#pace shiff

[hipster-safari]

OC-tober/Inktober Day 1: PRACTICE

I haven’t drawn anything in a very long time, but gonna use OC-tober to drag myself kicking and screaming out of this rut.

I feel like Pace is demanding to see Fai’s manager in the upper right xD

[heretherebefic]

Mushi-Shi (Part 4)

The kid wandered into Pace’s mountain, or that’s how Pace phrased it. She leads Ikali down the glen, tails swishing irritably, past the Wakanbe mushi that grows as tall as a tree and eats unwary travelers, through the dry stream where the Pontsu stick up like jagged traps for soft exposed feet, around the wild boar’s thicket and up again to where they can look into the crevasse between the severed stones where the Yamenoke nest.

The guy isn’t as much of a kid as Ikali guessed, maybe a few years younger than himself but with a stupid ponytail no one was naïve enough to think looked good after age twenty. Ikali shakes his head.  He’s about to judge the young man and help him get back on his way when something occurs to him.

 “I didn’t let him in,’ Pace confirms before he can ask. “He was just… there this morning. He either can’t see the mushi or are ignoring them.” She shrugs, leaning against a tree trunk, mushi unfurling from the bark around her. “I can’t tell.”

 “Fai didn’t spot him?” Ikali is surprised. Fai’s survey of the mountain is usually enough to deter travelers.

“If he did, he couldn’t catch up to him before he forded the stream…” Pace purses her lips. “He walked right through the Denden mushi without being even slightly distracted by their pulse,’ she grouses.

“I’ll talk to him,’ Ikali promises, ‘we’ll see what he wants.”

 Ikali is about to slide down and investigate when he hears a small tinny flute. He peers down again to find their intruder sitting crosslegged in front of a fledgling Yamenoke, its little black legs splayed and slightly wriggling as the guy pipes a little tune at it. The Yamenoke is only a baby, but Ikali knows how dangerous it is. It’s one of the few mushi all mushi-shi are trained to evacuate people away from instead of trying to handle. Its slow destruction of the senses, coupled with its hunger for kouki and a fairly territorial streak make it one of the most violent and dangerous mushi known. The Yamenoke can suck the life from even the ground they inhabit- which is why they choose lifeless stones to nest.

 Ikali scrambles down the nearly shear rock face toward the guy, who just continues to pipe at the little black squiggle. Ikali’s rough landing at their level makes the guy jolt in surprise- and spooks the mushi.

“Get down!” Ikali shouts, even as the squiggle springs at this guy’s head. Shock registers in the man’s expression as the mushi rockets at his face… until his ponytail fluffs up grabs the Yamenoke out of the air, pulling it behind the guy’s ear until its gone.

 The silence stretches as Ikali stares at the guy’s innocuous and yet rather stupid hairstyle.

“Look,’ the guy says slowly, ‘I can explain, just, uh, calm down, yeh?” He raises both hands in a placating gesture. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what you just saw.”

“Your hair-mushi ate the Yamenoke!” Pace pipes up from the top of the rocks. She is much more interested in their visitor now.

“Uh, is that what it is?” He grins warily at her, and Pace’s expression turns gleeful.

 His name is Suzaka and he was told a mushi-shi on this mountain could get his evil hair to go away.

 “I mean it’s kinda grown on me, honestly, pun intended,’ Suzaka admits, sitting across from Ikali on another rocky outcropping. “But I dunno, thought I’d make sure it wasn’t eating my brains or something.” Ikali thinks it might be too late for that…

“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a mushi like this though, I’m afraid,’ Ikali apologizes. “Pace?”

Pace sits regally on a crag and lashes her tails at Suzaka. She flattens her ears but says nothing.

“Listen, your mushi-ness,’ Suzaka addresses Pace directly, ‘I just don’t want my hair to eat people or whatever. I mean, it’s fine otherwise. The style actually suits me.”

“Says you,’ Fai mutters from where he leans against a tree nearby. Suzaka scowls at him and contemplates throwing something at him.

Of all the strange things, Suzaka’s weird hair-mushi seems to get along well with the Hikukami. They float lazily around it, resting on the ponytail ribbon and generally being pest-like. His hair mushi waves them away every so often, but not unkindly. Suzaka waves them away whenever it doesn’t. The Hikukami end up sticking to his fingers, and he tries to feed them to his hair- which isn’t interested.

