Haku was distracted. The air was buzzing with tension. There had already been one threat. He couldn’t dismiss the possibility of another. He dropped Chihiro off in front of her home without betraying his unease and headed back into the woods and towards the lake. There, he placed his hands into the water. The tremors were stronger there, amplified by the bowled sides of the lake. Haku closed his eyes, focusing in on the vibrations of the water on his skin.
The wavelets were coming from the northeast. The earth was restless.
Haku slipped into the water, following the current downstream into the bay. He could swim faster in his dragon form than any human could ever hope to, but he detested the necessity of it. Travelling in his physical form was like carrying heavy luggage: cumbersome. Dragons were not meant to swim through water; they were meant to be water.
Fish and small creatures exclaimed over his presence as he flashed past. Their master never bothered them so, they complained, as they were caught in the drag and spun through the vortices left in the white dragon’s wake. A curious sailfish swam alongside the strange visitor and inquired as to his reasons for being there. Haku didn't answer. He wasn't in the mood for conversation, and in any case, the sailfish was soon left behind.
He followed the eastern coastline, swimming far enough below the surface that he looked like a flash of sunlight on the water to any observant humans on boats.
The tremors came more frequently, sometimes so strongly that his teeth chattered from the force of it, but even when they backed away, they didn’t disappear completely.
He felt a slow, powerful intelligence surround him, probing at him. What brings you here, young one? the consciousness asked.
“Forgive me, Surugawan-sama,” Haku said. “I don’t mean to disturb you. I am looking for the source of the earth tremors.”
You are Nihonkai’s youngest?
“Yes,” Haku said.
My regards to your brother. Ask him to be patient. It is not time.
“My brother?” Haku asked. “What do you mean?” But the spirit of the bay had departed.
My brother, Haku mused. Which one? Surugawan rarely visited the palace, choosing instead to stay in his bay. Haku had no idea which of the potential heirs he favored. Whatever Surugawan had meant, it wasn’t good news. Neither of the Dragon King’s older sons felt particularly benevolent toward their youngest brother, when they bothered to notice him at all.
The water turned cloudy and sulfurous up ahead and the source of the tremors shifted to the left. I must be getting close, Haku thought. He followed the smell of sulfur and found where the sulfurous river flowed into the bay. He swam upstream, staying in the shadows and out of sight as much as possible.
He had the distinct feeling that he’d been here before. Thirty kilometers inland, he climbed out in the shade of a bridge. He walked onto the banks as if in a trance. The earth beneath his feet seemed to carry him forward. The fields and trees fell away to reveal squat buildings and people. He drew stares as he walked through the town - he had forgotten to change his appearance and his clothes were centuries outdated - but he didn’t notice.
He walked to the edge of the town where the asphalt became dirt again and woods began. He looked up at the trees, but there was no friendly wave from their branches. There was no recognition from their leaves. The riverbed was dry. Brush had started to creep up between the pebbles. He had thought, perhaps, that if only he returned everything would… be different. That if only he could cross into the Human World, if only he could come back to this place, it would be like coming home. But there was no response. It was as if the door was shut, indifferent to his knocking. He fell onto his hands and knees and shook uncontrollably, his tears falling onto the parched ground. If only he could sink into the soil as his tears were doing and become a part of the land again. He had passed through one barrier only to find another. He hated the skin which enclosed him, which barred him from the earth., which made him so impenetrably solid. The land had changed without him. It had forgotten him. Grief and anguish poured out of him in a deluge. His river was lost to him forever. He lost track of the time.
A hand placed on his shoulder finally made him look up. It was a young man, maybe in his thirties.
The man held out a hand and pulled Haku to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The townspeople told me they saw you walking this way. Can I ... help you?”
Haku took a shuddering breath. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he managed to say.
“I’m sorry,” the young man said again. “I know there’s probably no comfort for you right now, but please, staying here won’t do you any good. It’ll be night soon. Please, come to my home. If you need food, or lodging… It’s not good to be alone.”
By this time, the young man had turned Haku back toward town. He ignored the incredulous looks of the townspeople and seemed unaware of Haku’s strange appearance. He guided Haku past a squat wooden building to a smaller building behind it.
A young woman met them at the door and invited them into a sparse, traditionally furnished room. She left and reappeared with a tray of tea and joined them around the low table. “I’m sorry for your loss,” the young woman said. “Please, you can stay here tonight. It’s better not to be alone.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Haku said quietly. The couple waited quietly as he gathered himself. “Did you live here, fifteen years ago?” Haku asked. “Even ten years ago?” His voice begged them to say yes, to remember.
They looked at Haku and then at each other.
“I see,” the woman whispered. “There was a river flowing through here, ten years ago. I’m sorry. We thought you were a family member of one of the suicides.”
“Are you certain?” the man asked his wife. He turned to Haku as she nodded, and bowed deeply. “Kohakunushi-sama. We are honored, and sorry.”
“How do you know me?” Haku asked.
“We keep the old stories,” the man said. “There are photographs of you from over a hundred years ago. We thought you had gone. I never expected to actually meet you.” He hesitated, then added, “you look younger than you did, in the pictures.”
---
Haku consented to stay with the young couple overnight, but refused to take up space in their house. As a white dragon, he coiled up under a tree in the backyard, hidden from the street. The couple hid their astonishment well that after years of hearing stories, there was now a real live dragon sleeping in their backyard.
Sometime past midnight, they woke to the sound of cawing and a loud flutter of wings as birds exploded into flight over the forest. They went out into the street, joining the rest of the town in staring, mouths gaping, out over the trees toward where the commotion had come from.
Haku hadn’t been of the right mind to notice his surroundings properly when he walked into town the day before. He saw now for the first time the imposing sight of the familiar and perfectly symmetrical mountain that rose majestically over the forest. A thick plume of smoke rose from the tip of the cone.
Haku’s first thought was: What the hell is Fujisan doing? His second thought was: So that’s what Surugawan meant. Shit.
The young man looked around. His mysterious guest had disappeared, and a large white dragon was streaking through the sky toward the mountain.
---
The train rumbled under Chihiro as the light outside the window dimmed. Meadows and trees rushed past. Her friends slept on her lap but she sat stiffly, showing no sign of tiredness. Adrenaline and determination filled her – she couldn’t afford to miss her stop. The sixth stop. For Haku.
Chihiro felt something old and rusty in the water streaming down her face. It was so familiar. She pulled at it. A bicycle? The water shot up into the air and all around her people exclaimed over the pieces of gold left behind. She looked down at the green sphere in her hands and smiled.
Haku! He’s going to take me to my parents. He pulled her along by the hand and they ran through fruit trees and down the hill to a pigpen. “You must never come here without me, understand?” he said.
And Haku held her while she cried because she was lost and she didn’t know what to do. He was telling her she should eat, it would make her feel better. “It’ll be alright.” She would be alright.
She was standing at a window and there was Haku again, this time older, standing with his back to her under the tree on her school grounds. He turned to face her. Even though he was too far away to hear, she could tell what he was saying to her. “Don’t you remember?” he said.
Chihiro woke up. There was a train, and a pigpen… and a blur. The vision had been so vivid and filled with hope that she woke up clutching at scraps of color and feeling like her heart would burst, but the pieces slipped away like water in her hands. A voice echoed softly in her head from the last scene. Don’t you remember? There was sadness in that voice.
She buried her face in her pillow in frustration. Her fingers brushed something lying under the pillow.
The hair tie.
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