Setting
Gensokyo sits in a valley between the mountains, landlocked within Japan. It’s quite heavily forested, giving it a sort of natural darkness, and there is only one known human settlement in it. In contrast, there are about ten times as many Youkai in Gensokyo as there are humans, making the place very dangerous. The Meiji era has left this place relatively untouched, and many people still hold onto many old traditions and ways of life. Other than climbing mounts or flying, the only easy way in and out of Gensokyo is to pass the Hakurei Shrine. No tracks come close to it, only overgrown paths that nobody dares traverse alone.
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"It is a very long journey, are you sure you are up to the task?" the herbalist asked her when she stopped by to get medicines, creams and bandages. "I am very sure. This is an important mission for me right now." Kiyoko assured her boss/caretaker. "I promised Chiyoko Hakurei i would at least get the information needed." The herbalist sighed "Well in that case, Take care of yourself and be careful. You have a good plan and a bit of food?" "yes," Kiyoko told him, "I also have a few more cloths, and my very best runes, With backup. We will not attack unless it is in self defense. We are taking the longest route, and that is because very few are likely to come up that way." Kiyoko smiled. "We've got it all figured out. It may be the worst path to follow, but it is the safest."
After saying their farewells to the town, The Shrine maidens, And cleaning up their house, making sure they remembered everything, Kiyoko and Dream set off to Youkai Mountian. This will be one journey for them to remember for the rest of their lives... that is if they make it out alive...
So she assumed correctly that he was not from around here. Now extremely curious where he came from, Mokou decided she could ask him about that later. One of the things she enjoyed escorting lost humans was making conversation with new faces since Kaguya and her subjects were really the only beings she saw on a regular basis.
"Well, I guess you could say its my part time job taking care of humans who get lost in these woods, such as yourself. So I'll be more than happy to." Mokou turned and motioned for the stranger to follow her. "By the way, we're going to have to make a slight detour to my place if you don't mind but then we will be on our way and I'll have you back at the human village before nightfall."
Mokou was glad she had found this man before any youkai gave him trouble. At the moment she could feel the eyes of many dangerous beings glaring at her from out of the darkness hoping for a chance to snag the foreign human from under her nose. But Mokou was ready to incinerate anything that jumped out from the mysterious forest and now that she had finally found the lost human, he was completely safe from any harm. Though Mokou couldn't help but notice that the youkai were much more daring this evening. Usually they would never get this close to her that she could make out their faint figures dashing back and forth through the bamboo stalks. They were getting much more aggressive lately but Mokou could not put her finger on the reason why. No matter. No matter how daring or aggressive they got, they stood no chance against the immortal girl.
"My name is Fujiwara no Mokou by the way. You can call me Mokou if you like." Mokou began to head through the trees towards her small home. "Stay close to me. We'll be there in a couple minutes."
"I would be honored to guide you to the theater, Miss Hakurei!" Kioku excitedly stated. "I was going to go over there to watch you and your family perform!" She smiled brightly at the shrine maiden. Now was her chance to do something for the shrine maiden! It was good that her memory was perfect! Only.... it sometimes isn't.
"The theater is over there, so..." Kioku paused, looking down at the ground to concentrate at remembering where she was and where the theater would be. "Uh...." The silverette scratched her head, her mind not being able to figure out a route. Eh?! Where was the theater again?! Kioku gulped, unable to remember where the theater was. In fact, her mind can't even draw where SHE was in the village!
"Aah..." Kioku placed a hand on her forehead. "It happened again... I completely forgot, Miss Hakurei..." She sighed, her first opportunity to help the shrine maiden completely failing because of her poor memory skills. "I'm sorry...."
"I call myself Marran and you have my gratitude for acting as a guide, I had not expected this forest to be quite so wily.
However Marran was still paranoid about the possibility of a trap, then again from what he had gathered the people of this land set great store by politeness and attacking someone you had offered hospitality to was most likely a very unethical act, perhaps the local spirits operated with similar rules. In any case his curiosity was getting the better of him so he decided to ask the question that was at the top of his mind.
"Please forgive me if this is an impertinent question but are you what the villagers refer to as Youkai? I have had few encounters with them myself and they appear far removed from the spirits and avatars of my own land."
Tatsuo gave another interested tilt of his head. "Oh? And do you offer bread as a way of saying 'thanks' when someone spares your life?" He questioned lightly, in a mocking tone that clearly suggested he was expecting to receive the bread - presumably in return for not eating the cat girl or her cat.
Though after a few minutes of silence, Marran spoke up and asked Mokou, ""Please forgive me if this is an impertinent question but are you what the villagers refer to as Youkai? I have had few encounters with them myself and they appear far removed from the spirits and avatars of my own land."
Mokou had to chuckle at the question. According to official definition of a "youkai" that the humans had made over the years, Mokou could officially be considered a youkai. She definitely was not a human but yet she was not fully youkai. What was she really? Mokou never really pondered that question and the thought puzzled her.
