Hi, I'm a new arrival to This story is finished, but I'll only put up the rest of the chapters if I get reviews--so, please, read and review! I'd love to get any feedback.
I changed a lot of things--there's a different country, language, etc. I'll include a list of the original FB characters and their changed names, for those of you who want to keep track of them. In these chapters, Akito is Asheno. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Natsuki Takaya. Anything else you recognize from other mangas, animes, books, and movies also doesn't belong to me.
Prologue
Faran-Hat-Zhuku
Hatharu hel mhane khe aha, Spring is still far away,
Su nalu rhizano ghobere, And within the cold ground,
Shedal thathu lesim surokha ashu Starved seeds await warm sun
Su dho mhedosh han. And fresh silvery rain.
I was only five years old the first time I heard the infernal song.
Shomithu lana lhunose Bereft of any leaves,
Shum hararalor aha humumu Yet still standing although
Nhozalor thithu hare karin Cruel mountain winds whip them,
Thikazi lhahemithu shuru. The flame trees of Thika.
There was a time when I would've preferred being whipped by those "cruel mountain winds" rather than suffer what I did at the hands of Asheno.
Hatharu hel mhane khe aha, Spring is still far away,
Su nalu rhizano ghobere, And within the cold ground,
Atharalor eshusum thathu Forgotten and stray seeds
Hisukam su hiri. Begin to awaken.
It is not possible for me to forget what has happened. I remember every time the song starts playing inside my mind, and there is no way for me to silence it.
Surozi shomathu dzosisalor, Hundreds of years ago,
Dzinuthu thumathu menare, Blossoms of fire open'd,
Aleren lhorene lhosusu Bringing hope and color
Fu Thika hitoremare. To forbidding Thika.
Most Hothans think this song is beautiful and take great pride in it—after all, it is the national anthem. Rarely will one see a Hothan with dry eyes after listening to "The Flame Trees of Thika." But when I hear it, frustration, rage, pain and heartbreak seethe within myself.
Hatharu hel mhane khe aha, Spring is still far away,
Su nalu rhizano ghobere, And within the cold ground,
Fulanalor elerenal lheshothu Deep and ancient roots
Kheriza shahesu dhemi fusoro. Struggle to convey life upwards.
The first time I heard it…I was cowering in a dark corner as Shoma Asheno, the head of the prestigious Shoma family, beat me and railed at me.
"Why don't you act like a DOG, damn it! You're supposed to be the Dog of the Dzuni, but you don't act like one! You're not normal!" Followed by a punch to the side of my head, which left my ears ringing. "Shoma Faran-Hat-Zhuku." He said my name with an audible sneer. I saw his fist silhouetted against the moonlight from the bay window behind him.
Shomathu dzirosura emiros Will the flowers flourish
Thiri shune ze li mahos ghobirime? To spite endless winter,
Thikazi lhahemithu shuru Or be swallowed by ice?
The flame trees of Thika.
Asheno continued the relentless rhythm of punches. A numbness overtook me as I sought to cover myself.
Thi zhula faramazal, "Dziral "Spring," whispered a rogue wind
Hatharu hureno su neno will return without fail,
Lhahemithumon lerenalor And with it, the trees that
Ahami fu Hothizuna." Bring beauty to Hoth."
"Hey, stop that!" Hatsuharu yelled as he ran into the room. Clad in his blue pajamas, he had become suspicious at the sound of thudding and breaking objects.
"Oh, I see the stupid little cow has come to join us," remarked Asheno, letting go of my robe. I sat there like a slug, my vision swimming and only somewhat aware of the drama between Asheno and Hatsuharu.
"I'm not a cow!" protested Hatsuharu. Neither Hatsuharu nor I had ever been able to grasp why Asheno insisted that we were a cow and a dog, respectively. And what was the "Dzuni," for that matter?
Asheno grabbed Hatsuharu by his thick black and white hair and lifted him up. Despite having a frail, 5'5" frame, Asheno possessed a demonic strength whenever he became violently angry. Hatsuharu's gray eyes widened, then a curious thing happened. His eyes turned a distinctly darker gray, and his normally calm face contorted into a livid expression of fury. Hatsuharu twisted around and gave Asheno a resounding blow to the head. I saw Asheno fall to the ground unconscious, the moonlight falling across his pale face and starkly illuminating the hard lines of what had once been a beautiful, almost feminine face.
"C'mon, Haku, are you okay?" Hatsuharu, his eyes now back to light gray, put a hand on my upper arm and started lifting me up. Shakily, I stood up and looked at Hatsuharu. He was only nine months older than I was, but he was a good four or five inches taller than me.
