It is I, Jjah-Jjah! Hello peoples! This is my first foray into the
territory of Spirited Away! Ain't you proud? I *should* be working on my
current fic Vermillion, but due to a recently overcome bought of writers
block, I've decided I should always have a back-up fic in case my brain
explodes and I have to go back to the home.
Ed: Just say it: Mental Ward.
JJ: Everybody, this is my muse Ed the purple flamingo. Don't pay any attention to a word he says. He's got mercury poisoning from eating all those shrimp and it's affected his mind.
Ed: Oh shut the *bleeep* up. Flamingos who eat shrimp turn pink. Do I look pink to you?
JJ: What do you eat then?
Ed: None of your *bleeep* business, JJ!
Okaaay... Moving on... Just so you know, I know nothing whatsoever about the field of river ecology. I'm just applying what I know about other fields and winging it from there. If you know anything pertinent about it or I make any huge mistakes, tell me and I'll hasten to amend. Weeelll... Nothing also to do but slap on the disclaimer. Happy happy joy joy.
Disclaimer: JJ falls down from her magical place. Hey! Who the hell are you? Are you trying to get into my magical place? Well it sure as hell isn't Spirit World so just turn your pretty face around and prance right on out of here! Me? Own Spirited Away? What have you been smoking? That belongs to Miyazaki-san. (who is not me) I don't own his stuff, that I don't... AHAHAHAHA! I'm being taken over by the Kenshin virus! Help... Me... *JJ falls to the floor and dies. Ed dances on her grave.*
**********
Chapter One
********
The green grasses of a country field rippled like the sea as a small economy-sized rickety looking car sped down a country road. Besides the decrepit cough of the motor, all was peacefully silent. Well, at least until the motor began to cough in a most unbecoming way and sputtered to a halt. The car stopped with a screech and a young woman leapt out.
"Dammit! You stupid car!!!!" She yelled as she kicked the tire.
Chihiro groaned and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Why did the stupid car have to keep breaking down? Still pouting, she opened the trunk and took out a gigantic backpack and a plastic case. She shut the trunk and began walking down the road. It *was* the middle of nowhere and no one in their right mind would actually steal that stupid car. Besides, the river wasn't that far away. As she strolled down the strip of cracked and faded asphalt, she let her thoughts wander back to times gone by.
It had been eight, almost nine years since that day that she sometimes forgot. The day when her family had taken a short cut on the way to the blue house that they were moving into. That day had changed everything. That was when she entered the World of the Spirits and became Sen. For a little while at least...
It was because of this that she was doing what she was now... All of it was because of that time in her childhood and the time she had spent with that boy. Haku. Kohaku. She smiled at the though for the simple reason of it being so ironic at this point in time.
Haku had been lost. He had been unable to find his way home, because his river had been filled in and turned into a parking lot.
Key words: had been.
Chihiro smiled gleefully and began to run as soon as the sparkle of water came into view. Breathing heavily, she skidded to a halt at the bank... And then lost her footing and fell headlong down the slope.
"CRAP!" She sputtered as she splashed to a halt at the waters edge. She had landed on her back, so she stared for a moment at the sky. It was clear and blue, except for a few sparse clouds. She would have stayed longer, if she hadn't felt the annoying wetness creeping up her head.
"Arrgh!" She growled as she sat up. The back of her head had landed in the water and now her hair was wet and slightly muddy. "Can this day get any worse?!" She muttered as she wrung out her hair and went to retrieve her belongings. She winced at a skinned knee and opened up her backpack. Everything seemed ok. Then she opened up the plastic case and took out some test tubes. She grabbed some paper and a sharpie out of the backpack and scurried back down to the water's edge.
The water rippled and the air was filled with the pleasant smell of clean water. Carefully, Chihiro filled two of the test tubes with water and then put the stoppers in. With the sharpie she labeled the part of the river they came from and then put them back into the case. Then, she stood, and hauling her things along with her, began walking along the river's shore.
This river. This river was incredibly special. It was all she thought about and dreamed about. She very nearly devoted her entire existence to this river.
