Rivers Keep Flowing

Chapter 36: First Attack Upon the Sun

LadyRainStarDragon does not, nor will she ever own Spirited Away, Inuyasha, Yu-yu Hakusho, or any other anime. Rain is not saddened though, merely hoping to do as well as Miyazaki-san and others one day.

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The occupants of the cave had finished their rest period, awoken by a rather overzealous sentry. Sakananushi had greatly enjoyed spraying down the other two water dragons, although he quickly learned that Red detested being awoken by what had bounced off. Even though Kohakunushi and Huetziatl were made of water, that did not mean they enjoyed being doused with streams of it. Ni also did not like getting wet. As a result, Red happily did what BlowingWind would have done and made the wild male fear for any chance of reproduction. Even though he had been lucky and she allowed him to keep his parts, the Sakanagawa would not be branching off any new little rivulets in need of guardians for quite a while.

In fact, even once he finally did get a mate to tame his wild half he was going to be lucky to cut through the red tape far enough to hire any other assistants. Once Red got back to the council chamber and logged her verdict into the planetary crystalline matrix he was effectively going to be a cut off river and could expect it to become dammed up and he would have to watch over the ensuing resevoir. If that happened, then there was definitely no need for him to make any pups. What Red didn't know was that Sakananushi could circumvent that. If the human put turbines on the dam for a hydro-electric power plant and the guardian spirit was female he would have a built in mate.

Since everyone was so angry at their extremely rude awakening, no one ate breakfast. This caused them to make up for their lost time, and the deep umbra that enshrouded the Castle of Darkness at the northernmost reaches of the Spirit World was just visible over the trees of the Forest of Despair. The human terrain had already been left behind, and if they did not watch their thoughts it was possible that any fears could take shape in this dangerous place.

The wailing call of a coyote rolled out of the forest, a mournful tune causing all five spirits to wonder if it were an ordinary animal or something else. None of the Keeper Spirits or the present Youkai had ever heard such a creature. Shortly after, a Raven sounded his own call.

"Beware! Beware! Beware!"

Gathering their fortitude like the swirls of silk some of them wore, the group wended through the dismal forest. Branches clutched at them with gnarled grey fingers, threatening to hold them helpless in an eternal embrace. Several times the group had been mired in creeping brambles, but each time they had been mysteriously untagled by being only glimpsed from the corner of vision.

"Beware! Beware!"

After an endless eternity of struggling, it was decided to try and follow the crowed warnings and chortled mocks of the unknown creatures. When they had done so, the forest that had been shrouded in the endless midnight ever since the birth of the Lord of Darkness for the area had been born among the Heavenly Kami finally opened its secret passages to them.

"This is way too easy."

Huetziatl obviously was on edge, waiting for some kind of ambush. The defenses for his city were much the same, and there had been plenty of places that they had passed which would have been perfect for such a stealthy assault.

Grumbling beneath his breath behind the others, no one noticed when he fell silent and then dropped to the ground. The darkness swallowed him whole, leaving him only enough consciousness to know that something was very wrong with his mate. He no longer cared for his own life, as there was now someone to take over his duties at the end of his current existance. The problem was that if something happened to the woman who carried his child and to himself as well then the water that brought life to the city he had nurtured by his banks for so long would cease to flow. The River of Tears would die without a master, and so would El Dorado, city of the Sun.

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Abandonment and Despair had finally gotten the pregnant women taken care of, and had even managed to help Kyuujo with the vomit in his fur. He smelled like wet dog, which the women found terribly nauseating, but at least he was clean. The dog had protested mightily the whole time of course, but what could one expect? After all, they had rained on him thanks to their cloud shapes, and long haired dogs are notorious for not liking showers.

Kyuujo did get his revenge though. Dogs are also notorious for shaking water everywhere when wet and smelling to High Heaven . . . although technically that was where their goal was with their luck.

"Now will you tell us what is going on? Don't make me hurt you!"

