Archive of Our Own

Seimei is five years old when his mother abandons him.

Since birth he's been able to see things hidden from ordinary human eyes. His earliest memory is of faces peering into his cradle, grey faces, red faces, faces with horns from their foreheads and fangs curled from their mouths. He comes to like those faces more than those of his parents. His father seems ordinary in comparison, and his mother, though beautiful and refined, appears strange. Often he sees her features flex and move like a blossom tossed by the breeze, but by the time he learns to speak, he knows better than to ask her about what he's seen.

Seimei is a precocious child. He can write long before he can walk. His father, Abe no Yasuna, reads poetry to him. His mother Kuzunoha talks to him of demons.

The demons like him. They venture closer each night until they're near enough to touch. Seimei shrieks with laughter and scares them away. They return the following night in greater numbers. The air is thick with their curiosity, and then they fade away and leave.

Three demons stay with Seimei as he grows up. A cracked cup, an old shoe, and a broken umbrella follow him wherever he goes. Yasuna goes white and sits down the first time he sees the cup, the shoe and the umbrella trailing after his son. Kuzunoha scolds Seimei for frightening his father. "Not everyone is like you," she tells him. "Listen, my child. You're special. You're different."

Seimei is still too young to understand her words, but he understands the tone of her voice. He recognises her fear and cries himself to sleep that night. All he can think is that he's different and his mother is afraid. Foolishly, childishly, he believes she's afraid of him.

It's his fault that she leaves. She's sitting beneath the veranda admiring the show of chrysanthemums in the garden. The train of her robes spreads out behind her. Seimei, chasing the shoe-demon, disturbs the hems of his mother's skirts. Kuzunoha rebukes him and he skitters back to bow and apologise. As he straightens the silk, he notices her tail.

Humans do not have animal tails. He knows this. He knows he shouldn't say anything, but he's so startled he can't help himself: "Mother, you have a fox's tail."

Kuzunoha turns to him. Above the paper fan she holds, her eyes are sad. Slowly, she lowers the fan. He sees the distortion of her features and the illusion drops away. He sees her as a small white fox.

Even at five years old, Seimei recognises truth when he sees it. He meets his mother's weary gaze then looks away. Now he sees truth everywhere: the ghosts tied to the land, the kami in every tree, the spirit inhabiting the stream in their garden. His little demon playmates are nothing compared to this, and the knowledge terrifies him.

He focuses on Kuzunoha's fan. It's pale blue, the colour of duck eggs, with a speckle of gold and a poem written by his father in bold, rounded characters. The image of it sears into his mind. Everything else has turned upside down. If his fox-mother and the ghosts and demons are real, is the fan an illusion?

She closes the fan and sets it down on the wooden floor. Kuzunoha rises to her feet and goes inside the house without a word. When Seimei runs in after her, she's gone.

His father's bewilderment at her disappearance is painful. Seimei can't tell him what he's done. As the seasons change, he watches Yasuna's desolate tears fade to passive resignation. Seimei carries the truth with him, at first a comfort and then a weapon, sharp-edged and corrosive. It's a secret that gnaws at him until one day he can't bear it anymore and he betrays his mother's nature to his father.

Yasuna nods. He looks serious. Then he takes down something from a high shelf and shows it to Seimei. It's Kuzunoha's fan. On the reverse is a poem:

Seimei stares at his mother's calligraphy. He thinks he hates his father for keeping the poem a secret from him, but he knows he hates his mother more.

"We should go after her," Yasuna says. There's hope in his voice and his eyes are bright with optimism. Sharing the secret has lifted his mood. He doesn't notice his son's ambivalence.

It's autumn now, and the air has a bite to it. Seimei doesn't want to go into the forest but he trails obediently after his father, who calls out, "Kuzunoha! Beloved wife! Here we are: your husband and child. Please come to us!"

"She won't come," Seimei mutters, shivering in his summer robes. He flinches from every rustling shrub and the dip of every branch and ignores the faces he sees there, the demons and spirits who watch their progress through the trees. He hears the faint susurrus of their voices, like the sound of flies circling a piece of rotting flesh.

Yasuna stops on the edge of a clearing and looks around, his face alight with memory. "I met her here. I saved her from a huntsman. Kuzunoha!"

