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In this empty dream
A lonely music finds me
Sad and sweet and ageless
Even when I wake, it stays
Close by in my waking dream;
It is haunted, haunting, lonely,
As if I had forgotten the words
To a song I had once loved dearly....

This is my song and my story; my name is Hiji Aoi.

Years, centuries have come and gone; I can hardly remember what those days were like, before and after that year. But that year, memories are as fresh as sakura blossoms in spring. I can remember the worn tatami underfoot, smell the soba ogasa is cooking, and in the air, I can smell the first breeze of spring: the Chinook!

Outside, I can hear the children running with uncontainable excitement, now that the first sign of spring is here; their shouts are as much a sign of the seasons as any bird or flower. Their feverish excitement is contagious and spreads a smile from one face to another. Windows flutter open like so many cocoons and young women in bright kimono emerge, where only children in winter haori had entered.

Yet for me, spring has also come, but it is not pressaged by children, kimono, or Chinook. Spring comes to me a a letter written in a fine strong hand and with kind words. Spring comes to me as a promise of a song and a journey. For when spring follows the Chinook over the mountain and the snowmelt rushes to the river to rejoin the sea, and the mountain pass opens, he will come for me, his bride to be.

We plan to marry under the sakura, so that I will never have to watch the sakura bloom alone. Every morning I will say, "Itterasshai," and every night when he returns I will say, "Okaerinasai."

The waiting is difficult and yet I endure it gladly. Slowly spring comes; the snows melt; life and colour return to our village. Crops are sown; birds sing and make nests; women in kimono adorn each young man's arm. Then spring slowly turns to summer; the crops ripen, and early harvest is taken; the valley settles into a green tranquility and contentment.

Summer slips into fall and the mountains blaze with fire; the river is stained red with a thousand falen leaves. The crops give richly, and the village prospers and most are happy. But when the ice skims the water in the well and frost fades the mountain's fire, Ogasa and Odousa kindly suggest looking for another man full of promise to come next spring, before my kimono can fade.

But my heart is already given to the man who wrote words that came with the Chinook and pressaged spring; who wrote a song for me that my heart cannot stop hearing. The song that he promised to sing as he came over the mountain to me. The man whose face I have never seen, whose voice I have never heard - yet my heart still hears his song. I feel that I should know him at once, if I saw him.

Fall turned to winter, and snow covered the burning mountain and extinguished the fire at last. Still, he never came, and the song my heart heard became too soft to hear.

I wish to tell you now about my family.

I have many family members to tell you about, a strange family that is rapidly growing. I love them all in a fond, distant way but they continue to grow on me. I wonder what changes they will create in my future? I find myself actually looking forward to our future together, and it no longer feels so cold.

There are my Xweetok brethren, Cherry - a simple red Xwee who is fun-loving and knowledgeable and always ready to listen, and with aspirations of becoming pink; there is young Vortach, a cub of a xweetok with unceasing energy, a thirst for adventure, a desire to prove himself - well, he keeps things interesting, although Cherry is always bearing him out. Sometimes I feel as if I should call her 'Sakura' for the blossom of her name-fruit, for she feels like the sister I once had so long ago.

There is also Veritas, who is calmer and quieter, who hoards his words and gives them sparingly, put drops them with such precision into the waters of a ready heart and ear that the ripples one word makes is truly a magnificent art form. Veritas would have made a magnificent monk with his wisdom. Still, I have seen - on a rare occasion, when the wind smells of spring - the wry humor and subtle strength he hides behind his quiet fascade. I treat him with great respect.

My non-xweetok breathren include Silene Alba, an ogrin with an unquenchable thirst and curiosity. If there is an answer, she will find it, so she claims. Sometimes it makes her too inquisitive and insensitive to what others are feeling, yet the one I loved was like her, always fascinated by the way wheels turned and the shape of sakura leaves. Sometimes, that makes her painful to be around.

There is also Yvi, who is vain, for all she would deny it, but is also a sweet and kind uni. She was found in the pound and perhaps that keeps her humble; when I wander the edge of the fields and contemplate, she often walks beside me or follows behind, far enough back that she does not intrude, but close enough to keep me company in my thoughts. For that, I am very grateful, for she is a great soul of kindness and discretion.

Last but certainly not least is Sid; he is a mute abandoned in the high peaks, and we found him as a fledgeling, half starved and frozen and almost certainly destined for death with a broken wing. We took him in and healed him, and slowly he is warming up to us. But to meet him at night, in the dark, and to see the fires blazing in his eyes - I can't help but wonder what horrors our brother has survived that he can never tell...

* * * *

This is my family, for good or ill, and the wind of change they bring with them will never allow me to return to what I was...

I also have many dear friends who are friends to Ellie, my protector, who insists that, no matter where and how far I wander, I will always have a home to come back to: these friends include Chrissy, Dracavia, JaneHelen, Mai, and Sagira! Her life is happier for knowing them, and thus her pets are blessed.