Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The First Woman In The World ❯ 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Ten Thousand Years Ago

Eta carefully picked her way through the woods, running as fast as she dared. She wanted to be first to get to the star. A star had fallen, she had seen it; a flash in the sky that had fallen to earth. She did not know if anyone else had seen it, but she wanted to get to it first.

Suddenly, there was a hole in the trees; there was a hole in the ground, a huge dent in the earth that had not been there before. The earth in it was burnt, like the earth under a fire pit. She carefully climbed down into it, where something shone at the bottom.

She reached down for it, a little tentatively. After all, stars were light, like fire, so perhaps they were fire? The ground was scorched, after all. And as everyone did, she had learned when she was a child not to pick up fire. She still had a scar on her palm from when she'd tried, along with all of the other little wounds and scars that came from the life of the hunter-gatherer. It wasn't fire, though. It was a little stone, but it was an odd colour, red and shiny and a little bit clear, like ice. And when she dug it out of the earth and the light of the moon touched it, it glowed.

It glowed bright red, and the red glow grew until it flooded around the stone in the little hollow at the bottom of the crater. Eta reached out, wondering if the light would burn her, but it was cool and soft, like liquid- in fact it was liquid, pooling around the little stone. Eta pulled her hand out of the little puddle, staring at the crystalline liquid in wonderment, and suddenly, on a strange, wild impulse, brought her hand up to her mouth and licked it.

It tasted sharp but sweet, and slipped coolly down her throat. She cupped her hands to scoop up more of the liquid and drank more deeply. Though the liquid was cool, it made her stomach warm, and that warmth slowly spread to the rest of her body. She suddenly felt stronger, the world crystal clear to her- suddenly she noticed all of the little sounds of the forest at night, the sweet scent of the trees and grass and the harsher scent of the scorched earth, saw like it was daytime, her night vision sharpened perceptibly.

She knew what the liquid was now. It must be a spirit drink, giving one the senses of the animals. She knew that dogs could smell better than people- they always knew before people did that there were wolves close to the village, and their noses twitched when they did, so they must smell them. They heard better as well. And lots of animals could see as well at night as if it were day. So the spirits had imbued her with animal powers through this drink. It was amazing. She ought to share it!

She looked doubtfully down at the little pool. There didn't seem to be a lot. Perhaps she should only share it with one other person. When she had decided that, she knew at once who she would share it with. Of course it would be Ushi. He was handsome, and he was fast and strong as well- he was one of the best hunters, even though he was one of the youngest, better than everyone except Bear. The old man might have had another name, a long time ago, but he was called Bear now because he could even take a bear down all on his own. Some of the hunters said that animals would walk up to him and wait patiently to be killed, but Eta didn't know if this was true. She was a woman, so she'd never been on a hunt.

If she shared the spirit drink with Ushi, he might make her his woman. The thought made Eta happy as she ran through the woods, faster than she had before, slipping through the dark and treacherous forest as easily as if it was the worn road to the lake. Ushi was now old enough to choose a woman, and all the girls wanted it to be them, but he had chosen no-one yet. All of the other girls would surely be jealous if he chose Eta!

“Eta? Is that you?”

Eta halted in shock as Ushi appeared on the road in front of her. “Ushi?”

“It is you,” he said. “I did not recognize you for a moment... you seem different.”

“I found something wonderful, Ushi,” she said. “A star fell to earth... do you want to see it?”

“What?!” he said in shock. “You found a star in the earth?”

“Yes!” Eta said, tugging his hand. “Come see it!” She started to run, and he followed her. She was surprised to find that she was running faster than him now, even though he was a man, far taller and stronger than her. She actually had to slow a little so that he could keep up. It annoyed her, somehow. Ushi had always been handsome and strong. How could he seem so weak to her now? Well, once he had drunk some of the spirit drink he, too, would be strong, as strong and fast as she was now.

Ushi stared in amazement at the crater, climbing carefully down the scorched earth. Eta had once climbed carefully too, but now she ran, as sure and graceful as a deer. She ran to where the little stone was sitting in a small hollow in the centre, the glistening red liquid still in a pool around it. She glanced up at the sky. Sunrise would come soon. The stars disappeared at sunrise, so perhaps this would too. They had to hurry. “Look, Ushi! The star!”

“It's a little stone?” he said in surprise. “What is this liquid?”

“Drink some, Ushi,” Eta encouraged him. “It's so sweet, and it makes you feel so strong.”

“You drank some?” Ushi said, tentatively scooping some of the liquid up. “Is that why you seem so different?”

“Yes,” Eta said. “The world looks so different now... so beautiful.” Ushi smiled.

“Perhaps because so do you,” he said. Eta felt her breath catch. “To beauty.” He drank deeply.

