Series: Wife of The Oni

The Wife of the Oni spent her days wandering the forest, near an ancient temple that was long abandoned and untended.
She often sat gazing at the moldering doors and unwashed stones, the sagging beams and cracked tiles.
Perhaps there was a sadness about her when she contemplated the faded scrollwork of a bygone age.
The Oni had told her tales of the monks who built the temple, of the wars that had ravaged the lands around them, and the spirits who had finally brought ruin to the beauty of this place.
Tales of the region’s beauty had been told for centuries, but the most sought after features lay not in the land or beneath it, but in the offspring of the land’s residents. The beauty and intelligence of the children of the region was the stuff of legends. Warring lords from across the land sought wives and concubines, adopted warriors and philosophers from among the families of the region, and so, the region prospered from the fruits of their labors and lives.
Such legends reached even the world where spirits reigned.
The Oni had no name, but all who knew of him knew him to be a terrible Lord, though just and fair.
As such things go, a woman in the human world gave birth to a girl child. By her second year, the child’s speech and kanji were on par with her parents, and her exceptional beauty flowered by her fourteenth year.
Her parents knew a Lord of great stature would be her fate and celebrated her as a gift from the Gods.
When the suitors began to arrive, the girl became distant, though she engaged and suffered through the formalities, she did not engage in a way that permitted courtship.
Her parents were dismayed at her lack of interest, and brought her to the temple in their village, seeking the wisdom within.
The monks were well acquainted with the story of her beauty and intelligence, but were unable to fathom her reticence and could not explore deeper as she would never open her heart to any man.
A neighboring village was said to have a man of such intelligence and empathy as to enable him to see into the hearts of any human, the temple priest called for this man, but he would not travel, so they sent her to his home.