Wicked Yokai Prince

Captured

The wind slapped her face again, closing her eyes and her mouth. She swallowed the gust of air making her gag violently. Her eyes watered stinging from the wind that felt like a thousand knives against her dry eyes and skin.

"Hey!" She screamed but the harsh wind drowned her voice.

She tried cracking her eyes open to get a glimpse of her rescuer but the ray of the soft afternoon sunlight blinded to closing her eyes again.

She whined and groaned at the pain, she's suffering from the crippling ache on her shoulders. When her rescuer lifted her to the air, he had also dropped her beneath him. She's dangling like a prey a predator just whisked into the skies.

"It hurts!" She moaned. His fingers felt like claws digging in the flesh of her shoulders.

The grip loosened and her rescuer began flying smoother, and redirecting to a softer sky. Finally, Rin was given the opportunity to breathe easily and open her eyes.

"Is this better?" The spirit asked.

Rin was struck at the creature that beheld her eyes.

When she first heard his voice, she had pictured a normal looking spirit, when he first landed his hand on her shoulder, it felt like a regular person's hand, and when they walked together, she could've made sure he had legs, but the man above her has features of a bird and the fingers that gripped her shoulders so tightly were now resembling large scaly claws.

She gasped. She didn't know whether to be mesmerized or be scared, she had never seen anything quite like it. It's a yokai, a giant bird spirit whisking her through the sky, it shined oily reflecting colors of rainbows basked by the softening sun.

He's beautiful especially with the ray of sunlight striking his charcoal feathers at the right spots.

The yokai soon made a slow descent, carefully maneuvering around the large trees and purposely avoiding the windier part of the mountain. He flew lower and lower until they came to a view of a large manor that started as a small dot that grew and grew until it was the size of a palace. It sat near the top of the mountain surrounded by large canopies of trees that seemed to look like giant ogres guarding the red and black manor inside the forest.

The monster started to land with precised smoothness, shifting back into his spirit form.

The yokai guided her through the corridor, his claws that felt like steel on her shoulders a moment ago transformed into fingers. He ushered her to the halls in a hastened beating of his feet - that Rin hardly got a chance to get a glimpse of him as he pushed her into one of the rooms, and slammed the door shut before she can even turn around and make a sound protest.

"Hey!" She yelled as she ran after him, but it had been too late because has been magically sealed shut. She frantically clawed her fingers trying to pry it open with no luck.

"Hush." The bird spirit whispered against the grain of the wooden door. "Be quiet and try not to create any trouble. I'll smooth some things out then I'll come fetch you later this evening."

With a push of his heel, the bird spirit strode away, his silent footsteps pressing against the wooden plank of the halls quickly disappearing into the blackness of the corridors.

"Wait!" She called but her words would not reach him or anyone at all in this silent and empty part of the manor. Rin had been sealed shut inside an unfamiliar room, a prisoner inside a manor in the spirit world.

Rin could only guess what awaits for her as she waited for hours of loneliness in the darkness.