Chapter 9

Shota woke before the sun. He was very, very hungry, but the pine trees had plenty of seeds falling from their opening cones, so he was able to make for himself a full breakfast before starting his day's flight. Azuki will go to the sea if she thinks that's where she'll find toki, Shota thought. He knew his sister. Once she fixed on a goal, there was no stopping her. If she was looking for toki on an island to the north and east, as the egrets said, she'd search until she found them, focused on her goal like an arrow flying to a target. Azuki was on her own toki hunt, and Shota would be right behind her.

They had to hurry. He had to hurry. If they didn't keep their human names in the record books, they could only live on the fringes of human society, like beggars or thieves, or they could be birds and only birds. Shota shivered; both prospects terrified him. He liked being a bird and he liked being a regular boy; he had the choice and he wanted to keep it. He had to find Azuki and get them home in time!

He flew all day until he was exhausted, but he didn't reach the seaport until the day after that. He cheeped up some local sparrows, but they hadn't seen her. Nobody in the bird-world had except a single gull who remembered a toki calling to him as he rushed for the offshore rocks where he sheltered from the most recent storm. He asked the gull if there were other toki in the area, but the gull said he knew of none. A tern piped up that he knew of some across the water, but it was too far for Shota to fly. "When little land birds are stupid enough to try it," the tern said, beak haughtily pointed high, "they have to find boats on which to rest. You can't make it on your own."

"We're not fools," one of the local sparrows cheeped sharply. Most of the others rose and circled, finding the remark insulting. "Snooty tern," another muttered. With a ruffle of feathers, the sparrows turned to Shota, circling away from the unpleasant tern, cheeping their sympathy as the tern continued, sounding satisfied with himself, "I think your toki's gone across the water."

Shota, sadly, knew the tern was right. How was he ever going to get Azuki home? How was he ever even going to find her?

Shota settled in for the night in the scrub pines abutting the beach. Had he really lost her? He couldn't fly across the water. If he'd been a boy he would have slapped his forehead. That was the key: he needed to be a boy! If he were a boy, he could ride on a boat the whole way across! He flapped his wings, almost boosting himself from his perch. Then he sank back down, faced with a new problem. To buy passage on a boat required money and unlike Azuki, Shota in bird form carried nothing whatsoever to sell. He could work, of course, but who would hire a skinny little boy, and to do what? Dismayed, Shota worried about the dilemma until he finally fell asleep.

***

Azuki made the crossing to Honshu easily. She'd never flown across the sea before. The ruffles of white on the tops of the waves and the stardust sparkle of light on the water delighted her. It was good to be a toki, she thought as the shore passed under her. I'd never see this beauty from the surface. Delighted, she touched down on the beach.

***

During the night, Shota dreamed of his father. Hachibei, looking not so much younger as unworried, walked up to Shota as he sat, in boy form, under the pine tree where he, in bird form, slept.

"You're a good brother, Shota," Hachibei said, "Just as you were always a good son."

"Father!" Shota cried, leaping to his feet, delighted and skeptical all at once. "Oh, Father, I've missed you so much! But you can't be here! You're dead!"

"I am, yet I can be, because I want to help you find your sister and get home in time. The first thing you grasp in the morning will be lucky for you. Remember this." Hachibei turned and walked away.

"No!" Shota cried, darting forward. "Don't go!" But Hachibei faded away like smoke in the wind, and Shota woke up.

Shota couldn't shake the dream. It was almost frighteningly real. It was just a dream, he thought. Like even the scariest of dreams, it eventually faded. Finally, he drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, Shota recalled his dream clearly, but it seemed rather useless and far away to him now. How was he supposed to find this lucky thing? He'd have to be a boy to grasp, it seemed to him. Well, that was fine. He'd planned to become a boy anyway so he could look for work in the town. He could always turn back into a bird at night so he could eat and rest in comfort if he needed to. That would save money, too. Shota took note of an abandoned squirrel's nest in the tree, within his boy's reach, where he could store any money he might make before turning into a bird for the night. Satisfied with his plan, he flew into the town, where he settled inside the big doors of a barn that smelled like cart-oxen lived in it, though they were out at work.

Perching on the lintel, Shota looked carefully, but he spotted no humans or large animals who might be shocked at his actions. He turned himself into a boy.

Shota transformed, his feathers turning into a shock of black hair and rough brown homespun clothes with straw sandals materializing on his feet. He shot a quick glance out to the street, and stepped out onto the ramp, awed. What he saw was intoxicating. Ox-carts everywhere, drovers crying, vendors exhibiting their wares Shota had never seen anything like it. It was a village market for the largest town he'd ever heard of, only better!

Suddenly, he was rudely shoved from behind. He tumbled to the ground, tucking and rolling off the stone ramp to spring neatly to his feet. Who'd shoved him? His fists clenched, ready to brawl.

Shota found himself face to face with a very large ox that had somehow got one wheel of its cart stuck at the end of the ramp. Just an ox, he thought, as it mumbled, "Sorry, didn't mean to bump you." Shota's anger faded. He couldn't be mad at a hard-working ox trying to maneuver a cart through the crowded street. "It's alright," he answered.

Suddenly, he got a glimpse of something clutched in his right fist. Oh, no! The first thing he grasped this morning and it was only a piece of straw! His stomach dropped like a stone. Somehow, his heart put more credence in the dream than his head, and disappointment pierced him. How could a bit of straw be lucky? Stupid dream! He slid down in the corner formed by the ramp and the barn wall and tried hard not to cry.

A large fly buzzed around his face. He brushed it away. It came back. He brushed it away again, but still it came back, over and over. He'd had enough! He grabbed a bit of ox-tail hair caught in the door-frame. Sparrow-quick, he reached out and caught the annoying fly. Equally quickly, he used the hair to harness the insect to the straw. He'd watch the fly buzz around the straw for a while, and then, when he got bored with it, or it got late, he'd let the fly go off about its business. At least the fly was out of his face and the straw was being put to some use. He was too depressed to even think about looking for work. Maybe the barn owner would have some chore for him when the oxen came back for the night, he thought listlessly. He watched the fly buzz around the straw, ignoring the traffic noise and the shrill cries of a child.

"Hush now, hush now. What is it?" a man's voice rumbled soothingly as he peered into the depths of a fancy sedan chair. "My Lady, I don't know what the child wants."

"No more do I," a woman answered. "He's pointing over there now."

The child, who was perhaps eighteen months old, waved his hands out the window of the sedan chair and screamed louder.

"Could he want the fly?" the man wondered. He was leader of the guard that carried the fancy sedan chair in which the woman and toddler were seated. At least, the woman was seated. The child tried to climb out the open window, his screams alternating with sobs as the woman, his mother, restrained him.

"What fly?" the woman asked, her voice rising over the yelling.

"The one the boy has, over there."

"Motion and noise, I expect," the woman said, for she didn't know about this country game. "Babies like that. See if that boy will sell it to us."

"My Lady, it's just a fly on a straw."

"Do you want to listen to this for another minute? Here." The woman thrust a bag of oranges at the guard with one hand while clutching the squalling child in the crook of her other elbow. "See if he'll trade it for these!"

***

"Boy!"

Shota snapped out of his reverie to the sight of two large, well-wrapped legs standing before him. They were attached to a man with a deep voice and a bag of oranges.

"The young master wants your fly. Will you give it to us for this bag of oranges?"

"Uh, sure," Shota said, rising. Oranges were expensive and rare even here in the south this late in the season. For him, it was a good trade indeed. Straw was all around him. Flies were everywhere. If he could get oranges for this one "Of course." He extended the straw, fly buzzing madly around it, and reached for the bag of oranges.

"Hurry!" cried the woman.

"This should quiet him down," the man said with a grin as he moved off. "Good luck to you, boy."

"Thanks," Shota said to the man's back as he gazed down at the bag of oranges. Maybe the straw was lucky, after all.

***

Azuki flew north and east, searching for a large human town with a big island close off shore. Every day she flew as long as she could fly, staying a bit back from the coast to avoid the morning fog. Every night, she found a stream or river or best, an estuary where she fed and slept. If a storm or fog blew in so she couldn't see the coast, she waited until it cleared so she could see if there was a big harbor town.

She found many fishing villages, numerous timber camps and many small islands. There were farms where there was any bit of plain, but nothing that might be a major harbor, with a sizeable island directly off shore.

She saw other birds, but mostly avoided them, since she wanted to get where she was going as fast as she could. She found plenty to eat, but she was tired and sore from flying all day, every day. Azuki was getting stronger though. Every day, she was a little less tired, a little less sore, and she went a little bit farther. Her bird-muscles were toning up.