Cloudbusting, 1/6
Title: Cloudbusting
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Aiba Masaki/Becky; Arashi friendship
Summary: "Unless you can find someone willing to love the arrogant, boastful thing that you are, you will never be a man again. Never!"
Notes/Warnings: For hatenaimirai_e who kindly donated to help_japan. She requested an Aiba/Becky take on Beauty and the Beast. Of course, I've added my own little twists to differ from Disney. I hope you'll enjoy my take on the tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.
You're making rain, and you're just in reach.
--Cloudbusting, Kate Bush
--
In a far off kingdom, some say more than three weeks' journey from ours by even the swiftest airship, was the town of Sora. Nestled in a quiet valley surrounded by ancient forests and rice fields, Sora had only recently been reached by locomotive. Sora was a town of gentle farmers and humble merchants, but as the locomotive arrived, so did ambition. The farmsteads grew fewer, and more people gravitated to the town center. Buildings two and three stories high arose as technology advanced, and the once clean cobblestones began to be stained with soot from factories sprouting up.
It was in this time of wonder and advancement that a young inventor from the capital made his way to Sora, finding a patron in Count Matsumoto, the king's representative in their area. From the train station at Sora, the inventor journeyed through the forests to Matsumoto Castle, towing along all sorts of creations he'd attempted over the years. Count Matsumoto granted the inventor a large space within the castle to use as his workshop. As the town had started to grow and the number of mouths to feed outweighed the valley's resources, Count Matsumoto wished for the inventor to find a way to prevent crop failures and increase the yield of the land since the Rain Goddess had not blessed them with ample precipitation in recent years.
With the support of Sora's mayor, Sho Sakurai, and Count Matsumoto's financial backing, the inventor got to work. He tinkered and he tinkered, laboring for many nights with the help of his assistant, Nino. Together, the two manipulated metal, forging the inventor's finest creation yet.
It was an ordinary day in the Sora town square as Mayor Sakurai urged the citizens to gather. Count Matsumoto's finest horses were hauling the device into town for a demonstration, with the inventor himself sitting in the saddle beside his benefactor. All gathered 'round with hushed whispers, eager to learn the secrets of the workshop at Matsumoto Castle.
Mayor Sakurai gave a longwinded speech as he was inclined to do, and the inventor fidgeted and fumbled, sidestepped and mumbled, waiting for the demonstration to begin. Matsumoto stood at the Mayor's side, looking proud, and Nino stood at the inventor's side, looking amused. The time finally arrived, and Mayor Sakurai looked to the inventor with expectation and hope in his eyes.
The inventor nervously stepped forward, scratching at his hair out of habit. The crowd looked at him expectantly, curiosity in their faces as the factories of Sora around them sent out plumes of thick, black smoke. He smiled hesitantly and finally Nino gave him a swift kick in the rear to get him going.
"My name is Masaki Aiba!" the inventor blurted out, rubbing his rump and shooting Nino a dirty look. "And I am an inventor."
"We know!" the crowd called.
"The mayor already said that!"
"Oh!" the inventor said sheepishly, blushing as red as Mayor Sakurai's tweed coat. "Well..."
Count Matsumoto rolled his eyes, stepping down off of the platform and walking over to the sheet that was covering the inventor's creation.
The inventor was losing the crowd so he pointed straight up at the sky. "She has forgotten this town!"
A few turned back, paying closer attention.
"The Rain Goddess once blessed Sora year round. Sunshine, rain, snow. All in equal measure," Aiba shouted. "But now she has ignored your cries! Your cries for rain and for crop yields and all that great stuff!"
Aiba could have sworn he heard Nino choke down a laugh behind him. So what if the inventor wasn't good with words - his inventions spoke for themselves.
"Count Matsumoto, Mayor Sakurai, if you would?" The two men tugged on the cloth, revealing his masterpiece. The crowd gasped, awaiting an explanation for the newest mechanical monstrosity on display in their town square. It consisted of an iron platform with an attached seat and a panel full of switches and knobs. Out from the center of the panel came a dozen shiny metallic tubes, rounded at each end like a trumpet. Aiba hopped down, Nino at his heels.
The townsfolk stepped back as Aiba got onto the invention's platform to sit down in the chair before the panel. "Ladies and gentlemen of Sora, the Rain Goddess has forgotten you, and thus it is the imagination of mankind that must define the future! If the Rain Goddess will not bless you with rain, then we must create our own!"
Nino helped the Mayor and the Count fold up the cloth, urging the people to give Aiba room to work. The inventor pressed a series of switches. With a few noisy clangs and a sputter, the device came to life. Aiba chose that time to scream over the copious cacophony.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Sora, I present you with my Cloudbuster Machine!"
Of course, the noise from the Cloudbuster drowned out the inventor's explanation of how the machine worked, which was as follows: the metallic tubes were pointed at the heavens, drawing energy from the clouds overhead. Molecules from the clouds were then stored within the Cloudbuster. After a few more knobs were spun and switches switched, the power reversed and the Cloudbuster's tubes expelled water. That would solve a drought or two.
Water burst in a powerful spray from the Cloudbuster's dozen or so tubes, and there was an uproar. The townsfolk were summarily drenched, save for Nino the assistant who had thought to bring an umbrella for himself. Mayor Sakurai called for calm, Count Matsumoto beamed from ear to ear. Nino rolled his eyes and held tight to his umbrella handle.
The inventor himself leaned back in his seat, letting the rain he'd created soak him to the bone. He shut his eyes and smiled. He'd done it. He'd finally done it. He had defied the heavens themselves! He let loose a whoop of celebration, the rain drenching his coat and breeches. Though the crowd had initially been frightened (and of course irritated by the sudden soaking), they burst into cheers, hugging one another and chanting Aiba's name happily. For their prayers had been answered! Even if the Rain Goddess paid Sora no mind, certainly Masaki Aiba's Cloudbuster Machine would save their fields!
Aiba flipped more switches and twisted more knobs and the roaring Cloudbuster rattled its way off, the remaining water turning into a cool mist and then into nothing. He got out of the chair, slipping briefly on a puddle that had formed on the metal platform, before turning to the crowd. He could see Mayor Sakurai wiping off his pince-nez with a handkerchief and Count Matsumoto examining the thoroughly sodden state of his top hat. Nino offered him a thumbs up.
"Of course, the Machine's got a few kinks in it, but it's very close to completion! You've only seen one-tenth of its eventual rain capacity! Just imagine what it'll do for your fields!" Aiba announced. "I expect the Cloudbuster to be fully operational by midsummer. Your harvests will not suffer!"
The crowd thundered its approval as the men covered up the machine once more, and Matsumoto's servant Satoshi gently urged the horses back into place. They'd bring the Cloudbuster back to Aiba's tinkering workshop so he could get to work on completing the machine. Mayor Sakurai rode back in the carriage with Nino and Satoshi while Aiba sat on his horse beside the count.
"Do you think it went well?"
Matsumoto nodded. "You made it rain, Masaki. Like some kind of magician of the old ways."
"Pfft," Aiba said, urging his horse forward toward the road that led out of Sora town proper and to the Western Wood that was home to Matsumoto Castle. "The old ways. Nothing but a bunch of quacks and weirdos, I tell ya. Science, Count Matsumoto. It's science and technology that will forge the way."
Matsumoto nodded, frowning as a few more droplets of water fell from the brim of his hat and onto his now ruined velvet coat. "It seems that way. Just think of all the Cloudbuster could do to promote agriculture. No more starving people, anywhere. No one dying for lack of nutrition. I think I ought to write the king himself. I bet he'll order a dozen Cloudbusters."
"A dozen?" Aiba mumbled. He hadn't thought about that. How long would that take? He knew Nino would never have the patience to help him make twelve of the damn things. It had already taken two years to make one. Oh wow, how old would he be when Cloudbuster Twelve rolled out of his workshop?
They made it back to Matsumoto Castle just after dark, and the mood in the air was a happy one. Count Matsumoto urged Satoshi to bring them all something good to drink from his wine cellar and together the inventor, the assistant, the count, the mayor, and the servant clinked glasses in celebration. The Cloudbuster would make Sora a better place. No, the Cloudbuster would make the world a better place!
