"Dum de deedle da...oh, how did that go?" Koji muttered
to himself as he stumped through the snow, making the rounds of
his animal snares. With any luck, he'd have a nice, big jackalope
for dinner tonight. "Do do da dee...no," he shook his
bearded old head. "That's not right. I used to know the
tune." He sighed and stopped to rest beside a pine tree,
trying to recall a song he hadn't heard in years. "Do da da
duroo- -YAAGH!" His tuneless humming was suddenly silenced
by a slushy splat of snow falling on him from a branch above. He
looked up to see an annoyed-looking lizard hissing at him.
"I say!" Koji spluttered, his voice rising with anger.
He wagged his finger at the lizard. "You should have some
respect for your elders! Why, I've been roaming these mountains
for two thousand years, and-"
"Hey! Is somebody there? Help!!" A frightened female voice came from some distance away.
Koji perked his ears. "Eh? What's that?" Hitching up his robe around his ankles, he trundled towards the sound.
"Hello??" the voice continued, sounding close to panic. "Anybody?" Sniffling noises began to echo through the woods.
In a couple of minutes Koji came upon a pair of twisted pine trees. The sniffling sounds were very near now. He stopped and blinked at the twisted pines. Now, where did he know those trees from? Oh, that's right! He snapped his fingers. He'd set a big snare here a few days ago. So that probably meant -
Koji looked up and grinned at the large shape dangling from a rope in the treetops. "Well how about that?" he beamed. "Got myself dinner for two nights, at least!"
The sniffling promptly stopped. "Dinner? DINNER!? ME?! I AM NOT A DINNER!" The female voice was right above him.
Koji cocked his head at the thing in the trap. "Of course you are. I made this snare to catch dinner." He gestured as if tying and setting a snare. "Then you came along and walked into it," he made little walking motions with his fingers, "and you got caught, and so that makes you dinner. That's the way it works, you see." He looked up at the shape in the snare as though he were explaining something to a particularly dim-witted child.
"But I'm a person! You don't eat people!!" the voice wailed at him.
"People?" Koji blinked at the shape. He wiped his glasses on the hem of his robe, settled them back on his nose, and looked again. It didn't help. He still saw the same big, lumpy blob with a tassel of blue fur dangling at the bottom. "People?" he repeated. "What makes you think you're a person?"
The thing in the snare sounded exasperated. "I'm TALKING to you, aren't I? Food doesn't talk back to you!"
Koji stopped and blinked. He rubbed his chin. "Well...that's a matter of opinion, I'd say..."
"WILL YOU JUST GET ME DOWN FROM HERE?" The thing sounded ready to strangle him.
"Oh, sure enough, sure enough," Koji chuckled. "Can't eat you if you're all the way up there, now can I?" He reached into his sash and pulled out a long, thin knife. With a casual flick of the wrist he snapped it into the treetops and through the rope holding his prisoner aloft.
The thing hit the ground with a resounding thud. "OW!" It climbed to its feet, brushed long, blue hair out of its eyes, and turned to face the old man. "Gee, thanks," came the sarcastic response.
Koji did a double-take. Now that it was right-side up, it did seem remarkably person-like. He peered a little more closely at his find. "Say," he mused. "You know...maybe you're right. You almost look like..." Suddenly he stopped and started chuckling to himself. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle! You're one of them koorime ladies from the floating city, aren't you? What're you doing all the way down here?"
The woman sighed and relaxed a little. "I'm on a trading mission," she told him.
"A what?" Koji asked, cupping his hand behind his ear as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "No, no, no. Koorime don't have anything to do with anybody else. Everybody knows that. Are you sure you aren't food?"
"I'm not food," the woman repeated testily. "I told you, I'm a trader. I'm going to visit the villages to the southwest."
"Trade? Koorime?" Koji seemed unable to comprehend this.
"That's right," the woman said. "We've been going through a lot of changes lately. Maybe you heard that our city got shaken up a few months ago?"
Koji stroked his beard. "Hmm. I do seem to recall something going on, but I don't remember prezactly what it was."
