DISCLAIMER: Just as normal, I don't own Fushigi Yuugi. I don't think there's ever a chance of that happening.
AUTHOR's NOTES: Some of you may recognize this from before - yes, it's the "pre-Market" story I started posting in Market. With some lovely help from Roku, Mouse, Ryuen, and Kris, I've started writing it again - and they convinced me to make it its own story, if only for the sake of timeline continuity, and since I was debating about that even before I posted it, I decided to go ahead and do it. This part hasn't changed from what was in Market - but after this certainly has changed from what I had in my head (which was zilch). I can't say thank you enough to the Kamikaze Roku-tachi for helping me hash out everything and get it all straight.
They made me want to write again - and enjoy writing what I loved. I can't think of any better thanks than that. This is for you all - and everyone's who's stuck with me for almost the four years that this story's been in the works. You all are a greater gift than I could ever say.
And now - on with the story!
"Tatara-sama?"
The long-haired man paused in his motions, squeezed his eyes shut, and then continued about his business as though he hadn't heard. What would they want now, these servants... Unnecessary yet there, and never, ever gone.
"Tatara-sama, please..."
Her voice was soft and respectful, shaking a bit, yet determined. He shook his head a little; it wasn't her fault she was out here. Namie had probably sent her - he didn't recognize this girl - to bring him in as she sent someone every day. The elderly nurse still exerted a great deal of influence over her former ward as his housekeeper, and he respected her too much to not listen to her plaintive orders to eat. But not quite yet. The small spade slid into the turned earth at his feet, settling carefully under the roots of one of the plants and lifting it out, his other hand holding the stalk straight as he turned to face the girl. "Do you know what this is?"
She blinked, pressed her lips together, and shook her head.
"This is the poppy that opium comes from... Do you know what opium is?" A small nod. "What?" The girl didn't answer. He sighed to himself; he really had to stop intimidating the help, if he had to live with these people. Namie wouldn't hear of him sending them away, as much as it would suit him. "Opium is a powerful drug. It can alter people's perceptions, make forget part of their memory for a space of time... Even forget who they are for a time." He discarded the spade and turned the flower around slowly, studying the wide leaves that had withered a tad in the heat of the desert that even he could not combat. "Have you ever wanted to forget everything?"
"Yes," came the hushed whisper.
He nodded, still watching the plant, earthen clods falling to the ground from the roots now tangled in his fingers. "We all have, at one point or another. But the gods haven't made us to forget... except by accident." He slowly, lovingly, lowered the plant back into a hole a few inches away that had already been prepared for it, packing the dirt around it with his bare hands, already dirt-smeared. In the almost-direct sunlight that poured down from right above their heads, the small flash of light that dove from his hand into the earth went unnoticed by the girl. He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing his hands free of the dirt as the girl did her best to smooth her clothing again. "Tell Namie-san I shall be in directly." The girl actually squeaked a little and blushed as he smiled at her, and went scampering away as quickly as decorum would allow. When she was far enough away to be a blur against the plants he let the smile drop and another sigh escape. It had been almost a year - when was he going to stop feeling so gods-cursed lonely?
Through the trees he himself had planted he could barely see the house rising on a slight slope, a one-story, rambling structure that still had an air of great age to it. The wood it had been built from (an expensive commodity in their area of the country) so many years before had been worn down and polished by the elements and the weather so it seemed to almost shiver in the heat of the day. Its rooms held books and scrolls, a large kitchen, several bedrooms, beautiful tapestries and murals, a training court and small armory - and Tatara didn't want any of it.
Responding to some unthought signal, his feet turned and carried him away from the sight, deeper into the trees. He knew what Namie would say when he didn't return immediately as promised, but at the moment he didn't care. A fresh surge of loneliness had coursed through his body and overridden everything else, taking him he knew not where but nowhere near that building. Almost a year since his father had died, and he was still given to these bouts of depression. He'd been reassured by people that it was normal, grieving for the death of a loved one, but it still made no sense to him. He and his father hadn't even been particularly close for most of his life. Tsounie Kanbe had been a solitary person, mourning for his wife, who had died when Tatara was three. The physicians had sworn that his illness would be overcome by his relative youth and healthy nature, and yet he had faded and eventually disappeared. Perhaps that was what worried him - the idea that, like his father, he would never be able to stop grieving, and eventually stop living because of it.
Tatara's steps carried him past banks of flowers and shrubs, through copses of trees, all lasting far past their normal lives, especially outside most of their natural climates. Flowers from Kutou, hardy trees from Hokkan, various flowing bushes from Konan, he had them all, in the one thing that always made sense to him - his garden. His powers had helped him take their family's lands, well-irrigated thankfully, and turn it into a miniature jungle, the plants lasting far longer there than in any other he had seen. His father had encouraged it, knowing his talents and seeing how happy, how alive, it made him seem. Lately his gardening had been his only respite from the nagging doubts in his head, doubts that he would ever be any form of anything besides the possessor of a hereditary title. He couldn't even hear Namie going on and on about the joy of being a seishi any more with any confidence. He'd known his entire life, the war had been going on nearly five years - if there was ever a need for the legendary seishi, surely the time had long since passed. Why had he not been called? Had the others - Tokaki, Kokie, Subaru, Amefuri, Toroki, Karasuki his mind unwillingly whispered - gone ahead without him? Was he supposed to wait until old age had claimed his sight, his hearing, his muscles and will to move? He just couldn't understand.
