From Lady Yukiko's Journal
7/1/1583
Sapporo
late evening
I walked into the library where I'd heard raised voices coming from into the most extraordinary scene. My father was at one end of the room, Reiko at the other, the rest of my retinue in the middle. My father and the shaman weren't *quite* glaring at each other, but had the shaman been in her fox form I am certain her ears would have been pinned back to her head. The anger in the room as electric, the small hairs on the back of my neck stood up, prickling.
Funitsu glanced from one to the other. "Are you going to play nice, or are we going to have some unpleasantness here?"
My father growled, "I have been told by my daughter that the kitsune is valuable to her. I will not kill her--today."
"And because he's Yukiko's father, I won't try to kill him. Today, at least. But you and I have had an appointment for six centuries, Demonbane. I fully intend on keeping it."
I broke in. "Demonbane? Six centuries? Could somebody please explain to me what is going on here?"
"I was explaining why Emi had wanted me under control, but I need to go get someone to show you something. I will be back in five minutes." My father strode from the room, leaving silence in his wake.
I rounded on the kitsune. "Reiko. What, exactly, is your problem?"
"Remember those dreams I've been waking from screaming? Your father plays a starring role, Yukiko. I'll let him explain to you, though. It should be...interesting." She would say no more until my father came back, a very handsome young man in tow.
"I am, among other things, a necromancer. About six centuries ago, my son was killed by a kitsune. He was meant to either die in battle or commit seppuku, not be drained to death by an immortal. And so I created these warriors, to hunt down and kill all immortals. But especially kitsune. Before Setto died, I hunted demons that were plaguing humans. Afterwards, I knew that all immortals needed to die."
My mind was reeling already. My father, a necromancer? I thought he was a warlord. And six centuries old... I heard the shaman who was standing next to me take in a hissing breath, and as I glanced at her she sidled over a bit so she was standing behind Panda and Gryphon. I didn't blame her, honestly.
My father continued. "These warriors are designed, in particular, to kill kitsune. Warrior. Reveal yourself." The handsome young man standing beside my father shook his head and....unfolded.
Seven feet of gleaming carapace and scythe-like front legs stood before us. It looked nothing so much like a very mantis--if mantises were that tall and their front legs were edged in metal. The warrior stood and looked at us, surveying the room with faceted eyes.
"I call them Thrykeen warriors. Their human form is beguiling, and draws kitsune to them like moths to a flame. And when the kitsune attempts to feed, they get a very unpleasant surprise. I have about six thousand of these warriors, waiting to be woken. That is why Emi needed me under control--Arenro would have found an instant, completely controllable army quite useful."
"How successful have they been in killing kitsune?" Funitsu wanted to know.
"I would estimate that there are perhaps a few dozen kitsune left in the world."
Reiko, her voice quiet but deadly. "And we breed very, very slowly. Even if you stopped killing us today, it would be millennia before we could rebuild our number."
"When I am done, there will be no more kitsune living. And when the last kitsune dies, I will finally be able to rest."
Panda spoke into the silence. "And you're not immortal yourself? You are, after all, six hundred years old."
"I will die someday. But not until my work is done and my son is avenged."
Reiko stepped out from behind Panda, gave a cool glance to the mantid standing next to my father, and said, "Setto chose his death. He asked me to be his instrument of seppuku. He had to do some very fast talking to get me to agree, and being the instrument of his death nearly destroyed me."
He looked at her, his eyes holding an expression I've seen only once from him--when he discovered that one of his samurai had betrayed him. "Kitsune are liars, every one of them. I would believe that only if I heard it from the mouth of my son."
Her eyes narrowed. "This may be able to be arranged."
The librarian broke in at this point, saying, "Wait. This person wants to kill Reiko. Why are we not killing him again? Isn't he evil?"
Panda said, "Because he's the Lady's father. He is our ally, archivist. His enmity with the kitsune seems to be personal, and they've agreed to call a truce for the moment."
And the shaman remarked, "And evil is in the eye of the beholder. I am reasonably certian that the hatred on both sides is fairly earned--though genocide seems to be an overreaction, really."
I was amused at the librarian, though smoothing his outburst over took a bit of doing. Protective of our little kitsune much?
It turned out that a couple of hours before, two ships, heavily loaded with Thrykeen warriors, had departed for the south, presumably to Arenro. My father asked, "You have a wu jen among you, correct?" We indicated Tadaki. He handed Tadaki a crystal that would allow him to control the Thrykeen that were on the ship.
