A Day in the Life: The Nue
The Black Cloud
From the ground, it looks like a sudden storm—a dense, unnatural black cloud obscuring the moon over Kyoto. But inside the cloud, the Nue treads on air.
It is a mistake of nature, a biological riot. It has the face of a monkey, grinning and intelligent; the body of a tiger, striped and muscular; the legs of a tanuki, nimble and strange; and a tail that is not a tail, but a snake possessing a mind of its own. The Nue looks down at the Imperial Palace and hates the order below—the symmetry of the roofs, the quiet gardens, the neatly raked gravel. It craves disruption.
The snake-tail darts out, tasting the air. It smells fear. It smells the sickness of the Emperor. It is a sweet perfume. The Nue opens its mouth and sings—not a roar, but the cry of the Toratsugumi bird, a lonely, flute-like piping that raises the hairs on the necks of the guards below.
The Nightmare Weaver
He descends to the roof of the Seiryoden, his tiger claws gripping the cypress shingles silently. Pressing his monkey face against the ornate latticework, he peers inside to where the Emperor sleeps fitfully, tossing under silk sheets.
The Nue breathes. A miasma of dark smoke expels from his nostrils, seeping through the cracks. It is heavier than air, curling around the sleeping monarch. The snake-tail hisses in delight. The Nue feeds on the nightmare, on the anxiety of the court. Every furrowed brow, every whispered prayer, every dose of bitter medicine administered by the physicians—it all strengthens him. He is not a predator of flesh; he is a parasite of the spirit. He makes the heavy air heavier. He makes the dark darker.
The Arrow
Suddenly, a sound cuts through the night. A sharp thwack of a bowstring. The Nue’s ears twitch.
An arrow flies from the courtyard. It is not a normal arrow; it is fletched with the feathers of a mountain pheasant and blessed by the high priest. It strikes home.
The Nue screeches—a horrific sound of a monkey’s scream overlapping with a tiger’s roar and a snake’s hiss. The black cloud shreds. He loses his grip on the roof and tumbles, falling through the sky as a tangle of limbs and fur. He crashes into the northern woods, snapping branches as he lands.
The Recovery
He lies in a dark ravine, hidden by ferns. The arrow is gone, but the wound burns with holy light. He licks it with his rough tiger tongue while the snake-tail inspects the damage, flickering its tongue against the matted fur.
He is weak. The sun hurts his eyes. He hates the day. Crawling deeper into the shadows, he finds a hollow under the roots of an ancient cedar that smells of damp earth and rot. He curls up; the monkey face looks weary, the tiger body shivers, and the snake-tail coils protectively around the neck.
He will heal. Chaos is hard to kill. He closes his eyes and dreams of the night, of the fear, and of the black cloud rising again to swallow the moon.
