Spirited Away Fan Fiction ❯ The Dragon's Heart ❯ Chapter 1

The Dragon's Heart

A Spirited Away Fan fiction

by Andrea Readwolf < andrea_readwolf @hotmail.com >

April 2003

What did 'time' mean to a water spirit? Nothing. A blink of an eye, a thousand blinks... either held little meaning for one without end. For one such as he. One with no home other than this world secreted away at the end of a tunnel...

How many times had he thought to leave this world of spirits? How many time had he imagined flying through that tunnel, out to the world on the other side? How many times?

To her.

Always.

To her.

The child who had given him back his Self.

The girl who had dared to love a spirit.

The girl he had dared to love.

Love. Was he truly capable of such an emotion?

He hadn't thought so. How easily she had taught him differently. Was it insane to believe he could still feel her? Her spirit caressing his?

Yes, of course it was. The human girl was gone, returned to her life at the other end of the tunnel. Her life as a human girl. As a normal human girl. A human girl who walked around with the heart of dragon with her. His heart.

Did she know? Did she ever thing of him? Remember him? Think fondly of him in any way?

Yes. He was insane.

Night and day, endlessly, he thought of her, that human girl who had wandered helplessly into his prison and so easily set him free with her unconditional love.

Yes, she had loved him.

He was sure of it.

Did she still? He could not know.

How did she fare on the other end of the tunnel?

It happened so suddenly, without conscious thought of who, that even he showed the slightest indication of surprise when the girl he was thinking of stood right before him, clad in a skimpy piece of cloth. A hand was raised to shield her eyes as she stared out into the glistening sea at other humans bobbing in the water. Around the pair, endless blobs of human bodies engulfed the shore and sand.

A group waved energetically and called to her. She started towards them, smiling and laughing... And then the world dissolved around them and now she stood in a swamp, dressed in a white little nightgown, standing out against the shadows around them. She started walking and he followed.

"I miss you, Haku."

He looked up; surprised she knew he was there without having looked at him even once.

"I pray, ever night and every morning, to whatever spirits will listen, that you are well and that one day we might be allowed to see one another again."

She stopped walking but still didn't look back.

"Granny said to have faith in you and one day you would find your way back here. Are you really here, Haku?"

Still, she didn't turn around.

"I can see you," he finally replied softly. "Can you see me, too?"

"I'm afraid," she answered immediately, and he could hear the slight tremor in her voice. "I'm afraid that if I turn to look at her, you won't be there."

He stepped closer, reaching out to touch her shoulders. "If this is a dream," he whispered as he stepped closer and pressed against her back, "then let us share it together, Chihiro."

As her name left his lips, his hands slid down her arms to be clenched by her fingers.

"Haku..."

In a graceful turn, she was in his arms, her face pressed against his chest, inhaling the fresh scent and letting his soak into her bones. After a moment too soonly ended, she pulled back enough to look into those eyes that had haunted her many and sleeping and waking dreams. Smiling, she reached up and touched his check.

"You still see me as a child?" she half chided, half queried. She leaned up and gently---ever so gently---pressed a kiss to his lips. "That was nine years ago, Haku. See me as I am now."

In his mind and heart, he let go of the beloved girl's image and instantly the image of Send before him peeled away to reveal an older, more mature Sen. Taller than the girl of ten, but still a petite young woman with slender limbs, she had left her hair to grow longer and now sported two long plaits hanging over her shoulders.

Truly a woman now stood before him. A woman who was slightly taller than his current form, Haku noticed with a quizzical frown. A state that should be rectified, he thought, allowing his form to fill out into a new, older looking appearance that would compliment the young woman before him.

"I know this is a dream," Chihiro whispered against his lips. "And I will need to wake up soon and go to class, but... I don't want to lose you."

"Now that I've found you, you won't," he promised, decidedly liking the touch of her lips on his and unconsciously crushing her to him.

As if her words alone had the power to activate the process, Chihiro began to pull away from him. He was aware of the swamp around them disappearing... Aware of the grayish fog that swallowed the landscape... Away of a... harsh... grating... ungodly noise...

She rushed deeper into the fog, and he followed right behind her, determined not to lose her again... Suddenly he was surrounded by bright light that hurt his eyes.

It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the harsh sunlight, but when he did, Haku realized familiar and unfamiliar sketches and paintings in a room...surrounded him. On the bed below him, Chihiro was waking up, an arm reaching out from under the covers to a small square cube---and all at once, the blaring beeping noise quieted.

"G'morning, Haku," a sleep voice murmured as she struggled to sit up in bed. "Hope you rest well, until we meet again." The young woman kissed her fingertips and placed them gently against the dragon snot of a water-colored dragon print sitting next the hellish cube on a nightstand.

Almost the exact replica of himself, he realized with a start. He took a closer look at the other prints decorating the room... water dragons--gliding through a river's current; soaring among the clouds; dancing in the air; sleeping--and faces of a boy he recognized as himself.

Two prints in particular caught and held his attention. Both portrayed the existence of a girl... the girl... the only girl. In one, she rode abreast the dragon. In the other, she slept as the sleeping serpent curled around and against her. Sen, as he remembered her from before.

He looked back at the bed when a scraping noise caught his attention again. The young woman-- Chihiro... Sen...--was drawing. Him, he realized with astonishment. She was drawing him as she had seen him last night, as he looked now with his current form.

"Beautiful," she whispered, her pencil slowing. With a sigh, she placed the pad aside and rose from the bed, stretching, before snatching up a towel and a carry tray and exiting the room.

Curious, he followed. She entered a small room with a tiny pond with steam rising out of its waters like a hot spring. 'Her own private bath house, eh?' he thought, peering down into the water. But then the naked woman who stepped into the tub yet again diverted his attention.

Shapely legs, delicate curled toes, full hips, small rounded tummy, pert breasts, slender shoulders and arms. Dark silky hair was tied up into a piled bun, revealing the nape of her neck. Only a few daring curls resisted the hair clasp and instead, pooled around her submerged shoulders.

Something within him stirred as he watched her; it urged him to join her, there, in the water. The warm, steamy water. Water, which was his home. How smooth the water slid over his spirit, pushing through him, over him, shaped him.

He floated over to her.

Did she somehow know he was there? She stretched out in the water, sinking deeper into the warm caress of the bath water embrace. He silently gasped as she lay out before him, this woman-child. He reached out a hand to touch her, but hesitated. The choice was taken from him when he body arched up out of the water and flesh filled his palm. His hand followed her flesh back into the water as it retreated. He followed, his body stretching out into the water, stretching out over her, supersenitizing every little movement he felt through the water, deep down to his core. The pitch of her chest, the curl of her toes, the stretch of her thighs, the clenching of her sex....

"Haku..."

He reared, wrenching himself away. What did he think he was doing?

Despite not trusting himself, he still found himself following her around throughout the day. At the bathhouse, everything had come to life late in the afternoon, in preparation for the evening's work, but in the human world, he learned, things got around to starting much earlier than the afternoon. He was surprised when they left the house and there were so many people up and about; surprised at how crowded the buses and trains were; surprised at all the people there were, and just how many spirits--some he knew and many he didn't--there were watching over the humans.

Chihiro was a university student, he discovered. She had a small clique of friends, people he recognized from the dream he'd found her in, who she met for lunch. The friends liked to talk and tease, but they didn't stay together for much longer than it took to eat their food, each one running off in the direction of their respective class. Chihiro had four classes, all-boring except for the art class, which was last.

Night was already pushing away the day when they returned safely to her room, and she had barely swung her bags onto a chair before snatching out her pad and pencil, hand and lead moving furiously over the sketch paper. He sat in the corner, half watching her, half concentrating on himself, noticing he was more dense now at night than he had been all day. Now he could touch objects and move them slightly--like a breeze. It was better than nothing.

Finally boring of trying to move a pen across the desk, he went over to where she lay on the bed, drawing furiously. The bed barely dipped beneath his weight, but the comforter *did* move. He crawled around behind her to see what she was drawing and stopped short when he saw.

Two bodies, two people, entwined. And even though their faces were hidden away against each other's bodies, he felt sure he knew who they were.

'Is that what you want?' he wondered, eyes widening with surprise when she shivered. He reached out tentatively, bringing his hands to rest on her shoulders, a smooth caress down her arms, settling low over her belly as he shifted closer behind her. "Is that what you want?" he whispered against her ear, hardly daring to believe she could hear him.

"Haku..." Her head dipped back, as if to rest on his shoulder, her eyes fluttering open and shut.

'She's really looking at me,' he realized, drawing her back against his chest, his heart racing when she moved easily, readily. 'She can really see me. Sen..' "Is that what you want of me?" he asked, lips brushing against her check.

"Haku, please...?"

He buried his lips against her exposed throat as his hands began to move. One skimmed upward, over her chest and squeezing. One trailed lower, down into the warm material of her pants, caressing her.

"Haku!"

They rolled until Sen lay on her back, Haku hovering above her. "IS this really what you want?" he whispered, his breath teasing her face with his closeness.

Once more, she opened her eyes and looked directly at him--looked directly at the water dragon--and smiled. "Haku... you really are here, finally. It's not a dream anymore, is it?" She leaned up, using her arms that had wrapped around his shoulders and neck to support her as she kissed him.

The dragon unleashed.

His arms gave out and sent him crashing into the bed, crushing her with his body as his lips pressed to her mercilessly. Beneath him, Sen's body undulated, driving him wild with his need to be with her, inside her. Swift hands moved to quickly shed their bodies of clothing so soon, naked flesh pressed against more naked flesh.

Sen's young woman's body welcomed him to her, inviting him in, wrapping around him so encouragingly. At first it was her mouth, her lips parting so sweetly, teasing him to do the same and then suckling his tongue, coaxing him into her until their mouths were two ends of a dueling ground. And then it was the rest of her body: Her thighs, which pressed against his hips, urging him closer; her hips, which thrust against him, begging him for something; her soft sex, which wrapped around his own, sheathing him in that liquid-like tightness.

His body raced toward... something, urged on by hers. He could feel it; feel the young human's body in his arms grasping at him, surrounding him, begging him for... something. It was a building of pressure--a sweet, torturous pressure-- a coiling somewhere below his stomach, followed by a shout of rushing, gushing release, his body rigidly stiff for several heartbeats.

And then, slowly, he relaxed, his body collapsing against hers, panting.

"Haku," a sweet voice teased his senses. He could *hear* her smile.

A hand reached up and buried itself against his scalp, pulling at his long dark hair. Their kiss was less frantic--a soft meeting of lips, over and over again before he pressed his face against her neck.

"Arigato," she sighed. "Ai shiteru, zutto."

He smiled.

~~~****~~~

Sunlight filtered into the room through the curtains. Morning. For a brief, heart-wrenching moment, she thought it all a dream.

And then, sweet reality settled in---the stiffness of her limbs, the nakedness of her body, the musky scent of another's surrounding her.

"Haku," she murmured, smiling, knowing he was awake and could hear and see her even if she couldn't see or hear him right now. She ran her hands lazily over her body, remembering the touch of his hands on her as she stretched. Haku.

Her eyes danced to the drawing she'd started last night.

It had been a risk, but after feeling his presence so clearly all of yesterday, for the first time in nine years, she had returned to her room and taken out her frustrations in the form of this sketching. The object of her fantasies--and herself--entwined in and around each other during lovemaking. And it had come true.

She smiled. It made her wonder what else she, they, could do.

Quickly, with easy strokes, she filled in the sketching from last night as her thoughts drew back to the previous night, of Haku, his arms around her as they made love, and she tingled. With practiced precision, she ripped the paper from the pad and pinned it to the wall, amongst the others. Then she returned to her drawing pad and began a new sketch, a smile twitching her lips when she felt his shock and lust wash over her senses. With a few more strokes of her pencil, she completed the sketching, set the pad aside, and picked up her washroom things.

As like yesterday, she could feel him there, with her, but stronger. Her link to him was stronger today than yesterday.

Water seduced her. Probably because it reminded her of *him*. Especially now, after last night, she felt closer to him than ever. It had been so long since that fateful adventure in the spirit world, but she could still remember it. Every detail. And shining brightly in the center of all those mystical memories was Haku.

"Haku," she murmured, sinking into the water, opening herself as she felt him become the water again. Only, unlike yesterday, he didn't pull away.

She smiled, slipping completely under the water, trusting him to be her breath even as she opened her mouth and sucked him into her body.

~OWARI~