Guardians of the Prince

No matter how much I thought about it, nothing got resolved.
So I started exploring the treehouse again.

The chest in the bedroom was filled with an array of towels and clothes apparently meant for me.
When I searched the kitchen again, I found retro housework equipment like a washboard and basin, and a sewing kit.

In the cupboard was a loaf of dark-colored bread that looked like it would keep a long time, salt and some other spices I didn’t recognize, something that looked like dried grass, and also some root vegetables that had been put in a basket.

I finally remembered how hungry I was, so I went ahead and lopped off a thick slice of the bread and stuck it on the stove in a frying pan and ate it warm, but as I gulped down the rest of the prince’s milk, I realized that this stuff probably wouldn’t last us more than three days.

I made way too much milk… The prince still can’t drink that much.

I’d been barefoot when I woke up, but beside the bed was a sturdy-looking pair of slippers, so I put those on and went out onto the balcony again.
I left the door open so I could hear the prince crying if he woke up, and started down the stairs.

I descended slowly, keeping my hand on the tree trunk.
It was slightly warm to the touch.

What a really weird tree… Why is it almost clear?

A drop of something fell onto the hand that was against the trunk.
When I looked around, trying to see if it was raining, the grasslands weren’t wet, but I could see ripples spreading on the surface of the spring.
The drops were spilling from the treetops and falling into the spring.

The water in this spring didn’t flow in from any river, and it was incredibly clear.
Maybe it wasn’t spring water at all, but drops spilled from this tree that had collected in the basin and become a spring, seeping into the ground little by little?

I got down to ground level and looked to one side, where I spotted some kind of long, thin storage barn almost hidden behind the tree trunk.
For some reason, the foundation had been built high off the ground, and it was only after climbing quite a few stairs that my hand reached the door.

It was a good size, and pretty well made too, I thought, and when I opened it, there was a familiar western-style toilet seat.
It was an outhouse.
The fact that a sort of gutter stretched from the treehouse all the way out here probably meant that the drainage from the kitchen sink flowed here too.

I could hear a faint rumbling sound from somewhere deep down, was that water? … You know what, that’s fine, I’m okay not thinking about that too deeply.
If I ever meet anyone, I’ll just ask.

Looking around, a few small animals were sneaking peeks at me from different places in the forest.
They were sort of like squirrels or mice, but even from that distance I got the impression that their ears and tail were strangely different from the creatures I knew, and the color of their fur, too.

Looking up at the sky, I spotted a flock of colorful birds I’d never seen before crossing the sky, which had been carved into a circle of blue by the forest.

With surprisingly little fuss, I accepted the truth.

This was not the world I was familiar with.
I had come to a different world.

I looked around all day, and saw basically all there was to see.

The prince woke up pretty much nonstop and would start crying – give me milk, change my diaper – and I had to wash the cloth diapers.
So, I washed them and dried them on the balcony railing… And as I was doing all that, I was attacked with a sudden wave of exhaustion, so when the prince went back to sleep again, I took a nap myself.

When I opened my eyes next, the light had faded.
Panicking once again, I grappled with the lantern I’d left on the table and got a fire lit.
That was close, if it went totally dark, I wouldn’t know where anything was.

Just as I got the hot water boiling, the prince woke up and started crying.
I opened the front door and put the lantern just outside it, and then I picked up a bottle and went out onto the balcony, holding the prince in my arms.

It was completely dark in the basin, there were still no signs of any human being.
I sat down at the top of the stairs.

“Eventually your mother or someone will show up, right?” I said to the prince as I fed him his milk.
His eyes were still closed, and his throat was making steady gulping sounds.

Even the nighttime was quite warm, and the dark forest was deeply quiet.
Lights that looked like fireflies danced atop the spring.

Looking up, the whole sky was full of stars.
Sitting here in the breeze like this was like a refreshing summer night on the veranda of a country house.

I didn’t know anything about this place so I felt like I should be more anxious, but for some reason I was pretty calm.

Well, if I was to hazard a guess, judging from the dried bouquet, it was obvious quite a bit of time had passed.
It would be one thing if I’d only just gotten here, but if that much time had passed, it didn’t seem like kicking up a fuss would change anything.

Koaya and Nanao had to be worried though.
Or maybe during the time I was here that I couldn’t remember, I’d been cleared from the roster over there and would have to live here from now on.

An uneasiness suddenly sprang up inside me, like a rope slowly being tightened around my chest, but I felt it slowly begin to dissolve and dilute in this mysterious place.
I quickly scrunched my eyes shut to cut that dissolving short.

I wouldn’t lose the memory of my sisters.

