Ogre

The boy watches, listens, observes. Unbidden, he is the silent audience of a theatre filled with emotion. The quiet discussion playing out in front of him is ripping at the core of the small Japanese boy's being. He rushes, at first tripping and fumbling, out of the temple. His small form slips in and out of the shadows, increasingly nimble and as precise as a dragonfly over a pond.
Confused feelings rush through him, each affecting him for only fleeting seconds before another pushes through to take its place. His face screws up with the concentration of keeping those feelings under control. Eventually a fist lashes out at a nearby tree, spraying bark in his wake, the sharp pain snapping him out of his churning thoughts.
He settles down, and after many hours of internal thought, the boy look s up at the sky.
He sees the moon, and notes the similarities between it and his life. The slow, lonely journey that it undertakes as it wanes away to nothing. A single crystalline tear rolls down his face and falls to the ground. With this, he sits in the nook of a tall tree, embracing the release that sleep gives him.

The morning arrives, and still the boy sleeps and dreams. He dreams of his father, a proud man, the trainer of many of the temple's warriors and guardsmen. He dreams of his mother, small but unseemingly sharp of the mind and quick to pick up on the boy's mistakes. Then he dreams of himself, a dark horse, brooding most of time away. He is intelligent, that is known to all, and can apply himself to anything that he deems important enough to learn with an intensity and vigour that surprises some. He has learnt to fight, but only in the way that enables him to quickly disable the opponent. He is a musician, competent with most instruments but brilliant with the pipes. The graceful lament heard and enjoyed by all excepting the deaf.

Finally, he wakes. Thinking of the night before, melancholy feelings wash over him, but he dismisses them. Walking back to the temple, he observes the beauty of the morning and wishes he could be a part of it. Birds chirp and flit among the branches of the ancient trees. Dew has formed on the patches of grass, and a sheen covers the rocks and boulders making them shine when the sun hits them through the canopy. A breeze is blowing softly; the boy picks up his pace and soon arrives at the temple. His mother greets him at the door.
"Good morning mother, I hope you had a restful evening?" he says, sarcasm weighing heavily in his voice.
She moves her hand as if to brush away the comment from her son.
"You know I didn't. Your father is gone already."
This revelation comes as a shock to the boy, he thought he'd at least have time to say goodbye before his father went.
"No, he can't have he wouldn't have left without at least seeing me!" The words burst out of his lips before the usual calm, uncaring front that masks his personality can halt them.
"Hush son, it was not by his choice that he left. Men came in the morning and took him before he woke." she explained.

"Hush?" he said, seething "How can I hush when my father has been abducted by men clearly skilled enough to be able to avoid all the temple guards and, indeed, my father himself?"
The boy left the mother biting back a fitting response and walked briskly outside once more. As he walked he recalled his mother and father's conversation the previous evening.

"He must know soon," his father had said "I have rivals who would watch me die for their own pleasure."
"No, it would break his heart, he wouldn't understand."
It was at this point that his father's voice had become more intense, indicating his frustration.
"I am dying! If we told him now at least he would have a heart able to be broken! We must-"
His father had never finished the sentence for the boy had let out a small sob. Both parents had turned to face the boy's hiding spot and he had run. Like a coward! He cursed himself mentally, then saddened when he realised that the last act his father had seen him performing had been the act of a coward, running away. The implications of this brought him up short. He was not going to let his father think him afraid!
Quickly, the buy rushed back to the house and asked his mother who of the many rivals his father had were likely to be audacious enough to kidnap him when he was already dying.
"Only one," she replied, hurriedly as if the name dirtied her mouth, "Onashi."
He left then, grim determination settling on his face. He floated through town, agile and beautiful, focused completely on his objective.

He arrived at Onashi's clan house and sat down to wait for night to blanket the area with shadows. It duly obliged him and he crept with trained stealth through the establishment. During this time he became something else, a predator, a panther. Sleek, silent, it avoids any obstacle. Once it kills, slashing the man's throat with a deadly claw.
Reaching its destination it moves quickly, creeping behind the man known as 'Oni' or 'The Ogre'. The large bulk turns, uttering a single astonished exclamation before he too joins the land of spirits.
Its job fulfilled, the predator retreats and the boy returns. He runs to the place he suspects the Onashi keeps prisoners and quickly spots his father. It is not something eyes so young should see. The man has tiny cuts all over his body and has obviously been left to die. The boy rushes over, biting back sobs and embraces his father. The pain from the cuts brings the man floating back to consciousness.
"Son." He croaked.
"I'm sorry father, I'm sorry for being a coward."
" Do not think you are a coward. You are brave to try and rescue me but it is too late. I am too far gone to be saved but you may live happily knowing I am proud of you." With that he fell into unconsciousness again.

Once more the boy ran. He threw all caution to the four winds and sprinted back to the temple. There all was quiet, all was still. He explores the house, growing increasingly hysterical when he finds traces of blood in rooms. Slowly, he steps into the only part of the temple unexplored, the secluded family garden. Here lay all the ashes of the temples initiates.
The Onashi had been ruthless; his mother was hanging from a high branch, expressionless in death. Wailing, he turns away, walking slowly up to the temple's tower. There he finds no adversary, and takes out his beloved pipes. His requiem slowly creeps over the sleeping town, finding no answer, finding no friend.