The Crystal's Song

by Teresa Garcia (LadyRainStarDragon)

Raikou kneeled at her father's spare calligraphy desk, next to him in his office. His own desk was piled with reports that he was reading through. A cold cup of tea sat at his right hand. Spread across her desk was some spare bamboo paper, carefully unrolled and weighted. An old calligraphy set was set up for her to play with, the inkpot loaded with fresh black ink that she had just ground and mixed.

Raikou smiled. Maybe if she told him a story then he would smile and relax a little. She had no idea what had been bothering him so much lately, but it saddened her every time he made as if to finally get up from work, and then remember one more thing.

She concentrated, and her horn tingled and glowed as she reached with her magic for the first brush. Her grip was wobbly at first, but once it was firm she dipped the brust into the liquid night, considering what she should write. She'd heard one of the servants comment the other day that, "authors should write what they know."

"I'll write my dream then, and say it's a story." Raikou thought and began to sweep the brush over the lightly golden surface, smiling as light and night danced to form the letters.

Crystal Whispers

by Raikou Hake

I hear them sometimes, the voices. The first time I can remember hearing them, Mother took me to the shrine with her one day, for my first omairi. It was when my legs were no longer shaky and the glow began to fade finally. I am told the glow lingered longer with me than it had with others of my birth year, just as I bear a pattern different from other kirin I have seen. That first omairi was the first time I heard them, those whispers.

"Where are you? We have waited for so long."

At the time I heard them it was just she and I. I saw no one else. Even stranger, they were inside my head, not just behind the door that blocked the cave entrance.

Mother was paused at the stream where it ran under a particularly large willow tree. Although it was certainly lovely, and much prettier than the one cultivated near our house, and the water did have a small draw it was the source behind the door that interested me most.

Somehow I knew what I would find if I followed the stream beyond the door. There would be a passage lit by small crystals that would whisper as I passed, and then the cave would open out into a chamber. In the center of the chamber would be much larger crystals, bigger than mother and father, nearly as large as one of the dragon priests that lay in a meditative coil beside the door. I was certain that these larger crystals were the loudest whispers, but I had no clue as to why I knew.

Mother drank deeply of the waters and urged me to do the same. This was my first taste of anything other than mother's milk. It was a shock to have something so cold on my lips when all I was used to was heat. It had a thrum to it, the water, rich and clear like a bell. As I drank the whispers grew louder.

"Good child, drink and become strong, become clear. So much potential to rest upon such fragile legs. We will be watching you."

After what seemed to be ages the dragon by the door finally stirred and rose, standing on his hind legs and smiling a serrated grin. When mother pranced over to him he bowed, in the way of our peoples, and opened the door with chants. Somehow the words stuck in my mind and I drank them in, knowing that without them I would not be able to return unaided to the one that was calling me and stirring my blood. I yearned forward just as strongly as I yearned for mother every time she had gotten up from the bonding bed.

The passage was just as my knowing had seen it, yet even more wondrous. The light crystals along the dark walls twinkled like stars while singing in their soft voices. Neither the priest with his purple scales nor mother in her whiteness – which was like the moon in this soft light – seemed to hear the whispering songs even though the crystals greeted them by what my knowing said to be their names. We walked along the stream where it ran in its bed, and I wanted to walk in the water despite its chill, but mother would not let me.

The Chamber of Crystals was even more impressive. If anything the main crystal cluster was actually larger than I had envisioned it. Colors swirled and cycled within, coiling and dancing and shining like a soft stardrop planted inside the earth. The songs it sang told stories and welcomed me by both name and lineage before the priest even picked me up and presented me to it.

"Life Giver of Tamakugani Tama, first crystalline kirin and distant ancestor to these kirin now before you, and to the land and all that live upon it by granting fertility, I bring you Raikou Hake, daughter of Yasuragi and Menmitsu Hake and present her to you for your blessings. Please accept her as one of your own. Witness your mark upon the child, the differing color from both parents, how she looks more like a crystal's seed than a furred and feathered being." The priest sang the prayer-speech in a deep rolling voice that made me shiver, but I liked it. I had heard it before singing over me with father's voice while I had been yet forming inside of mother.

The crystals sang in reply to the end of his song, toning audibly. This time I knew that they heard too. I heard words in the toning though.

"We accept and desire the foal, she is our own. We will watch and guide her, so long as she hears our calls, just as we do with the other few that are fully ours."

