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They say the dead can dance. Ruby Winchester knew all too well. She had seen the endless ranks defile Raieara during the corpse war. She had witnessed ghouls and daemons and wraiths topple empires time and time again. Despite all the horrors of war against time, one thing amongst their number scared her more than any other. The necromancers themselves. Centuries had passed and still she struggled to understand what could drive good men to become so cruel as to ensnare the dead in a web of lies. How could anyone deny life’s undeniable truth, that an end comes to us all?
“Whoever it was, it was clear they were not working alone.”
She sat opposite Lilith around a small black table. As was customary in Akashima, it was low and each of the sisters knelt on a large cushion. The black silk bore no adornments, save for blood red stitching and a tassel on each corner. Lilith dressed as simply as her ante-chamber, her only colour a soft pink blossom tucked under a hairband. Ruby knew it to be sakura, but could not recall its significance.
“I’m please you’ve decided to take action, sister. But,” Lilith set her tea cup onto the table and rested her hands softly on her lap. “What is it I can do to help?”
It had been months since the siblings had seen one another. When they last met, the troupe had sung a song that changed reality itself. They had spoken at length about the path they must take moving forward, and whilst Lilith had expressed her agreement at the time had since been riddled with doubts. Whenever the spirit-warder found herself called away from Akashima, Akashima soon called back.
“Lilith. I know your time here was hard. I can’t begin to know what you must go through with such burdens. But, of all of us, you are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the diseased. I’d like you to come to Raieara, help me quell this infestation before the rebuilding efforts these last few decades are jeopardised.”
Ruby had come directly to Lilith for help. She had not spoken to anyone, even Duffy who had been by her side in the woods fighting. Pretences left at home, she appeared before her sister in a simple white blouse and black laced corset, her travelling attire, and made no effort to hide the worry and concern on her face.
“I cannot abandon my responsibilities here.” Lilith cocked her head to one side, visibly considering the request and trying to weigh up risk and reward.
“I’d never ask you to. We’ll be gone for a week at most, any more and we will abandon efforts until more allies can be gathered.” Who those allies we be she had no idea. Ruby, for once in her life, relied utterly on the only person in the world she truly trusted with her darkest secrets and insecurities.
“Neko will join us. Let us find what haunts Raiaera.”
“Then it’s settled.” Ruby smiled, a little too eagerly.
“Ruby…why come to me now? We’ve not spoken since the night in the Castle.” Lilith poured them both a second cup of tea and served two portions of jasmine rice, still steaming and aromatic. She continued to serve the customary welcome meal whilst the spell singer fought to find the right words.
“I needed time to think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.” It was as close to honesty as she could get. “I’ve no ghosts of my own, so I figured following others was a good use of our time.”
“You always want to do the right thing but you don’t have to be the hero anymore.” Lilith pushed two black bowls over the table, one filled with rice, one filled with sauteed pork ribs. “We’ve done enough.”
Ruby shrugged. She took the bowls and began to pick at the food.
“I don’t know what else to be.”
The sisters ate in silence, swaddled in the black decor of Lilith’s palatial abode. Never had Ruby seen the inner sanctum of her sister’s house. Now that she was a member of the Akashiman senate, new customs obscured the old and bound them in new ways of servitude and tradition. She pictured luxurious carvings and cabinets piled with trinkets and artisan relics from Lilith’s time as a geisha in the Capitol’s okiya.
“I know how you feel.” Lilith swallowed a piece of pork and slouched, abandoning the strict doctrine of her political station. “I keep asking myself if all I’ve fought for is really what Akashima needs.”
“All that you’ve fought for, Lilith, means Akashima has a future.” Ruby was not present during the later stages of the Greater Oni War, but she had enough tall tales of her sister’s exploits to appreciate what her sacrifices meant. “Those tanto serve not only as a reminder of your contribution, but as a symbol of hope that Akashima can re-join the world.”
They looked at one another endearingly, finally letting down their guard to one another. Whatever had transpired since they last met thawed, and they appeared as mortal and full of heart as ever. Lilith even mustered a smile, a glint of fire and a smattering of a kitsune’s grin forming in the twilight. The spirit-warder plucked the flower from her hair and set it at the centre of the table.
“The sakura blossom is the only thing to stay unchanged in Akashima for a thousand years. Slowly, but surely, it’s broken free of the stagnation instilled by the shogunate. No more samurai. No more ronin. People’s voices heard and the senate acts on behalf of everyone and not just the noble houses.”
“It’s still as beautiful as it was the first time I saw it in your hair decades ago.” Ruby smiled. Though time stole triumphs and heartaches, the day Lilith descended the stairs at her debutante ball would remain forever crystalline in her mind.
“We’ve both come a long way since then.” Lilith remembered that day less fondly than her sister, but appreciated the happiness it brought Ruby. “But if you’re certain we will not be away too long, how can I say no?”
“I promise. I ask only for your companionship, and perhaps a smattering of your knowledge.”
“Well, I don’t know about knowledge…spirits in Akashima differ greatly from those beyond our borders. Which is why I suggested that Neko join us.”
“Isn’t he your student?” Ruby raised an eyebrow as she polished off the last bit of pork. She wiped juiced from her chin.
“Once, yes. He has more than surpassed the master. I spent too much energy trying to save the world from the living and he is quite impatient with lessons.” Once Neko had started his studies, Lilith had little control over his inquisitive mind. Rather than teaching him all there was to know about the kami, she had only been the spark to his own blossoming genius.
“Then that is settled.” Ruby pushed the bowl away and set the chopsticks together atop it.
Lilith mimicked her sister’s observation of custom, but remained focussed on the sheepish expression on Ruby’s face. Though not as astute and untrusting as the spellsinger’s wits, their time together had taught her a thing or two about a woman’s penchant for asking favours in twos.
“Don’t make it so obvious you want something, Ruby-sama, it’s written all over your face.” Lilith pushed herself upright and adjusted her obi. She bowed then gestured for Ruby to follow her into the interior of the house. Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Yes, you can see what I’ve been hiding from you all these last few years.”
“I didn’t accuse you of hiding anything, Lilith. I just.” Ruby struggled to stand beneath the weight of her dragon scale lined dress. “You know. I’ve never seen where my dearest sister lives. It’s weird.”
“Bollocks,” Lilith spat. She turned halfway across the floor in her reception room and rested her hands on her hips. “It took me three years after I moved to Scara Brae before I saw your bedroom, and that was only when I picked your lock.”
Ruby frowned, stopped a few feet before the assassin, and wagged a finger at her accursedly.
“I blamed Duffy for that!”
“He’s done alright despite such scorn. Here we are.” Lilith gestured at the space they occupied. A perfect square with a sunken square at the centre, lined with mats and edged with oak planks that served as the house’s heart and seats for guests to remove their shoes. The ante chamber served as the last safe hold of western culture before the remnants of Akashima’s traditions took president.
“So if I’m here, that means I’m at least ‘extended family’, right?” Ruby struggled to remember the bewildering hierarchy Akashima held for accepting guests into a home.
The ante chamber was the ultimate cold shoulder, and anyone not directly related or who held a position of dignity in the city could venture no further. Guests who remained in this room would be served modest sake and a traveller’s meal whilst the host took those of worth deeper inside.
“Why is this so complicated?”
“I wouldn’t want the riff-raff to get anywhere near the silverware.” Lilith mocked Ruby’s haughty voice of a bygone life, and ducked as a boot flew past her ear. “Ha! You don’t deny it.”
“I’m a changed woman.” Ruby grunted as she heaved the second boot off and dropped it onto the mat. “Besides, the silverware’s long gone.”
“Yet the Great Lady Winchester does just fine without it.”
“Yes…yes. You know all too well my fall from grace was long, hard, and full of home truths Leopold will be rubbing in my face for decades to come.”
Lilith chuckled. “Yes, he is rather fond of upstaging you at parties.”
“His balls aren’t.” Ruby stuck out her tongue. “Where next?” She looked at the three doors leading away from the reception room, more panels built into the paper panels between thick oak pillars painted black and decorated with blossoms and vines in a soft pastel green. Little flecks of red marked where blossoms turned to blooms. It was all tediously well-co-ordinated.
“The east wing is the library, so I won’t bore you with that. North is my chamber, the courtyard, and the repository. A kitchen, too, though I never use it. West lies the shrine, which is why I invited you here rather than meeting you at Uncle Sei’s for our usual bitch and pot of tea.”
“I do miss Sei’s tea.” Ruby frowned and made a mental note to visit the hillside tearoom when she got the opportunity. “Is he well?”
“Oh, long retired, his daughter had to push him down the mountain before he’d stop working. Spritely for ninety-four, I’ll give him that.” Lilith stepped to one side and gestured for Ruby to proceed first.
The door slid open silently, revealing a short corridor of similar paper doors patterned with a woodland scene Ruby vaguely recognised. Little spirits danced amongst the branches and lanterns swung from the boughs. They walked through the corridor and Ruby pushed against the tapestry acting as a door at its end. Inside, against all expectations, it was night-time. Overhead stars and a full moon illuminated a garden courtyard and the spell singer couldn’t help letting out a gasp.
“It’s…”
Lilith stepped inside behind her and walked over the pebble lawn to the shrine at the courtyard’s centre.
“Go on, you can say it.”
“Bigger on the inside!”
Ruby walked beneath four torii, inscribed with stories of the shrine’s deity. Gold Akashiman text told the spell singer the shrine was much older than the house. She looked up at the night sky and wondered.
“Why is it dark here and light outside?” She frowned. “Are we outside?”
Lilith sat at the base of a great fox statue knelt before a gnarled sakura tree at the centre of the courtyard. She bowed, then tended to the incense burning in bunches at the kami’s paws.
“This is the only shrine to Inari left in Capitol city. I found it whilst exploring the archives in the Senate. They were going to demolish this district to build new housing for the refugees from Yanbo Harbour.”
Ruby sat next to her sister and bowed. Though she didn’t know much of her sibling’s customs, respect was universal across cultures. She watched the assassin pour tea from a ceremonial tea set filled with nothing but air and the promises of spirits. She raised a glass to the statue and set it before her deity.
“How did you get it?”
“I brought it. Fame comes with some small mercy.”
“You brought the land and built a house?” Ruby raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve outdone me.”
“It’s not a competition,” Lilith smiled. Her ritual complete, she gestured at the tree behind the fox statue. “This tree is where Lao Sheng first defeated the Kamodo at the end of the first Oni War.”
Ruby had heard the tale of Arden and Lilith’s former lives. They had fought side by side centuries ago to seal away the four greater oni, repealing their responsibilities until their greatest adversaries broke free once more.
“Are we…”
“Yes.” Lilith knew what her sister meant. She pointed skyward. “This is the spirit realm.”
Ruby looked back through the torii and tried to work out at what point she had left Althanas. There was no warning. No strange sensation.
“Why would you hide this from us?”
“I wasn’t hiding. I wanted to make sure that what I found here was real. That I wasn’t being tricked, a fragment of Oblivion toying with my longing for a home.” Lilith had withdrawn from her family not because she shunned them or feared them, but because she was worried what they would think if they discovered her secret.
“It looks real to me. Even with the hockey pokey.”
“Oh, the shrine isn’t what I wanted to show you.” Lilith’s eyes danced with purple fire, a cold gaze which reminded all what she had done, and what lay sleeping within her. “Look closely at the tree.”
Ruby did so, but saw nothing more than moss covered bark and the last remnants of spring’s blossoms dancing in a soft and subtle breeze. The moonlight coruscated over the knots and illuminated the scars in its form.
“It’s just a tree…,” she protested.
As soon as she said it, she caught a flash of white dart out from behind the fox statue.
Lilith rose to greet the stranger and bowed to the real guest of the shrine. Ruby stumbled back, scrabbling to get away from whatever it was that sat before her sister. A white fox, as large as a wolf hound and brandishing nine tails bushy and half-aflame in the twilight.
“What the hell is that?” Ruby reached for her sword, but when Lilith raised a hand to stay her action she rested a palm on her rapier’s hilt. “Lilith, what is it!”
“This is a kitsune, a guardian kami who serves the Kami Lord Inari.” Her matter of fact tone did little to ease Ruby’s nerves.
“Why is it…here?”
“The correct question is why am I here.”
The kitsune moved around Lilith, its paws floating off the ground and distorting the fabric of reality in its wake. It moved unthreateningly towards Ruby, head low, tails bunched together and stopped on the bottom step leading away from its shrine. It sniffed the air, then bowed a head.
“It won’t harm you.”
Ruby looked at her sister, then the fox, then her sister again.
“That’s you?”
Lilith nodded.
“When we destroyed the Jurugumo the veil between our world and the kami’s realm fell. Outside the Comb Mountains, nobody in Akashima has seen a kami for decades. When I found the shrine, I found this kitsune at death’s door, a pup with a single tail clinging to the memories of the tree.”
The kitsune purred when Ruby patted it gently on the nose, and when her fear faded, she moved closer to nuzzle its neck. It was warm and cold to the touch at the same time, and the fur on its back was softer than clouds.
“It sensed that I carried the Greater Oni in my heart and we fought. Both at death’s door, I offered my heart to it, so that it could feed off my piety and regain its strength.” Lilith sat on the step. With the moonlight behind her it cast her in a foreboding light. Ruby realised her sister’s hair was silver now, and that her skin shimmered with faint traces of kanji.
“What does that mean, feed off you?” Ruby climbed the steps again and sat next to Lilith. The kitsune curled into a ball at the foot of the shrine and watched them gingerly with a single, effervescent golden eye.
“I remember something about myself when we bonded. That I, by Lao Sheng’s side, was once a kami. I was reborn as something to protect people who could not protect themselves, as we all have been remade since Oblivion cursed us.”
“You never spoke of this before.”
“Too many lives to speak of, Ruby. I hadn’t the good fortune of your privileged position. I had to fight, tooth and nail to protect people I love. To safeguard my home.”
“Akashima owes you a great debt because of that.” Ruby’s gaze drifted back to the kitsune.
“Finding him again reminded me who I am. What I am.”
“Aren’t you my sister?”
Lilith did not answer. She rose and descended the stairs. The silence broken only by the breeze dancing through the blossoms overhead. The kitsune stood too, sensing a need to draw close to the assassin. They cuddled, the kitsune’s tails wrapped around Lilith’s ankles like a faithful hound.
“I am. I was. But I didn’t bind myself to the kitsune, it was more like we were reunited. I was always the kitsune, long before I lost myself and became a villager in Tokyun as a young girl. Oblivion’s curse stole that from me, but now I am free to live the life I was meant to live.”
Ruby’s eyes widened as her sister and the kami began to dissipate, the clouds of glowing dust swirling together into a vortex of spiritual power. In a manner of seconds, the two were one, and from the mists emerged a facsimile of her sister, reborn whole and carrying weight on one shoulder and hope on the other.
“Good god. You…you look like a goddess!” Ruby dropped her jaw.
Lilith’s hair was long, below the shoulder and grey. Her eyes were pallid, half flickering with golden light and remnants of her human form. Tattoos ran down both exposed arms and protruded from beneath the ornate dress and kanzashi she wore atop her head.
“This is why I was hesitant to help you, Ruby. But know I realise I do not need to hide him any longer.”
