| Verse 3: The Sayings of Crows |
According to Patchouli's instructions, I was to travel to a place called the ?Hakurei Shrine??I was told the priestess there was my best hope for finding this Yukari Yakumo. If the map I was given was correct, then it was to be a four day's journey, passing through the Human Village.
Normally when I travel, I tend to contemplate on whatever is on my mind at the time?the mind makes for fantastic company when there is none otherwise available. The thing on today's mental menu, however, was something that surprised yet pleased me:
Gensokyo has
very good weather.
It seems silly to be occupied by such a mundane notion, yet every time I felt the warm touch of the spring wind on my face I couldn't help but compare the weather here to my own home in Jotunheim. We frost giants like to boast how our land's biting cold builds character, toughens the body and the mind, but I suspect that that was just my people being bitter at having been allotted some of the worst territory among the Nine Worlds. Though, come to think of it, even most places in Midgard weren't this nice.
And so my thoughts were on the weather when a voice interrupted me.
?Ooh! So the rumors were true! A real giant at the Scarlet Devil's Mansion...?
I looked up, and I saw a girl flying in the sky. She wore a white shirt and black skirt, with a small red hat adorning her head and a leaf-shaped fan in her hand. Her other hand held to her eye a small black box that was aimed at me as she flitted about. The box made incessant clicking noises and bright flashes of light.
If I seemed bewildered or perturbed, she must not have noticed, since she continued to do this for some time, muttering questions about my appearance and origins under her breath. I started to wonder if she thought I was just something interesting to study.
Eventually, I decided to put an end to this and asked her for her name. She started, as if she only just realized that I was actually there.
?Ayayaya...sorry about that, I get a little distracted whenever I see something new and interesting,? she said as she rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment.
?I'm Aya Shameimaru,? she said, as she threw up a smart salute and a cheerful smile, ?intrepid tengu reporter and editor-in-chief of Gensokyo's most reliable and fantastic newspaper, Bunbunmaru!? She dramatically pointed a finger at me. ?And
you are Gensokyo's hottest rumor!?
Bunbunmaru? I remembered the mistress of the mansion mentioning that name, something about hunting down that ?damn crow? and permanently shutting her up. I was also curious about my apparent fame.
She nodded. ?Yep! News travels fast in Gensokyo. Especially when it's crow tengu like me bearing it.?
A tengu?
?That's right,? said Aya. ?I'm a tengu, and my people divide our society based on what subspecies we are. Crow tengu like me specialize in collecting info and ferrying news to the rest of our society. I also happen to run a newspaper.?
I had to keep myself from laughing. So even here, in this strange new world, the blackbirds were still the messengers.
-----
?...and you were brought here because of Ms. Knowledge's spell, but you're staying longer than expected because of Kirisame's sabotage...mhmm, mhmm??
Clunk?Ow! *ahem* anyways; now you're heading to the Hakurei Shrine to see if you can find Yukari Yakumo??
?That is correct.?
After our introduction, Aya decided to travel with me, to ?interview? me, as she put it. She constantly wore a frown of concentration as she asked her questions, flying backwards while remaining ahead of me so that we were face to face as we traveled forward.
Regrettably, this meant that she kept flying into things on the road.
?So how long has it been since you??
Whunk?Oof!?
?Woah, woah! Watch it lady, these things are fragile!?
The human carrying what looked like ceramic plates cursed as he almost dropped his brittle load, but Aya paid him no mind, not even bothering to apologize.
?Perhaps you should just walk beside me?? I said. ?That was the fourth time today.?
Aya shook her head. ?A proper interview has to be done face-to-face. The subject's facial expressions and body language contain valuable information, and I didn't get to being Gensokyo's top reporter by being sloppy.?
She didn't seem to mind that the road sign we just passed nearly brained her, so I kept quiet.
Once I told her all about my coming here and what I was planning on doing, she moved on to ask me about myself and the world I came from.
?
Nine worlds? And they're all different from one another? Amazing! And the sun and moon are actually carts pulled by horses instead of just being gods? Keep going, keep going!? The air was filled with sounds of a pen furiously scribbling on parchment.
