I could hear our spectators laughing as she effectively chases me around the training field.
"I easily went through the ranks, it did not become challenging until I began to train with the officers. A sad state of affairs, when one lone woman can decimate the entire cavalry. There was definitely a move for reform after my arrival.
Finally I was appointed as a guard for the household of Yoshinaka no Minamoto."
I racked my memory for where this name fell on out family tree. He was not in our immediate family, I knew, but his name called some faint memory to me. Perhaps my brother had mentioned it in passing. Ahh well, it was not important...
Oh the innocence of youth" he snarled darkly. Throughout his narrative, his emotions had remained relatively stable, it was only now that clear rage could be seen in his expression.
His eyes burned fire and his mouth was tensed in a snarl as his fingers dug into the sleeve he was clutching at the moment. I felt myself flinching, even though I knew his ire was not directed at me.
I did not know just why that name incited such emotion. True, Yoshinaka was his opponent in the wars, but my understanding was that the reason for that conflict was due to Yoritomo. I did not know that Yoshitsune had any reason to wish him dead.
I mumbled some excuse and left him to stew in his memories as I escaped to the fresh air outside our cave."
It is full winter now, and the outside world is blanketed in snow. The trees stand stark against the white, like twisted shadows, there blossoms long gone. Our family is huddled around the small fire we can convince to burn inside. There is little time for reminescing now, Kage. Too many young innocents with too large ears, ne?
"Grandpapa" Sora calls, her teeth chattering in the cold as she leaves her nest of blankets to tug on my sleeve, "tell Sora a story?"
She pulls her bundle of covers and sticks her toes under my legs. They are already freezing from the small journey from her cot to mine.
"Little kitsune, your paws are like ice? I tell her, pretending to be somewhat disgruntled.
She giggles at me and repeats her plea.
"And what story do you wish to hear? Perhaps a tale of wars and slashing swords to lull you off to sleep?" I muse.
"No grandpapa, Sora does not like stupid wars. Sora wants the bamboo princess."
" Stupid wars indeed" I smile. "Haven't you gotten enough of the bamboo princess yet? I have told it to you at least five times in the last month."
She grins cheekily at me and shakes her head. Little imp.
"Fine then." I waited a few moments, just to tease her.
"This is a story of a beautiful princess, but it is also the story of a bamboo, a plant so special that it was thought to be loved by the moon, and thus sacred.
"Once upon a time, there was a kind old man and an old woman..." she chanted the beginning along with me.
"He worked all day in the forest as a bamboo cutter, and she spent her days in the market begging for scraps of food to put on the table for her husband and her dinner. They were very poor, but they did not become bitter over this as so many others in their situation do, instead they remained kind and generous. When the small children from the next field, who were even worse off as they were without parents, came to their door, they would give them the scraps they had gathered that day, even if it meant they went hungry that night.
The children loved them, and they were happy to have so many children around. But once night fell and the children left for their own beds, small though they were, the old couple felt the loneliness even more. And so, despite their poverty, the old man and the old woman wished for a child to brighten their days."
"Quite irresponsible of them" my daughter muttered off to the side.
I scowled at her, "Hush woman, you are interrupting my story."
"Don't make me tell cook to add the green onions to your soup again" she threatened. It was a legitimate ultimatum and I subsided. Such horrible things, green onions. Slimy little pieces that completely ruined a good bowl of noodles.
I shuddered at the thought.
"The old couple prayed and prayed for a child. They knew they were too old to concieve, but they hoped some small child would be found who they could adopt and love, and who would care for them in their old age.
Not that you children seem to be doing much caring for me. Instead you manage to give me a new white hair every day" I grumbled at them.
"Really?" Sora cried with bright eyed curiosity, "can I see today's?"
I shooed her off and continued.
"One evening, the old man was working later than usual and the moon had risen high enough to be seen above the tallest bamboo shoots. The old man was just getting ready to call it a night and go home to his wife, when a gleam caught his eye.
He walked further and further in and yet always the light appeared to be in the next glen, or around the next corner. Finally, about an hour had passed, and he had walked quite far, when he came across the source of the light.
It was a single bamboo tree that was glowing. At first he thought it was merely a trick of the light, and was disgusted at himself for walking so far for an illusion. But then the light pulsed, and he took a closer look. On coming closer, he could tell that the light was not only coming from above, but also from within the stalk of the bamboo tree.
