As she told her about the storm and rain clouds she tipped her head back and looked up to the sky.  She didn’t see any hooves or centaurs right now but tried to imagine them being enormous enough to fit in the sky as their home.  She would have to ask Izumi about that when she returned back, because she hadn’t been taught any of this in her lessons.  What they had been told was something completely different, but she couldn’t imagine how they would have been so very obviously confused with the true story of who caused thunder and lightning.

She looked back down from the clouds and the clear sky, watching as the girl circled and sat.  When she was settled she moved over to her and circled as well before flopping back with her arms spread.  A quick ‘oof’ escaped her and she giggled, snuggling back into the soft grass and dirt.  She hadn’t felt it like this since her brother and she had lived on their own.  It was only three years but it felt like a lifetime ago.  All she had learned about where he’d been taken was the family’s name, Uharu, and no one in this district had that name.

No names?  Her eyebrows furrowed, trying to think about how confusing that would be where she lived.  But then, when she thought about it, she did address Izumi as her older sister, the keeper of the house as her aunt, and the other courtesans as sisters.  It still wasn’t the same though, and it would be difficult if she needed to address and find one of them specifically.  “We all have our own names, but where I live we still address each other with family titles.  Izumi is my ne-san, but we’re not really related to each other.”

She turned her head to look at her in the grass, smiling, “My name is Hiromi.  But, they’re going to give me a new name when I’m older.  Izumi has a different name too, they’re going to make sure that mine compliments hers since she’s the one training me.”   Her eyes moved back up to the sky, her mouth screwing up in thought before looking back down at her, “If I had to give you a name though…”

She shifted so that she was laying on her side, facing her full on now so that she could see her with better ease, “I would call you…Arashi!”   She nodded quickly, already trying to commit her face to the word whenever she thought it.  “Because of how you sound when you run!  It means ‘storm’.  And it’s pretty.”   She smiled more as if that was the most important reason for her to have the name.

She watched the girl come over and circle next to her before bedding down. She smirked at her. Not the most graceful of creatures, she thought with a light laugh. She looked up at sky again but flicked an ear and glanced towards the girl when a confused look clouded her features. "Ne-san?" she asked. The word was strange and felt foreign on her tongue. "What is that?" The girl turned to look at her with a smile on her face. 

"Hiromi," she said quietly. "That's a pretty name. It's a pleasure to meet you." She turned and laid on her side, her head propped up on her elbow. "Why do they give you a new name? I like it the way it is. They shouldn't have to change it." She turned her head to the side, making her ears flop askew. "We don't change, at least not our souls anyway. Why should our names change? It just makes everything more confusing. If something works the way it is, why change it, unless it is to make it better."

She was quite while the girl, Hiromi, spoke again. She sounded excited and spoke quickly. "Arashi," she said to herself, letting the name roll over her tongue. Her eyes lit up at the human girl when she spoke that word. "Arashi…" She turned her head back to the sky and started laughing. "Yes! Yes! You may call me Arashi, dear Hiromi." 

Her lips pulled in and her eyebrows rose before she realized what it was she was asking about.  She forgot for a moment that she had slipped that word in from her native tongue instead of in common.  “Oh!  It means ‘older sister’.  She’s not really my sister, but she’s like my older sister since she teaches me and helps take care of me now.”  

She nodded once, curling her knees up and lightly wrapping her arms around herself.  Izumi was a very special person to her, but it was difficult to try and explain their situation.  No matter what she could never tell an outsider what their true intention at the courtesan house was.  All of the other women and girls there would be furious with her if she spread such information to an outsider.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too!”   Reaching a hand out, she gently brushed her fingers along her mane and then pulled it back, tucking her hands up under her chin now instead.  Without her clothing on she could feel the chill of the air, and while it was nice, her body was still unaccustomed to it.  Her mouth screwed up in thought, trying to think of the best way to explain the reason for their names being changed,

“Well, they have to be changed so that when people come to see us they don’t know our real names.  It could be dangerous if they knew our real names.  It’s a way for us to keep a private part of ourselves.  We also have to make sure that our name compliments our trainer’s name so that we flow as a pair.  It’s a way for people to know who helped us grow into the performers we become.”   That was a more pleasant way to put it at least.

“I’m glad you like it Arashi!  That way when you hear it you’ll know it’s me.  And maybe the next time there’s a storm you can think of me.”  She smiled, thinking about their secret friendship.  Hopefully Arashi would stay around this area and she would be able to see her and play with her more, maybe even see her brothers and sisters!

