Someday, Somehow
To see the signs that we missed
And try to turn the tables
Chapter 1: Then they meet
He had to escape for a couple of hours. He needed to get away from the constant battle planning and fighting or risk going insane. With the war in going on and the whole of Japan looking towards him for guidance, he needed a couple of minutes to himself.
His escape had been the forest right outside a village on his lands. It was there that destiny would strike and render, and would dictate the next couple hundred years of Japanese history and alter a young modern girls life forever. But that day, Lord Sugimi, the great youkai of the west had other things on his mine, one of them was the naked human girl who was swimming below them.
Nikki dove into the water to escape the world outside the forest walls. As her body cut through the cold water of the springs, all she could think about was getting away from everything.
Today had been the wedding one of her older sisters, Matsuko, to some local lord that her father was trying to form an alliance with. She had to sit there and watch as another one of her sisters were married off for the better of her father and listen to him go on and on about how she will never amount to anything.
If it means marring a discussing lord then I will stick with being ugly, thought Nikki to herself as she broke the surface to take a breath and then went back under. Beauty has never done anyone in this family any good.
What she wouldn't give to be a fish and just swim all day or be a wild animal and roam the forest. She wanted to be anything but a human girl right now.
Sugimi watched from his tree as she dove back into the water. He couldn't take her eyes off her, the way she moved; the way the water moved down her body, creasing each aspect of her. Licking her in a smooth crease before washing off her.
He couldn't take his eyes off her; something about her bewitched him. It sprang at his loins and followed him thought the body. Her scent, the way her black hair spilled over her body and down her back as it moved through the water with her.
He followed her through the tree, racing along with her as she swims. Trying to get a glimpse of her face, which seemed lost every time she came up. She wasn't a water nymph, that he could smell, but she was too beautiful to be human.
She reached the surface, but her break through the water was different this time it was as if she knew he was there. She stood straight up, with no fear looking in his direction. She couldn't see him, youkai can make themselves invisible to a human 's eyes, but his eyes met hers in for in instant it was as if she could see him. What really got him was the color of her eyes. She wasn't born of youkai blood, he would have smelled even the lightest hint of that, but the eyes were still different from the rest of the humans around here. They were a dark midnight blue, reminding him of a starless sky.
"Who goes there!" she shouted towards him. "Show yourselves at once, I am armed."
He looked at her, cocking his head to the side. How could she be armed?
He heard the rustling of the bushes around him and another human stepped out. How could he have missed the approached of this human?
"It's just me!" said a young girl, maybe only a couple of years younger then the one in the water. She was dressed as a servant and was carrying some sort of garment.
"You scarred me there," said the girl in the water. She threw away her weapon, which was one of the smooth rocks from the water and climbed out. He watched her stroll over to where the other girl was standing and took the cloth from her. As she got dressed, the younger one seemed to lecture her on why it wasn't safe to be alone in the forest.
"And you could be savagely taken advantage of by a youkai!"
"I could be what?"
"Taken advantage of," the younger one said. "My grandmother said there are youkai in the land who take young beautiful girls for their own twisted pleasure and then devolve them."
"And you have been listening to your grandmother way to long," she laugh.
Sugimi watched the girls, thinking the younger one was right. He had never taken a human by force; but then again there hasn't been a human that had stirred him like she had.
"By what, some Lord youkai cow," the other one laughs again.
"You might think it is funny, but my grandmother said."
"Kimmie, stop worrying. I always swim here and nothing happen to me, yet" the older one said putting up her hair. Sugimi watched, wondering what it would feel like to run his fingers through it. She had the kind of hair had been made for a male's finger.
He heard the gestured sign Kimmie. "You left the wedding."
"I wasn't wanted there anyway."
"But, your sister."
"Kimmie, compare to popular belief, we aren't close." She said with something in her voice that he couldn't figure out. "I can count on my fingers how many times we have talked." He knew that human relationship were on the flicked side, seeing how they betrayed each other at whim but he through there was always some sort of trying to be close to those who were related to each other, or they wouldn't form these alliances. "Plus father always makes it seemed he rather I be any where but near the family."
"Oh…but that can't be true."
She looked back up at him and for a moment something past through her eyes. He sat there, crouching, and looking into her eyes, before she returned them to her friend.
"Never mind," she said walking away. "Come, we might as well get back."
He stood there in the trees watching her leave, out of his life.
"My lord," came the sound of a small voice of a tiny insect. He jumped off the branch and landed on the ground without any trouble. He stood up and leaned against the tree, watching her leave.
"My lord?"
"Who is she Myoga," he said as the flea jumped on him.
"I am not sure my lord," said the flea. "Probably a maiden from the village."
Not after I am done with her.
She lean against the rail and watched the partygoers make merry as they celebrated her sisters marriage. She signed, one day this will be her but what then. She wasn't expecting a love match, her birth had insure it. But sometimes she wondered if this was the life she was meant to live.
"Your highness."
