August Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: January 6th, 2017
Where: Outside the Meeting Hall, the Far Shore / the Ryukyu Islands
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided to the rear of the Meeting Hall, where a traditionally styled dojo and training ground have been made available for the day. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from more experienced god and shinki volunteers.




Meeting Hall

God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a small meeting room, with tatami floors and a stage at the front of the room where the speaker stands. A minor deity is giving the speech, and none of the white-robed shinki enter. Paper and pens are provided to all the attendees as an unsubtle suggestion to take notes on the information they're given.

The speaker delivers her welcome speech in the monotone of someone who's practiced it far too often. Hopefully no one's feeling sleepy! She adds that gods should be cautious of anyone on the Near Shore who might ask to use their shrines to visit the Heavens, and should instruct their shinki to be cautious as well. There is an unrecognized god who the Heavens believe to be attacking them. Newly arrived gods are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately. They are allowed to remain in the room as long as they wish, should they want to discuss questions with each other or with more experienced gods who are here to help out.

Shinki Training

Various shinki in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's hosuehold are stationed around the dojo, passing out informational pamphlets that have been freshly printed. They will be happy to answer any questions or instruct the newcomers in the use of the borderline. They also accompany their answers, or lessons, with an explanation of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives. Each of the shinki is wearing a brightly-colored sticky name tag reading HELLO, MY NAME IS ________, and all of their names appear to end with the syllable "mei."

A variety of weapons are available in the dojo for shinki and their gods to practice with, and a row of straw targets are set up along one wall. Outside, in an area carefully roped off with red ribbons, are six animated training dummies, also made of straw and dressed in plain cotton jackets and trousers. They will immediately engage anyone who enters the area marked with the ribbon, but will not pursue opponents outside it. A white-robed shinki nearby keeps a sharp eye on the animated dummies, and will intervene if anyone tries to destroy one. The white-robed shinki appears to be a particular expert in magic, and will occasionally offer to help out anyone who's practicing a spell more challenging than the Borderline, especially if they look quite lost. His nametag reads HELLO, MY NAME IS SABIMEI. (To interact with Sabimei, please comment on the "NPC REQUEST" thread below! If you prefer, you may also handwave his assistance or advice with your character learning spells.)

Physical Training

Two of the white-robed shinki, whose nametags mark them as Toumei and Kimei, are standing off to one side of the training area near a pair of large, curtained tents. They each have an enormous wicker basket full of clean, folded beach towels, and a rack of what appear to be wetsuits and swimsuits in a variety of styles and sizes. Once suited and toweled, new and veteran residents of the Heavens alike will be handed a pretty white-and-gold cockade that can be pinned to their suit or tied around their wrist by its ribbons, and either Toumei or Kimei will escort them to a beautiful, but rocky, Near Shore beach. Tropical plants, palm trees and high grasses surround the area, and although the sounds of cars are audible from a road not too far away, the only sign of human presence on this beach is an ancient, rotting fishing boat pulled up well past the high tide mark.

It's quite chilly, with a brisk sea breeze, but there's room to run up and down the beach, a net set up for beach volleyball, younger shinki building sand castles, and showers for the brave souls who venture into the water. The surf is impressive today, so swimmers will get the chance for some serious exercise. There's also the chance to climb through the wreck of the old fishing boat; inside, piles of old seaweed and drifting sand host curious crabs, and a curious explorer could even find treasure... although nothing more valuable than large seashells, old one-yen or five-yen coins, and bits of weathered sea glass.

Rest and Refreshments

When sunset comes -- early, at this time of year -- the shinki bring giant picnic-sized bento boxes with five or seven layers of carefully packed foods, and pile wood for bonfires that leap with flames edged blue-green from the salt. The bento boxes contain a wide variety of traditional foods, many in the style of traditional New Year's dishes: sweet potato and chestnut, slivered carrot and burdock, whole fish, toasted mochi, sliced lotus root and more. A fireworks display starts over the ocean once full night falls, fountains and bursts in every color imaginable, some so ornate that it's hard to believe they're not helped along by a touch of magic. The display lasts half an hour.

After the last fireworks, the shinki will guide everyone back to the Meeting Hall to return to their homes. The wind is getting chillier, and gods or shinki who stay too much past the firework display will notice the tiny, creeping forms of glowing ayakashi no larger than a fist, looking like little jellyfish on land. They don't seem hostile; instead, they're fixated on the boat, and will climb on it and settle onto the rigging and wood of the boat, chirping quietly to themselves and snuggling in so that the whole boat seems to glow with an unearthly blue-white light. They can be fought and defeated, but if attacked, will fight back: and be careful! Those jellyfish tentacles spread blight instead of stinging, and they're longer than they look.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training at a beach (isn't it winter?!)
• Relax and watch the fireworks
• Have fun~

Comments

[mithrarin]

At their age, that's not surprising. Most of these things are just -- little blinks to them, nothing that's lasted long enough to merit taking notice. So far it's like half an hour of discomfort to them...

