Slj 1 08

Peter|GM: Long ago the snow started falling and hasn't stopped. Long ago someone said "Let's call this December 1st."
Peter|GM: Let's call this December 1st too.
Peter|GM: The Haruyama Shrine. Early in the night, just after close. The snow is gently drifting, picturesque against the smoky glass of the lanterns. (Styled as if they're paper, but not.)
Peter|GM: There's minor chores. Emptying the offertory box. Taking the garbage out. Your younger sister has had a cold this past week, so Miyu's picked up a bit more of the load than usual.
Miyu lets out a breath, her ears flicking in the light as she looks across the grounds; keeping the path clear of the snow, as gentle as it is, unforunately is a daily thing, to be kept up throughout most of the day; closing up just means it gets a chance to pile up for tomorrow morning before they open.
Peter|GM: The statue of the lunar fox stands vigil over the front steps. Towards the back of the shrine, the sanctum, hanging with silent chimes, its deep red wood carved in endless complexity.
Peter|GM: Every vignette inlaid on one of its pillars, its struts, its arches, is another story, mother said. Her mother didn't remember all of them. Neither did her mother before her.
Peter|GM: You can be emptying out a storage closet, and there, hidden for all ages, is some unknown hero escaping from ogres, bounding over their heads, something like that.
Peter|GM: Your breath gently fogs as you sweep.
Peter|GM: A snowflake drifts. Deja vu, it's familiar.
Miyu traces the path of that snowflake with her eyes, the several tails behind her swaying this way and that, mimicking its movements from the cold air, almost done with sweeping the path one last time for the night.
Miyu: "I wonder how many visitors we'll get tomorrow, too…"
Peter|GM: Maybe more…? It gets busier close to Christmas.
Peter|GM: After some sweeping: A crisp flush of the cheeks, the almost-sting of being out in gentle cold for a while.
Peter|GM: In the distance, occluded by the haze of snow, there are lights in the city. They don't resemble spotlights. Too bright. Too tall. Too solid. Sudden, flashing. They cast the shadows of the shrine into stark relief, the toris' stretching far past it.
Miyu frowns, pausing in place with broom in hand, ears lying down flat at the unusual occurrence, casting a different look on the shrine's area than she's used to.
Miyu: "What could have caused that…?"
Peter|GM: It's hard to say. Too big to be a lightning strike. (Snow-lightning?) Too quiet to be an explosion. Too…
Peter|GM: Even as the light fades, the shadows keep their bright definition.
Peter|GM: The Lunar Fox hops down from her pedestal, and without leaving it - indeed, the statue is still there - it paces up the shrine walk towards Miyu. It is in both places. The shadows crack and fragment where it steps.
Peter|GM: So does the air. It is like looking through a broken window, through shards it pushes aside as it draws closer.
Peter|GM: "O Haruyama child."
Peter|GM: She speaks.
Miyu blinks yellow eyes as the light fades and the shadows don't change, turning in place to take in the yard… and seeing the two statues, one still and one moving, causing her to close her mouth before she could remark to herself about the strangeness. Hearing her speak, however, gets her to bow shakily but formally, broom still clutched to her.
Miyu: "Umm… Good evening…?"
Peter|GM: The Lunar Fox returns the bow, white stone gleaming, folding down on her knees, lowering her head. "Good evening to you."
Peter|GM: "I'm not your protector," The Fox explains. "But only her effigy and echo."
Miyu: "I see…" Her tone of voice says she doesn't, not really. "If you're not her, then what are you doing here, and like that?"
Peter|GM: The Lunar Fox gets up from the bow, leaving herself behind as well, penitent on the stone. She circles Miyu, inspecting her. That's three.
Peter|GM: "She won't mind, that I'm here like this, in this shape. It's fine! It's not of consequence. If that's why you ask."
Peter|GM: "I'm here being a kind of omen. Also, to ask you a question."
Miyu tilts her head at the bowing shape left behind, staying fairly still as she's circled like that, ears following after getting the impression she's being looked over for some reason, her tails almost still with the unusual anticipation.
Miyu: "What kind of omen, and what question, then?"
Peter|GM: The Lunar Fox lifts her head up from her bow, cracks open an eye, smiles. "An omen of disaster."
Peter|GM: Circling Miyu, the Lunar Fox sniffs her, once, twice, disturbing one of her tails, before padding over to the offertory box. She bats one of her paws in through the slats, trying to reach inside.
Peter|GM: "Do you have the key to this? That's not the question."
Miyu can't help a small giggle at that; something about the unasked question still lingering in the air has a weight to it, but seeing her pawing at the box is a bit amusing after she was so close to the driftin, one tail still twitching a little as she approaches the box, fishing a key out of a small pocket in her skirt.
Miyu: "I do, but I don't think there's much of anything interesting in there."
Peter|GM: The Fox bows, with her paw still stuck in the offertory box. "Please."
Miyu smiles a little at the strange sight of that, unlocking the box and helping the fox get her paw out before she might leave a reflection there like that. "Next time, you might want to ask before reaching places you shouldn't, with paws that big."
Peter|GM: The Fox wiggles her paw out from within the slats without further iteration. She dips her head inside, picks something up, and presents it to Miyu: A rifle.
Peter|GM: The question is: "What do you want to do with your life?"
Miyu blinks at seeing something that should very much not be inside of that box, but that kind of pales in comparison to the moving copy of a statue that she just helped get her paw out of said box. She only realizes she's placed the broom against it when she's gingerly taking that rifle in hand, however.
Miyu: "You have to ask me the one question I'm still trying to figure out my answer to, don't you…"
Peter|GM: "Yes," says the Lunar Fox, in a way that suggests that she does, in fact, have to ask you that question.
