The Day of Thunder

[Shiba Kumori]

-Year 30 Early Spring-

It had been a long winter… Longer than any she could remember. The north got cold fast… faster than she would have liked it to. She had to leave earlier than she would have wanted to avoid the snows. It would jeopardize what she wanted to do, but she had to do it anyway. Soon everyone in their right minds wouldn’t want to be out and about.

Travel on the river was simple enough. The boat carried her quickly down the river… away from safety and the comfort of her hosts; a trend in her young life. Always flowing, always running, never able to just wait and be still.

As she followed the course of the river, the locals seemed to make their own river… one heading in the opposite direction. She saw hundreds of people flocking away from the outer villages and slowly but surely merging towards the guarded towns of their clan’s leadership. She got sideways glances as a lone traveler going against the rising tide of refugees that washed over her path.

She was stuck for nearly a month in crossing the mountains. Snows clogged the passages and diverted her south. The Spine of the World some people called them… She named them the “Pain in the Butt Mountains” for now. Eventually, she made it through and, with a few days journey, found herself on the northern edge of the Shinomen. She’d met one of those Nezumi once that said the forest was their ancient home. That it was a place of near to the realm of dreams… That their people walked dreams far better than humans did.

What the hell have you all been up to the last few years.

The woods appeared ominous next to her, it was probably a good thing that no one had tried living inside of them yet. She’d seen other villages over the past few years that had more than enough of the influence of the dream world on them. She didn’t want to imagine what the nightmares would look like if it was amplified even two-fold.

Eventually, her ever-winding tributary path led her to a depression where the Shinomen Hokuji came into view. She gave it a good looking over as she approached. Those new ‘monks’ of the differing orders milled about… winter was ending and it was time for chores to start up again. She saw the Dragon banners around the residences of the artisans who were still working on finishing the temple complex. She had an uncle who was a Dragon… him and his whole family wore the green and yellow. She hoped internally that he wasn’t here now… It was always hard to talk to her family… and her uncle had a way of looking right through her.

She came to the main hall and took in a deep breath through her nostrils. The chill early spring air moistened by the forest dew filled her lungs as she stepped into the hall. She looked around for a bit, trying to find the right place. She found a mat and haphazardly plopped herself down on the ground for a bit of a rest. Her dreams told her to be here… she knew it was risky nowadays to listen to your dreams… but she wasn’t one to run and hide from any challenge internal or external that she felt she should confront.

After a few moments a man slowly emerged from the inner recesses of the temple. He came near the young woman and leaned on his staff.

“You should go home, little fox.” The man said with a kind but weak voice.

“That’s what everyone tells me…” She replied simply. “Do you want me to tell you what I tell everyone else?”

The man shook his head, “I think I can guess well enough.”

The young woman let out a frustrated stream of air through her nostrils after a few moments of silence.

She started, “Well… as long as I got you here… I think this whole plan is shit.”

The man simply sat with patient understanding.

She continued, “I don’t see why we would limit ourselves like this… Why put so much pressure on so few? And if they screw up, then everything goes to shit?”

She clinched her fists, “We should fight with everything we got, until we ain’t got anything left to fight with. It’s a damn risky gamble to make…”

She paused and looked at him, waiting for him to look back.

“It is dumb…”

The man simply nodded his head gently and replied, “It’s not something I get to determine, little fox… You’ll have to learn that for your own though. In the end… Destiny has no secrets.”

The woman sat and shook her head, “Well… Destiny can go jump in a lake.”

She stood up and walked towards the exit. A moment before leaving she turned and said, “A dude I know once told me that the worst enemy we face is the absence of hope…”

She paused and spoke with conviction, “I’m gonna make sure there’s plenty to hope for in the future… No matter what ‘Destiny’ befalls us. I’m not going to let everything go to waste…”

The man looked off somewhere behind the woman with a tired look on his face. “Blue Lotus Village…”

He paused for a pensive moment, “Be there… little fox.”