Tomika's Letters 7/20 - 7/27: Skyhome
7/20/1583
at sea, leaving Miyazaki
Dear Lady Yukiko,
I know you've just left, but events today were so extraordinary that I felt as if I had to write you right away. It's not the same without you here; Panda appears to be doing the samurai equivalent of moping, the kitsune's been quite touchy (though whether that has anything to do with your departure is anyone's guess, really), and even my husband is not quite his usual charming self.
I have thought about your advice, by the way. I am trying to put it into action, but I fear the bold move may be beyond me for the moment. We will see, though.
(who usually wears a lot more clothing!)
Before he left, Akechi transferred five parts of the spirit he carries into Funitsu's orb. I feel a little left out, honestly, being one of the few among our company without a piece of the spirit. The transfer of the spirits, however, has caused the orb to gain strange new powers, which he has not quite puzzled out entirely yet. Or if he has, he has not yet told me.
I was also present, after Akechi and you left through the mirror for Kyoto, for the discussion of who was going to take what place in the Scorpions and, especially, the Black Hand. The librarian, as you have warned me to call him, has been declared the head, the person who provided Funitsu with his list of our enemies is the Second, and Funitsu offered the position of Third to Winter.
Winter accepted, and then turned right around and handed the position to Tadaki! At the same time, he handed his staff to the Sparrow. An extraordinary look crossed Tadaki's face, and he said, "That's....interesting..."
And Winter laughed, a little. He said, "My time here is done; I just needed to hand the staff off to a successor before I faded away. Hiroshi, I wish I could have stayed with you longer, but you'll do fine on your own. Tell Panda that I will miss her. And now, goodbye."
With that, his form faded until he was transparent and, then, gone. We all looked at each other, confused and silent, and then we all started speaking at once, trying to figure out what had just happened. Reiko went and fetched Panda, since she been out of the room during the discussion of the Black Hand. She was holding her orb with one hand and frowning. "That's...odd."
I happened to be standing next to her, and asked, "What is?"
"Tadaki's not there. He's just in that staff. Just like Winter was. How interesting."
Tadaki, for his part, was grumping and saying that the hengenyokai could have asked before he gave him the staff. Funitsu asked, "Would you have said yes?"
"Of course not!"
"Well, then, that's why he didn't ask. Welcome to the Hand, Tadaki."
I am pretty sure those were hengenyokai curses the Sparrow spat before changing into his bird form and flying off, presumably to have a good sulk.
Panda was still looking around, orb in hand. She pointed at the librarian's leg. "That, too, is odd."
The librarian looked alarmed, and asked, "What's wrong with my leg?"
"You have the tattoo wakizashi on that leg, do you not? Something appears to be spreading from it."
Both Funitsu and Reiko were looking curiously at the librarian's leg now. He took the tattoo off, pulling the sword away from his leg, but it failed to stop or even slow down the spread of the magic. Oddly enough, that leg seemed to be thicker and better muscled than the other.
After some examination, it was determined that each of the wakizashis that we carry that turn into tattoos has the crest of a clan on it--Funitsu had the Scorpion sword by sheer happenstance, Tadaki had the Dragon (which he gave to Haku, since the staff Winter gave him was by far a superior weapon), and the librarian had the Unicorn one.
The sword was changing him to suit itself, it seemed. It was changing him into one of the barbarian Unicorns. The change is happening swiftly, and within the next day or so it should be complete. A strange upset for our clever archivist.
We sail north, along the western coast, tonight. We'll be searching for Skyhome, since we have the entire key now, and perhaps try to contact the ship Shadow of the Scorpion.
One more note that I found interesting, if not useful--I happened to be standing by Reiko when Panda came to her with a message. She said, "I did as you asked. There is something very strange going on with Ito, as you suspected. It seems as if his kitsune spirit is actually female, but he's been bound permanently in male form. The kitsune in him fights, trying to become what it is meant to be, but the spell on him seems to bind him well."
Reiko nodded and thanked Panda, her eyes distant. She grows strange, Yukiko. She grows very strange indeed. Though I have not known her nearly as long as you, I think that the periods of lucidity between bouts of madness are growing; but at the same time sanity seems a relative term. This evening, she even told my husband that he should keep the fact that Hirohito, your brother-in-law, is unmarried in mind; if we needed to make another marriage alliance, he would be a good candidate.
Funitsu raised his eyebrows. "And who do you propose marrying him off to, Reiko?"
She shrugged. "I was thinking the Unicorn, myself. A closer alliance with Storming Bear wouldn't be a bad thing."
"You want to marry Hirohito off to a barbarian?"
"It's just a possibility. I mentioned it because I simply wanted to pass the thought along. I am a politican, Funitsu. You never overlook the opportunity to strengthen a shaky alliance. As it is, the Unicorns may not go to war for us. With a marriage alliance in place...they very well might."
She then walked off, silently, leaving my husband looking a bit stunned. He seems to have a lot on his mind, these days; and I fear I am but the least of his thoughts.
