Kyuubi no Yoko
(九尾の妖狐)
.:.
Tamamo no Mae
(玉藻の前)
.oOo.
Many, many years ago, before the element nations were the element nations, the whole of the land was ruled by a single, tyrannical man. His greatest pride lay in his palace, a grand mansion with wide, tall walls and magnificent gardens. This palace however, wasn't the tribute of a loving populace, like so many other rulers could boast. No, this emperor was a man who's eyes were the color of greed. What he saw, and caught his eye must be his own. Power, wealth, beauty, all were subject to his insatiable appetites. This man's name was Konoe, and he would become emperor of the kingdom – for a time.
But, this is not his tale.
Not far from the where this man would make his palace one day, there lived a small, happy, prosperous family. For many, many years, they had lived peacefully within the great country as it settled from many wars and battles, farming the nearby forests secretly as large fields were often trod underfoot by horses or soldiers looking for training room.
They were close to nature, these peaceful people by the name Tamamo. Long retired from war and seeking only to help his family, the father of the household was a potter, taking the earth and clay from the nearby forest to make beautiful china. His wife was a skilled artisan, and taking his masterpieces, turned them into works of fine art.
But, this is not their tale.
For many years, the Tamamo family wished for a son, but none came to them. Yet, they had two beautiful daughters, who shared their sense of peace and love for the world around them. The elders Tamamo taught them the way of the forest, of which spirits to appease, which to avoid, and which to appreciate silently.
When the eldest daughter, Oyume, grew old enough, she became a tender of the forests, cutting the old wood to make way for new growth. To help with this task, the spirits of the woodlands gifted her with a gust of wind that would heed her call, sharp and sure and able to lay the largest tree low. Kind and considerate, Oyume only used her gift to maintain the woodlands, and the trees she felled were brought to the village for wood and fuel and to warm many on cold nights.
The youngest sister Mae was a spirited child, and later a fierce young woman. For many years she sought her own way, trying this and that to know what it was she was to do, for the elders Tamamo did not want to force her hand. She loved them, and her sister, but there was a seed of resentment there. Mae went to the forest one night on her own, and met a man with strange gray eyes.
Curious, Mae asked what this man was doing out in the forests only her family tended, having never seen another there. Initially he had seemed kind, and shared a fire with her and food, but did not give his name. Again she asked, while thanking him, what name she would tell her family when speaking of her benefactor, but again he refused.
Frustrated but not angry, Mae spent the night speaking with and sharing tales with the strange, gray-eyed man. Nine times she asked his name, and nine times he refused, but it was the last that finally revealed his nature. Rather than give his name, this man spoke of a coming age, one of war and strife and death, an age he would bring to an end by slaying all those that stood against him.
With a predator's smile, he asked if she would stand with him, or be one of those left dead in his wake. Seeing now his fine sword and the seal of the conquering family on his vest, Mae grew frightened and ran from him. Seeking sanctuary, she dove into a fox-den, and waited there while the man hunted for her, cursing and calling out for his guards and retainers. While above the hunt continued, in the fox's den, Mae cried and was consoled by the kitsune foxes that her family called friends. She cursed her curious and flighty nature, her lack of any one talent, and the cold that had led her to cross such a horrible man.
Hearing her woes, the kitsune gathered around her and offered her warmth, and taught her the skill of fire – feeling in her a kindred spirit. They shared many traits, they explained, and had waited a long time for one such as her to come along. Thanking them, she asked what to do in return for their kindness, but there was no payment they would take.
In the morning, Mae returned to her home and worried family, and never returned to the wood, for fear of meeting that man. She was not unhappy though, as the foxes came to visit her often, and she used their gift to make magical fires in the kilns where the clay was baked and the glazes fired.
For many years they lived in this way, the elders making their wondrous china, the oldest daughter bringing home the wood for the kiln, and the youngest breathing life into the fires to make their parent's work finished.
Then one day, the emperor named Konoe came to their village, and demanded that each family present their daughters for his search. It was well known that the cruel and conquering warrior had terrible lusts and was not kind to those he took, so families tried hard to hide their precious children. Mae's father saw their youngest child's fear, and hid her in the kiln where the fires would not harm her, and no one would suspect. Mae's mother took Oyume and weaved leaves and sticks in her hair, brushing her face with charcoal, and making her to look as her sister, not her child. The town knew they had one daughter, for certain, and it would be too risky to lie so outright and claim none.
