AUTHOR NOTES: Please see the movie before reading this fanfic as it deals
with major spoilers from the end of the film. All characters are property
of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. The following has been written as a
labor of love, with no self-profit.
Part I - The River
It had been seven years.
The summer holiday had begun, but Chihiro's father was working Monday through Friday at the office so the family wouldn't be able to travel anywhere during the much-needed vacation. Not that Chihiro minded. She had come to her new school as a strangely quiet ten year old, and now, at strangely quiet seventeen, her demeanor had changed little. Her parents thought of sending her to a psychiatrist, but she would simply say:
"Don't worry. I'm fine. I really am. I just like walking to the river alone. Nothing wrong with that."
That river was young and wild, but it was not nor ever could be Ohaku. On its gleaming banks she would lie flat, chewing daisy stems, and she would have a little yellow book under her arm. She would open it up and find a cleanish page, and she would write a poem or two:
Alone in the river's shadow I rest
And from its depths I hear a voice
Whose resonance breaks my heart
I loved you then
Though I did not know it
But you were of another world
And I an earth-bound spirit
The river sings your freedom
Yet I still feel so alone
And so I dream of your last promise
Of, "We will meet again."
Until that allotted time I remain
Faithfully yours - Sen.
"Trash," she whispered with a smile. "Complete trash."
The spray of the water would glisten in her hair and eyelashes, blurring the page. Then Chihiro's loneliness enshrouded her and sometimes she despaired and cried silently, but other times she rose to her full, awkward height, and strode into the river without stopping to remove her shoes. Later her mother would scold her, but for now all that mattered was the constant, healing flow of water over her skin. She thought of the River God she had seen face to face when she was ten years old, who had given her a small, priceless gift; and then, unexpectedly, she remembered another river spirit, who could change into a lovely silvery-white dragon crowned with a blue mane.
Looking down she saw small fish darting by like tiny silver comets in a gray galaxy of silt and stone.
"Haku," she whispered to the wind and the water.
A flickering of leaves in the waft of air was all she received in reply.
Part I - The River
It had been seven years.
The summer holiday had begun, but Chihiro's father was working Monday through Friday at the office so the family wouldn't be able to travel anywhere during the much-needed vacation. Not that Chihiro minded. She had come to her new school as a strangely quiet ten year old, and now, at strangely quiet seventeen, her demeanor had changed little. Her parents thought of sending her to a psychiatrist, but she would simply say:
"Don't worry. I'm fine. I really am. I just like walking to the river alone. Nothing wrong with that."
That river was young and wild, but it was not nor ever could be Ohaku. On its gleaming banks she would lie flat, chewing daisy stems, and she would have a little yellow book under her arm. She would open it up and find a cleanish page, and she would write a poem or two:
Alone in the river's shadow I rest
And from its depths I hear a voice
Whose resonance breaks my heart
I loved you then
Though I did not know it
But you were of another world
And I an earth-bound spirit
The river sings your freedom
Yet I still feel so alone
And so I dream of your last promise
Of, "We will meet again."
Until that allotted time I remain
Faithfully yours - Sen.
"Trash," she whispered with a smile. "Complete trash."
The spray of the water would glisten in her hair and eyelashes, blurring the page. Then Chihiro's loneliness enshrouded her and sometimes she despaired and cried silently, but other times she rose to her full, awkward height, and strode into the river without stopping to remove her shoes. Later her mother would scold her, but for now all that mattered was the constant, healing flow of water over her skin. She thought of the River God she had seen face to face when she was ten years old, who had given her a small, priceless gift; and then, unexpectedly, she remembered another river spirit, who could change into a lovely silvery-white dragon crowned with a blue mane.
Looking down she saw small fish darting by like tiny silver comets in a gray galaxy of silt and stone.
"Haku," she whispered to the wind and the water.
A flickering of leaves in the waft of air was all she received in reply.