Of Saplings and Swords
By, S.M.H aka Onion Girl
Samurai Jack is not mine (but Yarrow is!). I have no money (I'm a college student… of course I have no money.). Don't sue me. You won't get much. I'll put them all back nicely when I'm done playing.
Author's Notes: Done on a dare. G I'm already pondering the squeal since this one is done.. J Hope you like it!
Part One: Loss of the Ancients
The sky shone brightly above the samurai, scattering a colorful patchwork of shadows and sunlight onto the forest floor as he walked through the undergrowth. For once in the past weeks, he was sure that no bounty hunters were following, no one was out to kill him for the moment. He could truly relax, allow nature to seep into him.
Quietly, Jack walked on, the leaves and branches beneath his feet crunching slightly under his weight. As he walked, he noticed the trees getting thinner and thinner, the patchwork of sunlight slowly taking over that of the shadows. A clearing opened abruptly, making Jack stop suddenly.
Before him was a small dome shaped hill. He could tell that it was once covered by trees, but now, all that stood there were stumps and divots where the remaining memories of the tree had been ripped from the very earth itself. Through out the field, he could see the fallen bodies of people - he didn't know who they were, warrior or innocent. Concerned, Jack ran to the closest figure. It - because he couldn't discern gender on the sexless body - laid facedown, earthy robes the color of moss spread about the body in fragile folds. Carefully, Jack turned over the body, the fabric crackling to pieces at the slightest movement. Whorls of tattoos covered the face and what 'skin' was visible, like rings on a tree. Hair the color of dead leaves hung around the ancient visage of the now dead person.
"He was one of the last ancient," a voice like the wind whispered. In a flash, Jack was on his feet with his sword clutched in his hand. He turned and saw the source of the voice. Before him stood a young woman, clothed in a rich scarlet robe. Her skin was the color of a golden dawn, whirled with darker brasses like the deceased man's was. Eyes of amber looked at him, sorrow and age shinning too clearly in eyes so young. She fidgeted slightly, her saffron hair falling over her shoulders.
"What happened here?" Jack asked, his voice quiet.
"He who blocks the sun came and his soldiers destroyed those who were here because they wouldn't fight with him," she said quietly. "The ancients refused to help him. He killed them all and then destroyed the first forest."
Jack looked confused. "He who blocks the sun?" he asked, looking at the girl. "Of whom do you speak?"
She looked at him strangely, as if everyone knew of who she spoke. "A massive creature of shadows, with blood and roses for eyes," she said. "He bends and changes shape like a sapling on the cliff of an ocean."
"Aku," Jack muttered, looking around him where the rest of the deceased lay. Only he could cause this much pain and suffering for no reason. The girl simply shrugged, not concerned with names. She turned, walking back from where she had come. Jack turned to follow. "Wait! Can you tell me where he went? What direction?"
The girl stopped short, turning and looking at him. "Why? Do you wish to follow him? Are you one of his soldiers?" The girl seemed to grow massive - not in size but in power - at the mere thought that Jack could have been the reason that her home had been destroyed. "If you are.. I will kill you for what you did!"
"No! I'm not your enemy," Jack said, taking a few cautious steps backwards and displaying the empty hands towards the girl. She seemed to be satisfied. The samurai sighed, looking at her. "I wish to fight him so I can return to my home."
"Your home? Can you not just walk there?" she asked, curious.
"I am separated from my home by more than just distance in miles, but in years and alternate endings," he said.
She nodded, seeming to accept his answer. "I have seen many people walk through this forest, all looking for their homes. I don't know how many got there," she said sadly. "But if you wish to seek the one you call Aku, he traveled towards the sun goes down," she said, pointing to the western horizon. "But that was several moons ago," she said. "You will not catch up with him."
Jack shook his head. "I must try," he said.
"It is darkening," the girl stated simply. "You should not travel in these woods when the Light giver goes down. Come." The girl turned, the fabric of her simple outfit flowing with her graceful movements.
"Don't you wish to bury your kin?" Jack asked, motioning back towards the domed hill.
The girl turned, her sad eyes looking though him. "What was come from the earth will return in its own time and give life once more," she said. "It is not our way to suffocate them beneath the earth. Weather, time and the elements will care for that." She turned again, walking towards the way that Jack had come. Jack followed.
The walk was short, the girl stopping before a massive, ancient tree. As the girl approached, the tree seemed to shiver in greeting, bending down its branches to embrace the girl. Smiling radiantly, she approached the tree, tossing her arms around one of the branches and hugging it as one would embrace an old friend. For a moment, Jack was forgotten as she seemed to whisper to it, her voice like the sound of wind through leaves. She motioned towards the samurai as she talked. The tree seemed to finally take notice of him, straightening out and stretching out massive branches to strike at him. Jack raised his sword, prepared to defend himself.
"No! Don't!" The girl was in front of the offending branches in a breath, her back towards Jack as she talked once more to the tree in the odd voice she had been before. She seemed to be pleading with it. Finally, the tree seemed to sigh, settling once more and draping branches over them to keep most of the sun off of them. The girl sighed.
"I'm sorry," she said. "After so long, he has so little manners." She smiled fondly up at the tree.
"Were you talking to the tree?" he asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion. The girl nodded.
"Of course," she said. "How else would I have kept it from pulling you up and allowing you to dry in the sun?" She asked this so casually that it threw Jack. "But he that keeps the small from the wind and the large from the rain wouldn't do that. He has a sympathetic streak in him."
"What is your name?" he asked, looking between the girl and the tree, noting the similarities in coloring and the swirling marks on her skin.
The girl whistled softly, making another breezy sound.
"That is your name?" Jack asked.
"More or less," she said. "The one who walks in hand with the small keeper and the rain blocker. What is your name?"
"I am called Jack," he said. She looked at him as if she were waiting for the rest of his name.
"Only Jack?" The Samurai nodded. "How strange your name is," she said. "My common name is Yarrow," the girl said. "It's easier, the short lives tell me."
"Short lives?" he asked, utterly and completely confused.
The girl nodded once more. "Like you," she said. "They tell me the at most people don't have long names."
"Why am I a 'short life'?"
The girl smiled. "Because, your lives are that of a breath compared to mine," she said. "I've lived over a thousand years," she said. Jack sat down suddenly.
"Perhaps you should explain all of this to me," Jack said. Yarrow smiled, seating herself on the carpet of leaves and moss.
"It would help erase the look of confusion on your face," she said. And there she started in on her tale.
So she told the one called Jack of the long dreamy life of her kind, of years being a mere sigh. She told him of snows, of rains, of wind and sun. She told him of how their kind came to be - the product of peace between man and the massive first forest, the forest that all forests were children of. She told him of it all, in long dreamy words strung together like prose. And as the forest grew darker, the very tree they sat under radiated a soft, earthly white glow, illuminating Yarrow's face in insubstantial shadows. It went on until early morning, when the sun was first peaking over the horizon like a meek child. When the tree child called Yarrow paused her story and turned to look at her companion, she saw the samurai, carefully wedged between the massive roots of He-who-keeps-the-small-from-the-wind-and-the-large-from-the-rain, asleep. Smiling, the girl turned and walked towards the forest to prepare for the long journey ahead.
After all, she couldn't allow this little short life to have all of the good fortune, now could she?