InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Child of Earth and Sea ❯ The Dark Side of Hope ( Chapter 1 )

 

By WhisperingWolf

 

Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

20 December 2055

Missoula, Montana

 

It was the quiet whisper, the delicate sound of soft pats as new powder fell that called to her, rousing her from sleep as it bid her to join in on the celebration. The low steady thrum of her mate's youki comforted her as he slept beside her, the peacefulness that she felt through their bond at odds with the excitement spiraling through her. Her eyes opened in the darkness, a smile curling her lips up at the corners as she breathed in deeply of the crisp air, the scent arousing her senses as a flush rose to color her cheeks. Amaya's pale blue eyes sparkled as she sat up, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she slipped from the bed, her bare feet whispering against the cool wood floor as she moved to stand in front of the window.

 

Her arctic eyes widened as she watched the fat tufts of white fall from the sky to blanket the earth, and giggled quietly as she studied the six-inch collection of snow already covering the ground, decorating the trees and shrubs as it glittered beneath the silver light of the moon. It wouldn't matter how many centuries she lived, how many winters she made it through, she would always love the snow. Especially this one - the first snowfall of the season. There was a peacefulness it brought to the earth, a promise of hope, of rebirth, a magical sense that everything - no matter how bad it was - would be all right.

 

She lifted her hands from the window sill, pressed her palms together in front of her face and bowed her head, resting her lips against the tips of fingers as she closed her eyes and made a wish. Perhaps it was a foolish endeavor, she thought as she opened her eyes and lifted her head. The belief that making a wish on the first snowfall of the season would bring about what she wanted. Maybe it was a bit childish, too, but it had never failed her.

 

Amaya could feel the soothing thrum of her mate's youki as it wrapped around her silently, cloaking her as it pressed in closer on all side in a touchless hug. She smiled softly as she lifted her own youki to return his embrace, turning her eyes to look back at the bed, only to giggle softly when she found him to still be sleeping. His youki slipped away to fall back into the braided energy between them, rising and falling gently with each beat of his heart, as timeless as the oceans she had once called home. She may never be able to read his thoughts, nor share her memories and experiences with him as she had been able to do with her family in the ocean she'd left behind, but this silent communication, the constant connection they held with their youki braided together, was enough. Her lips parted in a silent gasp, her mouth curling up in a smile as she felt the vibration of her daughter's youki, the quiet trill of the child's youki growing stronger, faster, as it tugged at her own.

 

`As if you didn't already expect to find her awake,' her youkai-voice teased. `Vanessa has always been awake long before you or Satoshi on this day. Five years, Amaya. Five beautiful wonderful years.'

 

`And so many more yet to go,' she replied, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she smiled.

 

Stepping over to the bed, she bent down low over her mate, her midnight hair falling down in a curtain around his head as she kissed his cheek while he slept. The heavy strands of her hair parted further, revealing the onyx mark at the base of her skull, accented in crimson, in the shape of a dorsal fin. She smiled as she straightened, watching her mate sleep for a moment longer before she turned and left the room. Amaya glanced up at the mantle on the wall above the fireplace when the wooden clock her husband had built by hand chimed twice, marking the morning hour.

 

Her smile widened as she stepped into her daughter's room, leaving the door open as she leaned against the frame, watching Vanessa as she stared out the window. Her gaze softened, her eyes falling closed as she felt the whispered brush of her daughter's youki against her own, the energy wrapping around her, tugging gently, in a silent request for her to come closer. She responded in kind, unfurling her youki from the steady braided thrum that always remained between the three of them as she reached out to her daughter, brushing her youki against her child's, twining and twisting the energy around her, pressing it in closer around her daughter before loosening it, and pulling it back until it was just resting against Vanessa's.

 

The manner in which she and her family were able to communicate with their youki was a bare shadow of the true telepathic and empathic bonds she had shared with her pod - with other Kujira - in her youth when she'd lived in the ocean. And though there were times when she missed that connection so much that it moved her to tears, she would never give up what she had now just to have that connection back. She chuckled when she felt the tug of her daughter's youki again, smiled when she felt Vanessa wrap her youki around her, pressing it in closer around her as Amaya herself had done only moments before, the silent hug soothing her even as her daughter's youki fairly danced with glee.

 

“It's snowing!” Vanessa called out to her in a secretive whisper, as though the weather pattern had been created for them alone.

 

“I know,” Amaya said, sharing in her daughter's excitement as she stepped up behind Vanessa, and knelt down as she wrapped her arms around her.

 

Amaya breathed in deeply, her lips turning up in a slow peaceful smile as she felt her daughter's youki rise with the effervescence of youth, twining around hers as it rose and fell ever faster in a spiraling pattern as though it were dancing. She tipped her head down to kiss Vanessa's hair as she wondered - not for the first time - if her daughter was even aware that the silent communication shared in their family was not something that was considered normal for any other youkai.

 

She could still remember her mate's confusion and equal fascination when she had first tried to communicate with him telepathically, in the way of Kujira, only to realize that while she couldn't read his mind, she could use her youki to speak with him in a different manner. It had taken Satoshi time to learn and adjust to speaking through his youki, but the silent communication was second nature to him now. But Vanessa? Vanessa had learned to speak with her youki when she was still in the womb, and there were times when Amaya wondered if her daughter even realized that she was doing so.

 

Amaya blinked slowly as she shook her head, dispelling her worry as she focused instead on the girl standing in the circle of her arms. “It's two AM,” she told Vanessa, smiling with the joy her daughter's easy laughter inspired.

 

“I'm officially five years old!” Vanessa told her, and Amaya chuckled as she kissed her daughter's cheek. “Did you make your wish, Mama?” she asked, turning wide meadow grass eyes on her, and Amaya nodded quietly, her excitement sparkling in her eyes.

 

“Mhm,” she affirmed, watching the waves of her daughter's feather-soft dark cherry wood hair dance in the air as she quickly turned back to the window, her reflection in the glass full of wonder as she stared out at the snow. “Did you, my sweet girl?”

 

“Yes!” Vanessa cheered, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and Amaya leaned back just far enough to avoid being knocked in the chin by her daughter's head. “Can we go outside, Mama?” she asked, her gaze fixed on the world of white outside the window, the fat flakes calling to them both. “We can collect the snow just like last year.”

 

“You want to make snow caramels?” Amaya asked her with amusement, and laughed when the girl nodded excitedly. “Go get your bucket,” she instructed as she let her arms fall slowly from around her daughter, releasing her from the hug, and watched as she darted out of the room.

 

Amaya stood slowly, watching the snow fall, the sound of it whispering in the quiet around her, before she turned away from the window. Stepping into the living room, she gathered the quilt she'd made a few years ago, holding the heavy blanket in her arms as she carried it into the kitchen. It was big enough to wrap around both herself and Satoshi, large enough still for Vanessa to be wrapped inside of it with them, and she smiled as she set it aside on the kitchen table. She moved to the stove, taking the glass tea kettle from the silent burner, and filled it with water from the sink before setting it back on the rear burner and turning the gas flame on low.

 

“Mama!” Vanessa cried out happily as she dashed into the kitchen, the wooden bucket rocking back and forth from the rope handle it was held by.

 

Amaya smiled as she nodded, retrieving the quilt from the table as she followed her daughter to the back door and out into the forest surrounding their home. She shook out the quilt as she watched Vanessa set the bucket down in the gathering snow, letting it collect the fresh frozen powder as she played in the white fluff around it. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she noted that Vanessa had failed to grab her mittens or rabbit fur shoes, watching for a moment longer as the snow fell to crown her daughter's head. Turning away just long enough to dust the snow off the wide wooden deck Satoshi had made for her when they'd first settled here, Amaya turned back just in time to watch as her daughter fell down in the snow, catching herself on her hands.

 

“Cold!” Vanessa hissed as she ran back to her mother, and Amaya laughed as she wrapped the quilt around herself before sitting down and opening the blanket in invitation. “Brrrr, Mama!” her daughter said as she climbed up into her lap and snuggled against her.

 

“Better?” Amaya asked as she wrapped her arms around her daughter, the quilt fisted in her hands and wrapped around them both.

 

“Yes!” she cheered quietly, and curled closer to her mother, tucking her head under her chin.

 

Amaya chuckled softly as she arched her brow. “Perhaps next time you'll remember to put on the rabbit skin shoes your father made you,” she chided softly, tipping her head down to stare at her daughter. “And the gloves I knitted for you.”

 

Vanessa scrunched her nose up in response, giggling as she burrowed closer to her mother. “Story?” she asked, and Amaya smiled.

 

Amaya hummed as she considered the request, welcoming the return of the low hum of her mate's aura as the door that had separated them was opened, and chuckled softly when she heard the breath of amusement Satoshi released behind her. She breathed in deeply as she felt her mate's youki reach out to her, wrap around her and their daughter in a twin embrace, holding them both to him, before he'd even taken his first step outside. She reached out to him in turn, braiding her youki around his, pulling him closer, and laughed silently when Vanessa's youki wrapped around them both, twirling around and in between them with excitement, and smiled at the tugging feeling as Vanessa called them both to her. A moment later, Satoshi lowered himself down to sit behind her, pulling Amaya back to rest against his chest as he wrapped his arms around the blanketed bundle she and their daughter made.

 

“Have I missed story time?” he asked, his deep voice reverberating through her back, and Amaya smiled as she turned her head up to meet his gaze.

 

He hadn't taken the time to tie back his hair, the loose waves of his mahogany hair flowing freely around his shoulders. She smiled as she lifted her hand to catch a lock of his hair in her hand, smiling when the moonlight reflecting off the snow brought out the deep sorrel and burnt honey highlights in the strands. She loved it when he left his hair free, the feel of the silken strands falling through her fingers bringing her a sense of peace that she lacked the words to convey. She bit her lip as she looked up to meet his gaze, the feel of his youki deepening as his scent grew heady with arousal.

 

Her pale blue eyes darkened when he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her delicate skin as he held her gaze. Her eyes fluttered closed when he lowered his head, his full lips falling to cover hers in a slow caress, a gentle kiss that inspired a fire deep inside her. He swallowed her gasp as she shivered, the heat his kiss inspired cascading through her limbs in a dizzying array as she lifted her hand to comb her fingers into his hair, rubbing small circles at the base of his skull as she pulled him closer. She whimpered as she pressed back against him, leaning into the kiss as she nipped at the fullness of his bottom lip. His arms tightened around her as he groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping in to play with hers, fanning the fire within her into a raging storm of heat and light.

 

“Pa-a-a-a-a-pa,” Vanessa called out, her voice breaking them apart as they gasped for air, and Amaya chuckled when her mate sighed.

 

“Yes, my darling?” Satoshi asked as he reached out to tuck Vanessa's hair behind her ear.

 

“You were kissing Mama,” she admonished him, and her parents laughed at the censure in the child's tone.

 

“I happen to like kissing your mother,” Satoshi replied, laughing when Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, and offered a heavy sigh of complaint.

 

“But if you kiss Mama, then Mama can't tell stories,” the girl scolded him, the expression on her face clearly stating her belief that the kisses Satoshi had bestowed upon her mother were an intentional interruption to the story she'd asked for.

 

“Oh,” Satoshi said as he nodded, and Amaya bit her lip as she chuckled, not needing to look to know that her mate was barely keeping his laughter at bay.

 

“She has a point,” Amaya said reasonably, and giggled at the look her mate gave her.

 

“I apologize, princess,” he said cordially.

 

“Harrumph,” Vanessa replied with an angry pout, and Amaya coughed to cover her laugh.

 

“Someday, you'll find your own mate, and you'll like kissing him, too,” Amaya told her daughter with a smile, hugging the girl close even as she frowned prettily at the caution she could feel coming through the bond she shared with her mate.

 

It was like the difference between the snow falling around them and the tiniest pebbles of ice that formed when the frozen rains fell. She always knew which sensations and emotions were coming through the bond she shared with Satoshi as true mates did, and which came through their braided youki. She should be grateful for what she had, she told herself, trying to push away the longing and remorse before it carried through the bond she shared with her mate. He had taken the effort to learn this language, to speak with her through their braided youki, but . . .

 

`But it's clumsy, and a paltry excuse for what you once had, and no matter how hard you try to make yourself forget,' her youkai-voice spoke wisely, `you'll always remember - and always long for - that seamless - effortless - connection of mind, heart, and soul that you shared with your pod and other Kujira. Even other marine youkai.'

 

`I should be grateful,' she said, unwilling or unable to acknowledge the truths her youkai had spoken so plainly.

 

 

 

`You miss it - that connection, that depth of being one with everyone around you. I miss it, too, you know. You're not the only one who was connected. The youkai voices were all connected as one as well, we were just on a different wavelength is all. We were able to talk to each other without any of you being consciously aware of it. Why else do you think using your powers together as one in the pod was so effortless?' The voice inside her sighed, the sound of it caught somewhere between amusement and sorrow. `I know you're worried that Tosh will think you regret your choice to be with him if he were to know how much you long for that connection you once had, but he won't. He knows how much you love him and Vanessa. Our pod is smaller now, and our connection to each other is different, but it is ours - uniquely and completely ours.'

 

`Ours,' Amaya repeated with wonder and love, as she offered a tremulous smile, her eyes downcast. `I just wish I could share stories with Vanessa as my mother and sisters and aunts, did with me.'

 

`I know,' her youkai soothed her. `Kujira didn't tell stories, they shared them. You never heard a story, you lived it, you experienced it, taking it into yourself as though you'd always been apart of it. But that child in your arms, she's happy enough simply to hear your words. Never forget that.'

 

“Ma-ma,” Vanessa called to her, and she chuckled at the sound of her daughter's plaintive tone.

 

“All right, all right,” she agreed when her daughter turned a petulant stare on her. “A story,” she said, and Vanessa nodded curtly. “Hmm.”

 

Amaya took in a deep breath as she wrapped her arms a little tighter around Vanessa, and leaned her head back against her mate's shoulder, taking comfort in the way he held them both wrapped in the twin embrace of his arms and youki. Turning her gaze out to the snow falling around them, she smiled at the white tufts that landed on the quilt, and fell to decorate her daughter's dark cherry wood hair. There had been another night like this, so long ago now, and she smiled as the images came to life in her mind. She felt the gentle pressure as Satoshi kissed her hair, and smiled as she gave voice to the memories, bringing them to life in a story for her daughter.