Seimei feels afraid. He wants to run to his father and hide his face against Yasuna's robe, but he stays where he is, feeling the magic gather around them. His father doesn't know it, can't see it, but Seimei notices the mist that creeps towards them, rolling and tumbling.

Out from the mist comes his mother. She's a woman, not a fox, and she smiles and holds open her arms. Seimei backs away, a faint growl in his throat, his fingers clawed with tension. Her features dissolve: he sees the white fox. She barks at him, and he snarls in response.

"Wife!" Yasuna sees her and the truth slides away, hidden behind the mask of illusion. Kuzunoha is a woman again, weeping and with her long hair dishevelled as she stumbles towards her husband. They hold one another, and Seimei forces himself not to listen to the whispers they exchange. He hears anyway, though he doesn't understand any of it. They speak of love, but how can there be love between them?

Then his mother breaks free and comes to him, sinking to her knees to bring herself down to his height. She places her hands against his temples. Her voice wraps around him, a soft, secret whisper: "Beloved son, I will give you something by which to remember me. This is the greatest gift I can offer you." He feels the brush of her lips on his forehead, and then she's gone.

Seimei blinks. He looks around. The mist retreats, taking his mother with it, and he chases it across the clearing. "Come back!" he cries. "Mother, come back!"

The mist vanishes. He's alone in the forest except for his father, who stands weeping behind his sleeves. Yasuna's sobs shake his body. Seimei has never seen misery like this before, and he doesn't know what to do. Perhaps he should cling to his father and try to offer comfort after this second loss, but he holds back, uncertain.

His father uncovers his face. His eyes are small, red-rimmed. His mouth trembles when he asks, "What did she say to you?"

Seimei struggles to remember. "She said she would give me a gift."

Yasuna stills. "A gift?"

"Yes." Seimei gazes up at him. "But Father, she has given me nothing."

As soon as he says it, his world changes. The faint drone of spirit voices he heard before now ring loud in his head like the tolling of temple bells. Conversations he has no part in blast through his skull. Voices echo, rolling and crashing. It takes him some time to realise he hears not just hear human voices and spirit voices – he can hear also the speech of the birds, the animals, even the insects. He can hear everything, and the sound of ten thousand voices rips at his consciousness, scratches at his sanity.

Seimei screams. It's the only way he can block out the devastating wash of noise.

His father rushes to him and scoops him up, cradling him close. Seimei sobs into the worn silk of Yasuna's hunting costume. The voices continue their chatter. They don't know he's listening. They don't care that they're driving him mad.

Yasuna carries him home and puts him to bed. Seimei lies beneath a quilt made from one of his mother's robes and tries to separate the voices. If he knows who they are, what they are, he can block them out.

It takes him a long time.

He retreats into himself, resenting his gift, alternately blaming himself and his father for his mother's disappearance. He shuns the company of playmates his own age and takes to hiding in the forest. His childhood demons follow him, offering rough sympathy, but they cannot understand the nature of his emotions.

Seimei discovers he can kill them, these weak demons. He performs his first exorcism at the age of six. He has no idea what he's done or how he did it. One moment the old shoe was dancing about him, distracting him with its inane chatter, and the next moment it's flat on the ground, silent and still, no longer animate.

His power shocks him. He likes it. It makes him feel better. Flushed with success, he turns on the other two demons. The umbrella dies, but the broken cup runs from him, frantic to live. Furious with its betrayal, Seimei throws a thought after it, giving the thought words and creating a spell. He watches, breathless, as the small glow of magic animating the cup-demon winks out into darkness.

Only when they're dead does he sit and weep for his lost friends.

Yasuna finds him amongst the wildflowers and last year's dried leaves. He's cradling the shoe, the cup, and the umbrella, and he won't let them go. "I killed them," he tells his father. "I killed them, and now they won't play with me. Father, are they really dead? Can't I make them come back?"

Yasuna retreats from his son in silence, shuddering.

Seimei knows he's done something wrong, but his father pretends it's nothing. When he receives no guidance, no beatings, no scoldings, Seimei discovers cruelty brings him more pleasure than kindness. His temper grows worse. He hunts down little demons for sport. When he encounters spirits with powers stronger than his own, he snarls and slinks away, burning with rage. It's the anger that drives him, unlocks the mysteries of his gift, his curse.

