Tomika's Letters, 8/14 - 8/22: Windtraveller
8/14/1583
at sea
Dear Yukiko,
A brief note to say that we're on our way to Akita, hopefully there to pick up Nibori. I am hoping that a lessening of her worry about him will smooth out Panda's mood, which has been quite uneven lately.
Reiko asked my husband about the Scorpion connection to kitsune today, as well. She said that she had been told that kitsune may have been altered from what they were originally, and that the Scorpion Clan may have had something to do with that. She refused to say who told her about it, but I have my suspicions. Funitsu said he would send a runner off to go ask the question, as he didn't know the answer himself. (This was after much hemming and hawing, of course; you know how my husband is.)
She and the Thrykreen general Jeron have been very friendly for the past few days. Of all of the friendships I thought might form, theirs is the most surprising. Jeron is certainly not your typical mantid, of course, and Reiko's very strange even for a fox. But their two houses are certianly still at war. It's likely to prove their undoing, of course.
Funitsu's been using that orb of his to scry on various people, looking preoccupied and muttering to himself quite a bit. Panda's been spending the past few days praying over her sword, investing it with the powers of her ancestors. (Which ancestors? Her adoptive ones, the ones she shares with Akechi, or the one who is walking around the ship, very much alive? These are things one simply does not ask the white-haired samurai.)
Gryphon's been spending a lot of time talking to Shrike, in that most unmelodious voice of his. And so we continue to sail, as the weather continues oppressively hot, fighting a northeast wind down the coast towards Akita.
Do you ever feel as if you are bound with gossamer threads, unable to move or even breathe because of them? That is what I am feeling, at the moment.
Perhaps a change in the weather would help. The autumn, my favorite time of year, is approaching.
Much affection,
Tomika
8/17/1583
Akita
Dear Yukiko,
We landed today, and were met at the docks by a messenger belonging to Funitsu. He said he had an answer to the question that Funitsu had sent a few days ago. We were all quite startled at the speed at which his request had been answered--we hadn't expected an answer for at least another week, perhaps two.
We ushered the messenger on board Shrike and listened to what he had to say.
The main line of the Scorpion clan, the family that later became the Bayushi, Shosori, and Soshi families, is about two millennia old, and the Black Hand is almost that old. The Black Hand, originally, was almost entirely made up of kitsune.
In order to make the kitsune willing to serve as assassins, the Scorpion wu jen changed them all, suppressing their consciences, turning them into something which could probably be correctly termed sociopaths.
This worked well for about a century, but then the Scorpion learned a bloody lesson: that without conscience, there can be no loyalty. The kitsune decided that it was more fun to kill their masters than strangers, and made quite the dent in the Scorpion bloodline before they were driven off. After that, a contract was taken out on all kitsune, to be hunted down and killed whenever possible.
About five centuries ago, a man named Takumi Yamashita took on that contract. And he has been most successful in ridding the world of kitsune. The Scorpion still pays him a yearly stipend, even though the man is now Ruling Lord of the Phoenix. Funitsu looked most disconcerted to find that his clan has been paying your father a yearly stipend to continue his war on the immortals. He muttered something about the money itself probably being reasonably insignificant, to both the Scorpion and the Phoenix, but it was the principle of the thing...
Reiko glared at Funitsu and walked out without saying another word. I believe she's taking this a little too personally.
We recovered ourselves, reconvened, and headed towards Nibori's house. After Panda and Nibori greeted each other privately (as it hadn't been safe to send him a message telling him that Panda is pregnant with his child, plus, from the look of things, they missed each other quite a bit) we settled on cushions in a large room, talking amongst ourselves.
Nibori said that since so many generals had been either going missing or uncontrolled lately, all of the rest had become very secretive. There was very little useful information he had for us, other than the fact that Usagi, the former Dragon ambassador to the Scorpion (who had disappeared when Funitsu was made Lord Soshi) has returned to Miyako, where she is gathering together money, for some reason. Nibori had no idea if she was raiding the Dragon coffers, but suggested we may wish to find out.
The other piece of information he had was about another of our enemies, Minako, and the project she is in charge of. The Windtraveller project is a scheme to convert the race of gryphons to their side. Knowing that the gryphons would never submit willingly, they were magically combining gryphons with nezumi, the rat people.
All of us looked a bit ill at this point. Gryphon began to growl, softly.
Nibori threw a slightly nervous glance at him, but continued. The combination has made the gryphon/nezumi crosses able to remember where Skyhome is, which means that they are some of the most dangerous creatures in the world right now. There are only two, so far, but there will be many more soon.
Minako is about four days inland by foot and two by horse. It was agreed without much discussion that we would go take care of this, somehow. We asked Nibori if he wanted to travel with us, and he nodded. His eyes were on Panda as he said, "I'm already packed."
The person who had brought Nibori the Windtraveller information was staying in his house, and he said we may want to talk to her at least, and probably take her along. "Be careful of her, though. She has a very...persuasive...voice."
We agreed to take her aboard the Benevolent, just to be on the safe side. The librarian left, presumably on an errand of his own.
The woman had a very strange--gaijin?--name, Kalidia. How they ever manage to pronounce these things, I have no idea! She was very beautiful, and her voice was indeed one of the most melodic ones I've ever heard. Panda said, quietly, "She is definitely a magic-user of some sort, and she had quite a bit of innate magic. Be careful."
We sat in conversation for a while, and it transpired that her father had been a sailor for the Crane, a low-level one, and had been the only survivor of a shipwreck on an island off the eastern coast. Her mother had claimed to also have been shipwrecked, but kept Kalidia on the island with her until she was twelve, at which time she brought her to the mainland and gave her to Minako.
Until a year ago, Minako had been a perfectly pleasant person. However, lately, she had become impossible to live with, and thus Kalidia had left her home and come here, in search of someone who could help. She had been disgusted by the combining of gryphons and nezumi, and sought help with stopping that. She had found Nibori, and discovered that the magic within him was different than what had possessed her stepmother. When he had said that there were people on the way who could help, she had decided to stay, and wait for us to come.
We asked her how they were combining the gryphons and nezumi, and she said, "There are two masks, one shaped like a gryphon's face and the other shaped like a human's face. When the masks are put on both, the body of the one who wears the human mask becomes part of the gryphon. Minako tried it with humans, but the gryphon's personality was always fighting with the human's, and they both went mad and had to be killed. The ratpeople subsume the gryphon's personality underneath their own, for some reason. It is a perversion of the natural order. That's why I've come to ask for help. I can't stop this on my own, and it must be stopped."
Haku asked, in a blunt voice (that I believe he only gets away with because he's a Ruling Lord; that tone would be unforgivably rude in anyone of lesser station!), "Are you human, Kalidia?"
Her laugh was like sun sparkling on the sea, and I forgot to breathe. For a moment, I felt as if I would die to hear her laugh again. Then reality reasserted itself, and I looked at her with deeper suspicion than I had before. "No, I am not. I am a...changeling, is the best term. My mother, I believe, was a siren, though she never said so. I have her voice, and my voice will gain us entrance to Minako's laboratory. If you try to go in without me with you, you will die before you ever reach her."
"The laboratory is four days inland, you said?"
"It is, on foot. We should go soon. She had only made two before I'd left, but there were more she was working on. There is another like me who we will find there, but she is...wrong. Twisted. She likes to hurt and torture things, and she wholly approves of what Minako is doing."
Gryphon, at this point, demanded we go to Skyhome and warn his grandfather. We decided to do that first and then travel overland tomorrow.
We traveled through the mirror to Skyhome, and we spoke with Gryphon's grandfather. (It was lovely to see you, however briefly--I'm glad to see you're well, and the pregnancy is progressing well.) Two gryphons had returned recently, one who was acting normally, the other who was acting suspiciously. We spoke to the normal one first, who said she'd found Skyhome entirely by accident--she'd been flying high one day, and smacked right into it.
The other had been caged by the other gryphons, and it was decidedly not well.
The altered gryphon threw itself against the bars of its cage, shrieking what were probably insults in its screeching language. Gryphon taunted it, evidently trying to get it to change to nezumi form. Reiko tried to convince him that it was not polite to taunt people in cages, which is a lesson the Gryphon ignored. We stood and discussed what to do with it--Gryphon's grandfather said that they were about to kill it, and it was a shame, too.
Reiko touched Gryphon on the wing. "Uh, Kittycat? I think I might be able to fix him."
The kitsune thought she could pull the rat's spirit from the gryphon's body. She said, "There's a small chance I'll get stuck with the rat's spirit, but he's a stranger, so it's relatively safe." She said she needed to touch the gryphon, preferably without it taking her arm off, and a few of the other gryphons volunteered to hold the ill one down for her.
They did, and Reiko laid a hand on its neck briefly, concentrated, and then pulled something away from the body of the gryphon. the thing she pulled away was only briefly visible, looking like just a shred of silver cloth, and as she stepped away the gryphon's chest opened, and a rat's bloody body fell out, quite dead.
The kitsune's hand relaxed, and the invisible thing she was holding was apparently not there any more. She murmured, "Hope your next life's better than this one, ratling."
The gryphon was dazed but feeling much better, released from the other gryphons' grasp, rising, and shaking its great beaked head. The kitsune stepped back to stand by Panda.
Tonight, we sleep on the ship, and tomorrow we head inland on our horses, to try and stop any more of these unnatural things from being created.
Much affection,
Tomika
8/20/1583
somewhere inland from Akita
Uneventful journeying from Akita, with two nights spent in the great outdoors. (The great outdoors has spiders in it. I am not so certain that I like it very much, but I have to admit that it has a certain charm. However, my saddle sores tell me that I may not be quite suited yet to it.)
Tadaki came down with a terrible head cold right before we left, so we had him stay with the ships. We brought Jeron with us, the Warresh, Kalidia, and, of course, Nibori.
Panda's puppy has decided that it really likes traveling on foot. It was constantly running off into the undergrowth and finding nasty things to roll in. Panda only shrugged and said it was acting according to its nature, and made a point of tossing it in every stream we crossed.
About noon today, we arrived at the laboratory of Minako.
The entrance was two triangles made up of stone posts; we gathered inside one of them and Kalidia turned them so they matched. And suddenly, we dropped down and sideways, into the side of the mountain we were standing on.
Kalidia's voice surrounded us, and we came to a sudden stop, seeming to almost bounce off of a membrane of some sort, invisible to the eye but taut and warm to the touch. Beyond that invisible membrane created by the siren's voice, cruel spikes of steel were embedded in the wall. The fate of those who came in without a siren escorting them was suddenly all too clear.
Nibori scouted down the hallway and came back with the news that in the lab, there were some people moving. Haku scouted as well with his inner sight, and told us how many being were in side and where they were located. Funitsu and I walked down the hallway in the lead, together; we opened the door and fired, as one, lightning bolts into the room.
That, dear Yukiko, was what I call fun.
We waded into the room, killing ratlings right and left as they poured out towards us. All of our warriors acquitted themselves quite well, cutting through nezumi with ease. Haku executed a most splendid leap, landing right beside Minako herself.
Minako was standing next to a bound gryphon with a mask on its face. And Minako was holding another mask--this one of a human face.
Too late, Panda shouted warning. Minako slapped the mask on Haku's face, and he disappeared, the mask falling empty to the floor.
And the gryphon screamed.
Tearing itself free of its bonds, the gryphon, now maskless, pounced on Minako. We had agreed that if it was possible to turn her rather than kill her, we could, but the gryphon that was now Haku had no way to turn her, with no hands and no vials of the true source. Instead, he held her with clawed hands, screaming.
Reiko darted through the fray, ignoring nezumi who struck out at her. She was buffeted by one of Haku's wings, and then ducked underneath, pouring the contents of a small vial down Minako's throat.
The small woman shuddered, and her eyes fluttered closed.
And the song of the other siren changeling, who we had not seen until now, rang through the room.
