[D3 EA] - Seeking ... Something (Open/NPC request)

[Nozomi]

She'd heard of this little man and his little tent and his little odd way of speaking and always being in places. She didn't know much about him, but then again right now she wasn't inclined to ask the questions she had of two extremely busy gods who had their own tent, and the answers she was getting from other people weren't satisfactory to her. So, being as she had roughly the tact of a rock being flung through a screen door, she settled herself down in a seated position at what was at least a respectful distance from Shinsei's tent and quietly ate from her mid-day bowl of millet and fish. And with lunch in process, she'd just stare at the tent intently, waiting.

Other people were out fighting and dying, but it wasn't her shift, so she was here, waiting to talk to a man about... well, honestly she wasn't sure. So maybe it was the best time?

[Shinsei]

Strangely, the little tent now seemed to be accompanied by an even littler tent, which had been staked up some short distance away. The trademark crow was missing from the scene still, but after some indeterminate amount of time passed,the hooded figure known as Shinsei stirred from within his tent and stepped outside, pausing to regard the woman sitting and eating and staring in his general direction. If it disconcerted him in any way, he didn't show it.

"Do you often find yourself contemplating cloth shelters during your meals, or is this some special occasion?"

[Nozomi]

"Almost never. They're usually quite boring," she said simply as she finished the last of her meal and set her bowl down, looking at him with the same intense gaze, trying to get a bead on the hooded fellow. How the hell old was he? No, better not to pluck at that straw. He looked not much older than she or Matsu, depending on the light, so it was weird that the kami deferred to him the way people said that he knew things, which just made her more curious and more headachy.

"I hear you know things." Brilliant, Phi.

[Shinsei]

"Yes," he said slowly, "I do. Know things." Even by Shinsei's standards this conversation was starting off strangely, though he seemed completely undeterred by the intense scrutiny he was receiving. The hood he kept wearing shadowed his features, so it was difficult to gauge his expression as he stood there, deciding on how best to continue.

"Are you interested, perhaps, in knowing things?"

[Nozomi]

She remained seated and frowned behind the veil she wore, seeming to think about it. By her own standards it wasn't going well either, but she didn't quite know how to begin. When you had no framework of reference.... A sigh and she glanced to the side. "Yes, I think that want to know something, but I am not sure what I am actually wanting to ask. That is the problem." Grunt. "I wish to ask about the kami, and people say that you know them."

[Shinsei]

"Ah, I see. You don't seem to have had as much trouble expressing your inquiry as you expected. I do know something of the Kami. Maybe it's even something you want to know yourself."

Shinsei turned to one side momentarily. "Would you prefer to have this discussion inside or out?"

[Nozomi]

The frown deepened. Did she want this to be private? Yes, perhaps she did. She wasn't a woman who knew shame easily, but it was a little embarrassing to feel this out of sorts. Rising slowly, she followed up to the tent and took a seat within wordlessly. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out before looking at him cautiously.

"Are they actually gods?" That seemed to be a starting point of this, because gods weren't supposed to walk the earth. Probably not the first time anyone ever asked this question in the last 10 years, so why not ask it before they, you know, rescued one of them from hell?

[Shinsei]

The interior of Shinsei's tent is, if anything, less interesting then the exterior, containing little more than a bedroll and some simple personal effects. When he sat, he kept a fair, conversational distance between himself and Phi.

"What you ask has many interpretations. Among other things, the Kami are divine, of this there is no doubt. But when you say god, what do you truly mean? In what way do you define a god?"

[Nozomi]

Divine. In theory, the story was that they were the children of the Sun and Moon, right? Therefore, of Tengoku. She closed her eyes, the frown never leaving her as she looked uncomfortable. "Bishamon lends favor to those who worship him, bolstering their strength and power in war. His disfavor curses those who earn his ire. The gods preside over everything, yes? And even the lesser ones in shrines on mountains, preside over mountains. Is a god not something worshiped?" She definitely didn't understand religion quite so solidly but she knew that much.

"What does it mean to follow them?"

[Shinsei]

"If mere worship is your definition of a god, they are certainly that. If, however, you also intend that they are those who share their blessings with those who worship them, they are that as well." Shinsei closed his eyes in thought, searching for the words that were best suited to the questions before him, both spoken and unspoken. "To follow them is to share in what they are and what they represent. Some believe they wish us to bow completely before them, but this is not the truth that I have witnessed. In following them, we mortals appear to share in some of their power, gaining knowledge and strength befitting they towards whom devotion is freely given. But they, in turn, grow in knowledge and strength from us. They are not infallible, nor are they immortal, nor all powerful. Merely... branches within an ever expanding river, towards which one can choose to swim, or from which one can flee, though they will inevitably change the course that we all may take regardless of personal decision."

[Nozomi]

"..."

She opened her eyes and looked at him, leaning in a little bit, the gaze intense again. It really wasn't intentional, but she didn't have a great knack for the notion of personal space. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a little confusing?" She wasn't stupid, but this was so far out of her wheelhouse. "Maybe the situation is. Maybe that's the problem."

She leaned back, folding her arms. "Ever since she, Reiko, came to us. I have tried to pray to one. To seek guidance. But I hear nothing. I feel no different. I do not know if he hears me. I do not know what to expect of him."

[Shinsei]

Shinsei didn't move when Phi leaned forward, remaining as stoic as a statue. There did appear to be something of a smile in his expression, however, in whichever bits were visible.

