The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy, Book 6: The Dragon Sisters

By Claire Youmans

Torn between dragon and human, two sisters must embrace friends and family to survive.

Japan, 1875. Dragon-girl Renko faces an uncertain future. As the country around her rapidly changes, she struggles to figure out where she fits in. So when a kind gesture uncovers a sex trafficking scheme, she’s even more conflicted about her ability to take human form.

Otohime fears risking her heart again. Long after the death of her human husband, she’s still unsure if she’s ready for love with a dragon consort. But after exploring Japan’s rocky volcanoes with a handsome new friend, a twist of fate leaves her and Renko trapped and helpless.

Drained of their powerful abilities, Renko and Otohime must put their faith in half- and full-humans to escape with their lives.

Can the two dragons embrace both sides of their nature and give their humanity a second chance?

The Dragon Sisters is the sixth book in the compelling Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy historical fantasy series. If you like fast-paced adventures, engaging characters, and Japanese folklore, then you’ll love Claire Youmans’ intricately woven tale from the Meiji Era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claire Youmans
• Release date: Jun 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733902021

Claire Youmans

Claire Youmans first went to Japan in 1992 and was immediately captivated. After years of travel and study, she continues to be charmed and amazed by a fascinating history and a culture that is both endearingly quirky and entirely unique.In 2014, she started Tales of the Meiji Era with The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy's unparalleled blend of magical realism and historical fantasy in the first book of the series, Coming Home. She continues exploring the collision of magical realism, history and folklore to share her love and fascination with a very different country and culture.Exciting adventures continue to unfold in this delightful fantastical yet historical world. Follow these at www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com, www.facebook.com/tokigirlandsparrowboy/ and on Twitter @tokigirlsparrow, linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/tokigirlandsparrowboy, IG @ tokigirlandsparrowboy, and http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com, for poetry and ruminations on life in Japan.

Book preview

Prologue

Japan is a real place and the Meiji Era is a real time, running from 1868 to 1912. This was a wonderfully exciting time around the world as new inventions changed how people worked and how people lived. New ideas and ways of thinking changed how people viewed the world around them, their systems of government, and their relationships with each other. Nowhere was this truer than in Japan, which leapt from a crumbling feudalism to a modern first-world power in that incredibly short period of time.

In the World of Make-Believe, however, there exists a Japan that incorporates both the objective reality and Japan's colorful, adventurous folklore. It comes to life with stories that reflect the lives of normal humans and the not-so-normal folkloric beings who shared this space and time with them.

In the northern part of Kyushu at this time there lived a family that straddled the Artisan and Samurai classes, yet owned their own land without being either nobles or peasants. They worked hard, they paid taxes and they acquired, by adoption, their daughter, Azuki, who could become a Japanese Crested Ibis or toki, and their son, Shota, who could become a sparrow. Greed and a lust for power resulted in the deaths of the parents and the flight of the children who found only war and tumult on their doorstep when they returned.

How they regain their human heritage, how they cope with their changing world while still remaining their individual selves, how they make friends and help others despite the total lack of certainty in and about their lives gives rise to tales and adventures of the Meiji Era. The Toki-girl and the Sparrow-boy series combines history and folklore in a unique blend of historic fantasy that allows an accurate portrait of Japanese culture and civilization with all its relentless integrity and quirks.

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com contains links to reviews of these enchanting books, a way for you to (please!) leave your own and a glossary of Japanese words used — in a form that can be amended as the series progresses. It also has a list of characters, so they are easier to track through the successive books.

All the books are listed and updated there with information about what happens in each, to make the series easier to follow. There is also information about the art that illustrates the books and more about the history of this fascinating period. It was a time when anything could happen and most likely did.

Join Azuki, Shota and their friends in all their intriguing and captivating adventures as they live their own tales of the Meiji era!

CHAPTER ONE

Shinobuguoka no tsu ki, Taisho Yoshitoshi, 188-

OOOF! UGH! CRASH!

Azuki, the girl who became a toki, landed flat on her back on the practice mats of her Aunt Noriko's dojo. What had she done wrong? She looked up at her aunt by marriage, gasping for breath, the wind completely knocked out of her.

Noriko shook her head, then turned sharply to fix her nephew, the Sparrow-boy Shota, who snickered under his breath, with a gimlet gaze.

Your turn next, she said, And I won't pull my throw. Don't think you'll do better, because you won't. She turned back to Azuki.