So I continued. I regaled her with what I saw in old journeys, the things I'd seen traveling from the lowest roots of Yggdrasil to its topmost branches...
The river Ifing, broad and deep, untouched by winter's breath; there at its waters gods and giants stood apart
The Well of Mimir, the clear spring bubbling with wisdom and knowledge; there at its banks the All-Father traded his eye for the world's secrets
The depths of Niflheim, the land of the dishonored; there in its mists the dead wept even as the serpent Nidhogg gnawed their flesh
The Norns, who sat at the Well of Fates; there among them lay the doom of all, both quick and deadAnd all the other wonders I'd beheld, under the boughs of the World-Tree.
When I finished, Aya was still writing on her piece of parchment, muttering things under her breath again. I caught her saying, ?This is just
amazing, nothing like it at all around here...?
I said, ?But aren't there wonders here, in Gensokyo? The very weather is under the power of small fairy-creatures, and all manners of monsters and Men dwell here in this land of plenty.?
Aya shrugged, though her pen never left the parchment. ?Eh, I've already seen pretty much everything Gensokyo has to offer. I might not look it, but I'm actually more than a thousand years old.?
She started nibbling on her pen. Her eyes were running down the parchment as she talked, perhaps checking to see if what she had gotten everything she needed down.
?Gensokyo's such a small place?as the fastest in Gensokyo, I could fly the whole length of it starting in the morning and still be home in time for lunch. And that's on a slow day. By the time I was here for just a few decades, I'd seen everything there was to see in the land itself: every mountain, every valley, ever river and lake and waterfall, the works.?
?You've tired of this land, then?? I said.
She stopped reading her parchment and set it aside, her hand on her chin, her eyes deep in thought. It was subtle, but I could see her expression shifting as she debated on her answer. At last, she shook her head.
?...no. Not...entirely. The land itself? Yeah, it got boring a few centuries back, that's true. But there's one thing that will always keep me at least a little interested in Gensokyo.?
?And what would that be??
She turned to me and winked.
?The people, of course!?
Before I could ask further, though, Aya pointed out that it was getting dark; indeed, the sky had already become a deep orange. A good traveling companion has a way of making time fly.
I made camp just off the road?for me, soft grass and my traveling cloak was a good a shelter as any. Aya, meanwhile, flew back home, swift as a thrown spear yet yawning all the while, and I believed her when she said that she was the fastest in Gensokyo. As she sped off into the setting sun, she promised that she would return tomorrow.
-----
I awoke the next morning with that familiar bodily chill one gets, when one sleeps outside with the only the sky as a roof. What Patchouli had told me before about Gensokyo being a somewhat safe place for travelers despite its seemingly dangerous denizens seemed to hold true?I'm a light sleeper when I travel, and I didn't wake even once in the night.
It wasn't long after I awoke when I spotted Aya flying in like a thunderbolt. I could have sworn that the very air
shrieked when she came to a halt.
?Morning!? she said. On her face was a grin as bright as the morning sun. ?Sleep well? I spent all last night thinking up more questions, and...?
We ate breakfast as we continued. It was much the same as yesterday, though today Aya was more curious about the many people I had met in my lifetime, gods and Men and giants all. I have to admit that I had more trouble answering today's questions; as a wanderer my eyes were ever drawn to locations and objects of wonder, and I cared little for people?even the Norns I sought for what they knew, not their company.
I started to realize that I'd rarely, if ever, talked to someone for the sake of conversation, or to get to know them. Idle talk was never really my thing, it was always for what information I could extract from them. Riddle games or contests of wit, but never anything about themselves. It never occurred to me to even bother; what was so interesting about people that I should waste time learning about them? There were too many interesting things in the worlds to waste time with the petty lives of those who lived in them. And besides, all of those I ever came across in my journeys who weren't all-wise were bloodthirsty brutes, short-sighted egomaniacs, or mind-numbingly mundane and dull.
No, it wasn't so much that I was
afraid of speaking to people...I just wasn't one to make small talk, or seek out conversation when I didn't think it necessary.