 “The mushi really like him,’ Fai tells Ikali later, when Suzaka is off trying to do a little hunting for the dinner they somehow agreed to have together.  “In a way I’ve never seen.”

“Me neither,’ Ikali agrees, shrugging, ‘he seems to have no ill intent, and the mushi possessing him seems not to have adversely affected his health.”

“Absolutely the opposite,’ Pace says from where she’s been skulking in the brushline. “That thing on his head is keeping him alive.”

Both humans look up in surprise.

“It’s all throughout his body. It chose to sprout on his head, but it’s not hurting him. He’s a good host for it. It just wants to eat and spread its spores. He lives exactly the way it likes. He’s reckless because he's mostly invincible, and his constant energy keeps the mushi fed. From how deeply it is in his system, it’s probably been with him most of his life.” Pace shrugs, ‘I’m going to go stare at him while he hunts again.”

“Should I be jealous?” Ikali teases, and she chuckles at him. Then she’s gone in the whisper of the breeze. He stares after her an extra moment.

Fai watches him, eyes dark and calculating.

 Suzaka ends up staying for dinner and overnight. It turns out he can cook, so he also makes breakfast the next day.  He’s also physically strong and very cheerful. In sharp contrast to Fai, he is thrilled by the mushi, interested in what Ikali knows, and almost hilariously disinterested in Pace.

Unable to help it, Pace finally makes Fai ask him why he isn’t more curious about her.

“You’re the boss-mushi, yeh?” He shrugs, grinning, ‘what more do I need to know?”

Pace warms up to him after that. She goes so far as to accompany him hunting and playfully harassing him.

 Most of his time is spent with Ikali, though. He’s a playful force of nature, and as long as Ikali keeps his hands away from Suzaka’s head, the mushi there doesn’t seem to mind their playful roughhousing and banter. Suzaka throws mud at him from Fai’s pottery area, tries to help find new kinds of moss for Pace’s bed, yowls about the state of their pantry, and generally peps up Ikali’s life. Despite the intense energy of his friend, Ikali doesn’t find Suzaka tiring at all.

 Somehow Suzaka stays.

Okay, so ‘somehow’ actually meant that Pace trapped him on the mountain and refused to say why. Suzaka didn’t seem to mind.

 “If you stay too long, you’ll never be able to leave,’ Ikali warns him one day while they’re washing in the river.

“Eh,’ Suzaka shrugs, ‘nowhere’s been able to hold me yet. This won’t be the first. Though you’ve got a nice thing going here.”

“I do, don’t I,’ Ikali muses, and Suzaka laughs.

“Only one girl, though!” He scoffs, ‘and not for me.”

“She’s a mountain lord, not some woman,’ Ikali disagrees. “She’s more than that.”

“Is that right,’ Suzaka muses, giving Ikali one of his rare shrewd looks.

 They spend a lot of days on the mountain. Suzaka listens to everything he says about mushi, and exchanges knowledge of plants and herbs. Suzaka never mentions where he’s from, but neither does Ikali, so it’s fine. Suzaka renovates the house, adds a small ‘drop box’ at the base of the mountain for people to request Ikali’s services, and even tries to help police the mountain from errant mushi. (He quits that quickly.)

 Suzaka even starts going with Ikali into the villages, he watches Ikali relocate, banish and generally deal with mushi, and he makes friends. Where Ikali is aloof, Suzaka is personable. He throws his arm across Ikali’s shoulders and laughs with elders and kids alike. He gets flustered around the beautiful women and befriends the quiet members of towns. Ikali’s presence is appreciated for the services he provides, but soon also for the company he keeps.

 One day, the northern village leaves a summons for Ikali at the base of the mountain. Ikali finds himself reluctant to answer, and Suzaka frowns at him- then calls him a coward and heckles him into going. When they arrive, a mushi that turns peoples’ eyes blue and steals their ability to see colors has taken over. Ikali and Suzaka race through the town to find the open set of mushi-contaminated paints that are the culprit. Ikali manages to rescue the town after Suzaka coaxes the paints from a frightened child finding solace in art. Suzaka teaches the boy to make friends and be himself while Ikali makes a medicine that heals the color blindness.

