An hour passes with no sighting of either fox. At least, Niamh thinks it's an hour; it's hard to tell and worrying just makes time seem like it ticks by slower, and slower. She's still sitting at the base of the temple back stairs, facing out into the woods, and hugging her legs. Where are they? Surely Noboru isn't in trouble; he's quite powerful when it comes down to it. Then again, Kasumi has more tails and might be mildly crazy, so ... the time is coming when Niamh must make a descision ... either go look for them too, or keep waiting and worrying. Which one is more terrifying?
So, the girl stands up, and paces. Then goes down to the very last stip. While biting her lower lip, she dares to reach out and set one foot onto the forest floor to see what happens.
A leaf falls on her head, and some twigs snap underfoot. Nothing else of note happens; and the forest ahead seems peaceful and full of birdsong.
This gives Niamh some pause. The last time she did this a dark smoke-cloud monster tried to eat her. Maybe it was because she was barefoot back then? Now she's dressed as a shrine maiden, so.. maybe that helps. She steps off the stairs completely and holds her breath. Not just out of worry, but because she's trying to keep her energy from broadcasting her presence, like she was taught.
So now she's standing off the stairs and looking out into an inviting and quiet-looking forest. No smoke-clad monsters make their appearance. No growling. No anything. It's so normal it's almost disturbing. She even hears a few frogs.
She takes a few more steps, and wonders how to actually find the kitsune. There's the main path, and she knows they followed it at first, but it's not that clear and she has no idea where they actually went. The river? She doesn't know where that is. Or even where the kirin spirit was encountered when Noboru dashed through the forest with her.
A few more steps! She's still alive! If she concentrates, she might be able to just make out the sounds of water flowing in the distance. River? Ocean? Something wet, certainly. The question now is, does she dare to go looking for it?
The closeness worries Niamh, because everything does at this point. But mainly because if it's so close, it shouldn't have taken the kitsunes that long to reach it... and that's only if river dragons are involved. She needs to find the forest god and ask him where the kitsune are. "Where would he be?" she mutters to herself. She looks to the nearest try and wonder how dangerous it would be just ask. Trees generally aren't demanding of favors. The old trees at the inn were pleasant enough, after all. So she slowly makes her way towards the nearest one.
It's a pine. At least she thinks it is a pine. Maybe it's just pining? In any event, it's standing there, tall, stoic, and quiet. Like most trees, really.
After checking around herself to see if anything is watching her (she really needs to learn how to sense other yokai), Niamh presses her palm to it and tries infusing some of her ectoplasmic energy into it. "Hello," she says to the tree.
No yokai, but she is still neat the Temple after all. "Eh? Eh? Who is fondling my bark?" comes the trees reply; it, for some reason, has the tone of a crotchety old man to it. Or maybe it's just Niamh's imagination making it sound that way. "Oh. It's a yokai. Why must you all fondle my bark? It's bad enough that humans pet me and leave me stinky, but now you are too."
Niamh blinks at the remark about humans and stink, and instead asks, "I'm trying to contact the forest god. Can you help me?"
"Why would you want to do that? He has no time to deal with some newborn yokai," the Tree replies. "He's busy at the forest heart doing his forest things, of course."
"Well, I'm actually looking for a pair of kitsune from the shrine that went looking for him," Niamh explains. "Is the forest heart very far from here? I don't suppose there's a yosei path to it?"
"Looking for trouble. All of you are. Why else seek out those that personify it?" the Tree comments like a cantankerous old man. "The forest heart is at the heart of the forest. Its center," the tree then explains as if she were daft. "Walk north from here for an hour or so and you should reach it. There is no direct path, but plenty of the forest beasts have made trails that converge there."
"An hour?" Niamh asks. The kitsune would cover that a lot faster. "Are there any dangerous creatures out during the day?"
"Yes. You," the tree answers.
Niamh tries not to laugh, because she isn't sure how it would come out. She's hardly dangerous. Trees may have different perspective though. "Thank you for the information," she tells the tree, and tries to pull her energy back.
"Nope, mine now," the tree declares, and then cuts the ties without giving her all the energy back. It let go maybe 60% of what Nimah had pushed. And this she's left alone again with the frogs and birds.
