Return of the Forbidden Child

by Hieiko
 
 
 

    A figure clad in black passed through the streets of our town. The other women moved out of his way and hid in their homes as he passed. As I watched him from the window, I knew at once that he was a fire demon... and that he was the Forbidden Child.
    My mother had told me all about him. I remember the sleepless nights she had spent crying over what she had done to him...countless tear-gems had been shed for the newborn infant thrown into the river of Makai. She had warned me that one day he would come back and take her life in vengeance. She had also made me promise never to interfere if he did return.
    But one look at the Forbidden Child assured me that there was nothing to interfere with. He was just like his twin sister Yukina: small, quiet...and lonely. Something tugged at my heartstrings as I saw him walk past.
    I followed him.
    He found my mother speaking with one of the elders. But he approached her only when the elder koorime had left. She stepped back when she saw him; she was afraid, like the others...unlike me. He told her not to fear him; he only wished to see Hina. He did not reveal the fact that he was Hina's son.
    She led him to his mother's grave. I knew that she had not yet realized who he was. Still, she even told him about Yukina.
    And suddenly I felt scared. Scared at the thought of losing my mother. No, I did not think the Forbidden Child would harm her. I was just scared. And if I was scared, what more would he feel? A Forbidden Child, thrown away as an infant, separated from his mother and twin sister, returning only to find a name carved on a gravestone...
    Tears rushed down my cheeks and transformed into pearls before joining the snowflakes at my feet. I crumpled to the ground, sobbing quietly. I was not sure why I was crying for him. Yet somehow I knew that he was not what the koorime elders described him to be. He was not evil, *that* I was sure of.
    I calmed myself down and went to my mother's side. She finally found out who he was and began crying. I stared after him as he walked away, and I remembered the day Yukina left us.
    Surely he would look for her.
    "Good luck," I whispered. "May the two of you find each other someday."
 

~owari~