Kiyonai Forests

The mysterious girl giggled in response to his rambling, sound pure as chimes in the breeze. As Xiong continued his ascent, she slunk into the trees, the laughter continuing to ask him to chase.

She led him through a section of the forest where the trees had been left untouched for hundreds of years, with trunks as wide as a small house, reaching toward the sky with branches thicker than a horse's neck. Lighting Xiong's path were those same childlike creatures that clung to him so tightly before- some of which were still clinging to his yukata from the climb. When he passed by they whispered, loud enough to make out the words, though they spoke no language known to the spymaster.

He had many other visitors along the way. Elk lifted their heads to stare at the two flouncing through the forest. They, too, were willed to follow, and in a troupe, pranced alongside the young man, keeping his pace as they bellowed. Birds fluttered down from the trees and made circles around Xiong in brilliant plume. Rabbits peaked from their holes and hopped forth, discarding their shyness. A song that had always been there, but had never been quite noticeable until now, willed them all forward, the voice of countless spirits lead by an airy soprano that demanded their attention with delicate high notes stringing together to tie them into a dreamy web.

However, suddenly, there were no woodland creatures anymore. The path seemed to have taken a very unexpected downward incline, as well.

If Xiong had been able to stop himself before sliding down the steep slope that had no foreseeable end, he would hear a bone-shaking crack from above. Right after, a flat piece of bark slapped onto the ground in front of him and slowly began to skate down the slope.

To his left, another piece of bark slapped down to this ground, this time with the spirit following suit, landing onto the flat surface and giving it the push it needed to rocket her down the slope, winding around an wave of soil and an obstacle course of white birch trees.

The strange woman gave him no easy chase, even as near as he was, she was so far!

A rock shelf swiftly approached ahead, which the spirit used as a lift to send her flying through the air. She spun as she soared, facing Xiong for a split second with those shining, half-moon eyes and a toothy grin made devious by her long canines. Her hair flickered behind her as she landed, leaving a dark comet tail wherever she went. She wound between the trees wildly, but with utmost confidence, sometimes skating her makeshift sled against the side of trees to ping-pong her from one trunk to another.

The spirit noticed Xiong's fall almost too late. She reached her arms up, hands grasping at the air as she willed an abundance of vines, heavy with soft leaves, from the ground below the spymaster. Even with the foliage reaching out for him, he wouldn't find his consciousness staying with him. Darkness swarmed the young man's vision with swift abandon, but not before witnessing the spirit approach him.



A soft bobble of movement and the heat on his cheeks might have been enough to wake the sleeping man. If not, then the noisy chatter of two people failing very hard to whisper certainly would.

Xiong would find himself in the shallow waters of a clear spring. It sat in a wide clearing at the base of a lush mountain filled with white birch trees. The spring itself was quite large, taking up a good portion of the clearing, lined by stones stacked at its sides.

Behind him, there was a small shrine, barely big enough to enter standing up. Its wood was worn and cobwebs were strewn around every corner. In the middle of the shrine sat a statue that would be immediately recognizable to Xiong as that mysterious, moon-eyed enigma from earlier. She sat with her legs folded, one hand reaching outward with a dish in her hand. Dust and mold had settled onto the fine stone statue, the only offering that the shrine had seen in some time.

Giggled erupted from behind the statue. Whispers of "Shhh! He'll find us!" and "You shush! You're making all the noise!" were no secrets to the young man's ears.

After a pause, two sets of bright blue eyes peaked out from behind the statue, staring up at the spymaster. So short and so innocent, they were hardly more than children. They wore torn rags and hoods made from the snouts of animals, whose ears perked up in the air as if to illustrate the children's curiosity.

They screeched in surprise, running past Xiong into the water. "He saw us!"

The children trudged through the water with clumsy little legs. Eventually, one flopped all the way in until he was upside-down, legs kicking above the waves. The other splashed her way in a torrent around her unfortunate counterpart.

"You're at a shrine, silly!" she cried out, reaching over to grab the other child's legs and pull him upright. She resigned herself to the same fate as soon as the wolf-skinned boy was on his feet, taking in a big gulp of air, cheeks flushed from the strain. He shook his little body, splattering water in every direction before grinning up at Xiong. "We're in the forest! I think... people call it the Kiyoyai forest?"

Exploding from the water behind him was the fox-eared girl, dunking the boy's head beneath the water once more. "Kiyonai, silly! And we're only halfway into the Kiyonai forest! We're halfway into the not-Kiyo-forest, too!"

The children looked at one another inquisitively, counting on their little fingers. "Four nights...

"And you woke up on the fifth day!"

They splayed out their hands to show him, grinning from ear to ear. "Your head looked like a watermelon got dropped!"

"Maybe that's why you're not quite here and not quite there?"

"Because the water helped you but it was almost too late!"

As he cleaned, they circled him again, clapping their hands. "Too late! Toooooooo late!"

If ever he took his eyes away from the statue in the altar, there would be heard a soft rattling. Upon looking back, he would see that the prayer beads and the statue were... gone.

"... too late, too late," joined a soft voice with the chanting, rattling the prayer beads. The sound circled the shrine once, always just out of Xiong's eyesight, until there was a small splash.

There, at the entrance, staring at him with those half-moon eyes was the spirit.

Her hair draped down her back and over her shoulders until it disappeared into the water. She wore a simple shift that ended before her knees, a frock very different than a kimono. She was a pale, slender thing, but something about the way she stood there, the way she looked at him, smirking with absolute confidence, said that she wasn't at all a weak thing.

"Few have been here in the last few years. None have sought to show me such gratitude."

Her voice, it was delicate, singsong, but wise and stern all at once.

"Offerings that come from the heart are more than enough," she said, slipping the beads around her neck. They had been with the man a long time and were brimming with his energy. With a smirk, she extended a hand toward the shrine.

Vines, young and green, spidered around the railings and blossomed into gossamer white flowers. "Because you accepted my invitation... and also brought me a gift. Who am I, as a host, to deny you my presence?"

The children skittered up to her and grabbed onto her legs, beaming up at both Xiong and the spirit. She did not move as he approached, suddenly not as shy as she pretended to be before. "You do not seem frightened. Perhaps you have come across our kind in the past? Or perhaps you are in shock. The waters should have healed the trauma to your head, at least."

A girl in a white robe. She hadn't come in contact with someone like that. Not recently.

"I don't have a name for myself, and all those given have been forgotten, as my shrine was," she told the monk. "Call me what you will, Xiong Shuren, and let others know it. Will you do that for me?"

She never once dropped his gaze after their eyes locked. There was less playfulness here in her tone.

"Flattering," said the spirit, now known as Meyli. She turned her head to watch him circle her, barely taking her eyes off him for a second. Even if she was unafraid, there was wariness in her actions.

"A shrine in your home... normally I would disagree. But if you say you have many visitors, then I shall oblige. I am here for my name to be known by many, not to be coveted by one man," she told him. She did give him a smile. "Even if the man has much admiration for me. Have I enchanted you so much, Xiong Shuren, that you would flirt with an old spirit?"

The spirit's expression darkened as Xiong told his story. Many slaves had pleaded to her for help in the past and she heard their prayers, hiding them in the realm between realms, the same place the man found himself now.

"I would applaud you for such a feat, but it sounded desperate. Such an event... no less than sorrowful. Hopefully, you have turned it into something less so. That is to be seen," she said, just before glancing at the tiny spirits at her knees.

They glanced at one another inquisitively, as though unsure. They then began to dance around her, hands flung into the air. "A new house?"

"A new house!"

"Meeting new people!"

"New people to play with!"