"Greedy tree," Niamh mutters and turns north. No straight paths, it said. Well, it's not she's never been through a forest before, so she takes a deep breath, pulls her energy to her core, and heads out. Her doe ears scan in all directions at least.
Thirty minutes go by. A lot faster than if she were still sitting on the temple steps, at least. She thinks she's found some animal paths that seem to lead vaguely north, in the direction of the forest heart. But, it's hard to really be sure. The doe-ears, though, do prove to be very helpful, she can hear a lot more with them than if she had her sad, small, human ones. She can even hear lizards in the underbrush a good twenty or more feet away with clarity.
The thin-soled sandals keep her from interacting with the forest in a more direct manner, but she shouldn't do that before getting permission anyway. She moves to avoid disturbing the lizards as well. She almost starts to relax, being back in a proper forest again, taking in deep breaths of air that don't smell of smoke and people. But she still frets in the back of her mind. If things are going this well, then maybe something is making it go well. If Miyuki went to the forest heart, then the kirin has to know she wants to connect to the forest after all.
"Well, well, well," comes the voice of one she probably least wanted to hear from, Kasumi. "The little foreign hobgoblin and pet of Noburu. I see he's been making more changes; your butt is wiggling." Not twenty feet to so away is the wild kitsune, nogitsune, lounging on a downed tree, with its copious number of tails draped over the side to show them off. The tails twitch. "What brings you so far from safety and your master, little one?"
Maybe it's the ears, but Niamh freezes at the sight of Kasumi. "You mean you don't already know?" she manages to ask. It would be good to know if the vengeful fox hadn't detected Miyuki or Noboru.
"The goings of insignificant creatures such as yourself often fall outside of my attention," the fox comments, yawning wide with scary teeth. "Did you come here to offer yourself as a meal to your betters?"
"I'm going to the forest heart," Niamh says. After all, where else would she be going in this direction? "To see the forest spirit."
"Why would you want to see that old fool?" Kasumi comments as she watches Niamh with a lazy-sort of expression. "I could probably answer any question you might have and save you the trip. For a price, of course."
"Why I want to see him is between me and the forest spirit," Niamh claims. "And I'd expect you to trick me whether I pay or not."
Katsumi makes a pouting face, complete with quivering ears. "Aww, so untrusting," the fox teases, "Tsk." She slowly rises and stretches her legs. "I think you should be punished for being so rude to me."
"You called me a hobgoblin first," Niamh points out, and takes a step back.
The kitsune smiles, widely, showling lots of teeth. "So, I did. Now, I understand that where you're from there's such a thing as The Wild Hunt. A lovely idea, being hunted down, don't you think? How fast can you run, little one?" she asks.
"Th-that depends," Niamh says, ears twitching. "How would you be hunting me?"
"Run," the kitsune growls darkly. "You have thirty seconds."
So much for strategy! Niamh leaps over the fallen tree and runs northwards as fast as she can manage. But she knows she can't run the rest of the way, and isn't sure how Kasumi is tracking her which makes it hard to come up with a way of covering her tracks.
And boy does thirty seconds pass fast when you're running, possibly for your life. There's a shrill cry somewhere behind her, one that fades to a baleful howl. It seems the hunt is on, and she's the prey!
Niamh wonders if yokai-foxes can climb trees like regular foxes. Noboru climbs the torii gate of the shrine though. For all she knows Kasumi is following her by sound alone. So while running the girl tries to find a sturdy fallen branch or good sized stone she could use to defend herself, because she can't run like this for much longer. It's not at all like when she was a deer, but the Horned God doesn't seem to operate in the part of the world.
And worse, everything looks like much the same as she runs. Trees, rocks, and so on. Plenty of branches she could grab, and her ears pick out that she might be getting closer to the river; she hears running water.
Niamh's stomach knots a bit. The river could mask her scent, but.. if it's deep she'll be in trouble. A river isn't a pond or lake or ocean, she tries telling herself, and tries to picture a gentle stream as she runs towards it.
It's a cut to the right and she's heading towards the sound of water! She can hear dashing through the underbrush behind her some ways back. "Slooooow little hobgoblin," Kasumi'
It's a cut to the right and she's heading towards the sound of water! She can hear dashing through the underbrush behind her some ways back. "Slooooow little hobgoblin," Kasumi's voice calls out in a sing-song taunting sort of manner. "And here I thought you'd be more fun. Noboru usually picks more ... capable playthings."
