The Other World

Chapter 1 - Dragon Palace

Author's Note: This is the final version of the story previously named "Chihiro," (it took me this long to come up with a proper title) first published in 2012. A big thank you to anyone who's read every version so far! The previous versions are available on my profile on fanfiction.net for anyone who is interested. Many of the characters here belong to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, but there are a few of my own as well. The translated stanzas of Reprise are taken from the Youtube video of Joe Hisaishi's Budokan concert. I will try to add new chapters on a weekly basis (the draft is not quite done, there are still many changes to be made). I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I look forward to reading your comments in the reviews!

-Swansae

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Part 1 - In Those Far Away Days 

In those far, far away days

That warmth was the only thing I can feel,

So that when getting lost in the darkness at the end of the road,

All I could do is cry in loneliness.

Reprise l. 1-4

Chapter 1: Dragon Palace 

Once upon a time, the oceans were born and the earth laid down within them. The worlds were one then. The water people, the dragons, were the first people. To them, the gods gave dominion over the waters. Obeying the dragons' call, the sea formed a castle of shining globes. These great translucent pearls hung in the water above the great reef at the western border of the Sea, and many traveled far to see the glistening spheres and the dragons who lived there. It was there that the first Dragon King brought his bride, Amaterasu. Since then, the worlds have been violently cleaved. Amaterasu has long since left. Her husband has died. The palace passed through the hands of generations of their children. This is where our story begins.

On this day, the youngest son of the Dragon King, the young dragon Nigihayami Kohakunushi, stood at the window of his bedroom, gazing into the gardens beyond. He was daydreaming, as he often did, that he was flying through the air with the human girl named Chihiro on his back. In his imagination, fluffy clouds floated leisurely past below, and she was whispering into his ear. Then they were falling, her small hand warm in his, her hair billowing in the wind, her eyes shining and she smiled at him and pressed her face to his...

Haku suddenly looked up. Someone was walking through the arch and up the garden path. He peered more closely through the window, and recognized the bent posture and hobbling walk at once. It was old Tenryu, no doubt here to seek an audience with the King once again about the war. That won't be happening today, he thought grimly, not if Fujisan has anything to say about it.

He hurried through the little used servants' passages to the hall where Fujisan presided - currents scattered the light within the walls as they melted away to let him pass - and settled in a back corner where he would blend into the rippling shadows sprawled over the walls.

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Tenryu slowly made his way up the path to the Dragon King's palace. The first King had built it as a gift to his bride, Amaterasu, in the beginning of the world, and it was a wonder to behold. Today, however, Tenryu had no eyes for the glimmering schools of fish that filled the reefs or the forests of kelp in the palace gardens, or the shining spheres of solid water that made up the rooms of the palace. He had seen the white figure peering down from a window high above the sea floor, and had recognized it.