The following morning, I heard a little bird singing, and slowly opened my eyes.
Morning light shined bright inside the room… It was still that room in the treehouse, same as yesterday.

When I turned my head, the prince right beside me popped his eyes open and started wiggling his arms and legs.

“Morning,” I said, touching his hand, and the prince grabbed my finger tight and grinned.

Cute.
So cute.

“Taking care of a baby’s hard work, but I think I’m glad you’re here, little prince.”

I figured might as well try starting up a conversation.
If I was alone, I definitely would have panicked.
Well, no, suddenly having to raise a baby did have me panicking plenty, but still.

I might have panicked even in other situations, too… For example if it hadn’t been the prince in the bed but a fully adult man.
Seriously, I’m very glad it was a young young man.

“And now for housework!”

I got myself fired up and got to my feet.
Even in situations where you don’t know what’s going on, the necessities of life are still necessities!

I put on some water to boil in the kitchen, and got peeling the vegetables.
I hadn’t seen any of them before, but I gave the edges a nibble and figured one kind was sort of like potatoes, and the other was some kind of gourd, so I managed to cook them one way or another.
Some of the hot water was for milk, and the rest of it I used to boil the vegetables.

I gave the prince some more milk and burped him, and he fell asleep in my arms as I had my breakfast of bread and boiled veggies.
The fact that he was just eating and sleeping on an endless loop also supported my theory that it hadn’t been that long since he’d been born.
Where was the woman who’d given birth to this little guy?

I put the prince to bed, and then took the washboard and basin outside, figuring to finish up the washing while I had a moment.

A small, orange bird was perched on the balcony railing, and it greeted me with a short chirrup.
I smiled reflexively, and answered, “Morning.”

Later that morning, as I was going downstairs, I happened to look up, and something caught my eye.
“A panda?”

A creature quite like a panda in size and shape was standing there.
Except, it wasn’t the two tone black and white model I was familiar with, it was closer to the brown and black and white of a red panda.

This sort of pseudo-panda sat down, keeping a fair distance from me.

When I stiffened, he (she?) moved like he was trying to scratch a spot around his neck.
His movement caused a large sack that had apparently been tied to his neck with a cord of some kind to fall to the ground with a thud.

Having completed his task, the pseudo-panda climbed the side of the basin with unexpected agility, and disappeared into the forest.

I stayed frozen throughout the ordeal.

I sat down on the bed and sunk into thought.

Inside the bag the panda-creature had been carrying was fresh vegetables of a few different types, and a new loaf of bread.
So, I wouldn’t have to worry about food for a few days.

But to get food from something that wasn’t even human… And I guess it was free?

Later, after I’d had a chance to calm down, I wondered if I shouldn’t have tried to follow the panda-creature, but I could never have done that.
After all, I had the prince to think about.
I couldn’t exactly pick up a little baby and take him with me into the deep woods, and leaving him alone in the treehouse was absolutely out of the question.

So as long as the prince and I were stuck together, at least for a little while longer, I wouldn’t be able to leave this basin.

Was this precisely what someone had been hoping for, what they’d set up this situation to achieve? Taking advantage of the prince… Mm, no way, I couldn’t imagine using a newborn baby like that.

I shook my head to chase off those thoughts.

Then I realized the prince had been awake for a little bit, and was staring intently at me.
Those big blue eyes shone with a clear, pure light, and I suddenly felt better.

“I am making a gloomy face, aren’t I.
Sorry!”

I stood up and gave the prince a big hug, spinning around in a circle.
“I’m not really your mama, but I’m gonna try my best, so be gentle with me, okay? Well, we’ve already spent one night under the same roof, so we’re the best of comrades now, aren’t we?”

Apparently unaffected by my chipper attitude, the prince yawned.

Three days after that, the panda-creature appeared again.
This time he brought us food and extra firewood.

When he’d dropped off his goods and started to leave again, I called out to him.

“Uh, thank you.
But, why are you bringing us all this stuff? Are you someone’s pet?”

The panda-creature turned back to me, but I only saw his eyes – a mysterious dark green color – for a second.
Then he was gone again.

Just like that, the panda-creature would come visit us in the basin every few days.
Leaving him without a name was inconvenient, so I took to calling him Morio 1 – I felt like he looked like a boy somehow, and he was always coming from the woods, and plus his eyes were green, so.

Morio brought us a wider and wider variety of stuff as time went on.
Luxuries like little baked treats on tea leaves, and a kind of natural soap in lantern oil.

One day, after he’d dropped off his bag, he pushed it towards me with his snout, and then stayed where he was, like he was trying to get me to hurry up and open it.
When I opened the sturdy, earth-colored canvas bag, there was some bird meat wrapped in some kind of large leaf.