The Kohaku River.
********************
She had still been in high school at the time. She had still been trying to figure out what she would study once she went to college. Her parents had wanted her to be a doctor. Not wanting to disappoint them, she had gone to the library to do some research on pre med school....
She had never read about anything so boring in her life...
She had been getting ready to leave when a single book caught her eye. It had been about river ecology. She read it. She was hooked.
A river ecologist! Why hadn't she thought of it before? It was the *perfect* career! She could indulge her memories of the river spirit she had helped in the bathhouse and of Haku, the river who had no one to save him... In a way she could still effect what happened in the spirit world by keeping the rivers healthy and clean... She could still help her friends in that way... Even if they never knew.
Needless to say her parents had been less than thrilled at her choice. They considered it to be a rather meaningless thing to do. Chihiro ignored their pleas and continued her research. She joined environmental agencies and volunteered at them regularly. She had found her calling.
It was her senior year in high school when she discovered it... It was the article that changed her life.
She had gone to the library to do some research about a river that had been diverted in the late thirties to early forties. She spent hours searching through old newspapers and when she found what she was looking for, she nearly fainted.
The river she had been looking for was none other than the Kohaku River. She felt chills run up and down her spine and she somehow got the distinct impression of the wind urging her on...
The river had been diverted during the war because other water supplies had been contaminated. They had never diverted it back once they were finished...
That meant that the Kohaku River had had been filled in was not the river's original, true course. The real Kohaku River bed was elsewhere... Not buried under concrete. Was there still hope?
She had never been sure what it was that compelled her to go find out for herself. She had run through the library like a chicken with its head cut off. She found a map that showed the river's original course, photocopied it, and sprinted to the nearest train station. She got off at the stop nearest to her destination and walked the rest of the way. The old riverbed was in a wildlife reserve. Luckily, she had found a way in. She searched for what seemed like forever till she discovered what she was looking for in true Chihiro fashion... She tripped and fell in...
There was a mighty splash. Chihiro floundered around till she realized the water was shallow enough to stand in. Wait a minute... Water?
The riverbed was filled run-off rain water from the thunderstorm that had been so televised a week before. What hope Chihiro had weakened. The water would most likely evaporate in a few weeks.
Haku. If his river came back then he would have a home. He wouldn't be wandering and alone anymore. He wouldn't have to work for Yu-baba and have her force him to do horrible things. Haku...
Tears came then. She had been trying to help him and she had failed... It wasn't a pleasant feeling. She kneeled down the water and shook with sobs. When all her tears had run dry she just sat there silently. That was when she heard... something....
The faint laughter of water, cheerful and alive. Comforting. As if trying to assure her that it was there. She opened her weepy red eyes and curiously tried to find the source of the sound. She crept along searching quietly. The sound was so faint she almost though that she couldn't find it, but then she did. Trickling out from between some rocks just above the water level was a tiny persistent stream of water. Ground water?
If ground water was coming up and if it were joined by a lot of rainwater run-off, the river *did* have a chance of coming back!
There was still hope.
She had arrived home late that night happy, wet, and grounded by her parents. Yet as if in response to the girl's happiness, another thunderstorm came up that night. Before long, the old river had been made new again. It flowed true and strong along its original course and showed no sign of receding.
Chihiro had then embarked on a one-woman crusade to put the river under government protection. Everyone at the environmental agencies she was a part of supported her completely. Once the media got involved it was all over. The river was protected. No one could ever do away with it again.
Needless to say, getting a river protected by the government nearly single-handed was a lovely thing to put on a college application. She had gotten into her first choice school, and immediately began the tedious process of getting a degree in river ecology.
*************
So here she was. It was her personal project. To protect the Kohaku River and see it returned to its former glory. Now, several years later, life was already returning. Bird chirruped n the trees around her. The river was filled with minnows and small crustaceans. Larger fish had been brought in and released. Any number of waterfowl could be seen meandering about daily. The river was slowly but steadily coming back to life.
