First of all, thanks to everyone who commented on the Prologue.
The following chapter is the direct result of your encouragement,
and more will be following shortly. ^_^
C&C is very welcome and appreciated.
Kokoro no Nozomi (Desires of the Heart)
by Kitsune
Chapter One
The summer sun was blazing hot on Shinta's back as he
crawled on all fours through the boiling paddy-field water,
pulling weeds with an automation borne more of habit than
strength. Small as he was even for his nine years, the hot,
murky water came nearly up to his chin. His face was dripping
with sweat and grime, and his red hair was dulled and drenched
from the many times his hand or knee had slipped on the mud,
plunging him into the water over his head. When he stood,
spluttering, turbid water streaming from his nose and mouth,
Junkei was immediately upon him with a foul-mouthed reprimand
and -- if he wasn't back on his knees fast enough -- a sharp blow
across his back with the bamboo rod.
So Shinta tried not to slip.
It wasn't easy. His eyes were heavy-lidded with exhaustion.
Hunger was an ever-present gnawing hollowness in his stomach, and
deep, consuming weariness tugged at his small body like weights
tied to his hands and feet as he slugged through the water.
But he couldn't stop to rest. He didn't dare -- not with
Junkei looking for any excuse to come and stripe his back. And
as bad as it was to work in the hot, humid fields all day, it was
even worse to work in the hot, humid fields all day with bloody
welts that became infected all too easily in the filthy water.
The pinched-faced slave trader had never forgiven him,
Shinta knew, for that time so long ago when he had dared to step
between him and the old woman he was beating for dropping a jar
of sake. Shinta had even yelled at Junkei to stop, righteous
fury filling his heart as he stood defiantly before his owner -
the top of his head barely coming up to the man's mid-thigh -
while the other slaves looked on fearfully.
The bludgeoning he had received then had been swift and
terrible. And as he lay crumpled and bleeding at Junkei's feet,
unable to stand, his eyes swelling shut in a bruised face, Junkei
snarled at him that maybe this would teach him to keep his mouth
shut.
It had. Shinta had never spoken another mutinous word. In
fact, he rarely spoke at all.
But he couldn't keep his burning indignation from shining
out of his eyes, and so even when he was silent and obedient,
Junkei always saw the truth of his thoughts in his face, and
tried to beat it from him -- though the beatings were never quite
so severe as that first one. Shinta still had to be able to
work, after all.
Here in the paddy field, Shinta knew he was relatively safe
from the rod... as long as he remained bent to his task and
didn't slip. For how could he even think rebellious thoughts
with the sun so hot that his brain felt as if it was melting
within his skull?
He was so... tired... And Shinta wondered, as he groggily
lifted his head and squinted into the wavering afternoon sun,
sweat stinging his eyes... if it would really be so bad if he
just... slipped one more time.
Only instead of standing back up, he could stay under, let
his weariness drag him down like a stone, breathe deep and take
the hot, black water into his lungs...
Maybe Junkei wouldn't notice his absence until it was too
late. Maybe Junkei or one of the others would find him, floating
face down amidst the rice plants. They would have to move his
body then. They couldn't have his corpse poisoning the field,
after all, even if they probably wouldn't take the effort to bury
him. Shinta wondered if they might take him back and lay him
atop the rotting pile of cholera victims they had passed on the
road last evening. Or they might just use him to start a new
pile...
"Don't do it, Shinta."
The whispering voice, almost directly in his ear, startled
him so badly that he nearly slipped again. He turned sharply...
but there was no one there. Only Razan, an older boy who was
slogging through the field a few rows away.
"Did you say something?" Shinta asked, his voice small and
hoarse from disuse.
The older boy barely glanced at him, his own sweat-streaked
face shadowed with fatigue and annoyance, before going silently
back to his task.
It couldn't have been him, Shinta realized. But then who?
The voice had been so real...
*The heat must be cooking my brains,* he thought with a
sigh. Tonight, he would have to try and stay awake long enough
to finish weaving that straw hat he had been working on for the
past week, ever since his old, weathered hat had fallen apart.
