Flying on the back of a dragon ... well, an asian dragon anyway is quite different. It's sort of like riding on an undulating snake that slithers through the sky, somehow. It's best to have a strong constitution, or motion sickness might just happen! Fortunately, the flight is short; it's more of an arc up, then an arc down into what may be the center of the forest. All around looks massive trees, each several feet in diameter, and twisted and bent due to age and the elements. Mizuchi slithers down between them, weaving through them like some sort of scaly thread upon a loom, and up ahead must be the forest heart.

Forest Heart - The heart of this ancient Japanese forest is covered in moss and replete in the scent of dew and morning rain. It's a depression; perhaps where a great tree once stood, but finally fell to the inevitable tick of time. All around its outer edge old boulders jut upward, outlining it and demarking it, and still managing to look completely natural somehow Light filters down through the canopy above, sliding across the forest floor in thin beams and clouds pass overhead.

In the center of the depression sits a kirin. Or perhaps it's more appropriate to say the kirin, the Lord of the Forest. He's sitting on his fore and hind-limbs while ... drinking tea? No, really, the kirin is drinking tea from a teacup that floats before his blunt muzzle. Across from him sits a small white fox who is also drinking tea from a floating cup. It's surreal, like some weird scene from that strange novel titled 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. The seem to be mostly relaxing and unconcerned about the dragon that slithers down from above.

"Hail, Lord of all tha Grows," Mizuchi announces as he alights across the series of boulders that rim the depression. "I come bringing a wayward Yokai that is looking for her friends. And you, I believe." He extends his forelimb so Nimah can slide down if she wants.

Niamh is still a bit dizzy from it all, and only manages to slide down half-way before falling onto her backside. The trees and moss around seem to hold more of her attention than the fox and kirin within, at least for a moment. Then she gets up onto her knees and turns to bow to the kirin. "Lord Daiki-sama," she says as she touches her head to the ground. At least she doesn't have antlers to worry about.

"Nimah?" the fox asks as it turns its head to look in her direction; from the size and the voice; Miyuki. "What are you doing here? Why do you look like that?" she asks. The kirin too looks up and one of its brows lifts slightly. "Ah, is this the strange foreign Yokai that panics all the time that you were telling me about, Emmisary of the Shrine?" Daiki asks in a voice that seems to reverberate from everywhere, including within Nimah's own chest. He then includes his head to Mizuchi and says, "And that you, God of the River for escorting her. She will be safe here if you need to return to your domain."

Niamh feels a a clawed hand pat her on the top of her head. Well, it mostly envelops her head really. "Be careful, young one," he rumbles, "No more playing with Nogitsune." The dragon dips his head to the Forest Lord. "We will speak soon at the gathering of all Gods, until then," he rumbles, then slithers back upwards and is soon out of sight.

The doe then turns her big doe eyes on Miyuki, and explains, "Well.. when I told Noboru you were going to ask the Forest Lord about letting me draw on the forest, he said you might have to do some sort of task that you might not like, and then he left to find you and didn't come back, and I worried so I tried to follow and ran into Kasumi who.. I guess tried to kill me by stabbing me through the heart. But Mizuchi saved me by giving me some of his life energy, but that made my Yokai nature.. take over, I suppose? It's very confusing and I haven't had a chance to really panic yet."

"You were indeed correct, she does babble," The Forest Lord remarks, sounding amused. "Come, join us; we are just having tea. And I was not aware that the Emmisary did not like the small tasks I ask of her."

Miyuki's ears go flat. "It's not that I don't like them," she says quickly to the Forest Lord. "It's just that ... when they involve listening to your stories; I just don't have the time to devote to them that they truly deserve! You great wisdom needs more than a flighty young kitsune to hear them."

Daiki laughs at that, one that makes the trees shake. "How diplomatic of a way to say I am an old ranbling soul, hmm?" he remarks, seemingly unperturbed by the revelation.

"Noboru may have exaggerated a bit," Niamh concedes and moves closer on her hands and knees because she really doesn't want to risk falling on her face in front of the others. "But it was enough to make me worry."

"Of course he exaggerated a bit! Surely you are used to him by now," Miyuki points out, her ears still flat. "I'm sure it was to make you worry."

"And feel guilty," Niamh adds, her ears folding down a little as she tries to get herself seated comfortably with her new legs, than just goes back to tucking them under herself as she sits in a kneeling position. "But if he's not here, where did he go?" she asks.

The forest lord's curving horn glows and soon a flower sprouts from the earth in front of Niamh. It's petals spread, then curl together. The bloom detaches and wafts upward, shifting and re-shaping until it takes upon the form of a floral teacup and hovers before her. "Be at ease, Miyuki," Daiki comments, "I am not offended by such things. You are young, and with that always comes the impatience of youth. Your brother was no different at your age. I would be more concerned if you were not."