But something was missing. The sounds of life in the river were somehow hollow. Everything seemed to be holding its breath as if waiting, expecting, the river to die and everything to go back the way it was before.
Chihiro knew why. The river had no spirit. Haku had not come back to it yet. She would have known if he had.
It did make sense. He might not have any way of knowing it was back... That might be it. Or Yu-baba could still be keeping him and not allowing him to leave.
Those thoughts brought her back to a promise made quite a while ago. Haku had promised that they would meet again. However, she had come to a realization about that.
After she had come home from the Spirit World, she had waited for Haku. And waited. And waited. Till something occurred to her. Ever since she had left that other world, a strange feeling had plagued her. It was almost as if her mind was trying to turn in on itself and push her memories of that time into the cloudy haze of nonexistence.
She didn't know how she knew, but she realized that she had been supposed to *forget*. She knew she wasn't supposed to remember her time in Spirit World, but for some reason...
She did...
Perhaps. Perhaps that was the way it was with humans. Perhaps when humans came out of Spirit World, they immediately forgot everything that happened while there. But that didn't explain why *she*, Chihiro, remembered.
It also explained why she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Haku. It made sense. If he thought she wouldn't remember him, then what was the point of keeping that promise? She had forgiven him long ago... He had been trying to comfort her when they said goodbye, to make the separation easier for both of them. She couldn't very well begrudge him that.
Chihiro trudged on, looking for the little rowboat on the bank that she used to go get water samples from the middle of the river... She needed to get some silt samples from the riverbed too... But not today. Tomorrow maybe...
Chihiro hopped up the next gentle slope. There was the boat, propped up by cinderblocks and waiting to be heaved into the water. Hopefully, it wouldn't leak this time... She walked over to the boat and put her things in, but just when she was about to start pulling the boat off the blocks, an unnaturally strong gust of wind knocked her over.
"Ow!" She yapped as she landed on her behind. "What did I ever do to you?!" She yelled towards the sky. The sky followed the behavior of most inanimate objects Chihiro talked to and remained silent... Accept for the low whistle of wind in the trees. Then another gust sprang up. Chihiro watched helplessly as a spreadsheet from her backpack flew out and blew away over the next slope.
"Dammit!!!!" Chihiro screeched as she ran after the offending piece of paper. "Come back here!"
She grabbed a hold of it at the top of the slope. She sighed in relief. She would have gotten in a lot of trouble if she'd had to do that thing over... Her relief was short lived though, for the wind blew in another inexplicable gust and pushed Chihiro down the hill.
"Oh Kami! Why me?!!!" She yelled as she tumbled down the slope. She skidded to a halt at the bottom relatively unscathed. It wasn't a very steep slope. Chihiro was going to curse a little more, but when she opened her eyes her was intrigued.
There, a few inches from her face were some strange thick muddy lines carved into the slope. She got up onto her knees and stared at them. The wind blew in the grass around them making them look all the more mysterious in her eyes. She didn't think they were places where water had run down. Besides, there was no place for water to run down from. She touched one. The mud was completely smooth, like a slide. Chihiro frowned. What on earth could have made these?
She stood and ran back to her backpack. She took out a Polaroid camera, ran back to the odd lines, and snapped a picture. The photo popped out and she waited impatiently for it to develop. She would show it Professor Sakai back at the university. He knew everything about rivers. He would know what these strange lines were surely.
Hesitantly, Chihiro headed back to the boat and set out to finish what she'd come to do. All the while she collected water samples she kept glancing back at that one section of bank. Something was very... strange about it...
After a while, she packed up her things and headed back to her evil car. Once there she tried to start it again. No such luck. Grumbling, she brought out her cell phone and called a tow truck.
"Ding dong, the car is dead." she mumbled to herself. She hauled herself onto the hood of the car and sat there to wait. She stared up at the clouds for a long while until she felt compelled to look at the photo once again. She felt a strange sensation as she stared at it. A sensation that she was sure she had felt before...
Why was it so familiar?
