Mizukume: The Fox-Spirit

"Where would the rebels be now? Their headquarters are in Kyoto, I've heard."

"They are marching on Edo right now."

The tutor and the nanny spoke disjointedly, expressing, little by little, their thoughts, their grief, in short sentences which fell with dreadful clearness on the ears of the young woman laying in the dark of the cabin.

"And there was no news of Yoshi? No news of Lord Yoshihisa?"

"No. He will still be at Nagasaki, facing the Omura clan. He might not even know what happened."

"Nobuhide-dono said the slaughter was hideous, blood everywhere, two thousand slain, the prisoners killed. There are heads nailed to every bridge in Kyoto. Seiji Nakimura is slain, as well as the Lord of Funai. Did you hear what that poor priest reported he saw? Fifteen miles on either side of the road the country has been ransacked. That devilish usurper's troops are even setting the shrines ablaze."

Amaya lay rigid, tearing at the coverlet with her strong teeth, as a horrid malady seemed to overtake her will; sapping her of strength, courage, a will to go on.

The night slipped by. The ship, at length, gained the open sea and began to sway. The lanterns swung back and forth, casting rhythmic patterns of light across the floor of the cabin, shadows reflecting upon themselves, over and over. Dark turning into light into dark into -- the young woman began to shake feverishly.

Whose heads were they talking about? the ones on the bridges at Kyoto? Who had been killed?

The two whispering, hunched shapes in the doorway mentioned her father, Yoshimi no Sozen, as well as her brother Morikuni, then about Seiji Nakimura, her dear good friend. Then about Funai, her uncle. Had all these people been killed? Was it their heads on the bridges?

The young woman turned on her knees in the dark, began to pray, clutching the cruel knife her mother had given her to her naked skin. The metal chilled her, but she pressed it closer, until the edges left marks, curious designs, in-between her breasts.

The ship was now lurching from side to side, the wind growing much stronger, there was a whining, a whistling from up in the rigging and the waves rose higher.

How could Kiyotaka sleep?

Amaya, lonely, frightened, crept across to her brother, touched his warm forehead.

Kiyotaka was beginning to groan in his sleep. She curled up on the floor next to him, hoping that she could warm him. But in his delirium he rolled this way and that, so that soon, feeling feverish herself, Amaya crept away. The tutor entered the cabin, holding a small lamp in his unsteady hand, then peered about from the boy to the young woman, sighing deeply, thinking of their sudden fall from grace and the dark future that lay before them. For, faithful as he was to the House of Sozen, he did not doubt that that the family was destroyed and scattered to the wind. Few that had been exiled to the Okinawa kingdom of Ryukyu ever came back.

Who was left of the clan now but a handful of women, these two and young Yoshihisa, who, for all Morioka knew, had been killed by the victorious followers of the House of Omura?

As he stood there -- a weary, sick, spiritless old man -- he observed Amaya's bright eyes gleaming from the floor.

The young woman sat up, shaking.

"Morioka-sensei, where is my father? Where are my brothers?"

"Dead," whispered her tutor. "May Lord Buddha have mercy on their souls. May Buddha look after you, too, my Lady Ama-kyou."

"So it is their heads--" Amaya began, then could get no further. "--that are on the Sanjo Ohashi Bridge?"

"How much have you heard?" asked the old man. "Why were you not asleep just now?"

"Where is my uncle Funai?" demanded Amaya, ignoring his question. "And Lord Nakimura?"

Her cheeks were shining, her lips parted.

Morioka sat down by Amaya. He took the stricken young woman in his arms to comfort her, but although Amaya was usually affectionate, now refused all comfort, pulling away, shaking, feverishness, asking in a high, strained, excited voice for her father, demanding to know whose heads they were on the bridges at Kyoto?

The winter wind blew the ship, plunging, dipping across the dark waves of the Eastern Sea, the lanterns sent rummy shadows streaming across the deck and the voice of the wind, talking in its deep, throaty alien language, silenced the regular cries of the waves. Kiyotaka moaned in his sleep. Amaya was awake, hot, delirious.

She thought that the swinging lanterns were like dead heads, severed at the neck, lit from within, then the sound of the waves was changed into the clangor of battle in which all her friends and family fell, hacked down and cut in one crimson howling rainfall.

The tutor, sick, dismayed as much as the young woman herself was, tried to fight such phantasies with words of hope, but, instead, he found himself overwhelmed by Amaya's nightmares.

Amaya struggled, finally slipped into restless sleep. Morioka covered up his charge, laid himself down, groaning softly, on the tatami mat between the two, so that the fugitives passed into the endless night, but their dreams would not let them forget.

As the merchant ship plunged through the billowing waves that broke both equally upon their bow and the far away islands of Okinawa, Amaya woke suddenly. Though it was winter, sick-sweat ran down her back. She glanced about her in terror. She recalled the events of the night which brought them out into the middle of a storm on the high seas. Looking about she saw that her three companions were still asleep. The cabin's sliding door was open. She brought her hand up; peered at it. Something was wet, smeared against her fingers. She could feel her soul pulse, throbbing away on the tips of her blood-coated fingers.

Blood? She brought her fingers to her lips.

Yes, that coppery-metallic taste. What was more, the cabin's door was open. Curious. There was no light in the room, though heavy rain fell outside. Why was the cabin's door open? From far out on the sea thunder boomed, a bark of some fox god. For, there, outlined against the bleak light of the winter dawn, a figure stood at the cabin door. Silhouetted, a shock of impossibly white hair. She wore a dark kimono, smiled at the ill young woman jubilantly. Her face was narrow with close-set eyes, thin eyebrows, high cheekbones.

Amaya searched for the knife her mother had given her. As her sticky fingers closed round the leather-bound grip she felt a thrill of courage, then mustered the boldness to whisper into the dark, "Who are you?"

She wanted to say more, but at that moment a coughing fit caught her and bent her double in pain.

The woman replied in the dark, "I am your humble servant, m'lady, Mizukume."

Coughing deliriously, Amaya couldn't even get a single word out. Suddenly the stranger was on top of her, a blur of silk and fur, holding her down, peering into her eyes, smiling. Amaya's coughing slowly died, to be replaced by Mizukume kissing her. The pressure of her vulpini lips on Amaya's shocked, then thrilled, her. When the woman finally released Amaya, pulling open her kimono, pinching her naked breasts as she sat back and gazed at the mortal who, finding her strength returned, pulled the stranger down upon her. The cabin disappeared into shadow. The ship stopped. The waves, the storm, the breathing of her companions, all faded away. Amaya buried her face in fox-spirit's neck and let a tear escape. It fell on Mizukume's out stretched tongue and Amaya quickly sucked her tongue into her mouth in order to taste what Mizukume was experiencing. Amaya's right hand traveled up the other's robe to explore her ample breasts. She pressed one erect brown nipple between her thumb and forefinger and was thrilled when Mizukume let out a soft moan, a low dog-like yip. Amaya pulled her robes open letting the heavy breasts hang inches away from the young woman's open mouth.

Amaya took one of her rigid nipples into her mouth and Mizukume gasped. The young woman pulled her face in-between Mizukume's breasts and breathed in her musk. Rolling her over, Amaya's lips left a trail of wetness from between her breasts down to the top of her pubes. Mizukume was sopping in anticipation.

Her pubic hairs were drenched, her vulva completely engorged. Amaya could see her large clit peeking out of it's hood. Everything was soft and brown. She ran her index finger from the bottom of Mizukume's cunt up to the top of her clit, then back again. Mizukume shuddered with the sensation. Amaya sucked her finger into her mouth provocatively, to get her first taste of a spirit's cum. She had never tasted anything sweeter.

