Disclaimer: Spirited Away and its characters belong to Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miazaki.

Chapter 1: The Pig Barn

Chihiro stared blankly into space. Only void greeted her eyes. At least, the void of a starless sky. She exhaled softly and let her body slump over the wooden railing of the bathhouse.

She was at one of the many parties that were thrown by the staff; she had only come because Rin was terrified of being by herself. Like she needs to worry, Chiriro thought vehemently, she's worked with these people for hundreds of years. What's so terrifying about people you've known forever? Rich brown eyes threw a contempt-filled glance over her shoulder at the other woman, who stood in the middle of a bunch of yuna, chatting away. Well, it doesn't matter now. I'm the one alone, aren't I? She turned around again, shifting so that her elbows could support her head. Scanning the horizon -- currently dry, the rain hadn't fallen for a few months -- her eyes accidentally fell on the barn a few hundred meters down the cliff's edge. A small feeling pinged inside of her and her brow furrowed. Her gut twisted slightly; whether in revulsion or anticipation, she wasn't sure.

Something about that barn stirred some long-dormant memory.

She wondered why she hadn't noticed it before. Sure, she may have been a bit occupied by the wonderful feeling of flying over the gorgeous landscape between Tokyo and the bathhouse, but it wasn't something easy to miss. It lay along the shoreline, and in the daylight she had flew in on, it would have been quite obvious with its red shingling.

"Chihiro!" Rin stumbled into place next to Chihiro, a faint smell of alcohol wafting around her nimble form. She mimicked the other woman's doleful position with an ease only she possessed. The two stared with the same expression at the endless plains until Rin broke the silence. "Something tells me that my usually cheerful Sen is not enjoying herself."

Chihiro flinched at the use of her old nickname. She wished that Rin would drop it already; she had fought to get her real name back for a reason -- it didn't matter if she remembered said reason or not. Her head turned slightly so that the light just barely hit her face. She smiled genuinely when she saw the washed pallor of Rin's skin and the rosy flush in her cheeks. "And something tells me you've been drinking."

"Oh, stop worrying," the other hiccuped with an annoyed smile, turning fully to her friend, "I can hold a few." A thin form swayed dangerously, even with the railing as a support.

"Well you've had a bit more than a few, haven't you?"

"Bite me," Rin retorted lazily, turning and refocusing her attention to the scenery.

"Rin," Chihiro said, her voice quivering in an attempt to act casual, "What's in that barn over there?" A slender hand extended towards the barn Chihiro had been regarding earlier.

"Eh?" Rin's eyes followed the hand, and Chihiro hoped against hope that the other spirit did not register the evident shaking. "Ah, that's the pig barn." Over-saturated boredom clouded the usually beautiful voice of the other spirit.

Chihiro said nothing, but let her arm lower slowly, trying to find the connection within the newly enlarged depths of her mind. Eyelids fluttered a few times, as if the rapid movement would clear the fog. Still, nothing clicked.

"Oi, Sen, you okay?"

Startled, Chihiro looked up again into the puzzled face of her friend. Something flickered behind the confusion, however. Chihiro only saw it for a moment. What was it? Apprehension? Concern? Something in the way Rin's face had flashed told Chihiro that her companion knew something. For the moment, she decided, playing dumb was the easiest action.

"Rin, do I --" Chihiro cut herself off, unsure how to word her query. "Have I been there before?"

A sudden whoosh from above and the soft taps of two feet on the roof made the pair look up. Green eyes smiled down on the pair's antics through a shade of green-black hair. Chihiro, noticing who the figure was, felt her heart leap.

"Haku!" she cried as he leapt to the balcony. The single, two syllable word held all the pain made by his absence and the pure joy at his sudden arrival.

With the barn forgotten and the swirling thoughts in her head swept away at the sight of her dragon, Chihiro rushed into the arms of the river spirit. He smiled softly, allowing the all-too-familiar warmth of her body encompass him. She kept her face buried in his chest. How long had it been? Two weeks? Three? She had stopped counting when the hours contained too much pain.

As Chihiro kept her face out of sight, Haku sent a warning glance to Rin. The other spirit looked away, as if indifferent, but not without seeing the flash of anger in his eyes. She knew that it was not normal for a spirit to retain their memory barrier for this long, but as much as she warned Kohaku about it, it didn't do an ounce of good. He was somehow convinced that Chihiro's memories would break her somehow. Rin didn't see the reasoning, but she knew better than to defy the dragon, especially when his power had multiplied through the reuniting of him and his river.

