#Aarne-Thompson type 513A

[vesperlionheart]

Elfen Knight Drabble Practice

It was in her seventh year when Sakura began to suspect there was something that divided her from her peers, something that had gone unnoticed by her mother, her father, the village elders, and all her older and younger friends alike. The only one who noticed might have been Baba-Tsunade who came to the village with the caravan and healed their sick and tended to the ill before drinking her fill and moving on to the next needy town.

“Don’t you hear the horn on the hill? Why am I the only one? What’s wrong with me?” Sakura asked in tears one day when the teasing from her friends had moved her to flee.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Sakura’s mother would tell her even as her father took steps to close up the windows and doors against the sounds they couldn’t hear. “There’s no horn, there’s nothing over the hills, don’t listen to the wicked wind.”

“It’s not the wind,” Sakura cried, loud and angry. “I know the difference, it’s not the wind. I hear a horn! Where is it coming from?”

They didn’t let her out as punishment for the disrespect. But after her disciplining was finished, they continued to keep her close and would usher her back indoors if she ever looked too long at the hills, as if listening to something.

The next spring when Tsunade came Sakura’s parents paid her with their wedding wine to take Sakura out of the village as an apprentice healer-something Tsunade had never done before and sworn to never do while both drunk and sober.

The reason Sakura was an exception had less to do with the expensive drink and more to do with the story Sakura’s parents told the traveling woman. The story din’t make to Sakura who had been set aside in another room could only hear snippets through the floorboards.

“-Can hear his horn so she can’t stay here. What’ll it be like when she’s of age to fall sway to his thrall? -only a matter of time before we’re ruined.”

So in the morning, without ceremony or extended farewells, Sakura was packed up into Tsunade’s cart and driven out of town. The horn blew louder than it ever had, sounding almost desperate as the cart rolled on, further and further out of it’s reach.

“What was it?” Sakura asked once they were beyond the hill’s sight. Her home was less than a speck in the distance but her hunger hurt more than her sadness. She knew better than to mourn a family who couldn’t love her more than their comforts.

Tsunade didn’t turn around to look back, but kept her eyes on the scruffy ears of her gray mare. The road was long and softly winding down to the sea.

“You think it was something?”

“I know it was.”

Tsunade whistled low in mock surprise. “You know so much so why ask me, girlie? Why don’t you take a guess?”

“Was it…” Sakura swallowed her fear and licked her lips before finishing her words, “was it a demon kin? Is that why I could hear it, cause I’m evil-born?”

“Of course you would come to such a conclusion with a cut off community like that one,” Tsunade snorted. “Sure sounds like some sort of devil story, don’t it? But if I could hear it too what would that make me?”

“You’re too kind to be evil. You heal all the people…even the ones who are mean to you. You can’t be a demon’s spawn.”

“Then you’re not a demon’s spawn, though your parents were a rotten lot they were still human. You’re just one of the lucky ones. You have a ear for the world’s neighbors. Ever hear of them?”

In answer Sakura pulled herself up onto the bench seat behind the horse and held on whenever the cart bustled. She looked up at Tsunade expectantly.

“I’ll take that as a no. That’s to be expected. More than one court still pays tithe to the hells, but humans have no moral superiority in that department, so we’ve no ground to stand on when condemning the good neighbors. The horn you hear is blown by one of their knights searching for those like you.”

“Why?”

Tsunade grinned and reached down between her legs to grab at the wine flask. “You tell me. Give me your best guess.”

“I don’t like guessing.”

“I don’t like doing all the work, get used to it.”

Sakura pouted, but relented without arguing the point further. “Is it to abduct them and steal them away, for food?”

“Sometimes. They’re looking for champions, have been for centuries. You follow the call and there’s just another game for you to play. They’re a picky lot though, so only the ‘touched’ can hear ‘em anymore.”

“What’s so bad about playing games?” Sakura liked games. She was good at them too, she was fast and strong for her age and she was clever when she wanted to be.

“What happens when you lose a game?” Tsunade asked instead of answering.

Sakura thought of when she would play fox and rabbits with the other children, again and again, looping into new rounds with different children being foxes once everyone was found. “You start over.”

“That would make sense for children, but in their lands there is no ‘next game’ for the losers. A loser in their game is as useful as a chicken that won’t lay. What does your father do when a hen is too old for eggs?”

Sakura knew the answer without having to speak it aloud. She had enjoyed the meat dinner more than once when one of their hens grew too old to lay. The reality settled like a weight in her stomach. “If it’s so bad, why would anyone want to risk playing a game like that?”

“Maybe one day you’ll discover an answer for yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Only that we have many more miles to go. My sister will worry if I’m any later.”

-

Word Count 1009 (I couldn’t trim those last 9 words so I fail.)