Miyu: "I'm not inheriting the shrine, but a way to help people would be nice… Even if it's a weapon for killing, a rifle can be used to protect others, I guess. I'm not sure why you're offering it to me, though."
Peter|GM: "It's a dangerous item," says the Lunar Fox. "So it can't be left laying around. What if someone were to break into the box and get it?"
Miyu: "Like you kind of did, you mean? I get the feeling there's more to this than that, though."
Peter|GM: "There's lots of ways to help people. Like driving a garbage truck, or cooking fried tofu even at 2:00 AM. But that's a good start."
Peter|GM: The Lunar Fox, for a moment, looks embarassed at her own evasion. She turns her head aside, overlapping herself as she does so.
Peter|GM: "The other day, someone came up to the shrine and prayed for protection. Your protector granted it. Because of that…" A pointed look out towards the city.
Peter|GM: "I'm an echo. I'm a shadow. I'm regret! I can say maybe we blessed too much."
Peter|GM: "But your protector isn't a cursing type. No way to balance it out. Except:" She extends a paw up into the air, reaching out as if to touch Miyu's hand.
Peter|GM: "I think the question is really this." She looks Miyu in the eyes. "Are you prepared to do what you want?"
Miyu looks first at that paw, then meets the statue's gaze, her tails swishing as she takes a deep breath. She can feel the weight of that question fully, this time.
Miyu: "I think so… You're not completely up front with what you're offering, but I know I should take it."
Miyu brings a hand up, grasping that paw with a nod of her head, vulpine ears flicking.
Peter|GM: A hairline crack runs through Miyu's body at the touch of the Fox. Compare it to ears-popping, to a joint feeling out of place. Propagating across the entire body. Miyu can see parts of her slip apart, fragments coming loose and floating upwards.
Peter|GM: She is broken. An inclusion flaw.
Peter|GM: So is the entire world.
Peter|GM: A shattered thing, inset with distant gleaming lights, broken and fixed and taped and glued over and over. See this pattern in everything. Never stop seeing it.
[OOC] Peter|GM: You have received the power of magic, and (effectively) the privilege of a pure heart.
Miyu shakes her head, looking around. A new way of seeing things, a new power she could only imagine before… A world that isn't right.
Miyu: "I don't think I was actually prepared… but few people are."
Peter|GM: "That's right." says the Fox, with mote of pride.
Peter|GM: "Just because I gave you a gun, doesn't mean you have to use it. I just didn't want you to be unarmed."
Peter|GM: "From here on out, everything, everything, is up to you."
Peter|GM: The essential essence is gone from the Fox - the guardian is only a statue.
Peter|GM: Four times.
Peter|GM: Just four fox protector statues sitting around the shrine grounds, full-sized, posed weirdly.
Miyu shakes her head as she looks around, couldn't she have taken those away with her? She has no idea how to explain it, wondering if there's something she can do to get rid of the extras.
Miyu: "Maybe I can just leave it to the rest of the family, pretend I wasn't here when this happened…"
Peter|GM: They're a little too big to pick up, but you can probably put a rope around them and drag them off into the snow, maybe?
Peter|GM: (Would that be taboo? It's sort of unclear whether the additional iterations of the statue are also sacred.)
Miyu picks up the broom from the side of the box, bring that back inside along with her new(?) rifle. The statues aren't really her problem right now, and the chores are finished… And tomorrow promises to be much busier.
Peter|GM: So next morning. It's gently snowy, sun slipping through the overcast sky, playing around the snowflakes. It's next morning and all the statues are still there and, well, clearly the family's talking about it. The elder sister, Sayuri, who got up first - there's a ritual purity thing - "Mother, no, I swear on my heart. All four of them. Just like this."
Peter|GM: Mother's unimpressed. "Ehh, four statues, all of a sudden, just overnight? And they're posed funny? Is this a prank, am I on TV right now? Miyu, tell me if you see any cameras."
Peter|GM: She poses with her broom like some old movie star. "I want them to get my good side, you know."
Miyu: "It's a strange prank, if you ask me…" There's a smile on her lips at seeing her mother posing like that, making a point to look around the whole front yard before shaking her head, her black and white tails swaying behind herself. "I don't see any cameras though, not from anywhere that would see the statues."
Peter|GM: "It's a strange prank!" Mother's fur is greying. "Someone puts a clown nose on the fox, that's what I know how to deal with. Quadrupling it? No!" Her tail swats against the air, an intense wag.
Peter|GM: Sayuri touches the bowing fox, as if to test if for reality. A twitch runs up her body - she's surprised that it's real.
Miyu twitches her ears at remembering the time the clown nose happened, peering at the other duplicates as well. Seeing them like this in the light of day… It finalizes the sense that last night really did happen, as if the rifle hidden in her room hadn't.
Miyu: "Maybe I could ask in town if anyone knows about this?"
Peter|GM: "Oh, oh, you could!" Mother says. "I mean, they'd need a few people to get them all up here, ehh? Go ask the grocer if he heard any big trucks last night. Mm, pick up some laundry detergent if it doesn't weigh your bag down too much, too."
Miyu nods her head, turning back towards the house to get ready, proper winter boots and an overcoat incase the city's colder or more covered than the well cared for shrine… and somehow she knows how to hide that rifle so no one notices it until she needs to use it. As inconvenient as the statues are… They're a good excuse to get out and about, to look again at this broken city.
Miyu: "I'll try to make sure to remember the laundry detergent while I'm out, Mother."
Peter|GM: "Still got a little bit left, but we're down to the dregs, don't ya know. It's a hold-it-upside-down-and-wait amount."
Peter|GM: Bundled up nicely. Juliet City awaits you.
Peter|GM: There is a crack in everything. (They say that's how the light gets in.)
Peter|GM: And so it was written.