“Why hide what you already were? Akashima was saved by the one thing it’s slowly abandoned during its own stagnation. You can make the people of Capitol, of all Akashima believe in the kami again. A kingdom that dances with kami and man, a life of harmony!” As the initial shock faded, Ruby found herself swift becoming drunk on excitement and possibility.
Lilith smiled weakly. She clicked her joints, still unsure of her new self, and let the remnants of her power faded. Her hair turned grey and her skin no longer danced with talismans. She appeared like a geisha, in geta and brandishing an ornate iron fan, and advanced back towards the torii.
“A beautiful dream. I can’t do it without you, sister.”
Ruby followed Lilith and embraced her. They walked out of the shrine and back into the house arm in arm, their long-forgotten sisterhood rekindled by a simple, universal truth. The Tantalum troupe were a family that time and war and terror would never break.
“After all you’ve done for me Lilith-sama, how could I say no? Let’s see your sake stores and you can tell me more about what ...well, whatever it is you are now.”
Lilith waved a hand and the paper panel into the house slid open. They entered the warm corridor and wove through the house to the inner-sanctum, a silk laden chamber filled with curiosities from Akashiman folklore and books and bottles and tapestries. Lilith slouched onto a chais lounge and pointed at the drinks trolley.
“The green bottle. Read the label.”
Ruby picked up the bottle and chuckled at the label.
“Now, my Akashiman is rusty to say the least. But this is a little too quaint even for me.” It depicted a kitsune, eyes red and a sakura tree behind it loosing blossoms in a gust of wind. She picked up two glasses with the fingers of her free hand and waltzed over to the chair next to her sister.
“Little Fox. Produced in Yanbo no longer after the docklands were ravaged by the Crab. It’s one of the last few bottles, so don’t down it.”
“Sukoshi Kitsune has a nice ring to it.” Ruby poured two draughts and handed one to Lilith. “I can’t remember the last time we had a drink together without some world breaking threat looming over us.”
They sipped the sake gently in silence, both fondly reminiscing about what few good and innocent times they had shared since Oblivion’s fall. They were criminally few and far between. Both siblings made a promise to change that.
“I don’t know. The winter festival was grander than I’d planned for.”
Ruby wrinkled her nose. Whilst the performance was riotous and people still talked about it in Scara Brae months on, the hangover had not been worth it.
“We know how to party I’ll give you that. But, tell me. Why have the kami started to return now?”
“The kitsune is the first to appear in the capital for centuries. I can only assume the death of the greater oni has purified these lands. I’ve heard reports of other kami appearing in the southlands and dancing over the shores near Yanbo at dusk. It finally feels like all Arden and I have done has had the desired effect.”
“What do you want to do now? After we hunt a necromancer or two.” Ruby finished her sake, never quite acquiring a taste for it and preferring to saviour it’s lethargic and warming vigour.
Lilith sat upright and patted the end of the chaise lounge. Ruby shuffled over and they leant on one another’s shoulders. Red hair and grey hair representing the fox and the phoenix.
“The senate is talking about opening trade negotiations with Corone. The rebuilding efforts in Yanbo are nearly over. I want to restore the ninja clans in the south and see to it that the shrines destroyed by the Komodo’s ronin are rebuilt. Akashima needs to remember who watches over it.”
“If anyone can bring the stories to life Lilith Kazumi is the one to do it.”
“Even when the kami walked amongst Tokyun I always thought they were alien, distant beings. Naive was I to think any of us could survive without them. They are as much a part of Akashima as Tantalus is a part of us.” They clinked glasses then Ruby refilled them.
“You finally grew up.” Ruby smiled cheekily.
Lilith jabbed her in the ribs playfully.
“You might be my older sister, Ruby, but we all know I’ve always been the adult.”
Name of Thread: Sukoshi Kitsune
Judgement Type: No Judgement
Rewards:
Ruby receives:
1315 EXP
135 GP
Inclusive of Althy Fest 1.5x
All rewards have been added.