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“Am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”
Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
Once upon a time, a stranger came into the forest, never to leave again. And with every step he took, he took with him the songs of countless birds and the green of every leaf. He marched alone, yet his shadow was meant to betray his loneliness as the beast grew bigger in the night, sheltered by the man’s own darkness and the premonition of his own obscure, twisted faith.
His expensive clothes were washed in blood, his hair was unkempt and his eyes, dark and distant, seemed to mirror the virulence of the black dragon traveling alongside his shadow. It was clear, judging by the sight, that the stranger did not belong in those woods – his seemed to be a life of opulence and power, of greed and sin and an impeccable loneliness, typically the closest friends of those who stand tall at the peak of their own private mountains.
It was clear, judging by the sight, that his world had suddenly stopped spinning and now, seeking balance, the man was trying to forsake the only life he had ever known for a chance to embrace this brand new solitude.
He built a tent, and there he stayed. His hair grew long and grey, cascading down his shoulders and the forest changed, just as he himself changed – his black dragon was the only thing that remained the same throughout the lonely years that followed, terrorizing every creature in that forest, guarding the stranger, protecting him from the world outside.
His voice, eventually, began to die. Years and years of silence and reclusion made it impossible to distinguish the beast’s laconic roars from his own logical tribulations. Perhaps they had merged, somehow, and the man with a shadow and a magnificent beast was nothing but the vessel keeping the creature alive.
It was during a rainy morning during the last days of October when the attackers came and called him by a name he could not recognize anymore – but the stranger paid no mind to the echoes and the soft whispers of a life that was no longer his.
Disguised among the branches they moved like shadows that resist the initial hours of dawn, fruitlessly clinging to the nostalgic darkness of the night – and one by one they fell, subjugated by the beast and its unleashed fury until their bodies were nothing but lines of red and crimson spread on the cool earth beneath their rotting flesh.
Barefoot, the stranger came out of the tent and inspected the bodies of those who had tried to claim his blood as theirs – impassive, his eyes scouted the disfigured faces as if trying to remember their names or, perhaps, trying to read into their sunken motives. When their spilled blood offered no recollection of a past long gone, the stranger looked over his shoulder and acknowledged the beast with a simple nod of his head. Emerald eyes bore into his soul as if demanding a gesture of gratitude – but the peculiar stranger simply brushed his shoulder in a rather disregarding fashion and went back inside his tent.
The second attack happened a couple of weeks after that. And then the third one took place. And the fourth one. And the fifth one.
The following months were colder than usual – the stranger’s skin grew thicker with each passing day, but the beast would always remain by his side, like a perennial shadow that doesn’t need to worry about the constant changing of the seasons. The bodies of his enemies disappeared in time, consumed by the snow and the forest – weathered, their bones fed the earth and the trees until their deaths had nothing left to offer. But their absence only helped spark the legend.
Back in the great city, the few men that had miraculously managed to escape the dragon’s vicious attack were screaming from the top of their lungs, telling stories about the great, magnificent beast that had almost claimed their lives – but while the elders believed they had gone mad, the town’s children would rejoice in the fantastic narrative the survivors had to offer.
“I’m telling you, that can’t be him,” the little boy insisted as he moved his arms around, trying to imitate gestures of grandiloquence – but his younger sister was simply not quite ready yet to take no for an answer. So they entered the forest, bravely facing their innocent fears but not quite yet acknowledging the actual danger awaiting.
“They said that the beast was protecting someone – it’s got to be him!” the girl insisted, grabbing her brother by the hand. The boy obliged but a part of him, deep inside, was already beginning to regret his decision. They walked in circles for hours until the weak late-autumn sun began to dance its final waltz through the branches; so they sat by the small lake facing the mountains, chewing on their disappointment until they saw a man appearing on the other shore.
Astonished by the sight, the girl stood up and waved her hand at him, but the stranger paid no mind.
“Come on,” the boy told her, “that’s only a man, that’s not a dragon – and you know it,” he tried to grab his sister by the hand, but the girl slipped from his grasp and sprinted around the lake as her brother, worried, followed close behind her. She stopped in front of the silent stranger and sat down beside him even when the man didn’t even bother to look in her direction.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, her eyes unable to leave the image of that long-haired man as he washed his clothes in the lake. He didn’t look powerful enough to own a dragon, she thought, and if she had to be completely honest with herself, he didn’t quite fit the image of the mythical runaway she had envisioned in her mind. Still, she went on: “Excuse me, sir, do you have a dragon?”
Her brother covered his own face with his hands, unable to believe his ears but the stranger stared at the girl for a while.
“Let’s go, Rei,” the boy said, noticing the stranger’s evident unease, “that’s not him,”
Her seven years of age, even if mildly discouraged by the lack of answers in her quest, pressed on: “Do you live in the forest, sir?”
The stranger nodded his head once, his lips were still pressed tightly together.
“See?” she asked her brother, “nobody lives in this forest, this is him, we’ve found him!” she shouted gleefully, until her voice trailed off in her throat, “although he doesn’t exactly look like him…”
“You don’t know what he looks like,” her brother retorted, “nobody does – maybe this is it, this beggar that lives in the forest and washes his clothes in the lake is the owner of the most fantastic creature humankind has ever known,” he pointed out, trying his best to make her see the irony in his words.