They grew drunk and silly off the wine, wandering around the workshop and poking at Aiba's less successful ventures. The seeds that were supposed to sprout even in winter. The many smelly attempts at more efficient fertilizer. And of course the lifeless metal bodies of the automatons Aiba had worked on in the capital - an attempt to create workers for dangerous jobs. He'd never managed to get them operational no matter how much he tinkered.
And so silly were the five men that they didn't notice the old woman in the dark blue cloak perched on the seat of the Cloudbuster until she rapped her gnarled hand against the control panel. They all turned around, giddy with drink.
"Oi!" Matsumoto crowed. "This is my castle. I have a drawbridge, you know! And a moat! How the devil did you get in here?"
Mayor Sakurai moved forward, squinting through his pince-nez. "I don't recognize you from Sora, madame. Are you a visitor to our valley?"
Aiba tripped, knocking his hip against his workbench, before approaching the old woman. "Um, could you get off my machine?"
She stood up quickly, and in a flash, the old woman with the crooked, bony limbs transformed into a flame-haired beauty, her cloak changing into a form-fitting gown. She eyed them each in turn, and as they were young men and heavily intoxicated, they eyed her just as much. Something was amiss though - old ladies didn't suddenly become beautiful. Aiba was pretty sure that everyone in the kingdom was hiring inventors to try and make that happen, to no avail.
Her eyes remained on Aiba. "You are Masaki Aiba? This is your...contraption?"
He set his wine glass down on the workbench, rubbing his sore hip. "Yes. It's my Cloudbuster Machine."
"And its purpose?"
He cleared his throat, trying to sober up. Nino always said he vomited words when he was drunk. "The Cloudbuster makes it rain, so, if there's, you know, a no rain time..."
"A drought," Nino supplied.
"If there's a drought," he stumbled forward, patting one of the machine's tubes affectionately. "Then my girl here can make it rain."
"Yeah, can we bypass the machine talk and ask again how she got into my castle?" Matsumoto protested.
"I pulled up the drawbridge, Count Jun, I swear," Satoshi mumbled.
"Were you drunk at the time?" Nino asked.
"I wasn't," Ohno replied.
"Maybe she's thirsty." Sho squinted again. "Would you like a drink, Madame?"
"Silence, you fools!" the woman shouted, her voice changing until it was a boom as noisy as a clap of thunder. The men shut their mouths at once. She stepped down from the machine, and little bolts of lightning seemed to spark at the ends of her fingers as she approached Aiba. "You think I didn't hear you in the town square? You think I didn't hear your blasphemy? Your insulting, idiotic arrogance?"
Aiba tried to take a step back but he was trapped between the mysterious woman and the Cloudbuster.
"I make it rain when I damn well feel like making it rain! Leave the storms to me, Masaki Aiba. You and your friends and your machine are as nothing compared to what I can do!"
She clapped her hands and the men jumped as a storm broke out just outside the castle. Rain came pouring down, hitting the glass windows of the workshop ferociously. The other four huddled together while Aiba was shaking in his boots, clinging to his machine. She clapped again and just as soon as it had started, the rain stopped.
Nino's eyes were wide. "You can't be...you don't exist!"
"Says who?" the woman replied. She snapped her fingers, and hailstones the size of cherries started pelting the glass. "I am she who you have denied. I am she who watches over this kingdom. You would dare to defy the natural order? Already you cut up the land with your locomotives, pollute the skies with your airships. And now you would take away my rightful place in this world? You would make it rain to suit your needs rather than my desires?"
"The...the Rain Goddess?" Count Matsumoto gasped. The four of them fell to their knees, prostrating themselves before the divine woman who could probably strike them dead with lightning. Indoors.
Aiba, however, stood his ground. "Yes."
She whirled, hair flying about. "Watch your words, Masaki Aiba. Choose them carefully. Though the rain and snow are my domain, I possess more power in my little finger than your contraption could ever think to achieve."
He crossed his arms. "You're terrible at your job, you know. There are people suffering because of the...no rain time."
Nino didn't offer assistance with vocabulary this time.
He continued on. "So if you're such a great, powerful Rain Goddess, then why don't you make enough rain to produce a good harvest every year? Why? What's wrong with me trying to do your job for you, if you're too lazy to do it?"
The other four looked up from their forgiveness-begging, giving Aiba four horrified looks. Nino even criscrossed his wrists, offering a big 'X' to Aiba, pleading with him to shut his mouth.
"I made this Cloudbuster to help people," he declared. "Since apparently you don't feel like it."
The Rain Goddess smirked. "You are wrong, Masaki Aiba. You made this contraption to defy nature. You made this contraption to prove your own personal greatness. And since you show no remorse for your defiance or your arrogance, then you are no better than a lowly animal. First, your friends will see what price must be paid for fueling the delusions of a prideful man like you."
Aiba's eyes widened as the Rain Goddess pointed her long fingers at his friends. One by one, she snapped her fingers in turn. At Mayor Sakurai. At Count Matsumoto. At Nino. And even at Satoshi, the servant. They expelled a breath and collapsed to the floor of the workshop, and Aiba cried out in alarm.
"My friends! You witch! You killed my friends!"
She shook her head, snapping four times. Aiba's eyes widened as four of the failed automatons sprung to life, clomping their feet and struggling against their bindings to the stone workshop wall. The eyes on each automaton opened.
"What have you done?"
"What has been done to them is as nothing compared to what will become of you, Masaki Aiba," the goddess declared, grabbing hold of him by his throat. "You will no longer tinker." He screamed as his hands stretched and squeezed and broke, but she held firm to him. "You will no longer be a man, but an animal. A useless beast who cannot defy the natural order."
The pain was overwhelming. His hands. Whatever was she doing to him?! She released him and he fell to the floor of the workshop, white hot agony burning his entire body. He could feel the dark hair springing from his mangled limbs as he writhed on the floor. The Rain Goddess stood over him triumphantly.
"For defying me, you have lost everything." In an instant, the Cloudbuster crumpled into a heap of useless metal. He screamed and screamed. "You have lost everything! Their souls are in machines, and you are nothing. Unless you can find someone willing to love the arrogant, boastful thing that you are, you will never be a man again. Never!"
But all Masaki Aiba knew at that moment was pain as his body continued to contort and snap.
Matsumoto Castle froze in time, as though encased in a thin layer of ice. The Western Wood all at once went from fragrant, healthy trees to a stagnant mass of dark, dead wood. The vibrant town of Sora was blanketed in snow in the middle of spring, and in hushed whispers the word spread. That the Rain Goddess had come. That the Rain Goddess was watching.
And that no one, absolutely no one, was to enter the Western Wood again.
--
ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER
--
As the airship carried her south towards home, Rebecca Vaughn couldn't help staring out at the clouds.
Fluffy white clouds like soft pillows on a bed with fresh, clean linens. Dark gray clouds casting a shadow over this or that patch of land. Thin, stretched out clouds. Bunched up clouds. Every conceivable type of cloud and yet her pencil remained fixed in place over her sketchpad. She could draw cute little people and flowers. She could draw the sun and the moon and the stars.
Clouds, with their ever changeable nature, seemed to constantly elude her. She'd never been able to draw the clouds.
Which was incredibly frustrating since she'd managed to sell her first series of children's books in the capital. It had been a long road full of disappointments. Her father had wished for her to stay home and become a healer, and before she'd passed away, her mother thought that steam engineering was the most logical choice. Sadly, she'd managed to let down both parents by pursuing neither option. Becky had opted to tell stories.
With her words and her pictures, she'd get children interested in reading. It was something she adored as a child, shut up in the house to avoid all the dirty air of Sora. As soon as she'd come of age, she'd sent in an application to the creative writing program at the university and had been accepted. She'd written and written and written, page after page, dried inkwell after dried inkwell. Upon graduation, though, she discovered there was little market for children's books.
Even when Becky had been a child, imagination seemed in short supply. Who wanted to read about castles and magic and silly things like that? The capital's bookstores were full to bursting with practical manuals. How to repair your sewing machine. How a locomotive engine is constructed. How to build a successful factory. It was infuriating. She'd had to write something different from fairies and talking animals.
Oliver Nesbitt and the Defiant Dirigible, an idea she'd come up with one late night at a tavern with a few mugs of cider in her, had sold. Now she was to write about adventures in the sky, with some detailed talk about the dirigible's mechanical set up, if you please. She'd gotten the manuscript whipped together at the last possible minute, but there were drawings to be done. Of the skies Oliver Nesbitt sailed through. No matter how many airship rides Becky took, she simply couldn't get the clouds right. This voyage would be her last for a while. She could finish some sketches, have them delivered to her publisher, and enjoy a break from writing about mechanical parts and poring over engine schematics. Her father had been asking her to come home for nearly a year, anyhow.
She slammed her sketchbook closed, shoving it into her overloaded bag and putting her pencil back in its case. She was happy for a break from the capital, and even if the clouds were being problematic, Sora was the model for Oliver's hometown after all. She'd have no trouble with those illustrations. Crowded and cramped with too many chimneys, Sora was a muddled, dirty place. A few generations earlier, they said that Sora had been a simpler farming village. Well, Becky thought, that was a long time ago. The Sora she knew was overrun with factories and grime and a peculiar stench that clung to your hair and your clothes.
The captain announced the landing at the Sora Air Station, and Becky watched the airship descend through the puffy white to the dark gray skies of Sora below. The air station itself was fairly new, and her initial flight to the capital for school had been one of the first a few years back. She exited the airship, waiting for one of the flight stewards to reunite her with her steamer trunk.
To her chagrin, she was granted no chance to escape. Sora was considerably smaller than the capital, and she was the only person disembarking at this stop. Airship arrivals and departures were still a big deal to country bumpkins like the people of Sora (not that there was anything wrong with country bumpkins, she thought, since she was one herself.) Before she could hire a carriage to take her to her father's home, she smelled him coming.
Alaric Gaston didn't just have the usual Sora Stench. He added a none too enticing aroma of cologne that brought tears to Becky's eyes, and it always had. Mayor Gaston's son had been in love with her since they'd been teenagers, despite Becky's best efforts to avoid the fellow. Where Becky was clever and small and preferred the comfort of a dog at her side, Alaric was tall and burly and probably less intelligent than any of the dogs she'd ever owned.
As the mayor's son, one day he'd govern Sora, and it was plain on his stupid face that he intended to take her as a wife, even now as he approached dressed in his usual son-of-the-mayor finery. She wondered how many sewing machines had perished in the line of duty to dress him for the day. "Rebecca, my belle, my angel!"
She forced a smile, dropping a few coins in the steward's hand as he set down her trunk. "Alaric."
He swept her up in a way too friendly hug, crushing her to him. She felt her corset pushing inward against her ribs, and her breath seemed to disappear in a whoosh until he released her. She tried to smooth out the wrinkles he'd created in her dress, trying to regain herself. "Ah, Rebecca. Becky. My lovely, it has been far too long!"
She merely nodded, thankful she had put on her gloves after departing the airship. The less she had to actually touch him with her own fingers, the better. It seemed as though Alaric grew larger every time Becky came home. Then again, she wasn't terribly tall to begin with, so Alaric always seemed to tower over her. It seemed as though most of the available ladies in town swooned and fell over themselves as he approached. He...just wasn't Becky's type.
"I've been busy," she said. "But I'm home to visit my father."
Alaric made a face but was thoughtful enough to turn his attention away to picking up her trunk. Becky's father wasn't the most popular man in Sora, never had been. "Ah, that's nice. Family's important. I'm always thinking that. A family's great. A really big family with plenty of strapping young lads. Don't you think that would be lovely?"
Becky nearly fainted at the thought of trying to carry any of Alaric's children in her womb. That would be it, she assured herself. Even her father's best attempts wouldn't be able to save her. She'd be dead. She followed him to the Gaston family carriage where he dropped her trunk discourteously onto the street. A few servants had to work together to hoist it onto the back of the carriage.
Alaric held the door for her. "After you, my dear."
She didn't want to accept his charity. She didn't want to accept anything from him that might give the impression that she was interested in him. But he was still the mayor's son, and if anything, she had to respect that. She was pretty sure that her father would be run out of town if she ever stepped out of line. The carriage lurched forward, and they left the air station behind.
Instead of sitting across from her as would be gentlemanly, he crammed himself into the carriage seat beside her, and she pressed herself as tightly as she could against the jostling wall. It was one of those times that she wished her home wasn't on the outskirts of town. It would only lengthen the journey and thus the time spent in Alaric's company. But her father wished to be as far from the bustle and noise of Sora as he could get. The road leading to their house used to lead to the Western Wood, but it didn't go much past the start of the old, dead forest now, only yards from their front door.
Her father was a practitioner of the old ways, a devoted healer who still believed in the Rain Goddess and the other deities of their world. Her mother hadn't been much for such things, and Becky had grown up with more of a tolerance of her father's fanaticism than any sort of respect for it. He'd never forced his beliefs on anyone, letting the salves and tonics he prepared in his workroom speak for themselves. Though medicine had advanced so much, Becky still remembered the soothing sensation of her father's salve on a burn from the stove or the way a spoonful of her father's strongest tincture eased a sore throat away. Was it the blessing of the goddess or merely the man's gift with plants? Becky (and her mother) had always been inclined to believe the latter.
The carriage bumped along through the poorer west end of town. The closer to the Western Wood, the harsher life seemed to be. At least that was what those who lived on the other sides of town believed. Becky found the air cleaner away from the factories and the crowded row houses. The folks were humbler, kinder. They didn't point and laugh when her father packed up his satchel and tried to sell his medicines door to door. She still remembered how several folks from the west end came to their house with food and prayers when her mother had passed away. The other residents of town had merely scoffed at the "crazy old healer" letting his wife die without seeing a "proper" physician.
Of course Becky, in her initial anger, had wondered why her father had been so convinced that he could cure her, why he hadn't asked for more help. It had driven her decision to attend university so far away, but the time away had calmed her, matured her. Her father had done everything he could.
"Why don't you talk to him about moving closer?" Alaric said, interrupting her thoughts. His thigh was touching hers, and even through her dress she could feel the heat and vitality radiating from him. It was infuriating. "Your father. As the budget goes, we have little interest in refurbishing the roads out this way, and we wouldn't want him isolated, would we?"
Becky knew that her father wouldn't see much trouble in that. The closer he could be to nature, the happier he would be. "My mother designed that house," she explained instead. "He'll never leave it."
Alaric was displeased with this, as though not being able to control one simple man's actions was irksome. "It's been a long time since you've been around here, Becky, but I hear the rumors from time to time."
She almost wished he was still trying to flirt with her, rather than insinuating things about her father. "And what rumors are those, Alaric?"
"That he's going down the forbidden way, that he's actually entering the Western Wood in search of ingredients. We all know that forest is dead and barren as a lesson to us all not to venture out there."
"He has been caught doing so?" To enter the Western Wood was against the law. Where the gravel road gave way to simple dirt was the borderline. Her father would never be so foolish, even though the area wasn't patrolled.
Alaric rolled his eyes. "No, it is only hearsay. But most rumors have an ounce of truth, my dear. Now that you are home, it's best you warn him against doing anything that could see him jailed."
"I will do my best to remind him of Sora's laws," she replied quietly as the paving stones of Sora proper ended and the gravel began. The tightly-clustered town opened up to wide fields with willow trees and the valley full of yellow and purple wildflowers. Becky had spent so many hours in those fields, dreaming of far off places and fantastical things even with the smokestacks of Sora visible before her. She'd dreamed of what the Western Wood might have been in the past, whether the old forest might even show signs of life again. It seemed that few people in the rest of Sora had much interest in seeing the Western Wood born anew.
Alaric's beefy hand found her knee, squeezing hard enough to make her wince. "I am certain that his beautiful daughter, always so fond of words and writing, will have little trouble convincing him. Of course, if he needs further reminder, I'd be happy to have him to dinner at my home..."
The thought of her father in his old, threadbare clothes in Mayor Gaston's mansion, let alone the center of Sora, was one Becky did not like one bit. Sure her father was stubborn and old-fashioned, but he was a kind-hearted, gentle man. He wanted nothing more than to show the goddess he believed in the extent of his faith by curing bodies and minds. Sora was no place for her father.
The carriage came to a halt, and Alaric let her go with some measure of disappointment. He hopped out of the carriage with little grace, the sudden absence of his weight nearly rocking the carriage back, and she had to hold on to keep from tumbling out. She took his offered hand, letting her boots hit the gravel. Though it had been a year, the house her mother had designed for the three of them to live in had not changed a bit.