"We'll go back to my room." I only nodded and looked at the prone Asheno. My guardian and my worst enemy. As I stared at him, I heard the tinkling of high notes that marks the beginning of "The Flame Trees of Thika," in my mind.
"Do you hear that, Hatsuharu?" I asked. A mournful, low note now accompanied the high notes...an ethereal voice beginning, Hatharu hel mhane khe aha, su…
"What?"
"The national song—it's playing."
"Hmm? I don't hear anything." He narrowed his eyes, concerned. "You need sleep."
I turned my head, trying to find something in the room that might be playing the song. But aside from Asheno and a small table, the room was empty. Outside the bay window, the harithe—"mountain-killer wind"—ripped through the extensive courtyard. Nhozalor thithu hare karin/Thikazi…sang the voice as the majestic flame tree in the center of the yard bent over, groaning under the onslaught of the wind. Its scarlet flowers had not bloomed for 500 years. That was true for every flame tree in Hoth.
I have since then lost count of the number of times I've heard "The Flame Trees of Thika." That marked the beginning of my seeing visions and hearing voices—the visions and voices that would cause me so much pain and eventually reveal hundreds of years' worth of Shoma family secrets.
"Hurry, the servants are coming and they're going to see what happened," Hatsuharu urgently whispered. Seeing the glazed look in my eyes, he gently touched my arm. "Haku…?"
Running footsteps...the servants had decided it was safe enough to see what had happened. Hatsuharu started pulling me up the steps.
"Look," I laughed, giddily pointing to the window, "The tree won't fall over even in the harithe…" The wind rose in pitch as I blacked out.
Thikazi lhahemithu shuru The flame trees of Thika
Thikazi lhahemithu shuru The flame trees of Thika
Chapter 1
"Hey, Haku." The towering teenager with the broad chest and shoulders put a black glove-covered hand on Haku's arm. Haku turned and looked into a pair of dark sunglasses. That touch reminded him of one night many years ago, when Hatsuharu first became his "unofficial bodyguard." Even though Haku was now almost six feet, he still had to look up at Hatsuharu. Both of them were much taller and stronger now, but they continued to wage a war at home against Asheno.
"Hatsuharu." Haku smiled. "I'm just waiting…"
"HA-RAAAAA!" In a panic, Hatsuharu dropped his old bike and bucked as a silver-haired whirlwind leapt onto his back. "I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE YOUUUU!"
"Kho, I told you not to call me Hara! And please don't yell in my ear, you do it often enough without making me go deaf." Hatsuharu moaned, grabbing the petite Khosure and setting him on the ground. The commotion went unnoticed on the sidewalk in front of Mhagenu School, which was crowded with students leaving for the day. Large groups of teenagers also milled around the spacious front steps, waiting for friends, catching up on the day's events, or just enjoying one of Lhasa's warmest days. A few gray clouds gave a hint of rain.
"You wouldn't be so cranky if you had a girlfriend, Hara," Khosure pouted, pointing a white index finger at Hatsuharu's nose. "You'd have no trouble getting one. All the girls love him, right, Haku?" Khosure pursed his lips, batted his large, bright golden eyes, and caressed his long silver tresses in a perfect imitation of one of Hatsuharu's most overt admirers.
"I don't need a girlfriend, and stop calling me Hara," Hatsuharu said as he picked up his tangled bike to hide the smile creeping onto his face.
"Don't torture Hatsuharu, Khosure," admonished a tall, serious-looking girl, walking over to the small group. Her auburn hair fell to her shoulders, and her sharp, jade green eyes darted to Khosure. "You're wasting enough of his time." She frowned down at Khosure—she was as tall as Haku, and Khosure was a good several inches shorter than Haku.
"Hello to you, too, Tori," Khosure replied, unfazed.
"Are you joining us at the café now?" Haku asked Tori.
"Yes, but not for too long—We have a very difficult math test tomorrow, you know." It was that special time of year when all students in their last year of junior high school were preparing for high school entrance exams. The four friends didn't know it, but the decision had already been made for them—they would attend Karori.
"Ah, Tori, the shining genius who sparkles while the rest of us languish…" Khosure dramatically put a despairing hand to his forehead.
"Didn't study either, Kho, hmm?" grinned Hatsuharu. "Sorry, I can't come with you today—I have errands to run."
"Sure, I'll see you later at home," Haku said. "Don't get lost."
Hatsuharu pedaled off on his bike.
