Author's Note: Don't stone me, I am doing the best I can to
make this accurate. I have sadly only watched the movie five
times, and do not own it. I forgot to take notes, so forgive
any mistakes. Though I fell instantly in love with the story,
as a writer who is no expert on the story, or Japan, I
apologize for any blunders, and you are welcome to correct me
(as long as it is done gently). I am trying my best with my
limited knowledge, and I promise to do more research for the
future chapters. I hope that you enjoy the muse I have
caught, despite my (as of now, at least) proletarian repute
in this fandom.
I went back and edited this, in attempt to get my ideas more
firmly expressed. My apologies for some confusion and
misinterpretations.
Rating Reasons: PG-13 for some graphic monster-associated scary moments, some more mature-themed drama, and romance.
Chapter 1: Out Of The Tunnel
How much time has passed? Days... months... perhaps years. The turning of seasons is swifter there, on the other side. The human world marches onward at a different pace than ours, the sun flying past while our moon makes its slow journey across the sky. In the human world, it has no doubt been years since she left my world and returned to her own. In my world, it has been only days. Have her memories of me faded to childish dreams? Am I a mere imaginary friend, company no longer kept by one who has grown out of believing in magic? Is she no longer a child with imagination, but a woman who no longer entertains what she deems to be a child's wishful fantasy?
I cannot look back. I must not glance over my shoulder. If I do, I will see my world, and I will be drawn back. It is a powerful spell, as ancient as the dirt of this world, cast by someone long ago in order to protect the gateways to my world. My world. Is it mine? The Spirit World has been my home for so very long, it has become all I know. My river is but a hazy memory, even after I recalled my name with the help of one small human girl. I once was a being of the In- Between Place, a world that was neither entirely of human nor entirely apart from it. I was a Spirit of a river, long since filled in with apartments by the self-destructive humans. When my home, my river, was taken from me, I wandered into the world of the Spirits, and soon that place became another home to me. And yet... what is a home? My river had been my home, but it is lost to me. The Spirit World and the Bathhouse had been another home, but yet I had never truly felt connected to it as such. I did not truly belong there.
What is that human expression that Chihiro used once? Ah yes... home is where the heart is. For all their bad smell and inconsiderate nature, the human who discovered this was very intelligent. For without a love and comfort, a home is just a building. Just bare cold walls and dusty floors that mean nothing. Home, I think, is found in others. For a home is made a place of love and safety only when you have someone to share it with. A family. You need not be connected by blood. We make our own family. Love is what binds a family together, what keeps us strong when we have no one else; a hug to let you know that they are there when you are feeling alone, a hand to hold when you tremble with fear, and a warm smile to fill a rainy day with sunshine. Love is what makes a true home. I have only ever found one sincere home, but like all the others, it was lost to me. But I am on a mission. I must reclaim that home. I must find the only family I ever had. The only person who I have ever really loved.
The plaster of the tunnel is overgrown with moss, smelling of mildew and stagnant water that has pooled in corners. Dead leaves lay in decomposing piles, wet with a recent rain. It is gloomy here, the cloudy sky outside casting the tunnel into midnight darkness. My feet are cold, walking bare upon the dirty stone. I left my sandals at the riverbed, for I wanted to cleanse myself of all that I had left behind. There is no turning back. I have left the Spirit World, and I won't ever return. I promised myself not to. Even if I do not find what I am looking for, I will not be a slave to that meddling witch any longer. Yu-baaba is a shrewd businesswoman, and she takes special care to get something for very little. She strikes deals with those whom she deems worthy, and has the intelligence to twist her words and cause you to believe you are getting a decent exchange even as she cheats you. Our relationship was always very cagey, an eternal race to outsmart one another while keeping the appearance that we were being evenhanded. I do not wish to pretend to serve her anymore.
I feel very small, inside this great tunnel, about to emerge into a world I do not remember. I am very, very old, and yet still always a child in some ways. But I walk with my chin held high. I am not afraid. Fear is not a natural quality in me. Even if I do become afraid of something, my will always triumphs. Emotions can be shaped into something else, and I am nothing if not a master at doing so. If I cannot transform it, I hide it and refuse to feel. Perhaps not the best course of action, but it has never failed me yet.
Lin once told me, her eyes glaring with harsh scorn, that I was an angel made of ice, covered in steel plating sharp as knives. She was right. But ice melts, and then all that is left is cleansing water inside the sharp exterior. I am what I am, and I cannot change the coldness that still lingers about my person. I am no longer Yu-baaba's puppet, heartless as stone, but I am not a gentle little Spirit either. There is a reason that one of my forms is a dragon.
I can see the gray light at the end of the tunnel, only two or so feet away. I pause, but do not glance over my shoulder. To do so would be my undoing. I have seen the spell make even the strongest of beings irrationally turn away from freedom. It draws even the bare minimum of want to return, and magnifies it a thousand times until you can think of nothing but running back the way you came. I will not do that. But I halt all the same, allowing a small aching pang of homesickness to run through me, before I give it all up. Better to extinguish that small flame now, rather than keep it locked within to fester.
