Otohime

Tonight, you shall hear a story that has been passed down through generations, the tale of Princess Otohime. Little is known about her beyond the heartbreaking description that was left by one of the few to remember her, but it is said that even now, she lives beneath the sea, waiting to be found again. Now listen, as we journey deep into the ocean.

The underwater palace had always been lonely. She could not remember anymore how she had gotten there, or why it had so much space for what was often a single occupant. She didn’t know much about the place at all, really. But it was the only home she knew, and she could not leave. An invisible wall surrounded the palace, and she was never able to pass through. Others could, sometimes, only if they were in possession of a golden box about the size of a fist. She had no box of her own, however, and so she was confined to the palace.

She wasn’t entirely alone, she supposed. She had made friends with the sea creatures, and they tried their best to occupy her. The turtle did not speak, but brought her anything he could find as a gift, while some of the more extroverted animals would chatter for hours. Still, there was only so much that she could talk about the finer points of which kind of kelp is the tastiest, or the exact details of the spider crab’s favorite place to scavenge, without longing for some company of her own kind. She wished only for a human companion, one that wouldn’t leave as so many had before.

The first to come to her was a drowning fisherman. His boat had capsized and the turtle had brought him in, along with a small box made of gold. She nursed the dying man back to health, and they had lovely conversations before, upon his recovery, he explained that he had to get back to his wife as soon as possible. And so she returned his box and explained that while she was trapped, he could try to leave. She walked with him to the barrier, but as she bumped into the invisible wall, he passed through and the turtle took him to shore. She had hoped he would come back, but he did not.

The turtle, seeing her happiness with the fisherman, brought more after that. They were almost always people destined for a watery death, normally men, but the occasional woman as well, each with their own golden box. Gender did not particularly matter to her, so long as she wasn’t alone. She often missed the last girl that the turtle had brought. Shiori had been helping her aging uncle with the fishing when she fell in. She was strong, and for the time that she remained in the palace she was always singing. Shiori however, left too, worried about her uncle bringing the fish in alone. The reasons had stopped mattering a long time ago. In the end, the palace was a prison with a single inmate. Still, she hoped Shiori would forget the uncle and come back to her.

And then there was Uraschimataro, the first one in a long while that she had dared to believe would stay forever. He was handsome, but not vain. He was kind, too, and considerate, and though she had told him a thousand times over that he could enjoy the palace as he pleased, he was forever asking permission to do anything.

“Would it be okay if I made us some lunch?”

“Is it alright with you if I take a nap?”

He was better than she deserved, she had thought, since whatever she had done to be trapped in the palace, it must have been bad. But he was there, and she loved him, and so, preemptively, she hoped he wouldn’t go. Time didn't pass for her in any meaningful way beyond divisions of “alone” and “not alone,” but he seemed to stay longer than anyone else had. Her hopes crashed, however, the day he joined the ranks of the others and came to her with what she knew was a final question.

“My parents, I miss them. I’m sure they’re worried about me. Would it be okay if I went to visit them? I promise I’ll come back. I only need to see them one last time.”

She knew that he would not return. While she did not know precisely what the golden boxes were, she had once tried opening one while they were still there. A strange purple mist had floated out, and the young man had withered away like a rotting fruit in the space of a second. She had resolved to never open a box again. Sometimes, she thought about keeping one, hiding it as someone must have done with her own little golden parcel, trapping them with her. The temptation to keep Uraschimataro's was almost too great. It would be easy to simply feign confusion when he hit the barrier. He would stay, defeated, and be hers forever. Yet she couldn't do it, not when he looked at her with such longing in his eyes. She knew he would not come back if she let him go. But, as she had dared to hope he would not leave, she dared to hope he would return, and so she gave him the box.

“Promise me,” she pleaded. “Promise me that you will not open the box. If you do, you will never come back to me.” That much she knew. But maybe, if he managed to keep it safe and shut, then the turtle could find him and bring him back. She had to hope.

With promises on his lips and the box in his pocket, Uraschimataro left her.

Even now, she sits alone in her palace, waiting. She knows he will not come back. She knows, but she hopes. She always hopes.

Author's Note: So originally, this story is much more about Uraschimataro than it is about Otohime (who I leave unnamed in my telling). He lets a baby turtle back into the ocean when he's fishing, and years later, when he almost drowns, the grown turtle saves him, and takes him to this underwater palace where he meets Princess Otohime and, after she promises him endless beauty and immortality, stays with her for an unknown time. He misses his parents, though, so he asks to go check on them and promises to come back. She reluctantly lets him and gives him a box and says if he wants to return he can't open it. When he gets to his parents' house, he realizes three hundred years have passed and they are dead. Thinking it must be an illusion, he opens the box, at which point the time catches up with him and he gets really old and dies.

I noticed that while the original says Otohime is the daughter of a sea god, there aren't any other people mentioned at the palace. I got kind of sad for her, so I decided to write her story instead, in which (keeping with the tragic theme of Uraschimataro's tale) her father is absent, she doesn't know she is a princess and is trapped and lonely. Still, every time someone leaves, she holds onto the hope that they might come back, and maybe she won't be alone anymore.

I got Shiori's name from this site.

Bibliography: "Uraschimataro and the Turtle" from Japanese Fairy Tales as retold by Andrew Lang. Source.

Image: Uraschimataro and Otohime. Source.