"I think I see why he left you," Niamh mutters between gulps of air.. and hoping the river isn't going to be an obstacle to both of them. But maybe things will go her way for a change. Hah!
A dozen or more feet and Niamh breaks through the treeline! Up ahead is a river! No bridges, though, and it looks a good hundred feed across; and it's flowing fast! Does she dare risk trying to cross that?
The girl is brought up short at the edge of the water. It's not standing water. There shouldn't be anything in it that would drag her under. But there's the current itself. She takes a few tentative steps into the flow to get an idea of how strong it might be in the middle. Rivers this wide are probably deep, she's certain. She's very actually seen one this wide or fast before.
It's also COLD! The mater is moving quickly, but it's not pulling too much at her. At the tree-line, Kasumi saunters out, her tails flicking all lazily behind her. "Caught, caught, you are," she sing-songs, lips curled in an insufferingly smug way. "Now, now, what should I do with you, hmm? A quick meal? Eat you slowly, piece by piece over months? Let you go? So many choices..."
"Is it because you want to torment me, or because you want to torment him?" Niamh asks, still ankle-deep in the cold water. "Because if it's him, you really aren't going to do much by hurting me."
"No? Why do you say that, tender morsel?" Kasumi asks as she approaches ever closer. Her tails weave and snake all around in an hypnotic sort of dance.
"I'm not his mate or anything like that," Niamh claims. "Even Miyuki is reluctant to help me, and she wants to bed me more than Noboru does. That's the only reason she puts up with me at all, because I'm trying to purify the dog yokai that hurt her. I'm not even human according to the rules of your land."
"I'm not even tender," Niamh adds.
Kasumi licks her lips. "No? Why not come here and let me taste you to decide," the nogitsune requests as she saunters ever closer. "And I don't care if he wants to bed you or not. You belong to him, and that's enough. By proxy you then belong to me, too..."
In response, Niamh goes a little further into the river. "I do not belong to anyone," she insists.
"Oh? Well, then no one will care if I do this then," Kasumi cackles, her tails launch out, ensnaring her limbs, lifting her, and spreading her legs and arms wide! Then one of her free tails launches out and stabs Niamh in the chest, hard! It hurts, God does it hurt! She sees stars, then her world seems to collapse in, her consciousness slipping into white.
This is a bad time to die, Niamh thinks amidst the pain and fading consciousness. I'll be in so much trouble if I do...
Things fade to a comforting white for a long time. In this weird cloudy place at least nothing hurts! But, it can't last forever. Either she's dead and she's coming to in a new place, or she's slowly waking up. She still hears water; the rushing flow of the river, and breaks in the white cloud seems to come at the edges of her vision first. Then does the sensation of her body; it feels so heavy; and warm. The sort of tired sensation one gets when they wake-up from a deep sleep.
Niamh tries to get a better sense of her body before trying to open her eyes. She tries get a sense of her fingers, toes, ears and maybe even her tail. If I was swallowed whole, I wouldn't be able to hear the river, she thinks.
Her body just feels weird; sort of indistinct ... fuzzy? She does feel her ears and tail, at least, even her fingers and toes, even if a bit stiff. Color starts to creep into the sides of her vision. She might be laying on the shore, she feels either mud or sand against her back. She also has the distinct feeling she's being watched.
So she opens her eyes further. If she hasn't been eaten, then she's probably been altered again.
That's a fair guess, as her eyes clear slowly, yet everything looks fuzzy. And it doesn't clear up. No, wait, she's naked, and her entire body is fuzzy! She's covered with a short tawny coat of fur, leaving her with a white underbelly that tapes to the sides. Her outer thighs are also spotted, and it gets really weird when she sees her hands. Are they hands? She only has two fingers and a thumb, they're thick and tipped with a hard almost hoof-like nail. Her feet are even worse; they're not feet at all; she has cloven hooves. That's also when she realizes she's been seeing the blurry tip of her nose too; as her nose and jaw have lengthened just slightly, giving her a small, delicate muzzle of sorts. She's a humanoid deer! And gah, now that she's naked, she can even see she has four teats on her lower belly. Small, but they peek through the fuzz.
