PART 3

Taizo curved his legs around a thick branch. He grinned when the bark held onto his pants and his muscles didn’t strain at all as he swung himself down. He was twenty feet above the forest floor, balancing himself with his arms spread why like he was pretending to fly. He scanned the ground below him through a veil of white hair.

The trees were very thick here and even though there were no leaves the branches were thick enough to block all snow from reaching the rotten leaves on the ground that had turned into a thick mulch, though it was already frozen solid and crunched under the feet of anything that walked on it.

Above him the branches were swaying down towards the ground in loud swoops of air. Taizo froze, he could hear something distinctly moving in the distance.

He swung himself back up and held onto the same branch, leaning over and tipping his ear. Hoof beats… one horse… moving in a trot.

Through a clearing in the path fifty feat down the trail he saw a horseman coming. He was wearing white clothing but his long rusty hair was what he noticed most. It was almost beautiful the way he was messed up and clumped around his face. A hunter? He would have to get closer to tell. From his feathers most hunters thought he was exactly what was mostly hunted in these woods, pheasants, with deer only slightly behind in rank.

Taizo pulled his shirt up over his head and dropped it onto the branch. He bit his lip. He vainly didn’t want to leave his shirt and frowned once more before jumping off the side of the tree to land with a squishy thud in the mulch on his bare feet.

Gasping, Kozi grabbed his bow and an arrow with lightening speed. Pulling back the bow he aimed it at the illuminating figure ahead of him.

He almost appeared to glow with his extreme white skin and almost golden hair. His shiny white pants were starting to string from age. His bare feet and chest didn’t seem the least bit cold from the frigid weather and he was actually smiling!

Kozi glared and pulled the bow back even farther, he was mad that the man had jumped down and surprised him. "Who are you?"

Taizo moved forward slowly. Now he was glaring also. "Who are you?" He repeated, asking himself. "I don’t allow hunters in my forest." He scowled. He was now so close the arrow was only a mere inches from his forehead.

Kozi made a laughing sound in his throat at the short man glaring up at him, but then he wasn’t a man. Kozi knew what he was. He was one of those rowdy little forest spirits that caused trouble with hunters.

Seeing that he wasn’t armed and probably not much of a threat Kozi put away his bow and arrow. "Get out of my way. I’m not hunting… well, at least not hunting any of your precious woodland creatures." He said mockingly. He started moving his horse again and rode right past Taizo. "I’m making great time and I won’t have that messed up by some pesky little forest spirit."

Taizo didn’t like to be told what to do. Climbing up the tree like a monkey he grabbed his shirt.

Kozi looked back when he didn’t hear any noise behind him. Good. The spirit was gone. He frowned, he didn’t want to have to mean to him but there was no other way to get rid of them! If you were nice to them they would never leave, and you couldn’t kill something that could never die. He didn’t need the spirit or anything or anyone else following him. He liked his freedom to do anything he wanted without the distraction of anyone else.

He heard a thump behind him in the mulch much like he had heard before.

"Damn it, get out of here!" Kozi said, swinging his arm in Taizo’s direction.

Taizo only smiled and clomped along behind him.

Kaoru peered around the side of the door. Hakuei was sitting at a desk, now fully dressed. He was wearing a thick woven jacket with cold threaded trim around the sleeves and collar. His hair had been pulled back where the curls bunched together, smoothed down from the messy way it was earlier. Kaoru noticed how cold it was there in the hall and slid into the room. He walked slowly towards the desk with his head down.

Hakuei looked up. Kaoru looked good in his clothes. A white ruffled shirt and black dress pants. He was also wearing a jacket to hide some of the cold from his body. "Come in and sit down."

He was sniffling so much he worried he may annoy the man who saved him from freezing the last night. His head was clouded still that he felt like he was walking in a dream, or pass out. Either way it sounded good to him as long as he was somewhere warm and dry.

"Are you okay?"

Kaoru looked up, trying to block a sneeze. It passed and he finally answered, "Yes, I’m okay."

