Chapter 8

Shota stuffed himself with seeds until he was sure he couldn't hold another. He had to catch Azuki, and his small size meant she'd always be ahead of him, until she got where she was going wherever that might be. He still thought he would find her by the sea. Then, all he'd have to do was convince his stubborn sister to return with him before the Sheriff crossed their names off the record books, making them outcasts from human society. He shivered at the thought. To be able to stay human as they had been, to live in human society even part of the time, they had to go home and stand up for their identities, show that they were human, and alive! Shota chirped his thanks to the birds living in the pine tree, and took off, following the river.

Shota's day was long and exhausting. He wasn't used to flying all day long, and sparrows really weren't built for it. Sparrows, he thought sourly, as he looked for a place to rest, lived in trees and stayed put. He was so tired, he could barely follow the river, much less enjoy the flight, and now the sun was sinking into the west again.

Suddenly, he saw some big white birds fishing in a stream, preening on the banks, launching into the sky, and making the most appalling noises rather like those Azuki made when she was a toki and didn't think about it. His sharp sparrow eyes spotted immediately that they were egrets. They had a good fishing hole, anyway, he thought. Azuki could have landed here to eat. He swooped in to land on a maple tree near the bank. One bird, apparently an older one, cocked a wary gaze in his direction and squawked.

"Ho, friend," Shota chirped as he glided down to land on a rock. "Have you seen a toki?"

"Ah, yes," the big bird squawked. "She was here last night." The egret favored Shota with a critical gaze. "Looking for her, are you?"

"I am." Shota decided the egrets didn't need explanations. A group of them had gathered, squawking and joking and posing.

"She was looking for toki, not sparrows," the bravest of the other egrets, the one who'd first spoken to Azuki, told him. All the egrets squawked and poked each other at the joke.

"She wants to find toki?" Shota asked. What was Azuki up to? For some reason, his question caused the egrets to fall into gales of laughter. "Do you know where toki can be found?"

"North and east," the egrets chorused. "On an island, out at sea. A cold, cold island, out at sea." They sounded like they'd been practicing this squawking poem all day. Shota looked at the old bird.

"She went that way," the old bird confirmed. Several of the egrets rose into the air to point out the direction. The old bird quelled them with a squawk. "Follow the river to the harbor," he said. "That's the way she went."

"That way, that way, that way," the egrets chorused.

"Thank you," Shota said. He was tired, but he didn't think he wanted to stay with the egrets. They made too much noise. He would fly downstream a bit, and find another tree where he could roost for the night.

***

Azuki found a small estuary, where a creek met the sea. There were fish there, enough to make her a good meal, but she saw no toki. A gull cruised by overhead. Azuki called out but the gull only shrieked and flew on something about a "blow coming," she thought. She couldn't see a thing for the fog. If there was an island out there, she'd have to wait until it cleared to spot it.

The "blow" did come that night, bringing high winds and rain, followed by a dripping fog. Azuki shivered even as she slept in a protected spot just above the beach, all tucked in, balanced on one foot by the stream.

***

The following morning, while Shota made his way laboriously through the mountains, the rain stopped and the clouds lifted a little. Azuki saw she was near a harbor. A few boats moved in and out. A little wind picked up and clouds hung low, but the ground fog was gone. Still she could see no other land. The old bird had said to ask someone, and that meant, she thought, she had to become a girl. First she ate heartily, for who knew when she would eat so well again? Living in the human world took money. As a bird, Azuki could carry almost nothing besides her feathers. The kettle had really hurt her. She was surprised she'd made it as far as she had, and that was nothing in terms of distance.

Good thing for her, her feathers always turned into the right kind of clothes when she changed into a girl. She tweaked the kimono-style jacket of her samue so it would hang smoothly over the matching loose work pants. Clothes were at least one thing she didn't have to worry about. She gathered up the feathers she had shed during the night. She knew how valuable they were. She could sell them for money, earning enough to stay human for a while and do as the old bird said ask somebody.

Then she remembered her feather hair. She couldn't go into a human town looking like a bird-child. She'd have to find something to cover it. She was pondering options when she heard voices upstream. She stepped behind some beach broom to hide.

"We'll leave these here to dry," a woman's voice said.

"Yes," another replied. "That will take hours, it's still so damp, but it will be faster than under the eaves. We can come back after lunch, when the sun's out." Her companion agreed.

The women chatted as they walked away, their voices receding into the woods bordering the stream, only a short distance up from the beach.

Azuki walked up the stream, moving to the banks as the sand gave way to a small wetland she'd have to remember that and forest. Under the shelter of some trees, spread out on bushes, she found what she'd hoped to find: laundry. She didn't think the chances of it drying any time soon were very good as it was so cloudy and wet. She really didn't like the idea of searching through someone else's drying clothes for something to cover her feather hair. Even though she planned to pay for what she took, using her valuable feathers, it was wrong to take someone else's things without permission.

***

Head covered with a big scarf that Azuki thought made her look like a religious, leaving enough feathers behind so the woman she'd taken it from could buy several new ones, Azuki walked into the harbor town.

