#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch

Not Easy For a Modern Witch (Airisu POV) Post 22
#Wss366 Dread

Overgrown brush obscured the vague tread. Trees had fallen across the path, which sometimes disappeared entirely. Fortunately, we soon emerged onto the well-used Mikaeri Zaka Trail.

I added a question to my list: “Why had she come all the way out here?” Look Back Ridge was behind the more popular Mount Tenran. For now, though, I contented myself with looking for snacks.

The moment I’d #dreaded arrived when we reached Sumika’s car, a dusty-rose Suzuki Alto. I landed on the roof; my feet skittering across the surface until I came to rest. The human part of me saw it was an older-model car with a dented driver’s side door. The crow part saw it as a sleeping monster, not clever but deadly.

Sumika opened the door and called, “Get in! We have a long drive ahead of us.”

“Nope, nada, never,” I squawked.

“You have to get in if we’re going home.”

“Contrariwise! You hop onto your broom, and we’ll fly there.”

The Alto’s door was a blur, banging shut. I took off for the trees before I even thought about it.

“No, look here, Crow-kun, I want to get home, and that is by car. I can’t ride a broomstick!”

“It’s ‘san,’ and my name is Airisu!”

“Okay, Airisu-san. Please get in. Witches don’t ride broomsticks in this country.”

“If anywhere,” she added with a mutter.

She opened the car door, reached into a pocket, and tossed some rice crackers onto the passenger seat. “There, get in!”

“Hey, what do you think I am? That wouldn’t even fool a pigeon or a field mouse.”

“Fine, Crow-san. Just stay here.”

With that, she climbed into the car.

“Wait, you wouldn’t leave me—Ackkk.”

“Want to bet!” she called out, reaching for the door.

I didn’t wait any longer, launching myself into the vehicle. After all, there were crackers to be eaten.

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #SlowBurn #Yuri

< Ian > Anyway I do feel that I have different experiences as a paleotherian than people who are kin with living species.

My first connection to my kintype (velociraptors) was because of the movie Jurassic Park, and I feel paleotherians are more likely to necessarily relate to fictional or artistic depictions of their kintypes, because their kintypes are no longer alive, and children are shown a lot of media about prehistoric creatures, so a lot of paleotherians most likely have an important experience with fiction that informs their discovery of their kintype.

Paleotherians will also never get to see their kintype IRL or even in real life video footage, because their kintypes are no longer alive. Documentaries about their kintypes are inherently based on speculation.

Speculation is inherently more important to paleotherians than those who are kin with living species, because science can really only speculate about how prehistoric creatures lived at the end of the day, and since science is always changing, paleotherians' view of their kintypes is less likely to be factually accurate than other types of therians, and it's through little to no fault of their own.

This isn't to be like "uwu paleotherians are so oppressed compared to other therians uwu" cause. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that, if you're kin with a prehistoric species, you're gonna have a different experience connecting to that kintype than someone who can go outside and see that animal in the real world or even watch a real life wildlife documentary about it. So I feel very warranted in using an additional word to describe the fact that my kintype is prehistoric.

#paleotherian #therian #otherkin

#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