A few more arrangements, like deciding to take Karasuko and a midwife along with us (Karasuko more as company for me, I believe; the midwife because my time is approaching in about two months), and we were off chasing the ship to the south. My father gave us a dozen of the Thrykeen, under Tadaki's control. He saw how they were looking at the kitsune, and said, "All of you, stay three feet--wait. How long are your swords?"
The Thrykeen replied in a dry voice, "Four and a half feet."
"Stay at least seven feet away from the kitsune at all times. You are not to harm her."
It was nearly dusk by the time we caught up with the ships--both flying the Scorpion flag, oddly enough. Tadaki changed and flew over to the two ships. He came back and said, "The vessel on the left is actually a war ship; the one on the right is actually a merchant vessel, and is carrying all of the Thrykeen warriors. Someone was trying to wake them, and I took control, told them to wake, and kill everyone on the ship. That should take care of our problem, pretty much."
Evidently, the warship had figured out that something was wrong. As we sailed around them, giving them a wide berth (and doing the nautical version of whistling innocently while walking through a bad neighborhood), they opened fire on the merchant vessel, sinking it quickly. We picked up a wounded Thrykeen from this ship, and it was revealed that the Thrykeen had indeed killed everyone on board, except for the person in the iron chamber, which they had not been able to breach.
We sailed out to sea for the night. We'll return in the morning.
7/2/1583
This morning, we sailed back to where the merchant vessel had sunk. The warship had departed, and we found the place where the ship had gone down. Much engineering happened, and we finally managed to drag what looked like a very large iron box to shore. There was a Scorpion symbol on it, and below that was a slot for a key. Funitsu pressed his signet ring into the slot and the box slid open.
Inside was an orb that looked much like Tadaki's, and a monk. We asked him who he was, and he wrote on the wall, "I will answer one question from each of you, absolutely truthfully. Be careful what you ask."
Funitsu asked what the orb was, and the monk replied, aloud, that it was meant to contain the spirit that belongs to Akechi, much like we have in our possession the orb that collects Hideyoshi's spirits.
Reiko asked what he was doing in the box. The monk told us that the Scorpions were very, very wary of him, and were transporting him away from Hideyoshi and Arenro, fearing that he would fall into their hands.
Gryphon asked how to get to Skyhome (I recalled that was where he was from, and he didn't know how to get back). The answer was that there are three pieces of the key, one of which we already have. The other two pieces are located in Tokyo and the catacombs beneath Nagasaki--and we would find the lock that the key fits in Nagasaki.
I was mulling over my question, and instead of any one of the number of other questions I had, I elected to ask what the three spirits that had caused all this trouble.
The answer was...surprising. I will set down the story as best I remember him telling it.
The story comes down from the past, so many generations gone now, that its time is lost to us. But it begins like this:
The Gods were born and drawn from their image they created the first shining ones, the first Japanese. The gods waited and watched as their images grew and came to understand how to create children. They watched them practice and watched them succeed. The first woman was with child, but not one but three children. They watched as her stomach grew and they watched as she gave birth to the first one in the dark of the night, the next was born in the time between, night and day and the last was born full into the light. They watched as the three brothers grew and they watched as they grew into men. The gods were impatient and they created more people, but they watched the first ones with greater care.
Their names are lost now in the mists of time, so we shall call them as they were born, child of the dark(Kurada Riku), child of the twilight (Matsuo Riku) and child of the sun (Ishimaru Riku). Like all brothers they fought, but Kurada took things too far. One day while watching Ishimaru and Ishimaru's wife, he grew covetous of the wife. Kurada made some advances and was rejected. His hatred grew of his lucky Sun Brother and in the dark of the night when Kurada ruled, he killed his brother's pregnant wife. Ishimaru's rage was great and he lashed out at his brothers, not knowing which had betrayed him. He killed both Matsuo and Kurada's wives and children.
The gods saw them fighting and took each of them up to the heavens, where they took a single drop of blood from each and dripped them onto the earth. Where the drops landed, the 3 islands of Japan formed. Each brother was assigned an island, Kurada the north island, where it was cold and sun never shined much. Matsuo the larger island in the middle was to be a buffer between the two more headstrong brothers, and Ishimaru was given the south and sunniest. They created water between them and let their anger cool over the centuries. The gods watched as they remarried and watched as they had children, but they had neglected one thing--the children grew up and had children and they had children and on and on it went, never growing old and never dying. They decided that all things must die to make way for new growth, so they instilled in the others the ability to grow old and die. And die they did, but the brothers as they grew older, the land started to act strangely. Created from the blood of the brothers who were now dying, the land was dying with them. In the end the gods had to make them immortal again so the land of Japan would never die.
In time, men learned to sail and upon seeing other men in their lands who were strangers to them, they learned to make war. The three brothers learned again of each others existence and they warred upon each other. The anger had never went away, it had just smoldered until they saw each other again. Japan's waters ran red with blood.
The gods could no longer abide these wars and decided to let them fight it out, whoever lived, their island would stand and the rest would fall. Fate sometimes lends a hand to things, the three brothers met in battle. They killed each other at the same time. There would be no Japan if they all died and so the gods decided that they would live, but not in the way that they were before. They took the bodies of their first children and burned them and then divided the ashes into 75 urns, 25 for each body. Thinking that it would be just that if all the lands were to live in peace a portion of each body was buried on each island. So 25 urns were buried on each of the three islands, eight urns of the brothers whose island it wasn't and nine for the one that it was. Each urn was identical to the other, so there was no way to tell whose urn was whose.
Time passed and the gods forgot, but man had grown and some of the urns had been found. Some were worshipped, others were lost in people's piles of things, and others still buried and forgotten. Emperor Yoshikuni took interest in the urns and for the rest of his life and the lives of 4 of his generations, collected the urns.
So it was that Yoshikuni the Fifth found himself in possession of 75 urns. Now that you had them what do you do with them? He brought together the greatest minds of the times and sought the source of their powers. They yielded no secrets to him but one, that they were the spirits of another age. He crafted with others three orbs of power to be able to communicate with the spirits of the urns, but cut into so many pieces the spirits were unable to talk coherently. He opened the urns and trapped each spirit piece into an orb. Soon they were able to talk again and the anger arose again and each tried to influence Yoshikuni into absorbing the spirits of the dead into him. Yoshikuni was a smart man and had listened to them talk over the months of the hatred they had for each other and how if one of them truly died, part of Japan would die with it. Yoshikuni locked them away in the imperial vaults for all eternity, its secrets only passed on to the emperors of Japan.
After that tale, we sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to absorb that information. Haku finally asked where some scrolls from his home village were, and he said that the Dragon clan had them somewhere.
The librarian asked an odd question. "What are the things I don't want to know?" The monk whispered in his ear for a few minutes, leaving the librarian pale and shaken.
We decided not to ask any more questions, and the monk will be traveling with us for a while.
Off south; Funitsu has some more or less urgent business with his clan, and we're going along for the ride. The Scorpion is looking quite worried these days. He's not asking for help, though, and until he asks I can't really offer.
We're going to sail down the western coast and stop by Akita on the way so Panda can see Nibori again. She seems quite excited (in her usual understated way) by this. Perhaps, indeed, she's found out how much fun certain things can be. I'm glad Nibori seems to be working out in that way--I didn't know what sort of man he would turn out to be, but if he can handle Panda, he very likely has much to recommend him.
7/3/1583
at sea
I tracked down the shaman. She was easy to find on account of four of our remaining six Thrykreen warriors were alternately pacing exactly seven feet in front of her and sitting in front of her, staring. Reiko was sitting cross-legged on a crate, looking as if she were trying to meditate and failing.
She opened her eyes as I approached. "Afternoon, Lady. What can I do for you?"
I looked at the warriors. "I was hoping to talk to you privately. But..."
Reiko rolled her eyes. "Every time they finish with a task and Tadaki hasn't told them what to do, they come bother me. It's very, very unnerving. And, I might add, irritating."
"One moment, I think I saw Tadaki on deck a couple of minutes ago..." I headed to the back of the ship where I found Tadaki sitting and watching our wake. "Wu jen? Could you please tell the mantises to do something other than bother Reiko for a few minutes? I'd like to have a word with her in private, and, well..."
The Sparrow raised an eyebrow. "Are they at it again? I'll think of something that will keep them at this end of the ship for a while."
"Why don't you tell them to stay farther away from her? I can imagine what it would be like to be stared at all day long by people who, if they weren't under command, would kill you very, very dead."
He shrugged. "It's not that big of a ship. Besides, it's good to feel hunted sometimes. Builds character. I should know. Foxes eat sparrows, you know."
Sometimes, certain members of my retinue make little sense to me. "If she goes mad from this, I am holding you responsible."
"How would you tell? She's already crazy."
