>Do we think Rin's skills at the game are only passable because she instinctively holds back, or just because she genuinely isn't especially good at it?
>"It is a lively place, certainly."
>Carry on to the lake
>If she was holding back during the games you've played, you didn't get the impression that this was the case. She's better at card games than she is as shogi, you know, and doesn't have any issues with winning in that field. Not that she wins all the time, but she doesn't seem afraid to, either.
>The cleared path in the woods before you takes one more turn to the left, and the field before you on the other side of this corner opens up to show the lake of the Black Tortoise.
>It's... a lot darker than you would have imagined. The lights that lit your way here do not extend beyond the opening in the trees, and the lake has no artificial sources of illumination that you can detect. And with the sky covered in low hanging thick grey clouds, there is no moonlight, no starlight. But the illumination from the tall lights to either side of you show a broad expanse of flower-strewn grass before you, only starting now to turn the brown of autumn, the flowers, white and purple, are closed, insulating themselves from the chill of the wind and the dark of the night.
>The shore of the lake is about fifty or so feet in front of you, the cold clear water reflecting the distant lights of the tall lamps flanking you, but further details of the water are lost to the darkness, save the outline of a fair sized island lying on the water. You can hear the sound of voices and splashing of water to your right and far off ahead of you, but cannot see the sources of the female voices.
>There IS another source of illumination coming from your left: a globe of light about eighty feet away, illuminating a small group of people, two on the shore, one in the water before them. The being in the water is a large turtle, sporting a white beard from his chin. That would be Genjii, then. The turtle is sort of like the mascot of the Black Tortoise shrine, apart from Miko Miko Suika herself. Genjii is reputed to be hundreds of years old, a youkai who never achieved humanoid form, but did achieve human intelligence. The other two beings are a grey-haired man with a pair of goat horns on either side of his head, and a blonde woman in a Luyang-styled white and purple gown with several big, fluffy tails.
