13. A Lost Soul
Lonely. She felt so lonely, and she didn't know why.
She didn't understand very much of anything, but her masters had always told her she was bright, brighter than her sister. Both she and her sister both saw it as great praise; her, for being called intelligent, and her sister for having such an intelligent sibling.
Naturally, being smart, she saw things somewhat more deeply than her pack-mates. Why? Why do I feel like something is wrong with the world? She asked to the members of her pack present.
Her elder female picked herself up from her soft bed. You are not alone in your fears, little one. She moved forward and nuzzled her… in her weak leg. I cannot place it, but something is wrong with our pack.
She jittered and moved away. Careful.
My master's embrace does not feel right, her sister whimpered. Her grip is soft and warm, but she does not tuck me into my bed come moonrise. We all receive our meals, but time cannot be told by their regularity.
I have to know why… why our pack feels so… incomplete.
The entrance to their den creaked open, and one of their pack leaders stepped in. "Alright, girls! Who's ready to eat!?"
Forgetting their worries for the moment, all three of them exclaimed, DINNER! and rushed to the feet of their pack leader.
…
"Do you ever feel like something's missing from our home?" the young female pack leader asked her superior.
"Not really…" The pack overleader answered.
"Then what's the point of the upstairs guest room? All it's ever used for is as our uncle's fallout shelter when something goes to shit with the women he picks up. Yet, it's set up like somebody lives there full-time."
"You're just over-thinking things." She crawled to the foot of the pack-leader's nest. The overleader looked down. "What is it, girl?"
What's wrong with our pack? Why does it feel incomplete?
To them, of course, her words were little more than agitated barks. Huffing, the overleader turned to the lesser pack mistress. "Lyn, go check outside. I think one of the other two got over the electrical field. That, or that German Shepherd down the street is out of its cage again."
The lesser mistress's gaze moved up and to the right in an arc. (A/N: she's rolling her eyes.) She left the chamber. The overleader turned back to her. "Calm down. He's just another dog. He won't hurt you as long as you don't provoke him."
She growled in frustration. Why couldn't they ever understand her?
…
Tired, she climbed up the sharp, staggered incline, and hopped up onto one of the beds oft-used by the pack leaders. She was being allowed to sleep where she wished, so she chose her favored perching spot: a nest unused by pack leaders for the majority of the time.
Her eyes closed and she rolled on her back. Her body was asleep, but her thoughts were livelier than ever. She knew something was wrong—even the pack leaders admitted to a feeling of something missing—but she couldn't understand what was wrong.
Suddenly, a loud tearing sound pierced the silence of the night, startling her. She rolled over onto her belly and stood up. Spinning in circles, she scanned the room until she located the source of the disturbance.
"Sono mijimena Sanae... Kanojo wa kanojo ga sudeni on'nanoko kara itadaite iru gēmu ni manzoku shite inai nodesu ka?" (That wretched Sanae... is she not content with the games she's already gotten from the girl?)
Before her, stooping in front of the vision-screen present in several chambers of her pack's den, was a strange, leader-caste figure. She had long fur that ran down her back, her body covered with a very long coat, and a sharper face than she was used to. Instantly, her territorial instincts took over. Who are you? Why are you trespassing in my pack's den!?
The leader-caste turned to face her, head cocked. "My, my. What are you up to, little one?
You act like I know you. You are not of my pack. She bared her fangs. You can only be here to hurt my pack. I won't let you!
"Such a fiery spirit you have. And yet, you act like such a lapdog in Luke's hands."
Luke…?
The stranger bared her own fangs. "I guess it's a good thing I spirited him away. He was holding you back, preventing you from being anything more than his pet. He didn't even pay that much attention to you, so absorbed in his virtual world as you lay at his shoulder."
Images, feelings, unknown yet so… familiar. Finally, something clicked in her mind. Memories buried in the deepest corners of her mind burst forth, unbidden by the seal on her spirit. MASTER! MY MASTER!
The stranger blinked. "Oh, dear. This is unexpected…"
Her growl intensified. Who are you!? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MASTER!?
"To have her glamour broken by a dog… Keine is going to be so embarrassed when she hears about this." The stranger ignored her.
DON'T IGNORE ME! Finally, she lunged. Her teeth found purchase in the stranger's forelimb, causing her to dangle in the air. No matter how hard she clamped down, though, she couldn't break the skin, to her utter confusion.
"Tch… annoying." With two fingers, the stranger pried her jaws open, letting her drop to the ground.
Give me back my master! She hissed. Lunging once more, she latched onto the stranger's ankle. Sighing, the stranger jerked her leg, dislodging her. Undeterred, she lunged a third time, latching onto the other ankle.
"You're not going to give up on this, are you?" The stranger looked down at her. "…Judging from how your grip on me has tightened, I'm guessing that's a no."
