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Z O O L O G Y
One RAT
.
Nothing good has the word rat in it.
It's stupid, but on sleepless nights, he thinks about this stuff. Sometimes, it's the other way around, and he can't sleep because it's on his mind.
Who is he?
After so many years of living a contradiction, he doesn't know. He's a monster, he's a prince. He's revered, he's Cursed. 'Would they really love you, if they knew what you were?' No, he believes. Yes, he wants to believe. But he'll never know for sure, living on the edge of two different worlds. It makes him want to scream, but his lungs were never good anyway.
Rat fink. Rat's nest. Rat face.
He gets up in the morning after a sleepless night, tired and about to fall face first into his porridge.
It was going to be a bad day.
Two OX
.
The most terrible pain he ever experienced was when he was nine. He broke his arm trying to retrieve a kite trapped in the branches of a tree one dry October afternoon. He remembered stretching for, but not quite reaching, the shiny red tail waving in the breeze before losing his footing and pitching backward in a slow dreamlike fall. After a moment of sharp empty blackness, he had woken up while he was being carried into the house; dead leaves and dirt still clinging to his hair and clothes. He never cried so much in his life. The strange thing is, he can't remember what it felt like, the broken bone, the bleeding, the hard fall- any of it. It only hurt when he looked into their faces and saw what they didn't want to say. 'Only someone as stupid and slow as the Ox...'
Three TIGER
.
It wins first place and she hangs it up in her room, even though her mother told her not to make holes in her wall. It's the last thing she sees when she sleeps and the first thing she sees when she wakes up.
In acrylic paints and careful strokes is a jungle queen, with eyes of deep amber and a magnificent pelt of orange and black draped over a sinewy frame. The very image of beauty and power, nearly breathing with life through parted black lips and gleaming fangs.
In art class, she learned that all artists insert a bit of themselves in their work. She looks at her own painting and hopes with all of her heart there is a projected piece of her in it somewhere, even though she has yet to find it in herself.
Four RABBIT
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The first time he saw a real live rabbit he was six years old. It was in the woods behind the Sohma estate one afternoon when he noticed it hiding under some shrubbery. The rabbit was brown, wide eyed, and twitchy-nosed with a white tuft of a tail; just like in his picture books. He squatted down and stared at it for what seemed like hours until the rabbit fled deep into the forest. His legs felt sore, but he stayed that way longer still, wondering what was so horrible about rabbits that they earned his mother's disgust.
Five DRAGON
.
He doesn't like discussing it because there's nothing to discuss. Really.
He hates his Animal Form.
It's pathetic. He remembered the first time he Transformed, he felt a huge disappointment. If one were promised to be the Dragon of the Zodiac, wouldn't one (especially an imaginative five year old at that) dream up a big, grandiose reptilian king with wings and fangs and shining scales? But regrettably, he is truly nothing more than a tiny, delicate sea creature, wheezing and flapping tiny fins in need of a glass of water.
Shigure jokes and says that his tough, cool exterior is just compensating for his lame little seahorse. Shigure is an idiot but this time, he has that bitter, nasty feeling of agreeing with him.
Anyways, he's too old to care anymore (but he still does, secretly).
Six SNAKE
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Snakes have a poor reputation. This is upsetting to him; reputation is everything, but there's not much he can do about the venomous, sinful, cold-blooded nature of his Zodiac. Just like with dressmaking, you've got to make do with what you've got.
One thing he simply cannot tolerate is the divine order of things; the he is mortal enemy of the Rat, which happens to be his younger brother. The blood they share is bad blood, if by cruel fate or his own cruelty, he's uncertain. He's tried to make a change, to get to know him, to be there for him, but the Rat won't have any of it, perhaps by instinct.
"Don't struggle," he wants to tell him while tightening the bind, "it'll only make it worse."
Seven HORSE
.
The verticals blinds on the hospital windows cast shadows like bars across her bed.
She lays in bed, weak from the slow gnawing hunger crawling through her veins, a strange sort of hunger that cannot be easily fixed, not if she were to pull out the wire trappings buried in her skin and walk out the door. She's still bound by something deeper; an ancient and horrible thing that runs through her veins. A thing that not only keeps her in chains but burns in her the desire for freedom. The Spirit of the Horse.
She would do anything to be free. Anything.
Eight RAM
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A cute little boy with a tongue like battery acid. You would think he was more of a wolf in disguise than a docile little sheep. Fluffy and soft. Yeah right. He reminds people, 'They have horns too' and he doesn't let them forget it.
Nine MONKEY
.
He feels, that among the several egregious things wrong with him, that this is the WORST.
He's graceless and withdrawn. He can't stand the sweet mushy taste of bananas. He feels sick when's he up too high and looking down—not much of a problem since he doesn't have an athletic bone his body and can't climb without the assistance of a ladder.
Thinking about this too much creates an intense feeling of despondency that makes him crawl to his mother in tears, begging for forgiveness. Not only did he have the bad luck of being Cursed, but he didn't even make a decent Monkey!
Ten ROOSTER
.
Sometimes he misses flying, even if, with the wind on his wings and world very small down below him, he was never really free.
Eleven DOG
.
Dogs are supposed to be faithful, loyal creatures. What was he? A no-good scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a traitor. It was a damned funny twist of mockery wasn't it? A kind of terrible irony that only a writer like himself could appreciate.
Upon further reflection, however, he is satisfied. He is faithful and loyal; to one master and one master only. That was all that mattered.
Twelve BOAR
.
Her snout wriggles and snuffles through the fallen leaves, trying to find his scent.
She's just a regular girl in (unrequited) love.
Thirteen CAT
.
When no one looks, he idly plucks at the beads on his bracelet. He doesn't want to scare anyone. Can't risk it coming off, after all. They feel cold and hard between his fingers and lightly snap back at his wrist with each tug. He doesn't know why he does this. It's as helpful as poking a bruise, or scratching a scab; equal parts fascinating and horrifying. Every touch brings him further from normalcy.
The rest of the time, he pretends it's not there. There are moments when he even forgets. He's normal for once. Happy. But always, he is pulled back into reality, just like the elastic in the band.
He wonders why he's orange. Given his luck, black would have been more appropriate.
Fourteen GOD
.
Despite what they think, there is no pleasure in her cruelty. It's a test. If they truly love and adore her, they will stay, no matter what. She looks into their eyes to see the fear and pain. She's not interested in the blood or tears or whimpering. To know it is to see it in their eyes.
They never run away, not for too long anyway. Because they love her and she loves them.
Fifteen RICE BALL
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Tohru hummed happily. Her hands molded a small handful of fluffy white rice with quick expertise. It was for the big, important dinner. Everything had to be perfect.
She did not know why rice balls had been requested to be on the menu. It was a formal dinner, with several courses of special soups and meats and vegetables. Rice balls seemed a bit too casual and common to fit in for the exquisite banquet set out. But she went along with it anyway, and tried to make them as tasty as possible.
She finished filling and dressing the final rice ball and placed it on the plate with the others, admiring them while washing her hands in the sink.
Very carefully, she carried the plate into the dining room for her fourteen hungry guests.
/End