MaraTwasHere
Forum Replies Created
-
“What a pretty name you have, yes,” She nodded, reaching for one of the cup’s of tea, and planting the other cup before the mystery girl. The scent of green tea filled the room. “Miss. Yaogatami, is everything alright?” Her eyes scanned Kukuri again, biting her lip gently.
-
“I do not mean to be informal, but who are you, Miss?” She let go of Kukuri’s hand, took off her shoes before reaching for the sliding rice-paper door to open it to a room with paintings all along the walls. In the center of the room was a short table with pillow seats around it. The house looked fairly nice and rich, but a bit used and old. Even for a nice house it only had four rooms among it. “Please, take a seat,” Hana said before her robes—behind her—swept across the floor as she left the room. Shortly she returned with a small bowl of rice, two cups of tea with a kettle, and wagashi in the shape of lotus flowers with long chopsticks. Two oniri accompanied them on the small tray as she bent down, folding her legs beneath her and setting the tray on the small table. “I apologize for the wait. Aren’t these cute? Yui-sobo taught me how to make them some time ago. I am happy to share.”
-
The two women—one old, the other young, exchanged looks. After a half a second that seemed to last forever the elder woman turned to look up at Kukuri, her voice coming out rough and surprsingly low. “I think its a good idea for you to not get caught up–” “Yui-sobo, I would personally like to speak with her privately.” Said the younger woman, scanning the purple haired girl up and down. Her smile came serene as she stepped forward, reaching for Kukuri’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, stranger, who must hold many stories of far away places. My name is Hana Azuma, and this is my grandmother—Yui Azuma.” She softly tugged the expressionless woman toward the center house where a pebble path began up. The female villagers—some sitting near their houses, other bringing in pails of water from the river, turned their heads to watch silently as Hana led the yokai toward the house. “I wish to hear of everything—have you seen the emperor before? I’m certain you must have fought against many powerful demons, and so on!” She laughs happily, her getas moving up the path.
Eiko, just along the treeline, watched as Hana led the yokai off. “What a shame,” She murmured, reaching through her left sleeve to bring out a wooden pipe, shaped as the head of a dragon. She sucked in smoke, and let it drift through her nostrils as she watched the blood-red eyes. “And I had thought I would be the first to have her in my formal presence.” She pushed the dark long hair that had fallen over her shoulder back over.
-
“My name is…Never mind.” She said quickly, her fingers fumbling along her kimono skirt as she looked back and forth, biting her lip as if waiting for someone to snatch her by the arm and toss her into the river. She leaned in closely, keeping her eyelids lowered. “…Bad men come. Bad men come and steal from our village. They take all of the rice and fish we gather. If we don’t give them what they want…” She shook her head, big tears filling her eyes. “They took Kazuko…My elder sister a few years ago. And if we are not good, a few years they will take me too-” “Sachi!” Shouted an elder woman with long white hair pulled into a ponytail, loops her side bangs coming back into loops revealing her wrinkly slit-like eyes. Her kimono was a soft blue with gold markings, and Sachi–the child, ran up to her in fear. “Obaasan! We were only speaking.” From behind the old woman came a younger, fair woman with long hair and brilliant hair clips in it. In her long kimono sleeves she cradled wild flowers that had begun blooming early in the fields. “Ah..we have a visitor,” Her dark, almond shaped eyes fixed on the purple haired woman before her, but she did not seemed fazed or surprised as she bowed lowly in greeting. “A pleasure. What is a fair maiden doing in such a forsaken-ed and sickly village such as this?”
-
The girl continued to stare, shifting from bare foot to bare foot seemingly shy. “Um…this is the Inasaku noka…the village of rice!” Her voice pitched at the end, and she took a few steps back. “We-we can’t really take any travelers who can’t pay right now…we do not have much food for ourselves.”
-
A child with their eyes closed facing a stone and straw hut slowly turned at the other girls’ whispering rather than playing the game. “Who is she?” Someone asked, “She’s so pretty…” “I’m getting my mama!” Most of the children ran from the edge of the village, back towards town kicking up dust from their bare feet. The girl who was facing the wall instead stared silently in awe at the purple haired lady. “Demon” she heard one of the older girls, a twelve year old, whisper as she led the younger ones off. But this girl did not seem to notice struck by this woman’s beauty. Her eyes were a deep brown, her dark hair dusty and just past her shoulder with a white, flat, ribbon holding the hair that would have been around her face. Her kimono was yellow silk with butterflies across it. The child couldn’t take her eyes off of the purple haired lady. “Are you princess Kaguya?” Her whisper came.
