#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Dōken-shin (Airisu POV) Post 21
#Wss366 Concert #TimeTravelAuthors Whatever #Edo
“Is the beckoning-cat now the weasel’s master?” Arakawa-sama’s aura had calmed, but his eyes remained fierce.
I took exception to being called a cat and to my mistress being compared to a weasel. However, with the kami’s stew pot metaphor still fresh in my mind, I watched my tongue when I responded, “Neither cat nor vermin. I attend a spotted huntress. Your cord is not for her.”
Sumika watched our debate and remained silent. I dreaded what might happen if she entered the conversation. I doubted she’d mastered the complexities of Edo-era metaphorical sophistication, unlike an educated corvid I knew.
He responded with his fan pointed at me, cobalt sparks snapping along its edge. "I hear an owl in the forest, but does it know the kite has tasted my lure?"
Again with the insults, calling me an owl this time. Thankfully, he hadn’t escalated to physical violence, which would have been impossible for us to respond to. He wanted something from us, so I gave it to him.
“Kindness repaid, but we nest in the wild.”
He tapped his fan; the energy along it began flowing smoothly, mellowing to a soft sapphire, and then replied, “I have been answered.”
Reaching forward, he touched a finger to a trickle of blood from the wound on my mistress’s neck. “A token,” he said.
Sumika flinched, and I whispered, “Silence.”
She nodded assent.
"You may use my gift, little majo. Pay me my daily due until I require you."
The ginkgo spirits sounded their gongs, and the shrine faded away in a fog. When it lifted, we were back at the empty grove. After what we had been through, the lonely forest with its #concert of autumn cicadas was welcome.
“What just happened?” Sumika asked.
“I’ll explain at the car. And you, ‘little witch,’ have much to explain.”
#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #Serial #SlowBurn #Yuri