Chapter 1- Celebration
Raucous laughter echoed through an ancient forest of feudal Japan, crazed jubilation as wild as the bonfire blazing in the tranquil wood. It came from a circle of men and women with red faces and wild dancing, drinking to abandon and letting go of everything they were to just exist and revel in themselves. Off to the side sat a small young girl, watching her parents forget her in their carousing, vaguely interesting herself in the leaves and branches surrounding her. The mother danced, and the father danced, and while their eyes passed over their child from time to time, it mattered not. She was but a speck on the edge of their consciousness, nothing compared to the wonderful feeling of the alcohol and the dancing. They laughed and cheered as one for their village's warriors, who had not only felled many trees for the village ironworks but also slayed three great boars to bring back to their home. The forest grew ever more hostile as the spirits and gods fought back against man's relentless slaughter of their inhabitants, but the men were too careless, too proud, or too drunk to care. They danced and ate the flesh of the boars around the fire that night in that wild wood because they, the great human race, inhabitants of the town of iron, had conquered the wood. They had tamed it, taken its trees and killed its boars, because they could. And the men laughed in the middle of the great ancient glade, reveling in their victory. Yet in the wild, beyond the dancing circle of firelight, deep growls and hisses echoed as the vigilant spirits' hatred festered.
Yet of course, the small child knew not of gods or spirits, nor of man or beast. She knew not of the deep hatred, the arrant pride, nor the passion behind man's controlling crusade. She knew but one thing: at that time, in that moment, she was parentless. She sat by the tree alone, not allowed to partake in the alcohol at her tender age, brought along merely to prevent her from causing trouble. At six years old, she was not tiny, but neither was she deemed intelligent enough to be left alone. At times, curious as she was, she approached the fire to watch the fascinating dancing, yet she was often hit across the face by a listless arm, or perhaps intentionally cuffed for interfering with the revelry of her betters, it was all the same to her. So the nameless child remained silent as the growling grew closer.
Moro hated. It was the hatred of an icy wind, purposeful yet without the heat of conventional anger. Moro felt hatred for these humans who thought themselves above the spirits of the forest, above the gods of the land, above her! She felt hatred for these humans, who dared to ransack her forest, cut her trees, kill her friends, and revel in her home. Her twin silver tails swayed slowly back and forth as she watched the people, paws still wet with the blood of the slain boars which had remained in pools where they were killed. Her hard emerald eyes flickered in the distant firelight, yet they shone without a trace of the anger or hatred she felt. Indeed, as she opened her jaws to growl, as she started to pad forward on her giant pas, as her sons followed her to the bonfire, Moro's eyes shone with savage delight.
After all, she had always wanted to taste human blood.