This is not like being a deer was before. She's only halfway, which is sure to be awkward. First thing is to see if she can stand up on just two feet still.
"Careful, child," rumbles a booming sort of voice from behind her as she manages up to her two, uh, hooves. She wobbles, a lot. It's hard to balance on them. "You are still recovering from your encounter with that demon. She intended to kill you. She almost did."
"Kasumi didn't do this?" Niamh tries to say.
A huge head swings into her view; scaled, toothy, and with long whiskery things hanging from its snoot. Covered most in shimmering blue scale, and topped with a white mane, the oversized lizard head stares at her through one slitted eye. "No," it rumbles. "It happened when I healed the hole in your chest. Your yokai aspect reacted to the inflow of life that my pearl granted."
Niamh freezes, then has to swing her arms to regain her balance. "You're a dragon," she bleats. "You're the river?"
"It is more that the river is me. I am Mizuchi, and this is my domain. I felt you tread into my waters, and thus how I knew you were in danger. You need not worry, I have chased that fox off. You are safe, Shika-Yokai," it rumbles at her. It also moves, and Niamh gets an idea of its scale; er, length. Fifty foot, easily; lanky, snakelike, with four limbs.
"Shika-Yokai," Niamh repeats. "I thought I was yosei. Why did you save me, Lord Mizuchi?"
"Should I have not? I can return your wounds if you wish," Mizuchi offers, though he sounds a bit confused.
"Oh no, I'm very grateful!" Niamh insists, and waggles her tail. "It's just that.. the spirits of this land always seem to want something. You're the first that hasn't tried to eat me or proposition me."
"Well, if you are offering, I could incubate an egg within you," Mizuchi offers, his head tilting a little. "But I believe you are already claimed by the Temple Fox. He asked me to keep watch for a silly foreign yokai, and you seem to fit that description, young Shika. It was foolish to venture into the woods without an escort."
"He was gone for so long, I was worried," Niamh says. "If he asked you, then he was expecting me to follow, wasn't he? What is 'shika', I don't know that word." And is Noboru saying I belong to him now, she wonders. She's not going to ask that though.
"It just means 'deer' in your tongue," Mizuchi explains as he shifts about so that more is infront of Niamh than behind. There he settles, with his chin on the back of his foreclaws. "He thought it not unlikely. He was here a little while back, inquiring about his sister. They are both well as far as I am aware; just running some requests of the forest lord, and of myself. They are beholden to do so as part of their place as Celestials."
"Beholden to run errands?" Niamh asks. "What are they doing for you?" she follows with, a bit nervously. She can't quite clasp her fingers together, so just holds them both to her chest. She also flicks one ear in an attempt to feel if she still has her hair.
The dragon leans in close and sniffs her. "Ah, forgive me, I should call you Meka. You are female. It is hard to tell with mammals," he admits. She doesn't feel like she has hair so much as a fuzzy sort of fluffy mane thar goes down her head, neck, shoulders, and a little around the front.
"Hard to tell?" Niamh finds herself repeating. She wonders what makes it easier for dragons. She assumed he knew from the suggestion of incubating an egg.. but even back in the West, dragons were known for breeding with anything. "I didn't realize they would have to do things just so I could get permission from Daiki-sama to commune with the forest."
"It was either that, you would be expected to make with, and bear a child with the Forest Lord. That is what he usually asks of females," Mizuchi explains. "And I am assuming you do not wish this. Which explains why they agreed to do some tasks on your behalf instead. I should have realized when they agreed that it was because of some matter of delicacy, or the weird prudishness of foreigners."
"I'm.. probably not strong enough to bear the children of such powerful beings," Niamh claims. "I need to draw strength from the moon or forest. Miyuki won't be asked to bear children will she?" she asks, even more nervous about that question.
"Unlikely. One of the Princes of the Moon has already declared his undying love for her, and wishes her to bear him many children. Granted, undying to that lot just means until they see the next woman," the dragon remarks as he sounds amused.
"I was warned about the Moon Prince, which is why I'm turning to the forest," Niamh admits. "What is it like to be a river god? Do people bring you offerings?"