Do you know where you went wrong? she asked, extending a hand to pull the girl to her feet. She didn't expect an answer — Azuki was still getting her breath back.

Here. Noriko explained. When I did this, she said, twisting her body and placing her left foot forward at an angle, you should have extended your left foot.

Azuki gave her a quizzical gaze. Speaking was still a little too difficult.

It's counter-intuitive, I know, Noriko told her. But if you extend your right foot, like you want to naturally, I can grab you here — she demonstrated by lightly gripping Azuki's elbow — "and flip you like I just did. But if you extend your left foot — she nodded and Azuki did — you can get inside my reach, grip my right arm, duck underneath, and flip me!"

I'll have to remember that! Yuta-sensei was dressed for the day in his usual dark gray kimono, this one with a subtle wave pattern woven in. Also as usual, it looked a little the worse for wear because he was always getting distracted and getting ink stains everywhere. He stepped into the room, smiled at his wife and then at his niece. She got me the same way this morning, too.

All of them were taking marital arts lessons from Noriko now that she was officially a Soke, a formally certified martial arts master who could teach without supervision and award ranks independently. She could also start her own dojo, a martial arts school, and that is what she was in the process of doing.

It's time? she asked her husband.

Yes. You'll all have to hurry to Buddhist practice and breakfast if three of us are going to get to school on time.

Noriko nodded. You go ahead, Azuki-san, she said. I want a word with your uncle. Shota-san, since we're late, why don't you just change? You can go to the bathhouse after school if you want and then join my afternoon class. I will start with you tomorrow.

Shota quickly turned into a sparrow, but his practice gi, not made from his feathers, fell to the floor in the process. Shota couldn't control what his feathers turned into when he became a boy. He was stuck with the plainest of peasant wear, but he was building a decent human wardrobe that he was proud of.

Pick it up and put it away before you leave! Noriko called.

Yes, Sensei, floated into Noriko's mind in the mental speech not everyone could use as her nephew folded his wings to shoot out a vent.

Husband, do you know where Renko-san is? The third youthful inhabitant of the Maeda household hadn't appeared for martial arts class this morning.

Yuta tucked a wayward strand of black hair into Noriko's bun with an affectionate smile. He wouldn't have done it had anyone else been present. Public displays of affection simply weren't done, even between spouses.

I haven't seen her this morning, Yuta answered his wife's question. She didn't say anything to me. Maybe Azuki-san knows where she is.

Noriko nodded. I'll ask her. I'd better hurry!

You and I are the only ones who need a real bath! Yuta said with a chuckle.

Yuta, Noriko and the housekeeper, Hanako, were fully human. The other residents — Azuki, Shota and Renko — were not only human children quickly growing into adults, but dual-natured, with other sides to their existences that allowed them to become…something else. While Azuki and Shota were Yuta's niece and nephew on their adopted human side and he was their guardian, Renko lived with them at the behest of her father, the willful and immensely powerful Dragon King, who wanted her learn as much as she could about her human nature and how to live in the human world.

It was easy to say it, but too much thinking about Renko's family was a terrifying prospect. Liking Renko didn't change that.

I'll hurry, Noriko said with a smile. Don't think I won't drop you tomorrow, though. There's a little more to it than I just showed Azuki-san!

"I will use my shakujo to avoid it!" Yuta said with a grin. As a younger son with no inheritance, he had become a Buddhist monk at just about the same age Shota was now. Because he had a Samurai child's martial education, he was trained to be a sohei, a warrior monk. He left religious life to care for his brother's children after his brother and his wife were murdered.

Noriko, a kunoichi — a woman ninja or shinobi — was left unemployed with the collapse of the shogunate. She eventually found work at an inn adjacent to a silk mill.

Yuta stayed at the inn for Meiji-era Japan's First Educational Conference. He was as appalled by the labor conditions at the silk mills as she. When he stumbled into an unscheduled escape, they had fought together to free the workers. She had thus learned his secrets, and he hers.

It seemed they were meant for each other.

Neither liked to think too much about Renko's father or Noriko's Chinese martial arts masters having a hand in bringing them together. But they were happy, Noriko thought as she hurried to the family's small bath, and that excused almost anything. Even today, in 1875, arranged marriages were common, but both Noriko and Yuta disliked the idea of being manipulated behind the scenes. Their marriage worked well, though, and Noriko thought that was the important thing.