Sometimes it gets too much, his head stuffed full of fury and frustration, and Seimei runs through the forest, his hair coming loose and his clothes torn by brambles. When he falls, he quivers on the ground, his nose pressed to the damp earth and his heart beating a fast, violent rhythm he doesn't recognise.

Things change with the coming of the spring. Seimei goes into the forest as usual and hunts down a rabbit. It's young and plump and stupid. He breaks its neck and hunches over his kill, tearing at the rabbit's throat with his teeth. Its blood is warm and thin on his tongue.

That was my rabbit.

Seimei looks up, wiping a hand across his mouth and smearing gore over his sleeve. The leaves of a nearby shrub rustle and part as a fox slinks out to take up position opposite him. It's an old fox, its muzzle greying, its left ear nicked and torn, and tips of silver in its dark red coat. Seimei decides the animal is not a threat.

"It's my rabbit now. I hunted it. I killed it."

The fox tilts its head, its eyes glinting green and gold. So sure of yourself, child, and yet you know so very little.

"I know how to kill."

You know how to hate. The fox sounds sorrowful. That is not what she intended.

Seimei puts down the rabbit. "She? My... my mother?"

The fox ignores him and pushes its nose closer to the rabbit's still-warm body. Rabbit is my favourite. Won't you share?

"No." Seimei grabs the rabbit by its limp ears and holds it away, then reconsiders. He swings the dead animal, watching the fox sway after it greedily. "You can have the rabbit if you tell me about my mother."

Give me the rabbit first.

Seimei laughs. He has no intention of surrendering his kill.

You are nothing but an ignorant kit. The fox shakes its head and sits upright. It curls its tail around its back legs, the white tip flicking back and forth. I expected more from Kuzunoha's son, but perhaps it was foolish of me to think her mating with a mere human would result in anything special.

Anger blackens Seimei's vision. "Who are you?" He throws down the rabbit and springs forward to pin the fox, to strangle it, kill it.

The fox dances away from him, bark-laughing at both his anger and his attempts at violence. You have much to understand, half-blood, and much to experience, the fox tells him. You must curb your nature before it destroys you – for it will, and very soon by my reckoning unless something is done.

The fox circles closer, lifting its head to stare at Seimei directly. When you have learned your limits and are ready to break them, we will meet again. Until then, thank you for the rabbit... grandson.

Taking advantage of Seimei's confusion, the fox snatches up the small furry corpse and dashes away with the rabbit in its mouth.

Seimei spends the rest of the day searching the forest for his grandfather. He finds no tracks, no scent, but discovers the head of the rabbit beneath a pine tree, its eyes running with ants.

Disconsolate, he goes home. A stranger waits for him there. As Seimei enters the room, the man breaks off his conversation with Yasuna and rises to his feet. He's dressed in costly silks and wears a round court cap with tails of stiffened gauze. His complexion is florid and he looks well-fed, jovial, the kind of man who usually ignores children. But his gaze is intense upon Seimei, his eyes narrowed and gleaming with a strange kind of startled pleasure.

"Goodness," says the stranger, "the boy is quite wild."

Yasuna barely lifts his head from his hands. "His mother feared it. She told me to write to you and beg for this favour. Please, Master Tadayuki, take my son. Save him from himself before he becomes..."

His father breaks off, but Seimei knows what's left unsaid. He's knows he's a monster. Sometimes, when he leans over a pool or looks into the mirror his mother left behind, he sees the creature hidden deep within his human shell. He sees its eyes, black and opaque and utterly without kindness. He fears the demon inside him, yet he's afraid to let it go.

If he loses the demon, Seimei thinks he'll lose the memory of his mother. If he loses her, he will have nothing.

He leaves his father and his home that very day and goes with Kamo no Tadayuki as his apprentice. Tadayuki rides in an ox-cart all the way to Heian-Kyo. Seimei walks beside the ox. It's a long way to the capital, but he doesn't complain. He knows this is a lesson in humility.

Sometimes, when his master snoozes in the cart and the ox is content to plod along without guidance, Seimei slips away into the woodland bordering the roads. He calls for his mother, but she never comes.

Seimei is already old by human reckoning when his father dies, though he looks no more than twenty. Kamo no Tadayuki visits him at the end of the seventh month. Tadayuki is ancient now, his moustaches white wisps on a shrivelled face, his hands gnarled and his gait uncertain. He prods at the protective wards of Seimei's house and samples a jar of sake before he delivers his message.

