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I Remember

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Author: Kintora

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Chapter 1

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A/N: It's pretty wild how much a person's writing style changes over time. I'm currently revising stories by demand, so if there's one you would like me to continue, please let me know via review or PM.

I'd like to answer some questions put forth from IR readers over the years. Yes, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden inspired this story. My plot is going to be very, very different as you can imagine. The content is not meant to be historically accurate, so please take it with a grain of salt. Neither was Golden's novel, for that matter. If you want something historically accurate, go to the source. Read Mineko Iwasaki's autobiography. She was the inspiration model for Golden's main character, Sayuri. Ms. Iwasaki actually sued Golden over defamation and breaching confidentiality. The truth is sometimes more interesting than fiction it seems.

However, this fictional geisha story will have mythical creatures, magic, and other goodies. If that's of interest to you, by all means... Enjoy!

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I remembered one evening when I sat staring out the open window. My gaze settled on the luminescent moon, currently hiding her face shyly behind silvery clouds. To my eyes, the moon's crescent smile grew brighter as dusk fell and night descended. Absently, I smiled back from my perch by the window.

In my palm, I had a cup of lukewarm tea. Though I was accustomed to it, I hated hot tea even in the winter. So my habit was to roll my cup in my palms until I decided it was cool enough to drink. I had done this since before I could remember.

That night, I ruminated over my past. How did I end up here, sitting in a small but luxurious room of my own with no company but the moon? Had events not happened the way they had when I was six, I wonder what I would be doing right at this moment. Perhaps I would be married, lulling my children to sleep. Maybe I would have picked up a useful trade, boarding a ship to take me as far west as I liked.

It is also possible I would have died long ago. Then I would likely be in hell.

Instead, I sat here in a gilded cage, letting my dreams take me where I would never step foot again. Remembering faces I would never see...

The moonlight reflected off the surface of my tea, and my gaze drew downwards. I locked eyes with the face of a mask.

I knew my own reflection, and yet sometimes I was struck with a moment of doubt. It was of a young woman's face, but there was no blush or warmth in her eyes. They were colored like a cold winter sky… Had I been able to choose a different life, it would certainly not be the life of the geisha I had now.

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"Chihiro-chan! Oi!"

My head snapped up. I had been concentrated on making a flower chain necklace. As soon as I saw who had called me, I scrambled to my feet and began running recklessly towards her. "Rumi!"

Plunk. I fell flat on my face and stayed that way for a moment. I'd wager that I'd never lived a day without being scolded for my clumsiness. I pulled my face up from the ground and rubbed the dirt off my chin. It was only then that I realized I had broken my flower necklace.

"Oh no…"

The childish laugh stopped as my best friend came to sit next to me, "You broke it?" She frowned a bit before adding sheepishly as she blamed herself for the accident, "Sorry about that."

I shook my head and smiled, "It's okay. I'll just make another one like it."

Rumi's round rosy face frowned before she lighting up again. Taking my necklace into her hands, her fingers began to work diligently, repairing what was left. Between the both of us, Rumi was more clever and had a natural knack for tinkering.

I watched as Rumi spent the next few moments fixing what I'd ruined. She removed a broken stem here and there, fashioning the flower chain into a bracelet that was a little too small for my wrist. Eventually, that bracelet became two small rings.

She shrugged and handed me one as she kept the other. "It's still pretty, right?"

I beamed. That was another thing about her. She wanted to fix things so much that it ended up looking nothing like what it had originally been. But that's one of the reasons why I admired her so much. She never gave up, and always tried really hard to make things better.

Just then, some of the other village kids stumbled upon us at the river's edge. I remember it all so clearly.

"Haha! Look at blue-eyes! She's covered in mud!" One of the boys shouted.

Another piped up, "Yeah, she looks like a mud monster! Watch out, she might curse you with her magic!"

"Mud monster! Mud monster!" The others jeered along.