The stranger frowned as soon as he heard the word beggar, feeling as if fragments of a long-forgotten pride were suddenly trying to speak to him.
The girl scratched her chin and went on:
“People in our town say that a few years ago, there was a powerful man that used to terrorize Tokyo with his ruthless violence – he was a villain, the greatest villain our city has ever seen,” the girl explained, “he had two azure dragons that would devour his enemies in seconds, but when his greed and his thirst for blood contaminated his soul, he murdered his own brother and then disappeared – no one has seen him since that day,” the girl shook her head pensively, “so mighty, so powerful… and so weak, and filled with regrets,”
“Sound like a very tragic story,” the stranger said, “but I’m afraid I’m not the one you’re looking for – besides, why would you ever want to meet a man like that?”
The girl cocked her head to the side, taken aback by the question: the logic of a child was only going to get her so far.
“Well, this man has many, many enemies scattered around the city, and a while ago some men claimed they had seen him in this forest – they say they saw a giant black dragon and,”
“You said the man had two blue dragons, child,” the stranger cut her off before she could go on, “towns are usually overflown by these so-called tales: they are meant to teach you something, girl, not to search for it – they’re called fables for a reason.”
“Rei…” the boy said softly, his hand landing on his younger sister’s shoulder, “it’s getting late, let’s go home, Mother must be worried sick about us,”
“But…” she tried to retort,
“Two blue dragons, one black dragon,” the stranger said, “see? Your story is flawed,”
The man grabbed the garments he had been washing in the lake and stood up, ready to go back to his tent. One last glance over the shoulder betrayed his lonely nature, as he turned around to catch one final image of those children who had dared to accompany if only for a little while. As young and as impertinent as they seemed to be, they had been enough for the man to remember what it felt like not to be alone – only they were nowhere to be found. A thick and dense mist had covered the forest, enveloping the trees in its eerie and mysterious aura. He feared for the children, but his incipient anguish was killed before it had any time to grow as he saw the dragon sleeping peacefully atop the branches near the tent.
But the misty clouds advanced, and soon the stranger found himself surrounded by them. White cumulus enveloped his body, making it impossible for the man to distinguish a clear path through to woods that could guarantee his safe return to the tent.
“Sounds like a very tragic story,” a soft, female voice said, the echo of her laughter resounding in the stranger’s ears. Through the mist, the woman’s silhouette appeared faintly as she walked towards the stunned stranger. The man looked as the tricky image of the children he had just met suddenly appeared, albeit briefly, before him – they were dancing and playing around in the forest, singing old lullabies he hadn’t heard in ages. But when he looked over his shoulder, they were gone. Their bodies were nothing but thin, leafless branches, rocked by the cold night breeze. Shaking his head in disbelief, the stranger was left with no other choice but to accept the welcoming, warm dark eyes staring back at him.
“But it is your story, Shimada Hanzo,” the woman said, “you can fool as many children as you want, but you cannot fool me,”
His skin froze at the remembrance of a name he hadn’t heard in a very long time – an identity that could no longer possess him, a family heirloom that still defined the wrong version of him.
“I don’t know this person you’re talking about,” he assured, “I never met my parents – I have no name,”
“But you have a dragon,” the woman said as parts of her face and her body began to appear through the mist.
“Only children can believe in such creatures,” the stranger replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. Now that the mist was beginning to dissipate he could finally see who was standing before him – she was shorter than what he had expected, her skin was pale and her hair was long and dark, “I do not wish to be visited, I certainly do not need any company,” he said as he took a step closer to the mysterious lady but feeling somewhat relieved to know that, at least judging by her simple physical appearance, she didn’t pose a threat – “If you want to believe in stories about magical crime lords and their outlandish creatures I suggest you look elsewhere,”
A timid smile appeared around the corner of her mouth, but she fought it and decided to simply state the obvious:
“I can see the dragon, you know?” she pointed out, “it’s a huge black beast… but it’s sleeping like a baby near your tent,” she moved closer, resting her hand on the stranger’s shoulder and extended the index finger on her free hand, “See? It’s right there, I can see it from here and I sort of pity those children now because if only they had been standing at this very same spot they would have seen it too,” she clicked her tongue, “now what I would love to know, Shimada Hanzo, is how on earth did two azure dragons merge into a huge, black one,”
He shook himself free from her, his frustration growing exponentially with every passing moment.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Your landlady,” the woman replied, “but you can call me Mei – won’t you invite me over to your tent, so we can discuss the terms of our arrangement?”
The man’s mouth was agape. It took him a while to find the words that followed.
“This is a forest,” he began, “this land is free, it doesn’t belong to anyone, it does not have an owner,” he turned around and started to leave when his eyes witnessed how the trees arched and bent before him, closing off the path.
“Witch!” he yelled, but the woman only laughed at his accusation: for a man with a dragon, he surely seemed quite obtuse.
“I’m not here to fight,” Mei offered, “I do not wish to cause you any harm,”
“Then leave!” he interrupted her.