But, heat or no heat, what a strange hallucination, he
thought, to have emerged from his own mind.
*Don't do it, Shinta.*
He blinked, perplexed, and shook his head. Real or
imagined, it was a welcome distraction from the grueling
monotony, the humid heat, and his own bone-weary exhaustion.
And perhaps, he mused grimly, as he continued to crawl
through the muddy waters... perhaps it meant that he was not so
eager to die as he thought...
Nozomi breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the shadowy
thoughts of death fade from the boy's countenance. And she knew,
as she watched him puzzle over the mystery of her ghostly voice
at his side, that she had bought a little more time.
One more day of life for Shinta. And one more day of her
saving her strength, building her power so that she could someday
save him, the way he had saved her.
It was a constant battle, it seemed. She had watched over
him for almost two full seasons now, as the fading winter thawed
to spring, and spring warmed to blistering summer. And with each
day that passed, watching him, unable to do little more than
distract him with a whisper when his burdens grew too heavy for
his small, thin shoulders... her heart ached a little more.
She could do little, at the moment, to protect him from the
harshness of his life... and each frequent blow from Junkei's
lightning-quick bamboo rod across Shinta's body seemed to strike
her as well.
Junkei was still on the other side of the field at the
moment, she noted with relief. He watching the slaves work with
a careful, eager eye. His attention was, for the moment, turned
away from Shinta. Nozomi growled low in her throat at the sight
of the brute, and once again wished that she had flesh to
manifest her claw and fang, that she might tear out his throat;
that she might rend him limb from limb, and thus avenge every
angry red welt and bruise on Shinta's pale skin. Junkei was not
a large man, but he was still quick and strong, with a taste for
cruelty, and she hated him. She would kill him, for Shinta's
sake, if only she could.
But lately, Nozomi found that even Junkei was not as
dangerous to Shinta as the boy's own growing despair. Day in and
day out, he bent his back to merciless work that brought neither
reprieve nor reward. And worse, he could only watch as those
around him died from disease or exhaustion or... despair...
unable to help them...
And he wanted to help them. She could see it in his face.
His large, violet eyes clouded with unspeakable sadness, each
time he saw someone else's suffering. Just like when he had
decided to help a dying, frozen fox. And each time he could not
ease their pain, helpless as he was in his own... she could see
that, bit by bit, it killed him inside.
Like yesterday, when they had passed the pile of bodies in
the road. The others in the slave caravan had averted their
eyes, covering their noses and mouths as they hurried by, none of
them eager to behold what, in all probability, was their own
future.
But Shinta... Shinta looked.
He saw the old ones, paper-thin skin hanging from their
bones. The mothers and fathers, the children... some younger
than him. All dead. The stench of their decaying corpses in the
fading heat of the afternoon was overwhelming. The humid air
buzzed with clouds of flies. And still, Shinta looked, as if
trying to memorize each person, each sagging mouth, each white,
open eye, each splayed finger. Committing it all to memory. As
if promising to remember them, even if no one else would.
Was this, Nozomi wondered, what caused him to contemplate
his own death just a few moments ago? The sight of so many dead?
The growing realization, in the face of such continuing tragedy,
that he was utterly helpless against it?
More than anything, Nozomi longed to free this boy from his
terrible existence, so that he would never again have to wonder,
even idly, if the dark embrace of death might be preferable to
living.
*Just a little longer, Shinta. A little longer, when my
power is fully restored, and I will take you away from all this.
Then your suffering will end, and we will be so happy
together...*
But it would be a while yet, she knew. As a kitsune who had
abandoned her stolen fox flesh, she was a weak creature, and the
restoration of power took time. Usually, time for a fox spirit
was a small worry at most. Minutes, days, months and years had
no meaning when you were going to live forever... unless, through
carelessness, you got yourself killed....
She could manifest herself now, she knew, in a floating
flame of cobalt-blue fire, or even as a ghostly fox apparition.
