#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch

Dōken-sha (Airisu POV) Post 18
#Wss366 threshold / Equinox #TimeTravelAuthors #Whatever #EdoEra

It was too late to turn back. Behind us, the trail no longer looked the same. We had crossed a #threshold into the Shadow Land, Kakuriyo.

The monks beckoned us forward. “Bake ichō no sei,” I cooed to Sumika. “Ginkgo kodama, spirits of the ginkgo trees.”

Sumika prepared to visit the shrine by washing her mouth and hands in the mountain spring. I hopped down. The darting of little fish fascinated me for a moment. Then I washed. The drops of water were cool on my back, but not unpleasant.

Cleansed, Sumika clapped and rang the bell, accompanied by the monk’s gongs.

Light gathered over the kabuto, folding inward until it took the shape of a young man, straight-backed, hawk-faced, as composed as Lord Confucius. His austere dark robes were bound with a simple corded sash. Indigo light seeped along the cord binding the ledger tucked under his arm. In his other hand, he held a closed black lacquer fan. Energy gathered there as well. A small handscroll rested at his waist, secured as neatly as a blade.

My first instinct was to fly to a safer distance. His stillness wasn’t of calm, but of judgment. He hadn’t been a man who scattered peanuts for idle birds. This had been a person who counted to the last grain of rice.

“Minor samurai, administrator, Confucian scholar,” I cooed to Sumika. She would owe so me many peanuts!

“Ack!” Sumika made a deep ninety-degree bow, taking me completely by surprise.

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #Edo #Yokai

#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch

Nameless Shrine (Airisu POV) Post 17
#Wss366 Idol referenced #MastoPrompt Venerable #TimeTravelAuthors #Whatever Early Edo Period

Sumika had barely taken three steps through the thick fog engulfing us when a gong rang, its tones muted by the vapors. Startled by the sound, I watched the fog part to reveal a new scene.

A serviceable path lay before us, with the weeds trimmed back. It sloped down the hill, leading to a woodland shrine surrounded by dazzling ginkgo trees, vibrant in their fall glory. Next to each tree stood a tall, #venerable monk holding a gong. Their skin was as bright and golden as the leaves of the trees next to them.

Around the shrine, the energy was calmer, no longer indigo but violet, shot with indigo bursts. The sense of malevolence had departed, yet the shrine didn’t feel friendly. Instead, it was watchful, wary.

The shrine itself was sparse. A clear spring bubbled from the earth. Suspended from the ginkgos were a bell and wooden prayer plaques. A small offertory box sat before a weathered stone Buddha. A few offerings lay scattered at its feet: wilted flowers, rice on broad leaves, and burnt incense.

One of the golden-skinned monks lifted the lid of the shrine chest. Inside rested an Edo-period kabuto.

Violet light washed across its lacquered plates and bled outward into the grove.

My years of study were not wasted. The helmet was no mere relic. It was a mitamashiro—a spirit-vessel—binding a dead samurai to this place.

This was not a shrine of gratitude. It was a shrine of appeasement.

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