“I can’t,” she said, “because your enemies are harming my forest, and wave after wave of assassins the magic will eventually subside – there’s only so much I can do to keep you and the forest safe, and that great beast of yours is getting weaker every day, isn’t it? That’s why the dragon mostly sleeps these days, that’s why those children could leave the forest alive – that’s why it hasn’t attacked me,”
He had heard the stories while growing up with his younger brother, back when his life still belonged to him – before the sins, before the blood. The elders spoke of a magical forest outside the great city walls, enchanted and beautiful – a mystical place where the trees were tall and magnificent, where the birds could sing entire symphonies and the sun would always shine brightly, even during a rainy rain. The Lady of the Forest was the white witch responsible for such wonders – she was the forest’s spirit, the guardian of the land. But that forest he remembered from the ancient stories and this forest where he lived now had little in common: now it was always cloudy, and the sun was weaker than ever before. The trees looked languid and nearly torn out of the pages of a horror novel and the woman standing right in front of him didn’t quite match the pristine and nearly immaculate image of the Lady of the Forest he had pictured inside his mind during his childhood days and still, the way those branches had moved and the mist that had been all around him ever since she had arrived were clear signs that this woman was, indeed, the fantastic lady from the stories he had heard.
“I watched you and your beast as soon as you entered the forest,” the woman said, “I knew you were bad news – but I also knew you needed help. What I could see from the distance was a man trying his best to leave his world behind. The beast that travels alongside you… it’s the reminder of the one you are no more – he’s not your friend, he’s not your ally: he’s the embodiment of everything that went wrong with you and your life.” The branches that were blocking off the path moved as she spoke, clearing the way back to the tent. “I discovered who you really were after the first wave of attackers came into the forest,” Mei explained as they walked together, “I traveled to the city and disguised myself amongst the citizens: the stories they tell may be hard to believe but it was evident there was a little bit of truth to all their tales: I learned your real name, Shimada Hanzo, and I learned many, many more things about you.”
He did not let her inside his tent – still, he sat down beside her on the ground a few feet away from the entrance.
“I learned that you once ruled with violence and sin, and that you come from an accommodated lineage. You and your younger brother were close, but the ones around you forced you to grow apart until you killed him,” she said, “He had a green dragon, and you could summon two azure dragons as well – but after that final night, you and the dragons disappeared forever. Then you came to the forest, and the black dragon marched with you…” she whispered softly as her eyes found the sleeping beast, resting just a few feet away from where they were sitting, “you have left a long list of enemies behind your name, Hanzo. They know where you are – and they want to end you.”
Many of his former allies resented him now. The empire he had ruled needed a new leader, but the former leader was not dead yet – he had gone away to seek redemption. But now, the empty throne was demanding a new king and the coronation was meant to be written in Hanzo’s blood.
“When I returned to the forest I began to change some things here and there – if there were coming to get you, I could provide a hostile environment to help the beast blend in,” she said. “But the attacks don’t stop, and each new wave of assassins brings more damage than the last one,”
“Why would you help me?” the man asked, his head hanging low, his hands resting now on his knees.
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“People heal in this forest,” she said, “and you look like somebody who has a lot of wounds that could use some healing – this forest you see before you is a sanctuary; it will always be home to those in need, for as long as they need it,” she tried to touch his forearm but the man stood up before her fingers could connect with his skin and signaled the woman to follow him inside the tent. His new home was nothing compared to the luxurious castle he had once called his own, but he didn’t care. Fortune and power were no longer priorities for him.
The woman stood in the center of the tent as the man sat down again, her eyes deconstructing the space around her, then looking up to find his imperturbable gaze staring back at her. In and out of that godforsaken tent, the visitor quickly realized that the man was no longer part of that forest: he had become one with the environment and his eyes were now a landscape no-one was allowed to visit.
“It’s a family thing,” he said, “the Shimadas can summon and control the dragons – I had two, blue, exactly like they tell in the stories. But when I murdered my brother his green dragon died too, trying to protect him,” Hanzo remembered, “My dragons united, then, coalescing into one black being – this dragon that travels with me now. I could hear its voice in the beginning but now… now he hasn’t tried to communicate with me in a very long time,”
“Why?”
The man sighed, “I think it’s dying,” he said somberly, “and I believe I’m the reason why,” he moved closer, and whispered: “the black dragon told me I need to feed him with sins,”
Something dark. A turbulence of sorts. The woman backed away instinctively.
“He told me… that the only way to redeem myself after murdering my own brother is to help others find redemption,” the man explained, “I can’t save myself on my own, I need others.”
The powerful man they remembered didn’t need any help. But this new man had chosen to completely isolate himself from the rest of the world, closing all doors on any possible silver linings waiting on the horizon.
“The dragons became one and changed their color to reflect the darkness that lives in me,” Hanzo went on, “they are a conduit – I’m supposed to find those in trouble and help them, the dragon feeds on their darkness. The more I feed the beast, the closer I get to redeem myself,”
“And how many have you helped so far?” the woman finally asked, reentering the conversation – but the man simply shook his head in silence, “None?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know how to do it,” he confessed.
“Well, have you ever tried to help someone get rid of their sins?”
Another silent negative.
The woman scratched her chin, looking lost in thought for a while until the lights of certainty began to spark inside her eyes: “Well, some of the citizens told me that the black dragon is a curse – that it’s wicked… but it’s not. He attacks the ones that are trying to harm you, but if you don’t intervene, if you don’t teach him how to consume their sins without taking their lives I’m afraid it’s going to starve to death,”
“How can I teach the dragon to do something that I myself don’t know how to do?” Hanzo retorted.