She turned and looked as one of her father's advisors and brothers' tutor coming up the southern walkway of the palace. She smiled at him a bowed.
"Good evening to you Master Joben."
"So you are the last one to leave here," he said standing next to her, watching the fireworks go off.
"I'll probable die of old age before someone ask for my hand," she laugh and smiled.
Master Joben reached out and plucked a twig out of her hair. He examined it before handing it to her. "You were always a wild one, Nikki."
She smiled and blushed before letting the stick fall to the ground to join the others there. The stick clump to the ground before joining the others. It laid there the same as the other but totally different, for it carried with it the scent and spirit of the woods.
"I am like that stick laying on the ground," she said. "I looked the part of the princess but don't feel like one."
Master Joben walked over to where she was looking down at the pile of wood. You couldn't tell which ones were which; the stick was lost in pile never to be found.
"The night you were born, a dream came to me," he said. "I dreamed that you would be taken away from us by a youkai."
He smiled and walked away; Nikki watched him eyes widen at the thought. He seemed very happy at this thought.
Was this, what fate had in store for her?
"My lord I must protest."
"If you are scarred of them, Myoga then return, you are usually no help to me when danger is near."
"MY LORD."
Sugimi signed, hitting the next house roof. The next time he got himself in indentured servant, he must make sure that this one wasn't a coward.
He took a quick smell of the air, trying to find her scent. He was going to have that maiden for himself; he needed to get it out of system.
He had never tasted human virginity before but then again there was a first time for everything.
He jumped to the next roof and watched a pair of human brats ran through the streets. All around him were lanterns lighten up and human fireworks going off. He never saw the big deal in them; they were loud and hurt his ears.
"What's going on."
"I believe it is the marriage of one of the lords daughters."
"Now there is something I don't understand."
"What's that, my lord."
"Marriage."
"I don't think they do either."
He sprang to the next roof and walked towards to the outer wall of the palace. The scent, her scent, was leading him in towards the palace. Was she one of the servants? He scaled the wall with little restrained and took the nearest tree. He watched as the night, sky full of color, seemed to cast an unearthly shade onto the path before him. He could hear the rustling of fine silks as it made it's way up the path towards him carrying that smell.
She walked towards where the trees were, lost in her thoughts. She definitely wasn't one of the maids, but wasn't dressed like the bride either. He had heard that one of lords had a bunch of very beautiful daughters, so guess that she might be one of them. Her hair was now up, but the smell of the summer stream was still there. She stopped and looked up right at him. Of course she couldn't see him, but he wonder what she was going to do if she did see him.
She picked up a smooth stone and skinned it over the water; it skipped a couple of times before falling into the cool deaths below.
She heard the rustling of leaves, and turned to come face to face with a boy about her age.
"Who are you," she said. He seemed to come out of the moonlight, as if made from it. His hair pulled in a high ponytail of the warrior class with the bangs falling over his eyes. They couldn't hide the intensity of the eyes in their shade. They were gold, sparkling without the help of any light. She backed up again.
"Who are you," she whispered coming closer. Those eyes, there was something extremely unique about the eyes. Something she couldn't place and not sure she wanted to.
He step forward, coming right up to her, his breath lightly caressing her face. His smell feeling up her nose in the most wonderful of smell, the smell of something more wildly and frightening, but also something she wanted to continue to smell.
He didn't say anything, but reached out to trace a finger along her lips before following it with his lips.
Nikki breathe in a gasp before starting to return the emotion, moving her lips with his. Her mind kept screaming to stop, but she couldn't. Something about his lips on hers was so right. She felt his tongue runs along her lip line, and very casually she opened her lips to him. His tongue slipped in and he pulled her closer, fitting her neatly against his body. She could taste the exoticness that his lips and body posses as he continued to take the kiss deeper and deeper.
She closed her eyes, giving up on thinking and just feeling. She never wanted to stop, never wanted this to end, for she felt that here was where she was suppose to be.
"Your highness!"
Both broke apart and Nikki turned to hear where the voice was coming from.
Her young maid, Kemmie approached her almost out of breath. Did she see it, Nikki wonder?
"Come it's time to say good bye to your sister," she said.
Nikki turned back to where the stranger who was suppose to be standing behind her, but all that was there were a couple of leaves blowing away into the night sky. Had this been a dream, had she just imagine this?
"Something wrong your highness, you look fleshed?"
Nikki shook her head; trying to forget it, but what had transpired between her and the stranger wouldn't let go.
"Nothing," she said.
Sugimi watched as the woman leave with her maid and touched his lips with his tongue. Her presence was still there.
Who ever she was, that had been her first kiss. The kiss itself was too innocent for a female who hadn't have at least one lover. She was pure, which for some reason he found more appealing. Usually he stayed clear of younger youkai, not wanting to take the time to train them on how to please him, but for her he would make an exception.
"Can we go, my lord," Myoga asked, jumping back onto his shoulder.
He turned from the garden and headed towards the roof. Tomorrow he would come and fetch her. None of this playing human for him. He wanted her in his youkai form.