Rin nearly blanched at the thought of the foreman, who had learned the hard way that some spirits were too powerful to mess with. And, well, Yubaba is proof enough that Haku has a temper of death, she contemplated lightly. Being told off by what looks to be a child is bad enough, but I'm sure it was a bruise on her ego when she realized that he was winning.

She couldn't really remember when Haku became powerful. It took him so little time and time passes so quickly for spirits. All she knew was that one day he was suddenly powerful, more powerful than Yubaba. Though, when she thought about it, Rin supposed that he always had that power, only losing his river made him too disoriented to see it. No matter the cause, he somehow found/gained power and used it to his advantage. Frequently.

She shot another tentative glance towards the couple. Thinking about time was thought provoking. Chihiro had been in the spirit world for thirty -- forty years. She was like a baby to everyone around. Spirits age however they want, and what Haku had wanted was to be like that little girl who had fallen into his river. It wasn't just coincidence that he was the same age as that lost girl who wandered into their world. He had continually aged himself, whether consciously or by choice, nobody seemed to know. Then, after she was solidified, they aged together. Some twenty years back they stopped and became eternally young. Well, isn't that every girl's dream? Being united with her only love, her childhood love, Rin thought sourly. And that's what Chihiro had, every girl's dream. Rin tried to ignore their happiness, but they were just so perfect. Maybe it was a fabrication, but Chihiro believed it, so that's what made it perfect.

Chihiro finally pulled herself away from the comfort of Haku's embrace, but only to stare up into his face like a love-struck schoolgirl. Which, she fancied, she was. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't resist letting herself get lost in his features. Everything about him made her want to squeal with happiness, which she often did. When Yubaba was thrown from the bathhouse -- a bloody experience that she only heard stories about, never remembered -- Haku somehow finagled his way into the seat of power. With all of the extra revenue he soon brought in, the bathhouse's industry was at its prime. And extra money allowed for maximum pampering on Haku's part.

But as much as she loved him, and as much as he pampered her with gifts, she felt like a suppressed child around him. A foolish child who thought they knew everything, only to be thrown into the world and find out that they had no idea what everything meant.

At the sickening thought, she grimaced and pulled away, turning back to look at the flat plains.

Sensing a trespass on Chihiro's thoughts, Haku turned to Rin. "Could I talk to you in private?" She gave a small scowl, but pushed herself away from the railing and followed him out of Chihiro's earshot anyway.

Haku grabbed her arm and turned her sharply. "What did you think you were doing?" he hissed after shooting an extra glance to insure Chihiro could not hear them.

The other spirit yanked her arm away violently. "Don't you dare dragon. It may be against the King's creed to tell her what happened, but that does not mean that I can't push her a bit."

His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he bared his teeth slightly. "You know what I meant. She's too young of a spirit to remember just yet."

"What?" she nearly shrieked as her eyes widened in disbelief. When he sent a meaningful look at Chihiro, she continued in a lower voice, "You've said that for the past thirty years. You know that she should have lost the block long ago." She trailed off and looked at the subject of the conversation hesitatingly. After a few moments, she turned back to Haku. "I don't care what you think anymore, she needs to remember, if she doesn't she may die."

He flinched at that. She knew that it was the last thing he wanted, to be alone, to watch her waste away. He checked one more time to make absolutely sure that Chihiro remained blind to the secret that many in the bathhouse kept always in their heads.

There was no need to. Chihiro was staring off into the distance, brow furrowed. After Rin had been pulled away, Chihiro realized something. She had always complained to people who called her Sen that she had gotten her name back for a reason -- it seemed that it was a habit that refused to break -- but as she thought more about it, she saw that she didn't know what that reason was. As she racked her brain frantically, she became more and more frustrated.

What was it about today? First she sees a pig barn that she could have sworn had never been there before, making her mind stir as if it was trying to put a familiar face to a long lost name. Then her number one reason for hating the name Sen crumbles to ash to reveal that nothing was as she thought.

She continued to search the dark reaches of her mind for some sort of clue, but continued to grasp at smoke. She turned her frowning face to stare, bemused, at the barn again. Still she did not know what it was about it that made her brain jump into overdrive.

One thing she did know: it was going to bug the hell out of her.

{{A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this one. I love this movie, so if you do too, you need to read Velf's story: Courage of the Spirit. It's a trilogy that isn't finished yet, and it's awesome. Sort of the reason why I started writing this fic, but I hop that I don't steal her ideas. That would be bad.

Past rambling, I hope you liked it and if you did, review. You actually really need to because I won't update if I don't feel like people are reading what I write. Not accusing, just stating.

Thanks!}}