Legend of the River Serpent

Chapter 1

  I was almost decapitated this morning.  I was in the rice fields, ankle deep in water, minding my own business, when he appeared.   The sword arched through the air, my bo came up as I ducked.   It collided with the sword, there was a crack as the bamboo stick bent.

  The sword swung back, and the top half of my stick fell into the water.  Laughter interrupted the quiet morning.  I drew my stick hand back, and delivered a sharp slap with the stick to his back. 

  He was too busy laughing to notice.  “That’s not funny!!”  I cried, scowling.  His laughter made me even angrier.  He was laughing so hard he started to double over.  I turned and started back to my family’s dwelling. 

  “Hoshi, wait up!”  He called, I could still hear laughter in his voice.

 I held my head up high, and walked faster.   I heard sloshing as he ran through the water to catch up with me.  Why was he such a bother?  Half the time he was teasing me and playing tricks on me.  The other half - well, it was mostly when his father was around, which made him serious, and almost shy.  The rest of the time, he was how you would expect someone his age to be, sometimes seeming older.

  “Hoshi!”  His voice seemed to have lost the humor.  “I’ll find you a new bo!”  He yelled.

 I slowed, letting him catch up.  He still held the katana in his hand, I noticed.  “What would your Father say if he found you with his sword, Ichiro?”  I asked.

 Ichiro slid the sword into the sheath, and shrugged carelessly.  “He thinks it was destroyed years ago.  What are you doing out here anyway?”  His eyes narrowed as he looked at me suspiciously.

I glared at him and hit him with the broken part of my bo.

“OW!!” he exclaimed, clutching his stomach.  But there was still a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Leave me alone!”  I said sharply, walking away.  If there could be a thing as best friend and worst enemy in one, Ichiro was it.  Ichiro had come to this small village when he was less than a year old, with his father.  No one knew where they had come from, he just came into the village one day with a little boy, just learning to walk.  He built a small place for him and his son, he never mentioned his past, even to his son.  But many had seen him training Ichiro in martial arts of the samurai, and some we had never seen.

As I left the rice patty, I risked a look behind me.  Ichiro was still standing there, practicing with his sword.  I hoped no one would see him, if his father found out, he would be very angry.  I felt a little sorry for him; he had no mother, even though my mother had basically adopted him.  He spent most his time at our place, in the evenings he tried to get me to practice his martial arts with him.  Most the time I would, depending on what I felt like, of if my mother was around.  She wasn’t too particularly fond of me learning to fight.

So when he saw me in the rice field practicing he must have thought it was a perfect time to tease me.  It was his idea for me to practice in water, he said it would help me with speed or something like that.  I should have known better than to practice then.  But my mother was inside making the morning meal.  My younger sister had volunteered to stay inside and help.

When I came in, my Father and Mother looked up at me.  “Where have you been?”  Mother asked, handing me a bowl.

“Around,” I said, sitting down.  I was late, maybe it was a good thing Ichiro had showed up then.  Mother sat down beside my two little brothers, ages two and four.  My younger sister was ten, and the youngest a few months old. 

I just turned sixteen, luckily, my parents aren’t pushing for a husband.  Unlike a girl I know, who is a few months younger than me.

I heard someone outside; Mother must have heard them too.  Because she got up to greet them.