27 - The Gods' Meeting

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Meeting of the Gods is here at last.
When: October 30
Where: Heaven's Meeting Hall
Summary:







Pre-Meeting

Guards at the front door are carefully checking each god who enters off on their list of attendees, and taking the names of each of their shinki attendants.

Once the participants are past the doors, they are guided down the hallway to a huge meeting room by one of the guards, who will announce them by divine title, and each of their shinki by whatever name they gave. It's an open question as to who's actually listening, though, because the room is swiftly filling up with gods and shinki. As well as the newcomers, old gods are here, some in human form attended by their uniformed shinki, others in stranger shapes -- giant bears, round-bellied tanuki, turtles, dragons, and more. There's even one tricolored tabby cat in a small blue cap, seated majestically in the arms of a uniformed shinki and chatting with another god.

Buffet tables bearing every kind of food and drink imaginable are set up at one end of the room, and a dais with a podium is at the other, draped in bright gold and white bunting and emblazoned with a chrysanthemum emblem.

Early Announcements

Finally, the socialization comes to an end, and the meeting itself begins as Ookuninushi grabs the microphone and steps up to the podium. The year's most popular gods are named first: Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, is in third place, Tenjin in second and Ebisu in first place. Each steps up to bow and accept their accolades in turn: Hotei is a big man with a wide smile, Tenjin a tall, ascetic man wearing old robes and concealing his smug expression behind a fan, and a tired-looking younger man in a business suit announces himself as representing Ebisu, who is watching over the Near Shore during the event.

Next, the most popular new god is announced: Ookuninushi has to stop and wrinkle his nose at the name for several seconds before he pronounces it-- Nekhbet, a new arrival in the Heavens.

He moves on to call for a moment of silence recognizing the difficulties of the last year. Many gods have faced reincarnation and returned wearing unfamiliar faces! The Heavens can't yet explain the cause of these changes, but Amaterasu herself urges them to welcome their friends' new incarnations as brothers and sisters in the Heavens.

His final announcement is that, after the successful resolution of the trouble associated with some recent deaths, Orihime has been restored to her place among the eight million gods.

Fortune Weaving

Announcements finished, the main activity of the evening begins. The white-robed shinki bring in huge baskets filled with wooden prayer plaques, setting them down all around the room, and the gods begin to form into circles around each basket. The older gods will gladly explain to any confused newcomers that they're weaving fortunate connections between mortal lives as they spread the plaques out and tie strings off together with great care. All the plaques have names written on them; some are filled out with prayers, some just with notes, and others adorned with pictures of flowers, animals or favorite characters.

Gods and shinki are given blank plaques to inscribe with their own names, too, in order to give them the chance to make fortunate connections as well. (Not necessarily romantic, the other gods will assure them! There are many different kinds of fated connection.)

Help out, take the opportunity to chat, and make some fortunate matches for yourself as well as these hard-working petitioners.

Midnight Disaster

Just shy of midnight, while the gods are still matching up plaques, finishing the last of the banquet, and getting into drunken arguments over who to connect to whom, a shinki in a dark suit torn at the shoulder comes dashing into the Meeting Hall.

"Calamity!" he cries-- and tells the assembled Heavens that a mysterious blight has fallen across a sleepy residential community in the Tokyo suburbs. The blight, a huge circle covering about two blocks, is sucking the life out of everything inside it: plants are wilting, and people and animals have fallen into deathly slumber. As if that weren't bad enough, it's also attracting big, dangerous ayakashi. Ebisu and his shinki are there now, but there aren't enough of them to fight the ayakashi and move the people trapped inside the blighted circle to a safer place before they die.

Volunteers will need to fight ayakashi and rescue the mortals trapped in the blight -- once they're outside its edge, they'll begin to wake up and recover on their own.

In Summary:

• Enjoy the banquet before the announcements
• Hear about the most popular gods
• Help make fortunate connections for the living
• Respond to a disaster
• Have fun~

Comments

[heartshutter]

[ True enough, this particular meeting seems to be half humans and humanoids, and half Animal Farm. Alex seems so captivated, (and maybe charmed?), by it all that Tatara can't help but chuckle lightly. ]

Aah, I thought I saw something like that, too! They looked like something out of a children's book I read when I was--[ in the hospital after getting beat up, he realizes, but swaps that out for something else: ]--a kid!