“You need to find a way,” Mei sentenced as she stood up, “that black dragon is the only thing keeping you alive – the least you can do now is show this creature some appreciation, that’s how things work in the forest,” she moved closer to the man, the tip of her index finger connecting with his chest and invading his heart with an icy touch, “I understand why you don’t want to go back to the city, but as your landlady I’ll only allow you to stay and live in my forest for as long as that black beast is with you,” she sentenced, “but if you let it die… the second it perishes, you will have to leave.”
The same mist that had brought her to him now took her away. And the days passed, slowly and languidly, until a new attack shook the forest from within and the beast, malnourished and desperate, bled for the first time. The Lady of the Forest, sensing the tremor in every weeping tree, summoned numerous ice walls to separate the ninjas from the wounded dragon and noticed, with eyes about to rain, how despite all the pain, the stranger still chose to remain inside his tent, away from the danger, and almost completely detached from the black dragon’s insufferable agony.
She kneeled before the beast and tended to its wounds, but she quickly realized that, unlike the trees and the birds in her forest, the dragon would not survive for long: her magic was anything but a weak panacea to that beast, meant to delay the obvious and unforgiving end. When the dragon looked her in the eye, Mei witnessed how those eyes pled and a blinding pain took hold of her entire body - then the beast’s eyes changed color: from the darkest of greens to a softer, richer shade of emerald. The tone, so mesmerizing and yet so definitive, was beginning to undress the reality of a soul that was embracing death for the second time, accepting the abyss waiting up ahead, waiting for the final darkness to come around.
Decided to help, she left the dragon with the peaceful rhymes of an ancient prayer and abandoned the woods, marching towards the great city. If a bunch of rumors, fueled by a distorted legend, had been enough to bring chaos to her precious forest then perhaps a new legend could spark a different sort of rumor.
Disguised as a florist, the woman that no-one had seen before began to tell the people stories about a man in the forest, a solitary yet very powerful sorcerer with a dragon friend that could clean the darkness of a soul in a matter of seconds. Soon her tale traveled the streets and entered every house and every shop without even knocking on the door - and the children and adults alike were eager to meet the stranger, trying to get a little bit closer to the elusive sense of redemption most souls are desperate to find. Once her job was done, Mei returned to the forest and waited for someone to come their way, but days passed without a single visitor - until one warm afternoon, two small silhouettes appeared on the horizon and waltzed their way around the trees and the stones until they found what they were looking for: a lonely tent, right in the center of the White Forest.
Holding in her hands a small basket with freshly baked bread, Rei entered the tent as her older brother, cautiously, followed her close behind. The stranger received the children with a surprised look upon his face but the shock in the little girl’s eyes was even more powerful than Hanzo’s: resting on the floor, right beside the stranger’s cot, the dragon welcomed the children with a quiet grunt and the girl froze in place, his brother’s hands suddenly grabbing her by her skinny shoulders:
“So… you do have a dragon after all,” she mumbled, completely awe-struck by the magnificent beast yet still restricted by a fear she had never felt before. Hanzo nodded his head once but stayed right where he was, “I knew it was you,” Rei whispered, leaving the basket on the ground and holding his brother’s hand.
The dragon rose, and the children took a step back, almost mechanically. For a fleeting moment, the boy could have sworn there was a smile on the man’s face.
“Now that you know the truth, what do you want?” Hanzo finally asked, shifting position to look at the girl in the eye as the dragon walked slowly around the children, sniffing them up and down.
“A lady said you can clean a man’s soul,” the boy said and Hanzo scratched his chin minutely until he finally stood up and walked up to meet the frightened boy.
“Does this lady have very pale skin?” he asked, and the children nodded, “her eyes are dark but warm and her hair is silky, her voice is soft – almost as soft as a tender song rocked by the wind,”
Rei nodded once more, even when Hanzo had already guessed that Mei had been the reason why those children were now paying him a visit.
“Is it true?” the boy demanded, “is it true that you can clean a man’s soul? You don’t look mighty enough,”
Hanzo scoffed and got on one knee before the boy. The dragon sniffed the little girl once more and, unexpectedly, shook its head with a renewed sense of vigorous intend Hanzo hadn’t seen in quite some time.
“The dragon can eat the sins that plague your soul, little man,” Hanzo offered, and the dragon sniffed the boy and rested its heavy chin on his small shoulder, “He’s starving, child,” Hanzo said, noticing how the beast had chosen the boy, “do you think you can feed him?”
The boy looked over his shoulder until his cheek nearly touched the dragon’s lips by accident and then closed his eyes in panic. Hanzo frowned, almost disappointed by the unexpected lack of bravery until the boy’s hand rolled into tight fists at the sides of his body as if the child had somehow gathered the strength required to react and Hanzo enveloped the boy’s shivering fists with his hands.
“What is your name, child?” the man asked.
“Ruki,” the boy said, and his eyes struggled not to look away from the strange man kneeling before him.
“Very well, Ruki-kun,” Hanzo said, his voice suddenly becoming softer, “you’re a child, how can your heart be stained at such a young age?”
