The river felt old as he flowed through Karakura town. Once he had been a burbling mountain stream, springing over rocks and showing off in glittering waterfalls, but the silt and sediment he had gathered on his journey had slowed him down, so that now he flowed sedately along his bed. And the river was old not just in distanced travelled – his course had not altered in many hundreds of years. If he were human, the river would have been a grandfather with a white beard, long and straggled, his back bent almost double with age, his eyes surprisingly clear and bright. He was not particularly intelligent, as rivers go, but age counts for something, and experience had leant him a measure of wisdom.
Tonight his surface was scattered with the reflections of bright lights, some coloured, some white, all hung from wooden stalls by the water's edge. The sky above was heavy with stars, though there was a dark bank of clouds looming in the far west. The river's banks were crowded with people, talking and chattering. Snug in his bed, the river reflected their faces and gathered their stories, carrying them away in his eternal flow.
He knew so much about stories. Like the river, stories were ever-changing and eternal, just as he himself was both a flood of constantly moving water and a single entity. A drop of water condenses on high rocks and follows its course to the sea, but the river flows on. In a single telling stories begin, play out and end, but a story can always be told again.
The river had seen many of these repetitions in his long life. Blood had flowed into him, and tears had been wept in him. People had drowned in him, people had been saved from him, and people had fallen in love swimming in his waters on clear and starry nights. He had collected these stories in his waters since his beginnings as a tiny rivulet, long ago when there were no lights to obscure the heavens. The stars had shone on his surface, and whispered to him the oldest story he knew.
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman named Orihime, a weaver of cloth for the Gods. She was fair as lilies in spring, bright as the new sun rising. Her heart was a trembling petal in the wind, ready to fall into someone's lap. She longed and longed to fall in love, but so dedicated was she to her work that she never met any eligible young men. Every day she sat by the river of the heavens and wove. Though she never turned away from her weaving, though the quality of her cloth never diminished, there were days when the princess was so sad that she could not help but weep, and her tears fell glimmering from her eyes into the river, becoming bright new stars.
"Her father saw these new stars, and knew their cause. He was Tentei, the king of all the sky, and he wished for his daughter's happiness. So he searched for someone to love her, and his eye alighted on Hikoboshi, herder of the cows of the Gods. Hikoboshi was just as dedicated to his work as Orihime, and he too lived by the river of the heavens, though on the other side. If Orihime was the bright morning, he was the subtle and mysterious twilight, and in his dark eyes a gentle fire gleamed. Tentei felt him to be entirely appropriate for the princess.
"Tentei brought them together, and the moment their eyes alighted on one another it was love. They married, and their joy was so great that it flowed across the worlds, and flowers bloomed early and everywhere people smiled, and were happy. The joy they shared was like the vivid glow of the setting sun, and just as doomed to fall into night. They neglected their work, forcing Tentei to separate them once more. He set them back on opposite sides of the river, and bade them return to their appointed duties.
"Tentei was torn by his choice, which must renew his daughter's grief, so he gave the lovers one ray of hope. If they worked hard enough each year, they could meet on the seventh day of the seventh month. Orihime threw herself into her weaving with vigour, and the clothes she turned out were not only of dazzling quality, but were infused with all the experience she had gained, so that those who wore them saw the world anew.
"The seventh day of the seventh month arrived, and Orihime dressed herself in her most precious finery, a robe woven of children's laughter about her, and a comb of golden sunlight on her head. She stepped to the edge of the river, and was struck with horror. There was no bridge.
"At this, Orihime cried out in despair, a cry so plaintive that the magpies on Earth heard it, and flew up to her. They spread their wings like inky rainbows, weaving a dark bridge for Orihime to cross. At once she sprang up, and ran as fast as she could, and there, on the other side, was Hikoboshi, smiling and waiting to enfold her in his arms."
The river lapped languidly at his banks, mirroring the broad sweep of the Milky Way, his heavenly counterpart high above, an endless and unchanging river, a reminder that the great stories, the true myths, never die. Myths are not frozen artifacts but patterns as detailed as those of the Weaver-princess, patterns that appear and reappear in the great story of time. The stars remain, and once or twice every generation Orihime and Hikoboshi shine mortal form, meet, love, separate, meet again. They dance their dance in human lives. He had seen it often. The faces of reunited lovers, separated by war or hatred, would take on a moment the shadow of those archetypal gods, and smile with a joy older than the light of the stars.
Take the girl on his left bank, standing with her friend. Her name was Orihime, though whether she was named in the unconscious foresight of the patterns that would be woven about her, or whether her name called her story to her, the river did not know.
