Alika's note: Hi you! Fanfic translated from French into English. I don't have any beta-reader to help me to fix my errors, so, sorry if there're missing words in some sentences or wrong spelling. I hope you will still enjoy it, and please, leave some reviews… if they can help me to improve on into English!
Disclaimer: I didn't own Moribito's characters, all belong to Nahoko Uehashi, but I own my OC, Alika.
Chapter 10: Hunter Cave
We traveled for a few hours or so where we passed a huge waterfall and foliage's colors slowly changed. The leaves also fell, and I was truly attacking by several of them... yes, I swear! One in the eye, one in the neck and the other in my hair...
"It's colder than Kousenkyou here, then the leaves are turning colors earlier," Dad informed Niisan, showing a leave.
"Snows in Kanbal have surely already started to fallen," Mom commented.
"Really?" I enjoyed.
"Yes. It's snowing earlier and winter last for a longer period. Close about five out of twelve months... until half-April."
"When we shall go to Kanbal?"
"I don't know… maybe when we could."
I pouted.
"Will I have to wait another two years?!" I asked.
"We don't know, future is always in motion."
Niisan said nothing and went on his way, sulky.
"He been like that since we left Toumi," Dad watched.
"Yes, but at least we will reach the Hunters Cave soon. I will think about how to take care of Chagum once there," Mom says.
"Yes."
We walked on a hill and the scenery was beautiful in its autumn colors. Grandma struck the rock with her cane.
"Shit! That is what happens when one neglects not even a little bit," she groaned, toring some vines.
Dad opened the door by pushing the big stone. He was strong, my Dad! I followed Grandma and Dad, at his turn, followed me.
"Master and I had been used to fiddling in the cave under this stones," he said. "I'll light the cave."
He lit a few candles and put them around before warning Mom, who was still outside. Niisan finally arrived.
"Are you surprised? We call it the vestibule. It's a bit cold and cavernous however, so we dug a few rooms away. Come on."
Daddy's voice echoed in the space. Deeper, there were three large openings. He tells us that the right cavity was so deep that it was branched and became almost a maze. He prohibited us to go in, with the fear to getting lost and never come out. There was a source of drinking water in the middle and the left was fitted with a wooden door: it was going to be our home during the longs winter months. I entered, following Dad. The floor was oval and the walls were smooth and dry. Large jars were stored along the wall; there was smaller in various forms on shelves. The futons were folded and wrapped in oiled paper against moisture.
"This is our living room. The room here is where we smoke the meat and that kind of thing. We store food and water there, in that room."
"It seems that the place has held up," Grandma asserted.
"This place hasn't changed. Everything is exactly as the same as before. This is the first time I come back since Jiguro passed away," Mom told us.
"Once snows will fall, we will be trapped inside," Grandma grumbled. "There are a lot of things we need to do before. We are going to begin the preparations for winter immediately."
"Chagum," Daddy said. "Aerate the futons in the sun. Alika, you can pass a broom and we have still full of other things to do."
I took a broom and began my task to clean the area. In a way more or less unconsciously, I danced with the broom at the same time that I performed my task. When I was sure that I had passed the broom everywhere, I kept the broomstick in my hand and I smiled as I was thinking. The brush was a little heavier than my bamboo stick – unfortunately let at the watermill. I began to do some parades and began to enjoy, doing acrobatics stuffs when Mom's voice echoed in the room, making me lose my concentration and I ate a broom hit on the head because I didn't stopped my move, unbalanced.
"Ouch..." I moaned, rubbing my head.
"What are you doing, sweetie? Do you spared alone?" she smiled.
"Yeah! Since I don't have my bamboo stick... well… I have the broomstick! It's heavier, so I like it."
"Um... about your bamboo stick..."
"Yes?"
"We had a little problem with the watermill," she began, coming to sit on the wooden floor.
"How so?" I questioned her, coming to sit down at her side.
"When I was late, when we traveled to the Toumi's village... there was a specific reason. The watermill took fire, and all our belongings were burned. Fortunately, Dad had most of our things."
I executed a sad pout. I had nothing very important at home, unless my little dress coming directly from Kanbal and my bamboo stick.
