.:START:.
It was long ago when the Shapeless Ones still roamed in great numbers. Though they were not called that then. In their prime, they called themselves "shifters". They revered themselves as beings divine, blessed to choose their forms at will (only distinguishable by the oval gems in their foreheads), the origins of the highest demons, and considered themselves superior to all other races. Whether this was true, or whether they were just fanciful demons, or whether they were something different entirely, is still a mystery. However, their arrogance was legendary, or should have been, at the very least.
Our story does not start in their prime, however. It starts in their decline.
At the start, shifters could shift from their True Form to any other form that they wanted. They were numerous. They had many strange, almost mystical powers. But as time passed, the number of forms that a shifter could hold began to drop. They began to lose their gifts. In these sunset years, the no shifters had none of the gifts that their ancestors did, and the majority only held one form other than their True Forms. The occasional gifted shifter could hold two. The three purest lines, always honored as the strongest, started to vanish. Now, there was only one left, the Origins, and they could hold only two forms at best. Until she was born.
She was the strongest shifter born into their line in many years. She held three shapes outside of her True Form. A she-wolf, a house-cat, and human. The Origins had high hopes for her: marry her to a noble who could hold two forms, begin to rebuild their noble house. They named her Original, hoping to inspire her to restore their line to its original glory.
She was headstrong. She was wild. With her mousy-brown hair and small stature, she didn't look intimidating when compared to others of her kind, but her flashing emerald eyes, which matched the stone in her forehead, exposed her fiery spirit. She was always humming a tune, singing words that caught her fancy, or singing a song, often making them up on the spot (with very silly lyrics, to boot), and did not care who heard her. Her family explained away her eccentric behavior as being high-strung, and promised her (secretly) betrothed that she would settle into her role as a dutiful wife with age.
They told her of the betrothal after she reached her first century. They figured she was starting to cool off by then, having satisfied her wild urges for formal swordsmanship training, demon-slaying, wild hunts with the wolves of the area, and so forth. They were wrong. She immediately tried to leave, disgusted by their attempts to meddle in her life. When two of the more physically imposing members of the clan tried to stop her, she injured them, and made her escape before the rest of the clan could try to stop her.
They lamented her loss. Not for her personality, but for her talents. She could hold three forms! She had the forgotten techniques of the shamans of old: channeling her energy through her gemstone, showing her thoughts through a touch of the gem, projecting her spirit through time to foretell the future, hiding the majority of her aura, even mend her clothing using her aura and energy. She had a stronger aura than the rest of the clan combined. She was their shining hope, she was their light in the darkness, she was the sun after a harsh night. But they had driven her away, and in doing so had signed their clan's death warrant.
She was happy on her own. She killed demons and robbers, hunted to her heart's content, eavesdropped as a little, unimposing house-cat. As a human, her hair was kept back in a long ponytail with shaggy bangs pushed off to the right, and she wore armor similar to a demon hunter (stolen, with chest armor and each armor piece colored green) under a white and green kimono with a black and green obi. To cover her gem, she had a scrap of black cloth over it and her right eye to serve as an eye patch. There was nothing wrong with her eye, but a headband didn't have much reason to stay on constantly, and so she wore the patch so that no one would ask her to remove it. She carried an old katana at her side, and still sang to herself as she walked along.
It was on one of these journeys that she met the Great Dog Demon. Aside from being naturally wild, her arrogance had been nurtured by her clan, and so she challenged him to a sparring match (knowing a powerful and non-malignant demon when she saw one, she meant only to test her strength against him). To make it worth his time, she proclaimed her race, and bragged that she was the strongest in generations, and would grant him any miracle within her power if he won. And if she won, he would have to direct her to the sword-smith who made the swords he carried, so that they could make her a great demon sword, too.
To no-one's surprise, I'm sure, the Great Dog Demon won. However, he was more than fair, and recognized his opponent's strength, and so offered a new deal: he would still direct her to the sword-smith, and have him make her a demon sword, but in return, she would have to project her spirit into the future two-hundred years, and look upon what would come until the fifth century passed.
It was a long time, but she knew she was capable, as long as she was allowed breaks for a few hours each half-century, to feed and restore her strength, so that her body did not waste away. He granted her that, and took her to see Totosai the sword-smith. Totosai allowed her a space in the back of his forge for her use, and promised to keep it covered and to leave her be. And so, she took to viewing the future.
