Promise of a River
By: LadyRainStarDragon
Chapter 7: Where are my shirts?
Rain owneth not ye Spirited Away.
Tonight was terrible! Horrible! Awful! It was worse than doing a cannonball into a deep river only to discover the river was gone. Well, that didn't happen to me, but there was a homeless dragon that stopped in for a bath before going to see the Sea King for a new post, and it happed to him. I can only imagine how much that landing hurt.
But that's not what I'm writing about today.
I had a day off today, all for myself. The first one in such a long time. Wanting to keep my day off, instead of Lin guilting me into helping with her chores or playing some dirty trick on me in revenge, I took off. Managed to find a nice clearing in the forest too, far enough away that I would be safe, but close enough so that Yubaba wouldn't think I was running away.
You wouldn't believe how wondrous this clearing was! There was good clean dirt (stop laughing at me), nice tall grass, curious little yellow and blue flowers nodding lazily, and all sorts of little bugs going about their busy lives like people in those cities that sprawl everywhere. Lovely gray rocks wore mantles of lichen while a few trees wore shawls of moss, dancing in the breezes. A tiny brook babbled just on the east side of this clearing, some little water sprite baby playing between sun and shadow, too young to take any form yet but water.
Other than that little baby, who was actually kind of cute, there was nobody around at all. The sun was absolutely glorious, beating down on me with her warm rays and roasting me in my heavy clothes. Enjoying the privacy, I decided I was going to take my tops off and soak up some of the sun. It had been so long since I could sun myself, and even longer since I'd had the opportunity to do it in human form. Folding them carefully, I put them on the grass to use as a pillow, then laid down.
I promptly fell asleep. Sun does that to us.
It was a very lovely dream, but I'm not going to write it down. Lin's not the only one trying to look in here now you know. If she ever found out what it was, I know I'd fall for those fake Sens she keeps putting in my bed, in the garden, and in the cellar. It's not happening.
Besides, Lin's hair stood on end for almost a week now. So we know what that means.
When I woke up, my shirts were no where to be found! There I was, shirtless, the brook now laughing at me (oh, I hate that) and judging by the sun, with only two hours to find them and get back to the bath house before Yubaba would send out searchers. What if some of the volunteers were women? It was a possibility I didn't want to dwell on too long.
I'd grown very tired of intercepting passed notes among the female workers supposedly working and discovering they were pictures of what they thought I looked like now without shirts. They were all done in Lin's style of drawing too, she must have sneaked a peek when I was in the men's shower. I really had to figure out where she was hiding her hentai manga so I could burn them.
'Of course, I could just take off now, get there while they're all still busy with their own clothes, and put on my spares. It would be simple to come back for them later. No, wait, my spares are all still being washed and mended. Scratch that.'
Growing tired of the child's laughing, I drew a deep breath and went over to him.
"What's so funny?"
"You! These three green bouncy things came into my clearing making all kinds of racket and you slept right through it. Two of them pulled your covery-things out from under your head while the other was on your chest yelling, and you still wouldn't get up. The one on your chest kept jumping up and down, and it was hilarious the way he sank into you a bit."
'Damn! How'd I sleep through that? Oh, yeah, I remember now.
The dragon at this point is staring goofily at a blank wall, imagining something only he can see, and obviously enjoying it greatly, possibly too much. After about 10 minutes, he literally shakes himself to drop his thought for the moment.
Dratted bouncing heads. What are they anyway? Pets? Ex-husbands? Mailmen who brought one two many bills?
"Shirts. They took my shirts, and I need those."
"Why? I don't wear covery-things."
"You're still just a kid, you can get away with it when you practice your shapes. I'm older, I need to cover myself. Which way did they go?"
The kid sent a wave of water to point the way, and I took off after thanking him. Somebody had to show him how to be polite. Why I didn't take my dragon shape, I don't know. I guess I was too focused on getting back my clothes. So, at this point, I'm running through the forest half-naked. How undignified, right?
After a bit, I hear them bouncing and rolling along, 'Oi'ing and laughing. I didn't even know they could laugh. I poured on a little more speed, not allowing myself to give in to the pleasure of the hunt, just wanting my blasted shirts. They finally came into sight after what seemed like years.
Ok, so it was really two seconds.
Not paying any heed whatsoever to my surroundings, I burst out of the forest, the very grasses bowing in awe of my speed, power and grace.
Shut up voice. (No, hahaha) Stop laughing. (No.) What's so dratted funny? Why am I writing my responses to you?
Here, the frustrated and severely embarrassed dragon has paused in his writings to himself (not realizing how funny it is to be writing to himself, much less arguing with himself in his head). The younger sounding head-voice does not stop badgering the boy until it strikes him just how conceited his sentence sounded.
Ok, so it was a figure of speech, it was more like the air shoved roughly out of the way by my speeding body caused them to sway. It just sounded so good.
(Right. Sure. Next, you're going to tell me you weren't daydreaming about Chihiro.)
Where was I? Oh, right. (Haha, thinking of Chihiro too much does that to you.) Shut up!
(Hahahaha.)
Ok, that is rather scary. Is this pen haunted? (Maybe.) That would be my luck. These new ballpoint pens are evil, quills are much better.
Switches to a favorite quill.
So, as I burst out of the forest and tackle the nearest clothing possessing head to regain my dignity, I hear all these delighted squeals. Ignoring them, thinking they were just figments of my apparently over-active imagination, I wrested my prize from the evil foe. Said evil foe will henceforth be known by myself as 'the evil green tunic stealing spawn' when not in Yubaba or anyone else's presence.
Luckily, it turned out it was my blue tunic, which I promptly put on before I tackled and conquered another evil foe. Said evil foe is henceforth known as 'the evil green haori stealing spawn'. Now fully clothed in amazingly still clean tops, I glared at the last head, 'the evil green tunic and haori thieves' accomplice spawn' before turning to head for the bath house.
Only to be greeted by every woman who worked there, whistling at me. Lin had gotten her revenge for her hair after all. Not that I was going to let her realize it though.
She'd probably sold tickets to see this.
"Stop drooling. Can't a man train in peace? Unless one of you would like to lend me your boyfriend or husband for sparring practice, there is no one brave enough to challenge me. Go get ready for work, we'll start getting ready for customers early today."
Thankfully, they bought it. I watched them scatter like rats before a ravenous tiger let loose in a storeroom.
But I wonder, what did Lin give them to get those heads to help her?
The young man hid his scroll in the ceiling above his nest, still grumbling about evil green clothing stealing spawn and nosy workers. From underneath a corner of his mussed 'nest' peeks out a piece of a pink bath house uniform, the same one Chihiro had once worn. How he managed to get it, he had no intention of telling anyone. Finally satisfied, he flopped down to resume hisfantasy about Chihiro swimming with him in magically warm waters, then later studying some old books together on his bed.
Elsewhere in the building, Lin made good on her bargain with the heads, awarding them with three sacks full of caramel corn, and two small bags of roast newt.
Reviewer Corner
Thanks to Fyraga, Katsy Kat, NitenGale, Shamanbabe and Shivanick
Alyssa: Glad you enjoy this story. Sadly, I can't make them meet in this one. This collection is part of a series of stories. Check out 'Rivers Never Die' for when they meet again. As time progresses, others will see him, but I don't know about her yet. Of course, he'll still think those are weird dreams interspersed with his normal ones.
