Friday, June 5, 2009

Yuki-Onna

What's it like to see a vampire?

Let's say you're a young Japanese man going for a mountain climb with friends for some fresh, clean air away from the city and the salaried life and your group comes across this?



She smiles, leaps on a companion, drains him, and then proceeds to kill your other friends. What do you do? Why, you escape: you run for your life, tumbling down the mountain. You somehow survive, and you live to tell the tale of the Yuki-Onna (雪女), the Snow Woman, who glides over the top of the snow, so serenely killing your friends.

The villager who rescued you at the foot of the mountain doesn't believe you, of course … that is, until a rescue party returns with stories of men frozen in the snow, their throats ripped out, drained of their blood, and of the woman who came among them, untouched and untouchable, grabbing one of their party, flying away to the peak.

And all the while, Irina sits atop an abandoned ærie, listening … pleased with the legend she's created.

Of course, this all happened (that is, it may or may not have happened) hundreds of years ago, perhaps more than four hundred years ago? So perhaps the Volturi's attention may have been caught not by an immortal child, nor by the noises in some quarters of the legends of succubi, but perhaps by the extravagant vanity of one legend-making vampire?

Perhaps Irina has that on her conscience? Perhaps she blames herself for her mother-creator's destruction? Perhaps, thereafter she swore to do right, always, to toe the line and make sure all others did? Perhaps Irina's motivation for going to the Volturi was out of a sense of justice, correcting her wrong with her right, as well as the other reasons?

Perhaps. But, … perhaps not.