 

“There's a story I've always wanted to tell you,” she began, her voice soft and whimsical, “about a great forest prince, and his mate, a princess of the sea. But, this story isn't as much about them, as it is about the light they carried between them, a most precious gift sent to them by the gods.”

 

“A gift?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya released a soft amused breath as she nodded.

 

“Many centuries ago, on a night when the moon shone full and bright, and the land was covered to the edges of the sea in the most beautiful perfect sakura and plum blossoms that had fallen from the trees, the princess of the sea rose from the water, leaving her home behind to join her mate - “

 

“The great forest prince!” Vanessa interjected happily, tipping her head back to turn her wide-eyed smile on her mother.

 

“Yes,” Amaya laughed, kissing her daughter's hair as she lifted one hand to brush the still-falling snow from the child's head. “For many centuries, the prince and his princess prayed to the gods to give them a child, someone they could share their love with, for there was too much for them to keep to themselves. But with each year that passed, their hearts grew sad, and they feared their prayers would never be answered.”

 

Amaya smiled softly when she felt her mate kiss her hair, and tipped her head back to meet his gaze when she heard him draw in a deep breath.

 

“The great prince,” Satoshi said, continuing the story as he met Amaya's gaze with a smile, “had lost hope, believing that a child was never meant to be, that perhaps they had been cursed. And then one night, when the moon was hidden, and the stars were silent, his mate - the princess of the sea - told him that all was not lost. For she had had a dream, a message sent to her by the gods, of a child that would be theirs.”

 

Vanessa gasped, her lips forming a perfect `o' as she looked back at her parents. “She did?” she asked with wide eyes.

 

“She did,” Amaya affirmed. “Five years ago, on a night just like this, in the wilderness of the great Green Mountain, something magical happened. The ground was covered in snow, so soft and so bright that it sparkled like diamonds. But the moon, oh the moon was beautiful, shining like a ruby in the velvet sky.”

 

“A ruby?” Vanessa asked with confusion.

 

“The moon was eclipsed, my angel,” Satoshi answered, his arms tightening around them both. “When the moon is full and drenched in crimson, they call it a `blood moon'. It is said that the greatest of sorrows and the most wonderous of joys happen beneath a blood moon. It is a time of magic, of hope, of power.”

 

“The earth was still and quiet,” Amaya said, breathing in deeply as her eyes fell closed. “And for once, the dark spirits chasing the princess, seeking to pull her back to the sea, had vanished, leaving the prince and princess in peace. It was a good thing, too. You see, the princess was heavy with child, her belly swollen. She couldn't move very easily, and the prince . . . The prince searched high and low, finding for her a castle hidden in the woods.”

 

“The princess was almost asleep when the prince carried her into the castle, laying her down in front of the stone hearth before gathering enough dry logs to start a fire,” Satoshi picked up the story, kissing his mate's hair when she hummed her contentment. “On that night, as the moon rose high, the princess felt the world around her tremble, the trees surrounding them bowing in honor as her child was born.”

 

“The trees bowed?” Vanessa whispered, her face bright with wonder.

 

“Even the animals bowed,” he told her, and Amaya smiled as she snuggled closer to her mate, hugging her daughter in her arms. “The infant's cries rang into the night around them, loud and powerful, as she announced her arrival to the world. The snow fell faster, hiding them as it kept them safe from the shadows, the castle protected by the spirits of the woods around them.”

 

Amaya released a soft rolling breath as she smiled, remembering the castle for what it was - an abandoned stone cottage that had fallen to ruin over the years. Slats in the roof had been missing, one wall completely collapsed in when the mortar that held the stones in place had given way. The fireplace remained intact, the other three walls standing stalwart in the darkness. Satoshi had pushed his power into the conifer closest to the fallen wall of the cottage, growing the tree thicker and fuller, bending the lower branches over the exposed part of the house in order to provide protection from the wind and cold.

 

She'd been in labor for almost two days when they'd finally found the safe haven. She hadn't told Satoshi, but of course, he had known, carrying her more often than not on their journey. The tears she and Satoshi had cried when they'd heard Vanessa draw in a deep full breath before releasing a piercing cry into the night . . .

 

Amaya took in a shaking breath as tears stung behind her eyes, blurring her gaze, as the faces of each tiny baby she had born and lost filtered through her mind. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked quickly, a bittersweet pain piercing her heart as she heard the ghostly echoes of their rattling coughs and gasping cries as they fought for each breath they took. She would never forget any of them, she thought, but in some ways, the pain of their losses had been dulled by the absolute joy of her daughter's survival.

 

Vanessa was the only one of her children who hadn't fought to breathe, the only one to be born of the earth like her father, instead of shachi. The only one who had come to her in a dream before she had even been conceived . . . the only one to grow stronger, healthier, more vibrant with each passing day, and she knew that there would never be a moment when she wouldn't feel the same sense of wonder and love that she felt now as she stared at the girl in her arms.

 

“Was I that baby?” Vanessa asked, pulling Amaya from her thoughts, and Satoshi chuckled as he tweaked their daughter's nose.

 

“You were indeed,” he confirmed.

 

Vanessa giggled as she hid her face in the folds of the blanket, rubbing her nose before peering back up at her mother. “Story, Mama!”

 

Amaya laughed softly. “On the eleventh day, when the princess of the sea was strong again, she took that tiny baby outside to sit with her in the snow, to watch as the moon shone over the land. Every night at this hour, you and I would wake together, as though we were searching for each other, making sure the other was still there. And every year since,” she said, bringing the story to an end as she looked down at her daughter in her arms, “on the night and hour of your birth, I bring you outside, to sit beneath the moon and give thanks for all that we have.”

 

“So many times, I've found your mother asleep with you in her arms,” Satoshi said as he reached out to brush the fallen snow off of Vanessa's hair. “We waited so long for you, daughter of mine,” he told the girl. “That is why this hour, on this day, will always be special to us,” he reminded the girl.

 

Vanessa gave a soft humming sigh as she leaned against Amaya's chest, curling closer to tuck her head under her mother's chin as she closed her eyes. The peacefulness of the child's youki was soothing, inviting, and Amaya smiled as she bent her head to kiss her daughter's hair, closing her eyes as she held Vanessa closer and leaned back against her mate. Satoshi chuckled softly as he tightened his arms around them both, the gentle pressure of his kiss against her temple drawing a lazy smile from Amaya as she watched through the fringe of her lashes as he reached out to stroke Vanessa's hair, bits of snow sticking to his hand.

 

It was moments like these that she treasured the most, and would give anything to have. These quiet moments when all the world seemed to be at peace, when even time itself bowed down and grew still, and the only thing she knew was the absolute love of being surrounded by her family. She felt her youki swell, pulsing once, twice, three times as her eyes burned, tears gathering to blur her gaze, as one slipped down her cheek. Vanessa gave her hope, and in that moment, the one thing she wanted most was to hold another baby in her arms, to bring another life into this world to share all the love she felt with them. How much richer would her daughter's life be if she had a sibling to share it with?

 

“You are both my miracles,” Satoshi told them, his voice low and quiet, as he held them. “Why do you look so sad, my angel?” he asked a moment later, and Amaya opened her eyes, tipped her head down to peer into her daughter's crestfallen expression.

 

“I can't feel the earth, Papa,” Vanessa told him, sniffling as she reached out a hand to touch the snow. “It's all gone.”

 

“It's not gone,” he denied her, soothing her as he petted her hair, brushing bits of snow off the gentle waves of her cherry wood locks. “It's just frozen right now. In time, as you grow older, you'll be able to command the earth when it's cold, when it's frozen. It isn't easy, and sometimes it hurts, but you'll learn with time as your power grows. You could do it now with enough focus as long as you were touching a living thing, like a tree or a bush,” he reminded her, a frown marring his brow as he stared at her with concern, “but you won't, will you?” Amaya could feel the way his youki shifted focus from the bond the three of them shared to wrap solely around Vanessa, holding her in a cocoon of warmth for a few moments before returning his youki to the braided bond they all shared. “Tonight, I'll teach you something new, something small that you can do inside. Maybe that will help you release your fear,” he told her, and Vanessa pouted in confusion as she looked up at him.

 

“Inside?” she asked as she tilted her head to the side. “Like when I made my bed grow?” she asked, and Amaya laughed.

 

“No, not like when you made your bed grow,” Satoshi told her with a chuckle. “Though you do seem happier now that you're sleeping in that cradle of vines and flowers,” he teased her.

 

“It feels like when I sleep with you and Mama,” Vanessa said innocently, her lips twitching up to one side. “It feels like you're there with me.”

 

“Well, then I'm glad,” he told her in return. “Your bucket's almost full,” he said as he nodded to the small wooden bucket piled to the rim with snow.

 

Vanessa gasped as she bounced on her mother's lap, struggling for her freedom, before she slipped down to sit in the cold white powder. She giggled from the confines of the blanket before crawling out from beneath the copious folds to gather her bucket. Amaya laughed at the snow that covered her daughter from head to foot, the fluffs of white clinging to her hair and clothing, a few soft crystalline flakes hanging off the ends of her lashes.

 

“I remember when you were so tiny you could have fit in that bucket,” Amaya told the girl as she watched Vanessa gather up more snow to pile on top of her collection. “Your father made your first bed, a little nest that he grew from a tree stump.”

 

“You did?” Vanessa asked her father with wide eyes.

 

“I did,” he confirmed, a smile in his voice as he nodded. “Twisted roots and branches of meadowsweet and mistletoe and vines of star jasmine and Carolina Jessamine all wrapped together to create a bowl - a cradle,” he told her. “Ferns and clover in the bottom to cushion you beneath the blankets your mother made. It's probably why you love jasmine the way you do, it cradled you only hours after you were born. The way you made your bed grow,” he told her as he stood and helped Amaya to her feet, the moonlight shining down upon them, casting their daughter in a watery silver glow, “looks just like the nest you slept in as a newborn. The one you have now is just bigger and full of wisteria and jasmine,” he allowed, a frown marring his brow as his smile fell away slowly, his attention turned out to the forest in front of them.

 

Amaya looked up when she felt her mate still, the feel of his youki grating against hers in warning, and she fell silent as she turned to stare up at him with wide eyes. The feel of his youki cracked like dry lightning across the summer skies, and she flinched as she looked out toward the forest following the direction he was focused. It took effort to cover her fear, to smile as she shooed their daughter in the house and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. She would give anything for Vanessa to never know this fear, to never understand what their adventures really were, and shook her head as she looked back up at her mate.

 

“Tosh?” Amaya asked as she glanced back through the open doorway at their daughter before looking back at him.

 

“Don't,” he snapped, cautioning her when she began to change the focus of her youki, unfurling it slowly in layers from around her mate and child to stretch toward the forest in front of them. “Don't,” he repeated softer this time, his brow furrowed as sweat beaded on his temple.

 

Amaya froze as she stared at him, her face paling as she yanked on her youki, pulling it back to her as quickly and tightly as she could until she ached because of it. Breaking the connection with her mate and child hurt, but the very thought that she was putting her family in danger hurt so much more. How could she have forgotten, she cursed herself. Her youki was different from other youkai because of what she was, and it was that difference that made it a beacon to those hunting them. And it had been because of her thoughtlessness that she and Satoshi had been forced to learn that lesson the hard way.

 

She had thought she'd been protecting them, looking out for danger, but it had been the doctor who'd taken her back in the fall of 2038, the one Satoshi had rescued her from before creating the earthquake, that had told her the truth. The gryfalcon's hunters had been able to track them so easily before because of the uniqueness of her youki, and the way her power smelled like the ocean. No other marine youkai smelled as purely of the ocean as she did - or so they'd told her.

 

“Go inside and lock the door,” Satoshi said, his voice pulling her from her thoughts, the feel of his youki pushing her back, even as his focus remained on the forest in front of him.

 

“Satoshi - “

 

“Go,” he insisted quietly, his gaze still locked on a place beyond the trees. “I'm going to put up a wall. It won't buy us a lot of time, but it should be enough.”

 

“No!” she refused as she reached out to him with her youki, reestablishing their connection, tugging on his youki as she shook her head, her eyes wide, her face pale. “The ground is frozen!” she hissed. “The last time you -“

 

“Amaya,” he growled, his voice strained by the effort it took, and she winced at the feel of his youki as he pulled back from their connection to focus the entirety of his youki on the task at hand. “Go. Inside,” he commanded, his tone allowing no room for argument, and she nodded as she pulled her youki in once more, coiling it tightly around herself as her brow furrowed in a mix of fear and concern. “I can handle the pain,” he said as he finally met her gaze, his eyes kind, but fierce. “Vanessa's more important. She has to be.”

 

Amaya nodded as she sniffled, willing away the tears stinging behind her eyes. She knew how hard it was for him to use his power in the winter, when the ground was too cold, too frozen for anything to respond to him. The strain it took to erect the wall of vines between the trees would leave him with a migraine that would last for days, sometimes weeks, and she hated the pain he would be in as a result. The few times he had been forced to fight, to use his power offensively in the winter, had ended badly.

 

`That was one time, Amaya,' her youkai voice reminded her gently. `The other times . . .yeah, he's been weakened. He's had nose bleeds, and migraines from it, but he only ever collapsed the one time.'

 

`He was unconscious for days,' she replied as she shut herself away in the house, flinching at the snap of the lock, and watched as Satoshi stepped off the back porch and into the shin-deep snow. `I - I . . .'

 

`You did what you had to in order to protect your mate,' her youkai countered fiercely. `Don't ever forget that. Neither of you have ever taken a life for the sole purpose of doing so. It has always - always - been to protect each other, or Nessa.'

 

`I can still feel his blood on my claws,' she thought as she looked down at her hands, grimaced at the shadows of memory. `I didn't even really know what I was doing, I just . . .'

