XV

Ashitaka: At Moro's Cave

I grimace, and my hand twitches. Pain shoots up my scarred right arm and my forehead beads with sweat. I take in my surroundings. I am in a cave with an entrance leading to a rock ledge. To my side, San, the Princess Mononoke, is snoring peacefully. Has she brought me to her home?

Another shot of agony. Unable to bear the pain any longer, I walk out of the cave, clutching my scarred arm.

Looking out over the ledge, I study the lush green valley beneath me. Hundreds of feet down runs a river, illuminated in the glow of the moon. How long have I slept?

A growling, wolfish voice speaks behind me, and I turn.

"Do you suffer? If you jump now, from here, you could end it all. As you regain your strength, so will your wound spread," Moro says to me.

I reply, "It seems I was asleep for many days. All I remember is being in the care of San." I turn back to the valley.

"If you had raised even a single cry, I would have ripped your throat apart. It seems I missed my chance. What is it you stare at?" She sounds merely disappointed.

"It's such a beautiful forest. Has Okkoto-nushi moved yet?" The rampaging battle against the humans could already be over for all I know.

She regards me, and then turns her head to the trees. "Go back inside the cave, young one. How can you hear the sorrowful cries of the forest as the boars move among the trees? I sit here listening to the forest's desperate cries with my dying body while waiting for that woman to appear! How I dream of the moment when I can sink my fangs into her head!"

More hatred and killing that will not resolve anything. "Moro, is there any way that the forest and humans can coexist without conflict? Is it really true that there is no other way?!"

"The humans but grow and grow in numbers. In time they will reach even here." the wolf god growls at me.

"What do you intend to do with San? Do you intend to abandon her as well?" I inquire.

"Just like a human," Moro snarls at me. "Such an irrational, selfish thought. San is one of us. She lives with the forest, and shall die when it dies."

"Release the girl! She is human!" I shout, though I don't mean to. Despite what San thinks, I know she is really a human, but with a wolf's heart.

"Quiet, young one!" she sneers. "How can you pretend to understand that girl's misfortune? She was but a child who was thrown to us so that the humans could escape our teeth! Unable to become completely human or wolf, she is my dear, ugly, furless child! And you say that you can save San?!"

"I don't know. However, I know we can live together!"

"How would you live together? Would you fight the humans with San at your side?" she mocks me, her jaws opening wide in a wolf laugh. I ignore her.

"No! That would only increase the hatred and grief!"

"Young one, there is nothing that you can do. You will eventually be consumed by the curse and die. Leave by the dawning of the sun!" The god is right. I walk back to the cave.

As I sit down on the fur mat, San stirs and opens her eyes. "Were you able to walk?" she asks me quietly.

"Yes, thanks to you and the Shishi-gami," I say, smiling slightly.

She smiles at me, and then snuggles back to sleep. I watch her for a while, then drape the fur blanket over her. I go back to sleep.

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