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SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

What follows is a Mononoke Hime fan fiction story.  If you have not
seen this film but intend to, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!!!
Really, I'm not one of those who freaks out at knowing the details of
a movie before seeing it, but a Miyazaki movie is different.  YOU
HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
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LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK!
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My friends and I returned from Anime Expo '98 with a lot of laser
discs and video tapes, so yesterday I finally saw Mononoke Hime.
Afterwards I visited the Hayao Miyazaki Web and read their
wonderful synopsis.  I couldn't help myself; I decided that I had to
attempt a Mononoke Hime fan fic, and at the same time accept the
challenge to write completely in single syllables.

Personally, I find simple words can create powerful writing, often
moreso than longer, more complex words.  But using only words of
one syllable is annoying and limiting.  I find myself writing in a
stilted style that I do not like.  The results are mushy and waffy and
stilted and boring... but it's a fun exercise; it definitely makes you
think about how you write.

A month ago, a friend issued a similar challenge... to write without
using any form of "is" or "to be".  I failed that one dramatically.  ^_^

Let me know what you think.

_______________________________________________________

Dark
M. A. Davis (Miko)
A Mononoke Hime Fan Fiction Story
(in words of one syllable)

Characters and concepts copyright Miyazaki Hayao and Studio
Ghibli



     Once this land was cloaked with woods.  Once the trees ran
thick on these hills, and the gods of old walked in their midst.
     It will not be that way again, I think.  Not for a long time.  It
may be not at all.

     The ground shakes as the gate slams shut.  I am left out, on
the far side of the wall, where it will soon grow dark, where there are
no fires to warm the soul.  I glance up at the wall, where friends
watch and smile.  "Take care!" one calls.  "Be safe this night!" says
the next.  I smile at them.  They are a part of me, now, my new kin.
Though I leave now and then, I always come back to this, my new
home.
     I was born and raised in a town, far from here.  The soul of a
town runs in my blood, and these walls are now my home.  I have
tried to tell her why.  I can not live as she lives.  I can not keep my
own kind at arm's length -- but to her, those of the town are not her
kind.
     For her sake, I dwell in more than one place.  Which is my
home?  Try as I might, I can not call the woods my home, and yet,
for her sake...
     I wrap cloth tight about my face, and spur my mount.
     I ride out through the fields and up to the hills.   Where I
pass, there is dried buff grass, and shrubs, and small trees, and the
stumps of the trees that once stood tall.  Two years have passed.  It
will take more time than that to heal the land.
     San dwelt in these woods, when they were woods and not
just stumps.  She dwells in woods still, but far north of where we are
now.  It is a long ride, but it gives me time to think.
     I think only of San.
     She is a child of the earth, a wild girl raised by wolves.  She
is a ghost.  Her rage burns hot, but she is kind as well as cruel.  Her
eyes are sharp as the blade she swings.  I can still feel that blade as it
cuts my cheek.  I can still feel those eyes as they pierce my soul.
     Her own kin tossed her to the wolves.  She was a pawn to
buy them safe flight.  She does not owe them, does not owe man a
thing.  She hates her own kind.
     My path winds down through hills to where the spring still
shines.  Once there was shade here, but no more.  The wolf god died
here -- San's mom, San's guide.  The white boar died here.  I might
have died here, but for San.  The world might have died here, but for
luck, and San, and yes, me as well.
     And then she is there.  She has come to meet me, as she has
done the last few times.  I smile, and help her mount up with me,
and feel a thrill as her hands grasp my waist.
     We ride north.
     "I'm glad to see you," she says in my ear.  "I've missed you
these last few days."
     "You could have come to the town to see me," I say, with
hope, but I feel her head shake.
     "No.  That's not my place.  I could not feel safe, on the far
side of those walls.  I'd feel trapped in there."
     I sigh.  I wish it were not this way.  I have wished it so for
two years now.  What more can I do?
     "I am not one of you," she says.  "I can not be one of you.
My place is here, in the woods.  My place is with my kind."
     "I am your kind," I say.  I know my words are of no use and
will bear no fruit, but I can not help it.
    "But I am not of yours," she says.  I feel her grip at my waist
grow tight, as if to say that no more should be said, or can be said.
     As the light grows dim, we come to the edge of the woods.
Here San makes her home, in a cave near a cliff.  I follow her there,
and I lay down, and we talk, 'til the last rays of the sun fade and the
dark claims us.  I lay by her side and place my hand on her waist.
My arm still bears the faint scars of my death curse.  How strange it
all seems now, so long  past.  Can it be true that I was cursed, that
black death grew in me?  But if it had not, then I would not have met
San.
     I feel her breath on my neck, and her lips on my cheek.  I
wrap her arms in mine, and though she can not see it, I smile, and
though I can not see it, I know her eyes stare back at mine, and there
is love held in them.
     If this is how it must be, then I cede my will to hers.  I will
meet her on her own terms, and I will dwell in more than one place,
with no home of my own.  I am at peace with what we have, for I
have what I want.
     I have her.
     Her heart beats at my chest, and I know.  The woods live
still, and all who dwelt in them.  The gods of old, and the ghosts of
the woods, live on in her.

 End

Not very insightful I suppose... but I really want to think that they will
work things out between them somehow...  ^_^

So how many two-syllable words did I miss?  I caught several on my second
read-through.

Yes, this is how I spent my birthday... writing...  ^_^

(Now, if I were Joseph Palmer, I suppose I'd have to follow this with
"Bright" and maybe "Light" and "Shadow"  ^_^ ;; )

Miko!

"When you really need them the most," he said, "million-to-once chances
always crop up.  Well-known fact."  --Seargent Colon, "Guards, Guards!"
Terry Pratchett

Nausicaa@sprynet.com   Belldandy@angelic.com
Anime rpg at http://come.to/akane/
Fan Fiction at http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/pratchett/199/