[D1 LE][Beyond the walls] Stargazing

[Kaito Maya]

Maya pressed her lips together, her brow furrowing in thought. It was an indecent proposal to set before a Phoenix: that knowledge could be anything but good. Oh, certainly knowledge could be misused and bent to evil means, but that the knowing of something could itself bring harm? Inconceivable.

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about poem paper." Maya responded weakly, sharply self-conscious about the different papers in her scroll satchel. Scroll paper, writing paper, paper for ofuda...

Looking down at her feet, Maya adjusted her hakama so that the fabric would cover the settled cat. The hairs of the feline would probably have to be dealt with later, but that was a problem for another time.

"A curious effect, you say?" Looking up, Maya was glad for the shift in topic. At least now she wouldn't have to think about the mental and emotional burden of the weight of her knowledge of papers. "What do you mean by that?"

[Soshi Naoko]

"Hmm..met a snake that oughtn't be here. Not one of our mountain types, you know, and it's cold besides. They should be sleeping." She takes a small, shuffling step away from the dead bird, removing some temptation. "Took a bit of work to get much out of it, but it said the abbess feels rather like the sun to slow snakes, so that'd draw them out, I guess. I haven't heard of anything like it before." She gestures at the snow gleaming around them, "And it's not like the effect seems to do anything to the weather or snow on the mountain."

Shrugging, hands held out palms up, she adds, "some blessing of Lady Sun? Some spirit that's a rival to the Yuki no Onna of the mountains?"

[Kaito Maya]

"Maybe. Maybe snakes simply like her." Maya postulated with some seriousness. "There does feel like there is more to this place and those who dwell here. I was told that bandits are chased away by wolves, while lumberjacks lost for the night in a snowstorm emerge unharmed with the dawn."

Maya clapped her hands twice, a sign perhaps of drawing the spirits' attention formally, lest they had already been hanging about due to the loose talk.

"What do you make of it, Scorpion-san?"

[Soshi Naoko]

Her eyes within the mask go darker, half-lidded in thought. "Wolves wouldn't be an odd danger here. But they're not usually so choosy that they'd chase bandits and not some of these guests traveling from all around. Some sort of protectors? Spirits maybe drawn to the Abbess or directed by her with rather more success than when I try telling Hanakuso what to do." She thinks a moment and follows the other priestess's lead with two claps and her head cocked slightly as if to listen for sounds that might be carried by the wind. "Or she herself is some manner of spirit. Makes you wonder if she's all that happy to have all this attention here."

Perhaps it's the focus on following the trail of these oddities, perhaps the provincial Scorpion isn't so well-versed on proper forms of etiquette. Whatever the reason, she doesn't bother to offer a deeper introduction to fill in the gap indicated by the generic 'Scorpion-san.'

[Kaito Maya]

"Spirits are a curious sort. Some enjoy attention, others don't. All like to have a nice home to go back to, even if that home isn't always in the same spot it started the day in." Maya explained. After all, she was a Kaito - she knew spirits...supposedly, anyway.

"They're not that different from us in that way. Still, though, most spirits don't go about passing as human." Maya notes definitively, then hedges, "At least, that's what I was taught."

[Soshi Naoko]

The grin beneath the mask is a toothy one as the Soshi lifts a hand to wobble in a 'maybe yes, maybe no' sort of gesture. "Depends on what spirits you're talking about. Don't think the elemental ones usually take on mortal costumes, but there's a plenty from Sakkaku and Chikushudo as are happy to do so. Some've those wouldn't have much trouble being wolves as well." The grin turns wry, one side lifting higher than the other. "Buu-uut, I'm not sure many of those would put a lot of energy into safeguarding lumberjacks and other peasants."

[Kaito Maya]

Maya sighed, distracting herself with the puff of foggy breath.

"Such is why I discounted the involvement of those spirits, but they go by their own rules and think their own thoughts, do they not? 'Think as a spirit would', is what my sensei would say." Maya remarked, frowning.

A long, stilted silence. Maya looked over to the grinning Soshi.

"You're going to look into it too, aren't you?"

[Soshi Naoko]

She nods. "Very much their own rules and thoughts. There's some...trends. Like you wouldn't expect a tanuki to take on the role of benevolent and powerful mountain spirit, not without a lot of weird drinking and farting contests to go along with it."

"Oh yes I'll be looking into it. Some kind of thing happening a couple mountains over from my territory? It's not like spirits care about borders and the Scorpion's isn't far off. Sounds more interesting than hitting things with sticks anyway." She measures the Phoenix a moment. "Share what we learn then?"

[Kaito Maya]

Maya looked over at Naoko. Sure, both of their clans were renowned for keeping secrets, each in their own way, each for reasons that were perfectly logical and reasonable to their own internal logic.

But some things under the stars just didn't have to be logical. She nodded in agreement to the proposal. "More interesting by far, I agree."