“Hiromi!”   Her heart felt like it skipped a beat when she heard the stern call from Izumi.  She quickly sat up, looking in the direction she’d heard her from, and right across the stream she saw her: beautiful but terrifying.  Her long black hair was drawn up in a loose bun, though a few strands framed her face.  Her slender eyes narrowed down even more, reminding Hiromi of a cat just before it struck, and even though she knew Izumi would never hurt her she shrunk down in shameful fear.  Izumi called out to her, stepping with perfect balance over the stepping stones of the stream towards her, though her words were in Ataiyan, “You’re filthy and your clothing is ruined for the day!”


That scolding look moved to Arashi, back to Hiromi, between the two of them, “It’s time to come back.  You were meant to clear your head, not indulge in play time.”   Realizing that the young centaur might not be able to speak Ataiyan, she switched instead to common tongue, “I’m sorry little one, but Hiromi has to come back now.”

Hiromi got up quickly, gathering up her robes and sloppily pulling them on and tying them off.  Indeed they were dirty and ruined, but she’d rather come back filthy than half naked.  The other girls would laugh and point, oba would hang her head in shame and give her an hour’s worth of a lecture.  As if worried Hiromi would go back over to her new friend, Izumi gently held her shoulder and began to lead her back.  Hiromi looked over her shoulder as they walked, smiling at Arashi before calling out to her, “Bye Arashi!  Thank you!”

“Aiya!”   Izumi lightly tapped the back of her head to keep her attention forward, but Hiromi’s smile only grew that much more.  She would get a talking to, that was for sure, but she knew that Izumi wouldn’t tell anyone about her newfound friend.  Hopefully they would be running around in the fields playing again in no time.

She nodded at the girl as she explained what she meant. "I have several older brothers and sisters too," she said understanding her. She watched Hiromi curl into an impossibly small ball of limbs. She rolled over onto her belly and flicked her tail amongst the grass, scattering it around them. She bent her head down as the girl proceeded to stroke her mane. It felt nice, normally her brothers or sisters would just pull it or tangle it up, not stroke it softly like Hiromi did.

Real names, she thought to herself, as she started talking again. She liked the idea of keeping a part of her to herself, something only she would know. She decided then that only Hiromi would be able to call her Arashi, it could be their secret, that something special they kept to themselves. She looked up at the clouds and smiled, she would be the Storm to his small human girl. And she would be her Hiromi, even after her name changed in the future. The thunder would definitely remind her of this girl, and her mighty name for her. She smiled, proud to be named after the Storm Horses in the clouds. 

She heard a crunching sound and bolted upright, careful to avoid stepping on the girl lying at her feet. Her ears were alert and she felt her hackles rise along her spine, tail held still and eyes wide. Who's there? She thought to herself. A voice called and she heard the girl's name called. The girl also jumped up and then shrunk back down at her master's voice. She saw the woman from across the creek, her skin pale and her hair dark black like Hiromi's. She felt her head duck down and her ears flick back. She snorted loudly and pawed the ground. Another human.

She stared at the older woman's eyes and they reminded her of the bright jewels in the skull of a weasel. She felt uneasy around this one. She was different from the girl. She turned her head and watched Hiromi bound over to the woman and she heard the woman talking to her in a foreign tongue, her voice sounded angry and displeased. She looked back and forth to her and Hiromi, speaking quickly in her sharp voice. She didn't seem very surprised to see one of her kind and treated her as nothing less than a human. She watched take her friend away and heard Hiromi call out to her. 

"Good bye Hiromi." She called back, a ring of sadness in her voice. She watched the two of them until they disappeared and then turned slowly away from the field. She sighed, not looking forward to returning back to her own herd, not now. She felt different, in the brief time she had spent with the human girl, she had changed. She was no longer like the other foals, running around and enjoying themselves. She just wasn't. She hoped to see the girl again, and maybe she would. Maybe she would meet other people like Hiromi. She smiled to herself and loped back to the woods of her home. She didn't know that it would be almost ten years before she saw that little girl again.

It had been ten years since the last time she had seen her friend Arashi, but that didn’t mean that she never thought of her.  In fact, she thought of her quite often.  Whenever there was a storm or clash of heat lightning she imagined the giant centaurs running and pawing in the sky.  By this age she knew that this wasn’t how weather really worked, but she still like to close her eyes and picture it.  It was fun, and with how somber her daily life had become she would take the lightness wherever she could.
  