"I've been called a great many things, but confusing is by far the most common." The smile disappeared almost instantly when she began speaking of prayers. "If you were to pray to me, right now, I would only respond because I would clearly hear it. I would also be throughly perplexed by it. Prayers are meant as connections between mortals and the divine, but often those divine beings reside in other places, and the intent and will placed into those prayers thins the veil and draws them closer, so they might hear us."

Shinsei held up a hand and pushed it towards Phi, palm forward. "In Ningen-do it is not so malleable. If I knew not what I do, I might be unable to speak further, but the one with whom Reiko communes is not here, but in Jigoku. Those of the Bat who speak to the kami in Meido likely hear answers from time to time as well. But if I wished to ask guidance from Shinjo, I'm afraid I'd have to walk to do so."

[Nozomi]

As he said that, it sounded much clearer and her face turned several shades of scarlet. She didn't understand the spiritual realms. The one conversation she'd had with Reiko had been so focused on Jigoku that her studies since had only really netted the most basic comprehension of the shadowlands. So, she was embarrassingly unaware when it came to how things worked. "So, a prayer has no ability to reach a god if that god is here, because that god is not there?" Not the brightest way of putting it, but...

"i have been praying to his statue for a month. I feel like a foolish child. He probably hasn't heard a word I've said. We are falling behind this world. It is changing too fast, and I do not understand my place in it."

[Shinsei]

Shinsei looked...puzzled. Mostly it was because what blush he could see looked very strange on Phi's very pale skin, but also because he hadn't intended to embarrass the woman. So, he considered a different approach.

"Before the kami fell, did you often pray?'

[Nozomi]

"To Jurojin. To Ebisu. To find food, to endure the hardships. To Fukurokujin, for answers. When Reiko came, on occasion to wish the one she speaks of well, though I do not think I would follow him." She grunted, muttering to herself and closing her eyes again, getting some of that gravelly, rigid control back. "A fool does not offer a prayer to Bishamon before a raid. Before winter, you pray to Jurojin to endure the mountain's wrath and cold."

"But... no. I have not prayed to them so often as I have tried to reach this one, to see if he is one I could stand beside. And he is not here, so I cannot ask him the questions I have. I cannot see him in action, to see the truth with my eyes."

[Shinsei]

Shinsei nodded to each point, careful not to interrupt Phi as she spoke. He was beginning to get a sense of her in how she answered, weighing her direct simple answers against her cool, controlled demeanor. The struggle she was facing became clearer with every passing moment, and the little teacher felt the he might soon find what she was truly seeking in his council.

"When you prayed to Jurojin, Ebisu, Fukurokujin, how did they answer you?"

[Nozomi]

She considered that. "Raid was successful. Minimal wounded. Game was found, usually boar. Food gathered for the stores in winter. The freeze did not kill too many or give frostbite. Diseases beaten back." A grunt. It was all pretty blunt, pretty straightforward, very direct. The world as she saw it was the world that she saw, touched, felt. The surreality of some things were understood better when she could codify them as things observed. "There were signs we were taught, that one favored us. A stag in the distance for Jurojin, never when we had a bow. That sort of thing. But if he speaks to me, I do not know his signs. I do not know what to expect of devotion. What he would expect of me. What he wants."

She pursed her lips. "He sits with his men on the other side of the marsh, and one day we will fade, and I do not know what this god is, what he wants. I do not know if saving his brother will help any longer as I thought it would." She kind of sounded like she hadn't said that much in a conversation in a while. She wasn't used to talking this much. Deeds were better, but words were the only way here.

[Shinsei]

"I don't know much of their signs myself, but I know them all, bar the one towards whom we march. It doesn't sound to me like he is the one to whom you pray, and your...attire...hints very directly towards one of their number, if such is a statement and not mere coincidence. Saving his brother is the only path we could dare to take, if only to deny Jigoku a prize so powerful as he."

Shinsei seemed to relax a bit, opening his hands towards Phi in a gesture of acceptance. "I may yet answer some of what you would ask of your intended kami, if my mere perceptions would carry the satisfactory amount of weight."

[Nozomi]

"I heard a story, that he tore his sleeve and put it over his face to hide part. I liked that. It makes it hard to see what you are thinking. To know everything." She smiled a little behind her mask. "But yes... I wish to know if he is one I would serve, if there is purpose for me there in his ranks, or if I should keep looking."

She looked at her hands for a moment and there was a little quiver. "Is there a place or a killer in his ranks?" She put a stress on that word. She did not say soldier. She didn't think of herself as a soldier. She was a scout, a hunter and a killer. She had little issue saying it quite openly. this was a world where you killed or you were killed. But it was a world that was changing, and those ways... they were not the ways of Akodo, nor the ways of Hantei.

[Shinsei]

There was silence for a time, enough that one of lesser fortitude might think that Shinsei was disturbed or put off by the question, but his demeanor never changed. Knowing even as little as he did about Phi, it was unsettling to see her looking lost and confused.

"Bayushi did begin to wear a crude mask on his face, this is known. But what isn't widely known is that he very likely could have won the tournament, and chose not to. He is a uniquely intelligent man, willing to turn away from glory and fame to ply his trade unseen, underestimated, and unfettered by any bonds but those he chooses for himself. I do not know you, but I think you may find him to be an appropriate fit for one to follow, if you choose to follow in earnest."