Regardless, Aya continued to ask her questions throughout the morning. Her questions raised my own curiosity, so after a while I decided to ask her about the ?one thing? that kept her interested in Gensokyo despite being bored of the land itself.
?Because for one thing, people change,? said Aya. ?Youkai, humans, they're not like mountains and lakes and rivers...or at least, not like mountains and lakes and rivers in the short run. Give them a few years and it's like they're a whole new person. It's tough to predict how they'll turn out, too, or what they'll do.?
I wasn't quite convinced by her answer, but before I could ask any further Aya spotted the crude wooden gates that marked the entrance to the Human Village.
-----
The village itself was the same as any other one I'd seen before. The architecture was somewhat different, as expected, but in the end it was another clump of thatched roofs teeming with peasants going on about their daily lives. I tended to avoid these kinds of places, unless the weather was so terrible that I needed a place to stay, or I was lost and needed directs; even then, I never paid any mind to village dwellers. Aya seemed eager to enter, though, and I wondered what marvels these simple people held for her.
Near the gates I saw a young woman in a blue dress, her white hair tinged with sky-blue tones. Two men were listening to her as she spoke, their eyes fixed to the piece of parchment in her hands.
?...and as for you, Mr. Hayabashi, I'd like for you and your sons to start working on the northern fences. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me.? The men nodded and strode off, presumably to begin their work.
Aya called out to the woman. ?Ah, Keine! Hello!?
The woman turned towards Aya, sighing when she recognized who it was. ?Ms. Shameimaru,? she said, ?I do not believe ourselves so familiar that we are on a first-name basis.?
Aya gave her a disarming laugh. ?Oh, don't be so cold! I think we really got to know each other that one time last winter??
?You
ambushed me in my own bathroom!?
?Well, it's just that you're so busy all the time??
?With a camera!?
?Look, I pressed the button before I realized you were coming in to take a bath, and I have to say, you have a
lovely singing voice??
??You weren't supposed to hear that! Mokou wouldn't stop teasing me for
weeks after you published that in your stupid?ugh!? She stopped herself from going too far, and instead rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. ?
Happy thoughts, Keine, happy thoughts. If you can deal with schoolchildren, you can deal with this. *Sigh* Nevermind. Just...just don't bother the villagers this time, okay??
Aya saluted smartly and gave her a broad grin, though it faltered at the sight of Keine's withering glare.
?And who might you be, sir?? said Keine as she turned to me. Her dark brown eyes, bearing just the slightest hint of caution, seemed to scour me for every scrap of information my appearance could tell her. I introduced myself, and told her why I was here and what I was looking for.
?I see...wait, Vafthrudnir...Vafth?oh! From the
Sayings of Vafthrudnir! I read the
Codex Regius once, and I...but if you're here, then...? She shot Aya a look. ?Was it that gap-demon again??
?No, it was the witches this time.?
?Uh huh.? She shrugged and looked back to me.
?In any case, sir, I welcome you to Gensokyo and our humble village. I am Keine Kamishirasawa; teacher, historian, guardian.? She said this with a bow and smile, but then her eyes became hard. ?And as this village's guardian, I must warn you to not cause any trouble while you are within its walls. If you do, then you will have to deal with me.?
I assured her of my good intentions. She stared at me for a moment, her gaze searching me again. But soon enough, she gave me a warm smile of welcome.
?I assumed as much. Please don't take any offense to my warning, sir, it's just something I say to every new face around here. If you'll excuse me, I'm afraid that I have business to attend to.? She parted from me with a wave, and from Aya with another glare.
?Well,? said Aya once Keine disappeared into a crowd. ?Now that we're here, wanna look around??
-----
And so we wandered through the village. I tried to keep an open mind about things, but I simply failed to find anything interesting about it all. Aside from the occasional trinket or novelty, there was nothing fascinating about the myriad shops, their customers, and their owners. Two people haggling over the price of fish here, another two arguing over land distribution there. Truly stimulating stuff.