When he met her first she was a nervous child, clinging to her older brother. The day was clear and cold, and their breath frosted around them. Orihime trembled against her brother's leg, her clothes too thin for the weather.
"What do you think, Hime-chan?" her brother asked. "Shall we live here?"
"I don't want to live by a river, Nii-san. Everyone knows that trolls live by the river." The little girl glowered at the river. He did not glower back, but flowed onwards peaceably.
"I don't mean here, I mean here in this town. Do you like it?" Her brother's voice was cheerful, but his free hand was clenched tightly.
"We won't have to go home?" For the first time, Orihime's voice shook slightly.
"We never have to go home, Orihime." They turned away, and the river was left with only the echo of her name.
They met again in late autumn. It was a sultry day, and Orihime's brow was damp with sweat. She was perhaps a year or two older. She sat on the bank, not moving a muscle, wholly absorbed in her brother's actions. Very gently, he held out his hand and whistled a high thin note. The air around them trembled and a huge red dragonfly, like a shard of love, fluttered out of the reeds and landed on Sora's finger. At this, Orihime was unable to contain her delight.
"You did it, Nii-san. Just like magic!" She clapped her hands, and the dragonfly took wing, startled. Orihime's face fell, but her brother smiled at her.
"It's OK, 'hime-chan," he said, "I got the feeling he was going to fly away again soon anyway."
Sora stepped over to Orihime and picked her up, tickling her until she shrieked. Laughing together, they walked by the bank of the river until the sun set.
The fog swirled around the bank of the river, obscuring the sun. Orihime sat on his banks, as drained of colour as the world around her. She was crying, not delicately but in huge sobs that rolled down her cheeks and fell into the grass. Her arms and legs carried many bruises and scratches, her hair was ragged, her cheeks were gaunt. Her brown eyes had no hope. The river waited to see if she would give herself up to his cold embrace, end her story in the strong current, but she only sat still.
On a windy day when his surface was covered with cherry blossom she ran past him, calling over her shoulder. The twist of her head arrested her momentum, and she tripped over her own feet, falling on the embankment. Her palms hit the ground, but were not enough to stop her, and Orihime rolled down the slope to land half in and half out of the muddy water.
She sat up, a little dazed, and began examining her cuts and bruises, checking her arms and her legs. A dark-haired girl appeared over the ledge and scrambled down to her.
"Orihime? Are you OK?" Orihime nodded, and her friend shook her head. "You need to be more careful, Orihime. What if you'd been caught in the current?"
Orihime smiled bashfully.
"I'll be fine, Tatsuki, I don't think the river would hurt me. Look how pretty he is, with all the blossoms like scraps of light on his surface."
Orihime paused, and her eyes grew unfocused, following something unseen, some weave of her own thought. The river lapped companionably around her ankles, flattered.
Looking at her, Tatsuki's expression was an astonished mix of amusement and horror. Shaking her head, she grabbed Orihime's arm and pulled her out of the river.
"Look at the state of you," Tatsuki said. "We better get you home."
"Oh, but I wanted to get ice-cream with you today!" Orihime's face was truly crestfallen.
"You were just hoping that Ichigo and Sado-kun would turn up so that you could stare at him. I still fail to see what you see in that boy."
"That's not true!" Orihime shook her head vigorously, stopping only when she became dizzy. "I mean, I do like seeing Kurosaki-kun…" She blushed. "But I wanted to spend time with you, Tatsuki! You're always so much fun. You help me, you pick me up and tell me off and clean me up when I get muddy. I couldn't imagine my life without Tatsuki-chan!"
Tatsuki laughed.
"Got it, Orihime. Come on, if we get home soon we can watch some T.V. before Mom calls us over for dinner."
They climbed back over the edge of the embankment, and the river was left alone. The wind blew strongly, and the cherry petals flew down like a shoal of scented minnows.
In the great flow of time, years passed. The river was always himself, always changing, always the same. Caught in life, Orihime grew up, grew beautiful, shone like a star. Her story moved on.
It was a hot midsummer day when things changed. Standing by the river's bank, she spoke of time past, of the other times that she had spent by the river, in a way that indicated an end. The river carried her words away, wrapped around the image of a girl with brown hair and determined eyes. Overhead, the fireworks exploded.
"What does it mean to speak, when no one can hear what you say?" Silent as ripples, Orihime's words spread out under the cold moon.
