The Day of Thunder

[Otaku]

((My concentration and energy are pretty shot for D5, yay COVID, but I am trying not to miss any sleep events at least, so here goes.))

Otaku recites the brief chant to the land and weather spirits her mother taught her as a tiny child, as she always does. Then she rolls herself into her blankets and braces herself for what may be an uneasy night, also as always (at least lately). Her breathing slows and she slides into sleep.

Otaku finds herself sitting astride an incredibly powerful steed. It was tall and beautiful, one cross bred with the horses of the Moto. Some part of her mind remembered the name as being steppe nomads they had encountered in their journey. A young boy - her son with Ide, another offer from the back of her mind - sat in front of her in the saddled.

The steed stood steady at the top of a hill in a place where the air was drier than anything she had ever encountered, making her skin itch and her lips chap. Along with her was Shinjo, atop a similarly proportioned horse. It was just the two of them, the other daimyo back at camp or, like Ide, already down in the city that lay out below them.

The city in question was huge, with a large stepped pyramid on one end, surrounded by a wall with winged lions at each gate. The city was divided by canals built from a nearby river, and distantly they could see boats navigating them like tiny ants crawling along a deck back home.

"According to Ide, they're a city that does a great deal of trading, and institutes fines for most crimes," Shinjo said, apparently continuing. "Supposedly, their gods live in that pyramid, and that's also where a great deal of government and worship happens. Very different from home, ne?" She laughs, the sounds musical. "Are you ready to see for ourselves? How do you suppose is the best approach for a place like this?"

She looked at her seriously, though she was smiling. Shinjo treating her as a trusted advisor, guiding their approach to the new places the daimyo often spoke of wanting to see.

It felt real. Like the future.

She couldn't reach it as she was, though. She needed to gain a strength, and lose a weakness.

She could do it right now, if only she chose to reach out and take it.

What obstacle stands between Otaku and this moment? The mix of pleasurable things--the good horse, her hand on her son's shoulder, most of all being back in Shinjo's company after a long absence--and the physical discomfort of the dry dusty air certainly make it feel quite real. So why does something seem to be telling her she hasn't... earned it? That it isn't really hers?

Otaku's mind turns inward, as it often does even in happy moments, weighing her heart against the scales of honor. What courage, what devotion, what honesty does she owe that she hasn't yet fulfilled? It's hard to be as coolly self-critical as she knows she ought when she's just happy to be back in the company of her superhuman friend--she's missed Shinjo in her recent travels, very much--and it seems her family are close by too.

"The best approach? Hm," she repeats in her soft voice.

Then, after a few long moments' thought, "How else can we approach, but as ourselves? If this place is worth seeing, my Lady, you'll be welcome there as you are."

Shinjo laughed a little as she answered. "That's a very you answer," she replied with a smile. "But I'm glad to hear it. Let's go."

What stood between her and this moment? Her shyness, perhaps. Her stringent views on honor that would make adapting to other cultures far more difficult when they didn't meet her standards. Vulnerability to sand storms and other hazards of the desert. There were always obstacles. So many obstacles.

What did it mean, to earn something? What makes it valuable?

The important thing were her actions, weren't they?

How she used what gifts she gained, if she accepts them.

Otaku knows that her discomfort with crowds and noise is a weakness. It's a sort of cowardice, contrary to her sense of honor, which is why she tries to push herself into those situations anyway, even when she can't always make her voice heard or express what she really means.

Watching the ears of the two beautiful, unfamiliar horses twitch warily at the sounds around them as she, Shinjo, and the little boy ride toward the cacophonous open-air market sprawling outside the gates of the strange city, Otaku thinks wryly I'm like that, too. They don't like the noise, they might run from it if they were wild and had their heads. But they trust their riders.

Maybe she holds herself more closely to the Ten Kami's code of heavenly honor than most, and maybe that does seem like a weakness to some. But Otaku knows that makes her world bigger than it would be otherwise, not smaller. I wouldn't have the strength to be out here without that. It was a gift Shinjo and the others had given her.

If she can give such gifts of courage to others in turn...

After a while, she says quietly, just loud enough for Shinjo and the child to hear, "They'll be all right without us, back home." It might or might not be a question.

((Sorry... these are taking me a while to write because goo brain. ))

The boy squeezes her arm and smiles.

She can feel that renewed confidence and purpose still lingering as she begins to wake.

The dream ends.

Otaku rolls over and pulls her blanket closer. Light is starting to filter through the canvas of her tent--the perennially foggy, gray light of this place, but still daylight.

Was that it? No horrors, no threats?

Perhaps it's just luck of the draw. But it could, also, be hope.

/scene?