****************
YAY! Chapter one up, hot diggity... Be forewarned, my updating will come and go with the tide and have no set pattern. Why are you reading this? You should be reviewing this chapter!
Farewell
Ed: Just say it: Mental Ward.
JJ: Everybody, this is my muse Ed the purple flamingo. Don't pay any attention to a word he says. He's got mercury poisoning from eating all those shrimp and it's affected his mind.
Ed: Oh shut the *bleeep* up. Flamingos who eat shrimp turn pink. Do I look pink to you?
JJ: What do you eat then?
Ed: None of your *bleeep* business, JJ!
Okaaay... Moving on... Just so you know, I know nothing whatsoever about the field of river ecology. I'm just applying what I know about other fields and winging it from there. If you know anything pertinent about it or I make any huge mistakes, tell me and I'll hasten to amend. Weeelll... Nothing also to do but slap on the disclaimer. Happy happy joy joy.
Disclaimer: JJ falls down from her magical place. Hey! Who the hell are you? Are you trying to get into my magical place? Well it sure as hell isn't Spirit World so just turn your pretty face around and prance right on out of here! Me? Own Spirited Away? What have you been smoking? That belongs to Miyazaki-san. (who is not me) I don't own his stuff, that I don't... AHAHAHAHA! I'm being taken over by the Kenshin virus! Help... Me... *JJ falls to the floor and dies. Ed dances on her grave.*
**********
Chapter One
********
The green grasses of a country field rippled like the sea as a small economy-sized rickety looking car sped down a country road. Besides the decrepit cough of the motor, all was peacefully silent. Well, at least until the motor began to cough in a most unbecoming way and sputtered to a halt. The car stopped with a screech and a young woman leapt out.
"Dammit! You stupid car!!!!" She yelled as she kicked the tire.
Chihiro groaned and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Why did the stupid car have to keep breaking down? Still pouting, she opened the trunk and took out a gigantic backpack and a plastic case. She shut the trunk and began walking down the road. It *was* the middle of nowhere and no one in their right mind would actually steal that stupid car. Besides, the river wasn't that far away. As she strolled down the strip of cracked and faded asphalt, she let her thoughts wander back to times gone by.
It had been eight, almost nine years since that day that she sometimes forgot. The day when her family had taken a short cut on the way to the blue house that they were moving into. That day had changed everything. That was when she entered the World of the Spirits and became Sen. For a little while at least...
It was because of this that she was doing what she was now... All of it was because of that time in her childhood and the time she had spent with that boy. Haku. Kohaku. She smiled at the though for the simple reason of it being so ironic at this point in time.
Haku had been lost. He had been unable to find his way home, because his river had been filled in and turned into a parking lot.
Key words: had been.
Chihiro smiled gleefully and began to run as soon as the sparkle of water came into view. Breathing heavily, she skidded to a halt at the bank... And then lost her footing and fell headlong down the slope.
"CRAP!" She sputtered as she splashed to a halt at the waters edge. She had landed on her back, so she stared for a moment at the sky. It was clear and blue, except for a few sparse clouds. She would have stayed longer, if she hadn't felt the annoying wetness creeping up her head.
"Arrgh!" She growled as she sat up. The back of her head had landed in the water and now her hair was wet and slightly muddy. "Can this day get any worse?!" She muttered as she wrung out her hair and went to retrieve her belongings. She winced at a skinned knee and opened up her backpack. Everything seemed ok. Then she opened up the plastic case and took out some test tubes. She grabbed some paper and a sharpie out of the backpack and scurried back down to the water's edge.
The water rippled and the air was filled with the pleasant smell of clean water. Carefully, Chihiro filled two of the test tubes with water and then put the stoppers in. With the sharpie she labeled the part of the river they came from and then put them back into the case. Then, she stood, and hauling her things along with her, began walking along the river's shore.
This river. This river was incredibly special. It was all she thought about and dreamed about. She very nearly devoted her entire existence to this river.
The Kohaku River.
