Ice within the Blood
Disclaimer: The characters and places used in this story belong to the manga "Naruto" or Japanese folklore, and are just borrowed for this story. None is used in any way to earn money.
Yuki-Onna: The Yuki-Onna is a Japanese spirit, called "Lady of the Snow", and thus she is a personification of winter and its characteristic phenomena. The Yuki-Onna is pictured as a pale (sometimes nearly transparent), calm and beautiful woman and regional variations of or myth can be found. Nevertheless, she is always connected with the death by cold of lost wanderers. In one interpretation, the Yuki-Onna appears to ease the dying persons and sooth their anxieties and pain, while those fight against their death in vain. In an other, she uses a child as some kind of decoy duck to lure her victims. If anyone makes contact with that child, that person will be killed. In some variations, the Yuki-Onna takes on some vampiristic traits of character.
It began in wintertime.
Quietly, she hummed a wordless song, a simple melody, which primarily seemed to consist of low tones and was only occasionally disrupted by high-pitched sequences, like an outcry. No bird, greeting the first rays of the winter sun in this white-grey wasteland, could be heard; no stirring of the wind disturbed her singing, letting it echo gently over the barren plain.
Out here, there was nothing, except snow and ice, some miserable bushes – black, arbitrary lines on white – and a few scattered rocks.
The woman knelt in front of one of those stones. Where her legs met with the ice-frozen ground the snow had slowly molten away and made its way into the white fabric of her kimono. She did not mind. Unwaveringly, she continued with her song, rocked her torso back and forth with the rhythm. Her long, black hair followed her movements, slightly delayed. This was not the first time. She had often been sitting in the snow, during winter's nightly hours, uncountable time lay still ahead of her. She was the "snow-woman". She escorted the lost wanderers who were threatened to perish by cold over the death's threshold.
Absent-mindedly, she stroked over the face of the man whose head was lying on her lap. It had a blue, white coloring. White crystals of hoar frost lingered in his hair, dyeing it grey. He was cold, immobile. Soon, she would leave him here, going away with his fruit of life in her belly.
She opened her eyes. A tear fell into the snow.
It began in wintertime.
The woman stood by the window; she supported herself at its sill. She was alone, staring into the fast darkening, wintry dusk. The room behind her was also dark. She had not lighted the lamps up. Her gaze was directed, as though entranced, at the red glowing in the distance.
They were closing in: war, raging mob, death. These were hard times. Her village lay remote. Therefore they had been spared up until now. But how long further?
If she wanted to escape she had to do it now. It was not long before she should give birth. It would be hard, no matter if she stayed or fled. The child would probably not survive, at all.
She closed her eyes, dropping her head. Behind her eyelids the flames kept on flickering. It was not easy to breathe calmly. The people were filled with turmoil. They feared everything that was different, that they did not understand. She had seen it before the unrest had begun, when it had been still brooding underneath. It had been a boy. He had wanted to impress the people, so he had performed some trick of water. They had not understood that, had attacked him, had beaten him to death. Later, she had gone to see after him, his bloodied face. Underneath his waistcoat he had been wearing a sewed on metal-plate. He had been a shinobi.
Something creaked behind her, startling her. The door had been opened and closed. Someone had entered, clad in a dark cape. White patches of snow were visible. They were melting quickly. It was a man. It was her husband.
He removed the cape, went to her, laying one arm around her, the other on her belly. He kissed her on her forhead.
"Soon."
It began in wintertime.
He stood between the trees and watched, smiling, the child that was playing in the snow, in front of the house. It was his son. Even though the times were rough, troubling, the laughing of a child was soothing.
It was a happy game. The little one formed snowballs, threw them up, watched how they fell down again. He himself had often been playing in the snow, together with friends, in his own childhood.
A woman came running, screaming out of the house. She slapped the child in the face, grabbed him by his shoulders, shaking him. She screamed at him, panicked. The child was frightened, could not answer. She shook him again, lifted her arm, wanted to slap him again, was torn away for him. She fell to the ground. Her husband was towering above her, with a raging face. He forced her up, began to beat her, again and again. She lost her balance. Her head hit against a stone. Blood was dripping into the snow, coloring it red.
The man turned to the child. The boy was looking at him with big, fearful eyes. That was not his son. That one created water from the between his hands, letting it freeze there. The woman had betrayed him That was not his child. That was a bastard, a monster.
He had to proceed with him as with a monster.
He moved forwards to the child, which fled into the house. Pace by pace, he kept closing in. Then, a sharp pain.
It began in wintertime.
The boy sat huddled up on a bridge, barefooted, with thin, half-torn up clothes, the hair long, ruffled. First knots had built. An iron ring lay around his neck, weighing him down, cold from the frost. He had been able to shatter the chain, once fastened there, but not the ring itself. It still marked him as a prisoner, a refugee. He had escaped the prison. Children with no home were locked up there, if they could be caught. Perhaps he should have stayed there. It was warmer in there than out here. He would have got something to eat, too, would not have been forced roving the waste bins.
A lot had already died. The winter had just begun. He had seen their frozen bodies, lying in corners and alleys, beneath bridges and in shacks. Some had been clothed warmer than him.
He was alone. He was alone for so long. He knew why, but he did not understand. He had done nothing.
In vain, the boy drew his legs closer to his body, wrapping them with his arms. His head fell down, his mind drifted away. Perhaps, the relieving sleep would come.
He looked up again. A man was standing in front of him, watching him. He was seen by someone. The man moved closer, squatted, looked at him directly. The man's mouth was hidden by cloth-stripes. There was something. They were similar.
The man stood up again, turning around to leave, but hesitated. He turned to the boy again.
The boy was laughing. It was the first time since long.
It began in wintertime.
He had been traveling with boy for years. He had proved himself to be useful, talented, overall loyal. The man was satisfied. He watched his companion cleaning his tools, sharpening them, sorting them, clearing them away. All was done conscientiously, thoroughly. The boy was smiling. He often smiled when they were alone.
A mask made of porcelain lay next to the boy in the snow. It was hardly visible. The man himself had given it to the boy just a few days ago. The boy's last one had been damaged during their last fight. It had to be replaced, otherwise it might have splintered in their next confrontation, hurting the boy. That one had been a cat-mask. Cats were sleek, maneuverable, fast. They acted silently. They possessed seven lives. They resembled the boy.
The new mask was a stylized human. It resembled the boy even more. It took a way little of his born-with difference, seemed to be more dangerous and trustworthy at the same time. The white color appeared less artificial, the red waves less put-up.
Some believed that the mask was no imitation of man but of a being of snow, a ghost who took away the human souls; the red waves would, then, be the victims' blood, which it drank up. They feared this mask more than any of the animal ones.
The boy had finished with his doing, the tools were stuffed. The man stood up, kicking snow on the small fire. It vanished.
It began in wintertime.
The snow-woman roamed between the trees. She dared not to enter the little clearing where the fire was burning. Two wanderers, a man and a boy, were resting there. Their path led them southwards.
She knew who the boy was, wished to fetch him, waited for the man to fall asleep, so she would be able to glide over there. But the man did not sleep.
With every passing hour she became more restless, pacing up her steps. The morning was closing in. They would soon continue their travelling. The last appearance of what she had given to this world would go away. She would lose this gift.
Some snow fell from a branch, the first messengers of the coming thaw, of the ever strengthening rays of sun that found their way above the horizon. The wanderers left.
The snow-woman watched them leave. She would never see the boy again.
Snow melted in spring.