The early dawn was calm. Silent. All the forest animals were still asleep, nestled in their dens. A frost made the autumn foliage look like it was bedazzled with white fillagree. Peach-color clouds reflected the rising sun, which was still hidden beneath the treeline.
Keiko awoke alone – but not really. Hokkyokusei-sama’s spirit was always in her heart, even as he roamed. The Miko knew that a divine forest spirit could never be contained or ordered. All of nature was their entire domain to enjoy – and this was one thing Keiko admired most about him. The grandeur. The freeness.
The young woman stretched and shook out her furs, which had thickened as an answer to winter’s call. Then, she found a nearby stream and washed the right paw, and then the left, before taking a small sip to clean the mouth. Only then, did she take a long and deep drink.
A deep breath. Satisfied. Whole. Oh, she had many plans today!
The beast had risen before the sun. Groggy and heavy. A large yawn parting his jaws before he lifted his cranium and glanced toward his elegant counterpart. Gentle breaths lifting her chest and escaping in soft clouds chilled by the brisk air not yet touched by the sun.
He arose lifting his towering body as quietly as he could as not to disturb her and walked away into the wood.
A pair of eyes and huffing nostrils searched the deeper valley forest until a scurrying rabbit rushed through the trees and dove into a burrow. The bear picked up its speed and trotted to the entrance. Sticking its snout into the earth.
Claws unsheathed themselves and he began to tear into the earth bit by bit. The task though easy was time and energy consuming, though in the end he was rewarded with the bounty of two rabbits. Ones who had yet to dig their den to a suitable depth as to be protected from such an assault.
His bounty was grey and brown, mixing with the soil that clung to their fur. But it stained his white coat. Leaving a gradient of dark to light over his paws and muzzle.
With his catch in his mouth, he used his paws as shovels to push the earth back over the burrow. An open hole now filled and unlikely to cause future harm.
By the time he had returned to where they had made rest Keiko was gone.
She gives thanks to the cold mountain stream and then departs for the deeper forest. Here, the deciduous trees had dropped their leaves and the air was filled with the musty scent of autumn decay. It was a time to shed the old year’s worries and sleep in anticipation of rebirth in the spring. Keiko cherished each season and so she strolled slowly in admiration of the changing world.
And then - she spotted it! A sign! The rarest and holiest of trees!
The
Akai Ki, the
pacific madrona.
A broadleaf evergreen – a sign of eternal life – with paper-thin red bark.
Keiko gasped, covering her mouth, she couldn’t believe it! Quickly, she retraced her steps back towards the sleeping place to collect her necessary, ceremonial things.
And there, as if the Kami knew her thoughts, the forest deity waited.
His alabaster fur was painted an auspicious red, a rabbit in his mouth.
“Hokkyokusei-sama!“ she exclaimed, both surprised and enthralled.
Her galloping footsteps caught his attention. Faster than he had heard before. Typically a picture of grace and ease, seeing her in a hurry was curious. But was it too or from something he did not know.
When she came into view, locked eyes with him, and spoke those honey-glazed words his chest buzzed. Ones he had heard times before and knew referred to him. A humble yet loud smile overtook his face. The feeling of familiarity growing day after day, yet never getting old.
A gentle sway flowed through his trail and he set the pair of rabbits to the side in a place they could return to them. Taking steps towards her and closing the space between them.
He looked to her and then in the direction of where she had come. Questioning what she had come across.
Keiko reigned in her youthful cheer with a formal morning salutation. “Ohayo Gozaimasu, Hokkyokusei-sama,” she said to him, though her excitement bled through in her word’s quick cadence. The great forest spirit set his prize to the side and drew near with a questioning look. In weeks past, Keiko would have fallen to the ground in a subservient, full-body bow… but she had grown more familiar, more confident, before the spirit; nurtured by his calm and assured demeanor.
Keiko often wondered… did all shrine maidens feel affinity like this for the Kami they worshipped? Her heart beat a little faster like a small bird.
=“I have made a wonderful discovery,”= she explained to him. =“I have found an Akai Ki, the most holy of trees, in your garden.”=
But first, she should not ignore the great blessing of food the Kami had brought to the temple. =“Your hunting prowess knows no bounds,”= she admired. =“May I dress them for you?”= she asked and extended one pale foreleg towards them.
Neither concern nor hesitation fueled her words. They flowed like a rushing river full of life, and this allowed Drust an additional level of ease accurately perceiving the lack of danger in their immediate surroundings.
Her water flowed steady, confidently, and not towards the ground as it had in the past. Yet they were intended to convey a message. One the beast was still unable to translate.
His eyes followed her outstretched paw to his bounty and he nodded to her. Walking alongside her as they retraced his former paces back to the hare pair. With a slow sweeping of his enlarged paw, he pushed them towards her.
Looking down at them, and thus at his paws he was reminded of his current state. Dirtied by the soil, and tinged with blood. A stark contrast to his counterpart.
With his other paw he attempted to wipe the dirt off his paw and nose to no avail. He looked toward the nearby pool downstream of the waterfall.
Keiko formally received the hares with both of her paws outstretched and bowed her crown in thanks. =“You are mighty,”= she sincerely complimented as here eyes closed in high esteem.
Effortlessly, she dragged a claw around each rabbit hock and pulled the pelts from their bodies in one stroke. She set aside their naked flesh to bleed dry upon a low-lying, mossy stone. It was then she recognized the Okami’s needs.
Quickly, she gathered a rough sponge of lichen and aromatic leaves of the Akai Ki.
“Onegaishimasu,” she said and gestured to the pool Hokkyokusei-sama regarded. She led him to the water’s edge and put her own small feet in, ready to help purify his holy robe of earthly matter.
The preparation of the hares was effortless. A grace that continued into the somewhat gruesome act of bleeding out the catch. Though he had never seen Keiko hunt, her repeated displays of precise cuts and techniques made it clear she knew how to hold her own in that court.
Their meal lain to rest, his companion gathered up various bits of foliage. One coarse, the other heavily fragrant.
He made his way to the water's edge and plunged his large paws in. With a steady stride, he immersed himself in the water, waves rippling from him towards the far edges of the pool. The water cool as it slowly penetrated his thick coat. Not yet cold, but the season had not yet fully transitioned.
His head dipped below the water, a brief polar plunge before surfacing again and facing Keiko.
Not too far from her, he took a seat in the water. Sitting on his bum as he lifted his paws out of the water and began attempting to free them of dirt, uncertain of Keiko's intentions.