This is the display of magic that Niamh seems comfortable with. But she does take the cup in her new hands, since she'd probably look foolish trying to sip from it. She still isn't sure she can sip with a deer mouth, so she watches Miyuki and Daiki closely to see how they do it.

Miyuki's lips move in ways a fox's lips normally shouldn't and sips from her cup. Her left ear also twitches as she watches Nimah out of one eye.

The transformed girl practices puckering before trying to sip the tea. Because of Daiki's attention, she's nervous and shaky. She really doesn't want to slurp after all. No need to embarrass herself further.

Well, it's not too loud of a slurp at least. But, slurp she does. The forest Lord mostly just looks bemused somehow. "The Emmisary was right, you are flighty and jumpy," he observes. "Though given the nature you show to all right now, I suppose that is not too surprising. What brings you so far from your home, young one? Why are you not walking among the Sidhe with the rest of your kind?"

Niamh still feels embarrassed, but doesn't know if her flushing shows or not. "My parents received a request to help out with a haunting," she explains. "And I came with them, because I've inherited some of the gifts of my grandmother for dealing with spirits. The journey was hard, and I'm still trying to recover. Normally I would perform a lunar ritual to recharge myself, but Inari advised against it. So the forest and local Yosei were my only other option. I need more power than I normally would in order to perform the chinkon to purify the angry spirits and have any hope of succeeding."

"Mm. And you would prefer to treat with me on lending you access to these lands for your time here?" The Forest Lord asks as he now drinks from his own cup. He slurps. Loudly. Whether it's something he always does, or it's to help Niamh relax ... hard to say. "I assume the spirits in question are those Noboru helped seal some time back?" he asks.

"Yes," Niamh admits. "The ones who hurt Miyuki. So while the kitsune are willing to help me in some ways, they will not be aiding with the ritual."

"Why bother with them at all? they are sealed away. Is that not enough?" The Forest Lord asks. "And are you sure even with help you are capable? You seem ... too flighty to be dealing with hunter spirits."

"I'm not normally like this," Niamh claims, but manages to not pout at least. "The journey has left me with very little strength and I haven't been able to recover yet. And I have to try for my the sake of my parents. The anger of the spirits is poisoning the land around them, including the trees. I'm a druid.. in training.. and my god would not want me to abandon innocents to such a fate."

"Be honest," Miyuki chides Niamh a little. "You are a bit .. twitchy by nature. No one is this nervous just from a journey."

"I'm not usually under this much stress," Niamh claims. She glances at Miyuki, but doesn't say anything about being tormented for the amusement of certain spirits. "I wasn't prepared for so many challenges while feeling powerless and isolated."

"You are also only just past your first majority, unless I judge you incorrectly. It has been some millennia since I treated with the Sidhe and their social structure," the Forest Lord observes. "They do not reach their full power until their second majority if I remember correctly."

"I'm pretty far removed from any Sidhe ancestry," Niamh claims. "My grandmother went under the hill in her nineties, and I don't know if she's still alive with the Sidhe now. I'm mostly human."

"All the more reason you should not be dealing with spirits, then," The Forest Lord observes. "You wish to deny your own ancestry and claim human, and still reap the benefits of said ancestry? You need to choose which world you belong in, child. Walking the fence is only a path of misery."

Niamh slouches. "My family has a certain duty, and I'm the next one that has to take it up," she says. "I need to get better at what I can do to fulfill that."

"My home isn't like this land," Niamh notes. "The duty of my family is to retrieve items that have spirits sealed away in them, that have ended up in public or private hands over the centuries. We have to recover them so they don't end up hurting people or worse. It's.. just like the sealed dog spirits. They're dangerous to just leave them as they are."

"I have to be human to work among the humans of my land, otherwise just the everyday materials they use would be toxic to me," Niamh goes on. "Cold forged iron is all over the place in the cities."

"Mm. That is unfortunate. Humans are limited and short-sighted," The Forest Lord points out. "It is more of a punishment to be human."

"The Nokamuras certainly make that evident to me," Niamh notes, maybe with a bit of a grin.

"The kitsune do that to everyone. They are equal-opportunity-irritants of the Yokai," The Forest Lord nodes. "While they can be noble; they always find some way to be incredibly irritating at the same time."

"Am I going to be stuck like this?" Niamh asks, feeling the panic rising a bit as she sets down the tea cup and looks at her new hands. "I ruined the miko clothes Miyuki gave me. Well, Kasumi did but they were still my responsibility. I can't do chores as a deer. I can't do anything.."

"Why do you feel you cannot do anything?" The Forest Lord asks. "What is wrong with being one with the Fang and Claw?"

"It's not how I was born," Niamh says. She doesn't know if deer can cry, but she feels like she wants to. "When the Horned God made me into a deer it was different. I was connected to the forest. Nothing was out to kill me. It seems like everything wants to eat me in this land."

"You have lived very sheltered. The way of nature is to eat or be eaten," The Forest Lord observes. "I find your form fetching, though I admit it would be better if you were fully on four hooves instead of those unsightly hands."

"At least then I could run," Niamh says, still looking at her weird hands. "That was the best part. Running through the forest, feeling it and being tied to it. It's been so long now. Maybe that was all a dream. This is no different than when that tribe in Africa wanted to cook me because I could raise spirits."

"Why can you not run now?" The Forest Lord asks. "Fore and hindlimbs are the same length. Have you even tried?"

"Ah. Well, that is easily remedied," The Forest Lord notes and rises to all fours. His head bows and the tip of his horn presses right into Niamh's forehead! Enough that she feels it start to bleed...

"What.." Niamh asks, but know better than to move. The sense of bleeding makes her panic start to rise again though. She's not only a defenseless doe, but now she might be one that smells of blood. The kirin is also a lot bigger than her, which also keeps her from moving, especially with his head right there.

The Forest Lord draws back, and within a few seconds the bleeding stops. "You are now marked as one of my harem," he intones. "Which means no yokai in these woods will try to harm you. Well, save for a few willing to risk my ire."

Miyuki sort of rolls over on her side and starts snicker-laughing. It sounds weird.

Niamh reaches up to touch her forehead. "You have a harem?" she asks. "There are more kirin in the forest?"

"No, but there are a few unicorn, deer, and other beasts that I spend time with from time to time," The Forest Lord notes. As for her forehead, it feels fine, more or less. There might be a slight bump left.

"Spend time with.. but not make babies?" Niamh asks just to be certain, given the reproductive mind sets she's encountered with the kitsune so far.

"Sometimes we make foals, yes. Why, do you wish to sire with me?" The Forest Lord asks.

"No! I mean.. I have to return home and can't leave children behind," Niamh says in a panic. She doesn't want to offend the Forest Lord after all. "I can only spend time with you!"

"So, you wish sex without children, then?" The Forest Lord asks. "I do remember the Sidhe being quite promiscuous, so I should not be surprised."

"I mean, that's as far as I could go," Niamh squeaks. "We've only had tea.. I should try running!" She then tries to get on all fours, and is a bit shaky about it. "Stop laughing, Miyuki!" she bleats.

"Sidhe. They were odd then, they're still odd now," The Forest Lord laments as settles back down and goes right back to his tea.

Niamh manages to wobble two steps before she goes down into a heap, with her butt sticking up in the air. Miyuki has gone silent, but she's still shaking like she was laughing. No, wait, she has some sort of silence enchantment set on herself! She is still laughing!

The doe growls, and tries to get up onto her feet again. "I will be connected to the forest," she tells herself as motivation.

Meanwhile, Miyuki manages to get up to her feet. She prances all around Niamh in a cute little four-legged bouncy dance. She's either truing to encourage her, or is teasing her! Either way, something seems to sort of snap in her mind; and she remembers how it was when she was on four legs before.

That she manages to do quite well, in fact. The Forest Lord remains sitting where he is, and sips his tea. "Ah, to be young," he mutters.

And Niamh keeps going, leaving the depression and moving among the ancient trees. This feels nice! She's not connected to the forest, but.. it's still nice. She doesn't feel like something is bearing down on her at least.

No one seems to be coming after her, so she's free to run all around if she wants. It's a little weird, and she feels like her neck ought to hurt or something with how she's holding her head, but it doesn't. It's more a rush, and just an overall sense of freedom than anything else. Gangly and weird as her body is right now; it feels perfect.

So she gambols about, a bit drunk on the sensation of not being chase, threatened or teased. She should be paying attention to where she's going so that she doesn't get lost. But that's non-deer thinking! There are trees to dodge around, after all. And no fox could hope to catch her now.

Further and further away she's probably getting from the depression, not that she cares much. The forest is alive with birdsong and the sounds of critters scurrying through the underbrush. It's ... peaceful.

Something else comes to her mind then: she should look for fairy circles! The Yosei should be friendly! Well, not friendly but likely to be interested in a far off relation.

Alas, no fairy rings in sight. Nor was that low branch that catches Niamh right under her chin and sends her flipping head over heals. She lands hard on her back with a thud.

