Akazu Adventure Ch. 01

Akazu threw her hood over her shoulders. She really needed to see her, even though, you know, the storm. But the little red coat would help. It was a nice gift. Functional. She packed some sandwiches, she painstakingly make grandma's seaweed salad to her recipe, down to the last drop of sesame oil. Akazu wanted to please. She packed a few other sundries with care and obsession, and closed her woven basket, tightened her bow below her neck, and was out the cabin door. The home was empty, unattended, and the road was long and confusing.

Akazu was expected to know this road. Her mother had shown it to her when she was young, when she was six. Her mom made her promise to remember the road. Her mother had told her this was the road to knowledge, to maturity. At the time Akazu thought these words sounded serious and tried hard to remember the path, but as time passed Akazu grew, her interests changed, she began to question things, trees began to look smaller, the world less important.

But now Grandma was dying, and Akazu had grown into a young woman. And somehow these things that slipped her mind during adolescence became of utmost importance in her early adulthood. What her grandma thought of her seaweed salad was crucial. The carefully pleated and ironed folds of her dress were important. The raincoat. Akazu's hair was to be stylized, but not a hair out of place, but not whorish.

Akazu stepped one foot off her porch onto the forest. So rare to rain. It was wet when she stepped into the woods and her boots slushed into the mud. The bright colors of the costume of her youth were immediately soiled from the bottom. She took a deep breath, clenched her basket, and walked further. Her eyes scanned the trees, the skyline, the path. At first Akazu was confident about where she was going, but then everything seemed both vaguely familiar and easily misinterpreted. She was confused and alone. The trees were swaying. She heard a rustle. Maybe. Maybe... A step. Just one. She had walked so long. Having developed a thirst she bent over to a stream and drank heavily. It stopped raining. The cool water poured into her throat and filled her stomach. Feeling rejuvenated Akazu took a new look around and thought she saw a path.

He saw her. He stalked her. That slender but curvaceous form under that ugly coat. So innocent. She was missing from her home and from her destination--He could see by the way her eyes shifted from the ground to the sky, from the creepy-crawlies to the owls in the trees, by the way her path roamed, by the way she jumped at every noise, the chirping and the cooing, and the croaking. For quite some time He followed her in total silence. The sun was going down. Akazu was distressed. She had expected to be at Grandma's house by now. But the path was misleading. But He knew the way. And He knew her way. Finally He stepped out in front of her.

"I will be at my granma's soon!" She said boldly and naively. "Don't you mind that!" she snapped at the beast.

"Silent girl! You must mind me," His hackles went up. The Wolf's snout wrinkled slightly and sharp pearls began to show themselves out from between his dark and well salivated lips. Slowly and carefully, he said, "Remove your hood." Akazu was paralyzed with fear. Such a diminutive girl facing such proportions, such teeth, hackles. In a daze she removed her raincoat. Underneath was a sight like the Wolf had never seen in His stalking of the forest. Fine hair, red lips, and a white pleated dress with a thin red belt. She wore red rain boots and white socks to her knees. Somehow she had remained clean in these muddy trails. This was important to Akazu. The Wolf put his dirty paws across her chest in two swats.

"My Dress! Oh! You jerk!" She yelled at him. Her perfect dress was ruined. She was infuriated and dropped her basket and clenched her fists. Akazu lifted one side of her lip and showed a bit of her teeth. The Wolf pounced on her, dropping her to the ground, heaving on her face, her neck, her bare chest. Akazu squirmed. She threw her fists up and kicked her knees. She tossed her head from side to side and her elegant yet traditional hairstyle became messed and disarranged as she fought. He tangled with her for quite some time and during that time their eyes met on numerous occasions for longer and longer periods. The pressure with which Akazu pressed against the Wolf softened and eventually she gave way to him, allowing his paws to press her wrists into the mud, his legs into her legs, his belly into her concavity. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with the realization that she absolutely must relieve herself. She began to roll over. With this new tenderness between them she thought He would let her go. But He stopped her.

"What?" He asked.

"I have to go," she replied. "I drank water from the stream." He smiled the way humans imagine a dog smiling, still pinning her down. She wriggled and writhed. She was full to the tippy and simply had to go. "I must! Pleas, Sir!" she begged. With a swift and foul and grotesque movement the Wolf lifted both Akazu and himself from the mud and pinned her to the tree with her paws.

"You may not go." There was that calm voice again. He pressed her with His paws and stared at her dark black eyes. They looked at each other for a period of time. Leaves fell. Frogs croad. The Wolf nodded and Akazu lifted one brow, as if to say, "No way." He pressed her further into the tree. "You will go now." First a drop fell from between Akazu's legs, then a stream. Then a wet spot formed between her legs on her dress and it grew. The Wolf let her go. They shared the meal Akazu had prepared for grandma while sitting on a tree stump. The Wolf led her to grandma's house. Grandma opened the door and was shocked by what she saw.

"Tell me where my father is."