Once A Tale (MXM, BXB)

The Snow Rabbit

cw: mentions of violence, blood

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Once upon a time, someone built a little rabbit out of snow.

He was round and white, with two little black stones for eyes and two little green leaves for ears.

He was very cute, but very lonely, and sat atop a hill all by himself, gazing out over the landscape of Mushashi Province. He was frightfully self-aware, for a blob of snow, but there was some magic in him that gave him a way to think. And, oh did he think. He thought about this and he thought about that, he thought about trees and bark and of the animals that lived during winter.

He was fascinated by it all!

... But he was a snow rabbit, so he couldn't move and just had to watch the world pass him by. He didn't even have a voice to raise, to call out.

But then, one day, a woman came walking down that great snowy hill. Her robes were white, her hair jet-black and her skin as pale as the snow she glided over. She took no chill from the winter, for she was a yuki-onna, a spirit, a yokai who dwelt in snow without worrying.

When she reached the little rabbit, she paused.

"Haven't you got quite a few things going through that head of yours?" she said gently, gazing down at the snow rabbit as she knelt beside him. "What on earth brought you to exist this way?"

'I wish I knew!' the snow rabbit thought, for it was a mystery to him as well.

"Shall I help you to speak and to move?" she queried.

He couldn't reply. He couldn't even nod. He wasn't one-hundred percent certain how she figured it out, but she smiled slightly and flicked her hand.

He bounded upward, a snow-white rabbit with fine green ears, wiggling his black nose on his face and looking around in amazement.

"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" he chirruped, bounding around the woman in white.

"You are welcome."

"What are you doing here? Where are you going? What is your name?"

"You have many questions," the woman remarked and the rabbit stopped, twitching his ears with embarrassment. "I am going to find my love. He lives where it is warm, where neither of us should usually go. But I wish to be with him."

"Ohh," the rabbit said, almost wistfully. "That's so nice."

"Thank you. Rabbit... No, would you like a name?"

"Yes!"

She smiled again at his response and said, touching his head, "Nagi, then. You'll be Nagi. Go and explore, little one, and see all the world has to offer. But remember this: snow cannot exist in the warm. When spring comes, you must go somewhere cold."

"Oh! Yes! I will. I promise." Nagi the rabbit gazed up at her with adoration, admiration, and she stood with a nod.

Only when she had swept off down the mountain did he realise he never learned her name...

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Now what should he do? The formerly-snow rabbit Nagi wondered as he sat atop the hill as he had done from the moment he came into being. He had strong legs to leap with and paws to dig with, and he was certain he could go anywhere he wished! He wanted to go everywhere, except the warm places, of course. He knew what the yuki-onna meant: