Silken thread
#2 of The story of a Mouse
"Slung over a screen,
a dress of silk and gauze.
The autumn wind."
-Taniguchi Buson
Haru and Kiku sat in a small clearing, the wind rustled gently though the leaves, putting Haru's ears in a constant swiveling state.
He looked over at Kiku "I never... thanked you for..."
She cut him off
"You were deceived, the man had no honor. Thanks are not necessary, I was simply pruning out the weeds."
She turned her head to him and tilted it slightly to the left. He blushed and nodded softly, he looked down at the ground between them, focusing on a particular leave with a hole very close to the center in it, mumbling
"Well... thank you anyway."
She hmmed softly and flicked her tail over the ground of the clearing,
"You are not from around here, are you?" she asked.
Haru shook his head
"No, I'm just a wanderer."
The leopardess nodded, though she seemed intrigued by this fact.
"I wonder, how did a wandering mouse find himself challenged to a duel?" she asked.
Her words had a certain grace to them, though at times they came so fast Haru could barely register them in time for the next one. Haru looked distant
"I saw him cut down someone, just because he could, and i called him a bloodthirsty fool. He challenged me to a duel and I rashly accepted."
He glared at the tree in front of him as if it had been his mortal enemy
"If that coward would have fought me fairly it would have been _my_ blade that claimed his head."
She blinked, slightly startled by his sudden intensity.
There was a moment of silence, the wind shifted direction and blew Kiku's floral sent at Haru. She giggled softly
"You are so strange."
He blinked and twitched his nose,
"How so?" he asked.
She just smiled and flicked her tail before turning towards the trees. He waited for a couple of moments, then sighed and turned to look at the woods.
He watched a leaf, jostled by the wind, come free of a tree's branches and waft out of the shade into the sunlight. After a short trip it landed next to a red chrysanthemum in the clearing. Kiku spoke up
"Your shoulder will take a while to heal."
She turned her head to look at him
"I can not afford to wait too long in one place."
He nodded.
"I suspect" she continued, "that as a wanderer, you have no destination?"
She tilted her head slightly as if to punctuate the question. He nodded again, beginning to wonder where she was leading this.
"Then I'll give you a choice" she said "You can come with me on my journey, or i will only lead you to the town, after that you fend for yourself."
She flicked her tail and waited for an answer. The wind died down.
Haru looked at the leopardess. She had been nice to him, and as of recently his life had been lacking a sense of purpose. Her eyes studied him, they were not frightening to him now, just curious.
"Where are you headed?" he asked.
She smiled brightly
"Ahhh, but that is the question!" a soft giggle "mmmm, it's a secret."
She winked at him. Haru giggled softly and smiled
"It seems curiosity may get the best of me."
He looked up at the patch of sky observable through the clearing of for a moment before closing his eyes.
The wind picked up again and he opened his eyes. He looked back at Kiku.
"I think..." he said, "I'd like to go with you."
He nodded softly. She smiled and stood up
"Wonderful. We will head out tomorrow." She giggled softly "It will be nice having company."
He smiled and stood up himself
"It should be fun."
She flicked her tail, then rushed past him, grabbing his wrist, a black blur against the green and brown of the woods behind her.
"Come with me, we should prepare."
He squeaked as she jerked him to a start, his eye caught the leaf and flower. The wind was pulling on the leaf, but a single silk thread held it in place. He blinked at the sight before meeping as the clearing disappeared in a blur of brown and green.
***
They returned to their camp. Kiku finally let go of Haru's wrist and slowed to a walk in a fluid motion. Haru, on the other-hand, made a jerky stop as he skid across the leaf covered ground. She giggled at him and flicked her tail before pushing aside the bed of leaves to reveal his hakama°2 and sword. The cloth that had served as his pillow last night turned out to be the remnants of his ruined shirt, bloodied and torn from the arrow wound. He frowned at the shirt, he would need to get a new one, and he had little money as it was. Kiku head-tilted at his frown and seamed almost to read his mind
"When we reach the next city, I'll get you a more suiting wardrobe."
He blinked and looked up at her
"Why?"
She giggled softly
"Well, if you are too accompany me on my journey, you must look acceptable."
He frowned softly, he did not think that something as simple as that would account for the amount of money she would need to buy him an entirely new set of clothing. He blinked, then looked at her again. Perhaps she was wealthier then he thought...
He nodded to her and kneeled down to pick up the clothing. She watched him curiously, her tail swishing against the leaves behind her. He stood up with his clothing carefully folded and sword laying across it, he looked at her and smiled softly. She giggled
"You are so strange."
He twitched his ears and nodded
"You keep telling me that."
She smiled
"That is because it is true."
He head-tilted in a slight mock of her own
"How so?"
She just giggled and walked away with her tail swishing behind her, leaving him to dress.
He sighed, she always avoided answering that question. He bowed to his sword and sat it on the leaf covered ground, He watched the reflection of the swaying branches above in the lacquered wood that made up it's sheath. After a few moments of this, he picked up the carefully folded Hakama, unfolded it, and stepped through the right leg. He thought she seemed so composed, but her playfulness surfaced sometimes in conversation, she kept playing with his mind. He poked his tail through the v-shaped opening cut into the the stiffer back panel of his Hakama as his right leg found its place in the flowing garment. She called him strange, but in his mind _she_ was the strange one. He began tying the first two of the four securing straps, around his back and back over to his front. He pulled the straps tight before tying them in a simple knot and tucking the ends back into the length he just secured around him. She was a strange one alright, wealthy, a woman, a predator of all things, but she had stopped to help him, a strange mouse in an unfair fight. His Paws found the last two straps and he brought them to his front, crisscrossed them, pulled them tight, and knotted them together. Instead of tucking the ends under like the previous straps, he folded one of the straps over itself until it reached the knot he has just tied, then he wrapped the other length over the knot and folded up strap until it made a kind of square bow.
He nodded at his work, then knelt before his sword, bowed low, and picked it up to put it through his cloth belt. As he was tucking the line from the sword's sheath under he noticed a fray at one of the ends of his Hakama's straps. He pulled at it until a single silk thread found itself separated from the rest. He frowned at the wear and placed the silk thread down on a leaf. then he stood, adjusted the bandage around his wounded shoulder, picked up the ruined shirt, and left the camp. leaving nothing behind except for that single silk thread.
°2 a Hakama is a Japanese garment. I can not think of an english equivalent to the way it looks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama