Authors Notes: This chapter is dedicated to all you lovely people who reviewed! Kudos! I thank you!
As always, any character you recognise belongs to Hayao Miyazaki, any who you don't belong to me.
I was asked by SpiritSen to put in the pronunciation for Rini's Spirit Name. So, here it is.
Áramáthæl, is pronounced: 'Ára' is like Aaron (without the 'on'), 'máth' is like 'math' only you put a slight 'aaah' on the 'a', and 'æl' you pronounce it like it's spelt 'a-e-a-l'.
So to sum up, it's Aara-maath-aeal, if you spell it how it should be pronounced (emphasis on the first and last parts.
Anyway, keep reviewing, and I'll keep writing. I would like some feedback as to how she should find the first Star. It is somewhere in the Palace, I was thinking maybe it's in a flower that has never opened before, but is that too simple? Or should she have to complete a race, remember, she can rival the speeds of the Air Dragons. Info, reviews and thoughts please. Tell me, and I'll write.
Oh, and for all you Chihiro-shippers, she does come back, she's only 50, even my mum is 50 and she looks like she's 40, so, it isn't that old. And she does marry a Spirit, which one, you just have to see.
I love being evil.....
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Chapter 6 - Winging To The Sky
Rini bounded down the stairs the next morning, feeling quite refreshed and very happy. She wore the same outfit, she saw no reason not to, but she had ditched her boots in favour for bare feet. She liked the feel of the hard wood floor beneath her feet.
"Good morning, Lady Rini," a worker said, bowing.
"Oh, no, please, don't call me that, just Rini is fine," she said.
The worker smiled and headed off, to clean the floors in a rather dirty room. Rini watched in fascination as the smaller girls ran along the floor, with cloths in their hands, cleaning it.
"Does it feel good?"
She spun around to see Kohaku behind her, "Good?"
"That you are not one of them?" he pointed to the workers, "That you aren't working like them."
"Do you?" she quipped back.
Kohaku glowered at her back and noticed her tattoo for the first time.
"Cool tattoo," he said.
"Thanks, my grandmother had it put on me when I was a very small girl. It's grown with me, and grandmother always said it has protected me."
"From what?"
"Dunno. The ways of my grandmother are very mysterious," she said, twiddling her fingers, "Cue mysterious music, ooooOOOOOoooooh!"
He chuckled, almost in spite of himself, *She's really not that bad, once you get past the fact that she's an annoying know-it-all.* "Where is the head of the dragon?"
"Do you want to see?" she asked, looking over her shoulder coyly.
He felt his cheeks turn pink, "N...n...no..." he stammered.
She grinned at his embarrassment, and said calmly, "It begins on my collarbone, the left one. It spirals over my shoulder, does the two curls on my back, before ending on my..." she hovered her left hand over the left side of her derriere.
Kohaku's eyes widened, "NO! Please, don't say anything more!" Kohaku cried.
She chuckled, an evil glint in her eye, "Maybe you'd like to see for yourself instead."
He turned bright red, looked slightly panicked, then fled away.
"Ooooh...very evil, very evil," Rin said sidling up beside the young girl.
"Ooooh, yeah. I'm gonna have fun with him."
The two girls grinned at each other, before Yubaba's bird came down with a summons for her new assistant.
"Gotta go, head honcho calls," Rini said, "See ya Rin."
"See ya!"
When Rini arrived at Yubaba's study, Kohaku was already there.
"You're late," he grumbled quietly.
She just raised a finely arched eyebrow, and stood to attention for Yubaba, who after a few more moments of working on the papers in front of her, looked up and gazed at the two young Spirits.
"I have a job for you," she said, looking at Kohaku. Kohaku grinned at Rini, who in turn, stuck her tongue out at him. "For BOTH of you," she reiterated.
"What?" Kohaku cried, "Both of us? Why?"
"Rini needs to learn about all the different Spirits that live here, I am sending you on a special mission, I need you to deliver something for me."
Rini asked, "What are we delivering?"
"It...it's a secret," she said, glancing over at Kohaku, "You shall be delivering it to the Air Spirits."
Five minutes later, after being told where to go, Rini and Kohaku stood on the top floor of the bathhouse. Rini was thoughtfully fingering the locket at her throat.
Kohaku looked at Yubaba behind him, "Do I have to carry her?" he asked.
"Carry me? On earth why would you ask that?" Rini asked.
