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

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun continues cutting the verbena stems as he considers what the ones he sees most commonly are.] Lilies are common around here, and chrysanthemums. [They're the easiest to call up, and the others are a bit more disjointed, as if rattling off an itemised list. If it's in his garden, he can comfortably assume it's used somewhere.] Roses. Tulips. Orchids. Carnations and daffodils. Sometimes people give hydrangeas as gifts.

[It doesn't sound like he's strongly invested in the topic, but he also clearly knows it, and doesn't seem to be outright bored talking about it. Either it's a matter he puts himself somewhat distant from, or he mostly considers the matter of arranging part of work rather than an actual hobby or interest.]

[unlucky7]

[A few of the flower names she recognizes from Nona's garden and the books in the library, the ones she doesn't recognize she writes down in her phone. There are so many varieties of flowers, so many meanings, uses beyond aesthetics.]

I want to learn more about flowers.

[The signs spill out and she pauses, hands hovering as she recollects her thoughts.]

I'm trying to learn more about flowers. They're beautiful and they make people happy.

['I want to make people happy.' She sees the way other shinki react to flower arrangements as they're finished, complimenting the design and designer, sharing it around. Maybe it's a selfish, foolish idea, but Ginia wants to be a part of that. Because if she can learn something new, a skill that isn't related to combat and has uses, then maybe she can be useful.

Maybe she can be useful to her god.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun keeps watching as she signs, the change in manner on her part very noticeable to him. It seems, then, that she might at least have routes to slip back into some kind of more normal life with time, if she already wants to do something for a reason like that.

Shun turns his attention back to the verbena stems for a few moments before speaking.] I don't know much about them, and most of what I did learn was from someone else. Or just basic things anyone could research. I only looked for as much as I needed to know for work, but there are people here who'd be able to help you with something like that.

[He's aware that flowers make some people happy, and that it's because they're beautiful, but he never really considered it himself beyond what he needed to make specific people happy, whether that be his followers or his partner. He wonders, himself, if that's a selfish thing to have a focus that narrow.]

[unlucky7]

Would you care about flowers if they weren't related to your duties?

[She pauses and shakes her head, lips pressed tight, back tensing again.]

No. You don't need to answer, it was out of line.

[It's not her place to judge or pry the interests or disinterests of someone else, much less the affairs of a god. In need of a distraction, Ginia picks up the gladiolus stalk she cut under Shun's direction and pairs it with verbena in mimicry of his arrangement. But she also picks up a fern, placing it within the bunch and seeing how the natural curl of the plant causes it to drape. She places it one way, studies it, then adjusts it slightly, continuing with tiny adjustments until the placement seems right. She places another fern in the arrangement, mirroring it on the other side, the two ferns curving over the verbena and slightly framing it.

Satisfied, she turns it toward Shun and waits for his opinion.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Despite her remark, the question doesn't seem to bother Shun, even though he doesn't answer immediately.]

You have a weird idea of "out of line". [Shun has definitely had people ask him things that are out of line, but usually it involves pushing into his traumas and not taking hints to back off. Compared to that, this doesn't even register.]

I wouldn't have as much of a reason to care about them if they weren't related to my duties. But I also wouldn't have had to learn how to work with them if they weren't. If they stopped being involved in my duties now, I'd probably still care a little, at least.

[Not as much as he has to now, but there are still people he cares about who appreciate them, so his ability to work with them wouldn't be going to waste even if all he could do was make those people happy.

He looks up when she finishes adjusting that little arrangement, and looks over it for a moment or two. Despite his lacking aesthetic knowledge, he can usually tell if something like this looks outright bad, which this one doesn't.]

It'll draw people's eye. [Which is the point, to him, and essentially the same as him saying it looks good, since that's usually his reasoning for saying it.]

[unlucky7]

[She flinches slightly from the rebuke, but settles easier than earlier. It's a fair answer.

At his sparse approval, she places the arrangement in the vase, carefully fixing the plants. She gets up from her seat and takes a few steps back, studying the arrangement from a distance and different angle.]

