Face it, Renji. You have really fucked up this time. Breath fogging in the air, he looked up and saw the sun, filtered through layers of ice.
He hadn't meant to go down that hole, he really hadn't. But the ice and shifted and one foot had gone that way and the other had gone this way and then, well, he was truly fucked. At first he'd thought he might get out of it with just a pulled groin, but that was not to be. Instead he'd crashed through a weak part of the ice and ended up in this strange ice cave.
Never should have gone up the mountain alone. Never. But we needed that copper. And now I'm gonna die here and someone else will have to get that copper… Renji stared up at the beautiful blue, feeling almost bemused by it all. He didn't need to look down at his legs to know they were both broken. It had hurt like fuck at first but now he was reaching the point of feeling no pain, and he was pretty glad. If he was going to die it didn't have to hurt the whole time.
The weird ice cave was very slowly filling up with water. He'd probably dislodged something. Renji spared a moment of gratitude for the fact that the water was coming in very slowly. He wasn't going to drown, the cold would carry him away first. But the ice would be his tomb, and it was a strangely beautiful thought. Nothing would eat him down here and the ice would hold him like a godly lover, eternal and unchanging.
My only regret is for my sister. He mused to himself as the cold began to steal away his breath. I wish I could see her give birth. I hope she lives. It was her first baby so the odds were only fifty-fifty, at best. I hope the baby makes it to three. The odds of that were even worse. But there was always a chance, and you just had to try. I wish I'd found a mate and had a chance to try myself. I wish… There were so many wishes that would never, ever be fulfilled. But it was getting hard to think, and he was so sleepy. So terribly, terribly sleepy. Of course, it wasn't sleep that was beckoning, but what did it matter?
He let himself drift to sleep, expecting to never wake.
Renji sat on the snow of the mountain pass, wondering why he was still here.
"If this is the afterlife, it is total shite." He said definitively. "Why am I still here?" He honestly didn't know. Shouldn't he be going somewhere? The great hunting grounds with all the mammoth he could eat? Or even to see the Beast and possibly end up as a light snack? "Beast, why have you forsaken me?" He asked his god but received no answer.
Renji didn't know how long it had been since he'd woken up from his tomb and floated out onto the ice. As far as he could see, there was no connection between him and his body, but he'd quickly discovered he couldn't get too far away from it. He could almost reach the trees down in the valley, but that was it. So mostly, he stayed by his body. He could still see it if he cleaned off the ice a bit.
"I was so hot when I died." He mused, looking down at it. He looked like he was sleeping under a blanket of ice. "Wait." A sudden certainty struck him and he stood, horrified. "I'm not dead. That's it, isn't it? That lump down there isn't dead!" Renji was shaken to the core by the thought. He had to be hovering on the verge of death and somehow the cold and ice had kept him there. "I can't go on until I really die! This is a total kick in the nuts." He added as he gazed down at his body again. But at least the Beast had not forsaken him. He did have that.
But for a long time, he feared he might go insane. There was no one and nothing up on the hillside, nothing but blowing snow, icy winds and sometimes a beautiful blue sky. Fortunately he couldn't feel the cold and never felt any kind of hunger, but it was just incredibly boring. Not to mention lacking in other people. Renji had always liked the people in his tribe and felt the loss keenly. But maybe that was what made him realize that things were changing.
He'd always heard of spirit powers, of course. The holiest of the shamans, usually old and wise, could sometimes do remarkable things. His tribe hadn't really had one though. The closest they had was the young shaman of the Beast, who showed potential to follow in his deceased master's footsteps. Renji had never imagined he might have any gifts in that direction.
And maybe he hadn't until he'd died but not died up on this cliff. Now, separated from his body with all the time in the world on his hands, he was learning to control spirit powers. He'd learned how to push fallen snow off the ice, then for shits and giggles he'd started melting patterns into the ice. His artistic talents had been crude to start with, but they were getting a lot better. Endless practice likely did that.
But all these talents were also showing a downside. Predators were starting to notice. Renji didn't know much about the spirit world, but he knew it wasn't just endless fields of mammoths. The Beast was not a god for weaklings and in their belief, the afterlife was a kind of proving ground. Only those who were worthy stayed, and everyone who was too weak had to go back to the land of the living to get stronger. So when the first monster tried to devour him, Renji wasn't too surprised.
He was surprised, though, when a fine obsidian spear appeared in his hand, sparkling with spirit power. In the struggle he'd impaled the creature and it had screamed pathetically as it died. To his shock, Renji had realized that in dying it had released dozens of spirits. He could see them streaming into a gate he could not use and watched in frustration as they left. He didn't really want to die but if he couldn't live, he was getting tired of staying!