 

`You knew enough,' her youkai soothed her. `You clawed at that rat youkai until there was nothing left of him. It wasn't graceful, it wasn't pleasant, but it was enough to save you both. Now, stop thinking about the past, doll. Smile, make Nessa believe everything's all right. You might be scared, and your mate might be scared, but don't you dare let Nessa know that.'

 

Amaya nodded silently as she turned away from the window, her eyes coming to rest on the child that stood staring at her from the hallway leading away from the kitchen. Vanessa didn't say anything as she watched her mother with wide eyes, her own youki pulled in tight around her, coiled like an overwound spring. She knew from experience the kind of ache one felt in holding their youki so tightly, constraining it until it felt strangled, hobbled, the coldness of fear and trace paranoia that came as a result. Countless times, Amaya had wished there was another way, that she and her family weren't forced into hiding just to be have some modicum of safety, but this was the way things were. No amount of wishing would change that.

 

Sniffling as she pushed back her tears, wiped away the trace dampness from her cheeks, she knelt down and held out her arms to her daughter, hugging her tightly seconds later when the tiny girl crashed against her. The first lesson her daughter had ever learned, she thought, had been the most painful of them: how to coil her youki tighter and tighter until her power was almost invisible because of it. There had been no instruction, no guidance given to teach the girl how to hide her youki. But in the manner of Kujira, her daughter had learned everything from mimicking her mother. It was how Kujira survived the first five years of their lives. Everything they knew, everything they did, was learned by mimicking their mothers did. And perhaps that would be their saving grace, Amaya thought as she kissed Vanessa's brow. If the ones Satoshi sensed were only able to feel her mate, then maybe, just maybe, her family would be able to survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 December 2055

 

Gwenhwyfar Marian Dobson, better known simply as Gwen, grunted when she felt the small hand connect with her cheek. Cracking one eye open, she stared at the toddler that had managed to climb out of his crib and into the too-small bed that she had curled up in the night before. She frowned at the sound of his broken sniffles, the pitiful furrow of his tawny brow and reached up to comb her fingers through his unruly curls, the low light hiding the ginger-blond highlights of his cinnamon-chocolate hair. Fat tears hung on the ends of his dark lashes, the fine hairs spiked together from how long he'd already been crying before he woke her up, his slate-blue eyes red and swollen, his cheeks wet.

 

She clucked her tongue as she reached up with one hand, smoothing the tears from his cheek before slipping the tip of her finger into his mouth and feeling along his gum line, blinking slowly as she counted the sharp edges she could feel just beneath the surface. He'd been fussy for days, waking up in the middle of the night only to cry himself hoarse by the next morning, it was why she had taken to sleeping in his room, contorting herself to fit in the bed meant for no one larger than a five-year-old.

 

“You gonna be able to go back to sleep?” she asked her brother, and watched as he shook his head, pouting as a few fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

 

Michael Arthur Dobson - Dobby as she called him - had been born just weeks after her seventh birthday, and she could still remember the look of pure love and adoration on her father's face when he had held him for the first time. Far too ready to come into this world, her brother had been born at home, coming too fast for her mother to make it to the car, let alone the hospital. She could still remember the sound of her father's nervous laugh, his testament that of all the babies he'd help birth in his years working in search and rescue, this one had meant the most.

 

Her brother had been no larger than one of her toy dolls, all wrapped in towels from the bathroom, his skin wrinkled and red and covered in some kind of goo. She laughed silently at herself as she remembered sitting with her brother, holding him only moments after he'd been born while their father tended to their mother. To think that that day had been just over two years ago now seemed impossible. She breathed out a laugh as she smiled, remembering the day almost a year ago that he had earned his nickname.

 

“Dobby is a free elf,” she said with amusement, repeating the way her brother had always asked to watch the old Harry Potter movies.

 

How many times had she found her brother sitting in front of the TV in the living room, stabbing the button with his little chubby fingers to make the tray slip out and pull back in, giggling all the while and saying “Dobby is a free elf”? Every single one of the movies - even some of the ancient black and white films - were fully accessible on the digital download service they had, but her father still insisted that the BluRay discs were better, promising her that you could see more from the disk than you could the digital download. Somehow though, that theory of his only applied to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and for some odd reason that she would never understand, something called a Monty Python.

 

“No Harry Potter?” Gwen asked, arching her brow when Dobby scrunched up his nose and shook his head. “You want me to tell you more of the story?” He nodded as he blinked, the action causing the tears clinging to the ends of his lashes to fall as he hiccupped, and shoved his fist into his mouth. “Okay,” she agreed with a sigh, and sat up slowly. “Wait for me?”

 

She kissed his forehead when he nodded, tossing back the thin Puppy Pals blanket as she moved, stretching out her legs before dropping her feet to the cool wooden floor. Lifting a hand to cover her wide yawn as her eyes squeezed closed tightly, she stepped from the room. Slapping her hand against the wall blindly as she slipped into the bathroom down the hall, she yawned a second time, her jaw popping as tears stung her eyes. It didn't take her more than a few minutes to relieve herself, and wash her hands before splashing cold water on her face to help her wake up.

 

Not once in the past eighteen months could she remember her mother ever making the effort to go to her brother when he cried at night, or fussed in the morning. The only time she could remember her mother paying any attention to Dobby at all was when she was still breastfeeding him, but even that she had found a way around after only a few weeks. And in her mother's abandonment, she had become her brother's primary caregiver, the long and unpredictable hours her father worked leaving him gone more often than not.

 

Her father had called her mother's inattention `postpartum depression'. She hadn't known what that meant until she had asked Mrs. Jacobs, her guidance counselor, what the condition was, explaining to her that it often left new mothers feeling hopeless, frightened that they would hurt their new child, angry at the baby and not knowing why, even feeling as though they had to constantly watch everything they did or that their child did for fear that someone or something would harm the child. But the more Mrs. Jacobs had tried to explain it to her, the less she believed that that was what her mother's issue was. Far too often, she had found her mother glancing at herself in a mirror or a polished window, turning this way and that and frowning critically at herself as though trying to assess her figure.

 

She didn't understand it at all, Gwen thought as she stepped back into her brother's room, and smiled at the boy waiting for her on the bed, idly chewing and sucking in turn on the fist shoved halfway in his mouth. She would give anything for him, do anything to protect him, to comfort him, or to make him laugh, but their own mother couldn't be bothered to even look in on him. Perhaps it was why she was closer with her father, the girl thought as she lifted her brother up from the bed, settling him on her hip before she turned to leave the room. After all, her father had told her that their mother had been the same way with her, and maybe that was why she had always felt dismissed by the woman. But the very last thing she wanted, was for her brother to feel the same loneliness she often did.

 

 

 

 

“I think he's teething,” she said softly, keeping her voice down so as not to wake her brother. Moving slowly as she sat up, she kept her arms wrapped around her ten-month-old brother, supporting him as she held him in place. “He was screaming when I got home from school. His diaper hadn't been changed at all. Mom was . . . I don't know what she was doing,” she said, scowling as she shook her head. “She leaves him alone all the time and he doesn't understand why. I don't understand why. It took all the way to Prisoner of Azkaban before he finally calmed down enough to sleep.”

 

 

“Connecting,” she scoffed under her breath, shaking her head to dispel the memory, as she moved into the kitchen. “More like she just didn't want kids,” she whispered to herself.

 

Gwen ignored the light switch on the wall as she stepped into the kitchen, opting instead in favor of the gentler light spilling in from the window above the sink. The silvery moonlight reflecting off the snow outside was more than enough for her to see by, and she knew from experience that the blue-grey shadows it cast upon the floor and walls would help soothe the fussing child in her arms. Lifting her chin just in time to avoid being clacked in the jaw by her brother's head, she sighed. She shivered as she stepped across the floor, the linoleum cold against her bare feet, offering her the barest edge of alertness.

 

`Just alert enough so you don't drop him like you've almost done a few times, right, Gwen?' her conscience poked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

 

Pulling a frozen washcloth from the freezer, she handed it to her brother and watched as he took it to chew on the edge of it. Dobby had always refused the normal teething rings, hated anything aside from the washcloths she would soak in water and fold into small squares before putting into a bowl in the freezer. There were special ones she made for him, soaked in orange juice or lemonade that she gave him in the afternoons, treats of a sort that allowed him to teeth while also having a little bit of juice she didn't normally give him. She had read somewhere that juice contained too many sugars and could be bad for his teeth, though she couldn't remember where she had found the information.

 

“Yucky! I dun wike it!” Dobby exclaimed as he threw the frozen bit of cloth to the floor, and Gwen sighed.

 

“It's going to be one of those mornings,” she said more to herself than to her brother as she knelt down to pick up the cloth before tossing it to the counter.

 

She turned her storm cloud blue eyes to the window, watching as the thick white tufts of snow fell from the sky, and took in a deep breath before turning her attention back to her brother. The fit she had expected from him didn't come, and she frowned in confusion as she shook her head, watching as the silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He twisted his hand just enough to force more of his fist in his mouth, pressing down on one side as he began to cry in earnest.

 

“Hey hey hey,” she coddled him, bouncing him gently on her hip as she tugged his fist from his mouth to look at his fingers. “At least you didn't break the skin this time,” she said as she studied the two deep indents he'd made with the sharp corners of his budding teeth. “You have to be careful. No more biting,” she told him, meeting his gaze as she lifted her brows high on her forehead, and watched him pout as he stuffed his hand back in his mouth. “Are you sure you don't want a cloth?”

 

He took his hand out of his mouth just long enough to answer her. “Story.”

 

“Okay,” Gwen replied, cupping the back of his head in her hand as she kissed his feather soft hair. “Where did we leave off?” she asked as she carried him to the stove, bouncing slightly as she walked, the jiggling gait always helping to soothe him.

 

“Horsie,” he reminded her as she took the teapot in her free hand, grimacing at the drool-slimed fist that brushed against her cheek.

 

“Ugh, the things I put up with for you, kid,” she jokingly complained as she set the empty teapot on the corner of the sink before carefully tugging the lid off in order to fill the kettle with water.

 

Doing things with one hand wasn't easy, but she had long since mastered the skill, and had come to learn that the ability to split her focus between her brother and whatever else she was doing helped her out in other things as well. Like school, she thought with a sigh, thankful that it was winter break. Mrs. Jacobs had been the one to convince her to take the placement exam when it had become apparent to her teacher at the time that she was painfully bored in her classes. That same test had allowed her to skip a grade or two, and at the time, she had thought it was a great thing, but now?

 

She hated the thought of going back. She knew it meant that she would be leaving her brother alone once more, and almost wished she could take Dobby with her to her classes, but knew she couldn't. How odd would that be, a fifth grader taking care of her little brother in the middle of school? She sighed as she shook her head. There was a part of her that wondered if she would be able to convince Mrs. Jacobs to let her do it, to be both mother and student during school, but another part - a much larger part - was afraid that asking that question would only shame her father. He did everything for them, and none of it was his fault, but how could she possibly make anyone understand?

 

“Ma-ma,” Dobby complained when she didn't begin the story right away, pulling her from her thoughts.

 

“Gwen,” she corrected, wincing as she remembered the way her mother had yelled at her when the woman had heard her brother call her that before.

 

“Mama,” he insisted, and she sighed as she blew out a breath, too tired to care enough to correct him. “Story.”

 

“All right, all right,” Gwen agreed as she returned the full kettle to the stove, and turned on the burner beneath it. “Horsies,” she recalled, and giggled softly when he nodded. “Okay,” she said, and smoothed the tears from his cheeks with the backs of her fingers as she paced the floor from the sink to the dinner table and back again.

 

Closing her eyes as she shifted Dobby from her hip to her front, she held him closer as she hugged him tight, turning her head to the side in order to rest her cheek on his hair. “His horse was a beast of unmatched beauty, his color as pure and white as fresh fallen snow shimmered beneath the light of the moon, a phantom on four black hooves. Said to be a cross between an Andalusian and an Arabian, Corvus - as he was called - stood taller than either breed. He was graceful and dignified, commanding the attention of everyone - human and creature alike - without having to move at all. His eyes were blue, bright and clear like the summer skies, an unusual color for a horse, and perhaps that was why King Arthur had been drawn to him in the first place,” Gwen recited the story, opening her eyes wide as she reminded herself that she needed to stay awake, lest she drop her brother.

 

The whistle of the kettle startled her, causing her to jump slightly, and stare balefully at the silver pot on the stove as she turned around. Dobby whined as he lifted his head from her shoulder, pouting at the interruption to her story. She winced when he tugged on a fistful of her hair, the auburn locks looking dark as walnut beneath the watery light of the predawn morning. Turning off the stove, she reached out for the cabinet to her right and frowned at the feeling of paper beneath her hand.

 

“Got the bat signal, Dad?” Gwen asked with a smile as she took the note off the cabinet door to read.

 

`Called out at the witching hour for a car stuck on the cliffs, Lady Gwenhwyfar. Should be home before sunrise. Love, Dad'

 

She was eternally proud of her father, Captain Jacob Ethan Dobson, Alpha Team Leader for Penobscot County, Maine Fire Search and Rescue. He was a helicopter pilot and, while there was another man on the team he'd taught to fly, her father was the most seasoned of the team he led in every aspect of the job. She could still remember her father's second in command, J.J., with his proud smile telling her that her father had been born for this kind of work.

 

Her father had taken her up over the coast for her fifth birthday, J.J. sitting in the back next to her on one side, Uncle Ricky on her other, keeping her safe as they let her watch as the whales came up to the surface of the Northeast Harbor to breathe and dance in the water. She'd forever treasure that memory, the sound of her father's easy laughter, a sound that she heard less and less often from him. She knew he shielded her from a lot, she could see it in his eyes when he'd tell her about his days, turning whatever he'd been through into an adventure. For her, the hardest part of his job was knowing that he could be called away at any time, that he could be gone for hours or days, sometimes even weeks if he was called out to assist somewhere else, as he had been last year during the hurricane that ravaged the coast of New York.

