Fifteen hours, that was all the time she had to think of him before she landed herself into a precarious situation.
It started slowly, her emotions and thoughts still sloshing around in her head in a mass of sorrow, guilt, thankfulness, and somber acceptance as she moved into the underbrush of a pine tree to organize herself. She needed a goal. Living was a good one but he had told her to love her life as well, and to make sure her choices were wise.
So what now? How should she even start? She had sight and freedom, but she was still a snake. A large white snake. The best she could hope for was to be somebody's pet, and the worst was death. Well, that is if she kept relying on other people making her life for her. What had that brought her? Someone chucked her into a cavern, she ate rodents, got some weird energy....
That's it! Her rescuer's rat didn't give her that boost of jitters that the other ones had, and she needed to know why. That was her new goal. She tasted the air, still a useful trait even with her sight restored, because it let her know that she was closer to civilization than she thought. She headed in the direction of that fresh cut wood scent as well as the large warm animal smell. It was the only variation in this forest.
What she found was the back of a strange looking man with an axe loading wood into a cargo wagon pulled by a rather beautiful horse. It was a pruned stallion, sturdy, black and brown with sandy colored half socks on adjacent legs, the front right and the back left. He was nibbling on some clover when his head reared up high and wailed his fears upon sighting her. She cursed herself for forgetting once again that she was bright freaking white.
Zipping off as fast as she could to avoid hostility from the woodcutter, she followed the trail they had obviously used to get here and made her way to town, this time keeping well out of sight. Upon arrival she noticed at least six things at once: there weren't many men, there were a lot of children, most women were working fields, there were chickens practically everywhere, the village was only about a dozen buildings in total, and absolutely no body was human. In what order she noticed each of these she wasn't sure.
It appeared to her that the village square doubled as a market, selling stalls of fruit, milk and beef cuts, chickens both live ones and some hanging from their feet without any feathers, goat cheese and chops, breads, hard drink, vegetables, plenty of eggs and cucumbers, and an array of everyday supplies.
Feeling thoughtful, she took in the variety of the small crowd of people she watched going about their days. Many had human-like features, there were a few that looked like umbrellas, ogres, trolls, rats, a fox, and a red panda. She wanted to linger but felt that if she did she might be spotted and probably killed. A strong temptation to talk with one of the trolls, however, made her hesitate for a moment until she remembered she couldn't speak.
Fretting this situation, she rolled along until she came to a worn out cabin. It looked abandoned with its broken windows, missing or cracked tiles on the roof, and weeds growing through the floor boards. She wedged herself inside by a hole in the door and looked around at the minimal wood furniture and clay furnace. Water damage, dust, dead bugs, cobwebs, and holes in the walls from rodents chewing and nesting. Long gone by now since she couldn't smell any remnants.
She coiled tightly in the warmest spot she could find and dosed off. Now the thing about snakes is they don't have eyelids, but as she lay there sleeping a pair of nearly translucent lids folded sideways over her eyes, then a second pair with paper thin scales closed over the top, and stayed that way for several hours. It was accurate to say she blinked awake later and was highly confused. For the several weeks that she been in this body, not once had she drempt.
The dream was oddly vivid, baring the scent of charred mud and daylillies, the sound of an irregular motor, and a pair of eyes baring unnerving familiarity with no other information. She tried hard to remember more, but the dream was already fading away.
Based on the chill in the air, the lack of light from the shudders, and the silence outside, it was late at night. She moved back to the gap in the door and tried to squeeze back out, except, she couldn't fit this time. She wiggled, wrythed, pushed, but her head just wouldn't get through which also meant her body wouldn't fit either. Now she was twice as confused, and trapped, wonderful.
Instead of waiting forever in case something happened to make another hole or in a worst case scenario someone made their way inside, she searched the entire little house for a way out. With limited options she decided one of the broken windows would have to suffice and inched her way up the lone creaky table. When she reached her neck up to the shattered glass she realized just how sharp the jagged edges were. If she were to try using this way out it would more than likely slice her open.
Bitter fear settled in her stomach, growing stronger as the night wore on. She tried the door again, she tried a mouse hole, and she very nearly attempted the window when crunching gravel sounded right outside. Shrinking back into a corner she sat as still as possible while the footsteps moved around the exterior.
They stopped, started up again, stopped right outside the door. She was blinking like crazy, the only movement she allowed herself now that she could, and as the door rattled and creaked open she bolted as fast as a viper.
The creature shreaked and jumped away from the door, watching her with many sets of wide eyes as she darted into the underbrush. She knew one thing, she was never going to try and sleep in that house again. Or maybe it was a shed. Either way she had made up her mind to move on. Under any normal circumstances she would have just hid well in the forest around it, hunted and minded her own business, but since she wasn't a normal snake she thought it better to come up with a plan in order to communicate that she wasn't what she seemed, or maybe possess a different body. Staying in this form was utterly inconvenient. Not only that, but she wanted to know why she was in this position in the first place. Why a snake? Why could she remember that she was female and human at one point but nothing else? What had convinced the Cavern Troll to give himself away for her sake? Why was she in this place instead of a human dwelling?
So many questions, not a single answer, and nowhere to begin. She squeezed her eyes shut, thankful that she could at least do that.
A gut feeling and the taste in the air informed her to look up just before the talons locked into her sides and hoisted her incredibly hard into the air, tree branches be damned.