I knew at a glance it was a bird because although it was small, it was still whole.
The feathers had been plucked, and it was my first time touching meat in this particular condition, but to be frank, it had been so long since I’d had meat, I was quite happy.

“Oh, amazing.
Thank you, Morio!”

I was so happy I spun around three and half times.

When I realized what I was doing, Morio was staring blankly at me.
…Had I surprised him?

“I’m going to go eat it right now, for lunch.
You want some, Morio? Oh, or maybe you’re an herbivore? I’m pretty much a carnivore, you know.”

I chattered on, trying to hide my embarrassment, but Morio stood up, completely ignored me, and climbed up the basin walls and headed off into the woods like always.
That was cold.

“Maybe he just wanted me to open the bag so I’d know I had to prepare this quick, since we don’t have a fridge? That Morio’s pretty clever…” I muttered, and got to preparing the meat at once. Roast chicken, don’t mind if I do!

I cobbled together some seasoning from the spices that were in the kitchen, but it was so delicious I was stupefied.
The leftovers I made into a pot-au-feu, and the bones I used to make soup stock, so I enjoyed that bird for several days.

At this rate, I’d have to start exercising, or I’d get chubby.

I started going for walks every day with the prince, looking at the flowers and the birds.
There was no one around anyway, so outside of the walks, I did some radio calisthenics, and even tried some yoga I’d seen on TV once.

I would put the prince down on a towel I spread on the ground beside me, and he would play (I guess?) by staring hard at his own fists. Oh wait, I do remember hearing that babies went through a phase where they suddenly realized the existence of their own hands. The way he was so absorbed in it was pretty cute.

One day, I dug footholds into the basin walls using a log of firewood in place of a shovel, and went up to peek into the forest just a bit.
I took the thread from the sewing kit that was in the treehouse with me, and wrapped it around the trees, unwinding as I went, and explored the area.

But if the thread broke along the way and I got lost.
It was scary to think about, but the thread ended up uselessly tangled in some bushes anyway, so I quit before I’d gotten very far.

There were times too, like when the prince was asleep, when I had nothing to do and I got lonely.
At times like that, I would go sit by myself at the edge of the spring, and soak my feet absentmindedly in the water, and sometimes I would find that Morio had been crouching there next to me without my noticing.

Yeah, it would be more fun if Morio lived with us, I thought, and was tempted to pet his fur, or offer him something to eat, but he always left the basin after only a short stay.
He was a bit antisocial after all.

And so the prince and I spent our days entirely within the treehouse and its environs.

One day, two weeks after I’d woken up here, I’d just put the prince in the bath.
A baby’s metabolism was furious, so you have to wash them every day, you know.

I poured some warm water into the washbasin and put the prince in, and washed him, supporting him with one hand, but the prince closed his eyes and went limp, like he absolutely adored the bath.
So cute.

All of a sudden, I realized.
Somehow, that unsteady newborn feeling had disappeared.
And was his neck steady? Wasn’t that kinda early? I mean, to be like this?

And then about the third week, the prince started laughing when we cuddled.

One day, I figured it was time to go to sleep and headed over to the bed, and the prince, whom I’d put to bed earlier, was laying on his tummy.
He’d rolled over in his sleep.

“Amazing, great job!”

I clapped, and turned the prince back over.
He twisted himself around, trying to turn onto his tummy again.

But wait.
Wait a minute.
Did babies roll over this early? This was totally different from the development charts I’d seen.

“Hey… Little prince, everything alright?”

I picked him up and peered into his eyes, but the prince just sucked on his bib, getting it all sticky.

He grew quickly after that, too.

By the time two months had passed, he’d started crawling.
In the house, if I wasn’t careful, he’d try to touch the stove, and if I took him down to the basin with me, he’d try to get too close to the spring, but he always turned back or chose another path when I called, so actually it was pretty fun.

By the third month, he could stand up by grabbing on to something.
It was cute the way he’d let go once he was standing, and then look over at me with a proud grin.
He’d try to grab for things in high places, so it was pretty nerve-wracking, but still.

About the middle of the fourth month, he was finally walking around, and he started tottering around the basin and touching the animals that came up to him.
He wasn’t quite up to climbing the basin walls yet, but I’d really have to pay attention before long, or he’d get lost.

By that time, the prince was about the size of a one-year-old.
His hair had grown out a beautiful golden color.
His meals were basically the same as mine, so he’d been eating hardy and was getting strong.

The clothes he’d worn in the beginning had gotten too small almost immediately and he couldn’t wear them anymore.
I had plenty of time on my hands, so I used my own clothes and some towels we weren’t using, and sewed the prince some new clothes.