Chihiro leaned against the rock she was sitting on. Was this why her mother had always told her not to become a priestess? This was a dangerous job, what with the threat of being bodily and psychically overwhelmed by spirits, bodily injury susceptibility, and who knew what else was going to get thrown at them. The migrane from the weird light was terrible, her morning sickness thanks to the kami she served having impregnated her seemed to get more intense as her day went on, time didn't pass here the way it did in the other realms that she was aware of, and it was up to them to help save the world. Being a priestess really sucked looking at it that way, and this whole falling in love with the family guardian deity was really confusing now if she were to start working on updating the family tree.

In short, Chihiro was now realizing the extreme complications of her current involvement in the spirit world. Most of the other humans taken by kami of either greater or lesser power had not become Mated until after their death. Sure, children were born during the human's lives to serve as shrine keepers for posterity, but it was much simpler to have waited to bond after her physical body was no longer living.

BlowingWind had it even worse, although she was thinking along much the same lines as her friend. She was still mad about having been made pregnant by a sneeze, but if she were to be truthful it was her own fault for not remembering his allergy. Working with spiritual beings really was a trial, especially when they were fertility spirits at the root of their very existence. Dragons were the only nature created beings that were capable of breeding, and some did it a little too well for her comfort. On the plus side, she wasn't impregnated by a sun beam by an amorous sun spirit or by an arrow in the butt like many other women in Japanese mythology were. She wasn't even going to go into how many kids Coyote had made among her people using similar tricks. Currently, she was watching Jewel get mad at the scraggly Destruction spirits and feeling really sorry for them. They had it even worse than she did.

Still, BlowingWind was thanking Creator that her kami was not a youkai. Kami bred when specific functions and positions needed to be filled, or when natural features needed to be created on a given schedule. Youkai however bred like humans did, whenever and wherever. Just like humans, they could easily breed irresponsibly as they lacked the inherent controls built into a kami's very being. Imagining Ryu breeding so irresponsibly was just scary. Unless pregnancy got easier as time passed, he was only getting one child from her anyway.

Despair was opening his mouth to reply to Jewel's question when the light began to fade quickly. Drums rumbled in the distance, the thunder announcing a severe storm sweeping the illusory countryside. All around them the mountains and rocks faded away to reveal the Glass Sea of Illusion once more. As the storm approached and the lightning flashed in roiling clouds passing overhead with a supernatural speed, the passable land returned. It was markedly different though. Now they were in a dimension of desert, the sand dunes stretching as far as the eye could see. The sand blew all around them, no one being able to see the others.

Abandonment clutched his brother's hand in encouragement. Together they had seen worse tantrums thrown by the other six. The human spirits were another matter though, and the pair had not discussed their plan with their elder brothers.

The storm continued to pass through, the winds abating to drench the countryside in torrential downpours. Within a few weeks as time passed here all the water would seem to be gone at the first glance, although there would be a growth of vegetation for a short time. The cacti that could be seen would flower, and the desert would wear a green dress in celebration until the last of the water was stored far underground.

Each of the humans were protected by lingering magic from the minor nature spirits that they were bound to and linked into the human world. The winds had left BlowingWind unaffected, due to the fact that as a child the wind spirits of her native land had adopted her as one of the humans that they cared for. Ryu's elemental balance with the earth which had been granted to her as his mirror caused the sand grains to only strike her gently as they passed, leaving only minimal damage upon the human spirit. The water did not treat her so gently though, much to her dismay. Chihiro had thrown her hands out when the wind and sand began to assail her, and luckily a shield was becoming easier for her to mold in this dimension of pure energy and potential. When the rains came against her, the water treated her as a friend, acknowledging her status as the handmaiden of a water ruler, much the same with Jewel. Jewel had gotten covered in the sand though, and it had scratched her up quite a bit.

At last the storm calmed, the eye being directly over and around the small group. Two figures materialized from the cooperative storm, an utter picture of exasperation.

"Just what in Creation do you think you were doing poofing from the cave like that? Tyranny and Cruelty are about ready to kill you for running out on them. They are crazy enough as it is, and I really don't want to know what Mother is going to do to us when She finds out what they are making us do."