“I… I envy her – my sister,” the boy stammered, “she’s the youngest, she doesn’t have any of the responsibilities that I have – she can bask in the sun and play with her dolls for as long as she wants,” Ruki said, looking down, as if ashamed by his own feelings. Hanzo took a deep breath: the boy’s words were hitting too close to home. “I have to look after her when our parents go to work, I have to help our parents and run errands around town most of the time… if they knew where we are… if they knew I have brought her to this place, I know I would be punished for putting my little sister in danger,”
The girl stared at her older brother and lowered her head.
“But I should listen to her more,” the boy finally confessed, surprising both his sister and Hanzo, “I’m too proud… I’m just too proud to admit that she can be right too – like right now, for example, I should have had faith in her, I should have believed her when she said we were going to see the dragon,”
Hanzo let go of the boy’s hands and sat on the ground, his head between his own calloused hands.
“She may be younger than I am, but her instincts are sharp as a blade,” Ruki said, “I know her intuition alone could save us both from any perilous situation and still, when it matters the most, I let my stupid pride take over and I silence her before she can even speak what’s on her mind…”
In a time that now seemed distant enough for the memory to become blurry and sepia, a little boy named Genji had been the reason why Hanzo had experienced envy during the early years of his childhood. A mixture of unconditional love and a profound resentment had caused a tiny fracture, and the merged, bittersweet emotion had reached the surface back then, highlighting the start of a path that would eventually lead to the worst imaginable end. And now, that the story seemed to be caught up in a loop of endless repetitions, Hanzo felt trapped inside the unexpected iteration.
He could run, and he could hide, but his past was always going to find him, or so it seemed.
As the dragon pushed the boy forwards, Hanzo caught him in his arms and felt, almost instantly, a bolt of white energy rushing from his chest and reaching the boy. Opening his eyes, the man realized that a tiny white ball of pure light was floating in the little space between them – and the dragon simply leaned over the boy’s shoulder and captured it with its mouth, rejoiced by the delicate treat and smiling after the much-needed meal. And as the beast smiled, Hanzo observed how a thin blue line appeared on his arm, the first of many, many lines that, in time, would end up redrawing the symbol of his honor on his skin, the same one that disappeared the night when he murdered his own brother.
It took time and patience. Years of hard work piled upon his shoulders and acceptance finally set in his eyes. With every new sin that the black dragon ate, a new line would appear in the man’s skin, reimagining the original dragon and, with it, a redemption that now seemed closer than ever before. The Lady of the Forest would come and visit the tent once in a while – the dragon was healthy and mightier than ever and the man was no longer the surly and unsociable version of himself she had met that evening in the woods – now he seemed collected and conciliatory, patient enough to swim gracefully through the many different titles the visitors would give him: king of the sinners, priest, healer or even shaman, like some Asian foreigners had chosen to refer to him while in his presence.
Seasons changed, and visitors came and went – one by one they exchanged their darkest feelings and thoughts for a moment of blissful white and the dragon roared in the nights, satisfied with such a tasty bounty. The tattoo shone in the darkness of the tent, as the original beast circled the man’s muscles, almost there, nearly within his reach and yet, untamable in its incandescent essence and far away from the man’s anxious grasp. He had once been the king of the sinners, the one corrupting the city with endless rivers of blood and a twisted, dark sense of greed but now the one that had destroyed their peace long ago was the one exorcizing their demons and the feeling was brand new. For once, he was not the one responsible for their sorrow: he was the one that could provide forgiveness and understanding.
For once it felt great to be part of the solution rather than the cause of all their problems.
But one late afternoon, right at the warm beginning of spring, the Lady of the Forest went to visit the man and his dragon only to found them outside the tent, waiting for something or someone to come their way.
“What are you doing outside?” Mei questioned as she approached the scene, “I thought you would be working,”
The man shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his back on a tree.
“We haven’t received a single visitor in weeks now,” he said, “I only need one more… one more sin for the dragon to eat, the final line to complete my tattoo,”
But nobody came, and both man and beast were growing equally impatient.
“Is it possible that you have already cleansed every soul in town?” Mei pondered, sitting on a large rock. “If that’s the case, you need to broaden your horizons,”
“That could take months,” Hanzo concluded, “and besides, I only need one more sin… just one more,” he looked at Mei and scratched his chin pensively, “so what about you? You have lived longer than anyone I have ever known, you must have done something bad, you must have had some dark thoughts…”
The woman laughed, but only briefly. Then she stood up, approached the man and placed both her hands on his shoulders:
“After everything I’ve done for you and your friend you dare ask for more?”
Taking a step backwards, Hanzo lowered his head and put his hands together near his chest, apologetically – the dragon scoffed disdainfully as it floated around its cursed master and gave the man a venomous side look but the former leader of the most dangerous criminal empire ever shook his head, quickly disregarding the dragon’s atypical moral compass, and started to walk back to his tent. The Lady of the Forest followed close behind, trying to talk some sense into the man – she could understand that after living in the shadows for so long now redemption appeared so near in the horizon that his desperation was starting to get the best of him and still, after watching him work so hard for years, she was not going to let it all go to waste due to this unexpected rush of anxiety.