I can smell the human world already, the stench that I seem to remember, deep inside myself. A world I once dwelt in, but have been apart from for a very long while. 'Just take one last step, Kohaku. The one last step that will seal your promise;' my heart whispers. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, knowing that with this last pace I will have left my own world and come to a new one that I will be forever bound to live in. I take the step. One foot touches rough forest dirt, and then the other joins it. I am out.
I open my eyes, seeing the gray-daylight lit world for the first time in... what has it been... years? Oh yes, Chihiro fell into my river not so long ago, a few years only in human time, and even less in the Spirit World, and yet... Spirit Time is not trustworthy. Though often it goes much slower than human time, it sometimes bounds ahead in leaps. To me, it had been many years since I had fled the river that had been stolen by greedy humans. Long enough that I had been only a jagged shell of whom I once was when Chihiro first came to Yu- baaba's bathhouse. Long enough that a transformation had taken place in me, changing me from the fierce but soothing Spirit of the Kohaku River to a stony being with eyes of jade- colored steel. But then she came.
She changed me, saved me. She did not even mean to, and yet she did. The ice in me softened, and my stilled heart began to beat once more with the goodness that it once had. Something about her shattered my steel armor, and Yu-baaba's hold on me slipped. I was free at last. Now, I am here to find her. Because I need her, she is all I have left. Without someone you love, home is just walls. Without a home, one is lost. I was lost once, and she found me. Now I must find her.
I look around me, unsure of where to go. I have never been here, that I recall. Which way ought I to go? I raise my face to the cold biting wind, the foretelling airstreams of a coming storm. I listen to the voices of the wind, as they whisper to me with voices innumerable. 'This way.' They murmur. I follow, my bare feet quickly becoming pained for the sharp twigs and thorns littering the forest floor. The path I take is not well worn, seeming rarely trodden. I can hear on the breeze the sounds of modern humanity, alien noises that are strange to me. I can smell the stink of humans, their hate, their deceit, the smell of the good people and the bad, bathed in the toxins that they pollute the air with. My lungs ache with breathing the heavier, dirty air, but I trudge on. Fear, pain, and sadness are strong sensations, but purpose and the power of love are much stronger.
The wind whips about me, urging me onward with gently encouraging whispers. It is falling into night, quickly in these thick woods. I must reach the edge of the city before nightfall. But then where shall I go? I do not even know where Chihiro lives, or if she is even anywhere near. She might be a million miles away. But if she is, I will keep looking. The dying magic of the human world will help me if I have need of it. I have always completed missions better when I have only myself to rely on.
The trees speak in hoarse voices, sick with the world that poisons them, but wanting to help me even so. I know that the wind cannot help me in the city. These winds say it is too filthy there for them to go. I will be alone, and most likely soon lost. But I will find a way. Of this, I am certain.
The lost will be led, and hopefully, found.
Rating Reasons: PG-13 for some graphic monster-associated scary moments, some more mature-themed drama, and romance.
Chapter 1: Out Of The Tunnel
How much time has passed? Days... months... perhaps years. The turning of seasons is swifter there, on the other side. The human world marches onward at a different pace than ours, the sun flying past while our moon makes its slow journey across the sky. In the human world, it has no doubt been years since she left my world and returned to her own. In my world, it has been only days. Have her memories of me faded to childish dreams? Am I a mere imaginary friend, company no longer kept by one who has grown out of believing in magic? Is she no longer a child with imagination, but a woman who no longer entertains what she deems to be a child's wishful fantasy?
I cannot look back. I must not glance over my shoulder. If I do, I will see my world, and I will be drawn back. It is a powerful spell, as ancient as the dirt of this world, cast by someone long ago in order to protect the gateways to my world. My world. Is it mine? The Spirit World has been my home for so very long, it has become all I know. My river is but a hazy memory, even after I recalled my name with the help of one small human girl. I once was a being of the In- Between Place, a world that was neither entirely of human nor entirely apart from it. I was a Spirit of a river, long since filled in with apartments by the self-destructive humans. When my home, my river, was taken from me, I wandered into the world of the Spirits, and soon that place became another home to me. And yet... what is a home? My river had been my home, but it is lost to me. The Spirit World and the Bathhouse had been another home, but yet I had never truly felt connected to it as such. I did not truly belong there.
What is that human expression that Chihiro used once? Ah yes... home is where the heart is. For all their bad smell and inconsiderate nature, the human who discovered this was very intelligent. For without a love and comfort, a home is just a building. Just bare cold walls and dusty floors that mean nothing. Home, I think, is found in others. For a home is made a place of love and safety only when you have someone to share it with. A family. You need not be connected by blood. We make our own family. Love is what binds a family together, what keeps us strong when we have no one else; a hug to let you know that they are there when you are feeling alone, a hand to hold when you tremble with fear, and a warm smile to fill a rainy day with sunshine. Love is what makes a true home. I have only ever found one sincere home, but like all the others, it was lost to me. But I am on a mission. I must reclaim that home. I must find the only family I ever had. The only person who I have ever really loved.
