#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch

Okiku (Airisu POV): Post 39
#Wss366 blaze #TimeTravelAuthors What ever

The two women sipped their drinks while I looked around. I had hoped to find vermin in the bedding, but nothing moved there. The miko kept an exceptionally clean place for a hermit.

“Your tsukai seems hungry,” the woman said. She reached into a bag and scattered a little millet among the pine needles.

I eyed her first, then the grain warily. She made no move toward her offering. Instead, she returned her focus to Sumika. Seeing it was safe, I hopped down and began pecking at the kernels that had fallen farthest from her, all the while keeping watch.

I jumped when she coughed again, then resumed eating.

The fire #blazed as a new leaf went into the flames.

“Holy one, I have something that might help,” Mistress said, removing the antibiotics from her sleeves. “These will cure you of most diseases.”

The shaman made a polite gesture of refusal. “Unlike Han Wu, I do not long for immortality. I am but a carp in a wheel rut. It dries, and my karma is upon me.”

The woman was neither melodramatic nor mournful; she was simply stating facts. Even Sumika picked up on the finality of her tone. Mistress held out the pills for a moment longer, then she put them away.

“But there is something you can do for me before I voyage on the Yellow River,” the elder witch said. “Free my lover from the bonds of the world, and I will pass you my power.”

Sumika sat bolt upright, the cup in her hand falling to the ground. “I–I don’t… can’t kill someone. I came to save them.”

“Could it be? Have you come for my Okiku?”

I stopped pecking at the grain and listened. “Okiku? How had the two of them divined each other’s purpose?” Regardless of how, it was a convenient “coincidence.”

“Yes, I came for Okiku,” Mistress said. “To save her.”

“Then I’ll rest easier,” the elder woman said. “Like the mountain pheasant, though we will sleep on opposite sides of the pass; I will know that she still enjoys the dawn. Now, tell me what you know of Okiku, and then I will help you.”

#TootFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #Serial #SlowBurn #Yuri #Folklore #NMFic #TimeTravel