I was lowered into the pool that the crystals grew up from the center of. There was an odd feeling of completion, and I hadn't even known that I had been missing something. I saw a white kirin mare brought to lay herself down in the pool often, and how she swelled...my mother, watched over by my father and the priests. She had been sick, and this crystal cluster that held the magic of the land had pitied her, helped her, made her strong...allowed me to live.

I am still not sure how I know this, but know it I do. I owe this cluster much. It is not mother, it is not father, and yet without it I would not be. So what, then, does that make the crystal to me?

"Consider me a friend for now, or a grandparent, or whatever you wish...so long as you know that if I have need of you, you must comply or die." The words were without malice and still echo to me. They bear all the love of a parent or an aunt, but...larger somehow.

There was no flash, no outpouring of ancient magics. I was too young, and the crystals held themselves back so as not to harm me. I am not certain if the look that crossed my mother's face was worry or disappointment. The crystals continued to sing stories to me about my ancestors and how special I could be. I knew I would have to work hard, but at what I was not certain. I just wanted to please the beautiful crystal and repay it for the kindness I had seen in the vision.

All too soon I was removed from the pool, and I dripped and shivered dry, not allowed a towel. Slowly the water evaporated or I absorbed it, and I found myself sleepy and dreamy. I had to be carried out to the carriage mother had ridden to the shrine in. In being taken away I immediately felt the loss, but I was too tired to struggle.

The voices, the whispers, still continue when I am near the crystal lights that our home uses. When we go into the village I hear them whispering inside of other homes. Sometimes we'll pass over what must be a deposit of crystals underground because the whispers are there to be heard. When I hear the whispers I know that we are not alone, and that the land is watching each of us.

The white kirin twirled his long fumanchu moustache while his friend read over the short scroll from his daughter's amusement. Instead of looking at the dragon-priest he looked at his daughter's purple crystalline body and the contrast of her teal wings and mane. Raikou's flank was blank, as could be expected at her young age. Her horn's backward sweep was still short, but it matched her cloven hooves in shine. To think that he and his wife, both white, could have spawned someone both purple and crystalline...he was honored at the Life Crystal's generosity. It was stranger yet that her overall body shape resembled more closely an alicorn, like the famous Celestia, than the more draconic kirin of his homeland. She even had tiny teal floofs beginning on her fetlocks, rather like certain unicorns that he had seen come and go.

"This is not the mind of a child that we have here." Lin commented after carefully rerolling the scroll with the childish writing and adult manner of speech. "You were right to show me this, it interests us on several levels." His eye caught briefly on the shining silver horn of his longtime friend, then locked to the teal and purple eyes. "I would like her to start coming to the temple for training."

"She is so young though. You surely mean for her to begin when she is older and of schooling age." He replied.

"No, I mean I would like her as soon as possible, tomorrow even. I would come daily to handle it myself, but then my duties will fall behind."

"But then won't she be isolated from the other foals of her age?"

"Yasuragi-sama, you know how cruel foals can be, and how they poke at what is different. Do you remember what became of the crystalline that was born in your own year? Or what about the other one and how she was spoiled because she was treated like she would be chosen." The dragon-priest handed the scroll back with a bow.

"No, I have not. I do not want either possibility for my child, Lin-sama." He accepted the scroll back with just as deep a bow. "Perhaps she will not notice though. Books and stories, and painting for them, seems to be what she cares for now, other than talking to the light crystals when she thinks no one is watching."

"I will let my brothers know then that we will have a new student and addition to the library." His purple kimono fell in liquid folds as he stood, blending in with his purple scales. "Thank you for the tea and the reading...I suggest keeping this, not only because of the possibility of this being evidence that she will be in the prophecy, but this is well written. Perhaps the brush will be her calling."

"I will treasure it. It was a gift she gave to me, after all."

Glossary

Alicorn – Winged unicorn.

Hake – Brush.

Menmitsu – Careful.

Omairi – Shrine visit.

Raikou – Lighting.

Tama – Jewel.

Tamakugami – Jewels, gems.

Yasuragi – Peace.

Author Note

I have not been writing fan fictions for any fandom for the past several years because I have been focusing on writing for my publishing venture. Current series I'm working on are "Dragon Shaman" and "Selkies' Skins," which are searchable but not here as they are published with THG StarDragon Publishing, and I do not know when I will be getting back to the alternate universe story I have for the Spirited Away fandom here. Likewise I do not know when or if I will have any short stories to put in the collections I have in that fandom.