 The blue eyes stay however, but as Suzaka and Ikali say goodbye, Suzaka stumbles over telling the village doctor’s daughter Adele how nice the blue eyes look on her. She giggles and waves him away, but gifts the mushi-paints to Ikali. By her side, a light haired man smiles and waves to Ikali as he leaves. Ikali recognizes him and doesn’t know why. He errs on the side of caution and bows to the man, who smiles and nods back. Ikali feels better for some reason.

 Suzaka leaves before the winter sets in, waving at them cheerily from the road as he walks off with souvenirs from his trip, including a few Hikukami that hide in his hair-mushi they’re now calling “Kamikami” because Suzaka is hilarious. Ikali stands by the edge of the territory and feels the deep pain of loss and can’t explain why. He looks for Pace, but she isn’t there, instead he sees Fai on a rocky outcropping bathed in the light of the Hikukami, arms crossed and expression pinched. Ikali knows he feels the same way.

 The days pass just fine. Ikali still goes to the villages, and the villages miss Suzaka almost as much as Ikali does.

 “He left the mountain,’ Ikali sighs one day, ‘can everyone but me leave? Or is he special?”

“We’re all special,’ Fai sips his tea, ‘but I think it also has to do with the fact that he’ll come back.”

“He said he would,’ Pace reminds from where she’s poking some mushi who have invaded the garden. “He’ll be back. He took some of the Hikukami with him, they’ll miss the pack eventually.” Ikali leans against the wall of the house and tries not to wonder when Suzaka will start to miss him. He also tries to ignore how envious he is of Suzaka’s carefree traveling.

 Ikali rarely spends nights away from the mountain now, but when winter hits and when the winds are whistling and all the mountain sleeps, he wanders out on the road. He heads west toward the setting sun and stops for the night in an unfamiliar field. He sleeps under a tree he doesn’t recognize, and he wonders if Pace has noticed he’s gone.

 The trip is longer than he expected and he wanders through village after village as the snow falls. It’s cold and wet, and Ikali goes farther and farther from the mountain. He quakes in his boots and swallows hard as he walks, and tries not to look back.

“I’ll come back,’ he promises, days and days away, ‘I’ll come back to you. I just need this. Give me time.”

 He travels far enough that he reaches a port city. He stares out over the ocean and listens to the unfamiliar call of foreign Torikaze. His Hikukami turned back to the mountain days ago, and Ikali is well and truly alone. The people mill about, unable to dive in the frigid waters, but also in need of food.

“Oy,’ a mushi-shi Ikali has met before, Rojo, flops onto the ground next to him, ‘you’re a sight for sore eyes.” He grins and lights a cigarette, offering one to Ikali, who declines.

“Where’s your better half?” Ikali asks, looking around for Rojo’s less stupid partner, Verde.

“Who knows,’ he scoffs, ‘saw a cute person and vanished earlier this morning.” He blows smoke, ‘good for him, though. Been pining after whats-his-name for like half a season now.”

“Poor guy,’ Ikali sympathizes.

“And what about you?” Rojo ribs, grinning at Ikali, ‘anyone special you’re interested in? Finally find someone who could tie you down, eh?”

Ikali doesn’t smile and Rojo practically inhales his cigarette.

“There is someone!” He gasps, ‘who!? Did you marry her? Is she rich? Come on, man, tell!”

“A mountain,’ Ikali sighs, and it isn’t a lie. Not technically.

“A mountain.” Rojo sighs right back, ‘and here I thought it would be a good story…”

“Actually,’ Ikali begins, and Rojo settles back to listen.

 Verde shows up as the sun is setting, and the three of them settle into an inn together. Rojo makes Ikali start the whole story over again to catch Verde up. The knot in Ikali’s chest loosens a little, but not enough.

[heretherebefic]

Mushi-Shi (Part 3)

There’s a festival in the town to the north of the mountain. Ikali decides to go just to make sure the Yamenoke mushi from Pace’s mountain aren’t going to eat anyone’s lifespan. There’s a large-ish colony close enough for him to worry. Also the man who makes his shoes is down in that village and Ikali has become fond of the soft leather boots.

He heads out into the night and feels more than sees when Pace joins him on the winding road.

“I’ll be fine,’ he says when he catches the flash of her eyes out of the darkness, ‘it’s a good time for business so I’ll deal with the local mushi and be back before you know it.”

“It’s not the mushi I’m worried about,’ Pace says as he leaves her territory. He turns back to smile at the mountain and ignores how her ethereal form at the edge of the wood makes him feel inside.

 His shoemaker’s daughter is very pretty, or so they tell him. Her name is Asa and she is a scholar- that is more interesting to Ikali. She sits with him often when he visits telling him of her travels. They like to cross reference their experience and play ‘mushi or no mushi.’ However, this trip she is already down at the festival and Ikali misses her. Her father laughs, then insists on lending Ikali a traditional robe for the festival. Ikali declines, but the robe is black with thin blue stripes, and his Hikukami like the sleeves, so he indulges them. He tucks his usual small supply kit into the waist of it, just for safety, then heads to the shrine.

 The festival is alive with people, some having fun, others feeling awkward, and Ikali is reminded again how relaxed he is with Fai and Pace. He feels the event like a weight on his shoulders, but he smiles and bows and humbly accepts the free snacks his former customers offer him. He spends some time watching the mushi in the sky, but stops before people get too weirded out by his silent staring and checks up on the more vulnerable members of society.

 Ikali’s walking through the display of colorful lanterns when he spots him, and he is both relieved and surprised to see that Fai has left the mountain. He heads for his friend, standing under a yellow lantern and bathed so much in its glow that he’s completely washed out. Ikali opens his mouth to call to him, and that’s how the scent drenches his nose and throat.

 He’s coughing and leaning against a tree in an instant, his Hikukami scattering in all directions. His eyes are watering and the sickly sweet tang of Fuki hangs in his nose like a burn. He looks up sharply again, and now sees that the man he thought was Fai only looks remarkably like him. He’s actually thinner, and his hair is longer, but just as curly, and his chin is thinner, but less pointy up close. He wears the traditional robe of this festival, but the wrong feeling Ikali’s getting can’t just be from the Fuki… can it?

“Are you alright?” The man asks, eyes bright and as pale as his hair now that he’s not under the yellow light.

“Fine,’ Ikali holds up a hand to stop his approach, ‘I just didn’t expect… someone.”

“That’s my fault,’ the man admits, ‘I was looking for you.”

Ikali pulls himself to his full height, looking up at the man, “I’m Ikali.” His head is swimming and it’s hard to concentrate, but every ounce of self preservation he has is telling him to act natural. His heart thuds dully in his ears.

“Alister,’ the man half-bows back, ‘I heard you were a mushi-shi?”

“Yes,’ Ikali waits for him to bring up the Fuki, or Fai. He doesn’t.

“And you live on the god’s mountain up there, right? You live with the forest mushi?”

“Yes,’ Ikali wants to move back, but he’s frozen, slowly suffocating from the miasma.

“I see, have you met the mountain lord? I’m very interested in that sort of thing.” His smile curls into something that lodges in Ikali’s stomach like a ball of lead.

“I’ve seen a lot of mushi,’ he manages a step back, ‘I’m currently operating on behalf of the village,’ his voice doesn’t shake and he’s proud, ‘so I should get back to that.”

“Don’t let me stop you, friend.” Alister lifts his hand as though he were going to pat Ikali on the shoulder- and Ikali runs.

 He sits under the purest most pristine tree he can find, panting harshly and trying to make his vision settle. Even the mushi leave him alone and his Hikukami haven’t come back. He doesn’t know if he could handle their small flitting movements right now anyway.

“Hey,’ Ikali looks up sharply and sees a young woman with long dark hair watching him from the road. “You alright?”

“Fine,’ Ikali whispers, surprised by the volume of his own voice, ‘just need a moment.”

“He seems fine,’ a light haired man stays from nearer to the pond. “We should go.” Ikali thinks he knows him from somewhere, but Alister has scrambled his head. 

As they leave, the light haired man smiles.

 Ikali returns to the village to make sure Alister hasn’t killed anyone. He’s not sure what the man is capable of and he’s this poor town’s only line of defense. He ends up deciding to set up some mushi-resistant incense and just hope for the best. He’s exhausted and a prime target for mushi as he is now, weakened by the Fuki.