"That is an odd question. Yes, some do. Others treat the rivers poorly, which in turn wounds me," Mizuchi explains. "Was it Miyuki who told you of him? Bear in mind you have to take some things she says with skepticism, given her proclivities."
"It was Inari that warned me," Niamh says. "Is there anything I can do for you that.. I could actually manage?"
"I have not asked anything of you. You do not need to offer," Mizuchi replies, blinking lazily while he does so. "But if you wish to, then tell me of the rivers of your homeland. Or, perhaps you can sing?"
Niamh sits down. "I can sing about the great river of Europa, the Danube, which is named for the goddess that started my line, if you like," she offers.
Mizuchi gestures a little with his foreclaw. "Please," the dragon requests.
So the deer-girl clears her throat, and checks that her mouth and tongue can still handle all of the needed sounds. The lyrics are in old Celtic, but have enough rolling and trilling sounds to make it feel musical. The song itself tells of Danu as the Mother, bringing life (and irrigation) to the people of the continent. The song itself is from a solstice festival, so there are probably parts that wouldn't translate very well. Some of it does go into the wars and treaties and pranks between the Tuatha de-Danaan and humans and other races of fey. But mainly it's a song that makes Niamh feel more comfortable. Nobody has shown much interest in her homeland here before.
For his part, Mizuchi remains silent; eyes half lidded as he simply listens. Does he even understand it since it is in another language? Maybe; he's likely very old, so who knows what he has learned. When the song does draw slowly to and end, he lifts his head. "Thank you," he says. "The words paint a picture in my mind of your homeland. Foreign and yet the same."
"I've never seen the Danube river," Niamh admits. "Yours is the biggest I've seen with my own eyes. I could never cross it."
Mizuchi looks over his shoulder and flicks his tail. The river beyond splits in two, the water somehow flowing upward as if hitting an invisible wall, leaving a path down the middle. "No?" he asks as his brow arches slightly.
"That is.. I wasn't expecting something like that," Niamh says, and actually giggles a bit. "Sorry, it's just that I'm terrified of the water normally."
The dragon flicks its tail again and the water collapses. "Then why are you not terrified of me?" the dragon asks and leans in close.
"You're pretty and you're the river," Niamh says, then lowers her ears and explains, "When I was younger, a kelpie tried to drown and eat me in a small lake. My friends rescued me but.. I nearly drowned. It has stuck with me. And then I spent a hundred days crossing oceans to get here, and I'm still trying to recover from that. I'm nearly out of energy."
"Mm. That must have been very difficult. But the latter should be easily rectified," Mizuchi says. He swirls his tail in the river behind him, then lifts it out. Clasp in it is a goblet made entirely of ice. He lifts it over and offers it; filled with shimmering liquit. "You may take some of mine, if you wish," he says.
"But you're a god," Niamh says, holding the chalice warily, and with her hardened fingertip. "I've never had energy from someone else like this. Is it safe, because you used your power on me already?"
"It shouldn't harm you," Mizuchi says, "But if you do not wish to risk it, I do understand."
"I'll try, it's not often I'd be offered something like this," Niamh says, and tries a sip of.. yokai spirit. If she's more yokai now, it should be fine, she hopes. And it's just a sip or two to make sure.
It tastes sweet, but it feels like she just drank a whole pot of coffee. Her entire being starts to buzz, and that's just from a sip! She also puffs out more! Though it's not more fur, it's mainly standing on end.
"It's like liquid lightning," Niamh claims, and then tries to relax enough to figure out if it actually helped. She isn't sure exactly where a river dragon falls, since it's not a forest, but is in part elemental. And the pearl is a bit like the moon too.
When the buzz settles, she does feel a lot better, even from that small amount. Less thin, certainly. "You would look better with antlers," Mizuchi observes.
"Do does have antlers here?" Niamh asks. Dragons have antlers, certainly. She tries another sip. She almost feels like she could actually really run again.
"No, but they have bumps on their head where the males have antlers," Mizuchi says. "When you are ready, I'll carry you to the Forest Heart. I suspect you will find your friends there."
"You're the nicest person I've met here," Niamh says. "I'm ready to go at any time. She drinks more of the river-spirit, but not all of it. That would probably be dangerous, she thinks. And she doesn't want to show up drunk at the Forest Heart.