Amaya tongued her clit and put one finger inside Mizukume, pressed upward. Mizukume's soft canine whimpers turned into full fledged cries and the young woman had to cover her lover's mouth with her own because she didn't want to wake the whole ship.

By now Amaya's other hand was busy on her own clit and she brought herself to orgasm with her head still buried in Mizukume's crotch, setting off little sea-quakes, her thighs quivering and the young woman was suddenly engulfed in a stream of her girl-juice. Ghost cum. Amaya lapped up as much as she could and felt the fox-girl's quivering legs wrap around her head.

There was a noise in her head, a pounding in her ears. Blood. A war kettle drum. A fist banging upon a wooden door, the waves breaking over the bow and Amaya's head fell back upon the tatami mat. The shadows came crashing back down on her and when she opened her blood-shot eyes she saw Mizukume's naked form slipping away across the ship's deck, waving her wild tail, gleaming with spray.

Half-naked, Amaya crawled her way up from the floor, reaching for the nearest sleeper, finding her tutor, shook him.

"Who was that?" she asked. "Who is Mizukume? Why is she with us?"

Morioka blinked himself back into wakefulness.

"Mizukume?" he murmured, vaguely. "I do not know. I've never heard the name. Did you just say 'why is she with us'?"

"I thought she had a tail," sobbed Amaya, "I thought she was going to stay with me," the delirious young woman mumbled, and then, at the end of her strength, she fell backwards and kept falling, for miles it felt like, until darkness swallowed her.

The buffeted ship labored down the Amami island chain, dropped anchor off Yogochi harbor. The captain had serious matters for the ears of the King of Ryukyu's servant who had come aboard to collect some of his master's letters and goods.

"There is trouble again in Kyoto, as I hear. The Shogun, along with his eldest son, were slain on the outskirts of the city. Now his brother is marching on Edo. There are two of his children among my passengers. I was asked to take them on board, this by favor of the late Yoshimi no Sozen, to whom I am in debt. The boy seems lively enough, but the older girl is likely not to make it through another night."

"Ask them to come forward, I should be interested to hear what they have to say," said the King's man, curiously surveying the sick and bedraggled forms huddled forlornly in the cabin.

Blue-lipped, shuddering, with the unconscious Amaya draped over his shoulder, the tutor came forward to tell their story, which amounted to nothing more than a desperate appeal from the widowed wife of the Shogun to Lord Sho Shin, King of Ryukyu, for asylum, protection for her two children.

"A lost cause," mused the King's servant, stroking his chin. He knew the temper of Hosokawa Katsumoto, of his fierce followers. Lord Sho Shin of Ryukyu was kind, but politic. He would, his man knew, be anxious not to embroil himself with the triumphant factions in Kyoto but old Morioka, the tutor, patiently, humbly, reminded him that the young Daimyo of Qijue, Yoshihisa, he was sure, still survived. He was even now, perhaps, pressing on Nagasaki with a large army. He might then, possibly, defeat not only the Omura clan but the Fujiwarans as well, their allies.

"His Highness is at Shuri Castle," said the Ryukyuan, still doubtful, but not unsympathetic, "I can take you there. I will find a wagon for the young lady, she seems stricken low," he added, with a glance at the deathly figure, lying limply in the tutor's arms.

They landed. The mountainous island seemed one with the low gray clouds, a few orange tiled houses glistened with the wet. The scanty fishing fleet had come in from out of the storm, rocked at anchor with furled sails. The King's man found them a wagon, into which they were glad to creep, then gave them bread, meat, a bottle of sake. They all ate, except Amaya, who was still half-delirious. The wagon took them through mist, along a road that hugged the coast. On the nearest peak there stood an immense tower.

"Shuri Castle," said their guide, nodding, pointing.

Houses began to close in on either side of the road as the tower grew nearer. Finally they stopped at a gatehouse at the base of the castle. The King's man hurried off to talk to the sentry, as the four fugitives sat shivering in the cold morning light, while the soldiers who rode along with them stared at them curiously.