Some people back at the village were very superstitious. You see, I didn't have blue eyes. I have gray ones. I don't know why, I was just born that way. But under the sun, my gray eyes would take on a color closest to blue, as if they reflected the clear sky above.

No one knew what to call it, but many of the elders thought that I had too much water in me. I was a girl, already susceptible to darkness. Even the local priest once commented to my parents that my soul was imbalanced, and I was in danger of attracting negative attention from the spirits. I never thought too much about it. I felt normal enough.

Basically, in such a backwater village, anything that wasn't considered normal was considered an embarrassment – and at worse, dangerous.

Even my parents felt ashamed of me, but I was sure they loved me anyway. They never abused me at least. And of course, there was Rumi. She just never cared, always marching to her own tune. We were the same age, but she was a little taller so she said she was older. We loved many of the same things, like swimming. While all the other children were afraid of the river, she and I would always go there on a hot summer day and pretend we were pearl divers hunting for treasure.

I once asked her why she never wanted to play with the other kids. She told me matter-of-factly, "Because you're Chihiro and so much better than those snot-nosed brats."

I asked why she would still play with me if the other kids would make fun of her too. She only gave me a dull look as if I should already know, "We're sisters. Maybe not by blood, but you're already closer to me than any of my sisters. Besides, they're all older and married. They never play with me. And I haven't seen any of them in a long time."

"Don't you miss them though?" I prodded.

"Not really! I like you a lot more than any of them," Rumi shrugged, "One day, everyone will see what I see in you."

I kept Rumi's words in my heart, but things didn't seem like they would change anytime soon. The kids started throwing small stones at us, making faces when we got up to leave.

"Blue-eyes! Why won't you look at us?"

"Stupid! She's probably blind!"

"Yeah, she always trips like she's blind!"

"Hahahaha! So stupid!"

Rumi had a short fuse, and the abuse sparked her ire. Whirling around, she snapped back at them, "You're the ones who are dumb and blind! Go eat a rock like the trolls you are!" Grabbing a larger rock near her foot, she pelted it at the nearest boy. Kuro jumped like a startled squirrel, only to get angry. He and the others closed in on us.

Rumi was too furious to think of the consequences. Instead of running, she met Kuro's fists with her own. As Rumi was my protector, the two of them always had a bone to pick with each other. He was the ringleader of all the village boys. His father was the village head and his superstitions were infectious. It would explain why Kuro hated me so much.

Especially when the storms brewed and our crops would fail for a while, or my beloved river would over flow during a flood. Once, the river rose so far up its banks that some of the villagers on the lower parts of the settlement had drowned. A ceremony to appease the gods was soon held at our little shrine to plead for the spirits to protect us or leave us in peace.

Some of Kuro's family lived down on the lowers banks, and that one horrible flood had taken his mother's life. People believed it was my doing. That's when the truly hateful, ugly rumors started.

Kuro was on the ground, with Rumi astride his stomach, pummeling his face. The others were too scared of her to do anything. To be honest, I was also afraid of her temper as she was in such a rage. But I gathered the nerve to try and stay her hand.

"Rumi! Stop," I pleaded, "We should just go." We were going to be in so much trouble too, I added silently.

"Just go? Are you joking?! I'm not letting Kuro-no-busu off the hook!"

My insistence to let things go did not seem to be rubbing off on her right then. Her glare was so forceful, my gaze turned downcast. Shaking my head, I tried to pull her away again.

"Are you crying?" She suddenly asked me, getting to her feet. It was then I realized she was limping slightly. "I'm sorry, Chihiro. I didn't mean to yell at you. Let's go."

"You're not going anywhere!" Kuro wheezed behind her. Snarling at the other kids, he snapped at them, "What are you waiting for? Get them!"

Before either of us could do anything, the other kids lunged at us. Instead of targeting Rumi, Kuro grabbed my hair and started dragging me towards the water. I screamed as he continued to yank me forward. He was a good head taller than me, so I couldn't reach his hand as I tried to pull away from him. By then, all the kids who weren't restraining Rumi had gathered around him and me.