"Well, a lot of the city was destroyed. We're building it all back, and there's a new council with a new leader in charge. She's a bit young for the position, but she has a lot of ideas that make sense. She's a lot more conservative than her mother was." The woman trailed off in thought for a second. "Anyway, she convinced the council that having trade with other people in the Makai might not be a bad idea, so we're giving it a try. You're looking at the first woman authorized to head a trading expedition." She smiled proudly. "The rest of my group is coming soon, and then we'll head off. I just wanted to hit the ground first, to get a feel for it before we left."
Koji shook his head in amazement. "Will wonders never cease," he said. "And here I thought that things were getting strange when the Grasshopper showed up again."
The warm March wind whipped through the trees in Yoyogi Park.
Leaves were starting to bud on the branches, but it would be a
while before they came into full bloom. When they did, hundreds
of people - tourists and Tokyo natives alike - would visit the
park to see the cherry blossoms.
Hiei sat in a cherry tree and thought about that. In all the time he'd spent in the human world, he'd never taken the time to notice the trees and flowers coming to life. Last year Kurama had tried to talk him into going on one of those ridiculous flower tours that were so popular in the spring, but Hiei had shrugged the suggestion off. Maybe he'd actually do it this year. And maybe he'd ask Yukina to go along, and somewhere along the way, maybe he'd confess their relationship to her.
Maybe.
A pair of humans, guy and girl, walked along the path near him. They were laughing. Hiei's eyes trailed them as they passed by, immersed in their own private little world. It was a world he would probably never experience - not for a long time yet, anyway. Despite everything that had happened to him, he still wasn't comfortable with being that close to most people. It was still too risky, and people were so difficult to understand.
A middle-aged woman walked past the couple on the path, wearing a red rose in her hair and a smile. The rose echoed the subtext of Hiei's thoughts. Kurama. How in the world had he ever let himself get so mixed up with a kitsune? They'd only been allies at first, nothing more. And yet, somehow, over time their alliance had deepened into something else. Hiei hadn't been able to admit it to himself before, but he couldn't deny it now. He had a friend. Who would ever have thought?
A familiar voice broke into his thoughts from below. "Hello. Enjoying the day?" As if materialized from his thoughts, Kurama appeared under the cherry tree, looking up at him. The kitsune had an uncanny knack for doing that.
"Hn." Hiei gave his usual reply to such questions, but a ghost of a smile danced on his lips. It was a very nice day.
Kurama laughed and climbed up into the tree to perch next to him. "Keiko is planning a picnic for this afternoon. She's dragging Yuusuke along, and Yukina's coming too."
"I suppose that means the hulking idiot will be there," Hiei said, referring to Kuwabara.
Kurama nodded. "And his sister, Shizuru. And me. How about it? Care to join us?"
Hiei stared out over the horizon for a moment, then nodded once. "Might as well. I haven't got anything better to do at the moment. But I swear, if that idiot starts slobbering around my sister again..."
Kurama laughed again. "I hate to say this, but you'd better get used to it. Kuwabara's like a dog, and he's completely devoted to Yukina. I don't think he's ever going to go away."
"Great. Just what I wanted to hear." Hiei shook his head and leapt down to the ground. Of all people, why did Kuwabara have to be the one with the likeliest prospect of becoming family? Still, the others weren't too bad, sometimes, if you tried to judge them by human standards instead of Makai ones. Yuusuke was actually pretty decent for a human, and even Shizuru had some spunk to her. And Yukina, of course...
Hiei stood still, closed his eyes, and let the wind play through his hair. He had been on a long journey in more ways than one. Mere months ago, he wouldn't have even considered having anything to do with such frivolous human pasttimes. This was a test of sorts, a new trial of strength. Strength came in many forms, and now he knew that friends were one of them. It would require a discipline different from any he'd ever known. It would require more than courage, more than an iron will, and more than speed or skill with a sword. It would require trust. He still wasn't comfortable with the thought of letting other people get too close to him, but maybe - just maybe - he thought, he could do it.
The afternoon sun shone brightly over the park as the wind whipped through the branches of the trees.
The End...and
The Beginning.
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