·:*¨༺ The Song ★Of Leonardo ༻¨*:·.

𐦍༘⋆ Chapter Four 𐦍༘⋆

I HAD A PAIR OF DICE IN MY HANDS. I WAS STANDING in the field, the wind collecting the tall grass and letting them go again. I couldn't remember who'd given them to me.

My father gave me much bolder gifts than this. Not my mother, who sometimes forgot where she'd left me.

It was late summer, and I was panting with my run from the castle. Since the day of the games I had been appointed a man to train me in all our athletic arts: kickball, sword-and-spear, discus. But I had escaped him, andglowed with the giddy lightness of solitude. It was the first time I had beenalone in weeks. Then the boy appeared. His name was Takeshi, and he was the son of a nobleman who was often at the palace. Older, larger, and unpleasantly fleshy. His eyes had caught the flash of the dice in my palm. He leered at me, held out his hand. "Let me see them."

I'd never liked humans. The way they looked us and the yokai. The way they snarled at any and all things different from them.

"No." I did not want his fingers on them, grubby and thick. And I was the jito's only son, however small. Did I not even have this right?
But these noble sons were used to me doing what they wished. They knew my father would not intervene unless I'd been hurt."I want them." He didn't bother to threaten me, yet.

I hated him for it. Ishould be worth threatening."No."

He stepped forward. "Let me have them."
"They're mine." I grew teeth.
I snapped like the dogs who fight for ourtable scraps.

He reached to take them, and I shoved him backwards. He stumbled, and I was glad. He would not get what was mine."Hey!" He was angry. I was so small; I was rumored to be simple. If he backed down now, it would be a dishonor. He advanced on me, face red. Without meaning to, I stepped back.

He smirked then. "Coward."

That word. The humans' favorite past time was to call names.

"I am no coward."

My voice rose, and my ears went hot."Your grandfather thinks you are." His words were deliberate, as if he weresavoring them. "I heard him tell my father so."

"He did not." But I knew he had.

The boy stepped closer. He lifted a fist. "Are you calling me a liar?" Iknew that he would hit me now. He was just waiting for an excuse.

"Your dad's an idiot, you know that? Always standing up for you. He's just as weak as you are. The jito himself. His tiny, weak son and his dumb, useless wife."

"You will not say that about my mother!" My voice rang out. If any wild animals were present, we we would have scared them off by now. 

He grabbed me by my shirt collar, attempting to rip off the Usagi family symbol. I assumed he was trying to making a point, that it was better for me to not claim to be apart of that family.
But I was fed up with him. With all those monsters they called humans.

I could imagine the way my grandfather would have said it. Coward. I planted my hands on his chest and shoved, as hard as I could. Our land was one of grass and wheat. Tumbles should not hurt. 

I am making excuses. It was also a land of rocks.

His head thudded dully against stone, and I saw the surprised pop of his eyes. The ground around and underneath his head began to bleed.

I stared, my throat closing in horror at what I had done. I had not seen thedeath of a human before. Yes, the bulls, and the goats, even the bloodless gasping of fish. And I had seen it in paintings, tapestries, the black figuresburned onto our platters. But I had not seen this: the rattle of it, the chokeand scrabble. The smell of the flux. I fled.

Sometime later, they found me by the gnarled ankles of a cherry blossom tree. I was limp and pale, surrounded by my own vomit. The dice were gone, lost in my flight. My father stared down  at me in sympathy, coaxing me away from the tree with his soft voice and into his arms. He whisked the servants away, carrying me inside.

The boy's family demanded immediate exile or death. They were powerful, and this was their eldest son. They might permit an emperor to burntheir fields or harm their own daughters, as long as payment was made. But you did not touch a man's sons. For this, the nobles would riot. We all knew therules; we clung to them to avoid the anarchy that was always a hairsbreadth away. Blood feud. The servants made the sign against evil.