Azuki was almost dressed when Noriko entered. Azuki grew feathers on her head where humans usually grow hair. She used to wear a kerchief to cover them. Talented with textiles and an expert weaver, Azuki had immediately noticed the threadbare condition of Noriko's specialized wardrobe. She tactfully offered to replace it as soon as she learned of Noriko's marriage to her uncle.

In return, Noriko obtained for Azuki something Azuki had never even known of before, something not available in rural eastern Kyushu where she had always lived: a wig like those worn by geisha. Wigs allowed the entertainers to always look beautifully coiffed with minimal effort, something Azuki desperately needed. With a brilliant smile, Azuki lifted her wig to slide it over her feathers. Noriko helped her adjust it. Once it was on, Azuki looked like a normal Japanese girl, and that never ceased to thrill and amaze her.

She wrinkled her nose, so like the long, turned-down black beak of a toki — adjusted to her human face, of course — as she looked in the small mirror. Normalcy was something she treasured. She was hardly ever without her wig now. It even went through her changes from girl to toki and back again without a hitch. She hurried out the door as Noriko quickly scrubbed before sinking into the tub for just a couple of minutes. Her teaching gi packed in the basket which had held her simple everyday kimono, Noriko hurried to join the others before the family Buddhist altar.

Shinto and Buddhism used to enjoy a fairly easy day to day relationship. Shinto honored the kami, or protective spirits contained in everything, and the spiritual history and foundation of Japan, as well as one's pantheon of ancestors. It was so ingrained in people's consciousnesses that they didn't even think of it. It simply was.

Buddhism, a later arrival, focused on the enlightenment of the individual practitioner, but also on the enlightenment of the universe, including that same ancestral pantheon. While the two systems had waxed and waned in official power and influence over the centuries, the Meiji Restoration had effected a major shift.

Noriko found it, on the whole, interesting and amusing. Her own Shinto beliefs were cultural and casual. Shinto was just the way the world worked. Her Buddhist knowledge had been little more than an intellectual exercise before she met her husband.

She wasn't fully convinced of anything she couldn't directly perceive, but she did know she felt better about many things. She was willing to give Buddhist practice a serious try, just at the time Shinto was becoming a state religion, to be used to unify the country, with the Emperor, purported descendant of the creator goddess Amaterasu, as the principle kami. Noriko moved quickly, slipping in to kneel just as Yuta began the morning practice.

Breakfast smells wafted into the small alcove and Azuki's stomach rumbled when Uncle began the concluding rituals. Azuki ducked her head and tried not to smile. Hanako did her own practice between cleaning up after breakfast and starting her regular housework. She didn't eat with the family so she could be available to serve and provide hot dishes as required. Though her face was disfigured by the injury that rendered her mute, Hanako was generally pleasant in appearance, expert at her work and always made sure the luscious odors of breakfast came right at the point when it was time to end their practice and come to the table.

Today, Azuki wore a kimono of her own design, a rich blue with a pattern of tiny branches topped with snow barely showing. It was a little mature for her, despite the young woman's long sleeves, with the subtlety of the pattern being more suitable for an older woman like Aunt Noriko, but she loved the way the pattern changed in the light, sometimes visible, sometimes not. She'd used one of Aunt's tricks when she made the obi. It was shaped and sewn so it didn't have to be wrapped and secured by an assistant. Japanese clothes could be cumbersome; normally Azuki wouldn't wear something this fancy for every day. This obi could be set in place by the wearer and secured by a couple of quick hidden ties. She could change into something simpler quickly, but sometimes she really liked to wear the beautiful fabrics she produced.

Where is Renko-san? Uncle asked. The Dragon-girl hadn't appeared for breakfast, either.

She's staying with Kichiro-chan, Uncle, Shota replied. So Tsuruko-san can fly. Shota brandished his chopsticks impolitely, earning a glare and a frown from his sister. As her little brother, he was her responsibility and she was always willing to mind his manners.

Kojiro-san's out fishing for a few days, Azuki told her Uncle.

Tsuruko, the Crane-woman of legend, was a real as the rest of them. Her husband, Kojiro, was a fisherman and fully human. Their baby, Kichiro, however, was both human and crane, like his mother, and so couldn't be left with just anyone. He was too little to control his form, or to realize he needed to.