Even going home suddenly seems like a grave task, and Ikali stares at the mountain looming in the distance and wonders if he can make it.

He makes the attempt.

 Halfway back to the mountain, something just pulls him to the ground and he thumps against a tree-trunk with a harsh exhale.

“It’s too much,’ he tells his Hikukami, who returned shortly after he left the village, ‘just gonna have to weather the night here.” He quietly sets up a perimeter and lies back against the tree, pulling his knife into his hand and closing his eyes.

 He wakes up to a hand on his shoulder, and for someone to get that close, he must have really been out of it. He jolts, re-living that moment Alister tried to touch him, and his knife is up and at the man’s throat in an instant.

The Hikukami are nowhere to be found this late at night and in the darkness, just for a moment, he’s sure he’s staring up at Alister.

They move at the same time, Ikali slashing the knife forward and the man leaping back to a safe distance, eyes glowing unnaturally red in the gloom.

That’s how Ikali realizes it’s Fai watching him warily from a good ten feet away.

“I’m sorry,’ he rasps, ‘I thought you were someone else.”

“Hm,’ Fai nods, acknowledging. There’s a small sliver of blood on his neck where he barely managed to dodge Ikali’s strike, “know anyone who looks like me?” He tries for humor, but Ikali doesn’t smile.

“Actually, yes,’ he begins, and watches Fai’s entire expression shut down. “I met a man named Alister tonight.”

Ikali doesn’t need to be a mushi-shi to feel the aura around Fai darken into something decidedly terrifying. Fai takes a step back from him.

“Let’s go home,’ he orders, eyes glowing even more brightly, like whatever mushi is possessing him is as angry as he is. He turns to walk back the way he came without making sure Ikali is following.

Ikali gets to his feet, jolted out of his funk by the adrenaline.

 They walk back to Pace’s mountain in silence. Ikali doesn’t ask what Fai and Alister are to each other, or how Fai knew to come get him.

 Pace is sitting by the base of the mountain when they return. She doesn’t squint at Ikali or Fai, just observes them as they climb the mountain. She keeps her distance.

 Pace stays away for a full week, and Ikali tries not to notice. He deals with a couple villages, one for an overnight problem with a mushi who eats grain and leaves rocks behind, but mostly he lingers around the house watching Fai or looking for Pace. His Hikukami don’t come back either. Somehow he misses them.

 On the morning of his eight day back, Fai is outside working the field, and Pace sits near him. Every so often he speaks to her out of earshot, then violently jabs the field with his plow. Pace watches him silently. Ikali walks out, and Pace’s ears come up, she looks at him for a moment, her nostrils flare, and then she daintily hops into the woods and vanishes.

“Is this because of the festival?” Ikali asks bitterly, ‘is she running from me because of that?”

“She has to stay away,’ Fai tells him between swings, ‘it’s just how it is.”

Fai’s cloud of Hikukami are buzzing more than usual today. A few drift toward Ikali, but then immediately withdraw.

“Am I cursed? Contaminated? Possessed? What did he do to me?” Ikali demands, and that does stop Fai’s movement.

“It’ll wear off,’ Fai promises, gentler. Gentle is new from Fai, and it spikes terror in Ikali’s spine.

“I can’t take even another day of this,’ Ikali admits to Fai, “I can’t handle her hiding from me. Like I’m a threat. Like an intruder.” He hears the anguish in his tone and Fai rests his weight on the plow.

“It never happens to me,’ Fai admits, ‘I don’t think it works on me, so I don’t know how to help you my friend.” He’s calm, especially for Fai whose spirit is encapsulated by the explosive Hikukami.

“He didn’t touch you though,’ Fai tells him after a pause.

“I’m not alright,’ Ikali hisses, and puts a hand over his forehead in shock as he realizes he’s not. “This isn’t about him, is it.”

“I… can’t be away from her,’ Ikali realizes in horror, and he sees a sad but comprehending look in Fai’s eyes. “I can’t ever leave this mountain.”

“No,’ Fai confirms, infinitely understanding, ‘you can’t.”

