Earth

Isaac

Silence. It presses in on me, and I gasp, eyes wide. It is a dark time, just before dawn, and the start of another day of night. A paradox, that day of night, and I’m thinking about the things that never made sense after my dad…

My dad. Where is he now? Where is he now? Where is he now? Where is he now? Where, where, where? Voice inflections change the way we speak… so much… and he always spoke to me, kind and caring, he was so wonderful as a father…

Father. Mother. Jenna lost them both. And so have I. Well, under my definition of lost, anyway. Definition, inflection… connection. Connection is how… no, it’s why we connected even more. Jenna and me. No, Jenna and I. Garet could never understand. Never understand.

Father understood me. Understood me more, more than any other. Now there is nobody, nobody at all to understand me. Nobody to help me or train me. He promised he’d teach me psynergy, but now… who will teach me? Train me. Who will train me?

Mother will not train me, mother cannot train me when she is home all day, all locked up, all day. All day should be my training, then – no, I should train all day. Train all night – day. Day. By myself? I’m all by myself.

Yes, by myself, I can train every day. I have Garet and Jenna, but not all the time. I can train by myself. Hard, hard training, because I will push myself.

It’ll be hard, very hard, and I’ll make it hard. I told dad, told him, to help me, and he said he would. I’m sure he’d be proud if I can do this, train hard by myself. Push myself and learn to fight and protect. Protect. Protect myself, protect my dad, my mom… My home.

Protect, I will learn to protect, learn to protect by training hard and push myself... Push. Pushing. I will start with pushing, no moving, in my psynergy. I will start with “Move” the one father mentioned. He said if I mastered it, I could do many things, so many things. And learn more and more. I will move, train, one step at a time and make him proud.

I will make my father proud, my father who is still with me, though he’s gone. He watches me in my mind, and I shall make him proud. I will not sigh anymore and waste my days in lethargy, staring at the wall. I have made up my mind, to train my mind.

Silence. It presses on me still, but now, now. Now. Now it’s not so bad... And now… the silence isn’t so stifling anymore. And maybe next dawn will be… grey, not dark as night, and a shadow of light will fall on the world…

Takeru

“Takeru, dear, time to come in!” a motherly voice called as Takeru turned his head.

“Aw, mom, can I have another few minutes? Aunt Uzume was just telling me about the pet she had before.” Six year old Takeru yelled back, before focusing on his aunt and the dancing doll she held in her hands.

“Fine, but your supper will be cold!” Kushinada threatened, before resuming setting the table.

Uzume smiled and told Takeru about the remarkable pet and how she acquired the dancing doll. “Those travelers had the dancing doll, so I traded my pet for it.”

Takeru wrinkled his nose and said, “But the pet seems better, I mean, it’s more useful right? What can we use a doll for?

Uzume smiled softly and told him, “That is a story for another time, dear.” She looked around the little boy to where Susa leaned in the shadows, watching his son get a little inkling of the past.

He emerged now, and watched Takeru smile in delight and run forwards, crying, “Daddy, daddy!” Susa smiled and picked his little boy up.

“Let’s go in to supper, shall we? Your mother will be mad if we delay.” He added, smiling and carrying him inside.

Confused, Takeru looked at his father’s smiling face. “Daddy, what does dell-ay mean?”

Behind them, Uzume laughed as she followed them in. “It means holding somebody or something back, being late, or longer than we should.” She tried to explain, though the boy only looked marginally less confused.

Then he shrugged and smiled. “Okay Auntie Uzume!” he said as Susa set him down in the doorway. Ahead of both adults, Takeru ran in and cried, “Mommy, mommy, I’ll stop dell-aying you now!” Kushinada only laughed as her son bumped into her legs.

“Now now, Takeru. Go wash your hands before dinner.” The little boy nodded obediently and skipped to the sink, singing “Dell-ay dell-ay dell-ay!” the whole way.

~*~*~*~

All through dinner, Takeru questioned Uzume about her pet and its mannerisms, while alternately shoveling seafood and rice in his mouth, his new favourite word all but forgotten.

Finally annoyed, Susa told his son sternly, “Enough of this, Takeru. You may ask your questions tomorrow. For now, eat, and to bed with you after dinner. It’s getting late.”

A pout slid over Takeru’s face, but slipped off almost instantly when he saw his mother bring in a large sheet of cookies. When she noticed him watching hungrily, Kushinada told him, “One cookie and then you brush your teeth, but only if you eat your vegetables.” Pout back in place, Takeru pulled the plate of greens over and picked one out. “More than that.” Kushinada told him. “And you!” she added, gently slapping her husband’s hand away from the cookie sheet. Susa resembled a lost puppy, and Takeru was quick to point it out, laughing merrily while Uzume chuckled quietly. ((A/N: The slap thing seems more like Chaucha (sp?), Brigg’s wife, than Kushinada, but I hope this doesn’t really detract from her character.))

~*~*~*~

“One story? Pleeeeaaaaasssseee??” Please, mom? Just one?” Takeru begged, already changed into his drum-patterned pajamas. Kushinada sighed as those imploring eyes searched her face for an answer.

“Oh…Alright. Which one?” Kushinada asked, as she tucked her child in.

“Um… Auntie Uzume’s story. The one about the dancing doll. What’s it for?” Takeru asked his mother curiously, innocent face upturned.

“Well…” Kushinada hesitated, remembering how close she was to being a sacrifice, and the hectic events that ensued, Susa going off to battle the serpent and Felix and his friends saving them all. She had intended to tell Takeru the full story later, when he was older and would understand, but… ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give him an overview of things… a little bit of the true story… ’ Kushinada thought, and cleared her throat.