Let Akechi know that his many-great grandmother seems to be intent on marrying his brother off. Hirohito is a bit old to still be unmarried, I seem to recall.
We've a strong wind sailing us along. And away we go, north.
Warmest regards,
Soshi Tomika
P.S. My new family name still fits strangely. I believe that is the first time I have ever written it.
How far fate takes us, indeed.
7/23/1583
at sea
Dear Lady Yukiko,
Such an exciting day! I tell you, a rousing battle always does wonderful things for my spirits. My father used to say that it was too bad that I took so after my mother in body, for I have a samurai's soul and love of action. He said I would have made a wonderful samurai-ko, like Panda. Unfortunately, being slight of build and not particularly strong, I was destined for the wu jen school instead.
All things considered, I think it's worked out so far. But I do love the opportunity to fight.
About noon, the crow's nest called down that there were three ships on the horizon--two before us, merchant vessels, and one behind us, a strange flesh-colored ship. We tacked hard to port, but the ship followed us rather than the merchant vessels, which disappeared quickly in the distance.
We put up full sail and commenced running while we tried to asses the situation. Panda was scrutinizing the ship with her orb, and said, "That ship...is alive."
Gryphon went to go look. When he came back, he said, "I sang! I sang to it. And it sang back! It says it's hurt or it needs help. We need to help it! Let's go help it!"
Panda asked, patiently, "What's hurt, Gryphon?"
"The ship! The ship is hurt. And it has one of the people who wear things like he does on it." He was indicating Funitsu with one clawed forefoot.
We cross-referenced some notes that my husband had, and figured out that the ship was called the Shrike, which meant that the person on the ship was called General Hikaru. The notes said he was a "problem specialist"; we appear to be the sort of problem men like him are sent to solve.
After some time running from the ship, a clever plan was hatched. We would use the three wakizashi that cut holes in reality to quietly gain entrance to the ship. We would then kill the general, the wu jen, and the ninja who we saw in Funitsu's orb, the far-seeing one. The ship would be ours, then.
On occasion, our plans work out. This was one of those occasions. We gated into the living ship, which was an odd ship indeed--the walls were warm and almost pulsed with life.
We reached the control room, where we knew our targets were, and took out the two guards on the door with a minimum of fuss. It was the first time we'd seen the librarian in action in his new form, and he was indeed most effective as a fighter. Somewhat more so than he used to be, as a matter of fact.
Reiko opened the door, unleashing what I recognized as a Shatter spell, and most of us charged into the room. The ninja was nowhere to be seen until he dropped down on Gryphon's back, but Haku took care of him quite handily, his head going flying and nearly knocking Reiko into the control webbing. The wu jen, nearly dead, dropped a frostball at his own feet. Funitsu took quite a blow from that and went down, but Reiko kneeled and kissed his cheek, waking him. (I had an irrational bout of jealousy, though I quickly quelled it. The fact that the kitsune kisses people to heal them is still a trifle disturbing.) Finally, the general went down, and the day--and the boat--was ours.
Gryphon spent some time communing with the ship, and said that it rather liked people, but it disliked being forced to harm others when it wasn't defending itself. We asked it to follow us for a while, and it assented.
Reiko tried climbing into the control chair, which she'd been utterly dying to do during the battle but in a rare show of wisdom had waited until after the fighting was over. She cast a healing spell from the chair--and the ship healed! The others tried the chair, and for them the ship changed. For Tadaki, the ship became narrower, sparrowlike. For Haku, the hull became thicker and the defenses grew stronger, and so on. It is a marvelous thing, this ship, called Shrike.
The key to Skyhome is still leading us north. I am sure I'll write when we get there.
Subtlety seems to not be working on Funitsu. I will persist in this course of action for a few weeks and see if he notices, however. The samurai-ko's temper is shorter than I'm used to; is it possible that she caught a child in the pair of times she has been with her husband? She seems somewhat anxious about his safety, even going so far as to mention aloud that she would find it pleasant if we stopped by Akita, if our travels take us so far north.
Warmest regards,
Soshi Tomika
7/27/1583
Skyhome
Dear Lady Yukiko,
We are here, at last! Though I know you already know this (and, hopefully, Akechi has told you the most surprising thing I will reveal herein), I thought I would write you with the story of how we found it.
The key began pulling Reiko to the east as we reached the town of M--. (The town, like the name of the librarian, is of course not to be committed to paper.) We disembarked and started out on foot into the hills surrounding the town. Reiko left Ito behind after much argument from him; he stays close by her whenever he can, for what may be obvious reasons. A pretty boy, but so very dangerous.
Into the foothills we went, until we came to a box canyon with a shimmering shield over it. those of us with better eyes than I could just make out two people moving around. Funitsu pulled out the odd gaijin spyglass that he picked up before I joined the group (well, was ambushed, kidnapped, and forced to marry Funitsu more or less at swordpoint, but let's let bygones by bygones) and said that there was a samurai and a wu jen at the shield, and the samurai was trying to hit the shield and having no luck.