Jealousy's green skin looked rather out of place in the sea of sand as he scolded his younger brothers. Truly, he had been terrified that the eldest of them would have found them first and carried out the long-standing threat that had plagued the youngest of them all. As it was, Tyranny and Cruelty had actually left the cave themselves to search for the 'missing' pair. It would be an understatement to claim that Jealousy and Lust were harried.

The women readied themselves for another attack, not knowing what this new pair was going to do to them. Their escort was no where to be seen, but most likely he was buried beneath a mound of sand nearby.

"What are they doing here?"

Lust had now noticed the intruders to the sector that he and Jealousy patrolled. The weapons were what had caught his attention, and were what he was reacting to. Believing that the women were about to attack his brethren, Lust went against them, enveloping the three women within clouds of the formless void that would kill anyone who held lust in their heart.

In the dimensions of man and spirit, darkness washed over the skies while the sun was a blood-red circle lost in murky heavens. The distraction was enough to occupy the guards of Amatsu Mikaboshi's castle and the lack of light was all that was needed for Tsukaimono to slip out with her human charges in tow. While her rapist lay unconscious and various other players lost in separate currents of the River of Time, the rescue team had already awoken hours ago and was soon to happen upon the three escapees.

The solar deities of the world could only pray that whatever the attack was to be that they would be strong enough to weather the coming storm. With the oddly forming clouds separating the Heavens from the Earth a tear between the two extremes grew larger. Once more, the power of the Sun began to wane and the love of the hard-working humans of the planet Earth was not enough to reach the star to feed it. The first battle for the Sun had begun, and the outcome would depend on three women who were in no state to be fit warriors.

Lost within the cloud of Lust, a woman cried out in pain as two others passed through unharmed. Her hair instantly was plastered to her body as it spat out an unformed lump of flesh which disappeared from the dimension beyond the dimensions as quickly as it had arrived. The blood and embrionic fluids ran freely down her legs in the aftermath of the magical birth that had been triggered early, pooling around her knees where she had dropped with the strain on her spiritual body. She had not been designed body or soul for such a feat, and the trauma that her soul was experiencing from the onslaught did more than its fair share of damage to her being.

"Oh God! Surely the baby isn't ready!"

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Within the Medical Ward below Fujisan, a red flower blossomed where a comatose body lay. Issuing from the woman was a green ball, slowly unfurling to reveal a tiny future river keeper. Simultaneously, somewhere on the Yucatan Peninsula, a tiny rivulet formed that branched off of its parent river. One day, the River of Tears would once more engulf the Quetzal Rivulet, but not until guardianship of the older river had been fully passed down to the youngest heir to the riches of Quetzalcoatl's descendants.

The little green dragon newly born to the two realms of Spirit and Man blinked owlishly from behind the barrier, attempting to place where he was. The stabilized bodies around him continued with their individual songs, and the infant river soon began raging against what was holding him back.

Awakened by the calls of the infant, Ryu's son wordlessly went back to the rite that he had been conducting. A fish and a snake watched carefully as Obsidian tried to force his way through the barrier to his cousin, hoping that perhaps the combined strains would be enough to break the spell. Sadly, no element that had combined to create him was strong enough to penetrate, nor did either of the present dragons possess the key to break the spell.

It was at this point that Ten, Marie, and the former Marcella entered the chamber.

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"I know that sleeping child. She is our charge."

The reborn dragon did not know how she knew it, her proper memories were still very scattered. The presence of her Bonded was slowly helping to reconstruct things for her, but the memories of her sojourn in a human body were inaccessible to her still. That was the drawback to being what she was, but it was probably the same with any other being.

"Yes Chitsuko. She is our charge. That is Jewel. Jewel was your daughter."

"Why is she ensorcelled? It is a magic I am unfamiliar with, and the ground around your spring has no power over it."

While Ten attempted to explain to Chitsuko what had happened during her 'death' Marie had fallen to the floor seeing the state of her precious and only child. Whatever this healer was doing was having no results on the malady, and the spirit that had cast this spell was going to pay. A wave of rage swept through her small form, flowing outward along a thread that connected the mother to her daughter. Passing along the thread that bound BlowingWind to her cousin Jewel, it then rode the tenuous cord that was sustaining the curse to the originator of the pain.

"Let my baby go!"

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