I haven't given up on this fic – I just hit a stumbling block a while (a long while) back, and the plot bunnies just went hopping out the window. So I'm coming back to it now, and just bear with me a little longer.

CIRCLES

PART ONE: BEGINNINGS

Prophecy is a child, sometimes male or female, sometimes neither, but always a child, because Prophecy is the birth of Destiny.

Prophecy was the voice in my head at the killing grounds that day. In the madness, the bleeding and screaming, I heard only the strange whispers that brushed at my mind. And I would have left then – sane men avoid the grounds, and for good reason. The voice merely embodied the foolishness some small part of me had always believed in, that you cannot keep company so long with insanity without it touching you.

I would have left, but I didn't, because the insanity of the voice was frighteningly sensible, in the way rainbows in raindrops are. It persisted, refusing to be ignored.

Find me it sighed.

And I did.

I could have easily missed him, so small was he, but in the swarm he was an island of indifference. He was no different from the other street whelps in his grubby longshirt and bare feet, the brown hair to his waist filthy and unkempt. It was rare for children to come to the killing grounds. Rarer still was the eerie calm he showed, standing unfazed in the frenzy and fury of grown men, among them, apart from them.

Find me it beckoned again, and I stirred.

Someone gripped his shoulder, to shove him aside. But the man looked closer, and eyes already glazed with the madness flared with recognition and triumphant glee.

"One more!" he shrilled once, twice and many times, lost in the horde of shrieking and jeering. It gave me time, but not enough. The last trial performed, I stepped down from the dais, watching those closest to him finally turn and take heed.

"One more!" The man jerked the boy's arm up, almost lifting him off the ground. And the word he hissed reeked with loathing, contempt and fear.

"Youkai."

"Youkai."

"Youkai."

"Youkai." Bloodlust makes cowards brave, and cowards are brave in numbers. The man bared his teeth in anticipation, seeing it reflected in the faces around him as they advanced.

And the boy – the youkai – said nothing, did nothing.

Most jerked at the fierce report, swinging around to stare in confusion as I lowered my revolver. They retreated as I moved forward, back to cowards again. No one wanted to challenge an emissary of the Gods and risk losing what favour they might have had.

But only such men are worthy of the Gods' notice to begin with.

It was pathetic enough to make me want to laugh. It had done nothing for me.

What was left of the hysteria had leached out when I finally walked away from the grounds, the boy trailing in my wake. Later they would become rabid and violent again, demanding to know why I did what I had done.

And I wouldn't have an answer for them. How to explain – a voice, a finding, a rightness.

It was time to leave.

I was discomfited to find that I had returned to the inn where I was staying, the boy still at my heels  – I had vaguely intended only to take him away from the bloodshed and bloodlust. It wasn't a place for children, not human or youkai. I paused at the thought, and turned to take a good look at him.

He stopped when I did, head still bowed. I noticed then the glint of gold that peeked through his unruly hair. Running my fingers lightly around his head, I wondered at the need for such a potent ward. Power – what kind of power, to warrant such repression? – lay dormant in there, undoubtedly youkai.

Yet when he lifted his head at the touch of my hand, I realised that he was nothing so simple as a boy or youkai.

His eyes were gold and large in his small elfin-like face, the colour an uncommon one. He stared at me, waiting, and something within me recognised inevitability.

I don't make my life more than what it is; I was denied living a long time ago. What I saw in his eyes promised me value and worth beyond what I had now.

And I felt the ties I had shunned for so long ensnare me, binding me to something that I would not comprehend until it was too late.

He reached up then, and with mixed dread and wonder I bent slightly so that he could touch my face.

"Sacrifice."

One word, a mere whisper, with the meaning of my whole existence behind it. Prophecy had found me.

"You are Sacrifice."

I was Named.

**********

I never bring much with me when I come to the killing grounds, and I don't linger once the trials are over. There is nothing to pack; I just need to settle my boarding fees and I will be done. Things will get ugly should they come and I am still here.

Yet I am curiously composed. I feel no urgency as I draw on my cigarette one last time before grinding it down on the windowsill.

I suspect it has to do with Prophecy, who is sitting cross-legged on the bed, toweling his hair dry.

Destiny. The concept takes time getting used to. I have not lived, only existed for so long. Prophecy finding me is a laughable irony.

But I have a Destiny, and it doesn't involve being cut down by a bunch of rampaging villagers.

~~~~

"Sacrifice for change."

"And what does that mean?"

He tilted his head, watching me gravely from the bed. "Sacrifice for change," he repeated.

"…that's not much help." He blinked at me, and I muttered something rude under my breath.

I was Named. Sacrifice for change. Right. Very enlightening, that. So where do I start?

"West."

As if he read my mind. "West?"

He stared at me. "Go West and sacrifice for change."

~~~~

"Are you ready?" He nods, and I wonder again at the bizarreness of Prophecy taking a shower. More fantastic still is the revelation that he is to accompany me.

~~~~

"...say that again."

"I go with you."

"Why?"

"It is to be so."

"...that's not an answer."

"...it is to be so."

~~~~

So I have yet to leave the inn because Prophecy needed to clean up first. I toss the used towel and his filthy longshirt into the laundry basket, lip curling in irritation when I recall the obscene excess the innkeeper charged me for the spare clothes. I am impatient to leave; I despise this place, and the mercenary natures that see profit in the spilling of youkai blood.

A youkai. Prophecy takes many forms, is never the same child, but to appear as youkai... it is a curious notion. And the power that I feel when I touch the diadem he wears, that thrums through his small frame...

"Do you have a name?" The question slips out of its own accord. We stand at the door, but I don't turn the knob yet. He looks blankly at me. "I am Prophecy."

"That's what you are, it's not a name. Do you have one?" I don't know why I persist, but he is not simply Prophecy given form; youkai though he is, he is still an earthly, tangible creature.

He frowns slightly and lowers his head, giving my question serious consideration. And then – it flashes across his face, too quick, but I see the tensing in his shoulders. "What's wrong?"

When he looks up at me, it is with the most emotion I have seen so far, but it is uneasy, wary, and his reply is slow in coming. "I... do not know if I have one."

He is not sure. But seeing his distress, I refrain from asking again. Instead, I open the door.

"So, West we go then."

-TBC-