Two years in the making

Fuu opened her eyes slowly. She had the most massive head ache she had ever had in her entire existence. But the stress that had swamped her mind the night before had a tendency to do that sort of thing now didn’t it?



The sun had probably been up for a few hours now. It was beating down into the room through the window and some happy little bird was chirping away. Now Fuu wasn’t normally a violent person but all she wanted to do at the moment was find that stupid little bird and strangle it until it couldn’t sing anymore. Maybe even figure out how to make the thing explode. No more singing. No more false sense of happy mornings.



She rolled back over on to her side and pulled the blanket up over her head to block out the sun. Really whose sick idea was it for that big blazing ball of light to rise up and force her eyes open? Darkness was so much easier. You couldn’t see the problems in the dark, and for the most part of it you slept through them.



Mugen had as good as said he wanted her, cared about her even. It was just a little too late.



This in itself was ironic. Usually Mugen was just in time. Right there. Right before the bad thing happened. Right before she was raped, right before she was killed, right before anything she wouldn’t have been able to cope with happened. She had been molested, but in the end she coped with that, she had been thrown into brothels. It was something you had to do or you wouldn’t keep living.



But he was late this time. She was getting married. Married! This wasn’t something you just dropped out of. And you definitely didn’t drop out of it because of Mugen. It didn’t matter than she cared about him more than anything on this planet. It didn’t matter that she didn’t love Katsu. What she needed now in her life was stability. A family would be really nice too. Mugen didn’t fit into that picture. Stability wasn’t achieved by traveling all over the world, and Mugen didn’t really seem to fit into the whole “family” category.



The last reason that she couldn’t leave Katsu for Mugen was probably the most heartbreaking of them all for her. Mugen got bored easily. Too easily for comfort. He would eventually end up throwing her to the side. Mugen probably wasn’t capable of being with only one woman. He probably had to have at least five different women a month just to function. Why was he like that? Why did he have to act like that?



Fuu pulled the pillow over her head as well now. If only to be able to muffle her screams of frustration. She could get over this. She could do it. She accepted her mother’s death, and then her father’s. She could accept the fact that she would never be able to have Mugen.



It seemed so silly to her that she would want him and love him so much only to pull away from him when he reviled that he felt the same way. But then on the other hand it didn’t seem that much of a surprise to her. She could deal with him not caring about her. She couldn’t deal with him loving her and then rejecting her after he used her up. She would be a filthy rag covered in dirt flung in the ditch for a new brand new silk kimono. That’s what Mugen did after all. Took and took and took until he was sick of it and then he moved on to the next brothel.



Fuu shuddered at the latest thought that came to mind. Perhaps he would keep her with him, and then he would sleep with other women behind her back. She knew this happened often in these times but she didn’t know how well she would be able to handle such a relationship. To have him go to another woman, lay in her bed and then come back to her in the dark of the night smelling like cheap perfume. No, she wouldn’t be able to survive such a thing.



She also had a very very good idea about the fact that Mugen didn’t actually care about her at all. He hadn’t shown any of this sort of behavior back when they were traveling. Was it her new figure that had him wanting her? That thought also made her want to throw up. But it was plausible.



She let loose one final scream into her pillow and then set it back down before pulling the blanket off of her. It had to be at least ten right now. She would have been serving meals back at her own village right now, maybe cleaning a table. That life was simple, but it was her life. She liked it. She was never running for her life, she hadn’t been thrown over anyone’s shoulder or tied up at any one point during her stay. She was safe. She was happy. So what if she had missed those two. She had been doing fine for the past three months before she saw them.



Maybe she could just pretend that she had never seen them in the first place. That she had never seen Mugen at all. That would be the best thing for her, it really would. But that just wasn’t how life worked. It just wasn’t.



Fuu felt like fate was just playing a sick game on her.



Fuu stood and grabbed one of her kimono’s, one of the same style that she had worn when she arrived. It was light green with pink designs on it. She had always been told that the outfit brought out the light shades of red that were in her hair and the pink reviled the natural blush of her cheeks. She had always felt that she could make herself feel better by looking better. It didn’t always work, but it was always worth a shot.



Within seconds she had her hair up in a comb and she was walking out of her room. She planned on spending her day out by the river that she had seen on the edge of town. When the carriage had driven into the city she had seen it and all of the little families at the water’s edge. Little kids had been playing with one another there. It would be the perfect distraction.



Fuu made her way down the hall as fast as she could in order to avoid Mugen, and then out the door. She thought it was odd how she was greeted by almost every person she passed. She supposed it had become common knowledge that she was a friend of Jin. It only took her about fifteen minutes to make her way down to the river.



It was shallow. More like a creek than anything else, but it was perfect for splashing around in if you were under the age of ten. There were multiple families there. Husbands and wives with their children soaking up what little romance was left from the wedding ceremony. This town was fairly laid back from what she could tell but it still prospered. It was obviously because everyone there helped each other out. She had never seen such a thing in all of her travels. It must have been why Jin chose to settle down there.



Fuu was pulled out of her thoughts when there was a small tug on her kimono and she looked down to see a little boy. He had to be three at the most. Not much more than that. Still a little wobbly on his feet with big brown eyes. Obviously precocious. His mother rushed over and apologized but Fuu just smiled and picked the boy up and played a game of “I spy” with him. He wasn’t very helpful because he said that he saw something that was green, and when you are out doors just about everything is considered green. She still played with him though. The kid was cute after all.



After an hour or so just playing various games with the kid that seemed to grow into kids. About three of them now. Their mothers were thankful for the time that they were getting alone with their husbands, even if it was for such a little time.



A small girl leaned over to her and asked her to tell them a story. Fuu smiled. She had so many stories to tell.



“One day there was a princess and she was just minding her own business in the woods one day when I evil man came and attacked her.”



The youngest of the three gasped and Fuu smiled slightly.



“But she was saved by a thief before anything bad could happen to her. He killed the evil man and saved the princess from certain doom. But then the prince showed up! And he couldn’t be outdone by a thief! It was his job to save the princess! So the two fought each other even though the princess tried to get them to stop.”



All three leaned forward slowly intent on the story. She continued this. With Mugen as the thief and Jin as the Prince. She of course was the princess. It was her story minus all the really bad parts. She had never realized how long the story really was. Whenever she thought about it seemed so much faster, but telling the whole story at once! It had to have been two hours long, and that was without the creepy zombie people!



She came closer to the end and tilted her head.



“And then the Prince married his peasant girl that he fell in love with. And the Princess married the soldier even though she loved the thief, because she couldn’t hold on to someone who slips around in the shadows.”



She sighed softly and looked down at her fingers.



“And both of the couples had many children and grandchildren until their family was spread all over the place, and the story of their lives faded away into legend.”



The little kids clapped except for the girl who had fallen asleep in her lap at least fifteen minutes ago. She stroked her head slowly.



“What happened to the thief?” asked a voice from behind her.



She knew his voice anywhere. “The princess always remembered him, but the thief only thought of her for a little while, if at all. Thief’s interests are passing and swift.”



Mugen looked down at the children around her, he seemed to understand something when he looked at the girl in her lap.



“The princess wanted to settle down. Have a family. She didn’t think she could do that with the thief did she?” Mugen asked slowly, deliberately.



“She knew she couldn’t.”