[heretherebefic]

Mushi-Shi (Part 2)

Nearly half a season in, and Ikali is scared by how happy he is. Fai is a surprisingly tolerable roommate, keeps to himself, and doesn’t force conversation. He makes Ikali his own set of dishes for the house, and emblazons them with fire that he remorselessly glazes blue. Ikali would dare to call them friends.

And then there’s Pace. Lioness by day, and (if he’s honest) still a lioness by night, but this time with long blonde hair. The first day he is able to leave the mountain, nearly a week after he arrived, he heads to a nearby village to pick up supplies Fai insists they don’t need, and returns at dusk to find Pace sitting expectantly at the base of the mountain. They walk back to the house in silence. He and Pace spend enough time together that Ikali finds her talking to him more than Fai at dinner. Both seem to like it that way, and Ikali doesn’t object.

 He spends most of his days traversing the mountain, and visiting the nearby villages at the edge of Pace’s territory. The mushi on the mountain leave him alone for the most part, though a few of Fai’s Hikukami have taken a serious liking to him and float with him wherever he goes. Fai doesn’t take it personally, and actually laughs when Ikali complains about it. They don’t affect his work as he relocates and deals with mushi in the villages, and Pace doesn’t mind them as they walk, so Ikali ignores them. They swirl around some trees that have been burned and Ikali smiles at the new growth over the charred remains of trees. It smells like life everywhere he goes and he knows he owes it to Pace.

 Ikali stops to eat some blackberries on the mountainside one day, and freezes when he sees Pace in human form bathing in a pool nearby. He turns quickly and averts his eyes, not wishing to intrude, and shovels blackberries into his mouth as a distraction, breaking a few twigs and stomping a little harder when he walks to warn her of his presence. When he looks back, she’s gone and the mushi are dancing on the water.

 He goes out one day halfway through the morning, telling Fai that he’s going to fish.

“Be careful,’ Fai warns, ‘it might rain.”

Ikali’s sure that Fai was right, his Hikukami have fled and most mushi are in hollows or under leaves. They all know a storm is coming, but Ikali is almost two hours away from home. He hefts his jar of fish and steps under a large tree to let the sky open up. He’s rigged a tent of leaves and straw for himself in just enough time for it to pour. The rain moistens everything and Ikali watches the earth replenish itself.

“Lovely, isn’t it,’ Pace says, sitting next to him from the depths of the soil itself.

“It’s fine,’ Ikali smiles, ‘first rain since I moved here.”

“Fai doesn’t like it,’ Pace explains, ‘and the river is so close under this mountain that it almost doesn’t matter.” She shrugs, ‘but sometimes it just needs to rain.”

“It’s caused by mushi?” Ikali asks, eyebrows raising.

“A lot of things are caused by mushi, you know,’ Pace grins and they watch the rain for some time.

 “Amefurashi,’ Ikali says on their way back, ‘that’s what we call them.” He smiles at Pace padding along in the brushline, ‘water-type mushi.” She squints at him, and he laughs.

  “To answer the question on your mind,’ Pace tells him at dinner, “I was a lion before I was this.” Ikali laughs, unsurprised she knew he wondered.

“Were you always the mountain lord?”

“Oh yes,’ she sighs, ‘I inherited the title…” She looks away, then back to him, ‘but I’m not like the others, and they don’t like me.” She glances out the door to where Fai is outfitting the pit into another kiln. “I liked humans, once. I thought they were just fine.”

“And now?” Ikali asks, dreading the answer.

“Now they’re marring our mountains and meddling when they shouldn’t.” She pauses, ‘not you or Fai of course,’ she corrects herself, ‘Mushi-shi are… okay. Tolerable at least. Fai is… well, he’s as fed up as I am honestly!” She chuckles, and Ikali feels a pang in his heart.

“He came to me, you know,’ Pace sighs, ‘wanted me to eat him.” She smiles ruefully, ‘the Hikukami begged for his life.”

“I didn’t even know they could beg,’ Ikali admits, ‘I didn’t think most mushi had the capacity for thought or emotion.” He looks up to the dancing lights.

“Neither did I, but they swarmed around him when I attacked, and they ground themselves together until the grass lit on fire at his feet.” Pace nibbles on a vegetable, ‘I think they were threatening to burn my mountain down.”