Hatsuharu
I chuckled as I rode away. I heard Tori tell Kho in a defeated tone that, yes, she would help him study for the math test. Kho never failed to entertain, although he could, without a doubt, be extremely annoying. Many times I'd mulled over the odd group that we formed—me, Haku, Ahame Khosure, and Zhuruth Hotohori. It just sometimes struck me that we seemed to be attracted to each other because we were all misfits in some way. Well, strictly speaking, Kho and Tori were Haku's friends first, and that's saying something, because Haku is not easy to become friends with. He intimidates students because he has a wild feel about him. Almost like he would snap at someone if he or she threatened him. Heh, he's been plenty threatened by Asheno.
Even so, I still sense that he's not telling me everything. We are practically brothers—we have grown up in the same house together since we were babies. It's so frustrating not being able to tell what he's thinking during his dark moments because I want to ease the heavy thoughts he clearly has. I can tell they're heavy because I've seen his eyes become shadowed with…eh, I'm not sure…anger and despair, I think. Kho and Tori see it, too. None of us can figure out where those looks come from.
The four of us may be very close friends, but there are so many secrets twisting themselves around the bonds that connect us. Haku and I never talk about our home lives with Kho and Tori (or anyone else, but that goes without saying). Asheno's made it clear that we'll suffer if we do so. Come to think of it, Kho and Tori also don't talk much about their home lives, either. I know that Kho lives with an older woman who's his guardian, but I don't know anything about his parents or other relatives. Tori is the youngest of three girls, and I gather she doesn't get much attention. Maybe that's why we're all such good friends—because we're all hiding things about our families.
It's also weird that we're all so good-looking. Really, Tori's absolutely stunning, Khosure positively glimmers, Haku could be a model. We look nothing like the average Hothan. The average Hothan would be shorter and well-built, with long, thin faces, light skin, brown eyes, and dirty blonde or black hair (always straight hair). Then here we were—me with black hair below a thick, untamable upper layer of white hair, gray eyes, and very tall; Haku with bluish-black hair, a skin tone just leaning towards olive; Tori with her red hair, incredibly green eyes, and unusual height; and finally, Kho, the strangest of us all, with silver hair, gold eyes, white skin, and a willowy, slender body.
In the middle of my musing I looked up and saw a beat-up sign saying, "Ghane Alley." The buildings around me had flaking paint and patches in the walls. Damn, this was not Sonu Street, where I could buy some snacks for entrance exam cramming. Thanks to my less-than-fantastic sense of direction, I'd ended up in one of the poor areas of Lhasa. Of course, I could've also been concentrating better.
I turned around, when I heard, "Hey, kid, my friend wants to talk to ya." I saw the barrel of a gun pointed towards me.
It was raining and dark when I finally made my way home, to the large Shoma compound. I left my bike in the vestibule of Asheno's spacious house.
"Hatsuharu, I was getting worried," Haku said. "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just got lost again." I laughed, trying to keep him from worrying. He narrowed his eyes after hearing the false ring in my laugh. "Really," I said.
"Hmmm…all right. I'm going to go up and study. Asheno's in bed sick today, so there won't be trouble today."
"Good. I'll join you for studying later." Haku ran up the stairway.
I went to my small room and put on dry clothes. I'd gotten sopping wet, navigating my way back home on the bike. Eventually, a kind stranger directed me to a bus station; I'd somehow gotten to the other side of Lhasa from home. It'd taken me two hours to get home, and it was past dinnertime.
I turned my portable TV on to the news channel. A few minutes might help me settle down enough to think clearly. Why the hell couldn't I remember what happened at Ghane Alley? Surely I'd remember an encounter with a gun-toting mugger…
The anchorwoman talked about the usual things: the gang problem in Shiwa, a mountain town near Lhasa, corruption in the Hothan government. Then the local news: "An hour ago in the Ghunene district, police officers found two adult men dead in Ghane Alley. These men were killed with blows to the head. The police are uncertain about whether the blows were made by another individual or by something else, because their heads had been crushed hard enough to cause brain material to leak out their ears…"
"Haku…" my voice dead, "I need to talk to you."
The newswoman droned on. "An average man, even with the help of a weapon, would lack the strength for causing such an impact…"
Chapter 2
Today the rain continued, falling in large, relaxed drops. Thankfully the temperature had stayed warm, and the stormy winds that so often swept through Lhasa in the spring were absent. Weather was a serious matter in Hoth, particularly in the lands east of the mountains and the south. Western Hoth had more temperate weather, but a lot of rain. For eight out of twelve months in the year, citizens of Lhasa bundled up. Snow and ice were not the biggest weather concern—cold temperatures were. To be sure, Hoth had plenty of snow and icestorms. But because Lhasa was in the northern half of Hoth, its temperatures were slightly warmer than those of cities and towns in the south. Thus Lhasa was spared the brunt of the snowstorms, and became the trading and legislative center of Hoth. Its port and airports remained open all year, allowing easy access to Gogotha in the north and Zi Alda over the sea to the east.