 

“It won't be long before Daddy's home,” she told her brother as she tipped her head down to look into his wide-eyed stare, and grimaced at the long rope of drool that hung from the edge of his mouth, his small fist tucked inside. “I think dogs drool less than you do,” she said, and leaned as far away as she could when he took his slobbery fist from his mouth and tried to shove it in hers. “How about you chew on your hand for the both of us?” she suggested, and shook her head when the child quite happily shoved his fist back into his mouth.

 

She chuckled softly as she pulled a mug from the cupboard, filling it halfway with the steaming water from the tea pot on the stove and dropped an earl grey tea bag into it. Gwen had learned long ago that a full cup of anything was dangerous around her brother, especially if it was anything hot. His penchant for sticking his hand into cups and bowls often leading to sticky messes, and the occasional injury from an accidental scalding. Narrowing her eyes when Dobby reached out with the hand still fisted around her hair, she held her mug out of his reach and carried him into the living room. Maybe if she laid down with him while she told him more of the story he would go back to sleep. Anything for a few more hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vanessa frowned as she looked down at her upturned hands, staring at the pale flesh as she folded her fingers closed to drag her fingertips over her palms, the tips of her claws tickling against her skin. There was no injury, no rash, or bumps of any kind, but still her hands burned, her skin stinging, aching. She'd had the dream again, she thought as she looked up toward her bedroom window, her eyes widening as she watched a large spruce tree rise from the ground, the wood groaning and creaking as it grew larger - wider - a thick vine shooting across the forest to wrap around the tree three times before stretching out as it reached for another tree.

 

She shook her head as she backed away from the window, tripping over the small stuffed bear her mother had made her, and falling back to land on her bottom, grunting as she hit the floor. She rolled to her side as she rose to her knees, her claws scraping across the wood floor to leave tiny pale lines on the surface as she scrambled to her feet. The ground was frozen, the earth silent and sleeping. She knew what it took just for her father to grow a simple flower when the ground was this cold, and didn't understand why he hadn't asked her to share her power with him as he had before.

 

She blinked as she opened her bedroom door, hearing the sound of the kitchen door closing, the snick of the deadbolt like a gunshot in her ears. Her brows drew together as she listened to her parents, her father's voice tired and worn, her mother's frightened, as they spoke in Japanese. She pursed her lips, watching as her mother helped her father down the hall to their bedroom, the man leaning heavily against her with his eyes half closed, his face pale and drawn.

 

Vanessa swallowed thickly as she stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, the sound of the door to her parents' room closing with a soft click. Two years ago, she had tried to learn the language they were speaking, repeating a few of the words back to them, only for her parents to remain silent instead. For almost a year after that, they'd spoken in another language, one she couldn't even begin to understand, until she'd forgotten the little Japanese she'd began to learn. It hadn't been hard for her to understand the unspoken lesson they'd taught her - they didn't want her learning Japanese because there were some things they just didn't want her to know.

 

She knew they didn't want her to worry, and it wasn't that she wanted to be scared, but . . .

 

`But you know that when they speak in Japanese - or any other language - something bad is happening,' her youkai-voice pointed out, the sound of it exactly like her mother's.

 

Closing the door quietly as she turned around, Vanessa slid down to sit on the floor, her back against the wall. She closed her eyes as she bowed her head over her bent knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her father was hurting now because he had thickened the forest outside their home, connecting the trees with the vines he has used to create a barrier. She could feel his power thrumming outside, knew how tired it would make him, but also knew better than to say anything about it.

 

It was the one thing about the winter that used to frighten her, but soothed her now instead. No matter how hard she tried, when the earth was frozen as it was now, she couldn't feel it. It used to fill her with unease, but this year the disconnection brought her a melancholy sense of peace, a subdued appreciation for the ground that no longer felt to be calling out for her attention.

 

There was a part of her that didn't care if she ever felt the earth again, and another part - stronger than the first - that longed to be one with the grass and trees and soil. To fall asleep in the forest and wake with the earth curled up around her hands, tiny little green vines no larger around than a strand of hair wrapped around her wrists and fingers. To be one with the earth in such a manner brought her such unparalleled comfort that some days, she almost forgot that she was the cause of her parents' upset. But then there were days like today when she found herself reminded of all the things she had done, the things she couldn't take back, and she bowed her head as her heart grew heavy with the memory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vanessa blinked as the memory faded, her hands shaking as she rose slowly to step across the bare wooden floor of her bedroom. Clenching her jaw as she dug her claws into her palms, just enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin until the tears stinging behind her eyes, inspired by the memory, were gone. Closing her eyes as she released a deep breath, she unclenched her fists before opening her eyes once more. She hadn't cried since that day, felt as though she hadn't the right to when she had been the one to kill the bunnies sleeping in their nest. She also hadn't wanted to use her powers at all since that spring day - only a little more than nine months ago - and despite all of her father's gentle prodding and her mother's encouragements, she had refused to grow anything on her own, not even a simple flower. But it was worse than that, she thought as she closed her eyes, dropping her chin to her chest. She hadn't realized then, but she did now, her youkai-voice speaking a truth she hadn't wanted to acknowledge.

 

`It's not like you shook the earth on purpose,' her youkai-voice chided gently. `You were scared.'

 

`And the time before that, I was angry,' she recounted with a sigh.

 

But it wasn't just that, either. She hadn't been able to get the image of the dead rabbits out of her mind, or forget the feel of the bones moving beneath the skin and fur from where they had been crushed by the roots and weight of the tree. The lives that she had taken couldn't be replaced, just like the house she had broken when she was three couldn't be repaired. She hadn't meant to destroy the house, just like she hadn't meant to kill the rabbits, but none of it mattered when she had been the one to break everything. And now they were leaving again, and even if her parents never said the words, she was certain they were leaving because of her.

 

Vanessa came to a stop in front of her closet door, reaching out for the cold brass knob, wincing at the feel of the metal beneath her hand. She never had liked the feeling of metal, it always seemed so cold and detached, there was never anything for her to connect to. Stepping inside and moving to the small space in the corner, she crouched down, carefully slipping her claws into the thin lines between the loose boards in the floor, and lifted them out to reveal the hole beneath. Reaching down for the bag she'd hidden inside, the pulled out the pack her mother had made for her of tapa cloth and deer hide. The straps that held the bag to her shoulders had been stuffed with raw wool, making it easier to carry the pack for long periods of time without it being uncomfortable.

 

Slipping the boards back into place, Vanessa opened the bag and removed a smaller bag made of tapa cloth with leather draw strings. She reached up into her closet for the dresses and clothes her mother had made for her, gathering each piece and folding it carefully before tucking it into the smaller bag, pulling the drawstring tight when she was done. Stepping out the closet with the bags in her hands, she looked at the braided nest bed she slept in and smiled when she caught sight of the small bear on the floor next to it that her mother had crocheted for her, the insides stuffed with cotton and flower petals.

 

Everything they had was made by hand, grown by her and her father. Their clothes were handmade out of tapa cloth that came from the paper mulberry trees, wool and cotton threads that had been carefully carded and spun before being woven into fabrics or knitted into sweaters and skirts, even linen that was made from flax plants. Her father had taught her how to grow the plants they used for clothing, her mother teaching her how to take the whole plant and make cloth or threads. She was even learning how to use the loom to make her own fabrics, and weave in designs from different colored threads. She was never separated from the natural world around her, wearing it on her skin, carrying it in the bags she used, walking in it, she thought as she looked down at the brown leather tie shoes her father had made for her from the furs of the jack rabbits he'd hunted for their dinner a few months ago.

 

`Nessa,' the voice inside her called gently, her youkai sounding exactly like her mother. `Don't get distracted. You know you need to be ready. It comforts them, even if they never say it.'

 

She nodded to herself as she carried the bags in her hands to the space by the door and set them down, before returning across the room to gather her teddy bear and the heavy blanket her mother had knitted for her. The yarn had been dyed in muted browns and dark greens, colors that she loved, but also colors she had long since learned would hide her from sight when they were out in the forest. She laid the heavy blanket out on the floor, folding it lengthwise neatly in thirds before rolling it down the middle and securing it with two thick deerskin bands, each one with another thick deerskin loop that stood out to be used as shoulder straps.

 

There was no question in her mind that they would be moving, running away into the night on an adventure that wasn't really an adventure. She had learned from copying her mother, the tight way she coiled her power to keep it hidden, that whatever was happening now was more dangerous than either of her parents were willing to say. But if they wanted to make her think it was all a fun mysterious game, well, it was kinder to let them believe that she thought it was just that. A game. An adventure. And maybe, if they could all pretend that nothing bad was coming after them, then maybe - just maybe - whatever monsters were out there lurking in the shadows would stop chasing them.

 

“Hey, sweet girl.” Vanessa looked back over her shoulder as her mother stepped into the room frowning at the tight way her mother held her youki, and tightening her own in response. “Are you hungry?” Vanessa shook her head as she looked down, hating to be separated from the bond she shared with her parents, but knowing that sometimes that same bond was what brought out the monsters lurking in the shadows.

 

Amaya sighed as she stepped further into the room, turning her head to glance at the bags by the door, the rolled blanket sitting in front of them, and nodded to herself as she moved to sit on the bearskin rug beside her daughter. She laughed softly as she dipped her hand into the dark fur, smiling as she turned to meet Vanessa's gaze.

 

“We've had this one since before you were born,” she told her as she brushed her hand over the fur. “It was a pretty harsh winter and we were up in the wilds of Canada near Grise Fiord. Your dad didn't fare so well up there, the ground was frozen almost all year. It exhausted him all the time just to make simple things. That's why he's resting now.”

 

Vanessa nodded silently. “We're going on an adventure, right?” she asked, forcing the smile, the excitement in her tone only there for her mother's benefit.

 

“Mmhmm,” Amaya nodded

 

They both knew that Vanessa knew the adventures were something more, maybe even something dangerous. Neither of them wanted to admit that Vanessa was aware of the danger, and maybe that was okay. Maybe pretending that they were safe was more comforting than admitting that they weren't.

 

“We could go anywhere,” her mother offered.

 

“I like the snow,” Vanessa said softly. “I can't feel the earth as well, but the snow is pretty.”

 

Amaya hummed her reply as she nodded, her eyes lifting to glance out the window across the room. “Your father says you'll be able to feel the earth better in the winter as you grow older,” she advised, before turning her gaze on Vanessa. “Someplace with snow,” she mused. “Anything else?”

 

“I . . . I like the sound of the water, and the feel of the sun in the spring and summer. And . . . the smell of pine trees, and apple blossoms . . . and maple,” Vanessa offered shyly, and Amaya smiled as she pulled her daughter over to sit her lap, wrapping her arms around her as she held her back against her chest.

 

“Me, too,” Amaya told her, dropping a kiss to her hair before turning her head to rest her cheek on the girl's silken hair. “Me, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blinking slowly as she opened her eyes, Gwen's mouth parted wide in a deep yawn, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as her jaw popped. She offered up a groan of protest when small fingers hooked over her bottom teeth, a slobbery hand grabbing her jaw as a childish giggle greeted her.

 

“You need warning labels,” she told her brother with a grimace of disgust, her voice garbled around his hand.

 

“Mama!” the two-year-old greeted with excitement, slapping his hand against her chest as she took his other hand out of her mouth.

 

“Gwen,” she corrected him, and turned her head to look for the clock on the wall. Her eyes widened as she offered up an exaggerated gasp, turning her attention back to the child lying on top of her as she smiled wide. “Guess what time it is?” she cheered as she sat up.

 

“Horsies!” Dobby exclaimed in a conspiratorial whisper.

 

“That's right!” she replied, standing from the couch, and sitting her brother on her hip, her arm around his back to hold him in place. “Daddy's gonna be home soon, and we're going to go see the horises. We need to get ready. You think you can stand up in the shower with me?”

 

Dobby giggled as he bounced on her hip, his eyes wide, cherubic cheeks rosy with excitement. “I can shower!”

 

“Good!” Gwen praised him as she carried him down the hall, only to stop as she looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Just don't pee in the shower again. It's not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is.”

 

She rolled her eyes when he laughed, sighing because she knew that her little brother would, in fact, pee in the shower again. He either didn't get that the shower wasn't meant for that, or just found it entertaining that he could. She didn't much care which one it was, just so long as she could find a way to break him of the habit. Setting him on his feet with the instruction to wait for her in the bathroom, she ruffled his hair and moved down the hall to their bedrooms. It didn't take her long to gather clothes for them both and towels from the hall closet, but her return to the bathroom ended in a defeated sigh.

 

“I'm not in the shower,” Dobby told her, his eyes wide in an innocent expression.

 

“Yeah, but you need to hang onto that thing if you're going to try and aim for the toilet and not sit on it,” she told him, and shook her head when he looked at her with confusion. “Potty training a boy is not as easy as the books say, you know.”

 

“I can potty all on my own,” he insisted stubbornly, and she grimaced when he stomped his foot into a puddle he'd made on the floor.

 

Shaking her head as she looked up at the ceiling, Gwen prayed for patience, and looked back down to see her brother, in all his naked glory, giving her his best superhero stance. “All right, Superman, get in tub while I clean this up,” she told him, uttering a breathy laugh when he giggled. “Don't!” she called out when he reached for the faucet. “The last time I let you turn on the water by yourself you nearly scalded us both. Wait for me,” she instructed, wiping up the mess he'd made with paper towels before spraying down the toilet and floor with bleach cleaner. “You're lucky I love you, kid.”

 

“I love you, too, Mama,” Dobby replied sincerely, leaning toward her over the wall of the tub to kiss her cheek.

 

“That's totally unfair,” she whispered to herself as her eyes misted.

 

It was less than an hour later when they both emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed, her hair caught back in twin braids that started on either side of her head just below her ears, secured with cloth covered bands. Dobby's hair had been towel-dried and combed, the little ginger-blond tipped curls on top of his head and at the nape of his neck, stood out against his darker cinnamon-chocolate hair, refusing to be tamed. She shook her head when he ran off toward the living room, chirping excitedly about horses and stories, as she carried their clothes to the hamper in his bedroom. She would need to do laundry later today, or tomorrow, she thought as she dropped the clothes inside, and moved to the closet to grab a jacket for her and the snow suit for Dobby, but for now, horses.

