Snippet #2526489

"There are all sorts of spirits," Seiji said, "Some like to take physical forms in animals or plants, or even people! Others you wouldn't know were there unless you reeally knew what you were looking for, all you might notice would be a subtle tug in one direction or another." As he spoke, the boy hopped onto a mossy log and stuck his arms out to either side for balance as he walked along it. "Animal spirits can range from as lowly as a real mouse, or they might be powerful and wise, and be revered by animals as a god. Often-times their powers are limited to being really tough and scary, and being able to talk, but otherwise they can be just like animals. They just happen to be able to hop over to the spirit world! Or, I suppose it's more like they hop over to our world, since the spirit world is their home..."

Seiji mused on that thought for a moment before continuing. "Then there are nature spirits, those can be the spirits of specific trees or plants, or they might be spirits of air, water, things as broad as that. The broader their domain, the more powerful they tend to be. So a tree spirit might not be able to do much away from their tree, but a forest spirit might have influence over a whole forest, and an earth spirit would be even stronger! The more nature powerful spirits can take pretty much whatever shape they feel like, but usually prefer animals, 'cause they're closer to nature than us, what with all our factories and chopping wood and stuff."

He paused in thought, "Then there are the most powerful spirits of all, celestial spirits. They're the spirits of the stars, and they normally take the shape of dragons! Nobody's ever seen one in person, though, at least nobody in our lifetime. There are lots of stories about them though. Oh! And I almost forgot, as well as those spirits, there are some that people would call demons, but are actually just another sort of spirit. Yokai is one word for them, and they come in all sorts of varieties. Big ogre-things called oni, shapeshifting foxes called kitsune, and more different types than I can name! They tend to be much more dangerous than normal spirits, since they're darker and interact more with humans for entertainment or other reasons."

It seemed that the boy was a positive well of knowledge on spirits, certainly an odd field of expertise for one so young.