#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