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In the heart of the sacred forest, there was a lake. At the edge of that lake, there sat a man. And upon that man’s arm lay a twisted scar. It was no ordinary scar.
But then, he was no ordinary man, either.
He was a prince. At least, he had been. Before he had become infected with the hate of the earth. It was a terrible curse. It made his blood run thick and hot through his tender human veins. It used to, anyway. Now, the curse had been lifted. Yet, he felt as though some sinister presence still lingered in his body, because he was not at rest. Despite his unwavering focus on uniting nature and humanity, he was not with his people. And this truth plagued him. The absence of the warm village campfire thrumming life through his sore body carved a phantom pain into his arm that hurt deeper than any demonic affliction. For he knew he would never feel that warmth again.
He winced, touching his forearm. Pain shot from his shoulder down familiar paths where bone met muscle before escaping into the air beyond his reach, like a wicked arrow. His body remembered. It remembered the curse’s terrible power and craved it, he realized. He lamented this.
“Shall I always be haunted by this curse’s hatred?” He uttered in disbelief to himself.
It had been easier for him to forsake his prince’s life when he had been presented with the urgent challenge of saving the forest and the people surrounding it. During his journey westward, he did not have the time to truly process what leaving the village meant. It was not possible. Not when the curse demanded his total attention. But now the curse was quiet, and the silence of the forest was loud.
He sighed, and the sound bled morning dew over the gentle flutterings of pale blue moths who darted between the glass of the sleeping lake and the white lilies of the shoreline. His anguish did not disturb the lake’s peaceful face, nor the idle movements of the moths. This comforted him. For it meant that his pain would pass, and the world was big enough to hold him steady through his many griefs.
Yet his heart ached. How was he supposed to pursue harmony between man and beast when the battle was over and the weapons of each had been laid down? He was a warrior. A peacemaker, even. But a mediator? The word made him feel unsteady. His warrior ways may have led them all to the present, but he knew strength alone was not enough to create the future they had each been entrusted with. The weight of that second destiny weighed heavily upon his spirit. But he had never been one to shy away from destiny. And so, in spite of his fears, he eased himself onto his knees and rested his weight on his heels. He looked upon his blurred image in the dreaming waters. But what he saw scared him. Because in the forest by the lake, he did not recognize the stranger looking back at him.
He fixated on the pink scar curling around the stranger’s right arm, and the short, shaggy hair that rippled around his reflection. The stranger had no prince’s hair, nor demon’s power.
He was a just a man.
The pain in his arm returned and the man clutched it, ashamed.
He was ashamed of its phantom desire, for it was his own. And more than that, he felt ashamed by how much he missed his long hair.
“It’s just hair,” He muttered to himself. But he knew this to be a pale attempt at comfort. He knew why he missed it so.
He sat with the stranger in silence.
The sky-blue moths fluttered around both the man and the watery stranger, languidly visiting another cluster of white lilies as a mid-afternoon breeze graced the boughs of hanging moss that spilled out of the arms of nearby trees.
A sound broke his introspective focus.
A particular rustle in the branches alerted the man to the presence of a familiar wolf-girl.
“Are you going to hunt me like the deer of the forest, San of the Wolf Clan?” He declared, staring out over the lake.
“That depends,” The wolf-girl growled from behind him. “Do you want to be my prey, Ashitaka of the East?”
The man smiled. “Well, you’ve certainly caught my attention. What else should I fear about losing to your tooth and claw?”
“Got any snacks?” San skittered on all fours over to him, peering over his shoulder to get a better look at the pouch he had brought with him.
“Salmon wrapped in seaweed?” Ashitaka replied, going for the bag.
“My favorite!” San hugged him from behind, eager hands reaching for the bag.
“Now wait just a moment,” Ashitaka laughed against her.
But she was too quick. Her nimble fingers had already reached into the bag and pulled, and he was too happy to see her to care.
She gulped down ravenous bite after bite, burping irreverently. “Have you been staring at yourself in the lake again?”
“Perhaps.”
“You know you can tell me anything, ‘Taka,” She took another voracious bite.
“I know, San-lai,” He nodded, running a hand over the back of his head. “It’s just...It’s very foolish.”
“You are foolish for loving me,” She said. “And yet here I am. Speak.”
Looking at her, he found the courage to reveal the stranger.
“You never knew me before I journeyed to these woods. But before I came here, I lived amongst the people of Emishi Village as their prince.”
“A prince, huh,” San raised a furtive eyebrow. “So that must be why you’re so ruggedly handsome.”
Ashitaka blushed.
“One of the styles I wore as a prince was a long gathering of hair down my back,” He continued. “Upon my banishment, I cut it off because I was forbidden to return.”
“Forbidden?” San exclaimed. “For the curse?”
“Yes.”
“But they’re your kin!”
“Not anymore.”
“You didn’t fall into the curse’s power like Lord Okkoto did. You would never have hurt them. You were stronger than the curse.”
“You know as well as I do that the curse would have consumed me all the same if we had not succeeded. The council and the old wise woman knew this when they banished me. Their wisdom is final.”