She went forward two-hundred years and viewed from there, traveling the world as a poltergeist, freely shifting in spirit between all forms. She did not like the places with a lot of snow, for shifters were beings adverse to cold by nature, and so passed through quickly even though she only felt the phantom memory of cold and not its actual bite. She went to Europe, but it did not please her much. Smelly and full of too many people. America, though, she loved. Stayed there for most of her time. She reveled in their battle for independence, the war to hold together a nation, and the wars to expand their borders. She watched the two Great Wars and the Cold War with interest. She was a strong non-corporeal supporter of the Woman's Rights movement. She "haunted" a good deal of locations. She gobbled up pop-culture like sweetmeats. Especially the music. It was heaven, for one who had always sang to keep herself company on the road. Her half-century breaks were unremarkable, always just waking, leaving the forge, eating, bathing, catching up a bit with Totosai, and going back to her "sleep".
Five centuries, to her, was too short a time when it finally ended. But alas, it was time to return before she knew it.
.::.
Stiff. That was her main complaint every time she awoke. The stiffness in her muscles made her feel as though she were a reanimated corpse, fighting rigor mortis. She opened her emerald eyes and found herself looking down a long brown snout; she was a she-wolf again. She always seemed to be waking up in this form. She huffed, and stretched her long front legs, toes splaying out, and yawned widely, a little whine catching in the back of her throat. Lifting her chest off the ground, she stretched her head high and extended her hind legs behind her, tail quivering as it curled over her back. Then, with a shake to try to get out the last of her inflexibility, she smoothly shifted into her human form. Her clothes, as well, shifted into being (unlike most of her kind, her clothing shifted with her, which was quite convenient). With yet another yawn, she decided it was time to go visit Totsai and see what the news was.
The forge was steamy and hot as ever, seeing as it was set in a volcano. The heat helped to relax her muscles, at least, even if it did feel stifling. But she wouldn't complain. It was kind enough of Totosai to let her stay here, and she would never let herself be too much of an ingrate.
He was sitting by his firepit, roasting a calf. She sat across from him, resting on her left hip and hand. His bulbous eyes looked up at her, and he croaked, "Ah, Lady Original, I see you're awake."
"Ori, Totosai. We've discussed this. Ori. I'm not a Lady anymore, and Original is a stupid name." She responded, her voice a bit raspy from lack of use. She stiffened a bit, her eyes wide, at the sound of her emphasized word, then smiled. "Stupid, stupid, steeyuuuupid!" She sang, then cackled and wiped a tear away from her left eye. "Aha, stupid."
"Are you feeling better, now?"
"Yeah, a little. So what's shakin', my man?"
Totosai shook his head a bit before staring into the fire. Ori frowned at him, then snapped, "what?"
"Every time you come back, you talk more and more strangely."
"Psh. Whatevs. Anything good?"
"Things have been relatively the same since your last awakening." Totosai responded, cleaning out his right ear with his pinky finger.
"People and demons I don't care about killing other people and demons I also don't care about?"
"Pretty much."
"Boring!" Ori flopped onto her back, wincing as her head hit the stone floor. She always forgot about the stone floor. Staring up at the ceiling, tracing the strange patterns in it with a finger, she suddenly remembered, "Hey! My sword! Did you make me my sword?"
Totosai grinned. "Oh, I've done more than made you a sword! You'll have to wait until after lunch to see, though."
Ori popped herself back up right away (the other problem about waking up was that she was always so fidgety for a while after) and sat with her calves folded under her. "Oh, come on, Totosai! Pretty please!"
"Nope! But it's not like you'll have to wait long. This looks about ready." Totosai deflected, staring at the calf.
"Oh, awesome!" Ori exclaimed. "Veal is one of my-" Her words died on her tongue as Totosai grabbed the spit the calf was roasting on and devoured the entire beast in one mouthful. "HEY! What the hell, man!"
The old man's already bugging eyes seemed to get wider as he took in Ori's expression of outrage, and he swallowed with a loud gulp. "Wait a minute. Who am I? Where am I? Who are you?"