A pause. "Fine. If you want to see your master so badly, I'll just take you to him." The stranger picked her up, effortlessly prying her from her skin, and held her up in front of her face. Examining her.
"This is no good. If you're going to insist on chasing your master, some… adjustments must be made." A ripple in the air, and a tear in the fabric of reality opened up in front of her. "Brace yourself. This will be… uncomfortable at best." A flick of her wrist, and the stranger tossed her into the gap.
Pain. Unbelievable pain. Then, darkness.
XXXXX
Momiji Inubashiri had been having a wonderful day patrolling the fields surrounding her city. She'd gotten first access on the warm water for showers in the morning, gotten her sizable weekly salary, and the weather was sunny and mild, just the way she liked it.
But then Yukari Yakumo came and ruined everything, as was her style.
She was reputed as having the sharpest senses of any wolf tengu—helpful in her rise to the rank of guard Captain—and yet Momiji still couldn't react fast enough to move out of the way when something large and heavy landed on top of her.
"Sorry if I got the… 'drop' on you, Miss Wolf Tengu." Yukari chuckled. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find somebody upon which I could offload this burden. She was so persistent on following me into Gensokyo."
The gap youkai had absolutely no redeeming qualities in the eyes of the wolf tengu: she held no respect for authority, she acted on a whim, and she saw everything as a game. If she wasn't liable to die instantly for attempting it, Momiji would get up and tear Yukari in two.
Momiji heard the thing on top of her moan, and realized it was a small girl. "Didn't you bring in an outsider here a few days ago!? What, did they die already?"
"Did I? …Damn, Aya's getting better at snooping around." Yukari shrugged. "No, the outsider isn't dead, but this little one here," she pointed to the girl, "circumvented a memory-block I had put on the outsider's family. Normally I would have simply reapplied the block, but she was a… special case."
"What made this girl special?" Momiji asked inquisitively.
"Oh, she was a dog."
"What!?" Momiji squirmed out from under the girl and turned around. Ignoring the fact the girl, who looked to be between sixteen to eighteen years of age, was naked, she had multiple distinguishing features. Among them were large, floppy ears that hung from the top of her head and a long, thin tail. Both features were coated in long, straight fur ranging between red, brown, black, and every mixture of the three.
This presented Momiji with a very unsettling implication concerning the 'dog's' form. The transformation must have been agonizing. She turned back to Yukari, but she was gone, vanished without a trace. Not even so much as a good-bye. The nerve of that woman… We wolf tengu have a word for people like her: BITCH.
Behind her, the girl… dog… tengu? Whatever Momiji was supposed to call her, she started groaning. Just as she turned towards her, she woke up fully. She got on her hands and feet and spun in circles, taking in her new surroundings in her utter confusion. Finally, she locked eyes with the only other being present. With no way of knowing what this person intended for her, she fell back on instinct, slowly crawling forward and growling.
Momiji snarled in return, exposing her enlarged, razor-sharp canines. The message was clear: I am not to be trifled with. Heed my will, and you will not come to harm. The girl appeared confused momentarily, but then dropped and whimpered, submitting to her new alpha.
Alright. Think, Momi, think. What do you do when the gap youkai drops a dog-girl on you…? Momiji pinched the bridge of her nose as an option presented itself in her head. Ugh. I can't believe I'm about to do this. Sighing, she brought two fingers to her mouth and whistled sharply. A few seconds later, a crow tengu appeared. "I need you to send a message to Aya Shameimaru. Tell her that somebody associated with Gensokyo's latest outsider has been brought to the tengu village by Yukari Yakumo. I need this news in the headlines."
The tengu's expression soured. "Don't give me that look. I'm not telling you to actually talk to her, just relay a message from me." She pulled the tengu's hand out and dropped a handful of coins into it. "Look, here's something to tide you over until your next pay. Just do me this one favor, alright?" She'd be sore for cash this week, but something needed to be done.
Finally, the tengu nodded and flew away. Nodding to herself, Momiji turned back to the girl. She eyed the wolf tengu warily for several seconds before barking.
"I'm sorry, I can't understand you," Momiji said to the girl. She tilted her head and barked again. "Do you have a name? Can you tell me your name?" Bark. "Your relationship with the outsider?" Bark.
I'm not going to get anywhere like this. If I recall, one of the village elders should still be able to comprehend our bestial tongue… I just hope to Tenma the canid dialect hasn't changed beyond understanding over the centuries.
Momiji noticed the girl had shakily risen to her legs. She held her arms up in front of her chest—a begging gesture?—and whimpered. "What is it? Is there something you want?"
Not changing her pose, the girl flapped her hands. "Do you want clothes? You must be cold…" The girl continued to flap her hands. "Okay, that's not it… are you hungry? Do you want…" She wracked her brain for the proper English word, since the outsider was supposedly from the western world. "…is it food?"
