by Ronan Frost
Chapter Ten
I was wrong to think I couldn’t have felt any more miserable. I awoke on that second morning from a deep slumber, my mind foggy and body feeling as if it could lay there forever. The previous day we have moved at what I had considered a swift pace; sections of walking interspersed with running if the trail were downhill, or became wide and smooth enough to allow it. Free to wander, my mind strayed often to Aki and Master Masakage, my eyes locked at a point a pace or two ahead on the thin trail. I admit I saw little of the forest; it was something to pass through, to be done with, something in the way of our destination.
Yobutomo was already awake, his fresh vitality annoying.
“I need to rest today,” I said, and couldn’t keep the petulant whine from my voice.
Yobutomo saw me rubbing at my feet my feet bloated with blisters, raw where the strapping of the straw sandals had worn through socks. He crouched and with the nimble fingers of his left hand untied the strapping of the sandals, repositioning them.
“Try that.” He smiled indulgently.
“They are too flat and hard,” I said. “I can hardly walk, let along run. Every step hurts.”
“You need to get used to them. Tread carefully, with your forefoot striking first. Let your foot rotate freely about your ankle, take up the weight of each step smoothly. Here, boy, let -”
“Boy? Please, stop calling me boy.” I glared at him. “My name is –”
“Stop! No.” Yobutomo looked at me with the intensity of a warrior, his jovial mood vanished. “You must never speak your name, do you understand? You must pay for your misdeeds with your life.”
It seemed the world receded several paces. I heard only the pounding of my heart in my ears and that resonant voice like a pronouncement from the gods themselves. It was an exceedingly odd sensation, as if my hands stretched off into the distance, with no feeling of the center of self.
“You have ended your life as a servant of Lord Date,” he continued. “You will vow to take up a new name and a new life. You will become one man whole unto himself.”
It felt like my tongue was too big for my mouth as I fought to find the words to describe my anguish. The tears I had for so long restrained threatened again at the corners of my eyes and I wiped them with the back of my hand, a wash of anger and shame flushed through the core of my being.
“Please, I can’t do it. I can’t go on. I have nothing left.”
“You have no inner strength, and you carry a darkness…” Yobutomo licked his lips as he turned over thoughts in his head. “But have also seen something deeper in you. Although you are yet at the beginning of your life and I am at the end, we have a lot in common.” His gaze softened and once again his smile returned.
“They used to call me Tonbo,” he said. “Until you find a name that suits, let’s call you that.”
I tasted the word on my tongue; it sounded strange, how could I name myself ‘dragonfly’?
Yobutomo smiled, again reading my thoughts. “It symbolizes rebirth and renewal. It is a good name. Now let’s see if we can make that next summit in time for breakfast.”