Further south, winter lasted all year. There, the Ghobrin Ice held sway. A vast plain of ice sheets, crevasses, and blinding snow, the Ghobrin Ice delineated a new definition for "inhospitable." No one who had entered the Ice had ever returned. As a result, Hothans only had the vaguest idea of what lay beyond the Gateway, a natural entrance to the Ice formed by two enormous pillars of rock and ice leaning against each other. On either side of the Gateway, jagged ridges rose out of the ground, barring entry to the Ice.
Southern Hoth had a rich legacy of storytelling that revolved around the Ice—stories of wind gods, snow monsters, and the famed ice bird, which held the Ghobrin Ice as its dominion, and fed on the misery of Hothans. Mothers in Lhose, a small city forty miles north of the Ice, the nearest outpost of civilization, regularly used threats of the Ice's legendary monsters to check misbehaving children. Many of the stories involved regular people—doomed lovers who committed suicide by walking into the Ice, or explorers who discovered paradise beyond the Gateway and never returned. Of course, no one actually believed the latter—when such a story was told, the listeners pictured grisly images of death by freezing in their imaginations.
Immediately north of the Ice was a flat, barren plateau. If one traveled another twenty miles or so in the same direction, the land became hilly again. One mountain stood out among the hills—Thika Mountain. It was not as large as the mountains in the range that divided Hoth in half, but it was as famous as the Ghobrin Ice, and occupied as much space in Hothan legend as the Ice. An outsider looking at Thika might think at first, that unlike the Ice, it was much more accessible. However, the outsider would change his or her mind after a longer look. Tough-looking grass, yellow in some spots, covered the mountain. Slate-grey rocks poked through in several areas. The black silhouettes of thin trees carrying mazes of lifeless branches dotted the mountain, their trunks unnaturally twisted. A depressed wind caused a sad rustling among the branches. One had the feeling that he or she was looking upon the graveyard of a once-proud country's hopes.
Once, hundreds of years ago, before the perpetual winters had set upon Hoth and Hothan marketplaces buzzed with stories of the latest scandals among the royalty, this had been the home of the original flame trees. The flame trees that had been so beloved for the bright scarlet blossoms, stubbornly blooming for six months out of the year to spite weather that would ruthlessly shrivel lesser plants. Hothans have always valued resilience, and colors that brighten up the harsh landscape. For these reasons, the flame trees were treated with a special reverence, and carefully cultivated to grow in other parts of Hoth. A tradition developed of giving brides a hairpiece made of a real flame tree blossom that had fallen from the tree at long last. Such hairpieces were believed to be the old gods' blessing for the marriage.
According to old legends, Thika Mountain was home to the 26 gods of the Hothan calendar cycle. It was said that as long as the head god, the Kirin, the male unicorn, cultivated the flame trees on Thika Mountain, Hoth would be ruled well and prosper. The kings and queens of Hoth made yearly pilgrimages to Thika to pay their respects to the Kirin and the other gods, but especially the Kirin.
One year the blossoms never appeared, and flame trees outside of Thika did not bloom as well. The royal family fell, and Hoth was plunged into a bloody dark age that lasted a hundred years. The older people believed that the Kirin had forsaken them, and the younger people blamed the government for letting the country fall into crisis. During the dark age, all the records were destroyed. All that remains are the stories that were passed down during the centuries. Over time, the stories mutated until they had become legends, and each region developed several different versions of the same story. It is impossible to tell which stories are the originals, and which ones have any truth in them. Official Hothan history does not begin until the end of the dark age. Anything before that belongs to the "Realm of the Wind," as Hothans call the pre-dark age period.
Not a single blossom has been seen on any flame tree for five hundred years. Yet, none of the seemingly dead flame trees have been cut down, due to an old reverence, and perhaps, a wistful hope that they will bloom again someday.
Such thoughts eluded the minds of Hatsuharu, Khosure and Hotohori as they talked in the lunchroom of their school. Indeed, most Hothans would never think about the tragedy of the flame trees, instead concentrating on their daily lives. Haku was an exception. He couldn't put it into words, but something had been happening within him since he first heard the haunting song so long ago. An indescribably old presence stirred, one that bound Haku irrevocably to the "Realm of the Wind," to the past, present and future of the Shoma family, whose history in Hoth went as far back as anyone could remember.