********************
She had still been in high school at the time. She had still been trying to figure out what she would study once she went to college. Her parents had wanted her to be a doctor. Not wanting to disappoint them, she had gone to the library to do some research on pre med school....
She had never read about anything so boring in her life...
She had been getting ready to leave when a single book caught her eye. It had been about river ecology. She read it. She was hooked.
A river ecologist! Why hadn't she thought of it before? It was the *perfect* career! She could indulge her memories of the river spirit she had helped in the bathhouse and of Haku, the river who had no one to save him... In a way she could still effect what happened in the spirit world by keeping the rivers healthy and clean... She could still help her friends in that way... Even if they never knew.
Needless to say her parents had been less than thrilled at her choice. They considered it to be a rather meaningless thing to do. Chihiro ignored their pleas and continued her research. She joined environmental agencies and volunteered at them regularly. She had found her calling.
It was her senior year in high school when she discovered it... It was the article that changed her life.
She had gone to the library to do some research about a river that had been diverted in the late thirties to early forties. She spent hours searching through old newspapers and when she found what she was looking for, she nearly fainted.
The river she had been looking for was none other than the Kohaku River. She felt chills run up and down her spine and she somehow got the distinct impression of the wind urging her on...
The river had been diverted during the war because other water supplies had been contaminated. They had never diverted it back once they were finished...
That meant that the Kohaku River had had been filled in was not the river's original, true course. The real Kohaku River bed was elsewhere... Not buried under concrete. Was there still hope?
She had never been sure what it was that compelled her to go find out for herself. She had run through the library like a chicken with its head cut off. She found a map that showed the river's original course, photocopied it, and sprinted to the nearest train station. She got off at the stop nearest to her destination and walked the rest of the way. The old riverbed was in a wildlife reserve. Luckily, she had found a way in. She searched for what seemed like forever till she discovered what she was looking for in true Chihiro fashion... She tripped and fell in...
There was a mighty splash. Chihiro floundered around till she realized the water was shallow enough to stand in. Wait a minute... Water?
The riverbed was filled run-off rain water from the thunderstorm that had been so televised a week before. What hope Chihiro had weakened. The water would most likely evaporate in a few weeks.
Haku. If his river came back then he would have a home. He wouldn't be wandering and alone anymore. He wouldn't have to work for Yu-baba and have her force him to do horrible things. Haku...
Tears came then. She had been trying to help him and she had failed... It wasn't a pleasant feeling. She kneeled down the water and shook with sobs. When all her tears had run dry she just sat there silently. That was when she heard... something....
The faint laughter of water, cheerful and alive. Comforting. As if trying to assure her that it was there. She opened her weepy red eyes and curiously tried to find the source of the sound. She crept along searching quietly. The sound was so faint she almost though that she couldn't find it, but then she did. Trickling out from between some rocks just above the water level was a tiny persistent stream of water. Ground water?
If ground water was coming up and if it were joined by a lot of rainwater run-off, the river *did* have a chance of coming back!
There was still hope.
She had arrived home late that night happy, wet, and grounded by her parents. Yet as if in response to the girl's happiness, another thunderstorm came up that night. Before long, the old river had been made new again. It flowed true and strong along its original course and showed no sign of receding.
Chihiro had then embarked on a one-woman crusade to put the river under government protection. Everyone at the environmental agencies she was a part of supported her completely. Once the media got involved it was all over. The river was protected. No one could ever do away with it again.
Needless to say, getting a river protected by the government nearly single-handed was a lovely thing to put on a college application. She had gotten into her first choice school, and immediately began the tedious process of getting a degree in river ecology.
*************
So here she was. It was her personal project. To protect the Kohaku River and see it returned to its former glory. Now, several years later, life was already returning. Bird chirruped n the trees around her. The river was filled with minnows and small crustaceans. Larger fish had been brought in and released. Any number of waterfowl could be seen meandering about daily. The river was slowly but steadily coming back to life.
But something was missing. The sounds of life in the river were somehow hollow. Everything seemed to be holding its breath as if waiting, expecting, the river to die and everything to go back the way it was before.
