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"The Fox, The Monk And The Mikado Of All Nights Dreaming "Written By: Seraphim Grace View Commisioned art for this fic. Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or its characters, they belong to Bandai etc. Feedback: Always appreciated and replied to. Pairings: 1x2, suggested 13x6 Notes: This is a version of a fairy tale that
Neil Gaiman published as The Dream Hunters, I have changed it a lot
to fit the story I wanted
"The Fox, The Monk And The Mikado Of All Nights Dreaming " Chapter 3 She is knitting the sleeve of the sweater when the boy steps into the gazebo where she is sitting. Because of the rain he is still the only child that has gathered to hear her story. There is a cold snap in the air as winter starts to creep through the summer. She has pulled a thin wool cardigan over her black blouse. She has traded her sandals for lace up boots. Her wide brimmed hat has been replaced with a felt beret. The boy still wears a thin tee and the same paint splattered jeans. He has no socks between the frayed edge of his jeans and the stained rim of his sneakers. Yet his face is freshly washed, and his hair neatly swept back. She is starting to clearly worry about him. She shows none of it on her face, rooting around in her bag for her thermos. “Do you know,” she says with a smile as he sit down in front of her, he always sits on the floor with his legs crossed, “when I was your age I swore I would never have a bag as big as my mother’s, she could go on holiday for months with it, and she had everything she needed. Then over the years I noticed how my little clutch purse wasn’t big enough, and then I found that big sitting in the cupboard and couldn’t help but notice just how useful it was to have a bag big enough for my knitting and my book, and my thermos and sandwiches and a spare jumper and a packet of handkerchiefs.” He seems fond of her as she talks aimlessly about the large black bag she carries with her everywhere. But he says nothing, he is here for the story, anything else is a bonus to him. “But you’re not here to listen to me continue
on about being an old woman, old women are by their nature garrulous,”
she offers him a mischievous smile. It is a smile she never would
have given at his age. “you’re here to listen to the story
about the fox and the monk.” “It’s an old story,” she corrects him, “and doesn’t feature a princess in a tower, when Wufei told me it I was surprised, but he was right, it is more beautiful for being so different.” She looks distant for a moment, “but I was telling you about how the fox and the monk met.” By the mountain with the thin waterfall where the fox made his home there was a small temple. It was run down and abandoned, but one day a young monk with messy brown hair and bright blue eyes moved in. It was far from the land of men so his appearance was a matter of some discussion. Every day the young fox and the tanuki gathered to watch the monk as he cut down the trees to form planks to mend the roof. They watched as he hoed the back quarter to plant yams, onions and leeks. They watched as he flooded some of his land to grow rice. They watched as he dug up large rocks to mend the holes in his foundations. Over the weeks they watched as he turned the derelict frame of the temple into a small and beautiful building. They watched as he used the left over wood to make simple furniture and carve images of the Buddha. The fox watched as he dug out the stream so that it ran closer to his temple, and he watched closely as the brown haired monk bathed in the water. They watched as he carved his own bell, with heavy wood and ropes twisted from fibres from the bark of the trees he cut down. They watched as he wasted nothing until the temple was completed. “Do you know,” said the tanuki, “that is a fine looking building,” he looked at the small temple that was far from the lands of man, and then the fox with the burnished oak coat and eyes the colour of twilight, “I think it would make a fine set for a tanuki, it has carpets and rugs, it has carvings and a great fire place. I can imagine that I would be happy there, I could gather myself a fair wife and have many litters of strong tanuki in such a place.” The fox scoffed at him, for such was the fox’s way. “It would make a lousy set,” he said, “see how the steps are carved in such a way, you are too old and fat to do anything but live under the foundations, it is designed, I think, with a fox in mind. Yes,” said the fox, “it would make a lousy set but it would make a fine den. I am too young to consider taking a mate, but in time it would make a fine place to raise one’s litters.” The tanuki laughed out loud, “You are too small and thin for such a building,” he said, “and I do not think you would be capable of driving away the monk so as to claim it as your own.” The fox never could resist a challenge. “Your magic is as old and addled as you yourself,” he told the tanuki, “I doubt that you would be cunning enough to drive him away, for none are as cunning and quick as the foxes.” “Shall we make it a challenge then?” asked the old tanuki, “we shall both try to use our magicks to drive the monk away, and who ever succeeds shall take the temple as their set, but the other shall leave these lands so that our children shall be able to take lands as their own without contest.” “Done,” said the fox quite sure that he would win such a challenge. “But to seal the deal neither shall sabotage the other’s attempts, to make it fair, on the nights when you try to drive him away I will stay in my den beside the thin waterfall and the hanging cypresses, and on those nights where I try you shall stay in your set under the large overhanging rock.” “Done, and done,” said the tanuki, “and as the challenge was mine then I shall try first. Come tomorrow I shall do my best to drive the monk from the temple and make it my set.” The next morning the fox rose early and climbed from