Seimei feels nothing at the news. He knows he should prepare himself for the funeral rituals and for the period of mourning. Instead, he goes down from the veranda and kneels in the sun-dazzled courtyard. He draws circles and pentacles with a stick of charcoal, surrounding himself with glyphs and symbols. He works the spell from instinct, shutting out his old master when Tadayuki asks him, then orders him, to stop. Only when the air showers faint traces of twisting gold dust upon him does Seimei feel safe. Only later will he admit that his spell was not one of protection for his father's spirit, but a spell of denial.

Twenty-six years ago, Seimei asked his father to move to the capital. Yasuna's house on Fourth Avenue East is warm, drowsy in the empty spaces beneath the low eaves. The air is sweet with the scent of death. Seimei pauses before he enters his father's study. The blinds are up and sunlight pours into the room. His shadow disturbs a praying mantis. It lifts its head, its forelegs twitching. Years ago, in another lifetime, he'd fall on the insect and crush it, eat it. Today it could hold his father's soul. Seimei picks up the mantis and carries it out into the garden.

Later, he cuts his hair short, hacks the lustrous length of shining black with a knife, uncaring that the blade is blunt and the action hurts. He's almost forgotten what pain feels like, and the tearing of his hair is a strange sensation. When it's done, his face is wet with tears he doesn't recall shedding.

Abe no Yasuna's friends all died long before him. Seimei often wondered if his presence somehow prolonged his father's life and made his final years a torment. Sometimes he would kneel beside the withered husk of Yasuna's body and convince himself that his continued youthfulness was a result of the theft of his father's life-force.

For nine years Yasuna rotted from the inside out, growing frailer with each passage of the moon. Seimei remembers a time before his father lost the power of speech, when he pointed at a pine tree in the garden and said, "The pine is evergreen, yet beneath the spread of its lower branches, its needles fall and its bark dies. The whole tree needs light in order to survive."

Seimei stands on the veranda outside the study, the shorn ends of his hair curling against his nape. He gazes at the pine tree until the sun sinks into darkness and the world goes cold.

The next morning, Seimei hires an ox-cart and takes his father's body back to Izumi. Deliberately he avoids the use of magic. This is the one time in his life he wants to be human. But he cannot avoid his nature, and without conscious thought he summons shikigami from tumbling leaves to keep him company on the loneliest stretches of road. They do not understand grief, and neither, truly, does he.

In Shinoda forest, he finds the clearing where he last saw his mother. Seimei removes the long sleeves of his hunting costume and folds back the cuffs of his under-robes. He builds a pyre of old, seasoned wood, and when it's done, he takes his father's corpse from the ox-cart and places him within the pyre. Stubbornness demands that this time, he doesn't use his magic. Though frail, Yasuna's body has become stiff and inflexible. It takes effort and time to manoeuvre the corpse into the bundled nest of branches and bark.

Yasuna burns for hours. Seimei crouches a short distance from the fire, the heat of it scorching his face and hands, the stink of roasting flesh making his gorge rise. The smoke is thick and black, greasy with humanity. He falls asleep with the acrid taste of it in his mouth.

When Seimei wakes, he's covered in a soft layer of ash, the white of mourning. The pyre still smoulders. Little of his father remains. By a magic greater than his, Yasuna has become an unrecognisable heap of charcoal shaped by the fire into a new form. Seimei dusts the ash from his clothes and shakes it from his hair as he approaches the collapsed pyre. Its heat is sullen, still dangerous. He holds back one sleeve and reaches into its dark heart, stirring through the crumbling, flaking residue.

He withdraws his hand. His fingers are coated with a black substance he cannot name. Seimei licks it from his skin, slowly and with dignity.

For a long time he sits beside the pyre until the embers die and the heat fades. A rustle in the treetops snaps him out of his dreaming state and he looks up, his gaze sharp at the disturbance. A crow balances, ungainly and flapping, on a branch above him. Tengu, Seimei thinks, and turns his gaze away. He has no wish to speak with the bird.

But the tengu's appearance jolts him into a new awareness, and now he feels the song of energy and the crackle of magic all around him. At the edge of the clearing, a tanuki-badger lurks beneath the undergrowth, crouched beside a grey rabbit. The more he looks, the more Seimei sees: animals and birds and insects all gathered, watching him, waiting, waiting.

