Title: I Can't
Date: 6/19/09
Word Count: 850
Genre(s): Angst, romance
Characters: San, Ashitaka
Summary: Although she yearns to, she cannot go to him. She can think of past memories, but knows she cannot make a future. She can only listen to his calls and her heart slowly breaking now.
.
She could hear him.
He always came at this time, when the sun was well past it's half-way mark and it wasn't early enough to still be named afternoon yet too early to be called night. He would sometimes come riding his elk, but most of the time he came into the forest on foot with nothing more then the clothes on his back.
Closing her eyes, San allowed herself to bask in past memories, like when he came into the new forest the first time. It'd been two weeks since the Forest God's death and when her nose twitched at his earthy scent, she felt her eyes widen and the hair on her neck go on-end. She'd ran to him, not even giving thought to asking one of her brothers who'd have made the trek much quicker, and when she had seen him she felt her face stretch into a smile that he soon mirrored.
She enjoyed his visits, when he dared to come into a sacred land no-one else did. With his stormy steel-blue eyes that were like rain clouds and his brown hair that was as soft as flower petals, she could sit and talk with him for hours. Although she never did like it when he left, she did look forward to when they'd rub noses and then share a parting kiss. At the first time he dared bring together their lips, she was confused but after he explained that he was showing affection, she felt herself blush before saying wolves often touched noses to show love, thus making him do both before they parted.
While he was indeed human, each time she saw him he changed more and more in her eyes. Soon she was looking past his human traits as her head was clouded by the way he smiled when he was genuinely pleased or the way his laughter rumbled up from deep inside his chest.
Suddenly, she heard one of her brothers snort in their sleep and it snapped her back to reality.
To a reality where Ashitaka was calling out to her and she wasn't answering.
Because somewhere along the way of their courtship, something had changed inside of her. He didn't notice it, he was a little too blinded by his unconditional love for her to notice something she hid so well, but it was something that was shaking the princess down to her very core.
When she heard him call out her name in his warm and inviting voice in the muggy air once again, she placed her hands over her ears in a childlike fashion and pulled her knees up, hoping to block out his searching voice as she continued to hide herself in the cave she and her brothers still shared after their Mother passed.
She hadn't gone to him in six months, and yet he still came at least twice a week, calling and searching for her. She had thought that after the first few months of her not going to him he would give up, would simply stay in Irontown and would find another to fill the void left by her in his heart. Although she knew him to be stubborn, she didn't think he was to such a level of almost stupidity. She was not giving him any attention in the least, was even intentionally averting him, yet he kept coming back.
And everytime that he had to go back, whether it being almost night or the morning if he searched through the darkness, and his voice stopped echoing through the steadily growing trees she felt like her heart was breaking all over again. For someone she cared about so much, wanted to touch and feel so badly, to have to walk away because she was the one in the wrong; it was tearing her apart. And when she thought about what she must be putting him through every time, she felt all the worse.
But she knew, as she felt her heart begin to flutter as his voice called out again, that what he had been doing to her when they were together was more painful then this heartbreak.
Because he was making her human.
It wasn't that he was doing it intentionally; but the way he was making her heart beat fast, making her feel so carefree, she felt her wolf side slowly eroding away. When she was with him, her guard was down and her senses were focused solely on him. He made her forget about her duties to the forest. He made her feel selfish, and that is what humans are. But she isn't, won't, can't be that because she is a wolf, a protector of the forest.
So, she will hide away.
She won't answer his calls.
She won't look into his eyes that make her feel safe.
She won't go into him wide open arms.
But, no matter how hard she tries, she can't stop the tears from streaming down her face.
And no matter how hard she tries, she knows she will always be in love with Ashitaka.