"But don't worry, sweetie," she reassured me, stroking my cheek maternally. "I'll find you a new stick with which you can practice soon. Do you want to come with me and Chagum early tomorrow morning, to hunt and to set traps? I've already put traps today and I think that I will still continue tomorrow."
"Yes!" I inspired me. "I come!"
We walked in the forest and toured traps. We pulled a hare, a deer and a caribou. Niisan was in charge to remove the skin of the hare. The animal was still hot. He couldn't restrain his tears.
"Work by making the vacuum in your mind," Mom advised him. "It hurts you because you put yourself in its place. But this hare died to allow you to live. Cook its death in cooking of the best way as possible, instead crying as if you regretted."
"Mom, I want to open the caribou!"
"And why the biggest part?" she asked, smiling.
"Because… this is the biggest part!"
"You know how it works, but be careful to don't cut yourself."
"How many times did I cut myself when I accompanied you during the hunt?" I inquired, a little upset as I looked at the knife in her hand.
"A few time..."
"How do you say, Mommy? Precisely?"
"Um... five times."
"How long many years?"
"Two years... I think. Why wouldn't you separate consumable edible parts from non-edible parts? Mom would feel better if she would it."
I sighed.
"Okay..."
While she was cutting the stomach, being careful not to puncture the bag surrounding the organs, I asked her:
"Mommy, do you think you or Daddy might catch a fox and a wolf?"
"Why thus?"
"... Because, I want the tail!"
"Huh?"
"Yes, I want to wear a wolf's tail in my clothes. Waa–oo–ooouuhh!"
At that time, wolves answered me. In fact, I was a bit scared and glued me against my mother who smiled. It's true; this place wasn't as familiar to me that Daddy's house and I don't know the environment. Mom said that she will think about my request. After completing our butchering, we smoked the meat in the room reserved for that. Then, we went fishing Tobryas. Mom separated the river into two and hitting one side, like that, the fish came in our direction. They were very big and I was amused to catch the flight and put them in the basket. I even kept one in my arms because I thought it was funny to feel a fish wriggling close to me. It tickled and it was slimy. Mom and Niisan gutted fishes directly after fishing for they were fresh to smoke. I finally had the right to rest and I helped Dad in light work. After three days of intensive preparations, Niisan finished hanging the deer's meat in the smoking room with the fishes.
"The room starts to be well filled. We can easily spend the winter," Mom smiled.
I changed room and then, I helped Dad to attach fruits on smalls cords, Mom came and asked if he had gall insects for tanning leather before moved to the second floor with Niisan.
"This kid has become relatively strong," Grandmother commented. "It looks like he holds up with the intensive training of Balsa."
"However, I'm worried by his silence," Dad found.
"He must solve it himself. Because, no matter what we can tell, this kid must accepts the fate of the Nyunga Ro Chaga."
"Daddy, I will join Niisan and Mommy.
"Only if you don't bother them, then, you can."
I stood up and move in stairs, hugged the back of my Mom without letting finish her sentence.
"I wanna be with you! Please!"
"Of course. You came at a well time, I was talking about Jiguro to Chagum. In addition, you love stories, so... Now that I think about it, I've never spoken to you, Chagum, about Jiguro. If Jiguro hadn't been there, I probably wouldn't be here. I have been killed when I was the age of my daughter, six years, no doubt," she stroked my silky hair while I threw a boastful look at Niisan, as I want to say 'this is my Mom, don't touch her or I will bite you to the bone' with a little amusement.
"Could you tell me about him?" he asked, ignoring me completely.
"It might be a good time to do so, indeed. As you know, my land, Kanbal, is a small country which lie on the other side of the Aogiri. And even in such a place, people are constantly seeking to create conflicts. To talk to you about Jiguro, I must to tell you about my childhood. On the other side of the Blue Mountains Mists, walking a very long time toward north, you arrive in a country called the Kingdom of Kanbal. Kanbal isn't like Yogo. There's no rice or fertile land. Instead, the ground is extremely mountainous and rocky strewn pastures. There are only arid plateaus and sharp mountains, the peaks are covered with eternal snow. Kanbal is too mountainous to maintain a farm. The people make their lives, plowing dry land, by growing the thin stock of seeds and tubers and by grazing Kanbalese goats. Everything that people derive from this barren land is a few handfuls of grain and Gashas, potatoes. In the mountains live eagles with large wings that feed rodents and sometimes goats falling of rocks. When they have eaten, they take bones in their beak and go very high in the sky, drops the bone on the rocks to break it and eat the bone tender..."