His act was rewarded with a conk on the head from Ori's fist. She growled as she walked to the cave entrance, rubbing her fist lightly. "Dammit, old man! Now I gotta go hunting!"
.::.
She returned with a very full belly and the satisfaction of having properly stretched her legs. Totosai was sitting by the cave entrance, hammering away at some weapon Ori wasn't interested enough to pay attention to. It wasn't hers, so why should she care? That was her mentality. And another mentaility she held dear; when you've got something coming to you, you'd better get your hands on it as soon as possible. Screw patience! It was no virtue she'd ever heard of!
"Where's my sword, Totosai?" She grumbled. "It's after lunch now."
Totosai looked to her briefly, his hammer falling with a clang on the steel. "Can you wait until I finish my work?" Ori responded by flexing her punching hand in and out of a fist. Totosai grimaced, and stood. "Very well, then. Follow me."
She followed him farther back into the cave, peering into some of the other rooms as she passed. One of the first was a stable, where Totosai's three-eyed demon cow was munching on sweet-smelling hay. Another room held demon bones and fangs. Many more had doors or cloths to hide their contents from her prying eyes. Finally, after what seemed like hours of walking (about three minutes, in reality), Totosai led her into one of the rooms.
It was unremarkable, except for a sheet covering a lumpy something, and an ominous aura. An aura that said someone – or something – wasn't very happy. Ori gave her head a shake to ward off the chills that were threatening to go down her spine. The old swordsmith walked over to the sheet, and pulled it off to reveal a sword rack, holding two katana and a shoto with decorative ivory-colored guards and beautiful scabbards, the leather a cream with three flowers stamped into the side, little maroon streakes coming from their centers, and a plain shoto with the same cream sheath and straps at the top and bottom, but no design and no guard. Each of the grips was woven with strands of what seemed to be individual threads, the lightest being white and the darkest a rich maroon. The gold caps on the end of each grip were marked with flowers like those on the scabbards, too. Ori stepped closer, and the ominous feeling she had grew.
"The Great Dog Demon, one day after you started your sleep, brought me back the body of a beautiful flower demon whom he was forced to slay, as she attacked him relentlessly without warning as he walked through a meadow. I have made the scabbards from strong wood, and covered them with leather made of her skin. The flowers were stamped and painted with a dye mixed with her blood. The guards and the handles of the swords were made from her bones, the grip from her hair. The dye and the hair have had magic put into them, the hair to give it good grip and keep the strands from fraying, the dye to keep it from fading. The steel of the blade is mixed with her crushed bones." Totosai stared at the swords a moment, then looked to Ori. "I made so many blades because I did not want to waste her body, but I did not have enough suitable bone left to properly finish the last shoto. Therefore, I made it so that it is capable of being hidden under a kimono, on one's leg. She is strong in these swords, though. Her aura is often unpleasant to deal with, which is why I have kept the swords back here."
Ori blinked. "Wow. So, basically, you made a buncha swords outta one demoness which turned out to be very unhappy swords but they're mine now?"
"So it would seem," Totosai said, scratching his mostly bald head.
Ori took a deep breath, then stepped forward and took the two katanas first. They did not like her, and cracking demon energy wrapped around her hands and wrists, shocking her. Ori gritted her teeth, and in retaliation let her shifter aura grow and smother the demonic aura. She sent energy into the blades like a battering ram, and shocked the swords into submission. Happy with her work, she tucked the swords into her obi, curved cutting edge up, and settled the first shoto on her left side, above the katana, and strapped the second on the outside of her right leg. Totosai looked at her arrangement, and nodded in approval.
"The katana at your right is Hoshiko, and the katana at your left is Tsukiko. The shoto above Tsukiko is Miyako, and the hidden one is Shizuko. Treat them well, and you will be rewarded."
.:END:.
Many thanks for reading!
So, this story was formerly known as Original Origins, and was posted on deviantART. however, and is in the process of being re-written. I apologize for the beginning of it being so boring, but some backstory is necessary so that you know what the hell I'm doing.
This first chapter once was the original first TWO chapters, though, so you can at least be happy that I shortened up the boring crap by a lot.
Also, please review! I won't demand reviews, but I am one of those people who works faster when I know at least one person appreciates what I'm doing!