More monsters came to him after that, but Renji destroyed every single one. His power was increasing all the time now, and he mastered the trick of speeding up time. It was amazing, really, watching the seasons pass in a blur. Best of all, it didn't seem to put him in danger. His senses detected a monster and snapped him out instantly if one came calling. As his power increased, though, another thought came to him.
Can I call someone to me? People do come into these mountains sometimes. He'd seen climbers once in a while, although they'd changed over the years. At first, they'd worn furs and leathers like his, but lately there had been some really strange weaves. Not to mention goggles that he frankly envied. They looked so damn cool and from the color on them, they'd hold down the glare really well. If he could call someone to him, though, maybe they could dig up his body. He wasn't sure they would – it would have to be a huge pain – but it was worth a try. He was ready for the heavenly hunting grounds. Anything was better than this.
It took him a long time to master the trick of it, but he finally managed to rope in a group of climbers. Literally. He'd found the easiest way to work them along was to snag the rope a little and guide the course. The guy in charge was swearing at the rope a lot, which was pretty funny.
They rested for a little near his burial site, and he wiped the snow off the ground before doing his best to drag someone over. It took several tries, but he finally got a puzzled looking woman where he wanted her. Then she looked into the ice and exclaimed.
After that, everyone was babbling and Renji couldn't understand a word. Languages had changed, but that was no huge surprise. He sat down on the ice and waited to see what they would do, but they turned back, leaving the mountain. Well, no biggy. They only had little ice picks and it would take them forever to get through the ice with those. They probably didn't have enough food for it. Although… why should they dig him up? But he just had to hope.
His hope was answered by another team of climbers. They were carrying a lot of bulky stuff and he stared as someone pulled a string and something roared to life. What in the name of the Beast was that? But the shocks didn't end there. It took them a while, but the fine metal they were using bit into the ice and they finally had his body out and packed onto some kind of stretcher. Renji shivered and looked down, blinking as a chain began to form on his chest. He tugged on it lightly and could feel it to the core of his being.
Then a flying thing, like nothing he'd ever seen before, arrived. Renji dearly wanted to watch as it scattered away the snow, but there was no time. He could feel the spirit world calling and he gratefully stepped through the open door.
It was about time.
"Bread?" Renji said hopefully to the shopkeeper, showing her the coins he'd managed to scrounge. She scowled at him and slapped his hand away. He just barely managed to hang onto the coppers.
"No bread." She said it slowly, as if he were a simpleton. Renji just shrugged and walked away. He liked bread, but it was hardly required. In fact, he had a sort of uneasy feeling that it was bad for him. He loved the taste but he never felt quite right after eating it.
Everyone in the Rukongai was probably convinced he was stupid. He sounded stupid, no doubt at all. But given that he'd been learning the language for a week Renji was rather proud of his ability to make himself understood. Sure, he had no real grasp on how to make a proper sentence, but he'd like to see these people do the same with his tongue!
He didn't really understand these people, but he didn't really understand much of anything about his new situation. He was cheerful about it though. The spirit plain was a proving ground, many of the myths said. So this was his trial, to try to understand a world that was completely alien to him.
And it was alien. The buildings were made of stone, and Renji had no idea why they had bothered. It seemed like a lot of effort, but maybe they'd run out of logs and animal skins. Most of the buildings were half in ruins, though, and he thought no one was really keeping them up. That seemed like a crying shame. If he'd owned something half as grand, he'd have kept it repaired!
But none of these buildings were his, and they already held families that guarded them jealously. He'd managed to find a collapsed building with a nice little protected pocket that served him as a home. And every day, he walked around looking for food.
It was strange, the things these people wouldn't eat. He had a monopoly on the slugs from the river, for instance. He also was making good headway into the grub and rat population. It had taken a while to figure out how to catch the rats, but his handmade traps were doing really good. Some of them were even going missing, which was annoying. But apparently some other people had no problems with eating the rats.
He stopped by his shelter for a moment to feed the fire with some wood he'd found. He kept a very basic little campfire going, all day, every day. He could restart it if necessary but that was a bit of a pain. The people here could make fire with little things they held in their hands, but Renji hadn't seen the need to get one. They were probably expensive and he knew how to make fire just fine.
It was ironic, but in this city of hundreds of thousands of people, the one thing Renji was lacking was company. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't talk very well, his eating habits or his looks, but no one wanted to have much to do with him. The children seemed scared and ran at his approach.
Then he heard a quiet crying, and glanced around before realizing it was coming from another ruined building. This one was in even worse shape than his. It looked like a fire had ripped through sometime in the past, and he shivered at the thought. His tribe had almost lost a longhouse that way one winter, and it could have been an absolute disaster. He'd been coughing for weeks after.
Shaking off the unsettling memories, he ventured into the gutted building. The stone and wood creaked ominously beneath his feet, but he wanted to see who was crying. He was saddened but not surprised to see it was a little girl. When she spotted him her eyes widened and she began babbling something.