“Well, Takeru, once there was a great serpent on . He was an evil and cruel serpent, who hungered for human flesh. He was large and scary, and the whole of Izumo was afraid of him. In that cold, dark mountain, the very sun couldn’t get in, and the one key to that was the dancing doll your aunt Uzume now owns. It is rumored that there are many altars where that doll works its magic.

“Now, Aunt Uzume told you about the travelers, right?” Kushinada asked Takeru, and he nodded. “Do you know what they did?” when he shook his head no, Kushinada smiled. “Well, they slew the serpent. The great terror of Izumo was vanquished, and its shadow has never haunted us again. Some say that its body is still lying there, encased in time.”

When Kushinada finished, Takeru stared at her with wide eyes, before asking, “Mommy, what’s vanquished?”

Kushinada smiled tenderly and stroked Takeru’s face. “Defeated, Takeru. It means they defeated the serpent.”

“Oh. Okay. If it’s van-qui-shed, then we don’t have to worry, right?” Takeru asked, his face alight with fear.

“Of course not. Go to sleep, Takeru. Nothing will hurt you, ever.” Kushinada whispered, before kissing her son on the forehead and closing the door behind her. Takeru sighed, and turned over, falling asleep with images of the travelers and the serpent in mind.

~*~*~*~

Takeru smiled slightly as he slid down the hallway and changed, creeping past the moonlit windows and into the silence of the village. He went back and grabbed a cloak just in case, before sneaking by again, and running over the bridge, out into the world at last. He smiled again, more widely this time, and ran toward , which he’d visited once or twice before.

He found himself at the big gaping entrance and almost squealed with glee, before remembering dignified warriors such as those travelers didn’t do that. Reverently, Takeru walked inside slowly; relieved he hadn’t met any monsters anymore, though he didn’t really remember if there were any. Last time he’d come, he didn’t remember seeing them.

When he reached a little puzzle with stones, he smiled a real smile and got to work. Here was something he knew how to do, seeing as his father showed him so many ways to use his move psynergy, creating similar puzzles. “Move!”

Finished, Takeru went on and found himself in a room with a plant in the middle, an arrow pointing in the direction of an entrance. ‘That’s so easy! And mommy made it sound so scary too… ’ He followed the directions, hoping they’d point him right to where he wanted to go, and at long last found himself in a room full with jars and barrels.

“This looks like a storeroom…” He whispered, and descended the stairs to the flat area near the end, where he noticed some rays of light, and a strange stony thing illuminated by the light reflecting off of a few puddles around it. When Takeru drew closer, he almost ran away, realizing that here at last was the serpent his mother had told him about. He crept closer, tense and ready to jump back at any second until he stood by its head. Larger than him by many times, Takeru realized that this thing probably would’ve been able to swallow him whole, had it been alive.

With its eyes closed, it could’ve been alive, and Takeru was very afraid to go any closer. However, when he’d hidden in its unmoving shadow for a long while, and nothing happened, he began to feel a little braver. He stopped cowering and stood up as tall as his six-year old height would get, and put his hands on his hips. “This isn’t so bad.” He whispered to himself, and almost reached out a hand to touch it, but fear froze him. Trying to tell himself that it was dead and couldn’t hurt him anymore, Takeru composed himself and tried to stare the thing in its closed eye.

“You don’t scare me.” He told it bravely, thinking that the mysterious traveler may have done the very same after he had van-qui-shed the serpent, but then of course, brave men didn’t do that, did they? Takeru would have to ask his father. Susa would know.

About to turn away, Takeru froze. He thought he’d saw it move. “Tricks of the eye, or whatever Auntie Uzume said…” he told himself, but then he noted the air issuing from the serpent’s gigantic nostril. He hadn’t noticed how cold it was until then, and then it was as if he was encased in ice, because he could’ve sworn that the eye had opened a slit. Takeru shook his head and backed away slowly, just as the eye flashed open and it fixed him with a piercing blue pupil.

Sure he was frozen, Takeru was just about to pinch himself experimentally when the thing rose and lifted its head, letting out a feral roar that unfroze the little boy before him more than anything else. Letting his cold legs carry him as fast as they could, Takeru ran back toward the staircase, but the serpent was quicker, slapping his tail in front while he sent numerous pots flying. It roared again and Takeru found that he had regained the skill of speech, vocalizing himself in a scream that to his ears, almost drowned out the serpent as it descended upon him, a looming shadow in his downcast eyes, which seemed unable to shut in terror. Down, down it came, and how fearsome those teeth looked engraved in black, and how terrible its breath on him as it licked those chops, flecks of serpent – spit landing in his hair and cloak, as the creature prepared to eat him alive –

“Takeru, wake up! You’ve got a long day ahead of you, if you want to visit and see that serpent one day; you’ll have to start catching up on your training!” His mother’s voice broke through the stupor and fog and Takeru woke with a start, blankets tangled under him. “Up, now!” Kushinada called again, and the soothing clatter of kitchenware brought Takeru to full awareness.

He didn’t know what had happened to his nighttime journey, but he fancied that before the serpent’s jaws had closed over him, he’d heard a whisper from somebody, somebody that he was so sure was one of those heroes that his mother had spoken of so highly. A whisper that told him it wasn’t his time yet… whatever that meant.

“I know. I’ll make myself strong and go see the serpent again, and I’ll fight it and be a hero of Izumo! And I’ll save lots and lots of people and fight every monster!” Takeru vowed to himself, as he leapt out of bed and pulled on a sock. “I’ll even save that traveler’s descendant. I’ll find them and if they’re in trouble, I’ll save them and be a hero!”

“Takeru! Come on!” His mother’s voice drifted in again through his closed door, and Takeru looked toward it with bright eyes.

“Coming, mom!”