She found him standing still, only a few steps away from the tent. Only when he moved aside she caught a glimpse of the elegant silhouette standing right in front of him. Tall, slender and lean, that woman represented everything the man had desired back then, back when the world was at his feet.
The wind howled a desperate song the Lady of the Forest had never heard before. Such macabre energy, such a faint desire, tattooed in the blackest of inks, and spreading rapidly through the woods. The night marched fast and, determined, the canopy of dark clouds advanced towards the tent – lighting, painting the obscure scene in screaming shadows, interrupted the scene with unprecedented virulence and the Lady of the Forest ran away from the man and the mysterious visitor, her legs moving far from the tent, as if they had a mind of their own.
This fear, she thought, this paralyzing panic was only going to embrace them by their necks and choke the very light in them.
Reduced to a perfect nonplus, Hanzo stared into those shallow eyes as if trying to look for the sin that the woman was willing to get rid of – he had gathered that much knowledge during his time as a healer and now he was able to detect the void inside the visitors long before they had even had a chance to speak. But the void he sensed inside that woman felt more like a ravine than anything. An abyss that would forever be there, delimitating the borders of a soul that was completely and complexly empty.
When the rain spiraled into a furious storm, something inside the man forced him to invite the stranger inside his tent, perhaps it was the tempting view of an old hunger he had forsaken long ago or maybe it was the treacherous mermaid song that her silence was singing. The dragon followed its master, but the wise beast kept his distance from the woman as the tremor crisped through its scales, summoning a feeling that refused to belong within the dragon’s comprehension.
“I heard that you can help people,” she finally said, “I learned that even some of those who called themselves your enemies have come to you for help – I need you to do the same for me, I need to be exorcized from all the darkness I carry within,”
As she took off the hooded cape that was covering most of her geography the man extended one of his arms forward – but his hand only managed to linger before her for so long: it seemed as if the woman had become the source of the wind and the cold, and her skin had turned into a piece of heaven, blue and distant, eternal and mesmerizing.
Hanzo nodded his head in silence, even when deep down he knew he had not sensed any sins inside of her.
“What is this sin you would like to let go of?” he asked, and the woman walked towards the light, and fragmented the flickering flames of the bonfire with her fingers. The dragon roared, worried and ready to attack, yet Hanzo shushed the beast the second he saw the woman’s hand was intact. He was intrigued by her. Fascinated by the shape of a color that could no longer define him.
“I can’t feel,” she whispered, exhibiting the unaltered blue of her cold fingers, “I can’t feel anything at all,”
“That’s not a sin,” Hanzo retorted, “that might be a condition, or perhaps the result of an old trauma – it seems I won’t be able to help you,”
Her golden eyes looked away as if they were secretly harboring a powerful feeling of disappointment about to slip out and corrupt the outside.
“I understand,” the woman said, “would you please let me stay the night? It’s dark outside, and I really don’t want to wonder these woods alone in the pouring rain,”
The request seemed honest and sensible. She was polite, and oh so beautiful. His flesh was weak – but the memory of the one he was no more was strong enough to melt his senses in that golden stare of hers.
The man said yes, and the dragon roared again in response, louder than before, feeling helplessly impaled by the spiritless coldness inside the woman’s eyes. But the more she stayed, the heavier the rain seemed to fall. Three days she spent with them, cocooned by the furious thunder and rocked, oh so gently, by the frozen arms of the howling wind. But the first night remained entangled in the tepid atmosphere of the tent, as the archer curled his legs against his stomach and tried to fall asleep. The dragon, wary of her, stayed close to its master. Half-lidded green eyes, like a never-ending whirlpool of vacant emeralds, igniting the tormenting darkness all around.
The second night was abruptly interrupted when the dragon nearly crushed the woman’s body the second the beast realized she was trying to wake up Hanzo and yet neither her screams nor the dragon’s guttural sounds were enough for the man to abandon his dream. His eyes were open, but the completely white stare he gave was enough for the visitor and the beast to understand that Hanzo was completely out of their reach, inhabiting a realm where they were not welcome.
There was a peaceful expression on his face, a quiet grin revolving around his thin lips. Those rich emerald eyes that were staring back at him both in his dream and in his reality were no longer showing the grim rivulets of his own sin – no, far from it. The eyes of the brother he himself had murdered were again soft and iridescent and the man was finally able to savor the freedom he had been searching for. A simple taste, like a souvenir from a future that seemed closer to the present than ever before – and this reciprocated peace washed over his body as the man, still in his sleep, stared at the confused dragon.
There were traces of a long-lost happiness inside those white eyes, like a prism where all colors burned and melted in order to breathe life into everything that is sacred, treasured, cherished – in order to breathe life into everything that is immaculate.
Unburdened, and no longer weighed down by his own demons, earnest and rightfully himself in his own private thirst for glory, the man smiled for the last time that night and closed his eyes again.
The nameless woman approached the man during the third night and asked:
“Aren’t you at least going to try to help me?”
He shook his head and invited her to sit down next to him.
“I’m close,” he said, “I’m too close to risk it… every time I take a sin from someone a new line appears on my arm, recreating the original dragons that once belonged to me. When I murdered my own brother they disappeared, and this black beast emerged from the darkness – my curse, and my salvation,”
The woman tried to touch the lines of the mystical tattoo but Hanzo stopped her before her fingers could connect with his skin.