His thoughts cut off suddenly as he heard a shriek in the distance. Spinning that way and watching quietly, exactly as he was trained, listening for any movement or more voices. There was nothing for a good few moments, and then a very faint rustling came to his ears, followed by another shriek. Without thinking, he started in that direction, one hand going to his necklace and pulling free a few seeds, the small husks melding themselves easily with his guidance around the string to come off unharmed in his fingers. He paused, listened, adjusted direction slightly, and became aware of an uneasiness spreading through the plants around him. They didn't have feelings and emotions the way a person, or even most animals, did, but he'd found if he only paid attention than he could interpret their strange ways of thinking. And now they knew that something was happening, that someone was in trouble. A strong prod in the mental back by a chestnut tree sent him running along one of the lesser-used paths, towards a particularly thick strand of trees that could have been a wood in its own right.
A minute later he was there and had only a split-second to take in the situation: a flash of blue trying to run from branch to branch above his head and a much faster flash of brown-spotted gold chasing it, clinging to its own branch with deadly sharp claws. The blue jumped to another tree and shrieked just as the spotted got to the old perch- a girl's shriek, or perhaps a young woman's, the same he'd heard earlier. "HELLLLLP " She kept moving, long braids flying behind her, but it was futile - she'd be caught in moments.
Tatara once again didn't bother to think; his eyes narrowed at the tree the leopard was in, and at his command the roots tore themselves out of the ground on the side of the oversized feline, pitching itself to the side and ejecting the howling animal like a catapult. Tatara spared one more second to tip it upright and seal the roots into the ground again before throwing two of his seeds at the cat, which was quickly recovering from its unexpected flight. It turned and snarled at him, as though it knew he was the one to blame for the loss of its prey. The giant cat was starting to make for him with the seeds exploded in a furious cloud of green, the vines growing faster than ever and wrapping themselves around the astonished leopard, heedless of its snarls and attempts to bite and slash at them, pinning all four limbs and tucking themselves out of reach of its fangs. It kept wailing, thrashing as well as it could, but the vines were bred for durability and would hold a long time.
Giving the animal a wide berth - there was no reason to act stupid, after all - Tatara quickly ran to the tree the girl was perched in. She was clinging to the branch and shaking, breathing heavily, eyes wide at the leopard. Every once in awhile she looked back at the crumbled ground where the tree had torn itself up. She yelped again when he appeared under her, as if she hadn't seen him coming, and for some reason asked him what seemed to be a very trivial question. "Do all the trees react like that here?"
"No," he called up to her, "not unless I tell them to. Come down, it's safe." He held out his arms, intending to catch her as she dropped, but she didn't move. "What is it?"
Her eyes were still wide, mostly watching the leopard. "C-Can you... can you please get rid of that thing? Please?" The set of her face made it plain that while it was still there, she was not emerging.
He couldn't exactly blame her, but he had to suppress a sigh nonetheless. He didn't know this girl, so he suspected she was another of the new servants - none seemed able to stay in employment for very long, but Namie handled finding the girls and boys, only notifying him when they had actually found a replacement. And only one of the new girls would know that she was not perfectly safe with him around, wild cats or no. But even the unintentional slight hurt his pride a little - however, it was easier to do things her way this time. He turned to approach the cat again, which was still snarling, and got within three paces of it. Its attempted thrashing resumed, trying to get at this block between it and a meal, but the vines still held. Tatara wouldn't kill it outright, but driving it off... that was possible. He dropped the third seed, and as it fell it too sprouted into a vine, one that settled itself into his hand like a whip, and the snarling fell to almost inaudible noise, somehow more frighteningly malicious than before.
They eyed each other, and then Tatara raised the whip and cracked it hard across the leopard's nose. The cat shrieked, not unlike the girl earlier, and he did it again, over the ears, and again, over the muzzle. Every time it landed a welt was raised; these were no little stings. Tatara wasn't simply trying to drive it off, he was trying to drive it off for good. The next few cracks came close but barely missed the face, putting the fear of the whip in the animal, and then the next one landed on the mouth again, and the leopard howled in pain once more. Tatara watched it carefully, but it settled into an almost whimpering state in its vine-coil prison. He rather thought that it wasn't a full-grown one, but it was still a healthy size and plenty fast when left to its own devices. He cracked the whip one more time, at which the cat flinched, and then let the coils undo themselves. As soon as it had enough room, the leopard struggled free and bolted through the trees, crashing through and over bushes as fast as it could. Tatara reminded himself to come back after the meal to fix the damage, then turned to help the girl down - only to find that she was climbing down already, still shaking a bit but moving surely down the branches as if they were a ladder, holding on to the trunk when needed.