Throwing her head up in terror and pain she really wished she had fangs as the bird's grip twisted tighter. The sharp points punctured her and her pupils contracted into slits.
'Stop tearing me open' she wished she could scream as she wrapped her entire body around it's legs and squeezed. Ultimately unexpected, the talons immediately released their grip on her and readjusted to an incredibly gentle hold.
"Beg your pardon, madam, I was unaware that you bare kinsoul."
'I'm what? Wait, can you hear my thoughts?'
"Why yes, and you are kinsoul, a term many of us use to describe unidentified Ayakashi."
'I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I'm a human.'
He went silent for a while and she started to fear she had said to much, especially when he flew to the peak of a mountain and nosedived, landing in an enclosed ring of thick foliage with one small clearing. He released her with one claw and held her up with the other so that she was able to get her first good look at him as he looked at her.
He wasn't a bird as she had expected. Instead he had almost a middle aged human face with a beak and what would normally be shoulder length black hair were it not for the length of his feathery neck, a long snake-like body with small feathers poking up along the scales, vulture wings, and those sharp bird tallons that gripped so tight. What the heck was he?
"Itsumade."
She was taken aback. 'Pardon?'
He chuckled and set her down next to him as he relaxed with this feet tucked under him like a cat. "I am an Itsumade, a Yokai. This is a realm separated from that of humans. So I ask you, how have you managed to find yourself here and get stuck in that body?"
She scooted away from him and dipped her head. 'I can't remember how I came to this realm, and as far as I can tell my soul was put into a snake corpse as a host, but I couldn't see who it was because my eyes didn't work yet and I wasn't aware of who I was.'
"Do you mean to tell me that someone somehow managed to perform a soul extraction, and instead of giving you a decent shell, stuffed you into a snake?" He sounded flabbergasted and she wanted to smile, settling for opening her mouth in a mock smile instead. "Whatever for?"
'I don't know, I wasn't in the snake yet to hear them.'
He made a sound, much like 'tch' with a click of his beak at the end, and swung his head in a figure eight low to the ground. "That was not a wise decision on their part. If your soul had been anything but the gentle maiden that you are, they may have put themself in serious danger. Where is it that you regained consciousness?"
Her hesitation made him rest his head on the ground next to her. It was by itself as big as her body, but not as long if she stretched out at full length. "It's alright," he spoke softly, "you are Kinsoul, which means you are practically kindred spirit to me. Feel free to share what you know and I'll share a bit of my life with you as well."
She blinked, which made him look a bit surprised but he said nothing about it, and she relaxed her high strung body into a looser coil. She made a choice right then that would change her life, though she didn't know it at the time.
'I woke up at the entrance of the cave with a barrier blocking the way out. I was disoriented so I decided to follow my instincts and move further inside. For a few weeks all I did was hunt rats and try to get out of the cave.'
She stopped for a moment, trying to word this as best she could. Having to clearly think these words instead of letting them float about in her head was harder than speaking them aloud. He gleamed at her, like watching a young creature find their legs, and listened quietly.
'When I ate one of the rodents, my pain stopped but I also got this weird burst of energy. It didn't feel like mine, it was too jittery. I don't think I can describe that any better, I'm sorry.'
"No, dear, you are perfectly alright. That would be spirit energy. Humans cannot absorb Spirit energy, their bodies no longer have that function seeing as they have lost their connection to magic, but Yokai, Ayakashi, and a fraction of Kinsoul still have the capability. In fact you are rather lucky that your body retained this ability since your soul is a human. I'd say you are also lucky you were able to even possess this body without it ripping itself apart. Compatibility is a slim chance."
She hissed out of breath at the image and he laughed boisterously which made her flinch and her mouth fell open. Seeing as I was the first time she'd ever hissed, she had not expected it to produce a laugh.
"My thoughts exactly, snake," he chuckled and rolled to his side. "Have you learned how to harness the energy?"
'The what? Oh,' she thought sheepishly, needing to recollect her thoughts. 'I used it once to move really fast, but I hit a wall and it hurt so I didn't try again other than pouncing.'
She remembered something she wanted to know about just then. 'Wait, one of the rats didn't give me that energy boost. '
His eyes darted back to her and she blinked in fear at his speed. "It didn't? Snake, was there someone else in the cave with you?"
Her mind bounced around like a rubber ball in a tiny room. All she could do was nod.
"I see. I thought he had..." His face was scrunched up in confusion and his eyes turned steely. His claws raised him up at full hight and he scratched at the ground. She inched away, hoping she hadn't just said something to make him angry with her and looking for an opening to dart away if it had. When he noticed her anxiety he relaxed and his face softened. He bent down slowly and nudged her with his beak.
"As I have said there is no reason to fear me, I apologize if I made you feel like you were in danger, snake."
She didn't know what else to do so she decided to make a request. 'Could... Could you not call me that, please?'
He looked at her thoughtfully. "As you wish. Do you have a name?"
When she shook her head he stopped for a moment and looked her over. She was I really pretty snake, solid white and more than five feet long. That was very large, even for a female, and with her eyelids blinking as she looked at him he had many questions. He watched her looking at his scales and feathers, he saw her head tip sideways as she admired his wings and followed his every move with her bright Cerulean eyes. He noticed the Stars reflecting in them and directed his gaze towards the night sky.
From his previous life he pictured himself peering through the lense of an old telescope to find distant planets, a life he had left behind when the war struck is homeland, and came up with a name for her.
"Nova."