 

The tradition had started when she was younger than her brother was now, she recalled as she slipped her arms into the faux-down jacket, zipping it up as she carried her brother's snow suit out to the living room with her. Anytime her father was called away in the middle of the night, or in the morning before she woke, he would take them out to a nearby stable when he came home. In the spring and summer, they would ride horses, her on a small tame mare, and her father on a stallion with Dobby seated in front of him behind the saddle horn. In the fall and winter, the old man who ran the stables would hook one of his Irish Cobbs up to a fancy carriage and drive them out to the same spot up in the clearing that her father always took them to on horseback. Her dad would spread a quilt on the ground while the horses were secured to a nearby tree, and they would sit on the blanket, munching on fruits and cheeses and muffins, whatever the stable owner's mate had prepared for them that day, and her father would read to them stories about King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table.

 

Sometimes, they only got a few minutes together before her father was called out again, but sometimes, just sometimes when they were lucky, they got to spend the whole day together. She smiled as she remembered the promise he'd made to her on her birthday last year, a promise he had reminded her of a few weeks ago. He would be taking time off soon, a month, maybe even two, and they would be a family; no interruptions, no rescues, no time apart. He had promised her that he was going to be there for both her and her brother. He had even talked about moving somewhere with them, to a different town, perhaps even closer to the stables, but not once had he talked about their mother going with them. That memory - his promise - was what brought her comfort on the hardest of days. Someday soon it would all be a reality, for her father had never once broken a promise to her.

 

“Gwampa and Gwandma are coming wif us?” Dobby asked as Gwen helped him into the snow suit, her brother turning his head down to watch as she tugged on the zipper.

 

“Yup,” Gwen agreed with a smile, zipping the suit up and tapping the end of her brother's nose with her finger. “They like coming out with us,” she said, knowing that her brother didn't really understand that the stable owners weren't their real grandparents, but also knowing how much the elderly couple loved it when he referred to them with the familial titles. “Go get your boots,” she told him, smirking as he toddled away, laughing at the sight of him. He looked like the Michelin Man from the old commercials her dad had shown her, she thought.

 

Gwen laughed as she helped Dobby into his boots, trying to keep him still long enough to tie his laces as he bounced in front of her. She couldn't deny the fact that she was as excited as he was, knowing that any moment now there would be a knock on the front door. Her father would be kneeling outside with a thick worn paperback novel in one hand, one perfect white lily in the other, as he asked her to join him on a merry adventure. Every chance he got, he would greet her that way, and she had grown to listen for the knock at the door, her excitement making her eyes sparkle and her cheeks pink as she would run to greet him.

 

“Daddy!” Dobby cheered when the knock at the front door sounded, and Gwen laughed as she fell back, losing her balance when he tried to get her to let go of his shoe so that he could run to the door.

 

“Hold on, Dobby!” she laughed as she slipped into the pair of faux-fur lined pink camo snow boots her father had bought her last month when her previous ones had grown too small. Smiling as she snatched her brother up from the floor, she settled him on her left hip and reached up to release the deadbolt before twisting the knob to open the door. “Uncle Ricky?” Gwen greeted with confusion as she looked past him outside, frowning when she saw the other three members of her father's team. “Why are you knocking? Where's Dad?”

 

Gwen frowned in confusion, her attention drawn away from Uncle Ricky to J.J., who stood behind him and to the side, as she watched a woman slip between them to step past her into the house, a sad smile on her face as she reached down to touch her shoulder. She'd met the woman only a handful of times when she'd gone into the station with her father, and knew she was a counselor of some kind, but didn't understand why she was here now. Everything felt off, her suspicion growing with every heartbeat as she looked back to the man in front of her. He was her father's best friend, her Godfather, and someone she called uncle, even though he was of no relation to her family.

 

Enrique Alvarez, better known as `Uncle Ricky', knelt down just inside the door, folding his six-foot-three frame down in order to be eye level with the child in front of him. “Brenda's going to stay here to talk with your mom,” he told her, and she shook her head, a frown marring her brow. “Your dad asked me to give you this,” he said as he held out a perfect white lily, and Gwen frowned as she took it slowly.

 

“Why isn't Daddy here?” she asked slowly, meeting his gaze with narrowed eyes, her brow furrowed as she tried to ignore the feeling of trepidation coiled deep inside her.

 

The man in front of her pursed his lips as he released a slow breath through his nose, and held out his hand to her, palm up. “Lady Gwenhwyfar,” he spoke slowly, formally, “will you come with us on one last adventure?”

 

Gwen's eyes widened as his words took her breath away, made her blood run cold, her mind screeching to a halt.

 

 

 

 

 

Gwen blinked rapidly as the memory faded, and shook her head in denial as she backed away a step. “I don't want to say goodbye,” Gwen said, taking in a shaking breath as she lost her hold on her brother, the toddler sliding down her hip to stand on the floor. “I want Daddy.”

 

“I know,” Uncle Ricky said as he took her into his arms, holding her tight as she began to cry.

 

“Unca J.J., why's Mama cwyin'?” Dobby asked. “When's Daddy coming home? We're supposed to go see the horsies. He pwomised! Daddy always keeps his pwomises. Where's Daddy?” he demanded, stomping his little foot.

 

Gwen choked on a sob as she felt Uncle Ricky tighten his hold on her, lifting her up as he stood, his arm slipping down behind her legs to carry her against his chest as she cried into his shoulder. She knew her brother didn't understand why she was so upset, her grief only frightening him, and tried to fight against the madness of her tears. Lifting her face from the man's shoulder, she looked back at her brother, blinking away the tears that blinded her, and watched as he was scooped up into J.J.'s arms, one of her father's other teammates stepping inside the house to wait with the counselor.

 

Her control faltered as she watched him smile, listened to him laugh, her chin trembling as new tears fell. He didn't understand at all. She choked on a sob as she curled closer to Uncle Ricky, thankful he was carrying her. She wasn't sure she would have been able to stand on her own, let alone walk, she thought, her lips trembling as her tears fell like rain upon her cheeks. She blinked slowly as she lifted her arms to wrap around the man's neck, hugging him as she sobbed and felt him rub her back, her hands shaking so much that she lost her grip on the lily.

 

She cried out as she turned, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to grab it before it could hit the ground, time slowing around her as she watched it fall. The long green stalk of the flower hit the cement pavement first, the ivory petals trembling as the bulb of the flower impacted, bouncing up once, twice, before rocking onto its side as it fell still. Her throat burned as she cried, reaching out for the flower that had been left behind, unable to tell anyone that it had fallen, her words too choked to be understood.

 

She closed her eyes as more tears fell, burying her face in the shoulder of the man who carried her. The farther they moved away from the flower, the colder she became, until her coat had lost all power to warm her freezing skin. If she had been able to save the flower, to keep a piece of her father with her, to save him . . .

 

She felt a hand touch her back as Uncle Ricky stopped walking, and looked up to meet the gaze of the newest member of her father's team as she sniffled, her eyes widening when the lily was handed back to her. She wanted to tell Paul Clemmons - a man her father had always called “Shorty” - thank you, but she couldn't. No matter how many times she opened and closed her mouth, the words wouldn't come, the man understanding what she couldn't say, as he kissed her hair when she folded the flower in her arms, hugging it close as she bowed her head down over it, her tears collecting in the bowl of the blossom. She watched in a daze as one crystalline drop rolled slowly down the delicate snow-white petal, the edge of the flower bending down as the drop hung onto the tapered edge before finally falling onto the rough dark cloth of Uncle Ricky's jacket.

 

She gasped at the sound of her brother's laughter, turning her head to watch as Jordan Jacobs - better known as J.J. - lifted her brother into his arms, tossing him into the air before catching him easily. He was Native American, as best she could tell, and the tallest man on the team, easily the tallest man she'd ever met. She could remember her father telling her once that J.J. was six-foot-ten, laughing as he'd recounted the man knocking his head against the top of the helicopter when he'd climbed in for the first time. Her brows furrowed as she stared at them, not knowing why she was thinking of that now, or what purpose the memory served. She watched as J.J. settled Dobby on his shoulders, her brother hanging onto his dark hair as he made horse sounds and told the man to `giddy up'.

 

He didn't understand at all, and she didn't know how to explain it to him. He was too young, too innocent, to be able to grasp the concept of death. Perhaps even too young to retain the few memories he had of their father, and she felt her broken heart shatter further at the thought that her brother may not remember him as he grew older. She watched as Dobby turned his head back to look at her, shrieking with laughter when he leaned back too far - to the point where he was almost falling - but J.J.'s hold on his thighs kept him in place, the child happy simply to be up so high.

 

“Mama, look!” Dobby cheered as he laughed. “The giant's got me! He's gonna eat me! Raaawwwrrr!”

 

“He doesn't know, does he?” Uncle Ricky asked her quietly.

 

“Know what?” Gwen retuned just as softly as she watched her brother bounce on J.J.'s shoulders.

 

“That you're not actually his mother,” he replied, his voice calm, but holding an edge of something darker. “Ethan wanted to get you two away from all this. Damnit,” he cursed, the tone of his voice telling her he was no longer speaking to her.

 

The careful control she had on her emotions was lost, the smile she offered her brother turning into a grimace as she turned to bury her face in Uncle Ricky's shoulder once more. The whispered memory of her father's promise came back to her, the shattered hope of the things she had wanted that could never be. Her brother's naivete grated against the shattered pieces of her heart, his laughter like broken glass beneath her fingers. And as furious as she was that the child didn't understand, she was grateful for it, too. For how would she ever be able to be strong for him, if he were crying, too?

 

Who would take her on picnics now? Who would remind her that she really was just a child, that it was okay for her to play? Who was going to read to her at night when she couldn't sleep, or make her laugh as they checked under her bed for the imaginary monsters that seemed all too real to her now?

 

The knit gloves her father had bought for her did nothing to warm her freezing hands, as she looked down at the flower filled with her tears. All the plans they had made together, the trip they were supposed to take in March to go to the Pryor Mountains in Montana and watch the wild mustangs run free, were nothing but mocking whispers now. An aching numbness set in as she was lowered into the large SUV, her uncle snapping the seatbelt around her as she stared at nothing, felt nothing.

 

“He promised,” she whispered as the door closed beside her, her voice aching and hoarse, her words slow as though she wasn't truly aware she was speaking. “We were supposed to be a family. He was going to stay home with us. We were going to go see the wild horses run, and watch the stars, and live like cowboys.” She blinked slowly as Uncle Ricky slipped into the front seat behind the wheel, J.J. in the passenger seat next to him. The numbness she felt inside spread outward as the car lurched into gear, making her unable to feel the safety belt restraining her, or the seat beneath her that supported her. “We were supposed to be a family,” she whispered again, her head pounding, chest aching as she turned her head to look out the window, watching as they drove past the houses, the snow-covered lawns. “He promised.”

 

Gwen blinked slowly as she leaned to the side, resting her temple against the cold glass of the window. There was no comfort in the sight of the snow-covered city that slowly faded away, blending into longer stretches of road guarded on either side by dense forest. The same things she used to find exciting and enchanting now left her numb instead, aching with an emptiness so fathomless she feared she would never be able to find her way out.

 

“Horsies, Mama!” her brother cheered as he laughed, his little hand reaching out to swat against her arm.

 

Fire burned within her, fast and uncontrolled, her desire to snap at the toddler waylaid only by the sight of the flower in her hand and the smile on her brother's face. He didn't understand, she reminded herself as she turned back to the window. Her eyes narrowed as her brow furrowed, the dismissive breath she released fogging against the window when J.J. tried again to explain to him once more that their father had gone to Heaven.

 

Dobby was two, she thought with irritation. He didn't get the concept of Heaven any more than he understood that there wasn't really a man in the moon who turned the light off during the day and on at night. They were just words to him, places that sounded real, but weren't. She wanted to yell at the men in the front seats, tell them to stop filling her brother's head with fairytales that weren't real and never could be real, but in the end, the words that came forth were different.

 

“How did it happen?” she found herself asking, her eyes stinging, but dry. She couldn't even cry anymore, she was just . . . empty.

 

“We were up over Cadillac Mountain,” Uncle Ricky said, his voice steady, but she could still hear his upset. “A car went down over the ridge. We've been telling the city for years that there needed to be guard rail, or something there, but they never could decide whose job that was.” He sighed heavily as he flipped on the car's turn signal, the rhythmic clicking loud in the silence. “It was a double tie-in,” he told her. “Your dad ever tell you about those?”

 

“Yeah,” Gwen told him, her tone lacking any real emotion. “He said they were the most dangerous.”

 

“They are,” J.J. agreed, his smooth deep voice offering her a measure of comfort that Uncle Ricky's never had. “Boone was able to secure the car, but then it started slipping, and your dad had me take over flying the chopper so that he could go get him. He had re-secure the car first. We got out the baby first, that baby carrier saved the kid's life. Then we got out the mom. Your dad got Boone out, but in doing so, his own line got tangled in with the cables used to secure the car. The chopper can't hold that kind of weight. The engine was burning. We kept yelling at your dad, promising that we would get him up, but we only had seconds and he knew it. He cut his line before anyone could stop him, and we had no choice but to cut the line for the car. Your dad sacrificed himself to save all of us.”

 

“Why didn't you go back?” she asked, her voice breaking as desperation took hold. “He could be alive down there waiting for someone to find him! We have to - “

 

“Baby girl,” J.J. interrupted her. “The height he fell from, and everything that was waiting for him at the bottom . . . he was gone on impact. Nothing and no one could have survived that fall.”

 

“It's not fair,” she whimpered, gasping as she struggled to breathe, her chest aching as fresh sobs tore from within her, tears blurring her eyes. “I want him back! Bring him back!” she demanded, her voice little more than a choked whimper.

 

“I'd give anything to do just that,” Uncle Ricky promised her, reaching back to her between the seats and letting her hold his hand for a moment as he waited at a red light.

 

“He doesn't understand,” she said, meeting the man's gaze in the rearview mirror and flicking her eyes toward her brother. “What do I tell him when he starts asking why Daddy isn't coming home?”