It feels like it's missing something.

[But what? She crosses her arms and stares at her arrangement, then looks at the other arrangements being worked on, lips turning into a frown.]

It's very plain, isn't it.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun moves the verbena stems into the middle of the table as he finishes cutting them, which doesn't take him all that long. Once he does, he puts the dagger back into his pocket, and looks over the arrangement once she airs her concern about it.

He can't really see the problem, but then, he knows his opinion on this isn't ideal. So he shrugs slightly, switching back to signing now that his hands are free.]

Can't tell. Too much is a bad thing as well. What specific thing is missing?

[If she figures that part out, she might be able to hit on a way to make it look more complete.]

[unlucky7]

I don't know.

[She continues to frown at the arrangement, doubting her own sensibilities, but still seizing onto the gut instinct something was missing. Her eyes glance over the remaining flowers and filler plants. Maybe another plant? No, the design is simple enough that adding any more might clutter it. The vase is also narrow.

More of the same then? Ginia studies the ferns and grabs a few more pieces, placing them toward the front to fill out the design a bit more. There. That was it. She looks back to Shun for approval.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[That had been somewhat the gist of what Shun was getting at by too much also being a problem - he didn't figure adding more actual flowers was going to solve it. The addition of more ferns seems to work fine, though, and Shun nods a little when she looks to him for a second opinion.]

That looks fine. [It's not as if him not seeing anything wrong is necessarily an indication that it actually looks fine, but if she's after his opinion, then she's getting it.]

[unlucky7]

[Satisfied with his approval, Ginia sits down again, admiring the simple arrangement. It's probably too simple for display, no doubt (in Ginia's mind) it'll be dismantled later for use in other arrangements, but for now she's proud of it.]

Thank you.

[She knows he doesn't like being thanked, but this one is important enough.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[As Ginia sits down, Shun glances down to the floor and then bends down a bit - it sounds like he's going through another box, but one that doesn't have flowers in it. He's still upright enough to see that sign, though, and he turns his head away a little.]

I figured it'd speed things up for you. [Efficiency in getting everything done here so they can move on to other things. His tone isn't cold, but the way it's put says he still doesn't consider it a thing worthy of thanks.

He straightens up again, placing a very stout, small and round vase on the table, then gathers the flowers he'd set aside earlier, the ones she cut too short for the first arrangement, and slides them over next to the new vase.]

These should be a fine length for that one.

[unlucky7]

[With an understanding of the base fundamentals, Ginia begins assembling the next arrangement faster than her previous attempts. Self-doubt and uncertainty still exists at the forefront, so she often sets a flower in place, changes her mind, then changes it again, but progress is progress no matter how slow.

She picks up a few sprigs of a cluster of white flowers--baby's breath--and compares them to the verbena. They're similar in shape, though the baby's breath is finer, the flowers smaller and bit more spread out. After some thought, Ginia swaps out the verbena for baby's breath and begins rearranging.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun is getting a little restless in the meantime - he doesn't sit still for extended periods well, and he doesn't really want to arrange for something like this, because of what he's learnt to associate the gesture with by now. But he figures she's probably going to want his opinion for whatever reason at the end of it, so he needs something to occupy his hands.

He ends up picking up a box of discarded flowers, going through and taking out ones that were only cut too short for a specific arrangement someone else was doing rather than actually ruined.]

[unlucky7]

[After a few more minutes of arranging in silence, Ginia glances at Shun, waving her hand at him to get his attention.]

If you're busy and need to be elsewhere, you can leave.

[It's not that his company isn't welcome; quite the opposite. But the duties of a god are probably different than those of a shinki's considering the nature of the event they're preparing for and she doesn't want to keep him any more than she needs to.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Since he was mostly hanging around in case she wanted an opinion at the end, once she makes it clear she doesn't, he stands up rather promptly, setting the last box aside.]

I should get back to patrolling. But there'll be other people here who can help you more.

[And most likely know more about this sort of thing than him on top of it. As it is, he nods slightly to Ginia before starting to head off.]