The fact that she could have stopped them doesn’t matter, and Ikali follows her gaze back to Fai outside where he kicks at a piece of wood, distracting some of the Hikukami enough to move without them in his way. Ikali smiles.

“He interacts with them a lot, must look strange to people who can’t see mushi.”

‘There are people who can’t see mushi?” Pace is shocked, ‘that… actually explains a lot.”

“Fai didn’t tell you?” Ikali asks curiously.

‘I think he assumes I know everything,’ Pace admits, then winks at Ikali, ‘and I’m not going to break that fantasy.”

  One day it happens that Ikali is alone in the woods, and he sees them. Three men from the village burning the edge of the mountain. They’re laughing and burning it away like it’s theirs, and Ikali knows before the strike that they won’t last long.

What he doesn’t expect is Fai, standing like a sentinel amid the flames, his hair blown wild by the furious Torikaze spiraling around him, the Hikukami sparking together viciously. Ikali’s breath is taken away by the image, but he’s lucky- the force of that violent stare is on the men, now backing away desperately.

It’s too late though, Ikali knows it.

The Hikukami aren’t obeying Fai when they tear down the side of the mountain and crash headlong into the men. The resulting crashes and explosions spark fires everywhere and Ikali takes a step back. In the darkness behind Fai, Ikali can sense Pace’s eyes like burning beacons of hate, and the fear sends a shiver through his body. The men throw their lanterns and oil at the forest as they flee.

The fire rages and Fai pulls back hard, vanishing into the woods. Pace’s presence is gone.

The fire rages.

“Help me,’ Pace says from behind him, ‘I can’t put the fire out alone.”

“Where’s Fai?” Ikali asks as he leaps down from his perch to help her.

“He’s cutting back the brush,’ Pace whispers, ‘please.” Her eyes are wide.

“It’s okay,’ Ikali promises, ‘it’ll be okay. Come on, I bet I know how to stop the fire.”

 It takes some work, but they manage to douse the fire when it reaches Fai’s line. Ikali tosses a bucket at Fai so he can help with the water, but Fai just discards it and starts collecting dirt to throw instead. Ikali doesn’t ask, but he also makes a note of it.

 That night, Fai sits outside among the vegetables and stares at the moon. He rejects dinner, and Pace sits farther from Ikali than usual. She doesn’t speak as much and Ikali fills the void with interesting observations about her mountain. Eventually she falls asleep and her form dissolves back into the lion resting in the bed of moss. Ikali folds her robe and goes to bed.

 During the night, he wakes as Fai comes in and sits on his own bed. 

He sits up and the two watch Pace sleep in the dark.

 “I don’t like water,’ Fai informs unnecessarily. Ikali can see a trend before anyone.

“It’s alright,’ Ikali says when it seems like it’s difficult to continue. Fai stares at him, red eyes bright in the dark. Ikali smiles. “Tell me about your hair and eyes instead.”

It’s an out that Fai appreciates.

“Mushi, obviously,’ Fai chuckles. “Found my way into the Hikukami nest, or so they tell me. I couldn’t see mushi back then.” He shrugs, ‘something was there eating them. I saw that at least. Met its gaze. Stared it down… It was a bad day for me and I’d already decided to die swinging, so I went for it...” He shrugs. “When I came to, my eyes and my hair were like this, there were mushi everywhere, and it’d been almost a year.” He rubs the back of his head, ‘I don’t mind it, honestly. It helps the mountain, and I appear to have made friends…” He looks up at the rafters, blanketed in Hikukami.

“You have,’ Ikali agrees seriously, and Fai meets his eyes, ‘made friends I mean.”

“Yes,’ Fai agrees, smile small, but real, “I have.”

They don’t speak of Fai’s confession again, but Ikali hasn’t made his yet, so that’s okay.

 “Help me with the kiln,’ Fai orders one day, standing on one of the stones that makes the kiln’s tiered wall. He’s shirtless in the summer heat, and the Hikukami float lazily around him to the tune of the cicadas. Fai has become friendlier in the summer months, thriving on the lack of rain and the villagers’ aversion to climbing the mountain. He’s told Ikali more about himself little by little, and Ikali knows that being half-naked wouldn’t happen with a stranger.

