The House-Spirit and the Forest-Guardian - Part I

Through a hole in the roof, a patch of pale blue sky was gradually deepening to indigo. Yuame let out a long sigh, shivered, and rolled to his other side. The wooden floor was hard against his hipbone despite the straw mat. With a frown, he flipped to his back, and slowly opened his eyes.

Dust was swirling in the golden rays that fell through the broken roof, painting even the messy attic into a beautiful canvas. Yuame watched the patterns swirl in the gusts of wind overhead, folding his arms under his head. Seagulls and other waterfowl occasionally hooted outside. Other than that, there were no sounds.

Kaoru was not back yet. He couldn’t hear the owner either, nor sense his presence in the house. It was only him.

Yuame yawned, and indulged in a long, lazy stretch. Truth be told, it was refreshing to be alone for the first time in a long while. He’d nearly forgotten what silence sounded like.

Aside from a few occasions, Kaoru and him had been constantly together throughout this year. They’d wake together, walk together, bathe and sleep together. Ever since leaving the house behind he had once called home, Kaoru quickly became the new constant in Yuame’s life.

With his boisterous companion’s knack for causing trouble, the days certainly were not boring. And when it was just the two of them, Kaoru had no lack of stories either to keep them entertained. Yuame spent much time listening to the tanuki retelling his adventures, enthralled and attentive. After a couple of months, he finally started to question some of the details, but overall, they were the only source of information he had.

The tanuki claimed he had no siblings, but if he were to be believed, he had cousins in every corner of the land, from humble farm hovels to the current Edo government. Apparently even the shogun and him shared a bloodline.

Kaoru himself grew up rich, his family owning the land with the choicest hot springs in Arima. This meant he was used to luxuries - yet also possessed a healthy dose of ideation for a “simple life” outdoors. That was why during the first weeks of their journey, they had mostly slept under the stars or in simply constructed shelters. The tanuki had all the best intentions, clearly wanting to show Yuame how wide and beautiful the world was outside of the only house he had known. But while Kaoru would wake up refreshed and full of energy, Yuame soon found that he could not rest properly unless enclosed by walls and a roof.

Requiring a guest-room is literally in my name, after all…

It was Kaoru who told him he was a zashiki-waraji. According to the tanuki, they were house-spirits that took the appearance of children. He admitted he had never met one before, nor ever heard of one who had aged to adulthood. It left Yuame with many questions to ponder, but the fact that there was a name for his kind, and stories about them, was intensely comforting.

Yuame liked it when Kaoru would tell him more about other youkai, the supernatural beings of this world. Youkai had often been the object of conversation among the children in the house, but finding out they were real was very exciting to him. Yuame recalled his own thrill upon realizing the drunk visitor to his guestroom was a tanuki, though that glee had been swiftly cooled after observing him swindle his way through life. He had since come to accept that part of Kaoru’s nature, but that did not mean he approved of it.

Kaoru taught him that aside from tanuki, there were more types of shape-shifters, such as kitsune. He claimed these foxes were more stuck-up than his kin despite being less talented in shifting magic, transforming only into beautiful women to trick men. Then there were many types of benevolent spirits like Yuame, but also terrible demons, strange monsters and messengers of the gods. Kaoru had many colorful stories about them, and since he seemed to have met quite a few already, Yuame had curiously anticipated meeting any others on their journey. Others like them.

Unfortunately, the first of those meetings had not been a pleasant experience.

A gust of wind sent goosebumps over Yuame’s bare skin. He shivered, but remained lying down, a memory trickling down the inside of his eyelids like the tendrils of a dream.

It was the day after they were caught in a snowstorm while crossing a mountain pass. They were supposed to have left Magome-juku at dawn, but Kaoru had too much to drink the night before. By the time he and the hungover tanuki were halfway through the steep forest slopes, the first snowflakes began to fall.

Within moments snow covered the ground and the wind grew in force, making their next stop of Tsumago-juku unreachable. They would have been at serious risk of freezing if Kaoru had not employed his shifting magic. Up till then, Yuame had only ever seen him turn leaves into simple objects, so he was certainly impressed when the tanuki managed to transform a large tree into a tiny wooden hut, sturdy enough to keep out the wind.

With their shelter secured, Kaoru had shifted right back into his animal form. The tanuki claimed he did it to save space in the hut, and that his fur was more useful to warm himself and Yuame in the process. Yuame figured it was because he had expended a lot of energy, but said nothing as not to wound the creature’s pride. After making a small fire from a few spare branches and bark, the two had settled in for the long night, Yuame holding Kaoru in his arms.

The next morning, Yuame woke up stiff and cold but decidedly alive. Kaoru was still snoring, curled up in a ball of black and brown fur. Breath steaming in the air, Yuame had just stepped out to take in the sight of the snowy forest before him, when a loud voice boomed from overhead.

“What have you heathens done to my tree?!”

The shock caused Yuame to slip in the snow, and he landed painfully on his rear. He just caught a glimpse of something large sailing down towards him from the treetops. The frozen earth shook, and Yuame had to look up to the tall figure now looming over him.

A broad, muscled man glared down at him threateningly. His silky silver hair was so long it fell almost to his ankles, and despite the cold, he wore a sleeveless robe that also left his thighs bare. His face was mostly human, though he had strict, striking yellow eyes over a large beak-like nose and a wide mouth that tacked down at the edges. But by far his most impressive feature were two massive feathered wings protruding from his back, casting Yuame entirely in their shadow.