It wasn't long until Aya took notice of my boredom. ?Not having fun, huh? Well, I have an idea.? She suddenly went down a new path, beckoning me to hurry up and follow her. A series of turns and a few double-backs later, Aya came to a halt.
?We're here!?
Before us was a large wooden house. Its architecture was starkly different from that of the Scarlet Devil Mansion; it was low, with only one floor, and spacious and sprawling rather than tall and towering. Unlike Remilia's abode, it didn't try to project power and might, but instead seemed to earnestly do its best to serve as a home.
At the porch sat a young girl, with short purple hair and wearing robes of yellow and green. She was writing on a piece of parchment with a brush, but the way she wrote was profoundly different from the frantic scribblings of Aya; each movement seemed practiced, precise, yet flowing, like a sword in the hands of a master.
As we came closer, she looked up at us, and I noticed that her eyes were a deep purple, and somehow filled with wisdom I'd have expected from someone five times her age. Yet she herself couldn't have been more than seventeen winters old.
?Ah, Ms. Shameimaru,? said the girl as she set aside her writing tools. From her kneeling position she gave us a polite bow and a smile. ?Good to see you again. I see you have a guest with you this time. Please, sit down and have some tea.?
How odd?despite what I saw in her eyes, and the deftness of her brushwork, her voice and posture seemed unremarkable for a girl her apparent age. She spoke very formally, but I assumed that that was what all noble-born children did. From what I could gather, she wasn't an old crone in the guise of a young girl.
Regardless of my musings, we exchanged greetings, and I discovered that the girl was named Hieda no Akyuu. We entered her home (which I had a little difficulty doing), into a large room for entertaining guests. A servant set three cups filled with steaming drink?tea, from the looks of it.
?So, Ms. Shameimaru,? said Akyuu, ?What brings you and Mr. Vafthrudnir here??
?Well, I was traveling with Vafthrudnir here?you've read about him, right?
Vafthrudnismal and all that. We were heading towards the Hakurei shrine for some business, but he has a little time to kill so I figured I'd show him around town a little bit. He's a brainy guy so I thought you might like to meet him.?
?I see.? Akyuu turned to me. ?Very well, Mr. Vafthrudnir. Again, I am Hieda no Akyuu, the Ninth Child of Miare. It is my duty to record Gensokyo's history, and...?
Ninth child? I paid only half attention to the rest of what Akyuu was saying as I considered this. So Akyuu had eight other siblings? The mansion seemed too quiet to house nine nobles and all their servants. Or was I missing something?
Akyuu noticed my confusion. ?Ah, I must apologize,? she said with a polite smile. ?My epithet 'Ninth Child' can be misleading; I am not the youngest of nine children, but the ninth reincarnation of the historian Hieda no Are. I also possess the memories of my predecessors that are relevant to my work.?
It took my host and Aya a little time to explain to me what reincarnation was, but the implications hit me immediately. How wondrous, I thought, that the spirits of the dead return to the world of the living! All the more so for Akyuu, since she remembered so much from past lives. It seemed like immortality to me, dying and being reborn again with one's knowledge and wisdom kept, an eternity's time to uncover the world's secrets.
?Reincarnation and memory retention are certainly very useful in this line of work,? said Akyuu, with a small smile. ?I can better compare the Gensokyo of the present with the Gensokyo of the past, since in a way I was there for some of it. I also keep my brush skills, to a degree.?
Then a question appeared in my head, out of the blue.
?How did I come to be Gensokyo's memory, you ask?? Across the table from her, Aya fidgeted, frowning, but I paid her no mind. ?It's the duty of my house. As soon as a Child of Miare is born, she must prepare herself for a scribe's life. As soon as her work is done, she dies.?
The last bit startled me. I wondered how long it took to finish this work of hers.
?I believe I will be finished in about three year's time,? said Akyuu. She saw my expression and gave me a warm, disarming laugh. ?Oh, no need to mourn for me sir, I enjoy what I do and I've made some very good friends in this life. I was born into this fate, and I've long since accepted it.?
I studied her, her expression, her posture, the subtlest narrowing of the eyes, the slightest clenching of her hand around her cup. Odin might have fooled me, but not this girl. She didn't completely accept her lot in life, that I was certain. But on the other hand, she never fought her fate, how futile it might have been.