Kojiro, after struggling to come to terms with his wife's dual nature, came at last to accept her for all of herself, and he adored their son, laughing at his changing antics. He was happy to take care of the baby while Tsuruko became a crane and flew, something the not so gifted often had trouble understanding. Shota took credit for his comprehension: he and the horses had worked with Kojiro to help him learn to talk to Tsuruko while she was a crane. It was this connection that made him confident in his relationship with his beautiful and gentle wife.

Renko, with her draconic ability to travel instantaneously, could easily pop over to Tsuruko's home and was delighted to take care of Kichiro. She had a new small brother, too, but her elder half-sister, Otohime, usually took care of Prince Suoh-Sugaar when his and Renko's mother, the European Dragon Queen Rizantona, needed to leave. Still, she visited as often as she could manage it.

Do you know when he'll be back? Yuta asked.

Not really, Azuki said. A few days, maybe.

He was going out for a week, maybe more, way offshore, Shota said with a far-off look in his eyes and a twitch of envy in his smile. Shota had his own boat and Minoru-sencho, a retired sea captain Uncle had hired, to teach him to use it. He would have loved to accompany Kojiro on such a lengthy trip. Uncle wouldn't let him skip that much school, so he hadn't even asked. Yuta and Noriko exchanged glances. Under the new system, school was much more formal than it used to be. Shota would get opportunities, Yuta knew, and he wanted the boy to have them, but it was Shota, only son of the elder son, who actually owned the family property on which they lived. No matter how much he wanted to, being a fisherman or sailor was not Shota's destiny.

Renko-san's coming back for school, though, Azuki said. Tsuruko-san insists.

Noriko and Yuta exchanged another glance. Renko's attitude of late had been bothering them both.

CHAPTER TWO

Old-fashioned Lady Looking Left, Kano? 1878

Otohime, the most famous Dragon Princess of them all and the o-kami of Mt. Fuji, used her front middle claw to poke her tiny half-brother in his jeweled brown tummy. The infant dragon, looking so like his European mother in feature and shape, rolled backwards onto his tail, giggling, and tumbled over. Rizantona, the Dragon Queen of the West, smiled indulgently.

The little dragon was brown, with bronze overtones from his bronze-gold father, but his scaled hide sparkled with metal and jewels. Western Dragons were of the Earth, in charge of minerals and mantle, with small front legs and huge bat-like wings, their long necks clearly separate from their torsos, pointed faces and long tails with barbed ends. Rizantona, too, was the rich brown of the earth, with metals and jewels sparkling her scales. She could also breathe fire when it suited her.

Otohime was all Asian, an Eastern Dragon from the draconic line responsible for weather, wind and water. She was long and lean with balanced limbs and little to show the separation between her neck, torso and tail. The tiny wings on her shoulders were of little use except for decoration and steering. Her jaw was square and festooned with long tendrils, as was her head, where the central protuberances rose almost like antlers into what could be called her crown. Others drifted off like ribbons she could control like fingers, which she didn't have. Her scales were green and blue, reflecting the sea and sky, shading to gold below.

Though her official residence was Mt. Fuji, she preferred the water like any good Asian dragon. She spent much of her time visiting the dragons who lived in the Fuji Five Lakes surrounding the mountain or sporting in the nearby sea.

She sometimes visited her father in his great palace beneath the waves, but she wasn't very happy with him right now. He might be the grand and impressive Dragon King, but he was also a selfish, impulsive monster without a single thought except his own immediate desires.

He had been present at his small son's hatching, forbidden in the East, though apparently, Rizantona had said, not in the West, where they did things differently. Birth was associated with as much impurity and danger as death in Shinto. The presence of the baby's father at birth could scar the child for life in various and undetermined ways. Though Otohime had looked, she had been unable to find a Shinto priest to ask about how to eradicate the impurity and cleanse the child's spirit.

Furthermore, her father had been sufficiently thoughtless and impetuous enough to bring the full human, the former Buddhist monk Yuta-sensei, along with him to get Yuta's views on Ryuujin's own presence. Yuta had been the only one who actually saw the child hatch. Everyone else was arguing. Otohime didn't think that the presence of a human male would cause the same problems at a dragon birth that the presence of a male dragon — especially the father! — would. But she didn't know for sure.

She didn't want to reveal herself in her dragon form to yet another human. Appearing in her human form would result in too many questions about her concerns as well as her identity. She'd been trying to ask her questions in mental speech, but had so far been unable to make herself understood.

The little prince puffed smoke and spat a few tiny flames that he immediately blew out before they hit the ground. This was one of his favorite games.

