But he wasn’t looking at the town.
“It’s smaller,” she said.
Ashitaka looked at her. Really looked. The human girl raised by wolves. The princess who was no princess. A creature of tooth and claw who had learned to weep when she thought no one was watching.
“Can you live in a world that hates you?” she asked. “Not Irontown. Not the forest. The world between . The one you chose.” princess mononoke
“The forest forgave you,” she whispered. “But I haven’t decided yet.”
Ashitaka stood. He winced—his leg still ached—but he stood straight.
She had her back to him. Her wolf-hide cloak was gone, replaced by a simple tunic of woven nettle-fiber, but her face was still striped with the red clay of her clan. But he wasn’t looking at the town
She turned. Her eyes were the same—wild, beautiful, holding a fury that could burn down empires. But he saw something else now. A crack in the armor. A tiredness not of the body, but of the soul.
The Kodama were back. Their little white heads, like pebbles with legs, popped from the new-growth trees and rattled their strange, wooden clatter. They did not fear him. But when he reached the sacred spring—once a boiling pit of demon ichor, now a clear pool reflecting the moon—San was there alone.
There, silhouetted against the bruised horizon, stood San. Her wolf ears twitched, catching the whisper of his heartbeat from half a league away. Moro, her great white wolf mother, lay beside her, one eye open—a sliver of molten gold. Really looked
“Irontown is rebuilding,” he said quietly. “Eboshi is helping the lepers plant rice. The women are forging plowshares, not guns.”
“Moro’s tooth,” San said. “And moss from the den where I was found. Wear it. It will remind the spirits that you are… permitted.”