She was standing by the river, looking at the water. On her wrist was a silver bracelet. Her shoulders were set, her face was calm.
"I know, I know that no one can hear this. It's ok; I've already said my goodbyes. This is nothing more than the whispering of the wind, the rustle of fallen leaves. I'm ready to leave."
The river felt in her words the regret and loss that she could not bring herself to admit.
"You'd think the choice would have been hard, but it was so easy. It was so easy. This is the only thing I can do, so I will do it whole-heartedly. I will not flinch from my duty, even if it is self-imposed."
She fell into silence, and there was only the still wavering of the moon on the river's surface. Then a great darkness opened, and out of it stepped a figure darker than the abyss from which he came, the shape of a man with no story but despair. Orihime turned to meet him and the river finally saw, shining through her, Vega in all its glory. The pattern of her story unfurled as the dark rift closed, and the moon's reflection was fractured by the impact of a leaf on the river's surface.
Now, months later, Orihime returned to the place she had left. She peered into the water, and though the river reflected her mortal form on his surface, oh, within and beneath it, how brightly her golden light glowed.
"You look amazing, Tatsuki", the waves lapped.
"I pale in comparison to you tonight. Blue is really your colour."
"Do you think they'll come to the festival?" The tremor in Orihime's voice caused tiny ripples on the still surface of the water.
"You mean, will Ichigo come? I don't see why not. He said he would."
At her words the river knew him, her Hikoboshi. Kurosaki Ichigo was his name, and his story was also woven into the great tapestry of the river's memory.
He was older than Orihime when the river met him first, on a glorious April afternoon. A tiny boy ran to the river's edge, shouting excitedly, glancing about for frogs. Behind him, two adults strolled, a man carrying a picnic basket and a woman wheeling a double pram. They laid out a blanket on the grass, took out onigiri, sushi rolls, cold yaki-soba, salad, tea. The boy could hardly sit still, running up to them to take huge bites of food, then running back to the water's edge.
For the whole afternoon, Ichigo smiled hugely, bright as sunshine. Then, just before they left, a loose rock caught his shoe, and he stumbled. With a quick splash, he was tipped into the shallow water. Ichigo glanced back and forth, surprised, and then began to cry. At once, his mother was by his side, and with a gentle hand she comforted him. She picked him up in her arms, ignoring the water that ran down her dress, and began to tell him a story. By the time they reached the road, he was laughing and smiling again.
The river was left with his tears.
Grief fell down with the rain. Chill mists lay about the river, and on his bank stood a monster. The river felt its presence, and flowed hurriedly along. Then, from the road, a cry, the boy's name. And again, a plea to stop. And then there was a blur of movement, and the river's banks were scarred with blood, so that his waters ran red with it and the rain fell like tears. When the attack ended, there was an awful silence. Ichigo and his mother lay still, and the blood flowed on. Finally the boy opened his eyes, but there was no scream. The cry of grief that the river could not express went unheard. There was only a soft whisper, and the endless drumming of the rain.
After that, the river came to know Ichigo well. Day after day, the young boy wandered along his bank. The river knew what Ichigo sought, but he was only a river, and could not give the child peace. He could only carry Ichigo's story, and remember his fallen tears.
Ichigo did not cry again. His sobs had turned into the long enduring grief that does not speak. Slowly, the river realised that Ichigo's march was not a search for redemption but an enforced purgatory.
It was the girl who pulled him out of it, the dark-haired girl that the river would meet again with Orihime. Tatsuki had always followed him to this spot, but now she was his shadow, appearing every day after school as the evenings became shorter. She was silent, not with the gentleness of peaceful companionship but with the patience of someone waiting for answer.
The river did not know what her silence meant to Ichigo, but shortly afterwards he ceased to roam the river's banks, though the river never again saw him smile as he had before his mother died. That smile had set like a sun, and the river was left with the darkness of Tatsuki's silence, a question that would not be answered and an absence that would not be filled for many years.
Beneath the bridge he swore an oath.
The ground was churned and muddy, and there were prone bodies lying here and there. One was half in and half out of the river himself, and ugly man with dreadlocks. The river carried away his sweat and saliva, his dull story with its predictable end.
What happened to Ichigo was more surprising. Lying on the ground, dirt on his face, he spoke of strength united, of loyalty and companionship and determination.
"All right. Let's do this, Chad. You keep doing your thing, and don't fight for yourself, but fight for me, and I, will fight for you. If you put your life on the line to protect something, then I'll put my life on the line to protect it, too. Promise?"