[Which is a major problem, Dust thinks. Not only are the gods so far divorced from what more ordinary life is like, their shinki are too. None of them 'remind the gods of what it is like to be mortal' any more.]

We can't trust them, or rely on them. But we can change things.

[revolutionfalcon]

We can change minor things. Actually changing things is going to take a hell of a lot more time than we might be here for. We've only just got newcomers getting recognisable titles among their number so we might actually be listened to.

[Shun knows there's plenty of people who want to go the "keep pushing against an immovable object and hope it'll work" route, but if they've made the mistake of giving him a position of influence, he's going to use it to kick their asses into gear as much as he can.]

If nothing else, at least it's been going on for long enough that we're running out of idiots who think the Heavens are going to be any less full of flawed and ignorant people than the mortal world is.

[mithrarin]

...At least one thing we've changed hasn't been minor at all.

[Quite aside from his personal connection to Orihime, getting her reinstated is very much major in his eyes as a change to the absolute inertia of the Far Shore. He has no doubt it would have continued forever, without their interference in it.]

And that didn't take Gods of Fortune to achieve. It didn't take violent overthrow either. [He'd been pretty convinced it would.] There's hope, even if we still have these challenges to face.

[revolutionfalcon]

Just because it's important to you doesn't necessarily mean it's important overall. [Shun puts that very bluntly - he wouldn't consider anything they've done here indicative of meaningful change, so he's assuming Dust is speaking out of sentiment here.]

I wouldn't trust anyone who resorted to violent overthrow to rule any better than they do, anyway, especially considering the idiots we've had try while I've been here. [Shun is a violent, retaliatory type himself, but he certainly doesn't trust himself in positions of power at the same time.] But I'm not interested in hearing more people waffle about hope either.

[mithrarin]

If I had to use violence, I wouldn't be the one trying to rule afterwards. [Definitely not his thing. Someone else could come in and pick up the pieces, and rebuild them better than he ever could. He's a warrior, a weapon, not a hero or a leader.]

Why bother trying if you have no hope, one way or the other?

[revolutionfalcon]

Will. Resolutions. You don't have to have no hope, but acting like it's the only thing that matters is naive and annoying, and so are people who do it.

[Claiming everything rests on hope tends to be denying one's own personal motivations for doing things. In Shun's experience, people who do that tend to be the optimists who act like their cause is just and that's all there is to it.]

[mithrarin]

[Ah. Yes. Dust understands that, although not perhaps in the same sense as Shun does.]

The only thing, no. It takes all those things. Will, resolution. Strength, as much as people sometimes don't want to recognize that. You can't make a difference by hoping really hard. You can't fight a battle if you can't lift your sword. Whatever those end up being metaphors for.

[revolutionfalcon]

Then you understand that much. [It's not exactly a relent, but it's at least Shun observing that they seem to have a similar sense of things where that's concerned.] I've met a lot of people who try the "hoping really hard" method and then go into shock when it doesn't work. Some of them learn their lesson, but others just keep trying and failing to do the same thing.

[mithrarin]

And some of them learn not to hope. Which is the wrong lesson. [Plenty of cynics and pessimists to go around.] It isn't hope's fault that they didn't bring it to be.

[...Speaking of.]

You're Chinatsu's god, aren't you. [It's not a question, merely a means of changing the topic to something else important, and related.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun doesn't have much else he really wants to say on the matter of hope, but his attention does sharpen slightly at the question that follows. It's a more calculating look, as if he's gauging motive.]

Yes. If there's a reason you think it's your business, then you might as well say it now. [Shun generally doesn't advertise who his shinki are for the sake of not painting targets on them if anyone ever has a problem with him, but when it's just him here, he's mostly just concerned with what it might mean for Chinatsu.]

[mithrarin]

Because I've been teaching her how to fight. And she's gotten good enough at it that I've given her a weapon of her own. I don't know how much that means to you, but I thought there might be a chance you wanted to know who was doing it.

[This is the answer he gives out loud.]

[Unspoken is the simple reply that she's his best friend, and he wants to be certain her god deserves to have someone so amazing as a shinki. That's she's being treated right. That said god doesn't object to their friendship.]

[There's more that goes unspoken, but he doesn't even dare think it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's been teaching Chinatsu how to fight as well, but he presumes she would have found other partners. It's not really his business who they are, so his response to Dust's statement is a slight shrug.]

