Well, its me again. I've written the next part of the story, enjoy!
The Herons Flight Part Two
Amaya heard the commotion long before the torii of the shrine came into sight. The voice of a man rang loudly in the silence of the night, and there was the sound of fists banging against wood. Immediately, she sprinted down the narrow path as fast as she could. Somebody in the village down the valley must have become sick, or there had been an accident. She prayed to the lady that they needed her as a healer rather than as a priest.
She rounded the corner and dashed trough the gate. There, in the courtyard, she discovered a riderless horse with foam-flecked breast and neck. It had wandered off to the chozuya where it drank deeply, bridles dangling in the sacred water. Its rider stood at at the living quarters of the shrine. He fervently banged at the door, a dark bundle clutched to his chest.
She knew that man. Her heart clenched in anticipation. It was Shouta, her nephew and childhood companion. Memories came rushing back as she stood paralyzed for a moment.
Ao-sagi -bluebird-longshanks- was the nickname he had given her, teasing her for the long limbs and grey eyes that resembled the large heron of the lakes. Kitsune, fox-demon, she had called him in return for the mischievious glint in his eyes, the unruly mahagony hair and the may pranks he did. Live frogs in the tofu jar, a bucket filled with a sticky mixture of mud and rice-powder perched on the shutters of her window, waiting to come down, the list just went on and on.
As children, they had been inseparable, roaming the countryside.
He was always the elder, the bolder, the adventurer. She was the faithful sidekick. When he was ten and she was eight, he was the one to leave for the court of the warlord Morijama, she stayed behind. He was to be trained as a yojimbo, a bodyguard. She went to become a plain and boring miko, a hand-maiden of the shrine...
Every harvest moon, Shouta came down from the hills, where the Morijama dwelled, to help with the harvest, and went back there when the first snow fell. As soon as he left, she counted the days for him to return again.
When she was nine, Sho, the guji of the shrine, taught her miko-mai, the ceremonial dance. Shouta let her ride his horse Grasshopper when he returned.
When she was twelve, Sho taught her to read and write and made her recite the shinto scriptures until she knew them by heart. Shouta read her haiku and sang frivolous songs from the court.
When she was fourteen, Sho showed her the use and the making of ofuda, the warding sigils against the many kinds of oni. Shouta taught her to throw knives.
When she was sixteen, Sho introduced her to the art of healing with herbs and prayer. Shouta broke her nose.
She had clutched at her bleeding face, heart racing with shock after his bokken had accidentally hit her hard during a sparring fight, and was dimly aware that he had put his arms around her, trying to help... Upon reflection, it was then that she fell in love with him.
When she was seventeen, Sho, who felt his health failing, revealed more and more secrets of the cult of the lady to his only student. Shouta did not come.
It was then that she began to have dreams of Shoutas return. Childish dreams in which he proudly rode up to the shrine on Grasshopper, asking for her hand in marriage... he never returned.
Four years later, when Sho died, she had forbidden herself to dream of Shouta. Every harvest moon, she would dream nonetheless...
...but never in her dreams had he looked so dishevelled, twigs in his hair and mud on his hakama. And never in her dreams had there been deep lines of sorrow and anxiety etched into his face. Somehow he noticed her presence from the corner of his eyes and whipped around, grabbing the hilt of his katana in the process. He looked awkward, hampered by the bundle he was carrying. As he saw her, the tension left him with a sigh. His knees buckled, and he heavily leaned back to the door. His head drooped until the bangs covered his eyes.
"Ao-sagi... Ao-chan... I have done... questionable things."
The Herons Flight Part Three
The words fell like stones in the still of the night. Then there was silence. Amayas own, quickened breath, the rush of blood in her ears and the jingle of the horses bridles echoed in her mind. Her own thoughts she could not hear.
Shouta turned his back to her, shielding the bundle from her sight. As he turned, she caught a glimpse of a lighter shade buried in the dark blue of the wrapping cloth.
Over his shoulder, Shouta spoke again: "I need... where is Sho?"
"Dead. Last year." He turned again, and she saw his eyes widen in shock at her blunt statement. His gaze wandered over her, for the first time really taking in what he saw: a priestess, not a
miko.
"You..."
At this moment, she knew. Like a forgotten dream suddenly remembered in another dream, she knew. Amaya stepped up to the stranger that once was her childhood friend and reached out for the bundle.
"Give me the baby", she said simply, then took the burden from his unresisting hands. It was a tiny newborn wrapped in a makeshift blanket that had once been a fine silken obi. Its face appeared waxen in the light of the lantern hanging above the entrance. It was barely alive.
"Open the door", she commanded, as she briskly turned from the living quarters and walked up to the sanctum of the shrine.
She kept the ceremony to an absolute minimum. There was some leftover ink from that nights ritual, and the scroll of the temple register was swiftly opened and unrolled before the simple bronze bowl that represented the Lady of the shrine.
"Tell me the name.", she said as she dipped her brush into the inkwell.
"Tsubasa. His name is Tsubasa." Shoutas voice was soft, almost a sigh.
She wrote the name into the register.
"Tsubasa", she whispered in the babys ear. "
Ujiko Tsubasa. Named child Tsubasa. We are
kami. We know your name. We know
you. We will know your spirit when the time has come."
It was done. This child would not become a hungry ghost as long as the name prevailed in the shrine. It was all that she could do.
Ayame carefully lifted the small bundle and gathered it in her arms.
"I will take him to the Lady", the priestess said as she walked past Shouta, who was kneeling on the floor with his face buried in his hands. Behind her, she heard him shuffle to his feet. Faltering steps followed her to the doors of the shrine, then stopped. She walked on.
At the
torii, Amaya turned to look back. Her eyes met Shoutas sad gaze from the dark of the temple entrance. She knew he would stay there, staring at the gate, waiting, waiting... but not for her. The echoes of iron-shod hooves sounded from the valley below. She tightly clutched her burden and ran.
When she reached the rim of the lake, she fell to her knees, out of breath, shocked by the sight of the sacred water: The whole surface was shrouded in
mojimi -red maple leaves- glistening black in the moonlight. She bowed her head and sobbed. There were no maple trees on the hill of
Yata-no-tsukino.
With her finger, she pushed some leaves under and lifted a single drop of water to the babys mouth. The tiny lips were gray and cold. It was dead.
When the samurai of Morijama reached the lake with blood-stained swords, they found the body of the b*****d son of Toshiba Shouta there. They took the bundle with them and watched it burn on the pyre side by side with the corpse of beautiful Mizuki, the Lady Morijama.
Some of the men said that they saw a blue heron rise from the edge of the lake and fly away over the hill that night.
Nobody ever saw the priestess of
Yata-no-tsukino again.