"Erk..." I blurted.
"For them, it's good, as the hare for you. I still remember the sound of the falling bones and whose echo transmitted through the valleys. As you see, this is quite sinister... This is the land where I was born and grew up."
She explained her history – that I already knew by heart – ; her father, my grandfather, poisoning the King Rogsam, the fled of Mom and Jiguro to save her, the pursuit of the eight King's spear-wielder of the on their heels, the death of her murdered father, the slap she had taken on the cheek when she was as my age. But she had never slapped me. Thereafter, Jiguro had finally agreed to train her, her meeting with Dad and Grandma, the hard life she lived, well amusing, being a teenager and eventually, the death of all the spear-wielders sent to their heels, her guilt about it. Jiguro's deathbed...
"But if you hadn't made that promise, I would be dead now."
"That's correct. I made it as an excuse, but Jiguro had no reason to save me except that my father was his closest friend, best friend."
"Why Jiguro decided to kill eight friends to save you?"
"Who knows? Questions such as these have continually haunted me ever since. Why he comes to accede to the request of my father? He had nothing to win. And he had everything to lose – the life for which he had worked so hard. Such request..."
"I want to know why! If I understood the feelings of Jiguro, I might, a little better, accept my situation."
Dad joined us.
"Why not continue this discussion below sharing a good meal? I would like to remember the memories of Jiguro too."
"And I'm hungry!" I told.
"Your stomach starts to take over your brain," he teased me.
"Exactly!"
We sat in the living room and Mom continued to tell her story.
"But you see Chagum, now that I think about it... Jiguro founds unfair to doesn't use his own abilities even if there's nothing to gain. For him, being a national hero was as respectable as to save an anonymous life. He really wanted to save the lives of his pursuers. I finally understand all of that... after I became your bodyguard."
Grandma went midday the next day. I helped Niisan to find a stick. He wanted to train now. This idea delighted me more or less... Why did he want to train exactly? We went to join my parents outside.
"Torogai-Shi, do you go somewhere?" He asked.
"At a hot spring! A hot spring!
"I see."
"Chagum, what do you do with that in your hands?" Mom inquired.
"Teach me also martial arts. I want to do everything that I can to protect the egg and myself. If I become stronger, maybe I'll be able to escape even if Ralunga attack me. And even if I die, maybe I'll be able to ensure that the egg hatched safely. I am the Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, Seirei no Moribito, after all."
Mom looked at him and pulled him towards her… I watched them with a bit of jealousy.
"You're right. But I will not let you die. I will defend you by hook or by crook."
"Oh?" Dad said. "Master."
"What?"
"Well, I told myself that it wasn't common. I didn't even know you could make this head."
"Ho-holds your own business!" she huffed. "I'm leaving now. Balsa, there's no problem that you train a little kid like him, but don't be a so demanding teacher with him. Unlike you, he seems to lack talent."
"Hey, it's wicked!" Niisan defended himself.
"Ugh. I'm just honest. See you later."
I laughed. I wanted to see if Grandma was right... because personally, I was shared her opinion.
The first month of winter, I merely observe Mom training Niisan. At first, I laughed because he was really rotten in this field and she always managed to make him fall in the snow with a small hit of spear on the buttocks or his calves. But I still haven't a stick or found something like that to practice. I couldn't do my acrobatics and gymnastics. So, occasionally, Mom passed me her spear, so I could to handle it correctly and more the time passed, more I got used to the weight. Finally I managed to make larges movements without crashing it down on the floor or escape the weapon. But as usual, Niisan still attracted her attention. Yes I had to admit, I envied Niisan to take my place! I rarely saw Mom when she left for her work and even though we trained together, this winter, the family all gathered for one of the few times in my young life, I couldn't even take advantage of this benefit. Gradually, I isolated myself more and more and I wept secretly. I don't know why I had such a depressed and angry. I tried to don't let it show, but basically, I was half-mad. Let's add the jealousy that I felt to seeing Niisan control a stick and I raged internally. The arts of the spear: it's was MY skills and not that of a Prince! Dad saw very well that I refused to speak as before and that I lacked enthusiasm. I spoke a few times at Mom, but only when she was alone. I slept with her sometimes and when she took a walk alone, I accompanied her. It was the ONLY time I could get my Mom for me, alone! When Niisan trying to talk to me, I glare him with evil eyes and I didn't hesitate to remind him that Balsa... was MY MOM and his mother was at her palace. I also told him that he didn't have the capacity to become a warrior like Mom and that he will never exceed me before turning on my heel and glued me against Mom, as in my habit. I didn't want from him to integrate in my private hugs!