Chihiro knew why. The river had no spirit. Haku had not come back to it yet. She would have known if he had.
It did make sense. He might not have any way of knowing it was back... That might be it. Or Yu-baba could still be keeping him and not allowing him to leave.
Those thoughts brought her back to a promise made quite a while ago. Haku had promised that they would meet again. However, she had come to a realization about that.
After she had come home from the Spirit World, she had waited for Haku. And waited. And waited. Till something occurred to her. Ever since she had left that other world, a strange feeling had plagued her. It was almost as if her mind was trying to turn in on itself and push her memories of that time into the cloudy haze of nonexistence.
She didn't know how she knew, but she realized that she had been supposed to *forget*. She knew she wasn't supposed to remember her time in Spirit World, but for some reason...
She did...
Perhaps. Perhaps that was the way it was with humans. Perhaps when humans came out of Spirit World, they immediately forgot everything that happened while there. But that didn't explain why *she*, Chihiro, remembered.
It also explained why she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Haku. It made sense. If he thought she wouldn't remember him, then what was the point of keeping that promise? She had forgiven him long ago... He had been trying to comfort her when they said goodbye, to make the separation easier for both of them. She couldn't very well begrudge him that.
Chihiro trudged on, looking for the little rowboat on the bank that she used to go get water samples from the middle of the river... She needed to get some silt samples from the riverbed too... But not today. Tomorrow maybe...
Chihiro hopped up the next gentle slope. There was the boat, propped up by cinderblocks and waiting to be heaved into the water. Hopefully, it wouldn't leak this time... She walked over to the boat and put her things in, but just when she was about to start pulling the boat off the blocks, an unnaturally strong gust of wind knocked her over.
"Ow!" She yapped as she landed on her behind. "What did I ever do to you?!" She yelled towards the sky. The sky followed the behavior of most inanimate objects Chihiro talked to and remained silent... Accept for the low whistle of wind in the trees. Then another gust sprang up. Chihiro watched helplessly as a spreadsheet from her backpack flew out and blew away over the next slope.
"Dammit!!!!" Chihiro screeched as she ran after the offending piece of paper. "Come back here!"
She grabbed a hold of it at the top of the slope. She sighed in relief. She would have gotten in a lot of trouble if she'd had to do that thing over... Her relief was short lived though, for the wind blew in another inexplicable gust and pushed Chihiro down the hill.
"Oh Kami! Why me?!!!" She yelled as she tumbled down the slope. She skidded to a halt at the bottom relatively unscathed. It wasn't a very steep slope. Chihiro was going to curse a little more, but when she opened her eyes her was intrigued.
There, a few inches from her face were some strange thick muddy lines carved into the slope. She got up onto her knees and stared at them. The wind blew in the grass around them making them look all the more mysterious in her eyes. She didn't think they were places where water had run down. Besides, there was no place for water to run down from. She touched one. The mud was completely smooth, like a slide. Chihiro frowned. What on earth could have made these?
She stood and ran back to her backpack. She took out a Polaroid camera, ran back to the odd lines, and snapped a picture. The photo popped out and she waited impatiently for it to develop. She would show it Professor Sakai back at the university. He knew everything about rivers. He would know what these strange lines were surely.
Hesitantly, Chihiro headed back to the boat and set out to finish what she'd come to do. All the while she collected water samples she kept glancing back at that one section of bank. Something was very... strange about it...
After a while, she packed up her things and headed back to her evil car. Once there she tried to start it again. No such luck. Grumbling, she brought out her cell phone and called a tow truck.
"Ding dong, the car is dead." she mumbled to herself. She hauled herself onto the hood of the car and sat there to wait. She stared up at the clouds for a long while until she felt compelled to look at the photo once again. She felt a strange sensation as she stared at it. A sensation that she was sure she had felt before...
Why was it so familiar?
****************
YAY! Chapter one up, hot diggity... Be forewarned, my updating will come and go with the tide and have no set pattern. Why are you reading this? You should be reviewing this chapter!
Farewell