I’m not great at sewing so I did the best I could, and there’s no one to complain, so it was fine.
Thank god there were no unsparing mother-in-laws here.

Of course I did think it was weird that he was growing so quickly.
But I knew from the beginning that this place wasn’t normal, so I decided to accept it as it was.

I am quick to adapt, by nature.
Maybe it’s partly because we moved around a lot because of my dad’s job when I was growing up.

Besides, the prince ate well, slept well, laughed a lot, he really was such a good baby it was almost too much. His facial features are getting clearer, I thought, he’s gonna be such a hottie when he grows up. What a doting parent I was turning out to be.
Well, a doting guardian.

If I was married like normal and raising a child, I would have been able to expect help from dad, and the family, and my other mom friends, but here of course I had none of that.
It was like “childcare in a locked room” but I was passing my days calmly in this mysterious place, and I didn’t seem to be developing any kind of childcare-related neuroses.

But what if the prince’s actual parents showed up now, and I had to give him back? Although, maybe we should start our own search, maybe when the prince was a little bigger?

Sometimes I would stare off into space, thinking about what might happen, and I did occasionally burn dinner that way.

One day, I was playing with the prince in the basin, tossing around a handmade cloth ball.
I would throw the ball, and the prince and a small, squirrel-like creature would race after it.
I swear he’d just started walking the other day, and now he was running.
Was it really possible for him to have developed this much in only six months?

Incidentally, the animals seemed to be a bit wary of me, and would park themselves a little distance away, but they came right up to the prince with no hesitation, and would even sit on his shoulder.

Just then, Morio appeared from among the trees.
The prince pointed to him as he lumbered down the slope into the basin, and said, “Mo-oh! Mo-oh!”

“Oh, you can say Morio’s name now, little prince? Amazing.”

I happily applauded.
He learned that even before my name.
Well, I was always saying Morio this and Morio that.
On the other hand, no one had much reason to say my name aloud.
“Maybe you can learn my name next then? Right, little prince?” I pestered.

Morio just stared at the prince, who triumphantly repeated “Mo-oh!”

I didn’t know it at the time, but the fact that the prince had started to talk held a greater significance than I’d thought.

A few days later.

“Oh, Morio.”

I was drying my laundry on the balcony when I noticed Morio coming down the basin slope and so I stopped and went downstairs.

“Thank you, as always, Sabu-chan,” 2 I said as we got close, name dropping characters from a story no one in this place had ever heard of, and Morio jutted out his chin, and offered me something he was carrying in his mouth.

It was an envelope.

“A letter?”

It had been about six months since I’d woken up in the treehouse.
There hadn’t been any contact during that whole time, and now someone had sent me a letter?

Suddenly my heart started to pound.
I took the unsealed envelope with quivering hands, opened it, and took out the folded paper from inside.
The paper was slightly transparent, top quality stuff.

The characters written on it weren’t Japanese.
It was my first time seeing written words in a while, but I’d never seen characters like this before, joined together in some places like hieroglyphics.

And yet, I was able to read them naturally.
I didn’t understand how to read any individual character, but the meaning still jumped directly into my head.
It was sort of like looking at a difficult kanji and guessing its approximate meaning based on the radicals, but I was able to get a much clearer picture in my head than that.

So I’m not sure of all the details of the phrasing, but the meaning of the text was basically this:

“Please take the child and follow the person who brought you this letter.
I will explain everything.
We would absolutely never harm you.”

So, someone was going to explain this incomprehensible situation?

Morio stared at me with his dark green eyes.
I pointed to him.

“So, I’m supposed to go with you?” I said, and Morio nodded.

To put it plainly, I was more surprised at that than about the letter, and my chin hit the ground.
The gesture was clearly a natural human movement, not some trick an animal would learn.

“And… the prince too?”

Morio nodded again.

I glanced back and forth restlessly between Morio and the treehouse, where the prince was.

“… This min– I mean, right now then!?” I asked.
Politely, for some reason.

Morio thought for a moment – he looked up a little, like he truly was thinking about it – and eventually nodded.

“Well… Hold on– I mean, could you please hold on a moment?”

I put my hand to my thumping chest, drew in a deep breath, and sat down right then and there.
Just at that moment, I heard the prince calling me from the treehouse, “Maa-tan! Maa-tan!” He must have woken up from his nap.

And so, a few dozen minutes later, I’d packed all the prince’s things into the bag I’d been using to hold all my stuff, and the prince and I left the treehouse and stepped into the forest, with Morio as our guide.

Footnotes

森男 literally Forest Man Sabu-chan is a character in the Sazae-san manga.
he’s a delivery boy from the local pub