The Day of Thunder

(open and expecting)

One acquire habits along with years. A hot cup of tea, regardless of weather, is one of Tai's. Her herb pouch disgorges dark crumbly bits scraped from a tea cake that's still in the cupboard back home for Akihito. Maybe he's making a cup of his own just now. It's a bittersweet thought to share that across the distance, and the barrier keeping everyone here in the valley.

Spicy ginger and dank ginseng make it properly a medicinal brew. The acrid smell of smoke from the previous night's burning lingers on the fog, so she sticks her nose deep in the cup to inhale as she drinks.

With slow, heavy steps, Yoshitsune Ayako approached Tai's cookfire. Her eyes seemed duller this morning, her hair messily pulled back into a hasty ponytail.

"Excuse me, Auntie Tai," Ayako said in a weary voice. "May I join you?"

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 3:39 am

snip

The older woman looks up, grinning with her blackened teeth. "Course you can. Pull a cup of tea. You look like you were up all night...you help with burnin' that thing out there?" She lifts her cup toward the scene of last night's fighting.

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 3:42 am

The older woman looks up, grinning with her blackened teeth. "Course you can. Pull a cup of tea. You look like you were up all night...you help with burnin' that thing out there?" She lifts her cup toward the scene of last night's fighting.

"I didn't fight the wolves, but I managed to save some of the villagers whose houses were burning," Ayako said slowly. "Then I helped at the healers' hut for awhile."

"I did sleep ... just not very well," she added, shuddering a bit. "Bad dreams."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 3:46 am

"I didn't fight the wolves, but I managed to save some of the villagers whose houses were burning," Ayako said slowly. "Then I helped at the healers' hut for awhile."

"I did sleep ... just not very well," she added, shuddering a bit. "Bad dreams."

Tai scoops a mug of tea to pass her, looking into the younger Crab's weary eyes. "Not surprised. We've seen a lot these past years, and on the journey here that don't make for calm dreams. Did yours match the things you thought of at the ritual earlier in the day?"

"If you don't mind it, I'd like to ask the water kami to bless you you, hmm? It's a small help for the day." She sets her cup down beside one bare foot, then uses her stone knife to nick the back of her wrist. After dipping her finger in her own tea, she presses it to the welling blood, then reaches toward Ayako, to press the bloodied finger in the middle of her chest at heart height if allowed.

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D3 EM Rejuvenating Vapors | 5k3 ⇒ 27 (TN: 15) Refreshes the fatigue but does not replenish Void

Ayako breathed a sigh of relief as the blessing took hold. "Thanks, that helped a lot," she said, accepting the hot tea as well.

"The dreams were ... pretty awful," Ayako admitted. "They did match the things from the wicker doll ritual... only much, much worse." She shuddered again.

"Do you think the ritual had something to do with it?" she asked. "I remember people were saying yesterday that some people were being attacked in dreams, too."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 4:28 am

snip

Tai wobbles one hand as she leans down to pick up her cup with the other. "Maybe. Rituals like that aren't callin' a fortune or the kami to make anythin' happen. But they set everyone's mind on a thing. And that can set your dreams up a bit." She grimaces a bit. "Plus we learned yesterday that might be the dream realm is bleedin' into this one a bit here. And thoughts affect that place, so if you point everyone to thinkin' of somethin'...well..."

"Add in the stuff in the smoke at the first festival day. A little somethin' to keep you up makes sense these days in the afternoon when so many aren't sleepin' well. But blowin' it over everyone that late in the day? Lots of folks had trouble sleepin' How many nights of nightmares before this final battle the monk on the rock's talkin' about?"

She sips her tea, steam clouding her face in today's chill. "Whatever the dreams threw at you, know that it might smear some truth on to make you swallow it, but it's not the whole truth."

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 5:34 am

"Whatever the dreams threw at you, know that it might smear some truth on to make you swallow it, but it's not the whole truth."

Ayako wrung her hands at this. "It felt really real," she said. "I know it's not, but it felt that way. Maybe it's a kind of warning though - I'd do almost anything to avoid it happening for real." She gulped at her tea.

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 2:03 pm

snip

"Don't think too hard on what you'd do. I know that hell makes offers, have to imagine a corrupted land of literal dreams will too. And we're here tryin' to save the world. And we've already seen our dreams shaped toward thoughts we were directed to have, hmm?"

She looks out at the mist. "We're human. We do our best, and sometimes it's not enough." But now she wonders if their lost folks accepted some sort of bargains. Those arrows just in time, just where they were needed. Everything cleaned away like it had never been. Kidnapped by the realm, or co-opted. A shiver runs through to ripple the surface of the tea in her hand, and she gulps a bit herself to steady nerves after that realization. "That's how the world runs," she says firmly.

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 3:05 pm

She looks out at the mist. "We're human. We do our best, and sometimes it's not enough. ... That's how the world runs," she says firmly.

"I can't fail, though," Ayako said, sounding strained. She clutched her cup tightly, as if for reassurance. "I just can't. My family is counting on me. If my best effort isn't good enough ... well, then I need to do better."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 31, 2023 3:21 pm

snip

"Mmmhmmm..Everyone's families are countin' on us. The whole Empire of families." Tai swirls her cup, looking inside and recalling the many things she knows of sacrifice by now. "We're here because our ancestors sacrificed for us, and we'll do the same to make sure someone gets to keep making those choices, neh? But it's not just you. You've clanmates to share the load with, and we've got the other clans to carry on with. Blessin's of ancestors and the kami."