Their hands touched, and the river carried away the sense that his story was not inevitable, that its pattern was not so wholly fixed as a mother's death had made it. The river carried away hope.
Something had changed. For once, the river did not see the cataclysmic shift, but only the aftermath. It was a warm, sunny June 18th, and Ichigo sat on the river's banks, scarred and joyfully scowling.
His friend, that dark haired dragon, came and sat next to him.
"I knew you would be here," Tatsuki said.
They spoke only of the everyday, and so the river paid attention not to their words, but to the expressions on their faces. It watched the flickering flames of feeling behind their eyes, and recognised that the question Tatsuki had asked so long ago had been answered. Ichigo was no longer a trembling boy, punishing himself for some failure. He stood before the river as a determined man, and though he was still seeking something, some emotion or feeling or person, the river sensed that his heart had become strong enough to overcome all the obstacles on his path.
"Let's go to the arcade. Stand up, man!" Tatsuki kicked him, and tiny pebbles rained down on the river's surface.
It was February when the river had last seen him, the February of one of the coldest and hardest winters in living memory. He walked with dark-haired death, a woman young in face and old in years, her power cold as the flowing water. Rukia was known to the river, though he had yet to understand her story fully, or to guess its significance in the great weaving of heaven.
"How are you, idiot?" Her voice was soft, soft as falling snowflakes.
"I've been worse."
"You've been better, too."
Ichigo turned his head away, his frown sinking into his face.
"As it happens-" Rukia paused, looking at the frost patterns on the grass. "Soul Society sent me to extend an offer to you."
"What do they want me for?" Ichigo's voice was tight, and there were dark currents in it.
"The rebuilding effort is proving difficult. There are certain decisions that require a certain number of captains to ratify, but our numbers are so severely reduced that getting that many captains in the same room is pretty much impossible. There are simply too many hollows attacking the fragile borderlands."
"They want me to fight for them?" Ichigo's tone had not changed. The river pulled away his dark emotions.
"Yes. You're already going to be repeating the year, so they don't see it as a crucial sacrifice on your part."
Rukia adjusted the badge tied to her left arm, looked up at her friend, and continued, her voice trembling.
"If, if there's someo-, something you need to stay for, I will of course decline the offer on your behalf, but-"
She did not finish her sentence. Ichigo's anger, which had been slowly building like a great wave, erupted.
"Enough! I know what you're asking, but there's nothing." His knees did not give out, he did not fall down. His reflection remained the same. Only the biting curve of his eyebrows and the bitter twist of his mouth betrayed him. "There's nothing between Orihime and I. We can't even speak to each other any more, and I don't know how to fix it."
"That's what I thought." Ichigo stared at Rukia, shocked at her brusqueness. "Ichigo, you both need time. The answer hasn't revealed itself yet. It's under the ice of this long winter. Give yourselves some time apart, let her come to her own conclusion, do your duty towards the dead, and the living will wait awhile. Let the spring come."
Ichigo placed a hand over eyes, just for a moment, and then looked clearly at Rukia, and there was a new strength in his face.
"Thanks, Rukia." They turned and walked away, and as his reflection diminished, the river felt in it the sweet darkness of Altair, the second half of the weave falling into the great whorl of the stars.
There he stood now, Ichigo and Altair, on the right bank, his hand clutched around a piece of paper. He tied it to a bamboo, and the gentle evening breeze took the words and carried them to the river. Let us meet, tonight. The river reflected the words, sending them up to its starry counterpart. Let them meet tonight, the waters whispered.
Ichigo moved along the river's banks, a cold moon at his side.
"You didn't have to wish, you know", Rukia said. "You'll see her anyway."
Her words drifted gently downstream.
"I know, but I think I need all the luck I can get, tonight," Ichigo said. The river recognised him, and little waves lapped up to meet him. "There's no guarantee that this will work."
"You'll get it right. I'll beat you up if you don't." Rukia laughed, a sound like bright crystal.
"Thanks."
They drew level with the girl the river knew, with Orihime. The river felt them calling, back and forth across it, felt the story unwinding itself behind their words.
"Hey, Tatsuki," Ichigo shouted.
"Don't shout, idiot," the girl with the eyes of a dragon replied. "I can hear you just fine."
"Ah, good evening, Kurosaki-kun," Orihime said, heading off a confrontation.
"Good evening, Inoue." There was the heat of a blush in Ichigo's words.
Rukia exchanged greetings with Orihime.
"It seems silly to talk across the river like this," Tatsuki said. "Shall we walk up to the bridge?"
