Etsuyo's Sunrise: Part 4
by milo douglas
“What’s happening?” Medusa implored.
Tiamat raised her head and took in a great breath.
“We’re to be skewered by Diana and roasted by Tiamat,” Etsuyo said.
As primordial embers pelted Etsuyo’s armor, she raised Perseus’s shield and spear before her as a feeble defense.
Tiamat’s throaty furnace diminished in the cool ocean breeze. Her enormous wings—frozen forever in stone—mantled Etsuyo and Medusa.
“Victory!” Diana the huntress exalted while nocking a second arrow alongside the first. “The world is my prize!”Diana drew her bow.
Etsuyo grabbed the spear and in one motion spun and flicked the spear launching Medusa’s head at Diana. She then shape-shifted back to her kitsune form.
Diana’s first arrow zipped just over Etusyo’s vulpine head. The second arrow found Medusa’s left eye just as the right eye paralyzed Diana in her magnificence.
The battle was over.
Etsuyo considered her new solitude.
“If you can hear me, Medusa, I rather liked you. We ended this terrible fighting without spilling a drop of blood.” Her leg throbbed. “Except mine.”
She licked her wound and carefully pulled out the arrow with her teeth.
She stared in wonder at the shield.
“That’s it. The most precious gift: The shield that ended all chaos!” She tugged at the shield with her teeth but it hurt her leg too much and it was was too heavy anyway.
She tried several times to transform back into Perseus, but she couldn’t do so in her injured state.
“I must carry this shield back to Amagase!” Etsuyo declared.
She tried transforming into things smaller than a man but as strong: a chimp and then a pygmy pachyderm.
Exhaustion overcame her.
She rose to all fours again and gazed into the brilliance of Perseus’s shield seeing herself and Tiamat reflected with perfect clarity.
“Is there nothing of worth here I can bring to the village? A wineskin for Ro-Pa?”
With her head hung, she hobbled solemnly through the statues of warriors and gods: spirits locked away forever, never again to coax the world into disorder.
Afternoon Lunch
Later, that day, Etsuyo limped into the village square where all of Amagase drank and ate with renewed spirit. Their weapons lie scattered on to the ground.
“Huh!” Ro-Pa scoffed when she saw Etsuyo. “While you were gone, we chased the evil from the forest! They suddenly lost the will to fight!” She took a defiant bite of bread. “And you. Back so soon from your quest with nothing to show for it,” she chided.
“Turns out we never needed you for a guardian!”
Etsuyo’s ears drooped. She rested her head on the altar and explained the morning’s events.
Shorin Ja approached Etsuyo. “This is remarkable.
We knew something profound had changed. And I admit, we thought your leaving had somehow given us the grit to defeat the demons. I am ashamed to say we were glad to be rid of you. But we never imagined you were the cause of this wondrous turn!”
Quietly, the villagers stood and gathered around Etsuyo. They pressed their faces into her sides hugged her neck and stroked her golden coat.
“Kitsune,” blue-haired Ro-Pa said. “The answer was in the shield.”
Etsuyo’s eyes flashed. “Wise Ro-Pa! I tried! Oh, I tried to bring it! But I’ve failed you and I failed my kitsune kin.”
“Shush,” Ro-Pa said. “ The shield would have been cold comfort at best.”
“But you said the answer was—“
“Shoosh!” The old woman plucked a tuft of fur from Etsuyo’s head.
“Yip!”
“You talk too much, spirit fox.” Ro-Pa covered Etsuyo’s eyes with her hands. “What did you see in the shield?”
“I saw myself and that terrible dragon.”
“What else? Take yourself there.”
“I think a seagull flew over. Then I scratched my ear—”
“Ach!” Ro-Pa uncovered Etsuyo’s eyes and held a tuft of golden fur between her fingers.”
“My golden coat!” Etsuyo beamed.
“On that dune, you became the shaper of this world, Etsuyo! But still, your heart—your devotion to what is good and right—brought you back to us.”
Etsuyo blinked with eyes full of wonderment.
“This is too much work,” Ro-Pa complained. “Where is my wine?”
Etsuyo felt a most delightful tingle through her fur as she examined her paws and examined her coat.
“Look behind you,” Ro-Pa muttered into her wine cup.
Etsuyo did so and the tears a kitsune never shares fell to the altar.
People from across the world journeyed to admire Amagase’s mysterious seaside museum of the gods.
And they touched the tear-splashed alter to be forever filled with the benevolent and mischievous spirit of Nine-Tailed Etsuyo.
Shield Image by PixelGiant.co
All other images by Ben Bittner