his den beside the thin white waterfall and walked through the forest
paths to the place where the forest overlooked the stream that the
monk had carved to run alongside his temple. The monk, wearing only
his fundoshi, was washing out the clothes that he normally wore. He
was tall and slim, with muscles like cords along his arms, muscles
that showed strength and were not necessarily beautiful, but the curve
of the monk’s back from the nape of his neck down to the rise
of his fundoshi was lovely to behold, the fox couldn’t help the
way that his eyes lingered on the slim length of his thighs. He did
not bother to hide, for he was small and well camouflaged when the
monk looked in his direction and he saw that the monk had eyes the
colour of the deep waters of the sea to the west. He could see that
the monk’s face was well proportioned for a human, but that he
was thin and young, and knew then how he would drive the monk That night when the moon was full and poured down like water over the small temple several great demons took to the woods about the temple. They rattled the trees and roared. They stamped their feet and growled through the woods. “We are the youma of the forest,” they screamed with their mutated human voices, “and we can smell a man has entered our sacred groves, and we shall rend his limbs from him, we shall gobble down the meat from his bones and suck on his kidneys like sweet red beans, so you should run before we can catch you.” The monk opened the door to the simple temple, “yes,” he said quietly, “I can see that you are very frightening,” but there was no fear in his voice, “but this is my temple and although youma are to be feared there is little to fear from a tanuki pretending to be one. So unless you have some business with me I would ask that you leave.” And the monk closed the door behind him on the rather embarrassed tanuki. The next night it rained. The monk was roused from his sleep by the sound of someone banging on his door. He opened the door to a young boy with a wealth of hair the colour of burnished oak and eyes the colour of twilight. He wore fine robes though they were waterlogged and ruined. “Oh, thank the Buddha,” said the boy, “I am the last son of the second son of the Oda Clan, and I was travelling near here with my retinue when we were set upon by bandits, my retainers urged that I run and I am glad to have found another person.” The monk said nothing but opened up the small temple to the boy. He helped the young lord undress from his fine and ruined clothes and although his storm blue eyes lingered on the curve of the boy’s stomach he did nothing but wrap him in one of the rugs he had brought with him. He sat him beside the fire and brushed out his hair with his own comb and gave him a shallow bowl of rice and thick miso. When the boy asked him his name he answered only with a grunt but the boy listened enchanted as the monk tended him. “I have nothing to give you,” the boy said, “except myself,” and he opened the robe he wore to reveal the velvet length of his chest with pale pink nipples. He bared the sleeping sea horse of his penis and the smooth length of his thighs. He kneeled in front of the monk wearing nothing but his long burnished oak hair. He could see the dilemma that presented itself to the monk, for he was virtuous and the boy was very beautiful and wanton, his fingers pressed to his own mouth. “I need not such things,” the monk said finally though it was a struggle as he fought within his own desires for the boy was very beautiful and the monk was desirous. “Then let me take you come dawn to my father’s lands where you can be rewarded for your kindness. My father is a lord of the Oda clan who have the ear of the emperor and if my flesh does not please you then perhaps,” The monk cut him off, “it is not that you do not please me,” he said, “it is that you please me too well, I am dedicated to the Buddha and I have no need for desires of the flesh.” “Let me take you to my father’s lands, let me reward you.” The monk then frowned, “I wonder how a lord of the Oda clan would care to pay the monk saviour of a wild fox, for no human born has eyes the colour of twilight like a certain fox that lives in the area nearby.” The fox laughed for a moment and then stole a kiss from the handsome monk and turning, changed into his fox form and escaped through the door of the temple with a high yip, leaving the poor monk confused and pressing his own callused fingertips to his mouth where the fox had kissed him. The next night, though the moon was overcast and the air chill, a great many horses pulled up to the small temple. A great soldier dismounted and unravelled a scroll that he had tucked into the belt of his armour. “Is this the monk of the temple of the full moon on the mountain?” he asked. The monk opened the door and looked at the great soldier, he had a wooden torch in his hand as he stepped down to the path. “It is.” He said. “I have come from the emperor, his onmyoji has had a great dream that included you. It seems that the empress will not survive the month unless you are present at her side.” The monk nodded, “I bring this warrant from his serene highness demanding that you travel to Edo and are presented to the emperor himself.” The monk looked across the great collection of soldiers and vast horses that pawed and stamped at the ground with their impatience. “I am sure that it will be a great shame if the month ends and the empress, may the Buddha shine his love upon her, does expire, but I cannot see why the emperor, who of course is wiser than I would send a tanuki to bring such a message,” he swept back his torch to reveal that the last and most imposing of the horses had the tail of a tanuki. A few stray sparks caught the tanuki’s tail and he squealed in pain and ran off through the forest screaming and wailing as he went. “And if you are watching, master fox,” the monk said to the forest, “I do not care for these games that you play. I came here to be free of the games of men, and I do not care to be included in the games of animals who think themselves cunning.” The fox that had been watching did not sleep that night, or the next. He spent the day after that rummaging through the woods, with his human hands he wove a basket of twigs and gathered mushrooms and herbs from the woods, and covered them with the delicate wild flowers that grew in the shadow of the great heavy trees. Taking his fox form, for it was the one in which he was most comfortable, he carried the basket in his jaws and waited on his belly for the monk to open the door to the temple. The monk looked at the fox askance, as he offered him the woven basket with the treasures of the forest. “I am sorry,” the fox said, “the tanuki and I were jealous of the ease of your life in the temple and he and I made a wager. He bet that whichever of us could drive you from the temple could take it as our own. For that I apologise for you are kind and we mistreated you. “The tanuki was scorched by your fire and has run into the next territory and is unlikely to return, and if it is your will I too will leave the forest, but I ask that you are merciful because I have a small den beside a thin waterfall where the water soothes me to sleep. It is not much but it is mine and I would keep it.” The monk made a hn sound, “I do not care where it is that you live,” he said to the fox, “so you can keep your den beside the waterfall, but if you try to trick me again I shall be much less merciful than I have been.” The fox wriggled on his belly as a dog does to appease the stronger members of his pack. The monk hned again. “Thank you.” The fox said rolling on his back to bare his throat. “I shall stay out of your way.” “I have no need of pleasures of the flesh,” the monk said after a long silence between them, “but I am far from the land of men and sometimes even us monks that have retired to such places as to contemplate the nature of the world and Buddha can feel the lack of company. You do not need to avoid me, young fox, but do not seek me out.” The fox slipped then into his human form, using his magic to dress himself in coarse robes, like the ones the monk wore, and kissed his hand on the flesh that stretched between thumb and finger with his soft pink lips, his long burnished oak hair falling in waves down his back. “Thank you. I shall call on you only on nights when the moon is new, and I shall bring you treasures from the forest as thanks for your kindness.” The monk shirked his hand away from the fox and without saying anything else he stepped into the temple. The boy’s stomach gurgles and Relena laughs, then looks at her watch. “It is late,” she says, “I’ve gone on too long, soon enough you will be sitting up to midnight to make sure that the terrible onmyoji meets his fate.” Her smile is warm and kind, “and I no longer have the authority to just whisk you away. Daniel,” she calls over her guard, “I’ll be fine, will you take the young master home?” “Certainly Lady Relena,” the servant says. The boy tries to tell her he doesn’t need the attention but she doesn’t listen. She talks over him with the arrogance of the elderly. “And see him into the house, it’s late and who knows what kind of ragamuffins are wandering about at this time of the evening.” She reaches forward and kisses the boy on the cheek. She smells powdery and dry, and over it is the cloying scent of roses. “I will see you tomorrow, and I will tell you about how the monk and the onmyoji became entangled again.” She knows even then that the boy will have lost Daniel
within a hundred yards, she is almost testing him, and yet hoping
that she is wrong and he does have a home to return to.
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