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“Get lost!” The Elder One snarled, hair flying, fangs flashing. “Go! Before I eat you!”
He turned, raced off, back the way he came from, dived for the bramble bush, wriggled into the fox tunnel.
“Run, brat, run!”
Heavy footsteps shook the ground. His chattering teeth were a dead giveaway. Still, they stomped this way, then passed him by. When he crawled out, hungry, there was a freshly-killed squirrel on the rock. The Elder One had a fickle mood, but he was spared again.
He met the Elder One exactly four days ago, crossing the mountain pass descending into the foothills. He had been running from a pack of mountain dogs, semi-yokai beasts that roamed the strip of land between the mortal and underworld realm. Hunger made him reckless, and he passed on the chance to take shelter in the last cave along the way.
There was no time to regret. Shortly after sundown, the pack sniffed him out from the tree he was hiding in. They could have caught and eaten him at any time, but they pursued him for sport instead. They dallied when he was too tired to run, and snapped at his heels when he got up on his feet again.
His mind raced between giving up and letting them have their fun, and pushing ahead yet again, struggling to escape a potential gruesome end. His body was less cooperative each time he got up to run. Finally he faltered, tripped over a small rock, fell, and scrambled frantically to get up.
The dogs were nearly upon him when a figure stepped out from behind a tree.
They pulled up to an abrupt stop, the pursued and the pursuer, together frozen in the same wild alarm. For the figure was decked out grandly in fine crimson silk. A pair of mighty horns crowned its head, framed by a wild, silver-white mane. Such ostentatious appearance spoke of considerable power amongst both beasts and yokai.
He waited with bated breath as the figure approached him, apprehensive as the pressure of power on his skin increased till it was near unbearable. Then, to his surprise, the figure walked past him without as much as a glance, and stopped between him and the pack.
No words were needed. The dogs cowled, and dispersed like shadows back into the deep forest. He was spared.
The presence gave him no title that he could use in deference, so he referred to it as the Elder One, for though it wore an ageless appearance of a human youth, it spoke with a permanent tint of cynicism, as though time was a hassle it had long tired of.
The Elder One was kind to him, in the way that no other yokai or beasts were. It taught him how to lay traps for rabbits and forage for roots, how to travel downwind of hunters, and how to draw up a simple spell to secure a cave entrance against detection.
It was also cruel to him, in the way that no other yokai or beasts were. It sneered at his feeble attempts to fight, laughed every time he cried in pain. It teased out from him the wish to visit a human village and tore that hope to a thousand shreds — how dare he think that humans were any kinder than beasts?
He had hoped, he did pray it would be so. It was the only thing that sustained him as he ran through the night, hungry and tired, away from the mountain, towards the human villages in the foothills.
The Elder One kicked him on the back, and he fell face-first into the rotting leaves.
“I’m sick of your stupid, naive face,” it spat into the dirt. “Do you know what will happen?”
He brought his knees to his chest, made himself a very small, very tight ball, curling up against the root of the old chestnut tree. The Elder One was in one of its moods again, and he wanted to run, only if he could. He did not know what would happen. Would it be worse than what he was now?
“You’ll meet him.”
He dared to look up, for there was something in the Elder One’s voice that was not anger, but the opposite of anger.
“You’ll meet him.” The Elder One repeated, as though he was supposed to understand what it meant.
“Is that a terrible thing?” He dared himself to ask.
The Elder One bent down, picked him up, and patted dust from his clothes, almost kindly. Its mood seemed to have shifted from anger to something that seemed to pain it greatly. He was moved without knowing why, and reached out to touch the Elder One.
Entirely unexpected, the Elder One took his hand, and drew him into a tight embrace.
“It was the most terrible thing.”
When the Elder One set him down, it seemed to have recovered its usual impatient tone. “But we choose for ourselves,” it explained without explaining. He frowned, unable to make sense of the cryptic response.
The Elder One gave him a push, not very gently, and he stumbled on the path, in the direction towards the village.
“Go, meet him, know him, and choose. I have no right to stop you.”
He looked back at the Elder One, puzzled and fearful, worried another mercurial outburst was on the way.
There was nothing behind him on the mountain path. So he ran, towards the village, towards his fate.
And without knowing, not yet, towards the human that would give him a name, and change his life.