“I only need one more sin, see?” he indicated, “see right here, there’s only one line missing – I feel this peace getting closer and closer every day; I can feel it in my bones, in my blood: it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It’s coming, the redemption I have dreamed of for so long is near,” he looked away, “but I’m afraid it’s not you,”
Hanzo shook his head, his eyes lost.
“Ever since I began this journey, I have always wondered what my last sinner would be like,” he smiled to himself, “I was positive it would be someone I could never forget, someone that was going to brand me in a way, somebody who could leave a mark on me – that’s why I was mesmerized the second I saw you: not only you represent a beauty that has always been powerful enough to captivate me, but there’s something in you, something about you…”
“I’m blue,” she said, simply, “I suppose you won’t be forgetting me for as long as you live,”
Her smile was contagious, and the man nodded his head once.
“I would have liked for someone as peculiar as you to be it – to be my final sinner, the final gate for me to cross,” he admitted, “but long ago, I have learned to sense the sins before the dragon does – and I have sensed a lot of different sins ever since we met, but it’s strange… it’s like those sins do not belong to you, it’s like you carry other people’s sins inside you,” Hanzo closed his eyes and focused, one last time, trying to absorb her darkness as an attempt to harness his ability but the void was still there, phantasmagoric, and completely empty, “I can hear the echoes of many broken stories in you, but none of those voices seem to belong to you,” he shook his head, “you should leave once the storm passes – I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to bring you the peace you seek,”
The eye of the storm fooled them into thinking they were safe, so the woman stood up, and approached the door.
“Do you have a name?” his voice surprised her, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget you, but I would hate to remember you only by your hues and your colors,”
“Amélie,”
Her name brought the thunder and the snow, and the storm found them once again before they could go on their separate ways. The dragon, nearly helpless by the quick return of her lingering presence, simply turned its back on them and went back to sleep.
“Only yesterday your dragon nearly killed me,” she said, “and now look at him – he couldn’t care less about me being here or not… you turned out to be such a lazy beast after all,” Hanzo smiled timidly at her words and invited her to join him on the floor once again but the woman seemed hesitant.
“Perhaps it should have ended me when he got the chance,” Amélie lamented, already headed for the door.
“You are welcome to stay until the storm is over,” Hanzo insisted, “there is no need for you to leave like this,”
“Trust me, it’s better this way,” she whispered, “thank you,”
The man stood up, looking confused.
“But I didn’t do anything – I simply let you stay here, I couldn’t free you from your demons… and I’m deeply sorry about that,”
“You’ve done a lot more than that, actually,” she smiled genuinely, “you protected me from the beast, welcomed me and most importantly, you were honest with me – you said it yourself, you are only one sin away from your redemption… you could have lied to me, you could have dissected me into a million different pieces in order to get what you desire,” she looked down, “but you didn’t – you spoke to me with sincerity and clarity and even though you know I can’t be saved, you didn’t feel sorry for me. Au contraire, you wanted to know my name because you want to remember me for the one that I am and not for my sins or this curse I have to carry,” she moved closer to the man, almost tempted to touch him but she preferred not to, “the sorrow you harbor in your heart is not about you being unable to complete your goal – is about you, being unable to help me…” she shook her head, “I must go now but before I do, you should know I could never cause you any harm – you are not the man they said you were,”
Amélie exited the tent and Hanzo followed her, running after her silhouette in the rain.
“They?” he yelled, “I don’t understand – please come back and talk to me, Amélie!”
Many arms and weapons ambushed him, disguised in the darkest shapes of the night. Far from home, and completely on his own, the man had spent so long trying to help others that he had forgotten how to fight. That senseless violence that had corrupted his days could no longer call him by his name – so the man fell, hopeless and nearly defeated, until the ones attacking him became nothing but petrified stones standing in his way. The same dark silhouette that had run away from him was now returning to his side, clamoring her aid – exposing the coldness that now constituted the very essence of her being. By the time the beast reached the scene the man had been reduced to a pool of blood and regret. The second wave of attackers was rapidly closing in on them, they were too many: their weapons didn’t know the meaning of mercy and their eyes had been blinded by visions of vengeance - so the beast roared furiously and signaled the woman to protect its wounded master, to carry him back to the tent and the woman obeyed, as she nodded her head in complete desperation. Tearing her own clothes, she covered her hands and carried the man back to safety, back to the comforting warmth of the dancing bonfire in the center of the man’s tent and now, knowing that the woman was going to help Hanzo, the beast embraced this new freedom and slew those who had dared touch its master until their weapons began to slice and cut through thick skin and muscle.
They heard the beast’s agonizing screams fading in the wind, becoming one with the very edges that confine oblivion.
“You shouldn’t have followed me,” the woman yelled as she tended to the man’s wounds, “they have been planning this attack for years – you should have stayed here, you both should have stayed here… safe, together… and away from me,”
He held her hand in his, only to realize that she had covered her skin. She had never touched him.
