thenearshore | [ Open ] With new power comes...

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[ Open ] With new power comes...

Who: Nanako and anyone inclined to be out exploring or who might notice a new mountain looming in the Far Shore.
When: July 12
Where: Nanshe's newly-discovered Temple
What: Nanako has discovered she has god powers after all! Now it's led her to finally discovering she has a temple here and it gives her the perfect place to try out some of the new things she can do.

A; To Find Shelter

[ It's been a little over a week since Nanako had discovered that she did indeed have a god power of her very own. Even if it had taken her awhile to get the hang of it. It was still taking her a while to get the hang of it, but today she's taken a break from practicing in the backyard of Souji's temple to go investigate something for herself.

Because she's felt a pull that's been growing stronger over the past few days, insistent and niggling and new. Since it hadn't faded or gone away, she'd decided this morning to follow it and see what she found.

Which is how she ends up at the base of a mountain not that long a walk away from Souji's temple. A mountain which she's very sure she's never seen before. She thinks? But there's a walled gate around its base that feels vaguely familiar to her, even if she doesn't know why. The gate stands wide open and welcoming, however, so she proceeds inside, heading up a long stone staircase to the shrine she finds at the top, brightly colored with banners waving and surrounded by a hillside full of blooming azalea bushes. The shrine itself is set beside a huge lake full of fat and lazy fish swimming within its depths.

And the more she explores of this place, the more certain she is - she's finally found Nanshe's temple. Her temple. Delighted, she starts poking into every inch of the shrine she can find, exploring all over it and seeing everything hidden within this new place. Eventually, she'll go looking for her brother and Homura, wanting to share with them her newest discovery, but if anyone else happens by in the meantime, she might excitedly show them around as well. ]

B; To Rise

[ The discovery of her very own temple means one thing for certain - it's given her a wide open space to keep practicing her new abilities. And since she now knows how to look for that tiny flicker of power that seems to blossom brighter each time she uses it, it's easy to flit back and forth between normal and the form her god power seems to give her - that of a halo and tiny wings and a bright cheerful glow that surrounds her every time it manifests.

She hasn't figured out yet if her power will allow her to fight evil spirits any better - especially when she doesn't know how to fight in the first place. But there are other uses to this power she's learning about. Like the fact that the tiny feathered wings on her back actually work, and as long as she can keep her focus steady, she can even manage to float for increasingly longer periods of time.

So of course this is what she's practicing, once she finds her own private mountaintop filled with colorful flowers, trees, and banners. Although it's with dubious success at first, she's determined to get better at it.

So, throughout various points of the day - and possibly the next few days - there's a tiny girl with angel wings floating, bobbing, and sometimes zooming around her shrine and occasionally even venturing outside her temple to see how far she can fly and how long she can manage it. Sorry, friends, her control isn't all that great yet... ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Those should be easier to deal with than vultures, at least. [Pelicans aren't opportunistic scavengers, for one thing. Shun is fond of them and still thinks people are more afraid of them than they should be, but he's not completely unaware of the issue there.] And bigger grounds are better anyway. Too many rooms becomes a waste of space eventually.

[For some reason, the mention of fish rings a bell, and it takes Shun a moment to actually remember what with.] Well, if that goldfish festival game shows up again, there's a place to keep them.

Goldfish? [ She peers up at him curiously. ] Did you catch one?

Someone else asked me to catch one for them. I know Ren caught a few as well, I was wondering why the hell he was carrying them around the festival instead of taking them straight home. [As ever when it comes to Ren's myriad quirks, Shun's tone there is more of mild exasperation than anything. Though he's pretty sure Ren regretted that decision once it actually became a problem.] I wouldn't risk keeping a goldfish at my temple anyway, the only water feature I have is where the vultures perch.

[ Nanako giggles. ] Maybe they'd think you brought them take-out.

[That's definitely one way of looking at it.] They prefer their meat dead anyway. I'm more surprised when people manage to keep goldfish around cats without them getting caught. [That's another thought courtesy of Ren, because it's beyond Shun how he can pull off goldfish in his fountain and multiple cats with access to said fountain.]

[ Nanako giggles, because they also have a lot of cats. That get into everything. ]

Maybe they just don't like the water more than they want the fish.

They don't have to get into the water to get the fish, they can just wait for them to come close to the edge and get them from there.

[Either Shun's trying to be strategic about this or working with cats has taught him their habits, it could be either one. On the subject of cats, though...]

I'd guess you have a few less to worry about after yesterday, anyway.

Yeah, Souji-oniichan found homes for a bunch! [ Which has her squinting up at him for a moment. ] Did you get one?

No, but I offered the cat cafe I look after the cats at if he needs somewhere to adopt the rest from. And I was keeping an eye on it to see if there was anyone I should be directing to the post. Yukine and Hajime didn't get there in the end, but Ren did.

[He came very close to pointing the former two to it, but Yukine he figured would probably have to beg Yato for a cat if he wanted one anyway, and Hajime already has vultures - part of the reason he didn't adopt any of the cats himself was because he wasn't sure how well cats and vultures would mix.]

Ren got one? [ She looks delighted by that. ] Oh good! I'm glad, I bet he;ll be nice to it. I don't think I know the others yet... [ Those names didn't sound familiar. ]

He probably got more than one. I'm surprised he didn't offer to adopt all of them. [There's that typical long-suffering but also fond tone Shun tends to use when it comes to some of Ren's habits. It's not like he wasn't planning to send him the post if he didn't see it anyway, so he can't really pretend he has an issue with it as long as it makes him happy, since he does care for all the animals at his temple.]

Yukine is one of the shinki who was here before we were, he's partnered with a god called Yato and usually helps advise the newer shinki. Hajime is... [Shun has to stop himself there with a somewhat sour look on his face, because he's not entirely sure how to word that in a way that isn't "Hajime is Hajime".] ...excitable and unnecessarily upbeat about everything, and also a god in my pantheon. She seems like the kind of person who'd be making a fuss about the cats being "cute".

But cats are cute! [ Nanako doesn't understand the problem here. ] She sounds fun.

I didn't know you helped with a cat cafe, though. That's really nice of you. I bet that will make onii-chan happy too, if some of the cats can find homes that way.

I don't see it. [It's not that he doesn't like cats, it's just that he has the same issue with that term as he'd previously had with "pretty" - not really knowing how to quantify it anymore.] Some people would probably say that about her. I wouldn't.

[There's a slight shrug at the mention of helping out being nice of him.] It's a job that doesn't involve me having to interact with people. I took what I could get.

[ Nanako cocks her head to the side at that for a moment, looking curious. ] Do you like cats more than people?

Cats are easier to deal with than people, and less likely to set me off. [There's not really any other way for him to put it than that, when his major concern was someone trying to touch or grab him unexpectedly and him throwing them through the nearest pane of glass.] It's the same with the vultures at my temple.

[ Nanako squints at him a moment. ]

You are sorta like a cat yourself.

[That...is not a comparison Shun's heard before, and he blinks once in confusion before frowning a little and trying to figure out how to even respond to that remark.] ...There are people here more like cats than me.

[Like Ren, or Mikoto, or Chikusa if they're lazy cats.]

Well. Maybe. [ She's laughing softly though. ] But you're like one of those cats you go to pet and it decides it doesn't want to be petted. Except when it decides it's okay to be petted. But you can never guess which time is which before you try.

Why would I want to be petted? [Okay, maybe there's one person here who could possibly get away with that, but still. Going along with the metaphor in his answer doesn't quite get his point across as well as he'd like, though, so he lets out a breath and tries again.] I'm not used to affectionate gestures. Usually if I accept one it's because I can't find a good reason to turn it down. So if you're comparing me to any kind of cat, it'd be a feral.

That's okay. [ Aren't you lucky, Shun? She knows a lot about those. ] Onii-chan finds a lot of those. Sometimes they decide they like being petted later if people are nice to them and they don't feel scared anymore.

[That's not really surprising to hear, given the amount of them he'd seen on that post. Still, he turns his head a little.] I'm not scared of it.

[He's just...well, being constantly wary of everyone is similar, but he prefers not to think of it like that.] There's plenty of people trying to be nice to me already, anyway.

[ She's too polite to argue with him, but she's not sure the comparison is all that far off the mark. No one likes being scared, after all. Or admitting it, for that matter. ]

Good. I'm glad. You're a nice person too, Shun.

[Speaking of things Shun isn't going to admit anytime soon, or possibly ever, he looks away slightly at that last statement Nanako makes, before answering only with a change of subject.]

We should keep looking around. You said you hadn't seen everything here yet. [His tone is as neutral as ever, so at least he has some grace about the abrupt switch in topic.]

[ Her expression brightens a little at that. ]

Do you want to come exploring with me?

[It's definitely a better idea than getting any further into the subject they were on before, and Shun inclines his head.]

I like to be familiar with as much of this place's layout as I can anyway. This is new, so I haven't had that chance yet.

[ Open ] With new power comes...

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