It was so noisy! It was noisier than the village on market day, and much, much bigger. She saw ox-carts, hand-carts and kago sedan chairs or palanquins borne by porters, and other porters carrying packs; farmers with baskets of produce balanced on their shoulders; baskets and baskets of fish and seaweed being offloaded from the boats for sale at street stalls. People were rushing everywhere! There were even people riding horses. It was overwhelming. Azuki paused to catch her breath.

She saw a long dock, and people loading bundles, packages and crates on and off of large boats. One such boat had people for its cargo. They disembarked, laughing at their clumsiness after their time at sea.

"What a long voyage," one man said to his companion as they reached the shore-side end of the dock. "I had no idea it would take so long."

"First the storm, then the fog, and a decent wind coming up only when we're in sight of shore," the woman agreed. "It's a long way from Honshu when you can't sail because of the weather. Now, where's my kago?" She looked around, gestured when she spotted it, and the two moved off, still laughing at their altered gaits.

Azuki found a place to sit on a bollard at the head of the dock. She held out her spare feathers, in case someone wanted to buy them, and considered. Honshu? Could that be the place? It was north and east. Apparently, she'd have to take a boat to get there, and it was far away. It was good she had her feathers to sell.

"Are you selling these feathers, girl?" Azuki looked up to see an older man in wrinkled pilgrim's white, his head covered with a fabric hat that looked like the ones Hachibei had favored and the one she herself wore. Azuki saw no hair peeking out; if this man shaved his head, he was a priest, or, since he seemed to be a wandering mendicant, not attached to any temple, a monk. He smelled vaguely of the sea. Azuki felt ashamed to be covering her head, once again pretending to be something she was not.

"Yes, sir," Azuki replied. "I need to get to Honshu and I have no money for passage."

"Why Honshu, child?" The man sat down beside her. "These are toki feathers, aren't they?"

"I need to find the toki living on a big island to the north and east." Azuki's voice trembled.

"You have further to go than Honshu, then," the man said with a smile. He opened his pack and produced a wrapped mochi filled with sweet bean paste. He opened the wrappings, broke the sweet rice cake in two, and gave Azuki half. His hand was gnarled and rough, but his touch was gentle. Murmuring thanks, Azuki took a bite. She thought she'd never tasted anything quite so delicious. She was tired of raw fish!

"What's beyond Honshu?" Azuki asked after she'd swallowed.

"Oh, many things," the monk smiled at her. "There is a very big island to the north and east, and still more north of that. But you want the north and west part of Honshu, I think. I have seen toki there, so you can ask them for the toki you want."

"Is it far away?"

"Yes, it is far, many days' journey. Simply keep going and you will get there in time. That's something I've learned in my travels." The monk looked at Azuki closely, examining her face. Her toki nature showed not only in her feather-hair, but in her nose, which was long and Roman, and turned down a little at the tip. "Where did you get these feathers, girl?"

Azuki drew back, startled and afraid. It had never occurred to her that selling her own feathers might get her caught.

"I thought so," the monk said, nodding in satisfaction, and settling back comfortably. "You're a bird-child, aren't you? Where is your family? How did you get here?"

The man's expression was so kind, and his concern felt so genuine, that Azuki, suddenly feeling her heart twist with the memory of Hachibei, couldn't bear any more. She threw herself into his arms and sobbed out the entire story. When she had cried herself out, she took the man's proffered handkerchief and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

"You don't need to apologize for honest grief." The monk sighed as he took Azuki's hand into his own. "Greed, anger and stupidity are called the three poisons. If one of the three gets hold of someone, like greed did with Genmai, it can consume a person's heart and that person will do bad and hurtful things. It's never a good cause to hurt others, not even one's self." He released her hand and gently pushed a wayward feather back under Azuki's scarf. "Do you think this journey will be a good cause for you, keep you true to yourself, and help you follow your true karmic path?"

"I do." Azuki's tone was equally serious. "I am a bird-child, and I have lived with humans, but I think it is time for me to be a toki." She almost began crying again, for the monk's gruff voice and gentle words reminded her so much of Hachibei, whose death had been all her fault.

"Then why are you sitting here as a girl?"

"To sell feathers to earn my passage to Honshu!"

The monk laughed and rose. "Child, look!" He swept his arm to show Azuki that the clouds had at last lifted, the late morning sun was breaking through, and now, in the distance but not impossibly far away, Azuki could see land.

"Honshu?"

"Honshu," the monk confirmed, nodding. "Why don't you fly?"

"Thank you, thank you!" Azuki pressed the feathers she'd meant to sell onto the monk. "For you, please. Alms," she added, so the man would accept them.

"I will accept them as such, and make offerings for your safe and successful travels," the monk assured her. "I think, perhaps, we might meet again." He smiled at the girl, so innocent and yet so determined. Her journey was only beginning. "I hope so."

"Me, too," Azuki cried as she ran back along the beach to return the scarf.