A/N: There isn't really a point to this. :D It's kind of something that floated into my mind and then onto paper. But please tell me what you think anyway. Reviews are luff. Oh, and I don't own Fruits Basket.
"From the Butterfly to the Cat"
The wind sweeps her long tresses with its unseen hand and she stares back into the sky with a forgiving smile. She crosses her legs and closes her eyes before she speaks. Her voice is uncharacteristically soft.
"It's like a butterfly…" She begins. Next to her, a young boy sits with his knees drawn to his chest, a protective gesture he can't seem to rid himself of. Hesitantly, he adjusts his eyes to her and listens.
"Once, there was a man who was hiking in the woods. He
was walking along when suddenly he notices a cocoon on the ground,
and it's moving. The man thinks 'There must be a butterfly about
to hatch', and excitedly, he waits for the butterfly to emerge.
Eventually, part of the cocoon breaks, and a bright red wing can be
seen. But then, nothing. It seems as though the butterfly is
stuck.
The man picks up the cocoon and waits, but still the
butterfly doesn't come out. He feels sorry for it, so he decides to
help the butterfly by cutting open the rest of the cocoon for it. But
when the butterfly is free, its left wing is shriveled and weak. He
tries to make it fly, but all it does is lay there. See, when a
butterfly pushes out of a cocoon, the struggle makes its wings big
and strong, so it can handle flight."
She looks to the boy, who, although young, seems to understand some of what she is saying.
"Life is hard…No, life can be pretty much crap sometimes. But without that struggle and hardship, we'd never be able to appreciate the good. For good, there must be bad. And…Without struggle, we'd never have the strength to protect that which is most precious to us. When the bad comes, it's that strength that turns it to good again."
She laughs at the boy's perplexed gaze, and ruffles his hair affectionately. He winces at the attention, but grins half-heartedly.
"Hey, make me a
promise, won't ya?" He looks up at her expectantly with wide
red eyes.
"You protect her, got it? Even if you have to
struggle, even when it starts to hurt, I want you to look after her,
make sure she's safe. It'll be a man's promise, between you and
me." She smiles at him again, putting up a fist, and he mimics
the gesture curiously.
"Okay…" He says finally. "I promise."
Later, the boy, no longer a boy, sits with the same wind in his hair. He sits over the sleeping form of the butterfly's daughter and brushes silken strands from her eyes. He wears that same half smile, unaccustomed to the feeling on his lips.
"I promise I'll watch over her. Even if she asks me to leave. Even if she…hates me."
In heaven, the red butterfly dances cheerfully with the white clouds. She can see the path ahead and can see the struggles. She knows that everything will work out in due time.
"Watch over my caterpillar, cat-boy. " She thinks before fluttering away.