Unlike the uniform brick houses of Sora, her mother's creation was a bit more "out there." It was two stories of colorful stone, still relatively clean as the dirty air of Sora drifted to the east, not the west. The roof tiles were just as noisy and colorful - her mother had wanted to bring a rainbow to the Western Wood, a bit of color to an area everyone else considered dead. Some might have thought it ugly, but her mother had followed her father here. The cheerful house was a compromise for Maurice Vaughn's insistence on living so far from town.
The flower patches were in full bloom thanks to her father's talent, and the fragrance was a welcome change from the sterile airship and the overwhelming air of town. Half a dozen shades of sweet peas, petunias, lilacs, and gardenias ringed around the house, and she could already hear the dogs coming to greet her, plowing through the special flap her mother had built into the kitchen door and tumbling their way over to paw at her.
Alaric stepped back, clearly not a fan of mutts, but Becky dropped to her knees in joy, letting Sunshine the beagle and Trouble the terrier lick her face and say hello. What she really missed about living at home was the dogs. Her building in the capital didn't welcome pets, and there wasn't much open space for a dog there anyhow. She figured they'd be much happier running around the fields near Sora.
"You still let them lick you?" Alaric grumbled. "Are you a child?"
She rose to her feet, knowing that any proper woman of Sora would be horrified by the grass stains at the knees of her dress. "Well, if they could talk, we'd have tea and a conversation, but since they can't, I find this greeting perfectly alright."
The rear door opened, and they both turned to see the curly gray hair and shy smile of Maurice Vaughn as he came out onto the porch. "Afraid the dogs ruined the surprise for me," her father said with a chuckle, coming down the steps. She should have come home earlier. She shouldn't have wasted so much time looking at airships and trying to sell her books. It was so good to see him. Her father was in his mid-50's, tall where Becky's mother had been petite, stocky where her mother had been slim. Becky herself had taken after her mother, but her father's spirit was no doubt due to his own healing abilities. His usual happy attitude had passed along to his daughter. He was a larger man in a jolly sort of way, rather than intimidating as in Alaric's case.
"It's good to be home," she said, the dogs chasing her heels as she ran into her father's warm embrace.
He stroked her hair, planting a kiss on her forehead. "It's been too long, Rebecca. Nothing but trouble, you are."
Trouble the dog barked at the sound of his name, and Maurice sighed. "Not you, you little stinker. Rebecca, this creature got into my store of venilis weed. Three months waiting at that pond to the south just for enough, and he devoured it in seconds. You're well-named, dog!"
Becky laughed, finally noticing Alaric's obvious discomfort. He was busying himself with taking down her trunk while his servants looked at the Vaughn home with the same curiosity one usually saved for a traveling sideshow. She took her father's arm. "Mr. Gaston was kind enough to see me home from the air station."
Maurice nodded. "The gods and goddesses bless you for your kindness, Alaric."
Alaric wrinkled his nose at Maurice's words, and Becky stiffened. She wondered if her father really had grown more defiant since she'd last seen him. Going out of his way to reference his nearly forgotten gods, potentially seeking plants in the Western Wood. Even after her mother had passed away, he'd only prayed for understanding and the courage to raise his daughter right. What had changed?
"Well, duty calls. Always something to attend to in town," Alaric announced, not bothering to step forward and shake Maurice's hand. "Becky, if there's anything at all you require, you need only come to me."
"Thank you," she replied uneasily. "I'll remember that."
Father and daughter watched the large man get into the carriage, the horses seeming much happier to turn back down the path to town rather than further toward the Western Wood. They left the dogs to scamper around in the grass as the two of them carried her steamer trunk into the house and up the stairs to her room. There were fresh linens and plenty of flowers in vases to welcome her home. She changed out of her traveling dress and into something far more casual, feeling her burdens ease immediately as soon as she untied the laces of her corset and freed her body from it.
It was one of the things Becky liked about getting away from the big city, even away from Sora town proper. She preferred clothes she could get a little dirty, switching into a light green and yellow striped sundress to match all the greenery around the house. Her father was grinding up herbs with a pestle in his workroom when she returned. She grabbed a spare bowl and another bundle of herbs and started grinding some to assist him as she always had.
A year's distance led to hours of conversation about life in the capital, about Becky's writing, and about Oliver Nesbitt. Her father listened to every word, only interrupting her to yank the bowl away and present her with another to keep up their pace. It was only when Becky turned the conversation away from herself and asked about what her father had been up to that the man's attitude changed.
"Alaric says there are rumors in town that you're venturing further afield for ingredients," she noted calmly, watching him pulverize some skaros beans. "Into the Western Wood."
"That's what Alaric tells you?"
Becky nodded. "He and his father are nothing but self-involved, scare-mongering imbeciles..."
"Rebecca..."
She grabbed her own pestle again and started pounding some beans into powder. "They don't want to bother with the west end of town. They don't see profit in it, so they're probably just looking for any excuse. If anyone's spreading rumors about you, it's probably them. They're trying to turn people against you, against your medicines..."
Her father's large hand grasped hers, stilling her progress. "Rebecca, sweetheart."
She looked up, eyes wide, at her father's kind face. Behind him in the corner of the workshop was his small shrine devoted to the Rain Goddess, to the fields and plants whose growth she made possible (at least in Maurice's mind). Her mother's favorite straightedge, taken from her drafting table, also had a place there. The two most important women in Maurice's life, with him in this room at all times.
"The rumors are true," he said, squeezing her hand. "I've been to the Western Wood."
The thought of her kind, gentle father leaving behind the green grass and their rainbow house to venture into the gnarled, dried out forest made her skin crawl. It was true? He wasn't even denying it! "What? Why? It's against the law. What if someone catches you?"
He got up, lifting one of the woven baskets he used to gather plants onto the table. Inside were halcyon leaves, normally found littering the ground to the south of their home, having been blown northward by the wind. But these were no ordinary halcyon leaves - they were double the size of any she'd seen before in her father's workshop. She lifted one, seeing the deep green veins splitting them into two halves.
"From the Western Wood," he said to her quietly. "Not even an hour's walk from where the gravel meets the dirt, not so very far from their stupid border at all."
She set the leaf back in the basket. "But that forest is dead."
"Is it, child? Have you ever been in there? What we see from here is only the outer ring of trees." He tugged her from the chair, over to the westward-facing window of the workshop. The sleeping Sunshine and Trouble perked up, equally curious. "It looks dead, useless from here. But for the past few weeks, I've ventured further. What can be so harmless about a dead forest? The Goddess blesses us with so much, I just had to know why she had so cursed the Western Wood. But she hadn't! She only wished for us to think so!"
Her father's eyes were wild, as though he'd discovered some new species of plant. Maybe he even had. But what he was doing was dangerous. "It is forbidden. Aren't you disobeying the Goddess by taking from the Western Wood?"
He shook his head. "That cannot be. So much remains to be found. Think of how many medicines I can make! Think of how much more potent they could be! Think how many might be healed!"
She tried to shake some sense into him. "Think of what they will say in town! Think of the law! If you're arrested, there will be no medicines for you to make at all!"
There were tears in the man's eyes. "Becky, what if I could have gone into that forest eight years ago?" She looked immediately to her feet, not wanting to see the straightedge in the shrine any longer. "What if I'd been able to find something stronger, something better that might have saved your mother's life?"
"You can't live your life asking 'what if,' daddy."
"I may not have been able to save Paige's life, but think of how many others I could save now. For something as simple as leaves and moss."
There was no argument she could make, no way she could ever convince her father to give up the old ways and embrace the new styles of medicine. It was like telling herself never to write again, never to try and sketch again. And who was she to yell at him? She wouldn't have known any of this was happening if she hadn't come home. Her travel and hours of catching up with her father had worn her out.
She patted his arm and stepped away. "I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, okay?"
He nodded, not at all ashamed of his tears. She would never meet another man as devoted to his work as her father, no one as selfless. "We can argue about this all you wish in the morning, sweetheart. Sleep well." He called out to her when she reached the stairs. "Rebecca. It's good to have you home again."
When she reached her room, she couldn't help staring at the flowers he'd prepared as her welcome home gift. Had any of them come from the Western Wood?