"Just call them off for an hour or so, all right?"
I went back to Reiko, the Thrykeen coming past me single-file. Their beauty is disturbing, when you know what lies just beneath.
The shaman had loosed her hair from its habitual bindings, and was combing her fingers through it, letting the wind play with the strands. I eased myself up beside her, trying to settle myself comfortably and only managing to find a position that was slightly less uncomfortable than the others. She glanced over at me, and said, "Thank you. I know they can't hurt me, but being stared at like I'd be something good to eat is going to drive me batty." She grimaced. "Of course, according to everyone, I'm already nuts so there's not a lot of difference there."
I looked at the little shaman, her face half-hidden by her hair. "All right, Reiko. I know there's bad blood between you and my father, and I know you haven't told us the whole story. Something's waking you screaming at night, and it's connected to him. I need to know what it is."
She turned towards me, settling herself nearly facing me. "It is not a pleasant story, Lady, and it...reflects badly on almost everyone involved. Including your father."
"I imagined it would. I just found out that he's a centuries-old necromancer as well as the warlord I've always thought of him as; I'm braced for anything at this point."
She nodded. "All right. It doesn't reflect well on me, either, just in case you were wondering." She took a breath, seeming to wonder where to begin.
"I am nogitsune, Lady. A Wild or Void kitsune. My Celestial kin are--well, were, since I don't know if any still live--bound to Inari and serve as temple guardians, but we Void kitsune are bound by no law and no vows. A bit over six centuries ago, before I fell in love with and later married Setto, I was spending some time near Akita--playing pranks, tumbling most of the village lads and not an insignificant portion of the girls. The usual kitsune games. I was a three-tail then, and a hunter came upon me as I slept deeply one afternoon and captured me. He was carrying a cage meant to contain demons and shapechangers, and since I am counted as both, I was well and truly stuck.
"I'd have managed to work my way free eventually, but I was brought back to Akita, where I'd never been before, and they called a man whose name I'm sure will be familiar to you. Takumi Yamashita. I knew him then as the Demonbane; his fame was spread far and wide in those days, since he had made a career out of capturing, binding, and killing demons. We felt about him much as you would someone who, for no apparent reason, was killing humans in a deliberate and often quite brutal manner. He was a menace, a terrifying one, and he'd declared a war on us we wanted no part of."
She paused, reflecting. "All right, the kitsune wanted no part of it. The gaki were quite happy about it, actually. Anyway. So the Demonbane comes to see me, forces me to change to my human form, and then binds me. He bound my powers, my ability to shapechange, and my ability to feed. And then he told them that in two months without feeding I would starve to death, and gave me to the village."
She had pulled both knees to her chest, seeming to want to make herself as small as possible. I asked, gently as I could, "What happened?"
Her voice was bitter. "I was bound, in the form you see me in now, and helpless, and the Demonbane told them I was not human and not a thinking being. I was...used." She choked; I waited for her to continue. When she did, her voice held a vast anger. "They kept me, and starved me, and raped me over and over again, Lady. I have an appreciation for the atrocities humans can think up when they have in their possession a being that looks female but that they believe is not sentient. Fifty days passed, and I was nearing death, when a choice of sorts was presented to me."
She had been looking out over the ocean as she spoke, and now looked at me. "This is the part that does not reflect well on me, Lady. I was not, then, the person I am now. I am shamed by little of my life, what I remember, but this is an exception to that. There was a visitor in from Kyoto who wished to see me--and, I assume, make use of me. They sent in the daughter of the headman to wash and clothe me in preparation. She was an untrained shugenja with the Water element, and she unknowingly washed away the sigils on my skin that bound me.
"I was free. And I was starving; the pain in my bones and muscles had nearly crippled me. The girl was an innocent, and young--perhaps thirteen or fourteen. I spent nearly the last of my own life to enthrall her, and then drained her to death."
Her hand was raised to her throat, her fingers caressing a pendant I hadn't noticed the shaman wearing before. It was a topaz in a plain setting, the yellow of the topaz nearly matching the kitsune's amber eyes. "Her name was Mei. Before I killed her, I learned that she was a very bright young woman, smarter than most of her age-mates in the village, and she intended to become the leader of Akita after her father. Autumn was her favorite season, and she had a tree behind her house that she would climb and dream away summer afternoons. I got to know her, magically seduced her, and then killed her to save myself.
"I went a little bit mad after that. After Mei, I drained dry the next three men I met. With that power, I took control of the minds of the ten best warriors in the village, and with their help butchered every adult in Akita. Innocent or guilty, I hated them all. The worst ones I had my warriors hold down while I opened their bellies for them. Wounds like that take a long time to kill people, and they die screaming." She recounted the story mercilessly, not bothering to try and justify her actions. I could hear, in her voice, still that deep anger, tinged with self-loathing. "And when I was done, when those I'd ridden had killed each other, I set the village on fire and walked away."
The shaman was looking out over the ocean now, her eyes distant. "The Demonbane knew exactly what would happen to me when he bound and left me there. He wasn't expecting me to survive the experience. I swore I would kill him, but he was as difficult to catch as a ghost, and my memory of what he looked like was somehow distorted. When I began dreaming of Akita again, my one consolation was that time had done its work and the Demonbane was dust for five centuries. Imagine my shock when I finally remembered his face--and he was your father. And Setto's father, as well. I cannot even attempt to kill him, and doing so would be certain death for me anyway, since I am not the kitsune I once was. And so, here I am. Yamashita's creatures watch my every move, he has decimated my kind, and he blames me for Setto's death--which I was responsible for indeed, but I was only doing as my husband asked."
Emotions warred in me as I listened to the fox speak. If she was telling the truth--and I have no reason to believe she was not, and the enmity between my father and her was real enough--then my father is not the man I thought he was. I felt protective of him, but also felt angry on behalf of the little shaman, who had been forced to such terrible things that I never wanted to know existed, much less know had been done to--and by--a member of my retinue.
I remembered something that my father had said. "He said that if he can talk to Setto and settle things with him, then he will no longer hunt your kind. He's one of your spirits, isn't he? Couldn't you arrange that?"
She shook her head slowly. "We would have to bring him back to life, I think. We know it can be done, now, since Lin did it. But...I don't know."
"Wouldn't you want to have your husband back with you? You've said before that you love him."
She gave me a small, tentative smile. "It would be nothing but wonderful to have him back with me. But losing him once nearly killed me, even though I had his shade with me. I do not know if I could willingly embrace that pain again. I can't count on catching his spirit, when he dies the second time around. And now...I am not the woman he married. I am much changed, and it's been five centuries, even if I don't remember most of them. It was a different age entirely when we were married. One wonders if there would be room for him in my life, or room for me in his. Or even if we would love each other as we did half a millenium ago."
"What does Setto have to say about it? Isn't he listening right now?"
"He hates the story of what happened in Akita, even if it was the event that made me develop enough of a conscience to be able to fall in love with someone as honorable as he is. He's been out of earshot since I started telling the tale; he, ah, prefers to not hear it again. But, to answer your first question, he's not being helpful. He just shrugs and says that it's my decision." She shifted, pulling her hair over one shoulder. "If I did not know that my spirits can be stripped from me, I wouldn't even consider it, but as it stands, I may lose him either way. I just don't know. The farther I get along this journey, the more I wonder if I'm up to it. The more I remember what I used to be, the more I despair of what I have become and my ability to protect my family." She started, blinking, as she remembered who I am. "I am sorry, Lady. My tongue ran away with me. I'm sure you didn't need to hear all of that."
I smiled at her. "It was most enlightening, Reiko. I confess to not knowing you well; you were more Akechi's confidante than mine. But I have to say that you seem much saner in the past few days than you have for a long time."
Her voice was soft. "Worry about that, Yukiko. Remember the story I just told you. Remember that I am nogistune. And think about this: if I am no longer kept bound and confused by my spirits, what will I become?" The immortal that I had seen flicker in her eyes before was there again, this time stronger. "I will do what I have to to survive, and ensure the survival of my family. Fortunately, Lady, that includes you. And now, I think I'm going to take advantage of the absence of our little mantid friends to go do some serious meditation. It's very difficult to calm one's mind when you're being stared at by very, very attractive death."
She scooted to the edge of the crate and jumped off, landing soundlessly on the boards of the deck. She walked with that feral grace of hers towards the bow of the ship, leaving me to my thoughts.
The kitsune, as time goes on, is becoming a bit unnerving. And now I have to wonder, indeed, what she is going to become. I know Akechi's spirit is working within her, but whether it's going to be enough, I have no idea. Can a kitsune change its colors?
Perhaps. And perhaps not.
7/6/1583
Akita
The city's cleaned up a bit--Nibori has evidently reasserted control over the army and has been keeping the worst of the rabble off the streets. Panda's off for the evening, leaving Haku as my only bodyguard for the evening. When Nibori came to escort her away, he mentioned that there was a Unicorn samurai hanging out in town. Not doing anything, but we might want to speak with him anyway.
Well, what else were we going to do? Knowing that Unicorn is currently the only uncorrupted clan, we decided to go have a chat with this fellow.
Funitsu and the Unicorn sparred verbally together for a while. Storming Bear was the name he gave us, and he was a giant--over six feet tall, wearing hide armor, with a cloak that looked like it was made from a wolf of some sort on a chair next to him. He said he was there for battle, and he was hunting someone named General Jiro. The odds were very long that a lone warrior could overcome Jiro and his retinue, but he was sworn to try anyway. When asked why he was after Jiro, he said, "He was attempting to disrupt the leadership of my clan. I am assigned to disrupt his life in as fatal a manner as possible."
Quite bloodthirsty, these Unicorns. I rather liked him, really.
He then invited us to join him for the battle, and Funitsu misinterpreted him, thinking that he wanted to fight against us rather than with us. I couldn't correct him without causing Funitsu to lose face, so I had to listen helplessly as Funitsu backed down from what he thought was a pointless fight.
When we got back to the ship, I told Funitsu that Bear was trying to invite us to fight with him, and pointed out that it might be useful for the Unicorn to owe us a favor.
We're going to go back tomorrow morning and offer to join him in this battle, I believe.
The gryphon quite likes pickled eggs. I need to remember to pick some up as treats for him.
7/7/1583
Panda returned this morning with a half-grown dog in tow--a gift from Nibori, she said. We're becoming quite the menagerie these days--the fox, the sparrow, the gryphon, my cat, Panda's dog.
We went and talked to the Unicorn named Bear again, and agreed to join him in battle. We unloaded our horses (and hired some for the Thrykeen, who we brought with us) and rode off north to join battle. Bear had much useful information about the foe--Jiro had a retinue of six warriors and two Wang-Liangs, a kind of giant who could turn invisible when they wanted.
We caught up with Jiro and his retinue. Spying from a distance, we saw that they all looked a little battered, as if weary from battles. Evidently, crossing the Unicorn Clan isn't the best of ideas. Tomika agreed to guard me, Reiko turned Gryphon invisible, and we agreed to let Bear kill Jiro, send the Thrykeen against his human retinue, and we'd take on the Wang-Liang.
Once we could see one of the two giants, Reiko snapped out a word or two that froze it in place, and we made short work of it. The librarian hit the other, and it dealt him a great blow, enough to knock him unconscious. Reiko healed him, baring her teeth at the giant and then kneeling to kiss the worst of his wounds closed. Panda, Haku, and Funitsu closed with the last giant and after a brief but fierce battle it fell, the giant almost killing of Funitsu in the process.
When we looked up from that battle, all of the human retinue were dead, and Bear was delivering a last blow to Jiro. He fell to his knees, stunned, and the samurai took his head.
And again, a spirit rose from the corpse and flashed into Tadaki's orb. One more piece of Hideyoshi's spirit, safely contained.
Bear thanked us for our help and said that the Unicorn clan now owes us a favor. We took a few things off the various corpses, buried the bodies, and rode out to the coast to meet the ship, which Thomas had been sailing up to meet us.
We're sailing south this evening, and we'll be in [get city name] in another week or so, if the winds are kind.
I cannot help mulling over what my father is, now. So many years I have loved him--how do I integrate what I know now about him? It troubles me greatly, disturbing my sleep, and the thoughts I hear from the child within me are also somewhat disturbed. I can grow used to so many things--I am almost used to the fact that I have no idea what my child is going to be when he is born--but this? The father who I love, whose strength I've always counted on, is in the process of committing genocide on a race of immortals.
And yet--what indeed is the role of the kitsune in today's world? The world belongs to humans, now, not spirits and immortals.
I'll have to think more about this. And watch the shaman closely.
Quotes:
"Yak's blood! Yak's blood!"
"What are you on about?"
"It's a Winnie the Pooh song."
"I have led a sheltered life."
(Graham and Bryan)
"Don't confuse the gryphon. If you can't see it, you can't see it biting your ass."
(Tadaki, as I recall.)
"Is pooping on things an attack?"
(Gryphon)
"You're not a fighter, you're a damn mage!"
"He's got a wakizashi and he feels entitled to use it."
"His family isn't really known for its brightness, is it?"
(Tadaki and Haku, talking about Funitsu)