Fortunately, we all resisted her attempt to compel us--to do what, I wonder?-- and, soon enough, Haku had pounced on her and reduced her to being unconscious and bleeding on the floor.
In the wake of the battle, silence fell.
We quickly introduced ourselves to Minako. She seemed somewhat confused and horrified by what she had been doing, and readily agreed to help us set it right. Gryphon was evidently teaching Haku some of the finer points of being a gryphon (Haku tried to mantle and ended up merely fluffing out his tail), but when asked, Haku indicated that, yes, he would indeed like to be a human again. She used the mask to undo the spell on him and the other five gryphons that had been combined with nezumi.
Gryphon went briefly back to Skyhome to tell the other gryphons that there was one altered gryphon left, as well as to pass on my letters to you.
Reiko asked what we should do with the siren we'd critically injured, and Minako sighed. "Let her pass. Much as I hate to say it, she endangers me, now." The small woman looked unhappy about this, but there was nothing we could do, so we let the changeling die, quietly.
Minako seems to be a good sort, and we'll be camping more of less on her doorstep tonight, as she doesn't have room for our entire retinue inside. The weather has been fine and clear, so camping outside is less of a hardship than it might sound.
Tomorrow, we'll set out again for Akita and our ships. My bones are aching at the thought of another two days of riding, but I'm sure I'll manage. I think I need to ride more; evidently, you get used to it the more you ride. I'll never be a Unicorn Battle Maiden, but perhaps I could ride for a day without being so stiff I want to die at the end of it.
My thoughts are with you, Lady.
Much affection,
Tomika
8/22/1583
Akita
Outwardly, the trip back was uneventful.
However, Reiko appears to be giving the silent treatment to both my husband and Jeron, Nibori and Panda are being shockingly sweet for a pair of samurai, Funitsu and Haku are both brooding on things of their own, and the only ones who did not seem strange were the Warresh, the librarian, and Gryphon.
The kitsune has definitely taken the Scorpion involvement in the deaths of her people personally. I'm not certain why she isn't speaking to Jeron, but if I had to guess, he was the one who told her there was a secret to be uncovered in the first place--which meant that he knew and did not (could not, would not) tell her.
Ad I overheard the oddest thing tonight. A group of sailors on the Benevolent were drinking on deck, passing a jar of what was probably sake around between themselves. They, being sailors, are prone to coarse speech. One of them commented that while it was nice to have a second fox around, the first wasn't any fun any more. Evidently, Reiko has stopped sleeping with the sailors, for some reason.
It's not so much that this worries me as I just begin to wonder why she has changed her habits. Won't she starve to death, without regularly feeding off of people? And so...who is she feeding on now? The Thrykreen? That's going to be difficult, if she's not speaking to him.
We still haven't decided where we're going next. Perhaps to Dragon territory, to find out what Usagi is doing. Perhaps to Tokyo, to try to find Funitsu's sister ad figure out why she has become what she has. Perhaps we should head into Lion territory, to find out how they're doing.
Sometimes I think I could flee west and lose myself in the barbarian countries. But other times I wonder if this isn't where I'm meant to be, at least for the moment.
We abide.
And keep fighting.
Much affection,
Tomika
Quotes:
"Well, sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
--Ray
"He's a barbarian, hiding in shadows. Grrrr."
--Laura.
"A good flannel-toting lesbian as in as much trouble as any male."
"Flannel kimonos?"
"Bisexuals beware!"
--Storm, Derek, and Laura
"Has anyone ever told you that it's not polite to taunt people in cages?"
"...no."
"It's not polite."
"So? They're in cages!"
--Reiko and Gryphon
"Funitsu: still the prettiest!"
--Kris
"Tadaki has a horrible head cold. He flew through a monsoon. He's home in bed."
"He has thrush."
"GAAAAAAAAH."
--Laura and Ray
"Is it useful to have Taura with us?"
"No, she'll just get killed."
"Well, she might come in handy if we have to stay the night."
"Now I know what she's been up to nights..."
--Kris, Laura, Ray