ficbit, Mononoke Hime, "Yobai"
Am sort of desultorily trying to do the halfamoon thing, celebrating the ladies, and troisroyaumes @ DW reminded me of the awesomeness of a certain other Ghibli female, so this is in their honor.
San/Ashitaka, PG only because it stops FOR NOW?
夜這い
Yobai
She never comes to him--she hates the stink of the town, iron and smoke and too many humans too close together--so Ashitaka always goes to her, in the forest. It doesn't trouble him that his visits are never repaid. He expects no more and no less of her.
Then one night she does come, without warning, in the cold of the second month.
A stark moon shines behind her from the doorway. It's the bolt of cold air, not her presence or the sound of intrusion (because there is no sound) that wakes him. His pulse jumps with the abruptness of being startled from sleep like a bird flushed from the roost. He sits up in his bed, a mat covered in quilts beside the square hearth in the floor. Her shape is a blurred shadow in winter furs.
He doesn't ask how she came to be here. His door is never locked, and the town's walls are lower than they once were. With the help of her brothers she could leap them even when they stood at their former height. The only question he murmurs is her name.
After a long pause she steps across the threshold. After another she closes the door. With the door shut there's no more moon, only the dim red glow of embers that throw light no further than the edge of the hearth. In the darkness she pads around the single room, touching the wooden walls, the straw rain-cape hung from a hook, the rack that holds his bow and his blade. Her footsteps are silent, but he hears her deep assessing breaths, her sniffing. He waits for her to make her circle, to take the measure of the space in her own way.
Then her feet are on the quilts, pinning them to the mat on either side of his thighs. She crouches, bending low, grasping his shoulders and breathing into his hair. In a daze he reaches to touch her and finds only fur. The scent of her blankets him: snow and pine, wolfskin and deerskin, chilled sweat.
"I wanted to smell your den," she says.
Her hands push his shoulders back down to the mat.
San/Ashitaka, PG only because it stops FOR NOW?
夜這い
Yobai
She never comes to him--she hates the stink of the town, iron and smoke and too many humans too close together--so Ashitaka always goes to her, in the forest. It doesn't trouble him that his visits are never repaid. He expects no more and no less of her.
Then one night she does come, without warning, in the cold of the second month.
A stark moon shines behind her from the doorway. It's the bolt of cold air, not her presence or the sound of intrusion (because there is no sound) that wakes him. His pulse jumps with the abruptness of being startled from sleep like a bird flushed from the roost. He sits up in his bed, a mat covered in quilts beside the square hearth in the floor. Her shape is a blurred shadow in winter furs.
He doesn't ask how she came to be here. His door is never locked, and the town's walls are lower than they once were. With the help of her brothers she could leap them even when they stood at their former height. The only question he murmurs is her name.
After a long pause she steps across the threshold. After another she closes the door. With the door shut there's no more moon, only the dim red glow of embers that throw light no further than the edge of the hearth. In the darkness she pads around the single room, touching the wooden walls, the straw rain-cape hung from a hook, the rack that holds his bow and his blade. Her footsteps are silent, but he hears her deep assessing breaths, her sniffing. He waits for her to make her circle, to take the measure of the space in her own way.
Then her feet are on the quilts, pinning them to the mat on either side of his thighs. She crouches, bending low, grasping his shoulders and breathing into his hair. In a daze he reaches to touch her and finds only fur. The scent of her blankets him: snow and pine, wolfskin and deerskin, chilled sweat.
"I wanted to smell your den," she says.
Her hands push his shoulders back down to the mat.