Isn't he clever? Rizantona asked rhetorically. She expected agreement, not answers. This ability was one she'd never seen before, with the powers of the earth's fire and the atmosphere's winds combined, yet it came naturally to her newest son. Otohime, you really should start looking for a dragon consort.

Otohime had married only once, if you could call it that, and that was ages ago. Dragons weren't humans and their relationships were at once simpler and more complicated. Otohime had fallen in love with a human. His inability to become dragon had led to her discovery that she could become human at will. She had brought him to what was then her home, a wing in her father's undersea palace. There they had loved and laughed in a world out of time. She had become pregnant and borne a human-looking child.

This triggered a longing for his human life in her mate. Sadly, she had returned him and their child to his human relatives and residence, but her husband had opened the box she had given him. This held his human life safely out of time as humans knew it. He had died as soon as the box was opened. All the time that had passed while they were under the sea flew by in an instant, and her son, their son, had been left — she hoped — to the care of his human family when his father joined his ancestors, or whatever.

She had never been able to locate her beloved no matter where or when she looked. She had lost their child in the whirling mists of passing time, too, but it was reported that his descendants comprised the present Imperial Family. This called into question the role of Amaterasu, the creator goddess, as an ancestor of that family, unless she was also an ancestor of Otohime's, or perhaps of her husband's — but few paid attention to mythological contradictions. They were allowed to exist companionably side by side, to be eventually reconciled as knowledge grew. Otohime didn't know Amaterasu so she didn't worry about it.

That report, however, led Otohime to become the o-kami of Mt. Fuji, guardian of the country and its people, at least some of whom were likely her descendants and all of whom she saw as her responsibility.

She glanced at Rizantona and shook her massive head. I don't want a consort, she said.

Nonsense. Rizantona never paid attention to argument from anyone. A consort is always good to have, at least occasionally. As long as he amuses you and isn't around too much. We can always discard one and find another if he gets annoying. That would give you a chance to learn what it is to have a proper dragon relationship and to have a proper dragon child! She regarded her own youthful offspring with besotted parental love. Isn't he adorable?

Rizantona, he is, Otohime said, but he is enough for me right now. I don't even know any male dragons who interest me. The few I do know, I met at my mother's. Nagaratja rules far to the west of here, high in Earth's highest mountains. While many dragons young and old come around her seeking favor, I've yet to meet any I would choose for a consort.

Try somewhere else, Rizantona rejoined. The prince, tiny only by comparison with his mother and half-sister, toddled towards the tunnel leading into the caldera of the volcano. Rizantona wrapped him with her gigantic tail and swept him back to her. She scooped earth from a pile of mineral-rich lava rock she had produced and offered it to the baby, who stuck his muzzle in it and began to eat. He wouldn't need to eat anything visible much longer because he was quickly growing out of infancy. When he was a human, for he was dual-natured, he would eat human food, but as a dragon, his nourishment would come from the tiniest bits of existence and he would not need to eat as humans or other strictly material beings do.

I know you don't entirely approve, but we dragons are all one species, though we have different duties, Rizantona said. You could try looking in my lands.

"You think I might find one I like in the West? A Western dragon?"

I like your father well enough. Rizantona pointed out, and the baby backed away, a little frightened of his huge and fiery mother's rumblings. For now, Rizantona added as she crooned to the little one and stroked his head with one forepaw as she offered more food with the other. Rizantona wanted to enjoy this baby stage; it was over all too soon. Dragons, even those who were dual-natured, were different. We have things we can teach each other, Otohime. It can't hurt to look.

Otohime frowned, an expression only another dragon could perceive. I don't know. You're the only Western dragon I've ever met.

And do we not get along?

Yes, Otohime admitted dubiously.

I have children other than my children with your father, you know. Some of them are sons. They are in no way related to you. Yet, you could meet any of them in the course of family visits. I could invite them to meet their new brother. You could see what you thought of them. If you wanted to pursue an acquaintance with any of them, you could. If you don't, just remain polite and distant, like you would anyway. You Asians have the ability to be perfectly correct while discouraging intimacy. Well, most of you.

Not Father!

Your father is special. At least he thinks so.

I'll give it some thought, Otohime said. Now, I must go inspect.... She didn't know what she could plausibly go inspect, but Rizantona's words were unnerving. She wiggled her wings vaguely, and vanished.

CHAPTER THREE

Uchu san bijin