Eta could see the change, like she hadn't been able to watch it in herself- his whole body glowed faintly red, and something of that glow stayed even as the red faded, highlighting his muscles, suddenly harder than before, the new sharpness to his pupils, his hunting scars and everyday sores and injuries fading away. It was then that Eta looked at her hands and realized that her scars, too, had been healed- the huge silver burn in her palm was gone, leaving only pale, smooth flesh. Ushi looked up at her in amazement.

“Everything does look amazing,” he said as he stood, holding out his hand. “Especially you.”

Eta felt a pull for him, like she had every time she had seen him; the yearning to be close, to be near to him, forever and ever, a yearning that fed on the red glow inside of her and grew...

He pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers. She felt herself suddenly growing weak again, her new strength seeping from her, but in a good way; she wanted him to hold her close, to be weak in his arms forever, to feel this shared magic...

“Everything is amazing now,” he whispered. “You truly found a gift of the spirits, Eta.” Then he looked up sharply. “The sunrise!”

Eta looked around at is as well, seeing light slowly pour over the mountaintops, falling gradually through the trees. She could only stare in wonder, as if it were the first sunrise she had ever seen. Then she gasped. “What will happen to the star?”

They both turned to look at the little red stone. When the light touched it, the red liquid boiled, rising and writhing like a living thing, wrapping around the stone like a cocoon around a caterpillar. Ushi reached out to pick it up. Now it was a clear stone, like ice, but hard and warm. The liquid had turned into a hard shell.

“We should show this to the elders,” Ushi decided. “Surely it is a gift from the ancestors.”

They ran back to the village, as fast as each other now, Ushi holding the little star in one hand, Eta's hand in the other. The early risers of the village only stared as they ran into the village, begging to speak to the elders.

The elders were amazed, and agreed that since it had fallen from the sky it was a gift from the ancestors- after all, the ancestors lived in the sky, every star an ancestor watching over the people. The gift was telling them that Ushi should be the new headman- after all, he had found it, so the ancestors must have chosen him. Eta knew that she had found it really, but a woman could not be headman so she said nothing. It did not matter, anyway. Ushi did choose her as his woman, and wife of the headman was the highest position that a woman could hold, although some of the elder women seemed to control the village more than the headman did. She and Ushi were together, and she was happy.

Ushi was headman for a long time. A very long time. After a couple of decades, they came to the conclusion that they were not aging at all. They were not growing old like the elders, their hair grey and limp, their skin wrinkled and yellowed. They were as young and strong as they had been the day that they drank the spirit drink, and as the years turned to decades, and the decades to centuries, they remained so. Their strength never faded, and their injuries healed- one terrifying day, Ushi had been mauled by a bear on a hunt, but after two days' rest he had not a scar. They were immortal.

Eta's one sadness was that, somehow, she could not bear children. They did everything that other couples did- and, thanks to their spiritual strength and flexibility, probably more- and yet she never grew a child. She never even bled any more, as all girls did before they became mothers. It was as if her body had frozen. Ushi did not mind- after all, men only needed sons, and only needed them as heirs, and Ushi would never need an heir- and so she did not complain, but secretly it made her sad to know that she could never grow a child, never hold a baby in her arms and call it hers, never see it grow. Over centuries, she saw women having babies, and those babies laughing and playing as they grew, their laughter the most beautiful sound she could imagine. Then those babies would become adults, and they too would have babies of their own, the cycle continuing, a cycle that Ushi and Eta were no longer a part of and never would be.

So in her dreams, Eta created her children, a brave little boy, a loving little girl. In her dreams, she held them and played with them, heard their laughter and wiped their tears. For centuries, she cared for her tiny children in her dreams. Some days, she longed for night to fall so that she could sleep and be with her children. But she said nothing to Ushi. He was a man. He would not understand.

For millennia, their village grew into a town, and Eta and Ushi watched it all- watched the ancient forest give way over centuries to a growing town and the need for farmland, saw new tools evolve, saw the world slowly change. And the whole time, the little star sat, wrapped in cloth, in a box in their ancient house.

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If you've just started reading this fic on its own, you should know that it's a companion/background fic to a considerably more major fic called “When Pandora's Box Is Opened”. It's not actually necessary to read this until a fairly late point in the main fic, but if you read all of this first then it will have major spoilers for the main fic.

This was released alongside Chapter 38: Fear.

The next chapter will be released alongside Chapter 43: Unknowing.

While I'm at it, allow me to shamelessly plug the fic “Shadows In The Light”, which Pretztailfan95 and I are writing together, and it's available on Pretz's profile. Please go read and review, and read and review Pretz's other fics as well. They're sweet, they're funny, and they're badly underappreciated!

While I own none of the characters in Meitantei Conan (Detective Conan/Case Closed) or Magic Kaito, the whole backstory of Eta, Ushi and the Pandora is my creation. If this turns out to be even remotely like the real story, I'm either going to demand royalties or fend off the lawyers with a cry of “Great minds think alike!”Anyway, enjoy, if you read spoilers you've only yourself to blame, and if you don't enjoy it, well, the backspace button is up at the top there.