomorrow, and the already paranoid people of Ashari would likely be seeing spies and conspirators at every corner if she didn't at least try to explain. Kazuma-cho would understand. He always did.

She took a path leading to a gap in the wall surrounding the settlement. The gap was wide enough for her and Keero to squeeze through. Once outside, she climbed up a hill then stopped to get her bearings. "Let's see. East would lead us to Mizaka, where I'd probably get arrested and you get turned into a tasty stew. South leads to the sea, the last place I want to go to. The west? Kami only knows what lies that way. Keero, where could Kyo and the others have gone to?"

Keero looked up at her and grunted softly. Kagura smiled. "That's right. How could I forget? They went north. Kyou said the Ashari's Promised Land lay to the north."

She looked back at the sleeping settlement. A brief thought drifted through her mind-would she ever see Kazuma-cho and her family again?-then she squared her shoulders and set off toward the shadowy north, leaving the settlement behind.

"I'm not running away from home, Keero."

/When you know your heart, you've found your home/.

Go to him, Kagura.

"I'm going to find it."




My apologies to Akane's P-chan. ^_^;