PART TWO
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Aiba Masaki/Becky; Arashi friendship
Summary: "Unless you can find someone willing to love the arrogant, boastful thing that you are, you will never be a man again. Never!"
Notes/Warnings: For hatenaimirai_e who kindly donated to help_japan. She requested an Aiba/Becky take on Beauty and the Beast. Of course, I've added my own little twists to differ from Disney. I hope you'll enjoy my take on the tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.
You're making rain, and you're just in reach.
--Cloudbusting, Kate Bush
--
In a far off kingdom, some say more than three weeks' journey from ours by even the swiftest airship, was the town of Sora. Nestled in a quiet valley surrounded by ancient forests and rice fields, Sora had only recently been reached by locomotive. Sora was a town of gentle farmers and humble merchants, but as the locomotive arrived, so did ambition. The farmsteads grew fewer, and more people gravitated to the town center. Buildings two and three stories high arose as technology advanced, and the once clean cobblestones began to be stained with soot from factories sprouting up.
It was in this time of wonder and advancement that a young inventor from the capital made his way to Sora, finding a patron in Count Matsumoto, the king's representative in their area. From the train station at Sora, the inventor journeyed through the forests to Matsumoto Castle, towing along all sorts of creations he'd attempted over the years. Count Matsumoto granted the inventor a large space within the castle to use as his workshop. As the town had started to grow and the number of mouths to feed outweighed the valley's resources, Count Matsumoto wished for the inventor to find a way to prevent crop failures and increase the yield of the land since the Rain Goddess had not blessed them with ample precipitation in recent years.
With the support of Sora's mayor, Sho Sakurai, and Count Matsumoto's financial backing, the inventor got to work. He tinkered and he tinkered, laboring for many nights with the help of his assistant, Nino. Together, the two manipulated metal, forging the inventor's finest creation yet.
It was an ordinary day in the Sora town square as Mayor Sakurai urged the citizens to gather. Count Matsumoto's finest horses were hauling the device into town for a demonstration, with the inventor himself sitting in the saddle beside his benefactor. All gathered 'round with hushed whispers, eager to learn the secrets of the workshop at Matsumoto Castle.
Mayor Sakurai gave a longwinded speech as he was inclined to do, and the inventor fidgeted and fumbled, sidestepped and mumbled, waiting for the demonstration to begin. Matsumoto stood at the Mayor's side, looking proud, and Nino stood at the inventor's side, looking amused. The time finally arrived, and Mayor Sakurai looked to the inventor with expectation and hope in his eyes.
The inventor nervously stepped forward, scratching at his hair out of habit. The crowd looked at him expectantly, curiosity in their faces as the factories of Sora around them sent out plumes of thick, black smoke. He smiled hesitantly and finally Nino gave him a swift kick in the rear to get him going.
"My name is Masaki Aiba!" the inventor blurted out, rubbing his rump and shooting Nino a dirty look. "And I am an inventor."
"We know!" the crowd called.
"The mayor already said that!"
"Oh!" the inventor said sheepishly, blushing as red as Mayor Sakurai's tweed coat. "Well..."
Count Matsumoto rolled his eyes, stepping down off of the platform and walking over to the sheet that was covering the inventor's creation.
The inventor was losing the crowd so he pointed straight up at the sky. "She has forgotten this town!"
A few turned back, paying closer attention.
"The Rain Goddess once blessed Sora year round. Sunshine, rain, snow. All in equal measure," Aiba shouted. "But now she has ignored your cries! Your cries for rain and for crop yields and all that great stuff!"
Aiba could have sworn he heard Nino choke down a laugh behind him. So what if the inventor wasn't good with words - his inventions spoke for themselves.
"Count Matsumoto, Mayor Sakurai, if you would?" The two men tugged on the cloth, revealing his masterpiece. The crowd gasped, awaiting an explanation for the newest mechanical monstrosity on display in their town square. It consisted of an iron platform with an attached seat and a panel full of switches and knobs. Out from the center of the panel came a dozen shiny metallic tubes, rounded at each end like a trumpet. Aiba hopped down, Nino at his heels.
The townsfolk stepped back as Aiba got onto the invention's platform to sit down in the chair before the panel. "Ladies and gentlemen of Sora, the Rain Goddess has forgotten you, and thus it is the imagination of mankind that must define the future! If the Rain Goddess will not bless you with rain, then we must create our own!"
Nino helped the Mayor and the Count fold up the cloth, urging the people to give Aiba room to work. The inventor pressed a series of switches. With a few noisy clangs and a sputter, the device came to life. Aiba chose that time to scream over the copious cacophony.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Sora, I present you with my Cloudbuster Machine!"
Of course, the noise from the Cloudbuster drowned out the inventor's explanation of how the machine worked, which was as follows: the metallic tubes were pointed at the heavens, drawing energy from the clouds overhead. Molecules from the clouds were then stored within the Cloudbuster. After a few more knobs were spun and switches switched, the power reversed and the Cloudbuster's tubes expelled water. That would solve a drought or two.
Water burst in a powerful spray from the Cloudbuster's dozen or so tubes, and there was an uproar. The townsfolk were summarily drenched, save for Nino the assistant who had thought to bring an umbrella for himself. Mayor Sakurai called for calm, Count Matsumoto beamed from ear to ear. Nino rolled his eyes and held tight to his umbrella handle.
The inventor himself leaned back in his seat, letting the rain he'd created soak him to the bone. He shut his eyes and smiled. He'd done it. He'd finally done it. He had defied the heavens themselves! He let loose a whoop of celebration, the rain drenching his coat and breeches. Though the crowd had initially been frightened (and of course irritated by the sudden soaking), they burst into cheers, hugging one another and chanting Aiba's name happily. For their prayers had been answered! Even if the Rain Goddess paid Sora no mind, certainly Masaki Aiba's Cloudbuster Machine would save their fields!
Aiba flipped more switches and twisted more knobs and the roaring Cloudbuster rattled its way off, the remaining water turning into a cool mist and then into nothing. He got out of the chair, slipping briefly on a puddle that had formed on the metal platform, before turning to the crowd. He could see Mayor Sakurai wiping off his pince-nez with a handkerchief and Count Matsumoto examining the thoroughly sodden state of his top hat. Nino offered him a thumbs up.
"Of course, the Machine's got a few kinks in it, but it's very close to completion! You've only seen one-tenth of its eventual rain capacity! Just imagine what it'll do for your fields!" Aiba announced. "I expect the Cloudbuster to be fully operational by midsummer. Your harvests will not suffer!"
The crowd thundered its approval as the men covered up the machine once more, and Matsumoto's servant Satoshi gently urged the horses back into place. They'd bring the Cloudbuster back to Aiba's tinkering workshop so he could get to work on completing the machine. Mayor Sakurai rode back in the carriage with Nino and Satoshi while Aiba sat on his horse beside the count.
"Do you think it went well?"
Matsumoto nodded. "You made it rain, Masaki. Like some kind of magician of the old ways."
"Pfft," Aiba said, urging his horse forward toward the road that led out of Sora town proper and to the Western Wood that was home to Matsumoto Castle. "The old ways. Nothing but a bunch of quacks and weirdos, I tell ya. Science, Count Matsumoto. It's science and technology that will forge the way."
Matsumoto nodded, frowning as a few more droplets of water fell from the brim of his hat and onto his now ruined velvet coat. "It seems that way. Just think of all the Cloudbuster could do to promote agriculture. No more starving people, anywhere. No one dying for lack of nutrition. I think I ought to write the king himself. I bet he'll order a dozen Cloudbusters."
"A dozen?" Aiba mumbled. He hadn't thought about that. How long would that take? He knew Nino would never have the patience to help him make twelve of the damn things. It had already taken two years to make one. Oh wow, how old would he be when Cloudbuster Twelve rolled out of his workshop?
They made it back to Matsumoto Castle just after dark, and the mood in the air was a happy one. Count Matsumoto urged Satoshi to bring them all something good to drink from his wine cellar and together the inventor, the assistant, the count, the mayor, and the servant clinked glasses in celebration. The Cloudbuster would make Sora a better place. No, the Cloudbuster would make the world a better place!
