>That's right, right?
>If so, tell her that is the case.
>It is, and you inform her of it. She makes a left turn, hopping over a bush and landing in the woods southeast of the shrine itself. Kiku begins traveling straight ahead, adjusting her course to the west to evade trees and low-hanging branches. She takes her time, her bright eyes fixed on the route ahead.
>The ground doesn't seem entirely even here dipping in places even as it rises. The lanterns along the stairs of the temple cast their thin light into the woods, but this grows duller and duller as Kiku picks her way to the northwest. She is taking great care, circling wide around trees with low-hanging branches, going around brambley bushes whenever possible, jumping them only after giving you warning.
>Perhaps that's why she wanted you to accompany her in this way, you ponder. If she is trying to conquor her fear of what is to come by focusing on the safety of her rider.
>The lights from the temple stairs have faded almost completely away as Kiku stops. She stands in front of a small pool, more of a puddle, with a depression in the ground running to the northeast. The ground is covered with fallen, decaying leaves, and needles from the pines. It is not this, however, that you would surmise caused Kiku to halt. The sensation of age that you experienced before out here in the wood suffuses the air around you. And judging from the trembling you feel from Kiku beneath you, she can sense it, too.