The plaster of the tunnel is overgrown with moss, smelling of mildew and stagnant water that has pooled in corners. Dead leaves lay in decomposing piles, wet with a recent rain. It is gloomy here, the cloudy sky outside casting the tunnel into midnight darkness. My feet are cold, walking bare upon the dirty stone. I left my sandals at the riverbed, for I wanted to cleanse myself of all that I had left behind. There is no turning back. I have left the Spirit World, and I won't ever return. I promised myself not to. Even if I do not find what I am looking for, I will not be a slave to that meddling witch any longer. Yu-baaba is a shrewd businesswoman, and she takes special care to get something for very little. She strikes deals with those whom she deems worthy, and has the intelligence to twist her words and cause you to believe you are getting a decent exchange even as she cheats you. Our relationship was always very cagey, an eternal race to outsmart one another while keeping the appearance that we were being evenhanded. I do not wish to pretend to serve her anymore.
I feel very small, inside this great tunnel, about to emerge into a world I do not remember. I am very, very old, and yet still always a child in some ways. But I walk with my chin held high. I am not afraid. Fear is not a natural quality in me. Even if I do become afraid of something, my will always triumphs. Emotions can be shaped into something else, and I am nothing if not a master at doing so. If I cannot transform it, I hide it and refuse to feel. Perhaps not the best course of action, but it has never failed me yet.
Lin once told me, her eyes glaring with harsh scorn, that I was an angel made of ice, covered in steel plating sharp as knives. She was right. But ice melts, and then all that is left is cleansing water inside the sharp exterior. I am what I am, and I cannot change the coldness that still lingers about my person. I am no longer Yu-baaba's puppet, heartless as stone, but I am not a gentle little Spirit either. There is a reason that one of my forms is a dragon.
I can see the gray light at the end of the tunnel, only two or so feet away. I pause, but do not glance over my shoulder. To do so would be my undoing. I have seen the spell make even the strongest of beings irrationally turn away from freedom. It draws even the bare minimum of want to return, and magnifies it a thousand times until you can think of nothing but running back the way you came. I will not do that. But I halt all the same, allowing a small aching pang of homesickness to run through me, before I give it all up. Better to extinguish that small flame now, rather than keep it locked within to fester.
I can smell the human world already, the stench that I seem to remember, deep inside myself. A world I once dwelt in, but have been apart from for a very long while. 'Just take one last step, Kohaku. The one last step that will seal your promise;' my heart whispers. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, knowing that with this last pace I will have left my own world and come to a new one that I will be forever bound to live in. I take the step. One foot touches rough forest dirt, and then the other joins it. I am out.
I open my eyes, seeing the gray-daylight lit world for the first time in... what has it been... years? Oh yes, Chihiro fell into my river not so long ago, a few years only in human time, and even less in the Spirit World, and yet... Spirit Time is not trustworthy. Though often it goes much slower than human time, it sometimes bounds ahead in leaps. To me, it had been many years since I had fled the river that had been stolen by greedy humans. Long enough that I had been only a jagged shell of whom I once was when Chihiro first came to Yu- baaba's bathhouse. Long enough that a transformation had taken place in me, changing me from the fierce but soothing Spirit of the Kohaku River to a stony being with eyes of jade- colored steel. But then she came.
She changed me, saved me. She did not even mean to, and yet she did. The ice in me softened, and my stilled heart began to beat once more with the goodness that it once had. Something about her shattered my steel armor, and Yu-baaba's hold on me slipped. I was free at last. Now, I am here to find her. Because I need her, she is all I have left. Without someone you love, home is just walls. Without a home, one is lost. I was lost once, and she found me. Now I must find her.
I look around me, unsure of where to go. I have never been here, that I recall. Which way ought I to go? I raise my face to the cold biting wind, the foretelling airstreams of a coming storm. I listen to the voices of the wind, as they whisper to me with voices innumerable. 'This way.' They murmur. I follow, my bare feet quickly becoming pained for the sharp twigs and thorns littering the forest floor. The path I take is not well worn, seeming rarely trodden. I can hear on the breeze the sounds of modern humanity, alien noises that are strange to me. I can smell the stink of humans, their hate, their deceit, the smell of the good people and the bad, bathed in the toxins that they pollute the air with. My lungs ache with breathing the heavier, dirty air, but I trudge on. Fear, pain, and sadness are strong sensations, but purpose and the power of love are much stronger.
The wind whips about me, urging me onward with gently encouraging whispers. It is falling into night, quickly in these thick woods. I must reach the edge of the city before nightfall. But then where shall I go? I do not even know where Chihiro lives, or if she is even anywhere near. She might be a million miles away. But if she is, I will keep looking. The dying magic of the human world will help me if I have need of it. I have always completed missions better when I have only myself to rely on.
The trees speak in hoarse voices, sick with the world that poisons them, but wanting to help me even so. I know that the wind cannot help me in the city. These winds say it is too filthy there for them to go. I will be alone, and most likely soon lost. But I will find a way. Of this, I am certain.
The lost will be led, and hopefully, found.