They grew drunk and silly off the wine, wandering around the workshop and poking at Aiba's less successful ventures. The seeds that were supposed to sprout even in winter. The many smelly attempts at more efficient fertilizer. And of course the lifeless metal bodies of the automatons Aiba had worked on in the capital - an attempt to create workers for dangerous jobs. He'd never managed to get them operational no matter how much he tinkered.
And so silly were the five men that they didn't notice the old woman in the dark blue cloak perched on the seat of the Cloudbuster until she rapped her gnarled hand against the control panel. They all turned around, giddy with drink.
"Oi!" Matsumoto crowed. "This is my castle. I have a drawbridge, you know! And a moat! How the devil did you get in here?"
Mayor Sakurai moved forward, squinting through his pince-nez. "I don't recognize you from Sora, madame. Are you a visitor to our valley?"
Aiba tripped, knocking his hip against his workbench, before approaching the old woman. "Um, could you get off my machine?"
She stood up quickly, and in a flash, the old woman with the crooked, bony limbs transformed into a flame-haired beauty, her cloak changing into a form-fitting gown. She eyed them each in turn, and as they were young men and heavily intoxicated, they eyed her just as much. Something was amiss though - old ladies didn't suddenly become beautiful. Aiba was pretty sure that everyone in the kingdom was hiring inventors to try and make that happen, to no avail.
Her eyes remained on Aiba. "You are Masaki Aiba? This is your...contraption?"
He set his wine glass down on the workbench, rubbing his sore hip. "Yes. It's my Cloudbuster Machine."
"And its purpose?"
He cleared his throat, trying to sober up. Nino always said he vomited words when he was drunk. "The Cloudbuster makes it rain, so, if there's, you know, a no rain time..."
"A drought," Nino supplied.
"If there's a drought," he stumbled forward, patting one of the machine's tubes affectionately. "Then my girl here can make it rain."
"Yeah, can we bypass the machine talk and ask again how she got into my castle?" Matsumoto protested.
"I pulled up the drawbridge, Count Jun, I swear," Satoshi mumbled.
"Were you drunk at the time?" Nino asked.
"I wasn't," Ohno replied.
"Maybe she's thirsty." Sho squinted again. "Would you like a drink, Madame?"
"Silence, you fools!" the woman shouted, her voice changing until it was a boom as noisy as a clap of thunder. The men shut their mouths at once. She stepped down from the machine, and little bolts of lightning seemed to spark at the ends of her fingers as she approached Aiba. "You think I didn't hear you in the town square? You think I didn't hear your blasphemy? Your insulting, idiotic arrogance?"
Aiba tried to take a step back but he was trapped between the mysterious woman and the Cloudbuster.
"I make it rain when I damn well feel like making it rain! Leave the storms to me, Masaki Aiba. You and your friends and your machine are as nothing compared to what I can do!"
She clapped her hands and the men jumped as a storm broke out just outside the castle. Rain came pouring down, hitting the glass windows of the workshop ferociously. The other four huddled together while Aiba was shaking in his boots, clinging to his machine. She clapped again and just as soon as it had started, the rain stopped.
Nino's eyes were wide. "You can't be...you don't exist!"
"Says who?" the woman replied. She snapped her fingers, and hailstones the size of cherries started pelting the glass. "I am she who you have denied. I am she who watches over this kingdom. You would dare to defy the natural order? Already you cut up the land with your locomotives, pollute the skies with your airships. And now you would take away my rightful place in this world? You would make it rain to suit your needs rather than my desires?"
"The...the Rain Goddess?" Count Matsumoto gasped. The four of them fell to their knees, prostrating themselves before the divine woman who could probably strike them dead with lightning. Indoors.
Aiba, however, stood his ground. "Yes."
She whirled, hair flying about. "Watch your words, Masaki Aiba. Choose them carefully. Though the rain and snow are my domain, I possess more power in my little finger than your contraption could ever think to achieve."
He crossed his arms. "You're terrible at your job, you know. There are people suffering because of the...no rain time."
Nino didn't offer assistance with vocabulary this time.
He continued on. "So if you're such a great, powerful Rain Goddess, then why don't you make enough rain to produce a good harvest every year? Why? What's wrong with me trying to do your job for you, if you're too lazy to do it?"
The other four looked up from their forgiveness-begging, giving Aiba four horrified looks. Nino even criscrossed his wrists, offering a big 'X' to Aiba, pleading with him to shut his mouth.
"I made this Cloudbuster to help people," he declared. "Since apparently you don't feel like it."
The Rain Goddess smirked. "You are wrong, Masaki Aiba. You made this contraption to defy nature. You made this contraption to prove your own personal greatness. And since you show no remorse for your defiance or your arrogance, then you are no better than a lowly animal. First, your friends will see what price must be paid for fueling the delusions of a prideful man like you."
Aiba's eyes widened as the Rain Goddess pointed her long fingers at his friends. One by one, she snapped her fingers in turn. At Mayor Sakurai. At Count Matsumoto. At Nino. And even at Satoshi, the servant. They expelled a breath and collapsed to the floor of the workshop, and Aiba cried out in alarm.
"My friends! You witch! You killed my friends!"
She shook her head, snapping four times. Aiba's eyes widened as four of the failed automatons sprung to life, clomping their feet and struggling against their bindings to the stone workshop wall. The eyes on each automaton opened.
"What have you done?"
"What has been done to them is as nothing compared to what will become of you, Masaki Aiba," the goddess declared, grabbing hold of him by his throat. "You will no longer tinker." He screamed as his hands stretched and squeezed and broke, but she held firm to him. "You will no longer be a man, but an animal. A useless beast who cannot defy the natural order."
The pain was overwhelming. His hands. Whatever was she doing to him?! She released him and he fell to the floor of the workshop, white hot agony burning his entire body. He could feel the dark hair springing from his mangled limbs as he writhed on the floor. The Rain Goddess stood over him triumphantly.
"For defying me, you have lost everything." In an instant, the Cloudbuster crumpled into a heap of useless metal. He screamed and screamed. "You have lost everything! Their souls are in machines, and you are nothing. Unless you can find someone willing to love the arrogant, boastful thing that you are, you will never be a man again. Never!"
But all Masaki Aiba knew at that moment was pain as his body continued to contort and snap.
Matsumoto Castle froze in time, as though encased in a thin layer of ice. The Western Wood all at once went from fragrant, healthy trees to a stagnant mass of dark, dead wood. The vibrant town of Sora was blanketed in snow in the middle of spring, and in hushed whispers the word spread. That the Rain Goddess had come. That the Rain Goddess was watching.
And that no one, absolutely no one, was to enter the Western Wood again.
--
ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER
--
As the airship carried her south towards home, Rebecca Vaughn couldn't help staring out at the clouds.
Fluffy white clouds like soft pillows on a bed with fresh, clean linens. Dark gray clouds casting a shadow over this or that patch of land. Thin, stretched out clouds. Bunched up clouds. Every conceivable type of cloud and yet her pencil remained fixed in place over her sketchpad. She could draw cute little people and flowers. She could draw the sun and the moon and the stars.
Clouds, with their ever changeable nature, seemed to constantly elude her. She'd never been able to draw the clouds.
Which was incredibly frustrating since she'd managed to sell her first series of children's books in the capital. It had been a long road full of disappointments. Her father had wished for her to stay home and become a healer, and before she'd passed away, her mother thought that steam engineering was the most logical choice. Sadly, she'd managed to let down both parents by pursuing neither option. Becky had opted to tell stories.
With her words and her pictures, she'd get children interested in reading. It was something she adored as a child, shut up in the house to avoid all the dirty air of Sora. As soon as she'd come of age, she'd sent in an application to the creative writing program at the university and had been accepted. She'd written and written and written, page after page, dried inkwell after dried inkwell. Upon graduation, though, she discovered there was little market for children's books.
Even when Becky had been a child, imagination seemed in short supply. Who wanted to read about castles and magic and silly things like that? The capital's bookstores were full to bursting with practical manuals. How to repair your sewing machine. How a locomotive engine is constructed. How to build a successful factory. It was infuriating. She'd had to write something different from fairies and talking animals.