He wonders if they came here to honour his father, but then he hears the bark of a fox. Disbelief brings him to his feet, and he stares as a small white fox pads into the clearing. The fox pauses; their gazes lock. Seimei senses rather than sees the fox's fur rise and bristle.

"Kuzunoha," he says. "Mother."

The fox doesn't move.

Fury overwhelms him. Without thinking, he grasps for a weapon and seizes a lump of blackened wood from the pyre. It comes apart in his hands, still warm at its centre, but he throws it anyway. A scream of rage breaks from him, so harsh it hurts his throat.

The lump of wood falls short. The fox darts away. Seimei waits for it to return, but it doesn't. The forest creatures withdraw, leaving silence in their wake. He sobs once, catches his breath and forces it back. His grief should be for his father. He has wasted too many years mourning his mother.

He returns to the pyre and slumps beside it. Something moves within, a whisper of motion, and from the charred ruin creep two snakes, their skin pure white. He retreats from them, alarmed at such a sign, but the serpents pay him no heed. They twine about each other, tangling from two into one. Seimei thinks they're mating, but suddenly the smaller snake turns on the larger and seizes it by the throat. Both creatures thrash and twist, their hisses filling the air.

Their behaviour sickens him. Seimei separates them, pulling the serpents apart. The smaller one seems startled, roiling on the ground. It recovers, its eyes glittering as it looks at him, and then it flees back into the pyre.

The larger snake nudges at his hand. Seimei remains motionless as it curls up his arm, drapes across his shoulders, coils around his neck. It touches his face with a flicker of its forked tongue, then it lets go and drops to the ground. He watches it slither into the undergrowth and feels a sense of desolation.

Abe no Yasuna died of a broken heart. Seimei vows never to love that much.

Seimei no longer numbers his years. He follows the wheel of the seasons, the turning of the equinox and solstice. He marks on his charts the birth and death of stars, but ignores the passing of his own time until he no longer recalls when he was born. Spring, he thinks, or perhaps autumn. One day is as good as another when there's no importance placed upon it.

Then he meets Hiromasa, who lives every day as if it's a wondrous gift. His naivety startles Seimei, amuses him; his innocence captures him. Something he thought long dead wakes inside him. Seimei fears it could be a demon, and so he's cautious, hesitant, examining the feeling with the same detachment he reserves for investigating spirits and monsters.

He takes Hiromasa as his lover. Sex has always deadened his emotions before. He sees it as an animal act, not human: an act that reminds him he's different, special, a creature to be feared. This time, it doesn't work. With Hiromasa, he feels entirely human.

Hiromasa comes to visit every evening unless court duties keep him away. He comes even when Seimei has no mood to talk and be sociable. On those occasions, he sits drinking sake or playing the flute, and makes no move to disturb Seimei's silence. He makes no demands, has no expectations. Seimei realises Hiromasa is content just to be with him. Their liaison scandalises the court, but it's the simplicity of the relationship that others find so shocking. They exchange no poems, make no vows. They are at their best in one another's company. It surprises them both.

One evening, Hiromasa arrives late. He carries a box wrapped in crimson silk and places it gently on the floor of the veranda before he sits.

Seimei pours him a cup of sake and eyes the parcel with curious interest. "What's this?"

"It's a gift." Hiromasa blushes. He fiddles with his sleeve, his gaze anywhere but on Seimei. "I couldn't help but notice... you never celebrate anything. Not the Snake Festival or the Iris Festival; not even the Moon Festival. Even when the Bureau of Divination or His Majesty orders you to attend a celebration, you make excuses."

"Perhaps I dislike festivals."

"Seimei!" Hiromasa throws him a look, half exasperated, half amused. "Everyone likes to celebrate."

Seimei shrugs. There's little point in further denials. Hiromasa never listens when he has an idea in mind.

"You've never told me when it's your birthday." Hiromasa nudges the gift towards him. It slides across the polished floorboards. "When is it?"

"I can't remember."

It's meant to put an end to the conversation, but Hiromasa just chuckles. "Then truly, you must be old. But it doesn't matter. I've decided today will be your birthday."

Seimei is startled. "Why?"