One day in March, Mom asked me to train Niisan, then she would do some daily tasks in the Hunter Cave. I answered "no", again. But she gave me her spear without justifications and entered in. I watched the weapon, almost drugged by its look.
"Do you want to fight me?" I growled a little.
"Eh? Oh, yes, I can."
"I warn you, I'm better than you!" I placed myself on guard.
"Alika I know, but I've improved."
"I think not," I continued. "We will see your progress."
"But you have only six years..."
"Almost seven years!" I boasted me. "Come on, you taking up!"
"Alika...?"
"You're playing with my nerves!" I grew impatiently, while my blood warrior, inherited from my mother, was flowing through my veins.
He tried a first time, but I avoided him and I made fall him on the ground. I am not going to retain my shots because he was only a beginner in this field. Immediately, I ordered him to recover and to rise up. Surprised by the changing tone of my voice, which became dry and angry, he straightened up and tried to touch me. I blocked the attack and pushed him again before attacking without restraint. It was so unsettled that he fell on the ground and mastered anything. I jumped on him and made him lose his stick as I wanted to say to him: "Look, I control the spear also. Better than you! Even though my mother has trained you, you're not at my level!" I threw the spear into the snow and began to fight in close combat. I had only one thing in mind: get back the attention of my mother again and her training toward me. Yes, I wanted her for me, myself and I only! Niisan had a mother already; he doesn't have to take mine!
"Why was it necessary to be YOU?!" I yelled suddenly, too much anger contained in me. "HUH?!"
"Alika?"
"SHUT UP! EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENS TO ME, THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" I continued to cry as my eyes filled with tears. "IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE… I WILL HAVE TO PASS THE HALF OF MY WINTER WITH MY TWO PARENTS!"
"Alika?... What's wrong?"
"BALSA!... SHE'S MY MOTHER YOU HEAR ME?! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT ALL I LIVED LIKE EMOTIONS SINCE I'M SMALL! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS IT WHEN YOU LEARN THAT YOUR PARENT IS SEARCHING AND YOU DON'T KNOW IF SHE WILL BE CAPTURED ALIVE OR BE DEAD?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS IT, LIKE THAT?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS IT?! HUH?! NNOOOOO!"
This time, I was no longer hitting him, I was trying, literally, to beat him with my little fists, even if he protected his face. I didn't hear anything around me. Until I hear distant voices and feel arms pulling me out from Niisan while I struggled furiously against my withdrawal of Chagum. In the hall, I blinked to remove anger tears which filled my eyes and finally saw my mother's face, her face were grave and stern. In general, I have been afraid and will excuse me immediately, but now, I was too pissed to calm myself down.
"Alika! What were you doing at Chagum?!" she asked me as she clutched me by the shoulders.
"I'm tired of him!" I cried more and more, loud and louder.
"Don't yell at me, Alika. What you did was wrong... I know you're weird these days, it's probably the lack of light that affects you, but try to contain yourself."
"So you really didn't notice anything, same with Dad?!" I burst again.
"There's something I haven't noticed? Tell me then."
"Be set aside! Here! Whenever you were training, you were training Niisan! Niisan, Niisan and always him! I could only sit there, watching you since I had nothing in hand while I had a burning desire to fight and expel my angry energy!"
"..." Mom's eyes go down and she took a furtive breathe.
"When I finally want to spared with you for training, it was too late, or you went to bed already and prepare to sleep...! I could only wait! Wait, wait, wait and wait, shit!"