But she would not be frivolous with her growing power. She
needed to save her strength for when it really mattered.
The sun was low on the horizon, staining the washed-out blue
of the sky with twilight gold, when Shinta and the other slaves
were finally allowed to leave the field. And she followed him as
usual. She followed, and watched. And ached.
She watched as he wearily slumped down on the grass and,
with water-puckered hands that trembled with fatigue,
methodically pulled the fat brown leeches off the skin of his
muddy arms and legs, leaving welts behind that trickled blood.
She watched as he staggered to the well to wash himself off, only
to then gulp water in his cupped hands in a vain effort to ease
his hunger pains. She watched as he stood in line to be fed a
scant meal of millet and ground chestnut that he ate with
agonizing slowness, as if trying to make each flavorless bite of
mush last a bit longer. She watched as he wove straw into a hat
with painstaking care, wincing as the edges of the straw bit into
his water-softened hands until they bled, and still he worked
until darkness made it impossible for him to continue. She
watched as he crowded into a small hovel with the other slaves,
curled up onto the dirt floor, and fell immediately into an
exhausted slumber.
Nozomi liked to watch him while he slept. It was the
most... painless time. And the most painful, in some ways. For
when the moonlight would spill through the holes in the thatched
roof of the hovel and reflect off the tears that he shed
unknowingly in his sleep, she wished for her fox form again, that
she might go to him and wipe his tears away with her tail, and
lick his wounds with her healing tongue to ease his pain.
As it was, she simply drifted near. And when she saw the
wetness on his pale cheeks under the tangled, matted fall of his
red hair... like now... she would lean over him and softly sing
the words of her heart to an ancient kitsune melody, until the
furrows of grief and strain that lined his young face smoothed
under the onset of peaceful sleep...
*Like Michinoku prints
Of the tangled leaves of ferns,
It is because of you
That I have become confused;
But my love for you remains.
Should I blame the moon
For bringing forth this sadness,
As if it pictured grief?
Lifting up my troubled face,
I regard it through my tears.
For your precious sake,
Once my eager life itself
Was not so dear to me.
But now it is my heart's desire
It may long, long years endure...*
And then, as the last notes of the song left her throat and
faded into the night... Nozomi felt her sister standing behind
her.
*Nozomi.*
Nozomi stiffened as her eldest sister's voice brushed her
mind with an old familiarity that angered her. How dare she come
to her now?
She turned slowly, her ears flattened, her jaw clenched as
she struggled to not bare her teeth.
Her sister stood on two legs, upright and regal, just
outside the hovel doorway, her moonlight-white fur lit by
starlight. She wore wooden sandals on her hind feet, and she was
dressed in an elegant silk kimono of sky blue, intricately
embroidered with sunset-hued flowers whose colors gleamed even in
the darkness of night. The tips of her three silver-furred
tails, testaments of her age and power, peeked out from the
kimono's trailing hem.
*Akomachi,* Nozomi acknowledged tightly, stepping
protectively in front of Shinta's sleeping form, the fur on the
back of her neck bristling as her sister glided into the hovel.
*What are you doing here?*
Akomachi looked up from the sleeping humans on the floor to
regard her with golden eyes. *I heard your song as I was passing
through this land,* she said, her spirit voice a soft, lilting
whisper in her mind. *I scarcely dared to believe the rumors,
that you had been saved by a human child, but... it is true. You
are alive.*
Nozomi did bare her teeth then. *No thanks to you,* she
replied shortly. *You ignored my cries for help and left me to
die amidst the thorns of a tengu's snare.*
Akomachi flinched slightly. *You would have had me break an
oath to the Lady?* she asked quietly.
That took Nozomi aback. *You... you made your oath to the
Lady?* To make an oath to the Lady was to put your life in Her
hands. To break the oath was to invoke Her wrath -- something no
sane kitsune would ever dare.