I wasn't sure what to make of this. Should I have been angry, that she gave up so easily? That she resigned herself to her destiny, despite the echo of bitterness inside her that wanted to rail against it? Or was this well-mannered, purple-haired scribe in front of me an exemplar of one burdened with fate? Again, I was reminded of Odin, as I seemed to often do since I came here. His struggles seemed so pointless; so much sacrifice, so much effort, yet the Norns' decree remained the same?death.
To struggle against insurmountable fate, or to bear its burden quietly? To be a fool, or a coward?
I had only questions, no answers. But seeing and talking to Akyuu here, who found comfort and happiness in resignation...
The journey to Hakurei Shrine suddenly seemed much longer.
-----
I had seen this before, not so long ago, when he was at my door, to take from me what I knew
Odin spake, ?What shall bring the doom of death to Odin, when the gods to destruction go??
Voice faltering, as though it had stumbled on a pebble, but only for a moment, a fleeting, fleeting moment, so small I did not notice
I spake, ?The wolf shall fell the father of men, and this shall Vithar avenge; the terrible jaws shall he tear apart, and so the wolf he shall slay.?
I should have noticed it then; the subtlest narrowing of his one eye, the slightest clenching of his hand on his weathered old staff, telltale signs of anger and despair, but I wanted to show this pathetic manfool the might of Vafthrudnir, Wisest of Ymir's Sons??What'd you think? Pretty interesting girl, huh??
Aya's words broke me out of my reverie. Surprised, I blurted out my agreement; only then did I notice the meal before me, glistening in the candlelight.
Memory rushed back into me again: Akyuu had left to go visit a friend in the village, so it was only me and Aya at a modest dining table.
?Oh yeah, there was something I meant to tell you,? she said, as she fed herself with her twin eating sticks. ?Every incarnation of hers has a different personality.? She glanced at my surprised reaction and continued.
?Yeah, reincarnation isn't quite that clean and easy. Everyone comes back different, especially the humans, even ones like her. Anyway, the Akyuu you saw today is pretty different from the one I saw about a hundred-and-twenty years ago, and that one was different from the one I saw two-hundred and eighty years ago. And so on.?
It what way, I wondered.
?Heh, I still remember the first time I ran into Hieda no Amu, the Sixth Child.? She rubbed nose absentmindedly, as though she were recalling an old wound she received there. ?I'm the fastest in all of Gensokyo, but I'll be damned if Amu wasn't the fastest with a brush. Ink up the nose really stings, did you know? Anyway...?
She took a sip of drink, and made a delighted smile, muttering something about the quality of the tea.
?That one, Hieda no Amu, wasn't...so comfortable with what she was: Gensokyo's chronicler, doomed to write a book from the day she could hold a brush till the day her short life ended. Hence the ink up my nose when I visited. But the one before her? Hieda no Ago? You couldn't find someone more pumped up to write a boring old history tome anywhere.? She looked down into her cup. I could see the glimmers of nostalgia in her eyes. ?Heh heh...I really miss her sometimes.?
Aya stared into her drink for a while longer, then cleared her throat.
?Ahem. Anyway. The point is, it feels like every time I come back here, both the Hieda mansion and the village, something come up. A new Child of Miare, a new incident, a new event. You can never really see it coming, and it's always something completely different. Great for the papers! Though you'd never have known it if you didn't do a bit of digging.?
She at last finished her drink, and set aside the cup. Her smile was cheerful, her face seeming to shine despite the dim lamplight of the room.
?And
that's my proper answer to your question from yesterday, Mr. Vafthrudnir. I'll never get bored of Gensokyo because you give the people around here a few years and they become so
different. They're not like rivers or mountains or forests, where you look at them once and they stay the same for hundreds of years, shifting at a snail's pace. They change all the time, human and youkai, and for someone who's lived for a long time like me, that's always welcome. Digging up scoops about people and talking to them about it is like digging up treasure, except the shoveling is fun and what you find always surprises you at least a little.?
