9 March/Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover/Twice the River 9/?

[issen4.livejournal.com]

Title: Twice the River 9/?
Series: Hikaru no Go/Spirited Away crossover
Day/Theme: 9 March/Desire was born early, as was regret




The source of the Kohakugawa was a spring located deep in the mountains, where the forests still lay undisturbed and where few humans ventured. It was a small spring, its flow a silent burble in hot summer months and a steady gush in the spring, when snowmelt had replenished the water table. It formed a stream that trickled through the trees, unremarkable except to the occasional forest creature, and then slowly, slowly, it made its way to the lowlands, where it greedily joined other streams to become a real river, swift and noisy at first over shallow banks and then its furious rush easing as the riverbed deepened. It flowed over the land, over fertile land and under blue skies full of clouds, seeking the sea and its end ceaselessly as all rivers must.

Much later the river disappeared suddenly, over several months, as humans diverted its waters to a bigger, older and more powerful river, but the mark of it on the land remained, for anyone with the eyes to see it.

Here a river god slept.

In a river that was no longer a river, Haku dreamt of beginnings in cold springs, too small for godhood, of a growing self-awareness formed in the years when fishermen sat on its banks and women did their washing with the river stones. He dreamt of desires and regrets, of storms that swelled the waters, of pleasure boats drifting on its surface.

He remembered the first time a human sought death in those waters. Of igo stones scattered as an offering, of voices calling "Sensei, sensei" on the riverbanks. He dreamt of human swimmers, so much like fish but much more vulnerable, and he dreamt of a girl who fell into him, looking for her shoes. He dreamt of a girl who flew with him once...

Haku barely twitched, but it would seem an eyelid flickered once, if there were anyone to see.