-
Eiko watched as the second one appeared as well. They both had come so quickly, she was a bit surprised. Both also came in their true forms. Eiko still awaited on several humans who hadn’t come to this world with the dolls as of yet. She’d waited for years now. Some never came, perhaps the human souls were simply unable to take apart of any type of magic. What a pity. The long grass blew through the wind toward the North where both headed. Eiko knew by now, with light coming over the horizion, the people where up and about.
The forest would stop short to a grassy slope downward toward a village of about 7 or 8 houses, not including the largest hut in the center holding the village elder, Yui, and her fair and beautiful granddaughter, Hana. To the left of the gathering of huts was the large rice field, already flooded with the scraggly men and some women tended to their crops with long straw hats covering their face from the upcoming sun. On one woman’s back was an infant held on by cloth. Sasuke, with a terribly ill husband the young woman would be forced to bring her share of work to the village and care for the baby and him. In fact, many of the men in this village were too-thin, sick, or elder. Strangely, however, all the women appeared to be quite healthy. Any yokai or sacred warrior would be able to immediately sense the dark miasma that hung over the village. But the children, all female, ran along the dirt path screaming and playing Darumasan ga koronda. No one there seemed to feel the thick miasma above them.
Eiko followed a good distance behind, waiting to see their reaction to the village with a rice field and a river to the right.
-
Eiko landed in the clearing, her geta’s meeting the grass-land without a sound. In one hand, she held a fan raised up just above her nose. Her other hand was concealed by the long kimono sleeve. She shut the fan with a clack, revealing the knife on the back of the closed fan. A Tessen. The darkness was fading, receding slowly to a soft blue-gray, and toward the east was vibrant colors of orange and red. Towards the north was the closest village from earlier, Inasaku nōka, where their rice farms were very bountiful. However, the families their had to have bountiful rice farms for the ‘protection’ of bandits that would otherwise raid their village, steal their women, and be on their merry way. Demons that had been hiding out had come as well–lower and higher–some she could not stop from entering the world. Their presence was faintly everywhere, and when one came too close into ‘her territory’ she could smell and see their miasma. For now, Eiko stood near a tree peeking out at the girl with that blank, pale face. The first thing the <i>yokai</i> noticed was the way her hair was purple. An interesting color, she must admit, but not uncommon here. Uncommon for humans, though. She had to stop her smile at the joy of finding another yokai. Still, this far off, she still couldn’t quite recognize the girl.
-
For those who pulled the thread away for the first time may have seen the world become a bit blurry or dim. Tiredness would set into their bones and their limbs would get heavy and their tongues feel thick. Eventually the world would fall away like oil paints off a page, everything blending together to ugly browns of mixing colors in their descent, leaving black left over. Slowly pin pricks of light could be seen shining brightly in the darkness of the night sky, making out constellations. The trees just below the sky were bare other than small buds promising blooms, and soon enough flower petals would carpet the ground. The feudal era was quiet as it usually was, especially in this empty field where the those who could not imagine where they wanted to be in this new world would go. Yokai’s powers would flourish in the ancient land made of the soil clung to the oldest trees in Japan, where the trees were only saplings in the feudal land.
-
Eiko watched the girl walk away, keeping the string taunt as cool breeze blew through the straw dolls, making the dance back and forth stiffly on the yarn. “When you feel nostalgia or aloof, the thread on the left arm may bring relief.” Her voice called after the retreating, seemingly excited girl, as if the straw doll was a little package of happiness and wonder–which for some, it would be. Eiko let her hands fall, and her smile came true and strong in the audience of darkness and shadows of the park. I was right. She thought to herself, winding the string up with the dolls and sliding them into her sleeve. She closed her eyes, letting the night breeze fly through her equally dark hair. There are people who have their souls still longing for the old world. There had been humans with old souls who longed for the old world as she had. If anything she went through all the trouble and tasks for minogame for at least a world she could bring them back to to fufill that long-awaited longing. But yokai? But yokai she knew? She had to pat her eyes to keep tears from falling. “Its really happening….” Eiko looked up at the stars, and the trees that had branches reaching upward greedily. But their leaves were changing, turning red and orange. Funny, in this Japan the world was of oranges and reds. In her world, the frosty winter’s breath was leaving to let in spring. Soon, cherry blossoms would bloom. What a perfect time to bring in the new yokai.
Eiko reached for her green doll hidden within her sash, reached for a read thread, and melted away without a trace.
