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

[declamando]

They didn't let us help with any of the last ones, did they? Menial work or not, they're trusting us to gather food for all of them, which says they're trusting us enough not to sabotage this.

[As do most of the rest of the assignments they have the new gods doing. To Maria, it's progress, even if it's small.]

[kokuyoyo]

Which is good, since they're sabotaging themselves...

[Pessimists gonna pessimist, Maria. Still, Chikusa sighs.]

Is that really enough...?

[declamando]

It's a start. Things don't usually go from bad to good in one movement.

[Maria knows that well, so she's happy enough to wait, though she can also understand why people would be impatient.]

[kokuyoyo]

...But they can go to the opposite very quickly.

[Picking up something to check its price, Chikusa glances at her again from the corner of his eye.]

...Like the festival in the beginning of summer.

[declamando]

Usually, I think it's just that it's harder to notice things going from good to bad until it's already happened. [Maria puts that one a bit more seriously, bending over to check out something she thinks might be among those on her list.]

I don't think that would've been something someone could have done without setting it up.

[kokuyoyo]

Well... That counts for a lot of things regarding what happens here.

[Putting the box back, he picks another one, from a different brand.]

And we can never find enough information how what it's about.

[declamando]

No, they obviously know what they're doing in that regard, at least. [Maria straightens up, picking a bottle off the shelf on the way and putting it in her basket. And then another one.]

I never see a lot of people talking about it in public, either, so it's hard to tell how much everyone might know.

[kokuyoyo]

It's probably because.... people are paranoid.

[Excuse him as he just... peers over at she she's picking out.]

When you don't know who is attacking you.... Then it's a reasonable jump to assume that it could be someone in your group.... or in the group you're supposedly meant to trust. Even the serial killer was one of our own, so....

[declamando]

[It's a specific variety of soy sauce that looks kind of fancy. "Kind of" meaning very, by soy sauce standards.

On the subject of the killer, Maria purses her lips a bit.] I never heard who that was in the end, I just know people stopped dying. I would've looked more into it myself after what happened to Hibiki's shinki, but I didn't know who to talk to.

[She sighs quietly. The sight of Venus' body had been shocking, even for her, and she still wonders whether Hibiki really fully recovered from that.]

[kokuyoyo]

He had one eye, if that helps...

[In other words: she's talking to one of those people who had a vague idea of what was going on himself. At least, Chikusa knows he put in the effort to learn, especially once he needed something to cheer Ken up.]

[Also, don't mind if he just... takes one of those soy sauces for himself...]

[declamando]

[It doesn't exactly help in terms of Maria having any idea who it is, but it does make it rather obvious Chikusa was somehow involved, so she turns her attention more to that than Chikusa's soy sauce venture.]

You saw who it was? So they're definitely gone now? [Presumably Chikusa would've mentioned if the person was still around, or someone else involved with it, if they got as far as getting face-to-face with them.]

[kokuyoyo]

[His soy sauce venture is very important, thank you. Still, he glances back at her when she speaks up.]

He started to become an ayakashi and then was murdered in the process.... so yeah.

[declamando]

[Well, that's...certainly a result. Maria looks a little surprised for a moment, and it takes her a few seconds to sort through all the questions she has to find one to ask first.]

Did he remember something, or was it guilt? He'd killed that many people already... [It couldn't be guilt, could it? People can change, but after deaths of that brutality, actively committed instead of just stood by and allowed to happen...]

[kokuyoyo]

Guilt.... but not for the reason you think. [Another bottle of soy sauce is picked out.] At the time he'd been captured.... his god disappeared.

He took it badly. [Which Chikusa can actually understand, honestly.]

[declamando]

[So he was dedicated to his god, if nothing else...though Maria can't really support that too much. She moves a little further down the shelf, looking past the chilli sauces without really registering them.]

What unusual timing...so one of you who captured him dealt the last blow before he could become an ayakashi. [She says it somewhat gravely. A mercy kill is better than one for malicious reasons, but someone still had to do it.]

[kokuyoyo]

Mm. He was going after me otherwise... and my stupid partner would have tried to eat him himself if there'd been no one else.

[One day, he'll figure out how to make Ken fight without being so.... handsy. and mouthy.]

[declamando]

...Tried to eat him?

[She probably should be more concerned about what almost happened to Chikusa, but that description came so far out of left field she's very clearly stuck on that point first.]

[kokuyoyo]

[There's a pause as Chikusa thinks back on that.]

....Ah. Different channel.

...Although I guess it still could have happened. [Ken's mouth is big normally. Kong Channel makes it even bigger.]

Crush his organs is more accurate.

[declamando]

[This isn't making any more sense to Maria than the initial comment did, so she just continues to look nonplussed, and then faintly disgusted when crushing his organs is mentioned instead.]

That doesn't help it make any more sense, or sound less unnecessarily cruel.

[kokuyoyo]

He was protecting me.

[So, to Chikusa, that's all he needs to accept. It's especially admirable, in his opinion, since they'd still been finding their footing around one another back then, coming into their own once more as partners.]

Anyway... why would you care if he died cruelly or not?

[declamando]

There are other ways to do that. [It doesn't sit right with Maria for it to have been done like that, even if she understands the concept of protecting others with violence personally enough.

His question gets a definite disapproving look, though.] Even people who are beyond redemption aren't beyond a merciful death. Maiming like that is never necessary.

[kokuyoyo]

Like being stabbed through with a sword...

[...Which was ultimately the end goal. So. Slightly better, one supposes.]

[Her disapproving look only gets a blank stare, although it's a lot less combative than that night underneath the moon. His words are still quietly challenging in their own way, however.]

Why...?

[declamando]

At least that's dignified. [As a sword wielder herself, Maria can more readily respect that method of putting someone down, even though she doesn't like to do it. But being run through leaves more intact than being mauled, at the very least.

As for the challenge, it doesn't seem to faze Maria, her own chin rising a little in an answering certainty.] It's a cruelty and a mockery of someone's body. If you feel you need to kill someone for the sake of justice, you're merely sinking to their level if you maim them like that.

[kokuyoyo]

...Ah. [Things make sense now, and he reaches up to adjust his glasses.] Then.... There's the issue.

But.... there's nothing dignified about death. It's just.... death.

[declamando]

That doesn't mean it needs to be made worse than it has to be. [A quick, clean death is the most anyone can ask for. And as far as Maria's concerned, that's how it should be.]

But it sounds like someone else stepped in anyway, so I suppose it's not relevant this time.