Untitled

Theme Song to story: "Fragrance" by Gackt

It was cool for a summer night. Cooler than any other day the people of Sodom Village had had to endure so far this summer. For the most part, it was a quiet village of only a couple hundred inhabitants who kept to themselves. With only a single dirt road leading out of the forest and a stream and nearby lake, Sodom Village was completely cut off from the rest of the world. If you were not a resident within the village, you were treated with mere civility, nothing more. But visitors were commonplace to this self-sufficient village despite this, drawn to its unique location because of the rumors of both the village and the great forest surrounding it.

Sodom Village was situated smack dab in the middle of Youkai Forest; the deepest, most lush forest to exist in thousands of years. Although flourishing with wildlife and medicinal vegetation, Youkai Forest was not a safe place for human beings. It was not unusual to see the occasional wolf wander by or see a hungry wildcat stalk the local livestock from the bushes. But they were no real threat, merely a nuisance. There were far more dangerous predators within the forest that only came out at night, and when they did, Sodom was not always prepared to defend itself. The rumors that attracted tourists from far away lands were born from the points of view of past tourists who witnessed such times.

The night was always different in Youkai Forest. Each night seemed darker than the next and sometimes the moon would not show itself for nights at a time, thus sending the village into a thick fog of pitch black. Armed with pitch forks, handmade swords, arrows and torches, the men of Sodom Village would stand guard around their houses, on such nights, ready to defend their families against the evils of the night, should they decide to attack.

Some said there was a large castle deep within Youkai Forest teeming with demonic creatures waiting for the perfect night to raid the human village. The demons were just rumors of course. Nightmares thought up by tourists who were unfortunate enough to have witnessed a night attack by the forest animals. The people of Sodom believed in the Castle however, because they had seen it. The first habitants of Sodom Village were past servants of the Castle's Master. Those who founded the village were old now and lived to tell their grandchildren stories of a great Count and Countess who once owned the Castle and the land they now lived on.

"The Count was a natural leader and a good man. He and his men fought and won many a battle for this place in my day," spoke an old man sitting at a corner table of the pub. He took a sip of his ale and stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "He had a son before he died. The kid had hair as red as blood. Very unusual for a child born of two brunettes." He chuckled and took another sip of his drink. "And those eyes…haunting."

"What about the Count, grandpa?" A child with shaggy black hair and large red eyes asked eagerly, hands clinging to the edge of the table as he spun back and forth on his stool. "How did he die?"

The old man looked down at him from his drink and smiled. "No one knows."

The child looked confused. " I thought you were there. What did you see?"

The old man set his drink down and stared ahead, as though watching a film play out in his mind. The boy watched him intently, waiting for him to answer.

Finally the man spoke, "The first day I was hired to work at Crimson Castle…. I saw the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. More beautiful even than the woman I married. And my wife is really beautiful!" he added, "I watched her marry the man I was to call Master. He treated her well and she loved him. I worked as a servant within that castle for years after that and I never heard them argue, not once. Then one day news spread throughout the castle that the Countess was having a child. The Master left with five hundred of his men to do battle with a neighboring village shortly after and didn't come home for months at a time. The child came to us a month earlier than expected and the Countess didn't survive the birthing…."

The black haired boy looked up at the old man's saddened visage and he felt it necessary to put his small hand on top of his storyteller's. The old man looked down at this and he patted the boy's hand.

"Anyways. Long story short, the Count returns and finds he has a new son and a dead wife. He blamed himself for the death of his wife. Poor man. He was not the same after that. As a Master of the Castle, he let his servants do as they pleased and his land ceased to prosper. He no longer had desire for battle, and soon the lands he had fought so hard to protect were destroyed by his enemies. Burnt to the ground. The Forest was Crimson Castle's only protection what with the Master in despair. His armies left him and only those loyal to the end stayed in the Castle with their Master. I was one such man. I watched my Master spend his every waking moment worrying about his son's future. The Count could see that he was losing power over his own land and his people and even his own household. His son grew up in a very depressed atmosphere and I, myself, spent many an hour with the boy, trying to make up for his lack of childhood. We would toss a ball around, or read together in the library. Often I would take him for walks around the castle, but even those were limited, for we couldn't wander far without risking being attacked by the Count's waiting enemies."