 

Uncle Ricky rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand before pulling his arm back and returning his hand to the steering wheel. She watched his eyes move, shift focus, as he looked between her and the road ahead.

 

“I don't - “ he began, only to be cut off by J.J.'s steady words.

 

“You tell him that your dad's gone on an adventure that only he can take, and that someday, when the time comes, he'll be able to go on that adventure with him.”

 

The words J.J. offered were kind, formed in such a way that Dobby would understand even if he didn't understand everything it meant, but they didn't take away her pain. She knew what would be waiting for her when they finally got home, and it wouldn't be a loving compassionate mother with her arms open and waiting for them. There would be no one there for her to cry on, no one to comfort her, or hold her and tell her that it was okay to be sad. Instead, she would be expected to keep her brother out of sight, to tend to his needs and keep the house in order so that her mother didn't have to. And, if needed, there was an even greater possibility that her mother would expect her to provide her with comfort as well.

 

The burning ache that had resurfaced dwindled, leaving behind an emptiness that froze her from the inside out, raising goosebumps along her arms as she shivered from a cold only she could feel. Her eyes closed slowly as she felt the world around her drift away. Her eyes opened halfway as she watched the fields and mountains of snow blur into a sea of shimmering powder as they drove past, turning the world outside her window into one long stretch of never ending white. The culmination of everything she felt resulting in a piercing ache so deep she feared she would never be free of it, and knew it was something she would never forget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amaya closed her eyes as she latched the trunk of the car, the ten-year-old four door sedan a make and model of car that was too common in build and muted in color to stand out. Even on a lonely stretch of highway, the vehicle was practically invisible - forgettable. Her mate had the money to buy them anything they could want, the accounts he'd received almost two hundred years ago, after his father's demise making him a very rich man, but they'd long since learned how easy it was to trace the money from them, to be found from something as innocuous as an ATM withdrawal.

 

Their bags were tucked inside the car, everything they needed in order to leave on a moment's notice, as well as the few things they held dear. The box with the accounts and files Satoshi had obtained upon formal notice of his father's demise, the file box that held the information he'd amassed over the years about those who had been hunting them, along the information she had been able to steal when she'd been captured so long ago, were tucked inside a gym bag behind the front seats, making the information accessible and easy to grab if they needed to change what vehicle they were using, or abandon it all together. And the book - the giant tome - that held their stories, the histories of both their families, everything they wanted Vanessa to know if and when they died, and the things they both wished she'd never have to learn - passages and letters written in Japanese with no translation to go with them - was on the back seat beside Vanessa's car seat. Perhaps it was cowardly on both their parts, but there were some things that neither she nor Satoshi had the will to say, but they were things that had to be said anyway.

 

She couldn't shake the fear that chilled her hands and made her heart race, the memory of the focus her mate had held as he'd stared out into the forest earlier that morning, looking at something only he could feel. The holes he'd dug through the snow and into the frozen earth below before standing inside them with bare feet, shivering as he held his fists clenched at his side, his claws piercing his skin to allow his blood to drip down into the ground beneath him, helping him to do what seemed impossible. He'd refused to let her be with him, to let her lend him her youki, and the exhaustion he'd forced upon himself in order to protect them all frightened her as much as it angered her. She wished, not for the first time, that everyone would simply leave them alone and let them live in peace.

 

Amaya moved away from the car, stepping back into the house slowly as she cast her eyes around the kitchen and living room. The ghost of a childish giggle sounded from her memory, the faded image of her daughter running through the house with her waist-length dark cherry wood hair trailing behind her, her meadow grass eyes shining as she played, as she danced. Her gaze traveled over the walls, tracing up over the twisted vines of honeysuckle growing from the open slats in the floor to perfume the house with its delicate scent. The two-inch space cut into the floorboards around the living room had been opened to reveal the dirt underneath, the covered firepit in the middle of the living room and the fireplace built into the far wall, keeping the ground beneath warm enough that her mate and child never had to exert much energy at all to keep the plants, created from their powers, living in the cold.

 

Her lips turned up in a bittersweet smile as she caught sight of the braided hammock made of the thickened vines of wisteria and star jasmine - her daughter's creation - also the child's favorite place to nap when she was tired. How many times had she come out into the living room, called forth by her daughter's shrieks of joy, only to find the girl hanging from the vines that ran across the ceiling, cheerfully saying that she was the princess of the forest? She could see the ghost of her daughter climbing the woven twisted branches of the climbing roses Satoshi had made, their thorns soft and pliable, making them safe for the girl who had never once stopped to question the plants she was always surrounded by.

 

Her brow furrowed as she looked at the silent flat screen secured to the wall, the single splurge her mate had given into was quite possibly the reason they'd been found this time. Vanessa loved to watch Disney movies; Ferngully, Beauty and the Beast, and Moana being her favorites. Frozen, the story of Princess Elsa with a power she couldn't control, had been how Satoshi had taught Vanessa to hide her power, but in order to watch the films they'd had to set up an online account with a credit card attached for payment. The expression on Amaya's face fell into despair as she closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears, regret darkening her heart with the knowledge that in order to keep Vanessa safe, they would be forced to deny her the things she loved.

 

There were, of course, old tapes and discs of the movies that could be purchased, but those things were only available from online auction sites, and in order to view them, they would have to have an electric bill. And an electric bill was yet another way they could be tracked. She had done this, Amaya thought, her lips parting as her brow furrowed, her eyes closing in dismay. All she had wanted was for Vanessa to have a normal childhood, and Satoshi had granted her request, but in doing so she'd put them all in danger.

 

Turning away from the living room, Amaya released a deep slow breath as she opened her eyes, focused her thoughts on the family waiting for her. Her steps were slow as she moved down the hallway, a smile tugging her lips up at the corner, softening her eyes, as listened to the sound of her mate's voice, her daughter's quiet giggles. A soft dusting of coral rose to color her cheeks as she stepped into the open doorway of the bedroom she shared with her mate, their daughter sitting up in the middle of the giant bed with a few pillows tucked behind her back. Her father was seated on the left side of bed next to her, one leg resting on the bed, bent at the knee, and the other leg hooked over the ankle of his bent leg, his foot on the floor.

 

Vanessa had offered no protest a few hours earlier when her father had come into her bedroom and removed the large panel in the floor that revealed a patch of frozen earth below. The girl hadn't even been surprised. Instead, Amaya had watched as Vanessa had climbed into her father's lap, offering him her power even as she refused to grow the earth on her own. Amaya had stood silently by, stretching her youki out to her mate as she offered him her power as well, watching as Satoshi returned the room to nature, thick vines and roots climbing up from the ground below to cover the walls and break through the windows only to seal them shut once more.

 

Bowing her head as she looked down at the floor, Amaya tipped her head to the side as she caught sight of the terracotta pot sitting on the floor by her mate's foot. He was going to try again, she thought as she smiled sadly, nodding to herself as she watched him reach down to grasp the pot, following it as she looked up. It struck her once more, as she watched them, just how much Vanessa took after her father. Her daughter's glossy dark mahogany hair - just like her father's - so brilliant it shined in the low light of the lamp beside the bed, was woven through with ribbons of cherry red and burnt honey, and curled ever so slightly in the most delicate loose waves. Vanessa's heart-shaped crimson mouth opened in a round `oh' as she gasped, meadow grass eyes shining like jewels with her excitement, a light dusting of rose coloring her porcelain cheeks as she studied the pot of earth her father held.

 

Amaya's smile widened as Satoshi leaned back slightly, the tight braid he kept his hair held in moving away from his back, and for the briefest second, she was able to see inside the collar of shirt to glimpse the top of the crest he kept hidden. Blinking slowly, her arctic eyes focused on the jagged lines seated at the top curve of his back, the slate blue marks against his alabaster skin - the same color as the twin slashes across the backs of his hands - looked like a mountain cut in half down the middle. His mark had been different from his father's, different even from his mother's, he'd told her, and it had been the shape and color of his crest that had set him apart from the rest of his family.

 

`The river between the mountains,' she thought, recalling her mate's words from so long ago.

 

“I know you like watching me create the vines, the flowers and the trees when I tell you bedtime stories,” Satoshi said as he held out the pot to Vanessa, and Amaya leaned to the side just enough to watch as her daughter lifted a hesitant hand, taking the planter from him only when her father made it clear that he wouldn't let her refuse him. “It's time for you to grow things again. You cannot deny your power forever, my child. What happened with the rabbits was tragic and upsetting, but you need to learn from it, not run from it.”

 

“I don't want to hurt anything,” Vanessa said, her voice so soft Amaya barely heard it as she stepped forward, moving to sit on the right side of the bed, their daughter nestled between she and her mate.

 

“Put your fingertips on the soil, Vanessa,” her father instructed. “Close your eyes and tell me what you feel.”

 

Amaya nodded when Vanessa looked up to meet her gaze, presumably to look for a way out, but she agreed with Satoshi, it was time. Vanessa's eyes darkened with hesitation and worry, her lips parting as she took in a deep breath before she bit her lip and let her eyes fall closed. Amaya looked up at her mate, studying the expression on his face as he turned to meet her gaze, a cautious hopeful smile warming his eyes.

 

“I feel . . . “ Vanessa paused, a frown drawing her brows together, her eyes remaining closed as Amaya and Satoshi turned their attention back to her. “. . . Vibrations?” she said with confusion, opening her eyes as she looked at her father. “I don't understand.”

 

“What is in there is a living thing, a part of the earth itself,” Satoshi told her, and Amaya smiled softly as she watched them. “Try to pull the vibration toward you.”

 

Vanessa's brow furrowed deeply as she looked down at the dark soil in the earthen pot. Amaya could feel her daughter's youki unfurling from around her to wrap around the stone container in her hand. Her lips pulled up in wonder as she focused on the feel of her daughter's energy, the way it seemed to be winding around the pot only to push up from the bottom of it slowly at first, and then more forcefully as she gained confidence.

 

Vanessa gasped, and Amaya felt her daughter's youki fall away to curl back in around the child once more, the power coiling tighter around her until it was barely a ghost of its former self. “It's a worm,” the girl said as she tipped her head. “But I don't understand. How come I can move it, but I can't move other things?”

 

“Because you didn't move the worm, daughter of mine,” Satoshi told her with a proud smile. “You moved the earth around it.” His shoulders moved as he took in a breath. “Try to move the worm higher,” he instructed.

 

Vanessa nodded as she closed her eyes, her youki unfurling once more to wrap around the pot, infusing the terracotta container and the soil within. Amaya watched curiously as the worm seemed to wrap itself in a small loop, tiny small tendrils holding the invertebrate in place as it was lifted higher. She shook her head as she watched a small nest of emerald vines form beneath the worm, rising on either side to cradle it as the creature was lifted out of the soil, a single perfect white blossom opening inside the circle made by the worm, the delicate scent of jasmine filling the air.

 

“That wasn't quite what I meant,” Satoshi said as Vanessa released her youki, pulling the power back in once more to coil around herself, “but it works. With each creature that makes its home inside the earth: the foxes in their dens, and rabbits in their nests, to the chipmunks and squirrels in the hollowed homes they build in the trees, to the fawns nestled in the high grasses, you will feel their vibrations. The larger and stronger the creature, the more powerful the vibration.”

 

“Like the bear and the fat rabbit,” she proclaimed with a giggle, and he nodded. Vanessa frowned as she fell quiet, narrowing her eyes as she pressed her lips together as she thought over her father's words. “What about the darkness?” she asked, and Amaya frowned as she turned her gaze to Satoshi.

 

“The darkness?” her father repeated as he shook his head in question.

 

“When we were outside this morning,” Vanessa explained as she stared at the pot in her hands through a narrowed gaze. “It felt . . . dark, really dark, like . . . all the happiness was gone. It felt like it was watching me, but I wasn't afraid because you and Mama were with me.”

 

“If you ever feel anything like that again, Vanessa,” Satoshi warned her, “and your mother and I are not with you, you must run. Run as far and as fast as you can to get away from that. That . . . darkness . . . wants only to harm you, and you must never let it.”

 

“Can I stop it?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya shook her head as she blinked back the tears that stung at her eyes.

 

“No,” Amaya said, drawing her daughter's attention. “Don't ever try to fight it. It will hurt you. You must always run from it. Do you understand?”

 

Vanessa nodded, her eyes wide. “Good girl,” her father praised. “Now,” he said, and tapped his claw against the terracotta pot the girl still held. He smiled when she handed the pot back to him. “Worms are as much a part of the earth as the soil itself. They are born within it, consume it for the food they eat, and even create it when they - “

 

“Poop!” the girl exclaimed with a wide smile and giggled.

 

“Yes,” Satoshi agreed with dry humor as Amaya laughed. “Which is why their vibrations will always be the hardest to feel, and why returning them to the earth is not truly killing them. They will be reborn into the flowers you create, the trees you grow, the blades of grass that push up from the soil in spring.” Satoshi smoothed his fingertips over the outside of the pot as he glanced at it and then his daughter. “This pot, we can push our power through it because it is made of the earth. It has been hardened by fire, by heat, but it still remains a part of the earth,” he told them as he closed his eyes. “Glass and wood work the same. Plastic, metal, vinyl, even most rubber - considering how much it's been processed - will always make you feel separate, detached from the earth inside of it.”

 

“That's why you always cut holes in the floors?” Vanessa asked, and Satoshi smiled as he nodded.

 

A gentle smile brightened Amaya's expression, her eyes softening as she watched Satoshi focus his youki into his hands, and then into the potted soil. Tendrils of green, barely wider than strands of hair and curled into tight spirals, came up from the soil, growing around the tiny nest the worm was in and creating a small cave over top of it, the stalks growing thicker and darker as the spirals slowly unfurled. The thin tips at the tops grew larger, widened and became bulbous, the dark green splitting as it flared out to the sides.

 

Amaya smiled at the sound of their daughter's gasp, her pale blue gaze flicking to Vanessa for just a brief moment, before turning back to watch as the bulb opened wide, revealing the bright white cloud of tiny petals standing together. Her lips parted as her smile grew wider, her hand lifting of its own accord to cover her mouth, and for just a moment, she forgot that her daughter was there between them, the sight of the flower casting her back in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Did your daddy teach you that?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya blinked as the memory dissipated around her like so much fog.

