26 - The Gods' Month

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Helping the Heavens prepare for the yearly Meeting of the Gods
When: October 20 - 21
Where: Around the Heavens (and maybe some mortal shopping trips, too!)
Summary: Amaterasu has been told that the newly arrived residents of the Heavens want to take a bigger part in security and administration, so she's convinced her shinki to let them help with preparations for the big yearly gala. It's also time for shinki to rate their gods and gods to find out what their shinki really think of them....







Security Precautions

The white-robed shinki guards are working hard to secure the Meeting Hall for the arrival of all the gods of Japan. Hard-working shinki are scurrying everywhere! Despite Amaterasu's orders, they're still a little unsure of and standoffish towards the strangers who they're supposed to work with, but there's a lot of work to do, so they're happy to hand out jobs to small groups of newcomers before returning to their own duties.


• Help clear out any small spirits who might have sneaked back into the Meeting Hall after the spring cleaning, from sootsprites to nekomata, animal spirits from the park or well-camouflaged plant spirits.


• Check the magical writing worked into art or inlaid in wood all over the building to protect the Meeting Hall from attack, and make sure none of it is scuffed or damaged.


• Join in on the patrols around the building or spend some time guarding one of the gates. It's boring, but the shinki appreciate the help.


• Test the integrity and extent of the magical protections with glass balls that turn purple outside the protections on the Meeting Hall and clear inside them. But don't drop your glass ball! They're fragile.

Event Preparation

It's not just security that the shinki are asking newcomers to help with. They also have plenty of work to do getting ready for the festivities! The Meeting Hall floors need to be swept and scrubbed, the gardens need to be trimmed and tidied, artwork needs to be dusted, flower arrangements arranged, damaged furniture repaired and rafters cleared of cobwebs. Anyone with particularly good handwriting can help write out invitations and name cards, too.

Besides cleaning and calligraphy, there's lots of food and beverages to purchase! Grab a shopping list, a wad of cash, and head to the Near Shore to pick up the necessities. (Don't forget to keep the receipts.)

Rate Your God

Shinki have the opportunity to submit surveys on their life with their new gods before the big event, and even request a transfer if they want one. Early in the morning, every new shinki will be visited by a small white dove carrying a scroll that, when unrolled, reveals the following questionnaire:


What is your name?

What is your god's name?

How do you see your duties as a shinki?

What is your favorite part of life with your god?

What is your least favorite part of life with your god?

What advice would you like to give your god?

Do you wish to be assigned to a different god? []Y []N


Fill it out, discuss it with your fellow shinki, forget about it until you find it under a pile of junk mail in two months: the choice is yours! Gods will receive a copy of the answer that their shinki submit to "What advice would you like to give your god?" -- there's no name attached, but they might be able to guess.

Heavenly Record Keeping

Gods don't get to skip the paperwork entirely! Although the Heavens aren't asking them to rate their shinki, new gods don't have all of their vital statistics on file quite yet, so they get a questionnaire too. The same white doves will drop their scrolls by in the morning, with the following set of questions:


What is your name?

How many shinki do you currently have?

What are your areas of divine responsibility?

How do you see your duties as a god?

What traits do you most want in a shinki?

Do you wish new shinki to be assigned to you? []Y []N


Unlike the doves attending on the shinki, the doves who drop off the gods' scrolls will remain close by and chirp loudly until they finish and submit their questionnaires. If a god is particularly lazy about it, they might even start pecking.

In Summary:

• Help protect the Meeting Hall
• Lend a hand cleaning and shopping
• Rate your gods
• Help Heaven keep its records up to date
• Have fun~

Comments

[priforprince]

They were recruiting inspectors, weren't they!?

[ This is true. It does not mean she was one of them. But Hibiki is fine with implying otherwise. ]

I'm not the true security hazard!

[ This is also true. Hibiki is not here to disrupt this building's security. She is here to learn how to secure her own temple in the same manner.

One could even say she is the opposite of a security hazard, as she is seeking to make her lodgings even safer! ]

[revolutionfalcon]

If you were inspecting, you'd have no reason to be hiding. [Shun's dealt with his share of manipulative wording, so he can figure she's trying to lie without actually outright lying. At least she seems to have some concept of the importance of all this, though her second claim just makes him shake his head.]

Telling me that isn't going to convince me, if you're refusing to tell what it is you were doing.

[She's avoiding the subject - so whatever it is she was doing is either something she probably shouldn't have been doing around here anyway, or something she can't share without disproving her claims.]

[priforprince]

Why wouldn't I --

[ --hide? But she doesn't want to say that, either. Hibiki looks away in Shun's hold, furious and frightened. There is...there is no way around this.

She closes her eyes, under great duress. ] ....You'll really release me?

[ If she tells you. If you're determined to make her life a living hell no matter what she does, then attempting to reason is pointless. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun raises a brow at that, but he supposes she has no concept of why he attacked her during their previous meetings considering her apparent lack of self-awareness.] If you can explain what you were doing and it wasn't a threat to anyone, I don't have a reason to keep hold of you. I don't make a habit of wasting my time with idiots like you unless I have to.

[His tone is more just blunt than outright insulting on this occasion, but it doesn't really improve the sentiment any.]

next time, while she's still panicked, she is *so* teleporting

[priforprince]

[ That's....as close to a guarantee as Hibiki figures she can get out of Shun. And while he's irritating and overly-suspicious and small-minded and violent and uncouth and has bizarrely, infuriatingly good taste in shinki, she frankly considers his mind too limited for duplicity. A rhinoceros only knows how to make a nuisance of itself, and only in one direction at a time.

So, although she's still not happy about this, she rallies some of her usual self-possession - enough to snort in his face prior to speaking. She's telling you because she wants to, and not because you told her to! ] Hmph! This building possesses an unusual firewall. Could any genius fail to have their interest captivated?

[ She flings the last sentence in his face with fullest disdain, as if he's the idiot for not realizing what she'd been up to without this whole rigamarole. ]

things that can't possibly end badly...

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun would consider duplicity in a situation like this pretty low anyway, considering he really would have no reason to attack her if she has a reasonable answer. And however much disdain she loads the last sentence with, it has no effect on him, other than the words eliciting a faint scoff.]

So you're acting like you're better than everyone for doing something everyone else already started doing long before you. [A good three quarters of everyone he's met so far on sigil-checking duty, including himself, have been trying to nut out how the sigils work.] That's typical enough stupidity out of you.

[In a sense, their opinions of each other converge in one way - Shun considers Hibiki too limited for duplicity, because nothing of it she could produce would be convincing enough for him to actually believe it.

But, as promised, he releases her - it's more like discarding her to one side, but he figures she can deal with that.]

they'll need an inter-wen-tion

[priforprince]

Hh...

[ Hibiki did not nearly fall over when she was discarded. You hallucinated that. She's not stumbling to a stop, short of breath, either. And if she were, it'd be your fault, for being a ruffian.

Her eyes flick to him as she takes a few haggard breaths, gauging the likelihood of succeeding in another escape attempt. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun doesn't seem interested in lingering now that he's established the cause of her suspicious behaviour. Turning on his heel, he stalks back in the direction he came from, watching her over his shoulder.]

Stay out of my way. And stay out of Chinatsu's, or I'll hear about it. [Until such a time as Hibiki figures out how to apologise to her to an acceptable level, Shun is definitely keeping her at a good arm's length from Chinatsu. Not that he imagines Chinatsu herself is going to let Hibiki within arm's length in the current situation either, but it's good to be sure.]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki rubs her throat to ascertain it's in good working order, glaring over at Shun. She's unmoved by the first stipulation Shun makes, but the second gets a blink and a new bead of sweat on her brow. Ch...Chinatsu...? ]

Tch!

[ And then she teleports away, having made no promises. Chinatsu?! It's not for her to approach Chinatsu! As the injured party, she should be the one receiving that girl's understanding and acceptance! She wouldn't...approach Chinatsu again....

Agh, there's that stupid burning pain in her chest and head again. She doesn't know what it is, but she doesn't care for it. ]