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Sometimes, Lord Ashitaka walks into the forest and doesn't return until sundown.
Some of the townspeople watch him leave before the day breaks, the quiet, powerful footfalls of his elk behind him, grass bending in their wake. He doesn't ride, the animal too old to support his weight properly, limping where the arrow wound in its side never fully healed. The farmers will complain all it does anymore is take space in the stables and eat their feed. The beast remains at his side, regardless.
He leaves when the world is still fresh, in the early hours of the morning when the trees are wet with dew, and returns only when there is hardly a sliver of sun left to guide him. No one sees where he goes, but there are whispers among those who watch. The children of the town flock to the walls to watch his silver-laden head pass by on his way home, but if he has stories to tell of the day, they are not recounted.
Some older women gossip eagerly of what they claim is the spirit of a wolf-girl in the forest that he goes to meet, a wives' tale character they describe as having eyes narrow and yellow, her body both spindly as a tree's branches and solid as its trunk, of her and her wolf-brothers stealing children out of cribs and howling at the moon. They say she stole a part of his soul when he was younger, and now he must go to meet her each time she beckons for him. It's a frivolous tale, at worst.
Ashitaka knows they tell the stories only to protect San from mankind's prying gaze. He's thankful for it, to be honest. And besides, between the wink of their eyes or the fact that their version of San has transcended human form into being a creature of the forest itself, none of the townsfolk ever really believed the stories anyways, or so they claim.
Yet somehow, no one is brave enough to follow the Lord when he leaves either.
It takes a few hours for him to follow her tracks, usually, the pawprints dark and wet alongside hers in the soil. A different hunter probably wouldn't notice the trail at all.
But today, she finds him. This is how he knows something is wrong.
"Yama died, today," she says softly, an hour into their silence. His hand is knotted into her hair, the strands falling loosely between his fingers as he runs them through. She lies with her head in his lap, her once-gleaming pelt run ragged, mottled around the edges. "I don't know how many days I spent bringing him food. He refused to eat at the end."
He nods, Moru lying still at their feet, San's legs curled into his side. He cannot understand Moru's words anymore, only knows what he says because she repeats for him when he speaks. His hide is dirty, thinned by the years. Ashitaka sees his ribs poking out of the sides of his stomach, where San's knees touch.
"His death was not the dignified one he wanted," San mutters. Her shoulders hunch together, eyebrows knitted in a stubborn expression.
Ashitaka shakes his head. "Death is seldom dignified," he responds.
The quiet that follows his statement is strained, less simple than before, and he swallows. She didn't want to hear it, but he'd already known that before he'd spoken.
"I'm sorry," he adds, a bit quieter. "I didn't think he could die of age."
"We are not gods anymore," she replies, tone flat, her eyes fluttering to the shoreline where the water of the pool glows golden in the morning sun. She reaches up and pats Yakul's flank, and he knows she is thinking about the spirit again. How long do normal wolves live, he wonders? How long did her brothers live before she joined them?
They wander the hillside in the afternoon, some of the trees at the edge of the forest now thick enough that Ashitaka doubts he could wrap his arms all the way around them. San walks beside Moru, no longer riding his back the way she did ten years ago either. Her fingers trail over the bark and the branches of the new forest, padding softly along the path. Ashitaka lets her lead.
Their conversations are never long, but he would take a short word with San over a heart-to-heart with anyone else.
"I understand mother now," she admits to him by the time evening comes, the sky streaked with warm colours as the sun lips over the horizon. If he stays much longer, he won't find his way home.
He knows better than to speak, simply cocks his head and listens.
There's a long sigh, a hiss of air that whooshes past her lips as her head tilts, gaze turned towards the horizon. He has not noticed the thin wrinkles that have formed under them over the years, or perhaps he has just never thought too hard about them, but it strikes him suddenly how old she has gotten. How old they have both grown.
"One day you will come searching for my tracks, Ashitaka, and you will not find them."
Her tone is solemn. Moru's head pushes up against her hand, and she scratches his nose, tears her eyes away from the sunset to look down at his snout. There is no smile on her lips.
She sighs. "Promise me that when this happens, you won't return to the forest again. I don't want you to spend the last of your time looking for something that isn't here anymore." He watches her gaze flicker again, land back on his own, tired, searching for something in his expression to show disagreement, some sign of a fight. She knows him well enough to expect it.
Instead, he releases his grip on Yakul's reins, wraps both his arms around her. He feels the hum of the evening slow around them, feels how she trembles at the touch, but doesn't flinch away from it. The night itself seems to be watching them, waiting for him to open his mouth and answer.
If he knows nothing else in this world, it is that he loves her.
"I don't need to search for something I never lost sight of. Whether I find you or not, you're here. You always will be."
He doesn't think about it too hard as he presses his lips to her forehead, inhales deeply as the cold crystal of his little sister's dagger around her neck digs into his chest. After all these years, the edge of it has dulled to nothing more than a jagged stone. He tries his best to immortalize the feeling in his mind.
When she finally moves, it's to settle gently into his hold.
"Typical, selfish human," she mutters, and he laughs.