I heard the sound of a great bell being struck in the distance. As though that were a cue, Aya yawned and stretched her tired back.
?Whew! I'm sleepy. I don't feel like going all the way back home, so I'll be staying here for the night.?
So soon? It was past dinner time, true, but the night was still young.
?Funny you ask, actually. A doctor in the Bamboo Forest told me about that. Apparently, we crow tengu have fast, uh, what'd she call it, mebatosilm? Metasobilim? Point is, we eat more and burn out faster than most other people.?
I did notice that Aya was very much a big eater. Given the portions we were served, I suspected that the people of Gensokyo didn't indulge in overeating the way people in the Nine Worlds did.
She stood up, yawning once again, wider this time.
?Anyhow, I think I got everything I needed to know from you for my article, so tomorrow I'll be heading back home. I'm always traveling around Gensokyo, though, so I'll probably see you again before the month is up. Good night, Mr. Vafthrudnir!
I waved her goodnight, and I was left alone in the dim candlelight.
-----
I tried to fall asleep. No such luck; the day's events played in my mind, distracting me from the sweet bliss of slumber. So instead of meditating in my bed, I decided to go for a walk, and mull over things outside.
I left the Hieda mansion and stepped out into the village, into the cool night air. There were far fewer people there now, most having left for home after the day's labors, but from the lights and sounds and smells I could tell that some were in the shops, eating and drinking, making merry.
I have to admit that the merrymaking from the taverns were a little infectious. They reminded me of the grand feasting halls of home, those tables laden with food, drink, and rowdy guests. I wasn't much of a party goer, and I was never much of a conversationalist either, but even I could never help but absorb some of the cheer at a good feast.
As a result, I was in a good mood as I passed those taverns, enough so that I decided to put off the more morbid line of thought that involved Akyuu and turned towards what Aya had said to me earlier.
?Digging up scoops about people and talking to them is like digging up treasure, except the shoveling is fun and what you find always surprises you at least a little.?A part of the old me protested against that philosophy, summoning the usual arguments of 'boring' and 'mundane' and 'pointless', but talking with that young purple-haired scholar today made me doubt myself. Aya had a point; if she hadn't brought me to Akyuu, there's no doubt I would have considered the Hieda house irrelevant and moved on.
Before I could think much further, though, I ran into Keini Kamishirasawa.
?Oh, Mr. Vafthrudnir! Good to see you again.?
Her left arm clutched a stack of parchment, and her right arm held a large sack teeming with foodstuffs. Given what she was carrying and how she kept glancing down the road, I guessed that she was on her way home.
Inspiration struck me. Perhaps I could practice Aya's philosophy here, with Keine?
I hesitated, trying my best to ignore Keine's stare that was slowly turning from polite expectation to confusion and impatience. The voice of scorn told me that she surely had nothing of importance. She knew history, or so she claimed, but who was this woman, that I should waste time speaking to her? My first impression of her wasn't nearly as striking as the one I had with Akyuu, either?it seemed doubtful that Keine had much of interest at all.
But then a little crow alighted my shoulder: not one of flesh and feathers, but one of recent wisdom and memory. Give it a try, it whispered. You have nothing to lose but just a little time.
I noticed that Keine was starting to strain under her burdens. Sensing an opportunity, I asked her if I could help her carry something back home.
?Oh!? She made a pained smile and began shaking her head. ?Erm, thank you, but I couldn't possibly ask you to...?
Suddenly, the bag of food slipped from her grasp and landed with a heavy *thud*. Luckily, the bag was tied up so nothing spilled out, but I winced at the sound of something inside breaking.
Keine looked at the bag, then looked at me, then at the bag again.
?On second thought...?
Eventually, we made our way to her house, where I did my best help her prepare her evening meal.
We talked late into the night.
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Next Verse: The Sayings of Sages
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:wikipedia:
Author's notes: :wikipedia:
So even here, in this strange new world, the blackbirds were still the messengers. Reference to Huginn and Munnin, aka "Thought" and "Memory": the two ravens of Odin that flew around the world learning its secrets, then flying back home to tell them to Odin.