“You froze them,” he mumbled, “you…”
“This is what they did to me,” she said as she sat down, her whole body collapsing from the exhaustion, “they turned me into this and waited in the shadows for you to lower your guard. The second I sensed that the dragon was no longer concerned about my presence here I realized I had to leave – I could not bring myself to cause you any harm, Hanzo – not after everything you’ve done for me,”
“You…” he breathed out, “you represent everything I was, everything my former self would have wanted to become – that’s why they sent you, perhaps that’s even why they chose you in the first place: to lure me back into the cobwebs of a life that’s no longer mine but that I once loved, so dearly,” there was a weak smile upon his face, “most of my enemies have come to me for help… guess this is what the rest of them have been up to,”
“You should end me now,” she said, “before I can hurt anyone else,”
Hanzo closed his eyes and took a deep breath – his former self would have gladly made her wish come true. But he was no longer that man.
“Why do you think they chose you?” he asked, and the woman opened her eyes, surprised, “they must have had a reason,”
“I…” she hesitated, “What’s the point? The dragon is dead, they’ll be here in a matter of minutes,”
“Why did they choose you?” he insisted, “Why?”
“Hanzo, please,” Amélie begged, “is this how you want to spend your last moments?”
He nodded.
“They will find me, and they will kill me, just as they have planned,” he whispered, “but perhaps it’s not too late to return the favor and save you. I have always been a selfish man – even while I was harvesting their sins… I have always known that it would lead me to my own salvation. I enjoyed helping others, I’ll give you that much, but what I enjoyed the most about those moments was the certainty of knowing that I was getting closer to my own redemption,” he looked into her eyes, “now I know there’s no such thing as a happy ending for a man like me – but you, Amélie… let me do this for you,”
“The dragon is dead, Hanzo,” the woman whispered, “he eats the sins, there’s nothing you can do,”
He smiled weakly, closing his eyes.
“Aren’t you at least going to try to help me?” he said, “I am,”
She got on her knees and leaned over his wounded body.
“I have always wanted to be unique,” she confessed, “always longed to be the center of attraction… and, at a very young age, I learned that the right amount of beauty can get you anywhere. I abused that beauty in ways you can’t even imagine – that’s why they chose me: they said I would become unique in my very own way, they said people would remember me,” she cried, lost in a hurricane of feelings she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, “now I am unique in my very own way and people remember me – but they only remember the blue, and the cold, and the pain… I can’t touch anybody without turning them to ice… and nobody can touch me unless they want to die,”
Sensing the end, Hanzo reached out and touched the exposed skin of her neck. She was cold and silky, smooth and soft. Tender, and inherently fragile.
The black lines of his tattoo, like countless needles piercing through his skin, started to bleed the second he touched her, each pattern becoming a crimson river in the helpless, final night. He welcomed the freezing cold she had to offer as stoically as he could, watching his own skin turning bluer and bluer with each passing moment. The woman cried in his arms, extending her colors and spreading all her hues onto him – until her skin gradually regained its original color and underneath the ice, the last line of the tattoo finally illustrated the original beast.
His mistake was to believe that his redemption was going to come and knock on his door. His mistake was to assume that somebody else was going to bring the wonder he had been searching for.
Petrified, his eyes bore into hers in an eternal gaze that could never be extinguished. His end had become a perpetual state, and not a definitive, fleeting instant.
His end was endless.
Amélie’s soft kiss landed on his forehead. But before she could leave the tent, his enemies found her. As soon as she heard their footsteps closing in on her, as soon as she sensed her own end, the woman lay down beside the frozen man and enveloped his eternal frame with her arms. She closed her eyes, welcoming the same darkness that had always revolved around her but before they could end her, the blizzard shattered the night in the brightest of whites.
Holding the deceased dragon in her arms and finally understanding that Hanzo’s enemies were never going to stop hurting the man for as long as they lived, the Lady of the Forest transformed her tears into infinite snowflakes and soon the woods were white and immaculate. Centuries of eternal winters called out their names, as the legend of the frozen lovers traveled the earth and became one with the local folklore.
Spring was winter, then. And so were summer and fall. And throughout the years, the Lady of the Forest visited her friends as they slept peacefully in the eternal confines of ice she had procured just for them and she waited, oh so patiently, for entire generations to become dust in the whimsical pages of history.
Until all his enemies were dead, until each and every single one of their descendants had become but memories of lives that had died out long ago, until all of their seeds became less than a memory, less than the memory of a memory no-one could remember.
Only then fall became fall and spring became spring.
And when summer finally came, after more than eight hundred years of winter, the white gave way to the browns and the greens that had been muted for so long and the ice began to melt; the flowers bloomed, and every bird returned to the woods ready to sing a song no-one had heard in forever.
The dragons woke up before the man.
Thriving for release, the first one broke through the cracks in the ice and circled around its master in a constellation of bright, diaphanous azure.
The second one, a little lazier than his brother, simply waited until the ice had completely disappeared. Then it soared around the sleeping man like an emerald-colored flag and shook its tale, losing the last pearls of ice as it moved around freely.
And as the dragons danced around them, a redeemed man and a pure-hearted woman woke up after more than eight hundred years of winter only to find their arms were still tangled together – his two dragons had finally returned to him, and the same rich green that had once questioned him through the eyes of the great black dragon now saluted him with the same joy and the same spirit that had once defined his own brother.
The woman smiled softly, and let her head rest on the man’s chest for a while as the dragons surrounded them – free from their demons, free from the curses that had defined the ones they should have never been, they were finally ready to meet for the very first time.