The two groups walked along the banks of the river. They did not speak, and their silence poured into the river, full of significance.
At the bridge Tatsuki and Rukia stopped, letting Orihime and Ichigo walk out to the centre on their own. The two did not seem to notice.
"It's a beautiful evening, isn't it, Kurosaki-kun?"
The river could not change its course, could not rise from its bed, but every drop of water strained to catch their conversation. Their story was at its climax, and the river treasured stories.
"It is," said Ichigo, and the river knew he was not looking at the world.
"I hear you were fighting for Sould Society," she said.
"I hear you were training with Hachigen and Unohana," he said.
There was silence even in the words they spoke, deep as the spaces between constellations.
"You know, Inoue," Ichigo said, so quietly that the river almost missed his words, "I have something, something I wanted to talk to you about tonight."
Orihime turned away, leaning over the railing, her vivid hair all about her like a crown of evening sunshine.
"Is it… is it about the war?"
There were things the river did not know, but it knew war far too well. Beneath them, the river dreamed softly of pain.
"In a way." Ichigo looked at Orihime. She had turned away from him, in shame or anger he did not know, but the river felt his aching desire to touch her.
"Orihime, I'm sorry. Something happened to you, and I couldn't stop it, even though I promised you I would protect you." Ichigo glowered at the water.
Orihime did not look at him. Her hands gripped the bridge rail tightly enough to turn white. Her eyes stared fixedly at one point, and saw nothing. She could hardly breathe.
"I just wanted to protect you." Ichigo's voice trembled like rain-splattered water. "And I failed. I failed again and again, because even after the war, I couldn't make things right. I was such a coward. I didn't ask you what had happened, because I was scared of the answer. It was only when I was far away that I realised that if I didn't ask, I would never really see you again, never really speak to you again. I want to see you. I want to protect you. I love you."
Orihime did not look at him. The river absorbed her tears.
"Inoue, will you look at me?"
She looked at him. Her eyes were still wet, and her voice was choked and strangled when she spoke.
"Why? Why do you-? I wanted to protect you. I was always behind you, always trying to catch up, always relying on you. I was so determined to change, but when the worst came to the worst, when he… I couldn't keep up my resolve! I wanted you to help me! How can I possibly be loved by you, after everything I failed to do?"
Her tears, flowing down the river, were like stars. Her words were dark as magpie wings.
"And I turned into a horrible monster, one that could have killed you," Ichigo replied, his voice gentle. "We all do things that we regret. I spent a long time thinking, when I was in Soul Society, and I decided something." He grinned at Orihime, proud of his thought. "What matters isn't what we do, but the story we tell about what happened. If you have a regret, then take it and turn it into the beginning of a better story." He paused. "Cool, huh?"
Orihime laughed, wiping her hand over her eyes.
"You're always cool, Kurosaki-kun."
"I think," he continued, more seriously, "I think if we work together, then all our regrets will become the foundation of a really great story. Inoue, I know something bad happened to you in Hueco Mundo. Someday, I hope you'll tell me about it, and we'll make it part of our story, but I can wait a little for that." He looked up at the stars. "Yeah, I can wait, because I'm simply grateful that you're here, every day, shining as brightly as the sun."
Orihime stared at him, her face flushed, her breathing quick and then her words rushed out in a torrent.
"I- I always loved you. You were so brave, just like a knight in shining armour, or a prince. Kurosaki-kun, I can't stop the guilt I feel. I don't know if I ever will. It seems so unfair to be happy when I caused so much sadness."
There was a long moment of silence, and the river knew that this was the final tipping point. Ichigo waited patiently, his face tense with hope and fear, as Orihime struggled to find the words. Then, suddenly, something clicked, and she looked into the river, eyes wide.
"Thank you," she said, her voice stronger, full of surety. "You're right. If I'm sad, this story will never end. I'll just be trapped in the same place, full of despair, never moving forward. I don't want that. I want to be happy! I want to be happy, so that I can make my life a wonderful story, a story that will bring happiness to everyone I love."
Orihime turned back to him, a true smile on her face, her eyes like stars, and Ichigo bent down to kiss her. Beneath them, the river burbled with joy, feeling their tale come full turn.
They broke apart as the first drops of rain fell from the sky.
"Rain," Orihime said, and her face was filled with wonder. "But ah, Kurosaki-kun, we were able to meet anyway!"
Their hands reached, and intertwined, and the water of the Karakura river flowed away to the sea, carrying all the stories it knew, including the legend of that rainy Tanabata night.