Mom looks at me, insisting on the point as I could continue to explain my point of view.
"He's the Nyunga Chaga Ro and I understand with the arrival of spring and Ralunga are coming apace, but thou hast ONLY focused on him in training martial arts and spear!" I took my breathing and wanted Mom let me go, but she continued to tighten her hold against me.
"You haven't said everything, I guess. Continue."
"I'm not stupid, I not saying this to put pity on me, but this, is true! Ask to Daddy, he'll tell you the same thing!" I continued to yell. "Then, well... you're my mom! Me, what I wanted before all, was to spend my time with you! Between mother and daughter! And I didn't want Niisan into the background when we could ONLY be just us two, but you still bring him!"
"... Continue?"
"I wanted to show you my progress, not just to look but analyzing my movements when we train! Don't you know how I anguished to thought about the idea if one day, I will see my Mom again! Don't you know that you give more affection to Niisan when he already had a mother? Don't you know how I wanted to be in your arms when you hugged Niisan! Don't you know that Niisan was a competition for me and I feel more threatened as I never feel before!"
"... No, I didn't know, you're right."
"Well, you have seen NOTHING, because I shut my mouth when I feel mad… I will not bother people with my weaknesses, I never feel sorry for my fate, I never complain when I'm hurt while Niisan complains and crying like a baby as I continue to move forward anyway! You've never seen me cry this winter until now, are you?"
"I admit, it's true."
"I was hiding myself, I wanted to prove you that I was worthy to be your daughter! I'm not a crybaby or a spoiled child as Niisan! There, I said all! You're free to contradict me in everything that I say, but it doesn't change my perception I have of Niisan now! "
I continued to cry a sea of tears and sobs. Mom didn't know what to say. [Balsa didn't have the resources to explain herself, in front of what her daughter had yelled to her. Her daughter was suffering more than she was letting on. Alika's eyes became black with the anger and welling up with tears, hurting her to see. She felt scrutinize into the depths of her soul. Instead, unable to put words on such crisis, she just stops and takes her daughter in her arms even if she struggled.] I riposted against her action, but I didn't want to hurt her in my sudden movements. So, all of my strength left me. She hugged me strongly against her and let me cry louder.
"I hate him!" I scream in the moment.
"Please, don't say that… I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't pay attention enough."
I began to feel shaky and began to miss breathing. Mom pulled me to her, intrigued by my strange jerky and my breathing. I couldn't find my breath and despite everything, I cried again and again.
"Tanda! Alika has something and I don't know what she's got!"
I panicked: I was suffocating sobbing. Dad came running and saw me. They dragged me into an isolated room.
"Hyperventilation. Okay…," he sat me on a futon and told me his instructions. "Alika, breathe in through the nose and count of two or three... do it."
I tried to do.
"Breathe in full by your nose but slowly, gradually. Avoid large gulps of air and don't hold your breath... like that. Calm down, everything is okay," I shook my head with negative. "Mom and Dad are there..."
I breathed a little better. I cannot tell how much time had passed, but I slowly calmed down and fell, dead tiredness, on the futon. I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost immediately.
[Chagum felt bad. Not for himself, but for Alika. He felt responsible from her condition and that's exactly what she wanted from him to feel. He dared to ask some news, embarrassed, about her condition. Tanda told him that she calmed down and rested now.
"It's my fault..."
"Don't blame it yourself," Balsa intervened. "All of this happened because I wasn't pay attention enough at some details... This is my fault, I realized too late that it was partly my fault if my daughter isolated herself and wept in secret. You're there for nothing."
"You're wrong, this time. I'm here for something."
If you hadn't been there, I could spend the half my winter with my parents. Balsa, she is my mother, you hear me?! she'd screamed to him.
"Balsa, Tanda... I'm sorry to have monopolized your attention on me instead Alika. I haven't really thought about that, I thought she was fine."
"I think she suffers from seasonal depression. It's rare at her age, but she feels like this... but she hides it so we didn't notice... when we became too busy."
"I'm going to bed, I don't feel good."
"Do you want I come tuck you in?" she asked.
"No, that's fine. Let these brands of conditions for your own daughter..."
