Yu Yu Hakusho: The After Years

Episode 36: Scarlett's Dreams

Scarlett

I hadn't known it yet, but I was hidden in a room somewhere below the arena, where tunnels honeycombed underground. It would have been damn near impossible to find me. Yet I was blissfully unaware of this as I continued to dream.

I know what you must have been thinking. That the fox-eared boy I had ran into in the woods was a young Kurama. But Kurama and I didn't meet until nearly 400 years later. This boy was someone who would change the course of my tiny, frail human life into something much greater. And I'm afraid I must always love him, and resent him for it.

At the time, in my limited childhood experience, seeing a person with fox-ears was enough to cause alarm, but what made things worse was that this one also had the copper-brown skin that told me he was a native. In my narrow education of the world, I had learned that natives were, meant to be feared. While some thought they were friendly, other adults would warn me that they were "flesh-eating primitives" and "savage, hostile, and beast-like." Was the fact that this one appeared to be half a beast what they had meant? I hadn't seen any of the indigenous people yet, and to be honest, I wasn't certain if perhaps they all looked like this.

In any case, I stumbled back onto my rear when I saw him, making a little "Uh" sound. He raised his hands defensively and called out to me in a language I couldn't understand, but before I could even fathom what he was trying to say, I was already running. I abandoned my pail of raspberries, and tore through the bramble. It was no easy feat in a dress. I'm ashamed to say I didn't make it very far before tripping on a jumble of briars and landing in the center of them. I thrashed in the thorns, tangling myself even worse. I saw him coming closer to me, and in my panic I tried ripping through the vines, but only earned deeper cuts in my arms and legs as a reward for my efforts. When he was very near to me, I assumed that I was going to meet my end, and braced myself for it, screwing my eyes shut.

After a few moments, when death did not come, I slowly opened my eyes. He was standing over me, looking at me with a brow furrowed with concern, and innocently holding out my abandoned pail of raspberries. I realized then that this  must have been one of the friendly natives I had heard mentioned, and managed to squeak out a cautious "Thank you."

Now calm, I began to disentangle myself from the mess of thorns I was trapped in. Many of them had dug quite deep in my flesh, and even though I had enough sense to treat them with care now, I was still fairly trapped. The boy knelt down beside me and reached out a gentle hand, caressing the plant as if he were soothing and old friend. The vines parted from me then, allowing me to escape. I looked at him, wide-eyed, as I slowly raised myself from the mass of thorns. There was only one explanation for what he just did that I understood at the time, from the stories my mother had told me.

"You're a faerie!" I had exclaimed, perhaps a bit too loudly, as it was the boy's turn to jump backwards and away from me. My mother was born in Ireland, where the fair folk were plentiful, and she had told me many stories of them, but I hadn't expected there to be a brand of faeries in the New World.

The boy eyed me cautiously, but after seeing I meant no harm, he ventured to speak again, rambling off another string of words that I did not understand. I waved my hands in front of my body and shook my head, "I'm sorry, but I can't understand you."

Then he repeated a word, over and over, as he gestured to himself, as if to convey the meaning, "Kwahn, Kwahn."

"Oh, is that your name? I'm Ana," I said, gesturing to myself in kind.

"Oizaturnaym?" he looked at me skeptically, "Eemana?"

I shook my head, and repeated my name as he had before, "Ana, Ana."