Owned by: Hayao Miyazaki & Buena Vista Media

Love

San was unused to this strange fluttering that currently formed in the pit of her stomach, a mixture of giddiness and warmth. A human emotion, the young "wolf" mused unhappily as she withdrew the poison from her mother's wound.

Raised by her surrogate family (Moro and her pups), the young woman never felt such emotions towards her siblings, and definitely not towards other spirits that inhabited the great forest (a majority of them resenting her humanity). Even if the princess had felt such emotions, they would be banished and replaced by hatred and excitement as she helped the wolves attack that dreadful Eboshi woman and her ignorant followers. What idiot would want to purposely kill the great forest?

The wolf girl had an ominous feeling that the damned woman wanted more than to kill the forest; she suspected the lady was conspiring against Shishigami himself. Images of tearing the woman to shreds danced through the young woman's mind until she acknowledged the oddly-garbed man that stood on the other side of the river was addressing her.

"My name is Ashitaka . . . from the west . . . have I found the Land of the Gods?"

Ashitaka, she mused as she studied his features, wiping her blood spattered mouth with the back of her arm, smearing it further; it was a nice name, and she thought it fit a strong handsome . . .

. . . human like him, she reminded herself, and her anger towards the land-stealing monsters flared up.

"Go away!" She shouted at him, but he did not move. You are a princess of wolves, she reminded herself, but the young man's beautiful brown gaze drove away the hostility she normally channeled at the citizen's of Iron Town.

San turned her back to Ashitaka, and when she was convinced he had finally left, resumed to rid her "mother" of the poison that festered in the wound marring her shoulder.

"Is this . . . love?" The wild young woman entangled her hands in Moro's fur, smothering her voice with the white, silk-like material, but the wolf god understood her daughter's question perfectly with the aid of her extra-heightened senses.

"Hn . . . I believe so . . . and although he is human, he is not like those you have encountered before; he is open-minded and perceptive. Qualities of a great wolf . . ."

In love, the wolven princess thought, with Ashitaka of the west.

It was unfamiliar and very peculiar, San decided, sharpening her spear's stone point in preparation of her attack on Eboshi and the scum that lived within the walls of her Iron Town, the source of the grotesque metal that was being used to kill the gods that lived within Shishigami's domain. I wonder if Ashitaka will be there, she thought excitedly, surprising herself.

I cannot love him, she argued angrily despite Moro's assurance. I hate all humans. She ignored her own defense of the man, but the sentence lingered as she climbed onto the back of her "brother", Kojiro, who leapt towards the fortress of Eboshi's village at dangerous speeds.

Ashitaka is different . . . he's not like the other humans.

Deep within her heart she acknowledged that this was true, and even deeper within, she knew that she would not be able to stop herself from loving him, even if he was human.