Disclaimer: I don't own Spirited Away.
You can forget to remember, but can you remember to forget? The love of scraped knees and fingertips, the way that love must set.
There was something almost calming about sitting in the early morning sunshine with people she once knew. It soothed something she didn't know was anxious -to be looked at by someone who knew her name. Her favorite food. What she looked like in the 3rd grade.
Even when those eyes looked at her with reverence and disbelief. A touch of fear.
She was no longer among not but strangers, and it was a balm on her soul.
"What do you mean their 'little stunt'? What's been going on while we were away?" Chihiro had expected some difficulties in convincing them that all of this was indeed real; and Satomi had always been a sceptic -it was just who she was.
She shook her head rather than answer the question posed to her though -swallowing the bitterness that threatened to crawl its way from her throat; tasting like bile and heartbreak. "All that matters is that there is no time left. It's up to you -those who will inherit the land; to heal it's wounds." she paused for a moment, looking around at this place of softness and sunshine -standing out in sharp contrast to the land of half-dreams and twilight in which she now resided.
"Your husband is the God of the Kohaku River;" Chihiro couldn't bring herself to look at the man she'd spent her youth dancing around as Ryoichi spoke to her -there was nothing there, as much as they had liked to pretend there was. There hadn't been -save for familiarity, before she had been called, and there couldn't be anything now. It didn't matter if he looked at her as if something precious once lost and now returned to him. It didn't matter if the look broke her heart. "A dragon."
"A god." she corrected softly, her voice rolling with the same quiet thunder of stormclouds that her betrothed carried in his notes -trying so desperately to play this role she had been given. A… goddess, or something thereabout. Not a friend. Not a loved one. "And as such, I am."
Hideaki's brows furrowed at her statement -unwanting or unwilling to believe it; she didn't know which. "But I know you." he told her adamantly, his words growing in passion with each that he uttered, as if trying to force her to feel something toward him. "You're Chihiro! The same one who failed the 6th grade and didn't grow into her forehead until she was fifteen. How can you sit there and talk to me so formally -like I'm a stranger? Say things to me like 'There is a god living on the mountain and he's demanding that I clean up after someone else's mistakes'?"
"I am a stranger to you," she told him, closing her eyes against the waves of emotion that buffeted her -secret wishes and silent prayers leaking from the souls of those around her to whisper in her ears, reminding her of her own otherness. "For my voice is his voice, And the dragon speaks through me."
"And what is that even supposed to mean, Chihiro? You don't sound like yourself at all! I-" Hideaki looked as if he was to say more, but Kaiko was placing a soothing hand on his forearm -her own words quiet and soothing; a balm on both of their frayed nerves. "She's entitled to her own secrets, Hide. You'd want to keep some too if you'd been through what she has."
"And what's she gone through?" Satomi snapped, "She's just talking in circles; not telling us anything at all."
"I died." She told them, words laced with a finality that gave silence reign -watching with bitter resignation the way the air rushed from their faces. Watching them crumble in upon themselves. "To offer a god a bride, you must first give her to the water -let the waves take her from this world and into that of the spirits. She is a blessing upon the village; an emissary that is neither here nor there; walking through both worlds and belonging in neither. Holding the favor of the all powerful, and her presence a pleasant distraction for the wrath of a vengeful god."
Note: You all must be tired of hearing my apologies and excuses -especially when they are always the same things: I'm sorry, I was working and I was sick. Frankly, you wouldn't even be getting this chapter -two months in the making, if I hadn't stayed home sick today. Though, a big round of applause, please, for my ever-so-patient boyfriend who's been dealing with the struggle of living with me and my two cats; Calsifer and Chihiro. The man is a saint, honestly.