"Uuugn," she moans, having the sense knocked back into her. "What am I doing?" she asks the sky. "Where did I get to?" she asks tree that felled her. Ah, the tree, she can ask it how to get back to the forest heart. First though, she tries to move some ectoplasm to her forehead to keep it from bruising. Then she wonders if the smack did anything to the Forest Lord's marking.

Still, she waits a moment before trying to get up. She'll have to look around for silently laughing foxes of course. Or any foxes. So, since she doesn't hear anything, she struggles back to feet.

She seems to be quite along as she gets back to her feet. Also, somewhere quite deep into the forest! As in nothing looks familiar at all.

She turns the tree that bonked her, and presses her forehead to it to try and push some of her spirit into it. "Hello, can you point me towards the Forest Heart?" she asks the tree.

"I'm sorry for gamboling into you, it was an accident," Niamh replies. "Or do you not know the direction of the Heart?"

"You are one of his. How can you not know?" the Tree asks in reply to her question.

"It's my first day in the forest," Niamh admits. "I'm not really one of the harem, he just marked me so I wouldn't be eaten. Do you not care for the Forest Lord?"

"I'm just a visitor," Niamh says. "From across the sea. I need to ask him if I can connect to the forest. I'm.. a forest yosei."

"I don't remember the way," Niamh explains. "Aside from the bonk to my head, I was caught up in being a deer and didn't pay attention."

Niamh pulls herself back from the tree, and.. sniffs around. What does she smell like? She didn't rub on anything, so it'd just be in the air, she reasons. Like perfume.

Niamh thinks she can smell her scent trail and the direction she may have come in. Hopefully she can keep smelling it!

It's certainly not as fast going back along her trail. Why did she have to bounce around so much? She steps carefully so she doesn't lose the scent, and wonders why her forest friends never taught her how to do this properly.

It takes about an hour of sniffing a lot, circling back a few times, getting lost twice, and tripping once, but she finally manages to spot the ring of stones that outline the depression.

Feeling relieved, Niamh prances towards them. Nobody ever has to know she got lost!

The two are still in the depression, drinking tea. Also, still both fully animal-form. "Have fun?" Miyuki calls up to her. "Aside from hitting the tree, that is."

That comment nearly makes Niamh trip. "How much tea have you drunk?" she replies.

"Enough," Miyuki comments. "The Forest Lord and I were watching your adventure from here. With that mark, he always knows where you are and can check on you."

Niamh pauses. "As long as I'm a deer, you mean," she says, not making it a question.

"No, always," The Forest Lord comments now. "But do not worry, I do not make it a point to spy. You are new, so I was making sure you would be safe."

"The tree said I'm not worthy of you," Niamh remarks in a bit of a shocked, detached way as goes to sit down in her previous spot.

"They always say that. Pay it no mind," The Forest Lord notes. "If there is not anything else, I feel the urge to patrol the wood."

The Forest Lord considers this for a bit. "Mmmm, you ask a great deal," he notes. "But I suppose I shall permit it. But ... on the next full moon, my price is that you will be a full doe, and that night we shall share of each others in the manner the wild do."

"That is.. a month away," Niamh says. A lot can happen in a month, and she still has her ectoplasmic control in deer form. "Do you mean chasing and dancing?" she asks, just to be certain of what he means.

Miyuki cackles in laughter! The Forest Lord also looks amused. "We will see when the time comes," he notes.

Maybe it's just to keep Miyuki from laughing, but Niamh says, "I agree. That's a much better offer than Noboru gave me."

"That is a given, yes," Niamh says. Who knows what kind of energy she could get from a kirin! Especially if she can't use the moon any other way.

"You should return to the Temple," Miyuki notes to Niamh. "I still have tasks I must do out here."

"I.. don't know the way," Niamh admits. "Lord Mizuchi carried me here. And before that I was running from Kasumi."

Then she blinks again, and says, "I'm a deer-yokai! I can't go into the Temple like this! What if there are humans there?"

This makes The Forest Lord snort. "What is wrong with how you are?" he asks, "The humans see the Kitsune from time to time. Besides, why not just change yourself back?"

"I don't know how to shapshift, even if I had the power I needed.. Oh, you gave me permission!" Niamh realizes. She can try to tap into the forest at the steps to the Temple. If she can't change back, she can just wait for Noboru or Miyuki to return.

The Forest Lord rolls his neck a bit, and the air at the edge of the Forest Heart seems to tear. Through the now hole; Niamh can see the temple steps she was just thinking about. "Since you do not know the way," he notes.

"Thank you!" Niamh says, clearly impressed. She's seen openings between the normal world and the fey world, but not one that does it from one point to another in the same world. She gets to her feet and bows again to the kirin, before leaping through the portal.