Gryphon yodeled, "Home! Home! Almost home!"
With the distance cut to nothing by those wakizashis, we attacked the pair at the shield. we were doing brilliantly, if I do say so myself, until Tadaki shouted, "Hey, Reiko, behind you!"
Funitsu's Faery Fire outlined the shape of a large oni about four meters away from Reiko and closing. Reiko tried to run but the oni was faster and caught her. The first blow from its claws tore the shoulder of her kimono away, leaving deep furrows of bleeding flesh behind. The second blow sent her sailing through the shield.
And on the other side, she landed, eyes closed, bleeding into the dust.
Damn kitsune. Never any use during a battle. And she had the key--and was bleeding to death where none of us could reach her. The oni, running after her, smacked into the shield.
We all looked at each other, and then Gryphon charged into the shield. I expected him to bounce off, but he sailed right through, grabbing Reiko, disappearing through a shimmering portal on the other side of the shield.
The oni screamed, seemingly baffled. Panda stepped carefully around it, trying to circle it, evidently wanting to get the shield to her back.
Then the oddest thing happened. Panda got too close--and accidentally stepped through the shield.
Dodging the oni, we very quickly determined that Panda could get through the shield and the rest of us could not, unless we were holding on to Panda. In short order, we passed through the shield and through the door. We were met on the other side by Gryphon, who was very agitated, and asking to see the mirror.
Haku held out the mirror and he ran into it. Confused, we looked up to see Reiko lying beneath the paw of a very large, evidently older gryphon, asking her, "Are you all right?"
She opened her eyes and squinted upwards. "Eh. Everything seems to be in working order. I suppose I shouldn't call you Kittycat, eh?"
The gryphon was saved from having to respond by our Gryphon's arrival back through the mirror. "Panda! Panda! You're the chosen one! Akechi said! You're the chosen one!"
Panda, I am afraid, gaped a bit. Gryphon has that effect on everyone, sooner or later. "I'm a chosen...what?"
"And none too soon, either." The older gryphon's voice sounded, and he got up from where he stood. "There's not much time, the last air spirit is dying. Let's go."
We could feel the ground beneath our feet shuddering, and I recalled the tale that Gryphon told me once, that Skyhome was a city in the sky, held up by air spirits...the last of which was, evidently, almost dead. And when the last died, the city would fall from the sky...
We hurried.
We came to a grove, and Panda was brought before an old, old woman, looking like nothing more than a husk of a being. But she smiled brightly when she saw Panda. "You're here! Praise be. Quickly, child, come forward."
Panda did so, kneeling by the old woman. She said, "I'm sorry. I don't understand. I'm not an air spirit, I'm a spirit of the bamboo. How am I the chosen one?"
The old woman laughed. "Ah, child. You're more than you think. You see, Akechi, when he came here as a very young man, was changed into a spirit of the air. We sent him back to earth, there to find a Bamboo woman to mate and have a child with. That child is you; you have both, but the air is stronger, and it called you here."
She blinked, raising one hand to her mouth. I have never seen her betray surprise before, and I doubt I ever will again, but in that moment she was deeply startled. "Akechi is my father?"
"The one and the same. But the change left him unable to have children with human women, much, I believe, to his sorrow. We all liked Akechi so much. It grieved us that he would not be able to have his own human children. Though I have to say, you seem to have turned out all right."
Funitsu muttered in my ear, "Then Yukiko--"
"Akechi has to know, and more than that, he has to approve. Sssh."
The old woman was still speaking. "And so I will transfer my power to you, and you will be the new anchor for Skyhome. And your children, and their children, will be linked to this place. I hope you like it, dear. It's yours."
And with those word, she laid her hand on Panda's hand, muttered a word, and faded away. Her robes fell to the floor, empty.
We sleep tonight in Skyhome, and I am sure that Panda will have questions for Akechi, when next she sees him.
I heard Reiko mutter, "Are all of these my grandchildren? Ah, kami."
I certainly hope that Akechi let you know before you get this letter. I am sure you have a few questions of your own. As do we all, but none deserve the answers more than you.
Warmest regards (and best of luck beating Akechi about the head and shoulders if this news comes as a surprise, because he will very well deserve it!), Soshi Tomika
(play date 8/8/2004; pictures from the day are here.)
Quotes:
"He has a fine sense of tumor."
--Laura
"Wait a second. Barbarian Librarian?"
--Derek
"I rolled a 4. I go on an 18."
--Bryan, showing off his shiny new Init bonus
(Laura puts dice down the back of Kris' pants)
"I'm still missing a D20..."
--Ray (see the quotes for this session)
"We're playing musical chair."
--Laura
"So the first in the Black Hand is...a barbarian."
--Derek
"Hiroshi SMASH!"
--various people
"The dandelions are taunting me."
--Derek
"Mmmm mm mmm mph mm mm mm!"
"How many times do I have to tell you not to play with your food?"
(dropping Reiko) "It's not food, it's friend! It's broken, fix it?"
"Are you sure?"
--Gryphon and his Grandfather