"No understand." He said quickly. It was currently his favourite phrase. Then he pointed at himself. "Renji. You?" And he pointed at her. Even if he didn't have the word right, she'd probably get the idea. The little girl stopped talking and blinked at him.
"Rukia." The girl pointed to herself, and Renji nodded as he looked her over. She was tiny and didn't look well-fed. Well, that was no shock. Kids had the worst of it down here, they were prey for everyone. "Sister…" The rest was gabble. It took him a bit of puzzling and several repetitions from her before he figured out that her sister had left her. Had she died or just gone? He wasn't sure. For a moment, he considered just leaving. She wasn't his responsibility.
But something called to him. A kind of instinct that sang in his heart and said this one. Besides, he was lonely. He offered the girl a grubby paw and she immediately accepted it with a shy smile. Maybe she felt it too.
"C'mon Rukia. I'll take care of you." Renji said in his own tongue, knowing she'd understand nothing but her name. But she understood the tone and that was enough. She followed him obediently and soon he was showing her how to shuck snails down by the river, and she was telling him the name of the snails.
They could both learn a lot from each other.
Renji looked at his little tribe of youngsters and grinned as they tore into the food.
There were five of them now. Rukia, of course, and a pretty little girl with tawny hair named Kitsi. Then there were two boys, Bandono and Amperi. Not to mention Renji himself.
Being responsible was pretty new to the Renji. He'd died when he was only twenty, young and unmated. He'd only been responsible for himself back then, when his parents weren't responsible for him. But taking on responsibilities had given him a purpose, and he worked hard now to put food on the table. Sometimes it was honest work, sometimes it was theft, and a lot of the time it was the grey area that was in between.
Renji considered the meat they were eating part of the in between. They'd moved their home to a spot closer to the outskirts of the city. The slums were worse here, and the kids had to be careful, but it had the huge advantage that Renji could sneak out of the city in only a few hours. Then he could go hunting in the lands of one of the noble houses. He didn't know which, and didn't much care. All he cared about was the fact that if he was caught, someone would die and it would likely be him. But he'd learned how to tame his spirit power into practically nothing, and he already knew how to stalk animals without leaving a trace.
The fresh meat he'd added to their diet was doing wonders for the children. Rukia wasn't a forlorn little waif anymore, she was a strong girl knawing on a piece of barely cooked liver. Kitsi was starting to get curves, and the boys were both quite a bit taller than when Renji had first met them. Renji himself wasn't any different, but that was no surprise.
He was feeling something, though. Something that couldn't be put off or ignored much longer. Renji sighed and stared into the fire moodily for a moment. They had thinly sliced meat roasting over it, and it would continue to roast until it was hard. When it was done, they would pound it out by hand into the tiniest of pieces and mix it with the lard from the bone marrow he'd brought back. That would keep the kids going for a long time, and that was good, because…
"Rukia, Bandono." He said and the two children stopped eating, looking at him expectantly. "You two are going to be in charge while I'm gone. Try not to wreck the place or spend all the money on sake, eh?" He joked. The two of them blinked at him, shocked.
"Where are you going Renji? More hunting?" Rukia's eyes were shadowed with worry now. She'd told him all about what the nobles might do to him if they caught him at his poaching, and Renji rather wished she hadn't. But this time he shook his head.
"No, not hunting. Or not exactly. The Beast is calling me, and I need to go on a vision quest." The children greeted that with a healthy dose of scepticism and Renji grinned at them. "Hey, I almost think you all don't believe in my god!"
"We don't." Bandono said and Renji laughed.
"Well, my dad always used to say, it doesn't matter if you believe in the Beast or not. The Beast believes in you. And right now, he's believing hard. Hopefully I'll be back, if not you guys will have to get on without me." That made everyone's eyes go wide, but Renji didn't believe in pulling punches. There was every chance in the world the Beast was going to make a snack out of him. After giving him a chance to win, of course. It wouldn't be fair otherwise.
But if he lost, the Beast would still eat him.
Renji walked through the forest, lost in his thoughts.
He hadn't left immediately. He'd helped the kids make the pemmican, and taken a bit of it with him on his vision quest. It had turned out to be a good idea, because he couldn't catch anything for love or money. There were plenty of signs of game, but he'd noticed all the freshest tracks seemed to be going away. And now the woods were empty aside from little birds, and even those were bit thin on the trees.
"The Beast is fierce. Run away, little prey." He murmured to himself as he walked on. Restlessness and the nagging call that had brought him here kept him walking deep into the night. Finally he stepped into a clearing and stopped.
