The following disclaimer applies to all the following chapters.
Disclaimer : Obviously Saiyuki doesn't belong to me... or I wouldn't be here uploading all this junk onto the net..=P I wish it did though..I would have liked to own all these good-looking bastards..sighz..well ppl..enjoy..
Note: Rating is merely for some swearing...
Prologue
It was a simple children's story.
There was once a herdsman, who was so poor he had only one bull. But the bull was very special to him, because it was a magical bull which could speak, and had knowledge of things far beyond the simple herdsman's imagination. One day, the herdsman told the bull he wanted a wife, and after deep contemplation, the bull finally spoke.
He told him of a special clearing in the forest, where a beautiful lake was present, where the young goddesses of heaven occasionally came to bathe. And with his bull's instructions in his mind, the herdsman went to find the clearing.
He waited for two days, and sure enough, seven lovely celestial beings descended from heaven. He remained unnoticed as they stripped off their robes and enjoyed the cool waters of the lake. He remained unnoticed as he reached out and took one of the robes of the goddesses. At last, when it was time for the goddesses to leave, the youngest cried out that her robe was missing. The herdsman took this moment to come out from hiding. The six other goddesses flew back to heaven in fear, but the youngest could not follow her friends, for she needed her robe to return to the heavens. The herdsman took her, and married her, and despite her pleadings kept her robe hidden so she could not escape.
And so the young goddess had to remain on earth. She bore two children to the herdsman, but still her heart longed for her home in the sky. One day, by chance, she came across an old chest and upon opening it found her robe of long ago. Immediately she wore it again and started to ascend to the heavens, leaving behind her weeping children with a heavy heart, and gazing upon her old home with tears of joy.
And so that was the story told.
But it is not as I remember it.
I remember the rape of a goddess by a youkai.
I remember her imprisonment and torture at his hands. Death was her only escape from him.
So she had killed herself.
She must have suffered to have been so desperate as to forge her own death. But goddesses were supposed to be immortal, weren't they? But the desperate will always make it happen, somehow.
She had given her powers to the children inside growing inside her. Cleansed them of the demon blood in them to make them human, and passed onto them all her strength until at last, at their birth there was nothing left of her but a physical form. Using the last of her strength she had hidden them from their father as he had hid her robe from her.
Then she disappeared into nothingness, only her essence left to linger in the winds.
My gentle mother finally found sweet release.
And I was left behind, alone.
To be both youkai and celestial, yet just a human. To be all, yet nothing.
And that is how I learnt from the start that Fate was cruel. And funnily ironic.