Love of the Wind Spirit

Love of the Wind Spirit:
Chapter 5: Tengu Compassion
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Higher on the slopes of the sacred mountain, two golden eyes opened in surprise as the ever moving air stilled. The constant rustle of leaves died out, leaving the trees to audibly sing no more. As they scanned the landscape from their vantage within one of the towering pines, his midnight wings stretched in preparation for a bout of activity.

“This is odd. Kaze-no-megumi usually is never still for more than a moment. Yet, he has removed his blessings from most of the area. I wonder what has happened.”

Two arms stretched next as his tendons popped. It had been a few months since the last time he had moved. Little Otome from the mountain village had fought very hard the last time he had tried to play with her. It would not be many more years before she could truly stand up to him. The trickster smiled at the corners of his long beak. His part of the young miko’s training was going very well. The drawback was that the more time he spent interfering with the humans, the more informal his language became. Thus it was that the Daitengu so rarely called for Karasu’s services any more.

Burying his fingers into the ebony feathers that covered his crow’s head, Karasu grimaced as he twisted his back. His muscles protested, yet eventually they yielded to his desires. With any luck, he would be able to go and have a word with the wind god without the virgin using him for target practice again. Was it his fault that he couldn’t keep from playing jokes on her? More specifically, could he help it if he would rather see the village headman dangling from his hakama off of one of the eaves of the village torii?

After making sure that every muscle was responding well, Karasu removed his sword and staff from where they lay hidden within his tree. The brown silks of his robes resembled the austere garb of a Buddhist monk, lending the strange figure of the Tengu an even more imposing air, yet not as imposing as his noble ancestor Sarutahiko. This garb had only been his for a generation or two as the humans passed, and was taken up by more and more of his kind as the new incoming religion began to take root and then be corrupted by the love of power. In time and as the generations passed, no doubt their common attire would change again.

“I suppose I should go and find out what is wrong. Maybe with any luck I can cause some trouble for that new priest that the others have been muttering to each other about. He should have made the village by now. First, I will investigate the presence approaching my shrine.”

In a twinkling the figure was gone, the split-second shimmer where his feathers had been the only evidence that the Tengu had ever been there. Even that did not last long, and there had been no others present to watch his miraculous transportation.

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Otome bowed to the Headwoman after being given her leave. As her feet left the porch to walk on the warming earth, she realized that she still had not put on her geta. However, right now she had no wish to return to the shrine building. Instead, her destination was someplace far older, one where she went when she needed to be alone.

The village fell behind her, the forest swallowing her again as she left the “safe” confines of the normal world. The main of her Kami’s presence had stayed behind at the shrine, but she also felt his presence traveling with her, a feat only accomplished by a Kami. Her feet walked themselves along the path, moving ever upward. Long before the present village had built a special building to house their patron and the holy people who served him, the generations before those had maintained a special gate deep in the forest, a marker between the realm of humanity and the realm of spirits. High on a rocky outcropping in the forest, the gray wood symbolically formed a bridge between the place of the gods and the place of the humans. There was her thinking spot, for even the bravest of the men now feared to go there for the neglect it had suffered.

No one even remembered why the holy site had been abandoned, only that the local Tengu had sworn to always be a burden to the leading family of the village since then. Perhaps the village had once been in another place on the mountain in the misty and distant past. Or perhaps it was the site of the old shrine. Whatever the case was, the power here was still strong, and Otome often would bring offerings here, hoping to stem the influx of demons that kept attacking.

This time she had no offering of sake, inari, or sukaki leaves to bring, only the sound of her breathing and the salt water from her eyes. If she were to disobey the Headman’s wishes, she would be betraying her family and village and subject to death or exile. However, if she were to obey them, then she would be betraying her Kami. His vengeance would surely be terrible against such a faithless one as she would be, and the fate of the village was more than certain. There would be death either way, unless the heavenly Kami themselves worked a miracle. It was too bad that this was such a paltry matter as weighed against ensuring the proper function of the Cosmos.

At last, the miles had past and been lost in the tapestry of brown, grey, and green that was the Forbidden forest. Ahead of her loomed the grey wooden torii, bathed on the streaming light of the noonday sun as it poured from Amaterasu-o-mi-kami’s golden face and found paths in between the thrusting spears of the pines surrounding the site protectively. Collapsing at the foot, her tears watered the grasses as she cried to all of the Kami for their help.

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Karasu reappeared a few feet from the old torii that he had once been worshipped at, before his villagers had lost their faith and abandoned him. The foundations of their homes had been buried in earth centuries ago, long before the forebears of the humans that occupied Kaze’s village had wandered here. It was a normal cycle, that waxing and waning of faith that humans were so prone to. As his sandaled feet gained solidity again, the Tengu blinked in surprise at the sight before him.

A red and white blossom had prostrated herself before the torii, her face buried in the ground as her confused sobs wrenched her small form back and forth. She had faced death any times, and had screamed in agony when an oni’s claws had once managed to red her flesh. Never before had the mountain spirit seen such tears spill from the young woman, save for the tears issued on the day that her parents had passed into the next world.

She was not alone though. The presence of her personal Kami had wrapped around her in a protective embrace. The main of Kaze’s mitama was elsewhere though, comforting her and yet giving her space for a reason unknown to the curious Tengu.

Karasu could remember well the day that the villagers had discovered that Otome had been chosen by the wind god to be his priestess. The first possession had been at a time when the headman of her village had been contemplating the fate of the young child. That day, the villagers had been frightened when she had thrown a fit and then collapsed. As if that had not been enough to hopefully scare the humans back into line, the wind Kami had spoken through her mouth, demanding that they reinstitute the practice of dedicating a pure female to cater to him. The headman had nearly died in fright when the booming male voice had torrented out of her tiny form like a great waterfall.

Karasu would be forever grateful to Kaze for that image. The Headman often used his position to bully some of the other villagers. It was true that has the village head he deserved to be treated with respect and that his word was law here. However, some of the practices behind closed doors the Tengu did not agree with. It was true that as a Tengu he was known for kidnapping children, but Karasu was much gentler than some others of his kind. Others would harm the children and leave them for dead, or even drop them off in another country. Karasu only returned them confused weeks later, a warning to stop producing children with women not his own.

He reached out with one claw, carefully crouching down to touch the miko’s shoulder.

“Miko-san, tell me why you cry.”

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Tsubame eyed the young man with distrust. When the traders came it was one thing, as the traders were people known to the reclusive village. This man however was an unknown, and she had seen the way that he had looked at her innocent niece. It was not the look a monk should wear when addressing a fellow. She would have turned him out on his ear, and knew that her husband would feel the same. The only thing preventing her from doing so now was that she must not go against the Headman, even so indirectly as to disobey his wife. It just was not done.

Maybe someday, the world would be different. Then again, maybe it would not be different. At any rate, the monk stayed.

“I thank you for your hospitality Lady Tsubame.”

“You are welcome lord monk.”

“What can you tell me about your village priestess? Are there any areas of her training where she is lacking and in need of tutoring?”

“Lady Otome is our protector’s vessel and Miko. She receives all her training directly from the spirits, and so is sometimes gone for long stretches of time. My husband has seen her take out two oni with her bare hands, and I have seen her bring a child back from the brink of death. I do not believe that she is lacking in any abilities.”

“You say that she is his vessel?”

“He possessed her from a very young age. Her mother and I knew that she would be selected by the god to fill his shrine. There were signs even as early as when the mother was discovered pregnant.”

“I see. What of the village men. I saw very few as I was coming. Where are they? Are you women not afraid to be left alone while they are gone?”

“The god protects us as long as we are faithful. While Otome is in the village, no demon dares to attack.”

“You still do not tell me where they are, Lady Tsubame.”

“Where else would they be lord monk? They hunt or tend the fields. There are children to feed, and there is wood to be brought.”

A troubled silence fell between the two while a light midday meal was consumed. Suspicious on Tsubame’s side, it was curious on Gihenko’s.

“This relationship which exists between the God and his Miko, what do you know about it?”

“I know only what she tells me. She belongs to him and so must live apart from men. He was very adamant about that, that she be uncommitted to normal life. He even went so far as to have her mother and father serve as his attendants while they still lived. So it is that she has no siblings.”

“What happens if she dies?”

“Then we are without a Miko, and with no way to receive the blessings of our Kami.”

Gihenko frowned, contemplating silently the situation that he found the village in. If he was right, her death would be a cause for Kaze-no-megumi to be sentenced to death if he were to willingly kill her. Without him, there would be no protection for the village. Should he perhaps force fate in order to protect her, her village, and her Kami? Is that why his own Kami had told him to come here?