Oliver Nesbitt and the Defiant Dirigible, an idea she'd come up with one late night at a tavern with a few mugs of cider in her, had sold. Now she was to write about adventures in the sky, with some detailed talk about the dirigible's mechanical set up, if you please. She'd gotten the manuscript whipped together at the last possible minute, but there were drawings to be done. Of the skies Oliver Nesbitt sailed through. No matter how many airship rides Becky took, she simply couldn't get the clouds right. This voyage would be her last for a while. She could finish some sketches, have them delivered to her publisher, and enjoy a break from writing about mechanical parts and poring over engine schematics. Her father had been asking her to come home for nearly a year, anyhow.
She slammed her sketchbook closed, shoving it into her overloaded bag and putting her pencil back in its case. She was happy for a break from the capital, and even if the clouds were being problematic, Sora was the model for Oliver's hometown after all. She'd have no trouble with those illustrations. Crowded and cramped with too many chimneys, Sora was a muddled, dirty place. A few generations earlier, they said that Sora had been a simpler farming village. Well, Becky thought, that was a long time ago. The Sora she knew was overrun with factories and grime and a peculiar stench that clung to your hair and your clothes.
The captain announced the landing at the Sora Air Station, and Becky watched the airship descend through the puffy white to the dark gray skies of Sora below. The air station itself was fairly new, and her initial flight to the capital for school had been one of the first a few years back. She exited the airship, waiting for one of the flight stewards to reunite her with her steamer trunk.
To her chagrin, she was granted no chance to escape. Sora was considerably smaller than the capital, and she was the only person disembarking at this stop. Airship arrivals and departures were still a big deal to country bumpkins like the people of Sora (not that there was anything wrong with country bumpkins, she thought, since she was one herself.) Before she could hire a carriage to take her to her father's home, she smelled him coming.
Alaric Gaston didn't just have the usual Sora Stench. He added a none too enticing aroma of cologne that brought tears to Becky's eyes, and it always had. Mayor Gaston's son had been in love with her since they'd been teenagers, despite Becky's best efforts to avoid the fellow. Where Becky was clever and small and preferred the comfort of a dog at her side, Alaric was tall and burly and probably less intelligent than any of the dogs she'd ever owned.
As the mayor's son, one day he'd govern Sora, and it was plain on his stupid face that he intended to take her as a wife, even now as he approached dressed in his usual son-of-the-mayor finery. She wondered how many sewing machines had perished in the line of duty to dress him for the day. "Rebecca, my belle, my angel!"
She forced a smile, dropping a few coins in the steward's hand as he set down her trunk. "Alaric."
He swept her up in a way too friendly hug, crushing her to him. She felt her corset pushing inward against her ribs, and her breath seemed to disappear in a whoosh until he released her. She tried to smooth out the wrinkles he'd created in her dress, trying to regain herself. "Ah, Rebecca. Becky. My lovely, it has been far too long!"
She merely nodded, thankful she had put on her gloves after departing the airship. The less she had to actually touch him with her own fingers, the better. It seemed as though Alaric grew larger every time Becky came home. Then again, she wasn't terribly tall to begin with, so Alaric always seemed to tower over her. It seemed as though most of the available ladies in town swooned and fell over themselves as he approached. He...just wasn't Becky's type.
"I've been busy," she said. "But I'm home to visit my father."
Alaric made a face but was thoughtful enough to turn his attention away to picking up her trunk. Becky's father wasn't the most popular man in Sora, never had been. "Ah, that's nice. Family's important. I'm always thinking that. A family's great. A really big family with plenty of strapping young lads. Don't you think that would be lovely?"
Becky nearly fainted at the thought of trying to carry any of Alaric's children in her womb. That would be it, she assured herself. Even her father's best attempts wouldn't be able to save her. She'd be dead. She followed him to the Gaston family carriage where he dropped her trunk discourteously onto the street. A few servants had to work together to hoist it onto the back of the carriage.
Alaric held the door for her. "After you, my dear."
She didn't want to accept his charity. She didn't want to accept anything from him that might give the impression that she was interested in him. But he was still the mayor's son, and if anything, she had to respect that. She was pretty sure that her father would be run out of town if she ever stepped out of line. The carriage lurched forward, and they left the air station behind.
Instead of sitting across from her as would be gentlemanly, he crammed himself into the carriage seat beside her, and she pressed herself as tightly as she could against the jostling wall. It was one of those times that she wished her home wasn't on the outskirts of town. It would only lengthen the journey and thus the time spent in Alaric's company. But her father wished to be as far from the bustle and noise of Sora as he could get. The road leading to their house used to lead to the Western Wood, but it didn't go much past the start of the old, dead forest now, only yards from their front door.
Her father was a practitioner of the old ways, a devoted healer who still believed in the Rain Goddess and the other deities of their world. Her mother hadn't been much for such things, and Becky had grown up with more of a tolerance of her father's fanaticism than any sort of respect for it. He'd never forced his beliefs on anyone, letting the salves and tonics he prepared in his workroom speak for themselves. Though medicine had advanced so much, Becky still remembered the soothing sensation of her father's salve on a burn from the stove or the way a spoonful of her father's strongest tincture eased a sore throat away. Was it the blessing of the goddess or merely the man's gift with plants? Becky (and her mother) had always been inclined to believe the latter.
The carriage bumped along through the poorer west end of town. The closer to the Western Wood, the harsher life seemed to be. At least that was what those who lived on the other sides of town believed. Becky found the air cleaner away from the factories and the crowded row houses. The folks were humbler, kinder. They didn't point and laugh when her father packed up his satchel and tried to sell his medicines door to door. She still remembered how several folks from the west end came to their house with food and prayers when her mother had passed away. The other residents of town had merely scoffed at the "crazy old healer" letting his wife die without seeing a "proper" physician.
Of course Becky, in her initial anger, had wondered why her father had been so convinced that he could cure her, why he hadn't asked for more help. It had driven her decision to attend university so far away, but the time away had calmed her, matured her. Her father had done everything he could.
"Why don't you talk to him about moving closer?" Alaric said, interrupting her thoughts. His thigh was touching hers, and even through her dress she could feel the heat and vitality radiating from him. It was infuriating. "Your father. As the budget goes, we have little interest in refurbishing the roads out this way, and we wouldn't want him isolated, would we?"
Becky knew that her father wouldn't see much trouble in that. The closer he could be to nature, the happier he would be. "My mother designed that house," she explained instead. "He'll never leave it."
Alaric was displeased with this, as though not being able to control one simple man's actions was irksome. "It's been a long time since you've been around here, Becky, but I hear the rumors from time to time."
She almost wished he was still trying to flirt with her, rather than insinuating things about her father. "And what rumors are those, Alaric?"
"That he's going down the forbidden way, that he's actually entering the Western Wood in search of ingredients. We all know that forest is dead and barren as a lesson to us all not to venture out there."
"He has been caught doing so?" To enter the Western Wood was against the law. Where the gravel road gave way to simple dirt was the borderline. Her father would never be so foolish, even though the area wasn't patrolled.
Alaric rolled his eyes. "No, it is only hearsay. But most rumors have an ounce of truth, my dear. Now that you are home, it's best you warn him against doing anything that could see him jailed."
"I will do my best to remind him of Sora's laws," she replied quietly as the paving stones of Sora proper ended and the gravel began. The tightly-clustered town opened up to wide fields with willow trees and the valley full of yellow and purple wildflowers. Becky had spent so many hours in those fields, dreaming of far off places and fantastical things even with the smokestacks of Sora visible before her. She'd dreamed of what the Western Wood might have been in the past, whether the old forest might even show signs of life again. It seemed that few people in the rest of Sora had much interest in seeing the Western Wood born anew.
Alaric's beefy hand found her knee, squeezing hard enough to make her wince. "I am certain that his beautiful daughter, always so fond of words and writing, will have little trouble convincing him. Of course, if he needs further reminder, I'd be happy to have him to dinner at my home..."
The thought of her father in his old, threadbare clothes in Mayor Gaston's mansion, let alone the center of Sora, was one Becky did not like one bit. Sure her father was stubborn and old-fashioned, but he was a kind-hearted, gentle man. He wanted nothing more than to show the goddess he believed in the extent of his faith by curing bodies and minds. Sora was no place for her father.
The carriage came to a halt, and Alaric let her go with some measure of disappointment. He hopped out of the carriage with little grace, the sudden absence of his weight nearly rocking the carriage back, and she had to hold on to keep from tumbling out. She took his offered hand, letting her boots hit the gravel. Though it had been a year, the house her mother had designed for the three of them to live in had not changed a bit.