From the corner of my eye I saw Rumi, enraged. But she could do nothing except watch helplessly. She was yelling something, but I couldn't hear or tell whom she was yelling at.

I could barely hear anything anybody said. My mind was shutting down in terror. All I could feel were hands grabbing me by the arms and legs. I couldn't lash out and I had begun to scream uncontrollably. I felt the biting chill of water against my back, greedily swallowing my body.

The kids all started chanting mean things. Someone even laughed, "Since blue-eyes has got so much water in her, perhaps she can breathe in it!"

"No, STOP!" Rumi shrieked, "You can't!"

But Kuro just sneered down at me, his hand closing around my neck. "Why not? No one would miss her. Not even her parents!"

Then he forced my head into the water along with the rest of my body. Everyone struggled to keep me still as I kicked and thrashed. The more I cried, the more water I swallowed. The more I tried to stop, the more my hiccups came and choked me.

My fear made the cold summer water feel as icy as if it were winter. My screams turned into painful gurgling as I squirmed helplessly against their merciless grip. My lungs burned and my eyes bulged as I struggled, darkness creeping over my blurring vision.

I was going to die.

That was the last thought I had before everything went dark and numb. I felt so heavy and weightless all at once, floating as the dazzling darkness carried me away. I was no longer scared. I could no longer think. I was safe. It was over.

I sighed, relaxing. I took in a small breath.

But I was breathing. I was breathing! I was underwater!

My eyes snapped open as I stared. At first, I couldn't tell if I was looking up or down, but I soon realized that the water was very deep and someone was holding me in his arms.

Our heads broke the surface as I began to shudder and gasp from the cold. But the person who held me remained serene, completely at ease like he was a part of the river itself.

I was exhausted and my body still ached. Quivering uncontrollably in the stranger's warm arms, I struggled to regain my senses.

My eyes were too heavy to keep open and my ears strained to listen. The first thing I heard were the scampering of bodies crashing through the water, running for the bank as we neared.

When we stopped, there was a stunned silence before I heard Rumi's worried voice. That's all I could think of before the stranger began to speak. His voice rumbled softly, low and otherworldly. He also sounded angry, threatening... so much so that I felt an icy spike of fear pierced me.

I couldn't quite focus yet as I tried to understand what was going on. My body was still tensed as if ready to fight again, though I no longer shook as horribly as before.

Suddenly, the running of feet told me that the kids had scampered away and weren't going to come back. I thought of Rumi again and opened my eyes, looking for her. I was relieved that she was still there, but I saw her staring, her round little face looking scared and awed at the same time.

Then I saw how far my body was from the ground. Startled, I turned to grab for something to steady myself. My small hand found a purchase on a fold of soft, dry fabric. I was stunned for a moment. I'd never seen white and blue silk with such mesmerizing embroidery. To make things even more surreal, the intricate patterns glowed and moved like it was alive. Snatching my hand away, I looked up to see a smooth jaw line and dark hair.

As our eyes met, I felt like I was hovering over the deepest part of the river. Those deep, fathomless depths sent an instinctive thrill of fear through me. I had never seen him before. I had never seen anyone like him before. If people thought my gray eyes were strange, his piercing green eyes were beyond mysterious.

Suddenly, the sound of Rumi struggling made me turn my head quickly to the side to see her on her knees. She was just as confused as I was, looking between the strange man and me.

I began to squirm as I struggled towards my friend, "Rumi!"

The man set me down cautiously. I stumbled a bit before I bolting towards her and collapsing in her arms, careful to avoid her injured ankle. She just held onto me as I tightly as I clung to her. Then she started to cry saying that she was stupid and that all the other kids were even dumber.

We sat there holding each other like our lives depended on it. I began to feel better. I was not going to die. Thinking about what happened still shook me and I held on tighter before I too began to break down in sobs. I couldn't believe I was alive, and not a floating corpse in the river.

When we were able to let go of each other again, we turned our heads to look for the mysterious man. Only to see that…

He was gone.

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