Hiromasa looks at him, his gaze soft. "Do I need a reason?" He indicates the gift, pushes it a little closer. "Please, Seimei. Accept."

The crimson silk is warm over his fingers as he unfolds the cloth. He reveals a lacquered writing box decorated with clouds and birds. He opens the topmost of the little drawers and finds a selection of fine writing brushes inside.

"Rabbit's fur." Seimei runs the tip of one brush over the back of his hand to feel its softness. He wants to weep. "You are generous. So generous."

"So are you, to permit me to –" Hiromasa breaks off and lowers his gaze, suddenly abashed.

Seimei replaces the brush in its box. He stands, holds out his hands. "Come."

Joy lights Hiromasa's face. Though they've made love countless times over the last few years, he still seems delighted by the invitation. Seimei pauses beneath the eaves of the house and asks, "Why do you look so happy?"

Hiromasa ducks his head, embarrassed. "Because it's you."

Afterwards, they lie tangled together, the sweat cooling on their bodies. Seimei draws patterns over Hiromasa's skin, working spells of protection, charms of devotion. It's the closest he can get to admitting love. He weaves magic in silence, and hopes Hiromasa understands him.

Hiromasa is quiet for a while. Usually he likes to talk after sex, even if it's only nonsense. Instead he's muted, lost in thought, until finally he asks, "Seimei... What were you like as a child?"

Seimei hesitates, not reluctant to tell the truth but wary of revealing too much. "Cruel," he says at last, the word chosen with care.

Hiromasa turns to him and props his head on his hand. He smiles. "Cruel? You?"

"Yes." Seimei cannot return the smile. He remembers the crunch of insects in his mouth, the bitterness of chewed innards, the picking of unappetising legs and wings from his small, sharp teeth. He remembers the wriggling things he swallowed whole, just to see when they'd die inside him.

"All boys are cruel at that age." Hiromasa still smiles at him, protected by his misunderstanding. The smile becomes a chuckle of reminiscence. "I remember pouring half a jar of honey over my cousin's head. Wasps and flies plagued her all day. My aunt was furious – she had to break a taboo so she could wash my cousin's hair. Mother was furious, too. The honey was rare and expensive. But it was funny."

"A childish prank." Seimei knows he can't tell Hiromasa what he did in Shinoda forest all those years ago. Little boys may pull the wings from butterflies and the legs from spiders, but only wild animals hunt creatures smaller than themselves and rip out their soft, furred bellies with their teeth and nails. "I was not just cruel. I was savage."

"I can't believe it. Not you." Hiromasa shrugs off the quilt of their robes and moves closer.

Seimei shakes the memories from his skin and tries to lighten his mood. "Oh, I am cruel, Hiromasa. You of all people should know that."

Hiromasa frowns. He focuses on Seimei's hair, taking a strand of it and wrapping it around his fingers. "No. You're different. Cruelty is when a woman replies to your poems and welcomes you to her bed and tells you there's no one else, then you hear a day later that she's engaged herself to another man, perhaps even your rival or friend. Cruelty is when you challenge her about it and she laughs. Wilful deception – that's cruelty."

"And you think I am innocent of that?"

"You don't lie to me, Seimei. I know you don't."

Seimei forces himself to meet Hiromasa's gaze. It's open, trusting. For a moment, he thinks he can be the man Hiromasa believes him to be. The thought pleases him, makes him happy.

Hiromasa settles back onto the sleeping mat. His voice sounds drowsy when he says, "On my way here this evening, I saw a white fox. It ran into the road in front of my ox-cart and stood there, staring."

"A white fox?" Seimei brushes the hair from his eyes and gives Hiromasa a sharp look.

"Pure white." Hiromasa nods. "My servants were afraid and claimed it was a demon, but they're silly and ignorant. Everyone knows white foxes are benevolent. When it refused to move from our path, I got down from the cart to see if it was ill or injured. But it went away before I could get too close. It looked at me for a long time, and then it just... vanished."

"Kuzunoha," Seimei whispers.

Hiromasa glances up. "What?"

"Nothing." Seimei curls beside him, thoughtful. He allows his memory to open long enough to touch upon the image of his mother, a woman, a fox. A sense of peace surrounds him. He presses closer to Hiromasa and inhales his scent, his affection, his love. He smiles. "It's nothing."