They looked Chagum left, heavy foots. They were alone; both in the evening prepared rice porridge to calm their stomach. But when it was ready and served, Balsa stayed in her bubble, watching the fire blankly.
"Balsa?"
"Hmm?"
"... What do you think?"
"About what Alika yelled me in her anger... She's only a child, but she has the words to slap me verbally. I was unable to answer this time and every word she screaming at me was like a storm of stone."
"Beside this event, we had a beautiful winter anyway, don't you think?" he went to change the subject. "You, Chagum, Alika and me... We worked, we had fun, and we laughed. I would liked this winter would never end. But spring's almost here... and Alika's birthday too."
"That's right, this is her birthday soon..."
She took her head.
"Are you sure everything's okay?"
"She was right: I spent all of my energy to train Chagum. So, her birthday was coming out of my head."
"As long as it?" Tanda worried.
"Yes... she asked me two tails of foxes and wolves. Then, if I lent her my spear so regularly is that I intended to build one for her birthday... but I will never have the time to go down at the Kousenkyou to search it for her..."
"... We will find a solution. Our daughter will have a spear at her birthday, I promise you. Tell me, otherwise, if we survive to the Ralunga, don't you wish we lived together again as this winter?"
Balsa's eyes veiled.
"I have been waiting for," he said. "And our daughter also... you know. I was ready to wait until the day where you've been released from your oath..."
Tanda eyes changed color with these words. Was it anger or grief?
"I waited and I'll wait again. And yet, I wonder if one day you will come to me... The hell became your living place, you fight to fight; it became a goal in itself."
She didn't answer. She knew he was right. Fight. It's became the essence of her life. She couldn't imagine a peaceful life. Moreover, during this winter so quiet, sometimes, she felt a furious desire to battle and fight.
"What can I do, then? Do you know a good remedy for this?" Balsa asked.
A sad smile came on Tanda's lips at these words. "If I'm not the cure for you and that Alika isn't the medicine for this, this is means everything," he says, shaking his head. "What good I wait for you, then? What's the hope nourishes our only and single daughter to finally have her mother by her side all the time?"
He got up and left. During a short while, Balsa would like to chase after Tanda. Basically, she knew he was right. Fight for her, it'd become a part of her life. Being a mother was becoming another piece of her life, but she'd never opened her eyes on the situation about her daughter lived with a mother half-absent due to her work. It is not surprising that Alika threw a huge crisis seeing she take care of Chagum, as the daughter she gives life. All remorse's people she liked fell over her, causing her a multiple range of weird emotions as she'd never felt before... Leaving the pot and bowl of porridge, for the first time in her life, Balsa ran after Tanda. Leaving the room of the Hunter's Cave, Balsa saw Tanda go up the stairs, to get outside. She felt the cold wind on her cheeks and ran as fast as her legs allowed her in his direction. He heard footsteps behind him, coming toward him racing and turned just in time to catch Balsa as a shot in his unprepared arm, and at the same time, fell backwards in the cold winter snow, Balsa above him. Both surprised by this twist.
"Balsa?"
He slowly sat up and lifted his childhood friend's head. He saw her face, wet and blushed. It wasn't the melted snow stuck on her face, neither the cold wind biting their skin that made her reddish. It'd simply become too much for her. Her daughter's crisis and her sadness look, Tanda's reprimands, Chagum's guilt and herself. The abscess had burst. Balsa crying like a river and still couldn't stop. Tears kept for years since the birth of her daughter.
"I've never seen you cry that way since we were children," he whispered.
"I'm a so bad mother and wife!" she accused herself. "I'm stupid, too vile for care of a child like a real mother!"
Tanda bring back the Spear-wielder in his arms and kept her warm, leaving her crying for real, for a long while, to relieve her. It's wasn't every day that you could see Balsa's tears.
"Again, I asking you: Am I the good remedy for you?
"... I... Y... Yes..."
They kissed for a long time in the snow, despite the loud cries of Balsa and they went inside. They isolated themselves in a room and lay down side by side...]
I opened my eyes briefly and heard Mom and Dad heaves a sigh and breathing loudly. Were they trying to fight or to train? I immediately closed my eyes.