 

“No,” Satoshi denied softly, and met his daughter's gaze. “My father was never able to grow the earth as we can. He . . . preferred destruction,” he said as he handed the flower to his daughter. “I taught myself how to do this, how to create.” He offered a smiling pout as he turned his head, met Amaya's gaze as she smiled, a blush rising to her cheeks. “But that story is for another time. I have it on good authority though, that your mother has a very special birthday present to give you this year.”

 

Vanessa gasped as she turned her wide eyes on her mother. “You do?” she asked.

 

Amaya nodded quietly, her eyes brightening at the way her daughter's youki wrapped around her, the gentle tugs that spoke of her excitement, her desire to know more. “I do,” she confirmed. “Today, you turned five years old,” she reminded Vanessa, as she turned to lie back on the pillows beside her daughter, and wrapped her arm around the girl's small body when she curled close to pillow her head on her shoulder. “In my family's tradition, I will begin to tell you a story. Once a year, on your birthday, I will tell you more about the story, and you will get to ask one question.”

 

“Why only one question?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya lifted her gaze to meet her mate's eyes as she chuckled.

 

“Because this is a story that is meant to last a lifetime, my daughter. Too much cannot be revealed at once. It will never truly be finished, but someday, when you have a child of your own, you will tell this story to them. It will grow longer as you add your own story to it, but the first part - the story that I tell you - will always remain.” She looked down when she felt her daughter snuggle closer, and kissed her hair.

 

“When will your part of the story be finished?” Vanessa asked as she turned her head to look up at her mother.

 

“After many years,” she answered, and tugged her fingers through the ends of her daughter's hair, playing with the baby-soft strands. “The story my mother told me did not come to a close until I was twenty-six,” she revealed, and chuckled softly. “By that time, the original story had grown much longer. You see I was the youngest of ten children. With each child, more is added to the story and it grows longer.”

 

“It does?” her daughter asked, her little hands pressing against Amaya's stomach and the bed beside her as she turned and pushed herself up to see her mother's face.

 

“It does,” Amaya nodded, smiling as she wrapped her youki around Vanessa, using the energy to encourage her to come closer. “Come now, lie back down and I will begin.”

 

Vanessa scrambled to lie down next to her once more and Amaya chuckled softly as she kissed her daughter's hair, the sound of her amusement tinged with something just a little darker, a little sadder, as she realized that these moments would be coming to a close almost as soon as they had begun. It wouldn't be much longer before Vanessa would be too big to cuddle against her, perhaps too old to want to lay together as they were now. And perhaps, it cut her more deeply because her daughter took after her father - a youkai of earth and water. She couldn't share the story with Vanessa the way her own mother had shared it with her.

 

She would never be able to open her mind to Vanessa, to share her thoughts and memories and emotions through the bond that existed between Kujira - between Shachi. Only when Vanessa was an infant, had she been able to share her mind with her child, feel what she felt, and even hear the whispers of her youkai-voice. She had known instinctively when Vanessa was hungry, or thirsty, or lonely without the child ever once having to cry to gain her attention. But as the months had turned into years, and her daughter grew older, the connection had faded, leaving nothing behind but ghosts of a bond she once knew. And when Vanessa had turned three, the telepathic bond had been lost completely, leaving behind only a faded mockery of the once strong mental connection in the braided bond of the youki she had shared between herself and her mate - and now her child.

 

Amaya closed her eyes as she forced the dark thoughts back, pushing them away as she swallowed the melancholy that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Her daughter wouldn't understand her sadness, and her mate? The things she had told him in an effort to make him understand something that truly couldn't be understood, but only experienced . . . for him to know how much it pained her to be without that connection . . . he would believe she regretted him, and that was the last thing she wanted.

 

`You can still speak with both your mate and child through your youki. It may not be the same, but it's more than most ever have,' her youkai-voice reminded her, and Amaya offered a mental nod in reply. `No other marine or aquatic youkai have the telepathy of Kujira, because no other youkai actively chooses to remain in their youkai forms throughout their entire lives as Kujira do. Even the kurage - the jellyfish youkai - they live on land, rarely ever taking their youkai form. You gave up a lot when you left the ocean, Amaya, but you gained so much more. Never forget that.'

 

Amaya nodded once as she took in a breath to speak. “This story begins so long ago, across the great waves of history, stretching beyond empires that rose and fell, under the leadership of names you'll learn, and others you'll never know” she began, proud of how steady her voice was even as she felt choked by the darkness of her own emotions. “In the deepest, coldest waters that surround Japan, there lived a princess.”

 

“A princess?” Vanessa asked as she twisted her mother's hair around her fingers, a confused pout coloring her words. “How can a princess live in the water?”

 

Amaya chuckled softly. “Listen, dear one, and you will learn.” Taking in a deep breath, she released the air, blinking a few times to steady her mind before she continued. “She was known as Chiyokohime, though it was not her true name. You see, the princess was the tenth daughter of the thousandth generation, the purest bloodline stretching all the way back to the beginning - to the first mother. It was believed that when she came to the age of maturity, she would hold all the power inside her that had been spread across her family. She would be the strongest of her pod, and would lead them into a new generation, guide them down a new path.”

 

She could feel the warmth of her mate's gaze on her, the heaviness of his attention as he listened to the story she told her daughter. She never had been able to speak to him of her family before, of the expectations set before her. He was listening to her now, the fascination in his youki softening the edges of the turmoil that remained within her, soothing the ache that never truly went away.

 

“Chiyokohime was Kujira - shachi,” she clarified, and grinned at the question she knew would be coming.

 

“You're shachi, aren't you, Mama?” Vanessa asked as she turned her head to look up at her, and Amaya smiled as she bent her head to kiss her daughter's brow.

 

“I am,” she affirmed, and tapped her daughter's shoulder with her fingertips, encouraging her to lie down once more. “Kujira are different from all other youkai, even from other aquatic youkai.”

 

Amaya fell silent as she braced herself, a sad smile tipping her lips unsteadily when she felt the brush of Satoshi's youki against hers, his effort to soother her, to offer her his strength both comforting and damning. The things she'd never been willing to talk about with him, she was now telling their daughter, and though pieces of the fairytale might sound innocent to her daughter, she knew her mate would understand their true implications, and she feared what he would think of her when it was all said and done.

 

“You see, Kujira live their lives in the ocean. They are taught how to take a humanoid form, yes, but very rarely ever take it. For a Kujira, male or female, to choose to live on land, they are rejected by their pod. If they ever choose to return to the sea, they return alone. They may swim with their animal cousins, but they will never know the connection of their own family again.”

 

“Amaya,” Satoshi whispered, his brows furrowed, his lips parted as he stared at her through wide eyes.

 

She shook her head to forestall whatever her mate wanted to say. “The Queen, Chiyokohime's mother, she commanded the pod. It was her decision who mated, and who they were mated to. She decided where they hunted, where they called home. She decided when a new pod was formed apart from her own, she was even the one who decided when new life was brought into the pod. If new life was created without the Queen's approval,” she said, and paused as she swallowed back the lump in her throat before taking a deep breath to continue the story, “the calves would be taken away by the Queen, and sent to live on land.”

 

“Beached?” her mate whispered, his voice harsh, but only loud enough for her to hear, and she nodded.

 

“Chiyokohime didn't understand why some calves would be sent away and others wouldn't. The princess was curious, always wanting to know more, always wanting to explore, always so very curious about the beings she would see walking on land.”

 

“Like Ariel?” Vanessa interrupted her, and Amaya offered a harsh sound, not quite a laugh.

 

“I . . . I guess so,” she allowed, and blinked as she considered the reference her daughter had made to the classic Disney cartoon. “How does the line of that song go, Nessa?”

 

Vanessa giggled as she took in a deep breath. “Bright young women,” she sang in her bell-toned voice. “Sick of swimmin'. Ready to stand!”

 

Amaya closed her eyes as she took in a deep breath, the feel of her mate's youki grating against hers. As much as he was trying to comfort her, he had too many questions, was too upset by the few dark things he understood, the same things that their daughter was too young to grasp. Folding her lips in over her teeth, she steadied herself and blinking rapidly when she felt the sting of tears. She hadn't wanted Satoshi to learn any of this, had she? She had wanted him to believe in the beauty of hope. Turning her head, Amaya kissed her daughter's temple, her breath stirring the girl's hair.

 

“Mama's a little more tired tonight than she thought,” she told the girl tucked against her side. “You get one question with each time I tell you the story, but since I'm cutting it short tonight, I'll allow you two questions.”

 

Vanessa bit her lip as she rolled closer and folded her arms over her mother's stomach as she rested her chin on her hands. Her little mouth twisted to the side as she thought about what she wanted to ask, and Amaya released a breath of amusement when the girl narrowed her eyes. She looked just like her father when he was trying to sort out a difficult problem, Amaya thought.

 

“How old was Chiyokohime when she first learned how to take her human form and stepped on land?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya sighed.

 

Technically, that was only one question, she mused. “Chiyokohime, like all the members of her pod, was taught to take her humanoid form when she was two decades old. They were taught to take this form - a humanoid form - in the middle of the sea as a lesson. It was to teach them that they can only live in their true forms in the water, and that their other form is not meant for the water. But as for land, Chiyokohime did not step on land for the first time until she turned one hundred years old.”

 

Vanessa's little nose scrunched up as she gave the new information thought, her eyes narrowing to slits as she thought about what she wanted to ask next. “Why do the Kujira not live on land?”

 

Amaya tapped the end of her daughter's button nose with the tip of her index finger. “I will tell you what Chiyokohime's mother told her,” she offered, and blinked slowly as she met her daughter's gaze. “Kujira are the most powerful of all the youkai, and if they were to live on land, their power would be too much for their humanoid forms.”

 

She watched as her daughter's eyes widened in surprise and wonder, her cheeks pinking as her delight grew. The story that had been meant to inspire her dreams, had instead left the child too intrigued to sleep.

 

“All right you,” Satoshi said as he reached for their daughter, and lifted her up to hug her tight. “It's time for bed.”

 

“But I wanna know more about Chiyokohime!” she protested, and he shook his head.

 

“She's a story monster,” he proclaimed as he met Amaya's gaze.

 

“You want Papa to sing to you?” Amaya asked as she stood from the bed.

 

“Little Mermaid?” Vanessa asked happily as she clapped her hands, staring at her father with wide eyes.

 

“I am not singing Little Mermaid,” he protested, and Amaya laughed as she moved to the doorway. “Damnit,” he said when she winked at him as she stepped out of the room. “Can I be the Prince this time?” she heard him ask, and laughed outright when her daughter denied his request, insisting that he sang Ariel's parts much better.

 

Amaya stepped into the kitchen, welcoming the silence that surrounded her as the silver threads of moonlight filtered in through the tree outside the window to fall in haphazard designs on the wooden floor. Her eyes softened as she studied the glossy dark green leaves, turned black by the night outside, and the flowers that were a little smaller, a little pinker, a little more elegant than they should be for a magnolia tree. Turning to lift the tempered glass teapot from the stove, she carried it to the sink as she opened the top and turned on the tap, rinsing out the carafe before filling it once more with fresh water.

 

Satoshi had created that tree the night of Vanessa's fourth birthday, she recalled as her eyes drifted back to the window and the tree that stood outside. As large as a hundred-year-old magnolia, but hybrid with a Sakura tree, the sight of it never ceased to bring her a sense of comfort and peace so deep that, at times, it had the power to take her breath away.

 

“Ness is finally down. She's spread out in the middle of our bed like a starfish,” Satoshi announced as he stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind as he let his chin fall to her shoulder. “Unless you're secretly a fire youkai, you might want to put that pot of water on the stove,” he teased her as he let his arms fall from around her, stepping away as Amaya scrunched her nose at him before she set the teapot down on the wrought iron grating surrounding the gas burner.

 

“You have questions,” Amaya said, her voice devoid of emotion as she turned the dial.

 

She listened to the soft clicks that sounded seconds before the flame burst to life, and adjusted the temperature before moving to sit in the padded rocking chair. Satoshi didn't speak as he stepped toward her, moving the footrest out from the rocking chair, and sat down on it to face her. He nodded once as he reached for her hands and she closed her eyes as she took hold of him, her fingers curling around his in a desperate grip. She sniffled as a choked sound broke from her, her lips trembling when Satoshi cupped her cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing against the rise of her cheekbone.

 

“You never would tell me what your family was like,” he reminded her gently as she opened her eyes to meet his gaze. “This is why?” he asked, and she nodded.

 

“When I was young, I didn't understand. My older sister used to tell me that mother was giving away the children to families who couldn't have them, and I believed her,” she said as she shook her head. “I actually believed that lie . . . for so long.”

 

“Maybe you wanted to believe it,” he soothed her. “What made you see things differently?”

 

“Do you remember how we met?” she asked him, and he smiled as he nodded.

 

“I built you the fern cover,” he said, and the smile that bent her lips was bittersweet.

 

“The next morning, when I left, you were still sleeping. I wanted to take you with me, to let you see me in my youkai form, but you looked so peaceful I couldn't bear to wake you,” she recalled as she nuzzled her cheek against his palm, and lifted her hand to wrap her fingers around his wrist as she took the comfort he offered her. “When I walked to the edge of the cliff overhanging the ocean, I watched as my mother beached a calf, and I watched it die. The poor thing was bleeding, and crying in pain. She must have tossed it around before bringing it die on land. I was so angry, so . . . furious . . . and when I tried to do what she said we could, tried to use my youki on my own to heal it . . . “ She fell silent as she scoffed and turned her head, her vision wavering as her eyes filled with tears. “We have no power on our own,” Amaya said as she looked back at her mate. “I could only feel my youki, but it was like reaching for it through a dream. I couldn't focus it at all. Everything she told us was a lie. All the stories, all the promises of power . . . everything. It was all a lie,” she repeated brokenly. “We can share our power to strengthen another, as I do with you, but alone?”

