History of.

[moonfalling]

history||

Saki was born on the moon. An outlandish claim, clearly. She wouldn't be one to speak of it, since it is a memory from so very long ago. She was the one and only Princess born to the Eastern Moon Kingdom. Though the memory is fuzzy, Saki does recall how she had a beautiful mother and handsome father. There was no reason for other children, because Moon People were absolutely perfect: Saki was the perfect child, perfect heir, and there was no need for two.

Her kingdom on the moon was very dull; there was no suffering, but at the cost of no happiness. Everyone was simply "content" and "perfect." On the Moon, one had no reason to be emotional. Everyone was a cookie cutter shape and face, with an assigned purpose and assigned ending. As such, there was also no reason to love anyone particularly strongly, or dislike any one person to the point of "hate." Moon People had no likes, no dislikes, no love, no hatred, no unhappiness, no happiness... They simply existed, until their purpose was fulfilled.

One purpose of certain Moon People fell to the rabbits of the moon. Moon Rabbits were exceptionally wise beings that had transcended from Earth. They were now known as scholars, who had mastered the art of turning imperfection into perfection... In other words, they were Alchemists. These alchemists tended especially to Saki, their Princess, and kept her supplied with the alchemic formulas that kept her eternally beautifully.

Those alchemists were, however, dangerous. Because they understood that in order to achieve perfection, one had to go through a process of purifying their ugly God-given heart. It was because the young princess had access to her Kingdom's alchemist bunnies that she was able to hear their stories of how the ugly hearts on Earth could theoretically be purified enough that they could become the hearts of Moon People.

What caught Saki's attention in particular was this idea of anything being imperfect. As she heard more and more from the careless rabbit alchemists, she became more and more curious... Until finally, the sin of her curiosity got the best of her. One night, when the Alchemist Rabbits were heading out to extract material from human hearts, Saki snuck off with them...

And just like that, the Moon Kingdom lost their Princess. The instant that Saki hit ground on a full moon's winter night, she was soiled. Her perfect heart was tainted by Earth and filled with emotions. This caused her a great deal of panic at first, which proved to be very dangerous. Saki's out of control emotions came forth as a blizzard. She was eventually discovered by humans, who took Saki to a local shrine.

Saki's ethereal beauty and strange ability to control snowy weather led them to believe she was a "Yuki-Onna." She was taught meditation and other techniques to control her emotions, thus ending the eternal blizzard that she had almost cursed the nearby village with. Confused and still frightened, she allowed herself to be housed in the shrine while she figured out her predicament.

She had no reason to distrust the humans, because Saki had never known the concept of 'betrayal' or 'cruelty' on the Moon. Saki stayed in the shrine thinking it was an act of good will. She came to realize that Moon People carried certain powers on Earth, which had served no purpose in her perfect Kingdom. Saki could in deed control the weather, which had been irrelevant back home. She accepted the identity of a Yuki-Onna for simplicity's sake, then decided that she was ready to go home and tell everyone what she had learned about herself.

Saki was not allowed to leave. The villagers insisted that she stayed. At first, they bribed her with luxuries of Earth. Saki was ecstatic and they were able to ground her for months and years longer. She had never experienced gluttony on the Moon, so was overwhelmed with greed for finer silks, delicious foods, warm baths, fun toys, and beautiful trinkets. In exchange, her pride was swollen by public displays of her powers. She loved to put on shows, often asked to impress villagers with how she could create winter from nothing. But, eventually, she did grow bored of it all. Saki discovered a longing in her heart for her parents-- a love that she had never experienced on the Moon-- and desperately wanted to see them. She wanted to finally express this warm emotion that had been so foreign before.

This time, she was greeted with hostilities. The villagers did not want for her to leave. Saki had been a stranger to the emotions she was used to manipulate. The people of the shrine were now empowered by the fact they had a God in their midst. On the flipside, the villagers were terrified of her leaving: She could ensure a good harvest through her weather manipulation, but she could also ruin it with her eternal winters. Everyone was desperate to keep her.

When the attempts to ground her turned into threats, Saki had enough. She used her powers to free herself of their captivity. Saki realized she was being used and was horribly angry. As she fled, she covered her tracks with a blizzard and disappeared up the mountain. She had no idea how to get home, but hoped she could reach the Moon by climbing the tallest mountain. This obviously did not work. Instead, Saki became known to haunt said mountain. Finally, a Moon Rabbit scout located the young princess... and brought her terrible news. Saki's heart had been tainted by the sins of humans. She had learned gluttony and greed, pride and wrath, and even the sins of love and hatred. She could not reach the moon with a heart weighed down by emotions.

In that moment, Saki learned to be devastated. She cried for the first time in her life. She had no way of knowing how long she cried and mourned for the Moon either. But when she snapped out of it, Saki was angry. She blamed the humans for capturing her and soiling her. She hated all of their sins and all of their feelings, and she hated herself for having them too. So whenever Saki saw a human on her mountain, she would lure them to their deaths. Sometimes she would straight up murder them. She did not entirely understand how horrific death was to humans, but she would probably have just been encouraged by the knowledge at that point. Saki became the Yuki-onna of legends, even if that was something of a lie.

The only ones brave enough to confront Saki were her old Moon Rabbits. They were interested in the girl who had fallen from the moon. Like they used to gossip about making a human 'perfect' enough for the moon, they wondered if they could ever make Saki perfect again. Which was becoming a visual problem: Saki's skin was blooming with red burns, as if from the sun, which seemed to be a side effect of Earth. She was supplied with plenty of her old Moon Rabbit potions over the next few years, with the goal of turning her back into the perfect Moon Princess.

Saki didn't know the difference, but she was still immortal from drinking the Moon Rabbits' potions. And she regained her physical beauty from the potion guzzling as well. And eventually, after years of putting the new potions in her system, Saki even began to lose touch with her emotions again. Her anger faded away and Saki lost motivation to continue her mountainside rampage.

But she was not entirely free of her Earthly sins. Her greed for luxuries like warm baths and beautiful clothing eventually got the best of her again, driving Saki to return to the village. It had been over sixty years and very few people remembered her. To Saki, it felt like yesterday.

The beautiful young girl wandering off of the mountain side was welcomed warmly. However, she was not worshipped like before. Saki did catch the attention of the youkai and similar spirits in the area, who taught her to stay quiet about her powers. Apparently, stories where humans greedily took advantage of non-humans were becoming more and more common. Saki was comforted and advised to lay low in the modern age.

For decades after, Saki lived a quieter life. She lived in human villages, and the secret youkai living among the normalcy. She was also supplied with those potions. Saki continued to take them, fearful of seeing her imperfection on her face again. They continued to mute Saki's emotions, leaving her as a 'perfect' woman: Agreeable, quiet, and peaceful. For all of the wrong reasons, Saki began to attract attention as being perfect wife material. She would move around every year to start anew, so one one would notice her immortality, and managed a problem free lifestyle.

What problem she did face came at least 100 years after her falling. There existed on this Earth an "Immortal Council," which was established in the modern era (1980's, to be exact,) to regulate immortal beings and encourage/force them to integrate with mortal society. Saki did not have any problems with them until some time in 2015.

By this time, Saki had moved to Hawaii with some of the youkai.