Surprise flickered in Akomachi's eyes. *But of course our
oath was to the Lady. By whom else would we swear?*
Nozomi was astonished. *By the earth, by the water, by the
trees, by the sky. Anything but the Lady.* She shook her head,
horrified realization filling her. *No wonder you didn't
come...*
*Then...* Akomachi said slowly, *you didn't realize the
nature of our oath?*
*How could I believe that you would do such a thing to me?*
Nozomi choked on a snarl of anger and grief. *What an oath to
make!* she snapped. *To pledge to the Lady that you would never
again come to the aid of your own sister. To bind yourself in
impotence, even when you have the power to help! I didn't
understand your oath then, when I thought it nothing more than
mere words, and I understand it less now.* She bit each word out
bitterly, then held her breath, for she had never before spoken
with such disrespect to her eldest sister. And, as her sister's
gaze pierced through her, Nozomi was suddenly all too aware of
her single tail and lack of a flesh form. Still, she grit her
teeth, determined to be unrepentant and unyielding, even in the
face of her sister's power.
Ever composed, Akomachi practically shimmered with
authority. *The oath,* she replied, *was taken with the hope
that you would cease the foolish behavior that so often placed
you in need of rescue from mortal danger. Had I known that you
would take the oath so lightly...* The white fox trailed off,
her ears twitching. *Kitling,* she whispered,*did it never occur
to you how _we_ might feel, being bound by our oath, listening to
your death cries, and being unable to come to your aid?*
I never thought you wouldn't come, Nozomi thought silently.
I never thought my sisters would truly bind their own hands
against me.
*I see,* Nozomi said at last, softly. *You thought to leash
me with your oath. And I, not seeing the rope about my neck,
strangled myself.*
Akomachi blinked in surprise at the young fox's calm words.
*Yes,* she agreed. *Just so.*
*Only,* Nozomi continued, her own golden eyes gleaming, *I
was not strangled, but instead rescued by a hand that would never
think to restrain itself from helping another.*
Akomachi's eyes narrowed at the rebuke and the defiance in
Nozomi's words. *Little sister,* she said, her voice a hushed
warning.
Nozomi turned away, and found her gaze drawn almost
instinctively down to Shinta's sleeping face. *I am alive,
Akomachi, in spite of your oath, thanks to this human child who
cared more about a dying fox than he did his own welfare.*
And Akomachi looked down at the boy for the first time, her
expression betraying her surprise at the sight of his red hair,
pale skin, and small, thin frame. This fragile mortal child was
able to break a tengu's enchantment?
Then she saw how protectively Nozomi hovered over him, like
a feral guardian, her rust-red pelt bristling, her eyes narrowed
to golden slits.
*Ah,* she said, her eyes widening with realization. *Your
song... It was for him? This human?* She closed her eyes with
a weary sigh. *Kitling, you have traded one foolishness for
another.*
*It is _not_ foolishness.* Nozomi said, her voice low and
intense as she struggled to remain calm. It was bad enough that
Akomachi had come to her now to reveal the painful depth of her
sisters' betrayal, but to attack the precious center of her
life...
Her sisters had never understood her love of things
substantial; the pleasure she took from the mortal plane. How
could Akomachi understand this?
*It is not so unusual for a kitsune to love a human,* she
whispered.
*Yes, but always with disastrous results,* the white fox
replied predictably, her three tails swishing uneasily beneath
the hem of her kimono. *Humans die so quickly, kitling,
especially under the influence of our affections. And this
one... The poor child doesn't look like he'll survive the
season. If you should Bind yourself to him now, the strain would
only end his life all the sooner.*
Nozomi's gaze hardened. She would not let her sister goad
her like this. Akomachi knew nothing of her, and certainly knew
nothing of Shinta. *He is stronger than you think,* she said.
*He was able to break the tengu's enchantment.*
Akomachi sighed. *There is that,* she acknowledged
reluctantly. *But still... even the strongest, healthiest men
have wasted away beneath the Bond.*
*Only when they were taken unwillingly,* Nozomi said
defensively.