Wary and worried, the elders Tamamo took Oyume and with the other families waited as the new emperor sought out his latest prize.
To their concern, Konoe stopped by Oyume and narrowed his strange eyes. With a nod his guards took the girl away, as her parents wailed and cried out. One of the foolish village women asked why he chose this girl, ugly and old, and the man replied, "Because she obviously has much to hide, for all the effort to make her so ugly."
Taking her face in a rough hand, he also said, "And she looks like the one I came here to find, a clever girl whom one day I will claim." And with that, Oyume knew what she must do, for she loved her sister very much.
Rushing back to her parents, she hid the gust of wind she was given in her mother's hair, while the guards came to pull her away. Knowing that they would never see their daughter again, the elders Tamamo wailed for their child, but the emperor, cold and cruel, only laughed at them.
Cunning herself, Oyume introduced herself as Mae, and claimed to be an only child. Thinking himself clever, Konoe didn't question this, as both sisters looked very much alike. No, he was quite drunk on his own thoughts of conquest and success, and so suspected nothing.
When Mae crawled from her fiery retreat, she was met with the despairing faces of her parents, and her sister's final gift. Too lost in their grief, the elder Tamamo only quietly smiled, sad, weary, broken smiles, and went to their room.
Mae was not sad. No, Mae was a girl who's passions ran hot and cold, but never, ever dimmed. For long months her parent's will grew less, ebbed, and finally went cold, and Mae buried her old mother and father in the cool earth beside the home they built and loved.
Wind and fire in her hand and heart, she went out into the one place she could escape the hurt of her loss. So lost in rage was Mae, that she turned those gifts given by the forest and wilds against them, until in a mighty, swirling, unbelievable conflagration, much of it was lost and destroyed. When her fury dimmed, she saw what her actions had wrought and finally cried, for now she felt herself no better than the evil man who had stolen away her sister.
Understanding but disappointed, the oldest of the kitsune from the wood came to her then. "Child," it asked, "what troubles you so that you must punish the woods that have cared for you so long?"
Bitter and lost in sorrow, the young woman spoke of the horrible man, his threat from before, and the loss of her sister and parents. Knowing she had done ill, Mae bowed low and waited for the old fox's judgment. Imagine her surprise when only a gentle paw rested on her shoulder.
"It is the human's destiny to know pain and grief," the old spirit told her. "But it also a human's destiny to seek vengeance, and keep the wheel of Samsara spinning," he continued.
"Then is it my fate to suffer? To have my world torn down by one man's greed and malice?"
Feeling the child's pain as his own, the fox conferred with his clan, and came to a decision. "It may be fated that you loose those you care about," he sadly told Mae, but forestalled her tears with a raised paw. "But, it is within your power to decide what to do with the future. The past may already be written, but what lies ahead is not."
Not understanding, Mae asked the old fox what he would have her, a simple kiln-tending girl, do against an emperor and all his guards?
"We kitsune will teach you," the old one spoke, and for the next year Mae hid with the foxes, learning their ways, and shaped as a boy to avert any suspicion. It was her first lesson, of many.
When Mae was as old as her sister when she was taken away, she bid farewell to the foxes and garbed herself in sakura blossoms and higanbana flowers, weaving them with fine illusions into a grand kimono. Garbed so, she took the gifts that the wilds had given her and her sister, and started her journey. The wind held her hair in place and whispered at her back, while burning in her breast, a fire of hate and vengeance seethed.
As she traveled, that fire grew, until it seeped into her hair, dying it a vivid red. News that her sister had only lasted a year before being cast out by the man and shortly dying only hastened her steps.
Arriving in Konoe's capital, Mae made a grand show of herself, walking with grace and poise in easy sight of the cruel man's guards, before retiring for the night in the nearby wood. Wind at her feet, she could not be caught by those clumsy samurai, and laughed at them as she escaped each night.
Each night tales of a wondrous apparition of a woman reached the lord's ear, and he was first among those giving chase. Finally he caught sight of her on the ninth night and was struck by her beauty. A more canny warrior and faster than his men, he too failed to catch her, but that night there was a change.
Beside a grand lake, bordered by high cliffs at his city's border, she paused and waited for him. "Great lord," she greeted, bowing in her calm while the man panted like a hound.
Flustered and not amused, but very curious of the woman, Konoe demanded she tell him her name, and return with him to the palace.
With a laugh, Mae refused both, and was gone from his sight into the deep forests.