The girl was a little on the tall side, but not much so, and his impression of her body was that it was rather slim - she was missing most of the curves of a full-grown woman, but somehow he thought they would look wrong on her. Her hair was long and straw-colored, held back in two braids behind her ears, and rather scraggly-looking after the chase. Her face was a bit flushed and her eyes were slightly larger than normal, and of a rather astonishing blue, clearly her most unusual feature. But it was her clothing that most held his attention, because he'd never seen anything like it before. He could see her legs, for one, but they were black as night, and her slippers were utterly undescribable - and for some reason, they had strings on them. Her... was it a robe?... seemed to be in at least two different pieces, and of a cut and fabric he was completely unfamiliar with, though the blue was dull enough to not be unusual. For some reason, she'd attached a rather ugly red bow to the front and around her neck, though most of it disappeared under an extra long flap of cloth he could see no reason for. Where were the servants getting their clothing these days?
"Thank you," she said when she turned to him, somewhat shyly attempting to brush her hands and clothes clean of the bits of bark they had picked up. "I just panicked when I saw it, and I didn't realize that they liked the trees, so I tried to climb one to escape it, and... well, you saw."
He certainly had seen. He bowed, missing her slightly surprised expression at the gesture. "It was nothing, and in truth you did... rather well. Most people I know would have frozen at the sight and been caught." Not that he knew that many people, but it was true.
"Oh... well... Well, thank you anyway, you still got rid of it." She folded her hands behind her back and seemed to be studying him curiously, which took him a little by surprise. Not many - or any, recently - of the servants had willingly done that, being impressed by Namie to show proper respect for their new master. She had a rather tactful, yet somehow frank way of looking that he actually didn't seem to mind, even when her eyes looked down and up his body, obviously studying his clothing as he had studied hers. When she met his eyes again, a new look of doubt had come into her face. "I'm not... not in Japan now, am I?" It was a question, but her tone made the expected reply clear.
"What's Japan?"
She sighed, her expectations having been met. "I should have known, I've never had jaguars around at home-" he didn't bother to correct her mistake, now feeling almost as confused as she had been a moment before "-or trees suddenly falling down then righting themselves again." She glanced around, almost as if she expected the land to melt away around them to something she was familiar with. "...Where am I?"
Tatara was watching her himself with a look not unlike her own. "In Sairou, about half a day's ride from the capital."
"Sairou..." She seemed to be almost tasting the word, as if it was the first time she had ever heard it. "Is that in China? Or Russia?"
"What are those?"
Another sigh, and this time she seemed to slump a little. "Countries back... never mind." She shook her head again and seemed to retreat into her thoughts.
Whatever she was, Tatara was now sure she was not a servant. No servant would have had to ask where she was, unless she had somehow gotten amnesia, which he highly doubted in this case. But he was due back, and he couldn't leave her out by herself if there were wild animals present - he couldn't be entirely sure that the leopard had gone for good. He nearly reached out to put a hand on her arm before catching himself. "Excuse me..." She looked up at him, her perceptive eyes now questioning. "I'm due inside... well, I'm already late, but I need to be going. Would you care to come? You could eat, if you... haven't."
He realized just a bit too late that mentioning food after she nearly had been a meal might be slightly less than tactful, but her own stomach gurgled in response and she blushed slightly. "Um... all right, that would be nice." She took a few steps away from him before pausing and turning back, almost sheepishly. "Which way is it?"
He pointed down another path than the one she'd been heading for, then fell into step beside her, arms folded behind his back much as hers were. Both were quiet, the odd events of the past few minutes running themselves through their heads, and their steps instinctively fell into a similar rhythm as they walked automatically down the grass. Who exactly was this girl, and why was she mentioning countries he'd never heard of? Even as a minor noble's son his education had been excellent, possibly on par with the emperor's, as the one thing his father took real pride in was his learning. But any way he puzzled this problem led him to nothing. He decided that the meal would also have to serve as a sort of friendly interrogation to see if... if... And Tatara realized he still didn't know who she was even in a nominal sense.
"Forgive me... My name is Tsounie Kasaru, or Tatara."
"Oh " She startled a bit as his voice brought her back. "It's nice to meet you, um... Tatara. I'm Suzuno - Oosugi Suzuno."
AUTHOR'S NOTES II (from over a year ago): I liked working on this in that it gave me an excuse to finally buckle down and work on Tatara's character straight-forwardly. He's always sort of eluded me, but in order to write this I needed to have full access to everything he thinks and feels. I finally got the details of his story together, for one thing. And speaking of details, I have (mostly) finished profiles for all the seishi on my site - though as of now, unlinked. If anyone's interested, leave me a note and I'll get around to linking those up. I need to do it anyway, that'll just be an extra kick in the rear.
There's more to come of the pre-Subaru days! Stick around to find out the rest, including Tokaki's appearance!
AUTHOR'S NOTES III (from now): And watch out - dangerous akugis abound in the future! Or a-ride!