*Oh, so he is willing then?* The white fox looked at her
with hooded eyes. *You have shown yourself to him, and he has
returned your feelings?*
Nozomi clenched her teeth and fumed at her sister in
silence. You don't understand, she thought. There is no way I
can make you understand.
Akomachi nodded sagely. *I see. So he is, as yet, unaware
of you at all. And yet, you seem to have decided his feelings
for him.*
You didn't see how he looked at me, Nozomi thought. You
didn't see the compassion in his eyes. *He is just a child now,*
she whispered. *But when he is old enough... when that time
comes, I will have more than enough power. I will show myself to
him, and he will love me. I know it.*
*Is that so?* Akomachi cocked her head, her golden eyes
glinting with some unnameable emotion that made Nozomi feel
distinctly uneasy. *Go your way then, since persuasion is futile
against your stubbornness. I will no longer try to stop you.
But when you finally discover the depth of your folly, you are
welcome to return home.*
I will never return home, Nozomi thought, as her sister
turned away to leave. You'll see. He _will_ love me.
She must have spoken the last out loud, for as Akomachi
glided out the hovel door, she gave Nozomi one last knowing
glance.
*We shall see.*
Shinta awoke slowly to the sound of an urgent whisper.
"Wake up, boy." A sandled foot prodded him roughly in the small
of his back. "Wake up before Junkei catches you lying down."
He opened his eyes at that, the threat enough to clear some
of the fog from his mind, and he groggily lifted one hand to
shield his eyes from the pale pre-dawn light filtering through
the cracks in the hovel walls. Miaka, a middle-aged woman whose
sun-weathered face made her seem far older than her years, leaned
over him. Shinta liked her because she looked out for him
sometimes. Like now. "Come on now," she said. "You're usually
not so slow to get up. Hurry, before we both catch the rod."
He stumbled to his feet, the last traces of sleep still
clinging to his brain. "Sorry," he murmured, as he followed her
outside to where the others were already eating their morning
ration of millet. "I... was dreaming."
That sparked the woman's interest. "A good dream or an evil
dream? If it is an evil dream, you must summon the baku to
devour it quickly, before it brings you bad luck."
Shinta shook his head, then reached back with one hand to
pull the tie out of his hair that had come loose during the
night. "I'm not sure what it was," he said distractedly. "I
don't know if it was good or evil. It was just... strange."
"Tell me," Miaka said, bending down to take the tie from his
hand, then turning him around so that she could draw his tangled
mop of scarlet locks into a high ponytail. "I'm good with
dreams."
He tried not to wince as she combed through the matted mess
of his hair with her fingers. "There were... foxes. A red one
and a white one."
"A white fox?" Miaka clucked her tongue as she finished off
the tie with a swift yank. "White foxes serve the rice goddess,
Inari. That could be a very good omen. I'm not sure about the
red fox, though..."
Shinta turned to look at her, his eyes shadowed and weary.
"They were arguing."
Miaka's eyes widened. "Arguing?"
He nodded. "I couldn't understand what they were saying,
because their voices were like... like rushing water."
"What happened?" Miaka's voice was low and almost reverent
in its quietness.
Shinta frowned thoughtfully. "They just... argued. I think
the red fox won, though, because the white one left."
Miaka paled.
Shinta looked up at her apprehensively. "So... it's not a
good omen?"
But the woman was already making a praying gesture, her eyes
closed as she whispered something so low that Shinta couldn't
hear, but he knew that she was summoning the baku on his behalf,
to devour his dream. When she was finished, she opened her eyes
and smiled weakly. "There," she said, patting him on the
shoulder. "Nothing to worry about now."
And then she hurried off to get her morning rations, without
a backward glance, as if eager to put some distance between them.
Shinta followed silently.
And, as he sat with the other slaves and slowly ate his
small ration of millet, he tried not to dwell on the fact that,
every time he closed his eyes, he thought he could feel... could
almost _see_... wild, golden eyes watching him.
*****
To be continued.