At the word food, the girl's ears twitched, and she leaned forward. Suddenly, she squeaked and dropped to the ground. Momiji rushed to her side, worried. It was then that she discovered something: the girl's right leg was crooked, bending at an improper outward angle at the knee. How she'd managed to stand up to beg to even begin with baffled the wolf tengu.
"Oh, good, you're here." Momiji lifted the girl and dropped her in Aya's arms. "She's got a bad leg and can't walk. I need you to carry her for me."
"What? Whoa, wait a minute—" Aya started. The girl in her arms cut her off, yipping and flailing. Aya yelped as the girl attempted to bite her, dodging her jaws several times before giving up and releasing her. "You found her, it's only logical that you take her to the village."
"Hey, these aren't exactly lightweight, you know." Momiji picked up her enormous scimitar, well over a meter and a half in length, and cast-iron maple shield. "Now, I'll meet up with you at the village, and we'll take her to the wolf tengu elders. Maybe they can make sense of her barking. You can interview her as much as you want after we can decipher her words… with my supervision, of course."
"That girl… right before she flipped out, she seemed to be smelling me." Aya huffed, sniffing herself. "Do I smell bad? I mean, yeah, there's that avian musk that all crow tengu have, but is it really so abhorrent to outsiders?"
"She was a dog only a short time ago. She's probably still clinging to her instincts—in this case, freaking out near a stranger…"
"She doesn't seem to be so scared of you—" The girl crawled towards Momiji. Taking a cautious sniff of her clothing, she looked at the wolf tengu hesitantly, before finally relenting and pressing up against her leg, shivering.
Momiji looked down at the girl. "…Or a bird. Leaning more towards the 'bird' option."
"Racist," Aya pouted.
"Can't be racist if you're the same species… oh, wait, they do that in the outside world, too. I… er… Huh." Momiji scratched one of her pointed ears awkwardly. "Well, that witty retort backfired rather quickly."
"For the record, we're still two different subspecies, and… well, isn't that cute." The girl was suddenly staring at her hands with wide eyes, wiggling her fingers. Amazed, she reached out and pinching the fabric of Momiji's leggings. "It looks like she's discovered her opposable digits. Before you know it she's going to start grabbing at everything within her reach."
"Just like a baby… alright, Aya, seeing as she doesn't like you, if you take my sword and shield to the barracks for me, I'll handle the girl. Deal?"
"Ayaya, deal." Momiji tossed her gear to the crow, who caught it with agile hands and sped off without another word. Leaning down, she picked the girl up and slung her around to ride piggyback. "Let's go for a ride, little one."
XXXXX
Momiji's arrival in the tengu city, dog-girl in tow, caught many residents off-guard.
"What's Captain Inubashiri doing here? Isn't she supposed to be on duty?"
"Who's that girl on her back? Why is she naked?"
"See those ears, that tail? She must be a tengu."
"Certainly not any kind of tengu I've seen before. Her fur isn't white…"
Ignoring the gossiping civilians, Momiji walked the girl to the elders' hut. Sure enough, Aya was already waiting there, tapping her foot impatiently. "They're waiting inside for you. They won't let me in, though. So much for a scoop."
"You don't leave that good of a first impression, Aya. You'll just have to write an article without twisting her words." Disregarding Aya's pouting, Momiji took the girl through the door. The hut's interior design was very minimalist.
At the back of the room, three old wolf tengu sat hunched over, engrossed in meditation. Upon Momiji's entrance, the elders looked up. "Captain." The middle elder greeted Momiji with a wheezy voice. "If you would be so kind as to explain your business with us during your guard hours…"
"Yukari Yakumo brought a canine from the outside world to Gensokyo. She was transformed into a sort of tengu during the process, and she's still speaking the feral tongue."
The elder took a single look at the girl on Momiji's back and showed no outward reaction. "Perhaps you can spare the little one some articles of clothing, Captain?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure thing." Momiji removed her vest, exposing the sarashi underneath, and pulled down her skirt. With both pieces of clothing in hand, she approached the girl. "Okay, hold still. I'm not going to hurt you…"
A few minutes of struggling later, and the girl was wearing Momiji's clothing. "I apologize for wasting your time, elders," Momiji said, "But if you could translate her words?"
"Yes, very well." The far-left elder barked sharply, catching the girl's attention. For several seconds the two traded a series of barks, howls, and growls. "…The canid language has changed somewhat from what we have known, but it is not beyond understanding. She says a mysterious figure infiltrated her home—the same one that took her master and suppressed her memories, she says—in the middle of the night. She tried to get answers out of her, but she was… dropped in a hole. There was nothing but pain for a time, and then she woke up and encountered you."