Unlike the uniform brick houses of Sora, her mother's creation was a bit more "out there." It was two stories of colorful stone, still relatively clean as the dirty air of Sora drifted to the east, not the west. The roof tiles were just as noisy and colorful - her mother had wanted to bring a rainbow to the Western Wood, a bit of color to an area everyone else considered dead. Some might have thought it ugly, but her mother had followed her father here. The cheerful house was a compromise for Maurice Vaughn's insistence on living so far from town.
The flower patches were in full bloom thanks to her father's talent, and the fragrance was a welcome change from the sterile airship and the overwhelming air of town. Half a dozen shades of sweet peas, petunias, lilacs, and gardenias ringed around the house, and she could already hear the dogs coming to greet her, plowing through the special flap her mother had built into the kitchen door and tumbling their way over to paw at her.
Alaric stepped back, clearly not a fan of mutts, but Becky dropped to her knees in joy, letting Sunshine the beagle and Trouble the terrier lick her face and say hello. What she really missed about living at home was the dogs. Her building in the capital didn't welcome pets, and there wasn't much open space for a dog there anyhow. She figured they'd be much happier running around the fields near Sora.
"You still let them lick you?" Alaric grumbled. "Are you a child?"
She rose to her feet, knowing that any proper woman of Sora would be horrified by the grass stains at the knees of her dress. "Well, if they could talk, we'd have tea and a conversation, but since they can't, I find this greeting perfectly alright."
The rear door opened, and they both turned to see the curly gray hair and shy smile of Maurice Vaughn as he came out onto the porch. "Afraid the dogs ruined the surprise for me," her father said with a chuckle, coming down the steps. She should have come home earlier. She shouldn't have wasted so much time looking at airships and trying to sell her books. It was so good to see him. Her father was in his mid-50's, tall where Becky's mother had been petite, stocky where her mother had been slim. Becky herself had taken after her mother, but her father's spirit was no doubt due to his own healing abilities. His usual happy attitude had passed along to his daughter. He was a larger man in a jolly sort of way, rather than intimidating as in Alaric's case.
"It's good to be home," she said, the dogs chasing her heels as she ran into her father's warm embrace.
He stroked her hair, planting a kiss on her forehead. "It's been too long, Rebecca. Nothing but trouble, you are."
Trouble the dog barked at the sound of his name, and Maurice sighed. "Not you, you little stinker. Rebecca, this creature got into my store of venilis weed. Three months waiting at that pond to the south just for enough, and he devoured it in seconds. You're well-named, dog!"
Becky laughed, finally noticing Alaric's obvious discomfort. He was busying himself with taking down her trunk while his servants looked at the Vaughn home with the same curiosity one usually saved for a traveling sideshow. She took her father's arm. "Mr. Gaston was kind enough to see me home from the air station."
Maurice nodded. "The gods and goddesses bless you for your kindness, Alaric."
Alaric wrinkled his nose at Maurice's words, and Becky stiffened. She wondered if her father really had grown more defiant since she'd last seen him. Going out of his way to reference his nearly forgotten gods, potentially seeking plants in the Western Wood. Even after her mother had passed away, he'd only prayed for understanding and the courage to raise his daughter right. What had changed?
"Well, duty calls. Always something to attend to in town," Alaric announced, not bothering to step forward and shake Maurice's hand. "Becky, if there's anything at all you require, you need only come to me."
"Thank you," she replied uneasily. "I'll remember that."
Father and daughter watched the large man get into the carriage, the horses seeming much happier to turn back down the path to town rather than further toward the Western Wood. They left the dogs to scamper around in the grass as the two of them carried her steamer trunk into the house and up the stairs to her room. There were fresh linens and plenty of flowers in vases to welcome her home. She changed out of her traveling dress and into something far more casual, feeling her burdens ease immediately as soon as she untied the laces of her corset and freed her body from it.
It was one of the things Becky liked about getting away from the big city, even away from Sora town proper. She preferred clothes she could get a little dirty, switching into a light green and yellow striped sundress to match all the greenery around the house. Her father was grinding up herbs with a pestle in his workroom when she returned. She grabbed a spare bowl and another bundle of herbs and started grinding some to assist him as she always had.
A year's distance led to hours of conversation about life in the capital, about Becky's writing, and about Oliver Nesbitt. Her father listened to every word, only interrupting her to yank the bowl away and present her with another to keep up their pace. It was only when Becky turned the conversation away from herself and asked about what her father had been up to that the man's attitude changed.
"Alaric says there are rumors in town that you're venturing further afield for ingredients," she noted calmly, watching him pulverize some skaros beans. "Into the Western Wood."
"That's what Alaric tells you?"
Becky nodded. "He and his father are nothing but self-involved, scare-mongering imbeciles..."
"Rebecca..."
She grabbed her own pestle again and started pounding some beans into powder. "They don't want to bother with the west end of town. They don't see profit in it, so they're probably just looking for any excuse. If anyone's spreading rumors about you, it's probably them. They're trying to turn people against you, against your medicines..."
Her father's large hand grasped hers, stilling her progress. "Rebecca, sweetheart."
She looked up, eyes wide, at her father's kind face. Behind him in the corner of the workshop was his small shrine devoted to the Rain Goddess, to the fields and plants whose growth she made possible (at least in Maurice's mind). Her mother's favorite straightedge, taken from her drafting table, also had a place there. The two most important women in Maurice's life, with him in this room at all times.
"The rumors are true," he said, squeezing her hand. "I've been to the Western Wood."
The thought of her kind, gentle father leaving behind the green grass and their rainbow house to venture into the gnarled, dried out forest made her skin crawl. It was true? He wasn't even denying it! "What? Why? It's against the law. What if someone catches you?"
He got up, lifting one of the woven baskets he used to gather plants onto the table. Inside were halcyon leaves, normally found littering the ground to the south of their home, having been blown northward by the wind. But these were no ordinary halcyon leaves - they were double the size of any she'd seen before in her father's workshop. She lifted one, seeing the deep green veins splitting them into two halves.
"From the Western Wood," he said to her quietly. "Not even an hour's walk from where the gravel meets the dirt, not so very far from their stupid border at all."
She set the leaf back in the basket. "But that forest is dead."
"Is it, child? Have you ever been in there? What we see from here is only the outer ring of trees." He tugged her from the chair, over to the westward-facing window of the workshop. The sleeping Sunshine and Trouble perked up, equally curious. "It looks dead, useless from here. But for the past few weeks, I've ventured further. What can be so harmless about a dead forest? The Goddess blesses us with so much, I just had to know why she had so cursed the Western Wood. But she hadn't! She only wished for us to think so!"
Her father's eyes were wild, as though he'd discovered some new species of plant. Maybe he even had. But what he was doing was dangerous. "It is forbidden. Aren't you disobeying the Goddess by taking from the Western Wood?"
He shook his head. "That cannot be. So much remains to be found. Think of how many medicines I can make! Think of how much more potent they could be! Think how many might be healed!"
She tried to shake some sense into him. "Think of what they will say in town! Think of the law! If you're arrested, there will be no medicines for you to make at all!"
There were tears in the man's eyes. "Becky, what if I could have gone into that forest eight years ago?" She looked immediately to her feet, not wanting to see the straightedge in the shrine any longer. "What if I'd been able to find something stronger, something better that might have saved your mother's life?"
"You can't live your life asking 'what if,' daddy."
"I may not have been able to save Paige's life, but think of how many others I could save now. For something as simple as leaves and moss."
There was no argument she could make, no way she could ever convince her father to give up the old ways and embrace the new styles of medicine. It was like telling herself never to write again, never to try and sketch again. And who was she to yell at him? She wouldn't have known any of this was happening if she hadn't come home. Her travel and hours of catching up with her father had worn her out.
She patted his arm and stepped away. "I'm going to bed. Don't stay up too late, okay?"
He nodded, not at all ashamed of his tears. She would never meet another man as devoted to his work as her father, no one as selfless. "We can argue about this all you wish in the morning, sweetheart. Sleep well." He called out to her when she reached the stairs. "Rebecca. It's good to have you home again."
When she reached her room, she couldn't help staring at the flowers he'd prepared as her welcome home gift. Had any of them come from the Western Wood?
PART TWO