My Very First Disclaimer: I don't own anything. That's right, nothing.
Other than that, nothing much to say here. Karin/Nicolai haters, the implications are very slight, so don't get turned off too quickly.
In a quiet part of the Forest of Wind, long after the deeper areas of the woods and past the dark canopies, lay a small and unobtrusive village. Nestled securely in the trees, this town was known only to those who were born and raised in it, and only those who had lived there most their entire lives knew the way to find it. In this village was a multitude of tiny huts, gardens, and at the peak of a hill where a set of long stone stairs connected the upper and lower areas of the village, there was a massive house.
This house was larger in comparison to the rest of the village, but largely unused in terms of extra space. A series of events had reduced the inhabiting family to a mere shadow of its former volume, and left empty were countless rooms and beds.
The extraneous space, in the form of an unused bedroom on the east wing, currently played host to a long-haired Japanese woman who sat by the bedside. She sat as still as her patient, a young man under the white sheets who lay unmoving save for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
The door creaked open, and when it closed there was an elderly, gray-haired old woman standing at the entrance. Seeing that the younger woman did not respond to her entry, she came to stand by her side. Seeing no further acknowledgement, she raised her voice and spoke gently.
"Saki."
Saki Inugami still did not look up.
"Saki, you didn't come down for dinner. I was worried."
"I am fine," Saki murmured, and the old woman had to lean close to hear her reply. With this simple refusal of Saki's to rejoin the remainder of her family, the old woman had no response to give. So they both sat in silence, regarding the face of the handsome cornsilk-blond man in the bed, breathing shallowly as if sleeping.
"Why do you stay by his side so?" the old woman asked softly.
Saki did not respond to the query, and because she had never before spoken so little before, or ignored her elder so blatantly, the old woman began to grow helplessly concerned.
"It's been so long," the grey-haired woman continued, "I don't wish to say it, but he may never wake up."
"I don't believe that."
She was quick to answer this time, but it was a quiet and resolute tone of voice, and the old woman could do nothing to dispute her.
"For all my nephew has told me about this man," Saki continued pensively, "for all the terrible things he is said to have done…"
Here she turned her head to rest her wine-colored eyes on her senior. "There is kindness about him. A good that can't be seen with the naked eye."
Such simple words silenced the old woman, and she had no answer. What could she say to something like that? For all she could see, Saki seemed nearly captivated and obsessed with her vow to be by the side of this man when he awoke.
After a long silence, Saki spoke again.
"Please leave me."
The older woman, although slightly shocked at her younger relative's blunt request, could do nothing but sigh. "…all right. I'll leave. Take care of yourself, Saki, and please remember to eat!"
She turned around and shuffled slowly to the door, where she left and closed it firmly behind her, still uneasy about Saki's strange behavior but unable to sway her when she was decided. God help that boy if Saki's son and his friends were to see him.
At the bedside, Saki let out her own sigh and raised her face to the sky. She closed her eyes, and her lips moved in a silent prayer to the Inugami gods.
She alone could see too clearly that something was amiss, and that there was a difference in the way her patient's lost soul lived and breathed in the Otherworld. She could even see it in the way his chest rose and fell under the sheets – there was a ripple in the atmosphere of the bedroom, and it clawed at the back of her mind until she was forced to address it. Any other day and the room was still as a lake, placid and still, with no evidence that there was life beyond its shimmering surface.
Saki gazed towards the window, streaming sunlight into the room, nearly counting the seconds.
At that moment, as if a miracle had fallen upon the Inugami village, there was a shadow of movement at the bed. Within herself the Inugami leader felt a stirring in the empty shade of a spirit. Without regarding his physical form, she was able to see the life desperate to return to his barren body, and with a smile she heard the first sign – a slight noise, resembling the quiet sip of air that a man took as he awoke from a long rest.
The dark eyelashes fanned across the young man's cheeks trembled, and with another intake of breath, this one sharp and harsh enough to be a painful gasp, his eyes opened.
Saki returned her eyes to him, and broke a true smile for the first time in months.
"Welcome back, sir."
I'm so happy. My very first upload went smoothly.
My general plan is +reviews+chapters. Respond accordingly.