Heir of Beasts

Ch. 3.3- Oxorovanxa

"That tree there is the southern boundary of my family's land," Irei murmurs, motioning ahead, like I might ignore the hulking behemoth before us if he didn't helpfully point it out. I could sooner ignore divine intervention; the thing is as thick around as a small house, all sprawling branches and gnarled white wood. Its thinnest limbs are still thicker than normal tree trunks, and I wonder that there's still water burbling in the stream nearby with such monstrous roots drinking from the soil. Each leaf is the size of my head, and the white-gold sunlight filtering through them casts dappled shadows on the ground.

"This is tel'ev axi," Irei explains. "It means Great-Grandfather."

"Great-great-great grandfather is more like it," I breathe out, in total awe of its size and sheer, looming presence. The spicy scent of its leaves is sharp in the air, branches rustling as the wind slips through them. "Somewhere along the way we must've gone back in time to a primeval forest. I half expect some ancient deity to rise up from its roots and demand we worship at its feet."

"They used to worship here," Irei tells me. "In the old days. Fertility rights, mostly. The stories make it sound like a great time."

"Are you just saying that to get me to fuck you by the tree?" I ask dubiously.

He throws his head back and laughs, free in a way I can't quite explain but also can't look away from.

"No, my love. This truly is a sacred place. Can't you feel it?"
And the thing is, I can. The air is thick with the weight of it, but it's soothing rather than oppressive. Like the heft of a warm blanket covering you on a cold night. It has a heartbeat, almost, a near sentience born of its deep roots bearing silent witness to this island for what must be millennia. I can feel time sliding against my skin like cool water, whispering of my transience. Whispering that this tree will still stand only a few inches taller when my great-great-grandchildren walk these woods.

"I used to come here as a boy when I was upset," Irei tells me. "I swallowed everything back then. My rage, my fear, my need. Just pushed it down and away and ignored it until eventually something snapped, and it all came pouring out at once. Sometimes I lashed out physically, sometimes I hurt myself because it was easier to understand than the- the sheer depth and breadth of my own feelings. I felt I had no right to them, somehow. No right to any of it. I was just Kiri's bastard, after all. I was a reminder of things no one wanted to remember, least of all me."

"Irei," I murmur, twining my hand through his even as he loosely holds the reins.

"I'm alright. I've learned how to be alright, you know. It took a shattered long time, but I have. I used to try to suppress the storms inside of me. Then Sohma took me aside and said 'you might as well ask the rain not to fall, or the sun not to shine. These are facts of nature, immutable truths. To control lightning, we do not smother it. We give it a lightning rod to strike, and then it diffuses through the ground, and there is no disaster beyond a brief flash of blinding light.'"

"He taught me how to make my own lightning rod. How to be struck by pain or uncertainty, harness it, and redirect it safely to ground. How to focus on things that quieted the storm. And so I came here and listened to the rustling of the leaves, and I imagined I could hear a thousand years passing me by like nothing more than a whisper. And then nothing was so awful anymore. Nothing so permanent."

"O'otani was both the lightning rod and the lightning," I hear myself say. It almost feels like the grandfather tree is listening. "She was fire and light. A quick temper and quicker fists, with a cruel streak she could never quite hide. So she was struck again and again by my family's disapproval, their judging stares and thin smiles. It cut her so fucking deep, and the only way she knew how to deal with pain was to pass it on, so she'd lash out. Physically, verbally.