[ A curious tilt of his head. ]

Do you remember seeing animals here last time?

[sing_for_me]

..I..I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered if I had.

[ She's stealing glances, but she's trying not to stare to much in case they notice. ]

Have you seen them before?

[ Because he seemed to be taking this all pretty well. ]

[heartshutter]

Mm-mm. [ He shakes his head. ] I think I would have, too.

[ Though he's not nearly so captivated by dapper animals as she is. Then again, he supposes that in his young life, he's seen stranger things. Or, things in comparable strangeness, at least. ]

I have to wonder what King would think of them, if he came here.

[ ...wait a second. LIGHTBULB! ]

Aah! Alex! [ Can he grip her shoulder? Because he might grip one of them. ] That's right -- you know King!

[sing_for_me]

[ His sudden exclamation and the grab do surprise her enough to make her jump, but she doesn't pull away from him. ]

I..do..?

[ She was pretty sure she didn't know any Kings...]

[heartshutter]

Mm! [ Tatara nods rather vigorously. ]

Red hair, gold eyes, presence of a wild lion roaming the savanna...? That's King!

[sing_for_me]

[ The connection was made instantly. And suddenly what little Tatara had shared made sense. ]

No way--! So he was who you were referring to this whole time...

[ King did seem like a suitable name for him. Though was it just her or had this been the second time tonight he's been compared to some kind of cat? There was one question she had though.]

...How did you know I knew him?

[heartshutter]

Yep! [ And all his cheeriness sort of... dissipates a bit, however, at her ask. ]

Well... [ About that. ] Kusanagi-san mentioned it, actually!

[ He'll quietly hold onto hope that she won't ask why he did. ]

[sing_for_me]

[ There it goes again. Every now and then there's a slight shift in his mood, but the blonde would go right back to his cheerful self. ]

Oh..I see.

[ But that just brought up another question. ]

...Why did he..?

[ Sorry, Tatara. She's a curious one. ]

[heartshutter]

[ Welp. Hey, he could still hope, couldn't he?

Oh well. Good thing he's got a solution (read: a non-answer) for that, too! ]

It's kind of a long story! [ A bit of awkward laughter here. ] Sorry!

[ He doesn't really care to get into all the gritty details of his king is self-destructing, and/or his (maybe not anymore?) boyfriend is, too right now, honestly.

(But if she wants to take this outside, well... that outlook might shift.) ]

[sing_for_me]

But--

[ If she was being mentioned then yes, she would like to know, however, she didn't want to push him either. They've only met twice after all. It really seemed like a topic he wanted to avoid. ]

I see...

[ Her gaze drops a little. ]

Sorry, I won't push it.

[heartshutter]

[ ...

It's hard to tell which, exactly, of that one-two punch does Tatara in: The "but" that makes him momentarily remember that this is about her and she does, therefore, deserve to know; or, her gentle acceptance of his decision. Either way, the point is that it works. ]

Aah...

[ With a bit of a hum, he first checks for a clear escape route out of the meeting, and then hooks an arm into one of hers. ]

Here -- I'll tell you a bit more outside, okay? Come with me.

[sing_for_me]

[ She looks at their arms first before up at him as he leads them out. ]

Ah--are you sure? You really don't have to..!

[ Alex hoped she didn't guilt him into it. ]

[heartshutter]

It's fine, it's fine!

[ Waving in dismissal with his free hand, of course.

Trying to keep a low profile all the while, (since they are kind of skirting the festivities a little early), Tatara will lead Alex out a side door to an area -- thankfully! -- free of anyone trying to find a private spot for a smoke break. Or, worse, a phone call. ]

There! We can talk here.

[ There's a little concrete landing of sorts, with a ramp lined by railing he easily cozies up to, putting his back to it and leaning for a moment. ]

So, a little while back, Kusanagi-san, Shun, and I got together to talk about King...

[sing_for_me]

[ She watches him as he gets himself comfortable. The connection clicks in her head once he starts talking. ]

Oh-- Izumo..approached me about it. Sort of...

[ Alex could see some similarities between Izumo and Tatara now. At least with the way they talked about Mikoto. ]

[heartshutter]

Ehh? "Sort of"?

[ Blink, blink. ]