"Can you tell me how the Count died, now?"

The old man paused, and seemed to be taken aback to see the boy was still there beside him. "Isn't it past your bedtime? Shouldn't you be at home? What would your mother say if she found out you were here all this time with me after hours in the Pub? "

"Please? You've talked for HOURS. And you never answered my question."

"Oh yes. Such an impatient generation!" The man laughed, finished his waiting ale and waved the bartender over to order another before he started the rest of his story.

"Okay. So, I was saying….oh yes. The Count's son grew to be older than you are by just a bit before his father decided to invite the neighboring royal Family to Crimson Castle. You see my Master thought it was a good idea to marry his son off with another of royal blood. So he was betrothed to the daughter of the Yoko Family. Her name was Catherine. Catherine Yoko. She was a beautiful young lady. And I'm certain that my master thought she resembled his own wife in many ways so he was pleased."

The boy's gaze shifted to the bubbles surfacing in the old man's drink and he tried to pay attention to the man's detailed story despite himself.

"I was fortunate enough to have witnessed the Master's son and the Yoko daughter interact. They were not the perfect match as most marriages go, but they grew to tolerate one another to appease their parents.

All was well for a while, the Master seemed to have recovered some of his happiness from previous years and the whole castle seemed to flourish once again. Seemed to.

It happened so suddenly. Without warning, the Yoko daughter became ill. She had spent the day outside in the Forest and had come home with a bite mark on her ankle. I was with the doctor when he examined her. The doctor told us a rabid canine of sorts had bitten Catherine. Though he seemed pretty sure it was not a wolf bite or the bite of a common dog. Over the next few weeks it became apparent that Catherine, the daughter of the Yoko Family was going to die of the disease now coursing through her blood. She was bed ridden and she would be heard screaming throughout the Castle for water. We the servants would take turns during the night making sure she always had water at her bedside. But nothing seemed to help. No matter how much she drank, she was always thirsty.

"The Count became furious. He ranted that no one had watched out for the Yoko daughter while she was outside the Castle and he executed the men who were on watch duty that day. The Count's son grew angry as well, and he put a stop to our time together. He began feeding off of his father's anger and he would practice his swordsmanship furiously throughout the household, slashing and breaking everything he could hit before his father put a stop to it. Even I knew he didn't care much for the girl he was supposed to marry. He was venting an anger that wasn't even his own."

By this time the little boy had stopped listening to the old man rambling on and he lay his head down on the table and closed his eyes, sighing heavily. The old man heard this and ignored the youth's impatience, continuing on with his story.

"It was terrible, the events that followed, my boy. The Yoko girl died of the rabies disease and my Master's son became very unstable and often violent. He would tear apart entire rooms within the castle and then vanish for days at a time. His father worried his son had gone crazy with sorrow over the death of his betrothed and he did not punish his son for any damage he caused the Castle. I thought this was wrong, but I said nothing. I guess I hoped things would sort themselves out eventually as all things do….

"All right boy. I'll tell you now what happened to the Count of Crimson Castle, since you wanted to know so badly: He died of a broken heart after his son disappeared for good. Crimson Castle no longer had a Master, what with the young master gone missing and the old master dead. I left, along with my wife and the other servants. We were no longer bound by oath to serve a master no longer living, you see. But I guess we all felt a strange attachment to our former home and so we didn't wander that far before building a village of our own here in the Forest.

Now the reason behind calling the Forest "Youkai Forest" is because of those damn rumors. Don't let no tourists scare you with their stories of demon dogs with rabies or haunted castles. There isn't anything in that forest but a legendary Count's home and some vicious forest animals and maybe the bones of the young redheaded Master gone missing. That's all to be said, about the matter, my boy."

But the boy was fast asleep; face down on the table next to him. The old man chuckled and tossed some coins down on the table for the bartender to collect after the Pub closed. He put a wrinkled hand on the young boy's shoulder and gently shook him awake. "You missed the best part, squirt."

"Huh?"

"Come on then, let's get you home Hiei."