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

[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.

[kokuyoyo]

Mm. I guess.

[Finally, he puts down the soy sauce he's been casually inspecting all this time.]

...Have you killed a lot of people before?

[declamando]

[Maria stiffens visibly at that - it's a good thing she was only going to pick something up instead of actually holding it, otherwise she probably would've dropped it.

She doesn't want to lie, but there's an extensive background to it she doesn't want to go into, so she settles for being brief, and a little clipped in her tone.]

Not a lot. But some. [Her expression is more troubled than she's allowing through in her voice.] It's not something I do if there's any way at all it can be avoided.

[kokuyoyo]

[Visible issues are a lot easier for him to pick up on... and yet Chikusa still doesn't seem to react much, glancing at her curiously.]

Because... you believe it's bad.

[declamando]

I do. [There's a faint furrow to her brow answering that, because she finds it a little more disturbing that Chikusa doesn't.] Is that unusual to you? Most people I know of try to avoid killing if they can.

[kokuyoyo]

Not since coming here.

[In the mafia, in the underworld, death is just a matter of course. What else is there to be done, besides either separating ones self from the world at large or burning it all down to the ground?]

It's still.... troublesome. Because it makes things a lot harder to deal with....

[declamando]

Most of our enemies here aren't people, though, they're ayakashi. And I can't imagine anyone has a problem with getting rid of those.

[Ayakashi remind Maria far too much of Noise to have ever gotten a great deal of sympathy from her, even if Noise are more invariably fatal.]

And considering recent events, some people obviously aren't holding back. [Four gods had died to incite those recent calamities, after all.]

[kokuyoyo]

I'd say the most dangerous enemies are people.

[....As, indeed, proved by those recent events.]

[declamando]

And the most dangerous people aren't typically stupid enough to leave themselves open like that.

[So as far as Maria's concerned, dealing with that tends to be a little more complicated than just "kill them".]

[kokuyoyo]

Which is why you have to persevere enough and smarter than them.

[So he's pretty sure 'just kill them' still applies.]

[declamando]

Being smarter generally means having more of a strategy than just killing them.

[Which Chikusa is not giving her the most reassuring impression of right now. She knows he's capable of that kind of thinking, it's just not really coming through on this particular topic.]

[kokuyoyo]

....It seemed to be working pretty well for us.

[Definitely not something put together by a few unsocialized feral criminal children, with one in particular fueled by an extraordinary amount of hate that translated to "burn it all down and salt the earth", or anything.]

[declamando]

Just because it's worked for something once doesn't mean it works all the time.

[It's definitely getting more and more troubling the lack of reception Chikusa seems to have to solving things in another way. She doubts she's going to get through to him about it, but she has to wonder what his god might think of that kind of attitude.]

[kokuyoyo]

[BAD NEWS, MARIA....]

So then... How many times does something need to work before you consider it acceptable?

[declamando]

If it's something like killing people, it just makes me think you aren't considering other options before you jump to that one.

[There's not exactly an abundance of people who deserve to die, as far as she's concerned, or can only be dealt with that way.]

[kokuyoyo]

...That doesn't exactly answer the question...

[Sighing, he reaches up to put away the soy sauce and steps back.]

But... Expected, I guess.

[declamando]

It's a moral issue, so it's not something we're going to easily change each other's mind on, I suppose.

[Maria sounds somewhat resigned, though it also doesn't sound like she's backing down on her own attitudes. Their philosophies definitely disagree, they've established that much.]

[kokuyoyo]

Aren't... morals just decided by those in power...? Or those who can outnumber others...

[Ah, that probably sounds too combative... For once, Chikusa decides to take the extra step in explaining a little more.]

In my experience... That's what tends to be the case. Even here in Heaven, according to the old guard. [So he's not just going through a teenage nihilist phase.]

[declamando]

Do you think a lot of people in power care that much about not killing people? [Maria can't help but point that out if he's going to put it like that.] There is a majority element, but it's simplifying it a lot to just call it people who can outnumber others.

[Generally, Maria considers morals the majority of humans share to be fairly good ones, so she doesn't have a problem with that idea herself.]

[kokuyoyo]

Killing people in a way that doesn't benefit them.

[Perhaps he should be more clear.]

Let's say... There's a group in a community that's made a powerful tool... One that gives them an edge over the other groups. But it's nothing worse than what the other groups have ever done.

Yet, under the cry of "immoral" or "unethical"... They can decide to ostracize that group... however they want. That's the kind of thing that could happen, isn't it...?

[declamando]

I'm a little suspicious as to why you've left out so many details from that. [Maria has to be frank there - the way he's putting it, it sounds like she's being set up to side with a group that may well be getting ostracized for a reason. Especially since if something is legitimately not unethical, people typically speak up for the other side as well.

Actually, even often if it is.]

Is there anything you would actually consider immoral or unethical? [Out of curiosity, because he's not giving that impression right now.]

[kokuyoyo]

Too many details would just bog it down... [And be too personal, besides. The more detail you give something, after all, the more that it will come off as personal to other people, and that's too revealing for his tastes.]

[He's not Ken, after all.]

[At her question, he tips his chin down to his chest thoughtfully. It takes a lot of thought, which certainly won't reassure Maria, but...]

...Maybe.... [He can only think of one thing.]