What it might mean to me doesn't matter half as much as what it means to her. She wants to improve herself, so as long as there's people other than me giving her that opportunity, she can do that in the way she wants. I'd rather not overbear her progress by prying into the who or what unless someone's causing problems for her.

[It's said very straightforwardly, despite it being what might be a nice sentiment from anyone other than Shun. He's just kind of bad at expressing those in a manner that isn't just direct and logical like this.]

[mithrarin]

[Dust can't help but crack a smile, however briefly. 'Problems', huh? He bets there are some days Chinatsu thinks of him as causing her nothing but.]

[Not a sentiment he expresses, though.] I'm glad to hear it. If you hadn't thought that way I might have had to say something.

And I hope you've seen her improvement.

[revolutionfalcon]

Wouldn't have made a difference if you did. [Shun makes that remark in a rather flat, uncaring tone. The opinions of people he doesn't have a personal connection to matter little to Shun, so even if he'd had cause to disagree, it's a matter Shun would only take up with Chinatsu personally. But then, he disagrees vehemently with the idea of treating shinki as tools rather than their own people anyway.]

I've noticed. But it's to be expected, with how hard she works. She has difficulty with team playing, but determination and willpower are still assets.

[mithrarin]

[Dust lets that comment pass, because making a case that he'd damn well make it make a difference wouldn't accomplish anything. "Stand as an opponent unlike any the world has ever seen" is always his most reliable tactic, but that sure doesn't mean he wants to make it his first one.]

[Instead, he smiles again, and this one lingers.]

I don't have any complaints on that score. I get how others might, but... No, when we needed to work together seriously, she saved a lot of people. I'd be a little surprised if she even ever mentioned that.

[revolutionfalcon]

She didn't. [Shun's interest does sharpen a little at it, though. It sounds like she did good work, whenever it was.] I'll ask her about it. Seems like she sometimes hesitates around bringing that sort of thing up.

[Like Shun himself, honestly, so he can relate a little. He would say there's no sense in letting hard work go unrecognised, except he's absolutely fine with that happening if he's the one who did the hard work, and there's a few too many people who'd turn that one back on him.]

It's good to be flexible enough to work with others when you need to. I don't have that much of a problem with it either, but it'd help her branch out more.

[mithrarin]

She'll be mad I told you. [And Dust sounds, and looks, downright happy about that fact. They have a strange relationship by many standards.] I should have done it a while ago. But...

She's great. [Not so much happy now as back to quiet and intense, as is his way.] I'm not sure you need me to tell you that, but... she's great, and you should at least know that other people see it too.

[revolutionfalcon]

I don't need anyone else to tell me what they think my opinion should be, no. [Shun's not exactly the most receptive person to this sort of conversation, as Dust may have noticed, but his tone isn't so much hostile as just blunt.] As long as she's forming other connections, then it's fine.

[Shun's definitely not planning to be one of the disappeared if he can help it, but if it does happen, he doesn't want his shinki to end up having nowhere else to go. Chinatsu, at least, seems to have that fairly well covered compared to when he met her.]

[mithrarin]

I don't think you need to worry on that score. [He has the impression she's popular and well-liked... Since apparently he isn't the only person who seems to like a bit of sass and stubbornness.]

[But Dust picks up a little bit on that undercurrent.]

She won't ever be left alone.

[revolutionfalcon]

I knew that much already. [As much as he can't stand the idiot, Hibiki would most likely make sure of that. It's rare for multiple people of significant status to vanish at the same time, he's noticed.]

Anyway, you might as well give me a name if you're going to draw the connection between you. [Not much point knowing one of Chinatsu's friends if he doesn't have a name at all.]

[mithrarin]

[At least he's gotten through this point of discussion without, apparently, giving anything away. Small miracles.]

Dust.

[He has to smile a little at his own ego. Here he thought his business with Orihime had made him more prominent than it clearly had. That's a good reality check.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun inclines his head slightly as if to say that he's noted it, but almost immediately after, he turns his attention in part back to his training.]

Then if that's all you've got to say, I might as well get back to what I was doing. [Shun isn't one for small talk, and he's also been a bit more reluctant to directly introduce himself of late considering his name is recognisable. If this guy's been talking to Chinatsu, he figures she might have told him who he was anyway.]

[mithrarin]

[Dust's nod is slight, but magnified by his hat.]

If you want a real sparring partner, I'm available.

[But he's guessing that moment isn't now, and expecting the conversation to come to an end, he hefts the staff he's been practicing with and moves to engage a practice dummy of his own.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I'll consider it. [Shun prefers to fight people he has some familiarity with just because he knows whether or not they have anything of use to offer him, but it might be useful to fight this guy at some point to get a gauge of how he might have been teaching Chinatsu.

For now, though, he drags one of the practice dummies across the roped-off area for a more targeted technical practice.]