She thinks a long moment. "It's not the gods dropped to earth that were called here, it's us. There's somethin' we can do that they can't..or it's all a lie and none of it matters, right? So keep to who you are and what you do best. Don't let the tricks of the enemy make you doubt. Don't let wonderin' 'is this my best?' trip you up. And don't let anyone tell you that you need to be more than you already are...you were called here as you are." It's a sentiment as solid as the stone the woman may have sprung from, if some of the kids' jokes are true.

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:38 am

She thinks a long moment. "It's not the gods dropped to earth that were called here, it's us. There's somethin' we can do that they can't..or it's all a lie and none of it matters, right? So keep to who you are and what you do best. Don't let the tricks of the enemy make you doubt. Don't let wonderin' 'is this my best?' trip you up. And don't let anyone tell you that you need to be more than you already are...you were called here as you are." It's a sentiment as solid as the stone the woman may have sprung from, if some of the kids' jokes are true.

Ayako mulled this over for a moment, eventually saying, "I'll try, Auntie Tai. It's... difficult, though. I don't want to let people down."

She smiled wryly. "I'll try not to let it hang over me so much, though."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 01, 2023 1:50 pm

snip

Ayako mulled this over for a moment, eventually saying, "I'll try, Auntie Tai. It's... difficult, though. I don't want to let people down."

She smiled wryly. "I'll try not to let it hang over me so much, though."
[/quote]

"Good, good. Look at Anjing. You don't impress Hida by dithering' about whether you're tough enough to arm wrestle him, or might let folks down if you aren't. You just go challenge him to a fight...and keep gettin' up when he punches you repeatedly." She sips her tea. "As for these dreams...I'm a bit worried when we're seein' rituals that seem to fuel nightmares. Instead of focusin' on fear today, maybe focus on how you've already helped folks. You've steadied others just bein' at their backs cause you're solid. They trust you're there and watchin'" Maybe it would steer her dreams..maybe not. Didn't seem like it could hurt.

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 01, 2023 8:53 pm

Instead of focusin' on fear today, maybe focus on how you've already helped folks. You've steadied others just bein' at their backs cause you're solid. They trust you're there and watchin'"

"I did get a chance to help out a bit last night," Ayako recalled. "I didn't get to fight any of the monsters, but I was able to rescue one of the villagers who had gotten trapped in a collapsed house, and helped Enrou, the local healer, with a wounded samurai."

"Thinking about it, Enrou said something kind of odd, that I had been meaning to ask you about."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 1:53 am

snip

"All good. The villagers can certainly use the help. I don't think most of 'em expected to be stuck in the valley of fightin' for the whole world's destiny or somesuch. But you can always bring folks here too...or we're settin' up kind of a healer's area over in the Imperial's camp as a central spot folks can find." Tai doesn't say it as a reproof, just filling her fellow Crab in on some of the newish developments.

"But ask away. Haven't met this Enrou yet."

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 3:08 am

"But ask away. Haven't met this Enrou yet."

"Well, the samurai who was hurt bad in the wolf fight ended up losing an arm," Ayako said. "But Enrou seemed to think that the arm might grow back in a couple of days, because of healing from the special festival they're holding." She furrowed her brow at remembering this.

"I know I haven't seen a lot of summers, but I've never heard of anything like that happening," she said. "Is that something healers can do? Is it ... a kind of magic?"

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 3:37 am

snip

Tai looks up, startled. "What? That's not a thing that's done. Maybe with great sacrifice... Most anything can happen with a big enough offering, I guess. But you'd need something big enough to go beyond...normal things." Her expression grows troubled. "Though water's the element that heals, and it's not the one I'm strongest in. There's a young Haka about who might know more.

"Did they say what it was about the festival that would do this?"

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D3 EM: Spellcraft/Int. There's no elemental magic to replace a lost limb, right? VP for+1k1, TN unknown. 1 called raise. | 7k4 ⇒ 38

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 4:58 am

Snip

Nothing you know of.

Kaiu Tai wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 4:58 am

"Did they say what it was about the festival that would do this?"

"Something about the timing was important," Ayako recalled. "It could only happen once a year - at the festival itself, I suppose. I'm afraid I didn't really understand why."

"It seemed pretty odd to me, though, so I wanted to ask you about it."

Yoshitsune Ayako wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 02, 2023 1:51 pm

snip

"Very, very odd. Maybe not horrible creature in that valley odd, but enough to warrant talkin' to that healer." The older woman is obviously rather disturbed by the idea. "Just...to be thinkin' about. Well there's at least ways to ask the kami to change yourself entirely in to an animal. Out of my range, but there's stories at least. But not regrowin' limbs. In those tales, if you chop off a wolf's leg and it was actually someone who changed into a wolf...they'd still be missin' the leg when they were a human again."

"But dreams? Where this madness is from? Anythin' can happen there." She tosses back the rest of her tea. "Hmph...past time I warded the tents too. I'll get them set up after breakfast...scoot your tent toward it if you're farther out. It doesn't stop nightmares, but it'll phase a wolf with black blood."