 

“Did you have power in the water, in your youkai form?” he asked her, and Amaya nodded only to shake her head as she shrugged miserably.

 

“In the pod, everything is shared. Our power is never used individually by itself, and if there is a way to do so, she never taught us how. We were never trained to use it, to access it on our own without another there to guide us. I can use my youki to speak with you and Nessa, communicate as I've taught you, as our daughter was born knowing, but anything else? I'm basically a human with claws,” she told him, her voice trembling.

 

“I don't think that's true,” he told her with a thoughtful frown as he reached for her, moved her to sit on his lap as he tucked her head against his shoulder. “All youkai have power, it's just a matter of being trained to use it. You were never trained how to use it on your own, but I've watched you teach Vanessa how to use her power, how to hide and release her youki, how to move it through the ground or push it into something else. The power I've felt from you when you share your youki with me, when you strengthen me, it's incredible. You can't do that on your own?” he asked, and she shook her head as she curled closer.

 

“It's not the same,” she denied him with a sigh. “When I try to do things like that alone, it . . . it's like trying to breathe through smoke.”

 

“Then I'll teach you,” he offered, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “We'll practice together until you grow stronger.”

 

“You think it's possible?” she asked softly, the vulnerability she felt showing in her eyes.

 

He nodded as he smiled softly. “I think so,” he soothed her. “Amaya, every time you've shared your power with me, I've felt how incredibly strong you are, you just lack the training to know how to use it on your own. It's just like our first year together when I taught you how to run with me, how to leap into the trees and race across rooftops and the canopy of the forest. You weren't able to do any of that very well at first because you weren't used to living on land, but after time you became stronger, and now, you're even faster than I am. Just like running, and dodging, and leaping, focusing your youki for creating barriers, or to defend or attack, is just a skill that has to be taught. Besides, what about the part of the story where Chiyokohime obtains her generational power at her coming of age? You said yourself that you were just over one hundred when we met. Certainly, you had your power by then?” he asked, and Amaya tipped her head in confusion as she frowned.

 

“Kujira don't reach their age of maturity until the middle of their ninth century,” she told him, and watched his eyes widen. “It's different for us in the ocean. Time has no meaning when you live in the water.”

 

“Nine hundred . . . Wait - nine hundred fifty?” he asked with disbelief, and she nodded. “But that would have meant your nine hundred-fiftieth birthday was . . . “

 

“The night I got pregnant with Vanessa,” she finished his thought with a nod.

 

“Well, that explains a few things,” he said, and nodded toward the stove. “Your water's boiling.”

 

He chuckled when she glanced at the stove only to snuggle against him once more. “I'm comfortable,” she told him, and smiled when he laughed.

 

“Yes, but who's going to make the tea?” he returned, and she sighed as she closed her eyes, tucking her brow into the curve of his throat.

 

“Can't you enchant a broom to do that?” she mused, and bounced when laughed heartily.

 

“I'm an earth youkai, Amaya, not Mickey Mouse, the Sorcerer's Apprentice!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Thank you,” Satoshi said as he handed back the electronic signature tablet to the courier, and accepted the two-inch-thick manila document mailer.

 

The package was heavy, the folder itself made out of paper so thick, so refined, that it almost felt like well sanded wood. It had been passed around a bit, he thought as he turned the mailer over to see the back, and closed the front door absently behind him. The closure itself was simple, just a string wrapped around a round red plastic button. Beside the button were three different wax seals that had once held the string securely, and a fourth that was unbroken, the cotton thread held in place beneath.

 

The oldest seal was the most brittle, and his brows furrowed as he gently pushed the pliable wax into place to see it clearly, only to fall heavily to sit on the couch behind him. It had been close to six hundred years since the last time he had seen that seal - his father's crest - embossed in the oat-colored wax, his father's ceremonial color. Rubbing his hand down over his face, Satoshi studied the broken seal. The wax had dried, but was still pliable, and he knew that the seal itself was less than a month old. None of it made sense to him, as far as he knew, his father had been killed shortly after he'd left to be with Amaya.

 

“Your daughter just discovered that she can make that chair you cut from the fallen tree grow,” his mate said as she stepped into the room, though he was nearly deaf to her words. “Satoshi?” she called to him when he failed to respond. “What is it?” she asked when he looked up at her with wide eyes.

 

“It's my father's seal,” he said breathlessly, his fingertips smoothing over the broken wax as he stared at it through wide eyes.

 

“Your father?” she repeated slowly. “But I thought . . .”

 

“So, did I,” he said as he looked back up to meet her gaze. “The wax is still malleable . . . the seal . . . it's less than a month old.”

 

“How is that possible?” Amaya asked stunned as she sat beside him. “You received notice of his death almost two hundred years ago, gained control of his accounts. We were told it had taken them centuries to find you. How could he still have been alive all this time?”

 

“I don't know,” he replied as he shook his head. “Unless he was one of the ones hunting us.”

 

“Who are these from?” she asked as she pointed to the other two broken seals.

 

“That one,” he said as he touched the edge of a silver splotch of wax, the seal unfamiliar, but exceedingly formal, “I don't know. From the looks of it though,” he said as he studied the old-style weights, “I would assume it's a lawyer's office.”

 

“This one,” Amaya said as she touched the third broken seal, “isn't that the office of the Japanese Tai Youkai?” she asked, and he nodded as he studied the markings.

 

“It is,” he confirmed, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at the unbroken seal, the string held beneath the wax. “This one is the office I've been working through here in Missoula, to get our papers.”

 

“Satoshi,” Amaya called to him, and he turned to meet her gaze, his brows raised in question. “The car's already packed, I made sure of that last night before I joined you and Vanessa. We're ready to leave now,” she told him, and he nodded silently. “How did they find us this time?”

 

His lips flattened into a straight line as he released a breath through his nose. “A man - youkai - came into our offices. A transfer from London he said,” he told her, and she nodded slowly as her gaze slipped to the side. “He recognized me - or rather recognized that I'm not a true earth youkai. He started asking questions, started talking about the old stories. I should have just used my power to make him think I was pure earth youkai, but I didn't.”

 

“What did you do?” she asked, watching him through narrowed eyes.

 

“Tried to ignore him, changed the subject any time he started asking questions. I guess that tipped him off. He seemed almost . . . giddy . . . and started saying he'd found the `Blended One'. He knew what I was, knew what you are, and what each of us are to our families. You are to have all of the power of your family stretching back across generations, Amaya, and you're the only Kujira living on land. You're as rare as they get. And I . . .”

 

He fell silent as he looked down, taking in a deep breath as he felt his mate's youki wrap around him, braiding with his, as she hadn't done since he'd put up the barrier around their house three days ago, to offer him comfort . . . offering him strength. He nodded to himself as he looked up to meet her gaze once more, knowing he had no other choice but to reveal the truth to her now, one he'd wished he would never have to share.

 

“Despite the ravings of my father, and the vile things he did, whether anyone else knows of them or not,” he said, sighing heavily as he pulled on the string, breaking the seal, and unwound the tie to open the mailer. “According to all the documentation my father created regarding me, I was the first-born son to a tenth-generation pureblood earth youkai father and a mother who was seventh generation pureblood river youkai, conceived during a meteor shower and given birth to under an eclipse.” He met her confused frown with a scoff and shook his head. “The only factual thing in the birth documents he created for me is the meteor shower. I am stronger than anyone else in my family - and able to do things other earth youkai can't. It's not normal for earth youkai to grow plants as we do, Amaya. That only comes from being able to command earth and water as one.”

 

“What do they want with you?” she asked, and pressed his lips together. She narrowed her eyes as she studied him. “According to the documentation?” she repeated with a frown.

 

“I am of my father's blood, but I am not his son,” he answered her, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “My father's mate is not my mother, she does not hold any blood relation to me at all.”

 

“I don't understand,” she denied, shaking her head.

 

“Someday, once I've finished writing everything down in that book of ours, you will read it and understand . . . And I pray you don't hate me for it . . . As for what they want with me . . . If I were mad enough, aisuru,” he said as he met her gaze. “I could crumble a mountain, or part the earth.”

 

“All earth youkai can make earthqua - “

 

“No,” he interrupted her. “I could part the earth. Not a quake, not something that can be repaired. Parted. Irreparably.” He studied her in silence as his gaze faltered as regret filled his heart. “Los Angeles,” he said simply. “What happened there was a . . . timid . . . example of what I could truly do.”

 

“L.A.?” she asked as she shook her head in confusion. “We haven't been in L.A. for almost twenty years,” she reminded him. “There was an earthquake the day we . . . left . . . Oh n-no,” she denied as she shook her head, the color draining from her face.

 

“They were threatening you. They had kidnapped you,” he told her, his voice choked. “No matter how far we ran, they were still there. I didn't have another choice.”

 

“All those people,” she cried as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “Satoshi . . . “

 

“It was your life or theirs,” he told her as he exhaled, the sound remorseful. “If it happened again . . . if we were in danger like that again . . . I know the cost, Amaya, but I wouldn't hesitate. Not if it meant your life or Vanessa's.”

 

“And if the Zelig finds out? Satoshi! You would be hunted!” she hissed.

 

“I know, and I am prepared to pay that price,” he admitted, and he held her gaze, his calmness upsetting her further. “I never wanted the innocent to be harmed. All I ever wanted was to save you, and I did. The ones who were hunting us back then are dead,” he reminded her. “There's no one to tell the Zelig.”

 

“And if it happens again?” she demanded, glancing back over her shoulder to make certain their daughter wasn't close enough to hear them.

 

“It won't,” he bit out as he stood from the couch. “I hated doing that. Do you know what it takes to destroy like that?” he snarled as the memories flooded his mind.

 

“Anger -“

 

“Hate,” he corrected her, and watched as her brows furrowed, as she shook her head. “Pure. Unadulterated. Hate. That feeling? It's darkness, and rage, and a will - an almost . . . desire - to take someone's life. It's wanting to feel them suffer, wanting to feel their terror, and rejoicing in it,” he told her as he shook his head and turned away from her. “I never want to feel that way again. If it had been up to my father, he would have nurtured that feeling in me, used me as a weapon. And believe me, Amaya, he tried like hell to turn me into one.”

 

“What does that mean?” she asked him, and he shook his head, his eyes fierce.

 

“It means that my father tried to make me mean, any way he could, but I was strong enough to resist,” he told her, and swallowed his emotions as he quickly pasted on bright smile. “Hey, Vanessa,” he greeted as he crouched down. “What's wrong, baby?” he asked, wincing at the strangled feeling of her youki, seeing her frown and the fear in her eyes, watching as she glanced around the room at the windows and doors.

 

“It's dark outside, Papa. All around. I was playing when I felt it, and . . .” She held up the plant in her hands, the roots free from soil, the leaves and round berries pristine.

 

“Baby, who taught you to make this?” he asked her, struggling to keep the hard edge out of his voice as he stared at the poisonous plant.

 

“The man outside,” she told him hesitantly, her chin trembling as she looked at the plant in her hand. “He said it was a test, but I don't like it. He was dark and scary, but I couldn't feel it until he was too close to run away. He kept his face hidden, but I know him, and I don't like him,” she professed, her voice trembling.

 

“You know him?” Satoshi repeated as he studied her, wrapped his youki around her when he felt her reach out to him. It felt as though she were trying to hide against him, her youki burrowing into his own. “How do you know him?”

 

“He's in my dreams, when my hands hurt,” she offered up the explanation, and he shook his head in confusion. “He said you would be proud of me, but I didn't run away like you told me to. I didn't want to grow it, but he wouldn't let me go until I did.”

 

“Where is the man?” he asked her, cupping her cheek in his hand as he tried his best to soothe her upset.

 

“He said he would wait for you by the river, but I don't want you to go. It's dark outside,” she said again, and he knew she was referring to the feel of other youkai auras and not the sky itself.

 

“Vanessa,” he said, and frowned when she nodded.

 

“Mama and I already packed for an adventure, we're ready,” she told him, and he nodded quietly as he pushed up from the floor.

 

“Get Vanessa in the car and drive, I'll be with you as soon as I can,” he commanded Amaya, tucking the thick mailer and papers into a messenger bag and slipped it over her shoulder. Amaya nodded once before lifting their daughter in her arms and turning on her heel, her shoes clicking against the floor as she ran for the garage. “I was not my father's weapon,” he said as he sank his claws in between the slats of the hardwood floor and pried up the boards until he had created a hole big enough to stand inside. “And my daughter will not be yours,” he proclaimed as he closed his eyes, dug his claws into his hands until his blood ran free to drip onto the earth below his feet and gathered his youki.

 

The earth beneath his feet trembled as roots sprouted from the almost-frozen packed dirt, surrounding him in greens and browns. The television shattered as it fell to the floor, an oak tree erupting through the floor beneath the stand it sat upon as flowering vines climbed the walls. Wood flooring became nothing but splinters and broken edges as it was swallowed by shoots of bamboo, sunflowers and evergreens. He heard his mate's voice calling out to him as a magnolia tree over took the kitchen, and a weeping fir tree burst through the wall to his left, the sound of tires growling against gravel alerting him that his mate had pulled out into the packed dirt road outside the house only seconds before the bedrooms and garage had been demolished by the conifers that only grew taller.

 

Satoshi stayed where he was, maintaining his balance as the roots of the oak tree in the center of the living room grew larger around than he was, emerging from the earth beneath his feet. Wood creaked and groaned, drywall breaking and crumbling as the trees grew taller and wider until the house his family had known for the past two years had been consumed by nature itself, and returned to the dense forest that surrounded it. He dropped his hands as he released his youki, the self-inflicted wounds already closed, as he fought against his own exhaustion, springing from tree to tree, following the car his mate drove. He waited for her to reach the stop sign at the end of the road before dropping to the ground by the front passenger side door, and slipped quickly inside the vehicle.

 

He closed his eyes as he buckled the seatbelt across his body, feeling the oppressive weight of his depleted youki and knew it wouldn't be long before he lost consciousness. “Drive,” he commanded Amaya. “Just keep driving, and don't stop unless you absolutely have to,” he told her, his eyes blurring as the darkness clouding the edges of his vision claimed him mercilessly.