Momiji thought about it. "So… Yukari showed up in her home, she demanded the youkai to tell her where the outsider was, and when she didn't let it go, Yukari transformed her and brought her here—"
"Correct." Suddenly, a ripping noise signaled the emergence of a gap, causing everybody to turn towards it. As they waited for something to emerge from the gap, Yukari calmly walked into the hut through the front door. "Ahem. Over here?"
Momiji whipped around. "What the…? But the gap…? Huh?"
"Good. Exactly the reaction I was going for." Yukari chuckled.
The elders would have none of it. "State your business in our village or begone, border youkai."
"Is that any way to treat somebody who offers you a helping hand?" Yukari pouted. "Your cruelty hurts my feelings."
"Drop the farce, and explain yourself, witch."
Instantly, Yukari's expression hardened. "So be it. I'm here in regards to the girl."
Momiji looked to the girl. She was cowering at her feet at the sight of Yukari. "You will not touch her," Momiji growled. "She may be a stranger, but she is in the care of the tengu."
"Oh? Then tell me this, pup: how do you expect to care for her if you require an old fool to even understand her words?"
The wolf tengu flinched at being called a pup. "We'll manage somehow. Trial and error is always an option."
"But guessing can only get you so far. If you would allow me, I can erase her boundary of language, so that she may speak our words. That way, you could speak with her, she could speak with you… would that not make life easier for everyone involved?"
"How do we know that you speak the truth, Yakumo?" One of the elders asked. "How would we know if you planted the seeds of fear, and hatred, and chaos in her heart?"
"Why don't you ask the girl yourself?" Yukari snapped her fingers. Suddenly, the girl twitched and clawed at her scalp, yelping in pain.
"Aauuu… oww… it hurts…" The girl froze, shocked by the words that had left her mouth. "…What? What am I…? What's happening?"
"See? Nothing to it." Yukari waved her hands in a grand gesture. "And with that, my work here is done." With a flourish, she turned and walked out of the hut. Behind her, held open this entire time, the gap snapped shut and vanished.
"What a bitch… is there really no way to keep her from coming and going as she pleases?" Momiji asked the elders.
"We've been searching for an answer to that question for centuries, and we have yet to find one, young Inubashiri."
"With all due respect, elders? I'm in my mid-40's. 'Young' is not the first term I would use to describe me."
"So it is not. But that is not important." The wolf elder looked down at the girl. "Are you okay?"
"Confused, scared, cold… where am I? Why is this happening to me? My pack…"
"Your pack is a world detached from ours, little one. You belong to Gensokyo now."
"But my master. That… monster took my master! I have to find him!"
"If the words of the crow tengu ring true, your master is also here. We can send word to the rest of the land in the hopes that the two of you may be reunited. Until that day, however, you are permitted to remain here, to take however much time you need to find yourself again."
"I can't! I have to find my master now!" the girl attempted to stand up, but fell back to the floor with a whimper, holding her malformed leg close to her body.
The elders collectively sighed. The elder on the right spoke. "Heed our words, little one. You were raised by your master, is that correct?"
The girl craned her neck towards the elders. "…yes."
"And you lived your life in your master's loving embrace, free of danger?"
"yes."
"Then Gensokyo will kill you. Everywhere you travel in this land, there will be monsters out for your blood. You don't know how to don armor, to wield the tools of war, to dress wounds, to even feed yourself. Our permitting you to reside here in our city is only because you are a victim of circumstance."
"But… I…"
"Word travels fast in this land; it is only a matter of time before you are found by your master. Eventually, he will come to you. You must be patient, allow the tengu to protect you."
"In return for what? This… this body is not familiar. I can't do anything with it."
"That is not entirely true. We can teach you to fend for yourself, to contribute to your pack. To be… for lack of a better word, human. Would you wish to be able to help others? Or would you rather be a burden?"
The girl shook her head. "No. I'll do it. I want to be able to help my master, to make him proud."
"A wise decision, little one." The middle elder responded with an approving tone. "Now, can you tell us your name? It wouldn't do just to call you 'girl' or 'little one' without end."
"My name… My name is Rozie."
XXXXX
(Savato93's AN: If the tengu as portrayed here appear eccentric, blame my idea of pack mentality. Everybody is expected to support their pack-mates when told to do so. Even if it means giving up their clothes on the spot. Anyway, since I've gone without posting a chapter for so long, I'm making a double-post. Forgive me if things are somewhat rough around the edges as a result.)
(My AN: Remember Luke's (Lucy's) dachshund that appeared in Chapter 1? Yeah, she's here too. And you read it right, she's been given human form. Anyway, this made three Savato93 OCs that I would later integrate into my own canon-verse, with Lucy being the most prominent for obvious reason. Still waiting for anyone who can guessed her home state.)