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Once upon a time, there was a family of four boys who had lost their parents.
Living alone, they were looked upon with pity by all of the people in their town, for how could they get along without a family to look after them?
But the boys were quite happy on their own.
The oldest, Hashirama, was a woodsman, always bringing home game and wood. The youngest, Kawarama, was a carpenter, turning the wood that his elder brought him into fine furniture to be sold to the nobility. The second oldest, Tobirama, was a scientist who was always buying books and hoarding them in his workshop, from which emerged strange sounds and smells.
But it was the middle boy, young Itama who was the pet of the family and the beauty of the village.
All the girls would sigh over him and flutter their eyelashes as he'd go about his day, utterly oblivious to the longing glances that they threw him.
For Itama had a secret.
Itama had no interest in ladies at all. Instead, it was the male form that held his attention and his admiration.
Itama was a dreamer. He wrote poetry, read the classics, and built castles in the clouds, hoping for the day when he might meet his one true love. A handsome prince? A gentle lord? Or simply a rich merchant?
Who could say?
So the ladies of the village sighed in vain over his comely form, and he ignored it in favour of his own fantasies.
And it did seem as though they might come true.
For one day, when he was strolling through the woods in search of inspiration, he met a young man, slightly older than himself, who had long black hair tied back in a neat tail and eyes as dark as the shadows of the forest.
Dressed as fine as he was, what else could he be but a lord?
So Itama, lured by his own imaginings, went with him to visit a castle in the middle of the woods.
When Itama did not return home that night, his brothers were worried. Tobirama and Kawarama searched the village, while Hashirama roamed the forest, calling his brother's name.
Only to find that there were things in the undergrowth.
Small, strange, balls of fur that chittered angrily at him and scampered away at the sound of his voice. Hashirama had never seen the like, but he had other worries on his mind and was about to ignore them, until one squeaked, “Itama!”
After that, nothing could have stopped Hashirama.
He chased them through the forest, crashing through branches and brambles, until he came to a derelict castle that he had never seen before.
Bravely, he walked up to the front door and called out a greeting, only to hear no answering reply. But the little furry creatures flowed over his feet and into the castle so he followed them.
And there, in the great hall, sitting down to dinner with two other men, he found his brother.
He cried out with joy to see his lost brother and asked Itama to come home, but the elder of the two men seated at the table refused. Itama, he said, was betrothed to his younger brother Izuna.
Hashirama was aghast.
His baby brother? To be wed?
No!
He refused. As head of the family, he withheld his permission.
This man might be the lord of the castle, but Hashirama and his family did not live on castle lands and they owed him no fealty.
He insisted that Itama would come home with him.
The lord of the castle, Madara was his name, raged at Hashirama who shouted back until, suddenly, Madara fell to the floor, changed into a beast.
One of the many small furry creatures that had led Hashirama here to the castle.
Izuna rose in his turn and offered Hashirama an explanation.
Their family, he said, the Uchiha, had used to be great lords of the land, respected by all for their prowess in battle. Unfortunately, their tempers were fiery and one of them had offended a mischievous fae who had cursed the whole clan to become beasts when they lost control of their anger.
Some of them, infuriated by their new circumstances, had never managed to return to human form, roaming the woods by night and leading to rumours that the castle was haunted.
Gradually, they'd been forgotten.
However, family legend said that if one of them was loved, truly loved despite their beastly nature, and they remained wed for a a year and a day, then the curse for the whole clan would be broken - or at least tempered.
Hashirama, always soft hearted, was touched by the story.
He consented.
If Itama was willing, as he so obviously was, then Itama and Izuna might wed for a year and a day. But Itama was not to remain all alone here, without family for all of that time. Hashirama would send one of his brothers to be with him, so that he might have some of the comforts of home.
And so, the next morning, a docile brown mare with white socks walked up to the castle led by a young man as pale as the moon with eyes as red as blood.
And Madara, looking out of the window to see the newest interloper to his castle, felt his heart stolen away, never to return.
The end.