Ninety more nights of taunting were inflicted on the young emperor, but none of his men, or his hired mercenaries, his monks or secreted, shadowy magicians could build a trap or catch the elusive woman. Each time, on the ninth day the lord himself would catch up to her, and she would refuse him.
She hid in a great field of poppy and daylilies, bright as the evening sun.
Then, there was a slight boat, barely a bamboo-leaf on the water, that eluded all his vessels as if they stood still and cut though his rivers and wave-wrought waters like a sharp blade.
She hid in a mist, cold and foreboding, laughing at those that would seek to find her.
During a festival, a masked woman put to shame all his trained dancers, revealing herself to be the devilish apparition on the last and mocking him as she disappeared into the crowds.
After the festival, the young emperor attempted to forget the strange happenings around his city, and escaped to a nearby village. Thinking to idle his time away on drinking, women, and gambling, he was shocked to see a familiar face. There at his table, sat the very same woman. "I will make a bet with you," she said in a voice that spoke promises no man could resist. "Win more than I do in nine days, and I will give up our little game."
Snarling that he was an emperor, and had no need for games, Konoe regardless acquiesced. At the end of nine days, he was infuriated to see he had lost the wager by only nine ryo, the price he had paid for an evening with an expensive yūjo the night before, thinking himself the victor.
Back at his palace, he found her waiting by his Koi ponds. "Stand in the water with me. If you can remain still and not startle the birds or fish until the moon rises high after sunset, then I will be yours," she taunted. Uncaring how the woman slipped within his walls or home, the man agreed. Instead of remaining still as they had agreed however, on that first night he lunged for her, intending on catching and forcing his will on the wily woman. Instead of catching hold of her kimono, he instead found himself holding a handful of cherry blossoms. For nine nights this continued, on one he even hid his most skilled warriors and magicians in the shadows, six in all, but they were no match for her cunning. Each time he tried to capture the woman, and each time he was proven a fool.
Finally, she approached him through his court and made a simple request. "Sit civilly with me, and have tea. If I find no fault in your manner or demeanor in nine nights, then I will remain within this house," she challenged.
Konoe knew this time he would win, and so agreed. He was of the finest nobility, after all – no one could match his poise or grace in such things.
Unseen because the man was so taken with the woman and their infuriating game, Konoe's kingdom was crumbling all around him. Each contest came with the ignored news that another great province, formerly conquered, had broken free of his reign. Too focused on his greed and lusts, the emperor ignored those messages – no, he simply didn't hear them! His days were bewitched by the fury of being bested so many times, and his nights haunted by their contests.
On the first night, she served him, and complimented him on his manner. He was tempted to voice his usual demands, not one to lightly be denied, but recalled the conditions of their bargain. Unused to restraining himself, he missed the woman's slight grin at his discomfiture.
On the third, he found himself weary early in the day, but pressed on, determined not to lose to her. Mind swimming with the delights he would visit on her in the closing of the week, he bid the temptress good night and slept.
The fourth night was preceded by his advisers, worrisome in their heckling and mother henning, asking what manner of ill humor he'd taken. Uncomprehending of their urging to see a doctor, the emperor returned to tea, eager and craving its sharp bite and promise of victory.
By the eighth night, there was talk of treason, as all the lands surrounding the emperor's own province had broken away, taking their wealth and prosperity with them. Above that though, the man himself was looking little better than a walking corpse, the only sign of his former vitality the shining, livid eyes that could be seen, watching clocks and the passing of the sun in expectation.
Despite all his previous failures, Konoe maintained his grace, poise perfect while his warrior's training kept a shaking hand from spilling even a drop of tea. Smiling in the way of predators, Mae finally took the frail man's hand, his feverish mind playing scenes of things best left unsaid.
It was that same fever that saw him seizing, world going black and dim, while the woman held him in a fierce, crushing embrace. "For the dishonor you visited on my sister, who took my place, I finally have my vengeance," she whispered to him, as realization of all that had truly happened dawned in dying eyes. "Your kingdom is in ruins, your people will be scattered and lost. Your name will lie forgotten, not even worth the whisper of its murmuring.
"You took from me everything, and so I gift you with all my nothing in return."
The last sight that Konoe witnessed, as his breath rattled feeble and final in his lungs, was the palace he prized being razed to cinders by a woman with red hair and nine tails whipping about her, laughing as she unmade all that he had spent a wretched life building.
And he never learned her name.
.oOo.