Carefully, oh so carefully, he cut through the bamboo stalk, just above where the light was shining from.
Once the final cut was made, the top of the stalk tumbled off and to his surprise, there was a small child resting in the hollow part of the base. She was a beautiful child, with pale skin that seemed to glow, and midnight hair with lips the color of cherry blossoms after the rain. In her tiny hands, she held a small sphere, the source of the glow, and when he looked in it, the pearly color seemed to swirl around each other.
Her clothing, and the blankets surrounding her, were colored in different shades of blue and silver. They were made of the finest sil, so smooth that they seemed to glide past the old man's hands when he lifted them up. Such a child should not be left alone in the woods.
Before he left, though, he knelt down and thanked the kamis for granting this child into his care, for obviously she was not a child of this earth.
As he was kneeling on the cold ground, the sphere pulsed once again, and the moonlight shone even brighter. Then, suddenly, there was a tall figure standing in front of the kneeling old man.
He was tall and very handsome, but not in a human way. His features were too angular for such a similarity. He was clothed in the whitest of silks, and his hair was silver. So silver, that it seemed to shimmer in the light with hints of blue intermingled.
He looked down at the old man, and his eyes seemed to soften for a moment.
The old man thought that his eyes were bluer than the ocean and the sea put together. He was drowning.
"This is our daughter." He said in a deep baritone that echoed amongst the bamboo trees. "We have entrusted you with her care, as we have seen that you are worthy." His face tightened for a moment.
"This separation was not of our choosing" he reminded the old man, "but you are our best option. Remember, we will come for her when we can. When she is seventeen years old, she must return to us."
Before those final words had finished echoing, he was already fading.
The small sphere within the child's hands had disappeared, and in its place was a bag full of gold coins.
This evidence of the kami's powers frightened the old man, but he was undeterred. He would care for this beautiful child as if she were his own.
When he finally stumbled through his front door, his wife had been worrying about him for hours.
"Where have you been, old husband?" she asked as she helped him take his pack from his shoulders. But this movement revealed the bundle in his arms, and before he could answer her, she demanded to know what he had been up to.
He told her what had occurred in that lone bamboo glen, and she nodded to herself.
"It is obvious, husband, that there is some kind of conflict going on between the kami, and her parents decided she would be safer outside of the otherworld."
He nodded in agreement, and showed her the bag of coins. This would help them feed and clother their child, as they were already beginning to think of her, and ensure that she was raised with the right education and society.
"What should we call her, old wife?" the old man asked after gazing at the sleeping babe for a few moments.
"Hmm... We shall call her, Kaguya" and that was what she was called from that day on.
Sixteen years passed quickly by, and the moon princess grew more and more beautiful each day. Soon men from all over the country came to see her beauty and to sigh, for, to them, she seemed unattainable, and far beyond such dirty men of the fields as they were.
At the same time, the old man and woman never seemed to age a day, and people often looked upon them and called it a gift of the kami.
One day, a travelling merchant came to see the wonder of the moon princess' beauty, that the whole province was talking of. He too sighed when he saw her. And when he left, he carried tales of her ethereal beauty far and wide, so far that such tales finally came to the ears of the imperial court.
Hearing of her beauty and her grace, many would-be suitors set out from the capital to see her and woo her. And once they arrived, her appearance surpassed even their jaded imaginations, and most immediately proposed. So many came, that the town was soon prosperous from their trade. The old man and his wife were showered with gifts in an effort to influence the moon princess' choice. None prevailed.
The moon princess wept bitter tears once she was alone, at such an interruption in her life.
The old man and his wife knew that they were getting on in years, and they had forgotten the promise of their child's true father. They wanted her to be safe and comfortable when they departed this world for the next, so they tried to pressure her to make some choice from among the many. They only wanted the best for her, but this increased her unhappiness.
Things continued in a similar manner for the next year, the moon princess continuously growing more ethereal to the point that she glowed and she began to resemble her true father to a greater extent. The suitors kept coming, and she kept refuting them, but in such a sweet and innocent manner that none could find anger in their rejection. Instead they decided that they were too mortal for her or that she was too shy.