Just freshly at turning twenty three is when her siring had happened, something no one in the house had expected nor could have prevented.  Rather than outcast her like she had expected they had embraced her for what she had been turned into, and though controlling her thirst was still a daily struggle, the effects of her turning had helped greatly in her profession as an assassin, as well as the cover of being a tayuu that all of them had to uphold.

This particular night she was unable to sleep, rest had become must more difficult ever since her siring due to how her body healed even more rapidly than before.  Being of demonic heritage it usually only took a day or so for a gash to heal, now?  Now it was a matter of hours, even without the aid of magick.  This usually left her tossing and turning since her body didn’t need as much sleep as others, especially if she’d had her fill of blood for the day, which she had.  

It was a cool night, the chirping of the crickets indicated that as well as the smell of the air, and she enjoyed the soft feeling of the wind as she moved out her window.  The other girls were asleep, and though she had earned her rank as tayuu she still did not have her own personal sleeping quarters yet.  She liked it this way though, hearing their resting heartbeats helped lull her at times, even if the sound of it could sometimes make her mouth water.  Not one of them stirred as she slipped out, pulling her cotton robe tighter around her.  Her pink hair, now long enough to brush her hips, was draped over one of her shoulders as she walked barefoot along the dew stained grass.

The moon was high, and as a child this much darkness even with the added light from the moon would have made her frightened to venture towards the forest, but her sight was so much better that she could see clearly through the darkness.  And now she had become one of the monsters she used to fear in childhood…She smiled when she saw her stream, and now she was able to move gracefully from stepping stone to stepping stone, all the way to the other side without getting a drop of water on her clothes.  

Her eyes searched out the clearing of grass, her ears listening for any footsteps or heartbeats other than those of the animals around her.  When she heard none she moved off her robing and splayed it out in the grass as a makeshift blanket before laying down.  Due to the cover of her true job she’d become more than comfortable with being naked, and while she never outright showed her body, when she knew she would be alone she had no qualms with being exposed.  Her eyes closed and she breathed out slowly through her nose, finally able to relax.

Paradox walked along the old road, the smells vaguely familiar to her memory. She felt her hooves dig into the soft earth as she watched the road in front of her. She flicked her tail back and forth and shook her mane. It'd been a long time since she'd been back here. She looked around at the sleeping animals lying in the fields nearby. One or two cows and horses woke and stared at her curiously before drifting back to sleep.  She smirked at them faintly before walking on.

All the houses were dark, their occupants sleeping, some of which she could hear snoring. There weren't many houses, they were scattered few and far between on this stretch of road. She wanted to get through here before the sun rose and the sleeping people awoke. She didn't need to cause any unwanted attention at this hour and she still wasn't sure about how these people felt about her kind. The last thing she needed was to be chased down by angry people with horses and pitchforks, if the people decided to turn hostile.

She held on to her pack that she had slung over one side and felt for her dagger she had sheathed at her hip. She saw a lantern turn on ahead of her and ducked off the road. She hid in the bushes, blending into the landscape and waited. She heard the clatter of hooves and saw a horse and rider fly past her hiding place. She waited a few moments before coming out. She trotted down the road, holding her bag tight so that it would bang against her side and make noise. 

She looked up at the sky, glad that the moon was bright and making the world easier to see. She kept at a quick pace for a long time, only slowing down when she heard the faint babble of a creek. She stopped, panting hard, and went over to the water. She glanced around herself before going downstream to where the water was deeper and clearer. Once she got to the spot she was looking for, she bent over and scooped handfuls of water into her mouth, drinking it quickly before plunging her hands back down for another swallow.

Suddenly she smelled something. It was rather strong and sharp, and she looked up, instantly alert for danger. Her ears perked forward and she shuddered as she straightened upright. She saw nothing amiss and, hesitantly, stepped into the water, away from the shore. Fortunately the water only came halfway to her knees so she could wade through the stream to the other side. The scent was stronger on this bank and she got out to investigate. The smell was foreign and yet, faintly familiar. 

Curious, she walked through a patch of tall grass before coming into a clearing, illuminated in the moon's light. On a blanket was a woman. She laid still and disrobed. She was silent as she studied her, afraid to disturb her and reveal her presence to her. She was where the scent was coming from. Slowly, Paradox bent forward and looked closer. The woman was very pale and appeared to have hair the shade of bright pink. Rather unusual, but she felt as though she had seen something like it before.

Her memories raced back to her about the little girl with pink hair, that she had played with at the creek, a long time ago, when she was just a foal. She shivered and gave a long breath, could it be? Quietly, almost so quietly that she didn't believe that she had actually spoken, she said one single word. "Hiromi?"