chihiro never forgets her time spent in the spirit world, because that’s no fun for anyone. she never forgets her friends, how could she? she holds them all close to her heart, which is where they belong, especially her beautiful white dragon.
hake is hers as far as she’s concerned, but she’s his too, so it’s all nice fair. of course, haku thinks that she doesn’t know he exists, but that’s okay. she’ll go find him again one day.
because chihiro plans to return to the spirit world. but she knows the time isn’t right, that if she just goes darting through every place where the boundary between their worlds runs thin, then nothing will change. as is, she’s just a little girl, just a helpless little girl who will get lost and killed in the world of her friends, of her dragon. so she doesn’t go back.
she could. now that she knows what to look for, she sees entrances to the spirit world everywhere. they’re rarely in the exact same place twice but she knows what to look for, how to find them if she wants to, how to get back to rin and kamaji and zeniba. but she’s not ready yet.
she needs to get stronger.
her family’s not religious, so they’re surprised when she asks to go visit shrines, but maybe it’s for the history or the culture, or, they don’t know, the architecture. it’s a simple thing, and so they go.
chihiro keeps her eyes peeled, because she’s looking for something in particular.
she’s looking for a shrine with a lot of spirits living in it.
oh, because that’s another thing she can do now.
not ghosts, not the echoes of the dead. but spirits, nature spirits mostly, but tricksters and guardians, and all sorts, really. so they visit shrine after shrine, and there are sprits there, of course, but never enough, none of them are there for anything but the offerings, and that’s not what chihiro is looking for.
it takes months, and she’s already started school, settling into it easier than she knew she could. after her adventures in the spirit world, human children are nothing. but one day she visits a shrine, and she knows it’s the one. it’s small, nothing impressive, all the way at the top of a long hill.
but she knows she’s found what she’s looking for. someone who can help her.
there’s an old priestess taking care of it all on her own, and all around her dart spirits, some lingering, some running by and doing nothing more than patting her on the shoulder or back, but all of them acknowledging her in some way. she takes one look at chihiro and says, “looking for an apprenticeship, then?”
her parents start to say no, but she interrupts them, says, “yes, i am,” and her parents don’t understand, but they have no reason to deny her, so they don’t.
“it’s been a while since i’ve seen someone else who was spirit touched,” she says the first day that chihiro returns, this time on her own.
“what happened to you?” she asks, and knows the old priestess will understand. those with the ability to interact with the spirit world aren’t born. they’re made.
“a spirit saved my life as a child,” she answers. “you?”
she grins. “a river spirit saved me. once when i was younger, and then again just a few months ago. i’m going to back to him.”
“returning willingly to the spirit world is foolish, and dangerous,” she says, but there’s something like approval in her eyes.
“yes,” she says, “teach me how to survive it.”
so the priestess does. chihiro becomes known to the local spirits, helping them however she can just like the old woman. plenty of guardian spirits offer to attach themselves to her, to mark her as under their protection, but she always refuses. there’s only one spirit who’s mark she’s willing to carry.
years pass, and chihiro grows, from a girl to a young woman. she grows up strong, and beautiful, and thanks to her years under the priestess, she grows up powerful. she learns how to shoot arrows that cut spirits and to write spells on rice paper, she learns every inch of the forests around her home and the spirits that dwell there, and on the day she graduates high school she moves into the temple.
but she’s not planning to stay.
“i hope he’s worth it,” the priestess tells her.
chihiro grins, sharp and eager, and says, “i guess i’m going to find out.”
she walks into the woods and slips through one of the places where the border is too thin, and enters the spirit world once more. she has her bow and her ink, and this time she’s not going to be easy prey, she’s not going to be someone that has to be saved or coddled.
she’s come here for her dragon, and she won’t let anything get in her way. it’s haku, and haku alone, who will be able to turn her away. if he rejects her, she’ll leave. but for no other reason.
it takes her a long time to get to the bathhouse, to fight and bargain her way there, because before it was an obstacle, so it came to her easily, but now it’s a goal, so this world holds it back from her. but she won’t let it stay out of her grasp forever. when she arrives she’s filthy and tired and half her arrows are missing, her clothes are different, and she’s older. by how much she doesn’t know, because time isn’t the same in here, but she’s not the same girl who entered.
the whole realm is talking of her, of the human who walks among them and won’t be chased away, of the girl who marched across the endless marshes until she reached the end, something few ever manage, and then just kept going. who aids those in need and destroys those who stand in her way.
when she walks through the bathhouse doors, haku is there.
“it’s you,” he says, eyes wide, and he looks older too, like breaking free of yubaba’s curse finally allowed him to grow up. “i didn’t think it could be. i didn’t think it was possible.”
she marches forward, grinning, and grips the front of his snow white shirt with her muddy hands. “anything is possible. you taught me that.”
she kisses him, exhausted and filthy and feeling more alive than she ever has. she kisses him like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do, because it just might be, because if she angers him, then he could easily kill her.
chihiro gets exactly what she wanted – her friends, a place in the spirit world, and a reputation as someone who’s dangerous, even as a human.
and her dragon husband, of course. she gets that too.