"A youkai? I'm not to sure if you would call me a youkai but I definitely am not human."
Just to make her point Mokou opened her hand and a small ball of flame ignited right above her palm.
All this time Rin was lost in thought, Dazed. Confused. When she came to, she climbed out of the tree, Got the basket and took out four slices of bread, brought them up the tree and presented three them in front of the bird. She split the fourth piece in half and threw the other on the ground, Either to be eaten by the cat waiting below or used as rodent bait for hunting, However Akane saw it fit. Rin started eating her half of sliced bread.
( All the bread is white bread And Pain. :3)
There turned out to be a lot of bread. Tatsuo didn't even want all of it; bread weighed heavily in his digestion, hence it not being his favorite. But he carefully took and then gobbled down one piece, then another, but left the third and allowed the cat girl to keep the two halves she had split between her and her cat.
A long, thin, pointed tongue picked at some of the bits of bread that had gotten caught in his teeth, but after that was finished, the harpy stretched and shifted his wings again. That had been surprisingly easy. He glanced up through the forest canopy at where scattered speckles of sunlight reached through the leaves. It looked bright out… Tatsuo was accustomed to cloudy climates and didn't like bright sunshine.
"Hmmmn." He made a thoughtful sound, shifting around his wings some more in what seemed a contemplative gesture. "I could fly you to the mountain. But you'll owe me a favor. How's that?" He offered, albeit in no warmer a tone than before, looking to the cat girl again with another tilt of his head.
"No, that's fine," Reika assured her, "You tried to help. That's quite alright with me." Reika glanced around a bit. Somehow, she seemed to remember where the stage was precisely, and how to get back to where she was. Was she merely distracted until now? Or did the memories just somehow pop up? Reika paid no mind to it. "Although," Reika added, "I believe I'll be able to find my own way back. Please excuse me." Reika gave a curt bow, before walking off.
Thankfully, Reika's mother and daughter were just where she left them. It seemed as if they had already finished their snacks (seemingly all of them, as Reika's was nowhere to be found) and where waiting patiently for Reika's return. Chiyoko was seated, but Chou was walking about and had quickly spotted her, running up to her.
"Mom," Chou asked, walking alongside Reika as they approached Chiyoko, "what took you so long? You didn't get lost, did you?" Reika shook her head. "Hardly," she answered, "Mom was just busy resolving an incident." Chou replied, "An incident?" She sounded rather interested. The world 'incident' held a special sort of meaning within Gensokyo. Youkai were well known for causing 'incidents', which ranged anywhere from creating simple mischief to great calamities of meteorological scale. Naturally, it was the duty of the Hakurei shrine maiden, or whomever else was capable, to resolve these 'incidents' and return balance and order. Incidents worthy of the name have been recorded throughout both history and folklore, but in Gensokyo, these were a fact of life. That said, the last huge incident worthy of recording had occurred under a decade age, yet overall, incidents were much less common during Reika's time than they were during her mother's. Perhaps it was evidence that the humans were finally driving the Youkai back.
"The incident was resolved," Chiyoko inquired, "correct?" Reika nodded. "Good," Chiyoko responded, "you can explain it later. Come, sit. Something has come to our attention." Reika complied, sitting on her legs to face Chiyoko. Chiyoko proceeded to explain to Reika what she was told before by the living god, Kiyoko. Reika listened attentively. Chou listened as well, but only partially, standing and walking about the two.
"So the Youkai are gathering tonight, for a meeting," Reika responded. Chiyoko nodded. Reika closed her eyes to consider it. She scratched at her callused fingers with her thumbs. Reika tended to pick at her scars when she was anxious. "We must declare a state of emergency," she declared, clenching her fists.
"Hush, Reika," Chiyoko responded, "we mustn't be reckless about this. For now, we must simply wait for the arahitogami to tell us what they are doing, and what they are planning. If we were to raise an alarm under the wrong circumstances, the mountain Youkai may take it as an act of aggression. Naturally, it would be far to reckless to simply barge up there ourselves, which I imagine would be one of your ideas. Patience is key... And besides, Youkai hardly get along with each other well enough to work in masses like that, discounting Fairies and Tengu." Reika frowned and scratched a pink scratch on her wrist.
"Quit that," Chiyoko quipped, smacking Reika's hand. Reika recoiled, placing her hands back on her thighs. "Come," Chiyoko told her, "we're running out of time. We must get ready for our performance. We've only fifteen minutes."
As they ran Marran kept a close watch on the woods ahead of them, attempting to work out the location of her home but either the bamboo stems were too thick or the house was not lit because he couldn't make out anything up ahead aside from more bamboo, but he trusted Mokou to at least know the location of her own home and so asked the second question at the top of his mind.
"I didn't see what attacked us, Youkai of some kind?"
He'd encountered violent spirits before but they'd tended to shy away from those with the power to fight back. It could be some kind of animal but it would have to be exceedingly vicious to keep up the chase after having two of their number burned alive.
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