-
Eiko’s face was wiped of emotion, her interest piquing at the girl’s reply. “Far from home…I understand the feeling.” The waves coming off this girl standing before Eiko screamed yokai. Had she, perhaps, already been searching for her dormant powers within? The only way to truly awaken them would be to return to the place the yokai once ran free. A place where her clothing wasn’t ‘traditional’ but common. Eiko reached into her kimono sleeve, and as if by magic pulled out a long string with little straw dolls dancing along it. Her lips curved into a smile that did not reach her blood eyes at the thought of her being young. Her short stature did not help her child-like appearance, and since she was in the modern world not many–if any–knew about how demons or yokai could easily appear younger than they actually were. If any did know, who would expect such things in modern times where everything was mostly ‘safe’? Nowadays demons hid within people, whispering dark desires in the minds of humans and filling them with selfishness and greed. Where were all the true monks to at least try to defend their people? “I am giving these away. For peace of mind, at the least,” She turned her head up to look at the girl. This was the first girl who had approached her–unaware or not of what she thought Eiko could bring her. Subconsciously, could she sense the power the omamori had?
-
Eiko immediately sensed the attention shifted to her, and her red wide eyes flicked over to where a girl with dark hair approached. “You must be far from home,” Eiko murmured quietly just loud enough for her to hear. Realizing that sentence could have more than one sense as she turned her body completely toward the girl. Is this why the city noises hurt her trace of mind? For her to come to this park as if led by a red-string of fate? Because this girl’s soul was also very familiar. Could she really get two in one day?
-
Eiko looked up at the sky, the city lights so bright you could not even see the stars that were hidden up there. Slowly, keeping her kimono on, Eiko let herself land to the ground on her Getas footwear, becoming visible to humans once more. From her kimono sleeve she pulled a silver lotus hair comb to take to her long, dark, pin-straight hair. As she walked along she had to weave her hair through the throngs of the comb for it to actually stay in one place in the sea of black as she made her way farther from the city and toward the park. The noises were too loud with the humans here, and she doubted that anyone other than a care-taker of the park featuring some rock gardens would even be out this late.
-
Eiko does not look at the doll, instead, uses this chance of his distraction to study his face. There are some changes, yes, but he is still uncannily familiar to her. She raises a nimble finger to run along the left arm of the doll, the red thread bright and soft against the black and smooth straw. She had made this, got the grain herself to dry it out, fold it and weave it into these little anonymous looking people. “Legend has it that red strings lead to your destiny; such as future lover, friend, or even a place you are meant to be in the near future.”Her red eyes never left his face, looking for some signs of recognition of an object like this. For the most part, he wouldn’t have other than curses placed on each other by humans and demons alike in the feudal days. Nowadays, in this ‘modern world’ the dolls were even given away as toys and replicas just like this. Foolish to make fun of such magic, and to give it to a child as toy…
“You are supposed to take one of these off when you’re feeling…aloof.” Her smile came as if she knew something he did not, and she redirected her gaze to the doll, fingering the red threads. Slowly, hesitantly, she took a step back—the splash of emotion in her expression blending back to the monotone look. “Until we meet again, stranger,” She added just for irony’s sake, twirling the slack of the string around her finger as she thought back to the feudal era she could escape to in her mind when she really despised this place. Could this even be Japan? She saw reminiscences of what it once was by the chop-sticks, the language, the Japanese festivals…but that was only child’s play compared to the real Japan filled with the monsters and humans battling constantly. Even the children were not spared in constant raids of villages, and it seemed this Japan had forgotten of those hardships completely to big lights and subways. Thinking of the children brought the rhythmic eriee song, ‘kagome, kagome’. “Kagome kagome…” Eiko moved swiftly back toward the crowd, looking down at her red string of dolls as her voice was swallowed up, and she melded with the figures rushing by: “Kago no naka no tori wa…itsu itsu deyaru…?” The red string, once pulled off will guide him into the new olden world. She thought, letting the people jostle by her. First you will become lethargic…and then you will be sitting in a whole new world more alive than ever. Eiko was pleased with her work…he would be the first she found again. She snapped her fingers, making the dolls disappear and simultaneously lifting her up off the ground with a breath of smoke. The yokai sat back in her long kimono seemingly in thin air over the oblivious humans passing beneath, her eyes glowing she smiled freely a sharp toothed grin. -
Eiko reached for one of the dolls, untying it from the the red yarn with a slight ‘thrum’ that hummed up to her elbow and to her shoulder. She held it for him, her red eyes showing a bit of interest at the energy that came off of him. Definitely a Yokai. Definitely someone who was a part of the Kindan no yōkai. “It is…a gift for you. It is not polite to reject a gift, yes?” She tilted her head slightly looking a bit like a cat with that rather blank expression.