The tree didn’t fall before sunset. Actually, it was under the moon’s light that Kumari and the servants yelled “Lumber!” loudly, as the sound of the great oak tree hitting the ground echoed through the woods. The peasants were on their way back to village, when the boy saw that the young noble wasn’t with them. He stayed back, resting over the chopped tree.
“My lord!” Soji yelled, approaching.
“Soji, isn’t it?” Kumari smiled. “Shouldn’t you be returning with your father?’
“Are you not coming with us? Dinner will be served soon!”
“I’ll be there in a moment. Just let me rest here for a while. Go up ahead and save me a plate of food.”
“Right!”, the boy answered, thrilled, and ran away.
“And a big one! I’m starving!”
Kumari laughed as he watched the boy running to his father. Without rush, he climbed down the fallen trunk and pulled the axe off of it.
“Working hard?” A deep voice sounded behind him, and Kumari turned back immediately.
“Yes, father.”
He looked to his father seriously. Despite their similarities – that went even to their names – Lord Kumari was easily distinguishable by his beard, his slightly longer hair and especially by his irritability. He too was wearing the family’s colors – the green hakama and the white kimono – that were brighter in his clothes than in his son’s, as he was the lord. At his waist, he carried the family’s sword, a green-hilted katana in a brown scabbard, and he was dragging a lizard’s corpse with his right hand.
“You did it!” Kumari exclaimed, looking to the dead demon.
“Don’t be stupid, boy! This was just a baby lizard.” His father scolded him, while dropping the body over the tree’s stump. “Since you got this axe in your hand, do something useful and cut off its head. Then, grab a spear with one of the soldiers and pierce it. Put it between the village and the woods. That should keep these beasts away for a while.”
“Yes, father.”
Lord Kumari breathed in deeply, maybe trying to contain his bad mood, which was something rare. Usually, he wouldn’t even try to. He looked at the fallen tree, and his son thought to have caught some admiration for the work in his eyes.
“Big tree.” It was the only thing he said.
“The villagers and I brought it down.”
“You could have done it alone.”
Kumari didn’t answer.
“Do it quickly. I think dinner’s about to be served at the village.”
The young noble just observed his father as he walked away. As always, no recognition. Just hard words, and maybe some consideration for the afternoon’s work, hidden beneath a quick observation to the tree’s size. Kumari didn’t know how to define his feelings toward his father. He admired him. Loved him, as any son would. But it was hard to like him, and too much easy to feel anger.
He knew his father had not always been like that. He was too small when his mother passed away, and it was then his father changed. If he searched deep inside himself, he could remember his father smiling and laughing, but there were only one or two of those images in his mind.
Most of his memories were of a stiff father, as hard to the others as life was to him. Was it the loss of his wife, the droughts on the following summers, or the many other problems that continually appeared throughout the years, as the recent appearing of those lizard-demons. “Get rid of a plague, and another takes place”, Lord Kumari always said.
The young Kumari raised his axe, trying to ignore those thoughts. He separated the demon’s head from its body with a clean cut, and took it to the village. Probably, Soji was already waiting for him with a plate of food getting cold on his hands.