“I do not understand your human ways,” San huffed. “But I respect your loyalty to your clan leaders.”
She rested a hand over his.
“And that does not sound very foolish to me,” She said.
“Ah, well,” Ashitaka said. “The foolish part is that I miss my long hair.”
“That’s it?” San said. “Hair?”
“I know,” He looked away.
“You said that your long hair meant something to you. It makes sense why you’d miss it.”
“Yes,” He said. “But it meant more than that. It meant I had people to care for. A village to protect. I have come to know that the world, both man and beast, are my kin, but even now I don’t know who I am without the village and the task they entrusted me with.”
“I know what you mean.” She nodded solemnly.
Ashitaka swiveled his head.
“You do?”
“You know my brothers?”
“Of course.”
“We used to have an older sister,” San said bitterly. “Yukana. She was brave. She was the only one to survive from her litter. There had been a terrible wildfire that summer, so Mother tells us. Only Yukana made it. The other three died.”
“That’s terrible.” Ashitaka said.
“She saved me from a flood, years later, when I was just a cub,” She sniffled. “I was too small to swim against it. Mother saved my brothers, but Kana...she died saving me.”
“Which is why I never met her,” He followed quietly.
San nodded.
“It’s my fault she’s gone. But I thank her everyday for her sacrifice. She was the best sister.”
“She sounds like an incredible god. And a divine sister, too.” Ashitaka gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You know, I had a sister once, too.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She didn’t want me to go. It broke my heart to leave her more than anything.”
“What’s her name?”
“Kaya.”
“I’m sorry, Ashitaka.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t be. She gets to live. Your sister did not.”
“And I miss her everyday,” San sighed. “Maybe that makes me foolish too, but I don’t care.”
“Maybe we can be foolish together, then,” Ashitaka said.
San smiled. “I can get behind that.”
He watched as a dangerous glint of mischief played with her dark eyes, and felt like a boy all over again.
“What?” he asked, eyes searching just beyond them. “Is there something on my face?”
She said nothing in response, only darting up a nearby tree out of sight.
“I thought you liked the way I looked,” He teased, calling after her. “Having second thoughts?”
“Shut up,” She replied, before jumping out of the tree and causing the nearby moths to scatter at her landing. She reappeared at the base of the tree with long strands of emerald moss draping elegantly between her fingers.
She twirled a finger at him, spinning the moss around it into an easy spiral.
“Turn around.”
“What happens if I don’t?” His heart began to race.
“Then I’ll push you into the lake and enjoy the view of you walking out of it soaked to the skin,” She answered without missing a beat.
“Then I will pray for rain,” He rushed. “So that you may watch it fall on me.”
“Just turn around.”
With a winning smile, he turned around and sat cross-legged with his hands attentively on his knees.
She ran a hand through his hair.
The sensation sent gooseflesh down his spine.
“I can work with this,” She says, beginning to interweave the ends of his hair with strands of hanging moss.
“San, what are you doing?” Ashitaka felt something soft touching his back as her fingers rummaged through his hair.
“Nothing, my prince,” She replied.
He blushed profusely. She could feel the heat creeping over the back of his neck as she worked her way down his scalp.
“Did you have other titles?” Her finger brushed his ear as she worked another piece of moss in. “Lord of Emishi? Protector of the East?”
“Right now I feel more like the prince of moss,” He managed.
“Prince Ashitaka,” She crooned. Her voice plucked ripened persimmons out of his chest. “Lord of the Forest.”
“San,” He breathed. “There’s...there’s only one lord of the forest and he’s—”
“Oh c’mon,” She yanked him to his feet and pushed him towards the water. “Can’t you see how pretty you are?”
Her abrupt movement caught him off guard, but his reflection is what stunned him entirely. When he saw himself this time, the stranger was not there. The dark moss hanging from his head seemed to belong there, tied off with a softened reed at the top. Ashitaka swore that if he turned around, he’d feel the village fire warm on his chest again.
He turned around. San stood there, beaming at him. And the fire rushed deeply into his bones.
Embracing her, the lake rippled with a stronger breeze and the moths scattered upwards, chasing the canopy of fading light breaking through the treetops.
“Thank you,” He breathed.
She tenderly licked away his tears with her tongue. “You look lovely tonight, my prince,” She murmured.
He buried his face into hers, uncertain if the wetness on his face was a steady flow of tears or the stickiness of her spit clinging to his face, but he did not care. Because he was lost in the precise movements of her lips and teeth finding his own.
In the heart of the sacred forest, there was a lake. And beside that lake, there was a prince. And with that prince was a princess. And the scars that lay upon their bodies were not hidden from one another.
Their sorrows were perfumed by the aroma of white lilies blanketing the evening air, and nothing was dark about the departure of the light. The sun set behind the newly growing forest with a glowing promise of return, and this they believed anew. Beneath the lakebed trees, woven between dusky air and a sea of fireflies, they knew what it meant to be untouched by hatred.
For they loved each other with hearts unclouded.