"Oh, come on, don't play games. For all your levitation skills, you can't fly."
"True, as a human I can't..." she stopped at looked at his expression, and re-classified her statement; "...in human form I can't, but like this..." a mischievous twinkle came in her eye, as she held up her hands.
A silvery purple light appeared there, and then she brought her hands down in a sweeping motion. The light left her hands, and pooled at her feet. Then, with a flurry of silver and purple petals, light balls, and ribbons, she dissolved into a pillar of light. The pillar elongated, and solidified, as Rini flew up into the sky, as a dragon. Kohaku stared, then composed himself, and then transformed into his own dragon form, only his was a white and aquamarine light, with lily petals, scales and light balls. He was slightly larger than she was, by at least 5 feet, but her mane and tail fur were longer than his.
With a swish of her body, she leapt up in the air, twisted once around, and started to move off in the direction of the Air Spirits. Kohaku followed her, and they flew off together. After a while, he noticed she was steering him off in a different direction.
(A/N: A dragon can speak with another dragon via telepathy, but they can't speak to non-dragons.)
*Where are we going?* he asked her.
*To Zaneba's,* she answered, *I need to ask her something.*
*We will be late,* he grumbled, *It is not wise to keep Spirits waiting.*
*Humph, well, we'll just have to risk it then, won't we?* she cocked her head to one side, her purple eye glinting mysteriously, and grinned, before heading back down to earth, and alighting.
Zaneba was waiting outside the cottage, and said as they both alighted, "Ah, I was wondering when you'd turn up. I guess you are on a mission for my sister, so I shan't take up much of your time."
Rini turned to Kohaku, *There's not much point you changing, I'll only be a few minutes.* Kohaku tried to object, but before he could, in a swirl of ribbons and petals, she transformed back into her human form. She nipped inside the cottage behind Zaneba.
True to her word, about five minutes later, she re-emerged from the cottage, and transformed back into a dragon.
"Take care, dear," Zaneba said.
Rini bowed her head, then looked at Kohaku and said, *Come on, it's not nice to keep Spirits waiting.*
*But I...* he said.
*No buts. Now lets fly.*
Kohaku grumbled, but flew up alongside her, and they once again, began to make their way to the realm of the Air Spirits.
As they were flying along, he found he was irresistibly drawn to her. He kept on glancing over at her flying form. He trailed his eyes up and down the sleek length of her, drinking in her amazing colours. From her silvery fur, to the lovely violet mane, she was perfect. Her silvery horns and claws glinted when the light hit them. The smooth way she moved her body gently from side to side, as she flew along also grabbed his attention. Her paws were neatly tucked up beneath her body, and her feelers were...
*Did I pass the inspection?*
Startled aquamarine eyes met twinkling violet eyes, as she grinned an evil sort of dragon grin.
*I...I...*
She grinned some more at his discomfort, then began to fly circles around him, twisting in a lazy sort of dragon dance. Then she settled down and flew alongside him again, still grinning.
He glared at her and looked forwards, determined to keep his eyes off her. *Damn her! No, I mustn't think of her. It's Chihiro I love, not this... upstart. It's Chihiro...but...oh god! How perfect she is! NO! Think of Chihiro! She's still waiting for you!*
As Kohaku wrestled in his mind, Rini took this opportunity to look him over. She decided she liked his colouring, white and aquamarine, it fit a River Spirit.
An hour or two later, they had reached the outskirts of the Air Spirit Palace. They paused, as Kohaku flew up to the dragon gatekeepers.
*We bear tidings from Yubaba, Mistress of the Yubabathouse!* Kohaku cried, *We wish to speak with King Lleodon, Lord of the Lower Heavens...*
*What my long-winded friend means, we want to speak to the king. Could we pass?*
The gatekeepers looked them over, then demanded to see Yubaba's seal on the message. Rini withdrew the message and showed it to them.*
(*A/N: Dragons keep all sorts of things handy around them. If in their human forms, they have pockets, then they will have 'air pockets' in their dragon forms as well. It's so they can carry stuff around, and how Kohaku was able to deliver stuff when he was Yubaba's apprentice.)
*Very well,* they said, *The Lady Selenity, and Lord Kohaku may pass.*
So Kohaku and Rini flew past the gates, and into the Palace yard, transforming into their human forms, as a messenger from the King made his way down the Palace steps.