The moon was full, and shed an eerie light over the scene. There was an animal relaxing in the middle of the clearing, and as he walked between the trees it stood. Renji examined it and nodded. It was a dog, but not really. Huge, black furred and bristling, it was a dog like the dogs that had lived in his old tribe. A dog that was just a few generations removed from the wolves that had haunted the camp and lived on the scraps. A dog that was still a wolf at heart.
The Beast paced towards him and Renji kneeled, then abased himself before his deity. There was a growling chuckle, then a nudge on his back. Renji obeyed the wordless instruction and rose to his feet before meeting bright red eyes. He held them, even knowing it was a bad idea. But he was not a slave to his god.
I have been waiting for you a long time. The voice was more sensed than heard, and made Renji ache in a place he'd never known existed. But he nodded.
"I imagine you have." He agreed. "And now I'm here." He spread his hands and the Beast chuckled again. The red eyes flared and he had to look away.
You are, and now it is time for me to test you. Renji couldn't move as the world swirled around him sickeningly. When things steadied again, he realized, to his shock, that he was standing on four legs. There was something heavy on his head and glancing down, he realized he was wearing the body of a magnificent stag. A young buck, in the prime of his life. Survive me until dawn, and I will grant you a boon of my power. Fail, and I will feast. The Beast grinned. The grin of a dog was usually amusing. This was terrifying. I give you a head start. I am counting.
That was all the encouragement Renji needed to bound into the brush. All too soon, he heard the crash of that monstrous wolf-dog chasing behind him. The forest was a nightmare of trees and brush, but he could see and his new body knew what to do. Over hills and through thickets, dashing through meadows and jumping logs, the wolf chased him. Powerful lungs and huge heart gave everything they could, and Renji revelled in the pure freedom of it.
But freedom could not compete with fear, and as the night wore on Renji realized he was being herded. The spirit form was stronger than any material buck could be, but if he let the Beast run him out he would die in the end. But what else could he do? He was a deer, not a…
A deer. A buck, with horns and hooves. Renji suddenly realized that plant eater did not mean weak or defenceless. And the Beast was not a god of weaklings, who would reward someone for running away. He found another meadow and turned, standing at bay. The Beast slowed, then padded into the clearing in front of him.
So, you finally understand. But do you have the strength to defeat me? And the Beast leapt in a move that was so smooth and fast it defied belief. But Renji was just as fast and he danced aside, striking out with his antlers at the marauding wolf-dog. The Beast leapt away and Renji saw there was a line of blood trickling down his shoulder.
They closed in earnest then, each struggling to find the advantage. Hooves and fangs flashed beneath the moon, and white drool splattered the Beast's jaws as foam began to cover Renji's coat. Then, he made a mistake. Renji misjudged a leap and landed wrong, a back leg buckling beneath him. The wolf howled in triumph and Renji screamed silently as fangs tore out his muscles and tendons. But he whirled with all the strength in that great body and landed both front hooves on the Beast's head. There was a loud cracking sound and the wolf-dog fell to the ground, eyes glazing. Renji fell to his knees beside the dying Beast, feeling almost scalded by the blood on his sweat soaked coat. Then the world shifted and he was in his own body again. But the wound was still there and Renji looked down in horror at the gaping hole in his leg. Tendons were severed and bone glistened wetly in the hole.
I'm going to be crippled. Renji's thoughts whirled like overwrought sparrows as he tried to staunch the flow of blood. I'll have to kill myself. I can't make the kids care for me like this. In his own tribe, a crippled man might manage to make a life helping the women with their work. He was still far more likely to die when they moved on, but he might survive. But he and the children were living even more on the edge… and in his old tribe, when things were bad and you knew you were a burden, there was only one thing to do.
Stop being so needlessly dramatic. Renji gasped as his wound began to heal. It was a fascinating but disgusting process to watch, as the wound filled up with bright red flesh. You won, you fool. Look. Renji looked up and realized that dawn was touching the sky. Would I let my shinigami die so soon?
"You're what?" He said dizzily. The Beast sighed, but Renji could sense his amusement.
I am a god with no worshippers but you. So, here is your boon. I am the wolf that is becoming a dog, and I shall wear your collar. But I give you a warning. I am not a dog that has forgotten what it means to be a wolf. Place your collar around my neck and rule me as you will, but if you fail me, if you betray me, I will kill you. Now, do you accept my boon?
"Yes." Renji whispered, almost overcome with emotion. To receive the personal gift of his god… the touch of this amazing, dark spirit within his own… any shaman would kill or die for this. "I will not fail you, my god. Never."
And I shall not fail you. The dead body of the Beast swirled into black mist and Renji watched as it became a spear. But this was not tipped with obsidian. Instead, the head was fine metal, inscribed with leaping wolf. Renji picked up the spear, and wasn't even tempted to test the edge of the blade with his thumb. It would be wicked sharp.
That was the nature of the Beast.