Usually Kaoru would sit down formally for the rich person that helps him but as he started coughing again he dropped down onto the chair and sniffed, rubbing his rose across his hand.

Hakuei didn’t seem to notice anymore as he was going over papers. But he did notice. His head was bent but he spied up through his lashes. The pink hair was falling sloppily around the smooth skin and high cheekbones. He stood abruptly. "Do you feel well enough to help with some chores?"

Though Kaoru didn’t he nodded anyway. He had been helped and now he must help in return.

The stables were actually very clean. Only one stall was being used because of the one horse. The others had been cleaned out of hay and manure. Hakuei ignored Kaoru for the most part and moved straight to his horse where he resumed spoiling and babing him. "I just have to give him some hay then we have to work in the greenhouse."

"Damn it!" Kozi turned back to the normal position on his horse for the last time and jerked on the reins for it to stop. Sliding from the saddle he tied it a tree and stomped back towards Taizo. "Get out of here!" He waved his arms as if trying to scare off an animal.

Taizo frowned then stuck his tongue out at him and stomped his foot. "No! I want to know what you’re doing in my woods!"

Kozi scowled. "I’m not going to hurt anything in your woods!" Why wasn’t he afraid of him!? Everyone else was afraid, some just from looking at him. He wasn’t the sweetest looking man in the world.

"So what are you going to hunt?"

Kozi stopped short and stared at him in shock. "I just told you I wasn’t going to hurt anything in your woods! Who said I was going to hunt anything?" He yelled.

"You did! You said you said you were hunting. Even if it’s not in my forest I won’t let you hurt anything!"

Kozi was not sure this annoying spirit wasn’t going to leave him alone. "Go away!" He rushed at him and shoved him over.

With a cry Taizo landed on his backside on the mulch. The shocked look on his face and the illegible sputtering was so funny as the splat sound broke the silence of his fall that Kozi couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Sputtering even louder so it nearly sounded like shrieks, Taizo stood up and turned his head to look at his backside. It was covered with the brown muck. A large clomp of it fell off and hit the ground with another splat on the ground. Kozi laughed harder, his white teeth showing.

Taizo was not a violent spirit he usually was just into mischief but this human was really pissing him off! He had been shot at, swung at, but never actually physically touched! With a cry of outrage he jumped Kozi and knocked him on his back near the horse. Kozi screamed and held onto Taizo’s shoulders, trying to pull him off but he wouldn’t budge as his weight was sucking him into the mulch.

"It’s people like you that make me hate humans!" Taizo yelled as he pushed the side of Kozi’s face and squished the other into the mulch. The red hair was turning brown and black. Kozi yelled as a bit of the thick muddy substance leaked into his mouth and clamped his thin lips shut.

Kozi hooked his leg behind Taizo’s knee and shoved at his shoulders again. This time Taizo fell back, but because of the leg around his he didn’t fly back but only tumbled over. Kozi sat up and spit out the mulch wincing at the horrible taste in his mouth.

"You bastard!" Kozi fell over him, wanting to strangle him but remembered it wouldn’t do any good. He couldn’t die. He sat over him fuming. They were both tired after the struggle. Taizo was wincing from gross feeling beneath him but then glared as hard as he could up at the human sitting over him.

For such a hard case the spirit was actually pretty cute. The clean parts of his hair looked nice framing his narrow face. He reached his hand out and stroked one of the long feathers. Only a few of the striped tail feathers weren’t covered in the thick forest floor. Kozi plucked the feather from the leather binding and held the delicate curve up to the light. It was very pretty. He teased Taizo’s face with it. "It’s pretty, ne?"

Taizo yelled and made a futal attempt to grab it back from him. "Give it back!"

Kozi stood up quickly, hating the feel of what he was covered with. "This is for getting my white clothes all dirty!" He smiled wickedly and quickly ran to his horse and jumped on. He was untying it while Taizo was stumbling to his feet then slipped and fell.

Kozi laughed at seeing him fall again and quickly rode off, keeping the horse at a slow run.

Taizo finally stood up and balled up his fists, shaking it in Kozi’s direction. "Give me back my feather!"