Ikali himself is sitting under the canopy among the vegetables and mushi fanning himself. His resistance to heat is much less than Fai’s, and Fai doesn’t hold it against him. Pace has been busy preparing the mountain for the oncoming fall and has spent most of her time out and about, leaving the men to ‘bond’. Ikali finds he misses her.

“What do I need to do?” Ikali asks, standing up to assist with the stone. He looks past Fai and frowns. Fai twists to follow his gaze and freezes as they watch the oncoming clouds.

“That’s odd,’ Ikali murmurs, ‘Pace would have warned us.”

“She would have,’ Fai agrees, frowning. “Change of plans, let’s seal up the doors and windows, that seems like a nasty storm.”

 The storm is nasty. It rattles the house and lightning strikes the nearby trees. Ikali doesn’t comment on how Fai flinches when the doors rattle or how he sits by the fire instead of by the wall. He makes them tea and complains about the villagers’ problems from his visits in the area. He hopes it helps.

 Pace returns the next morning and checks on them. She sits by the vegetable garden and suns herself in the cool crisp air. Ikali walks out and sits with her.

“I worried about you,’ he tells her, and she squints at him and lies down against his leg. The sprouts and ferns along her spine tickle his skin. He tentatively reaches out and strokes her fur. He tries to ignore how relieved he feels to touch her.

 “Don’t get too involved with mushi,’ his mentor had said, ‘and never settle down.” Watching Fai, the Hikukami and Pace, Ikali can’t help but wonder what could be wrong with this.

[heretherebefic]

Mushi-Shi (Part 1)

The mountain is one of the most beautiful that Ikali has ever seen.  It was like it was designed for him, with sloping meadows and dense trees. He can see blackberries and even from a distance the unmistakable sign of big game. He heads for the small building at the foot of the mountain and nods politely to the people coming and going along the interchange.

At the outpost, he meets the old man and his wife at the edge of the territory.

“Oh,’ the old woman cautions when he explains his path through the mountains, ‘don’t go that way. The face stealer lives up there.” She taps the mountain, then gestures to the main roads going around it, ‘no one climbs the mountain anymore.”

“Face stealer?” Ikali asks, he’s never heard of a mushi like that.

“He lives in a cabin alone up there. Huge man, red eyes with hair like fire.”

“At least wait for a storm,’ the old man entreats. “He doesn’t come out when it rains.”

The other travelers murmur agreement with the old couple, but Ikali isn’t convinced, not when going over such an agreeable mountain cuts at least two days off the trip.

 The mountain lord lets him onto the mountain with very little hassle, despite the frankly immense amounts of mushi floating about. The Torikaze from the coast swoop around and past, heading for the large lake a mountain or two over. They pass easily through the cloud of Turanda riding the warm updrafts and swirling the clouds. Ikali smiles as he moves through.

Halfway up the mountain he sees the cabin in question. Built comfortably into the side of the earth itself, it has a large canopy over a garden, with fields of vegetables carved into the side. It’s a strangely warm feeling place, and the mushi wrap around it like a cloud. Ikali can see mushi of all kinds, but none that would harm or even affect humans. He’s about to continue when he sees a shock of bright red hair, and a man emerges from the house amid a flurry of mushi. Ikali’s eyes widen, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s running for the house. Those mushi are Hikukami, and they swarm until their combined heat and pressure rips whatever they’re possessing apart. With so many around him, it’s obvious this man is their target.

As he approaches, still sprinting, he sees the man turn, smile up at the Hikukami, and make a chirping sound with his lips and teeth. The swarm lights up and dives forward, swirling around him like a tornado.

I’m too late, Ikali realizes.

Then the man casually tosses a small stone into a woodpile. Immediately the swarm descends on the woodpile and the man covers his face with his arm, smiling as they reduce the lumber to woodchips scattering everywhere. The man scoffs and claps his hands.

“Very nice,’ he tells the swarm, picking up the small red stone and glancing into the newly dug pit in the earth. “That’ll do fine,’ he decides.

Ikali is stunned.

“Excuse me?” He calls, approaching more slowly. The man turns in surprise and his fingers tighten around the red stone. His expression changes from one of comfortable pleasure to aggressive suspicion. Ikali feels the presence of a large predator when affixed with those eyes.

“The next village is that way,’ he growls at Ikali, pointing back the way he came. “How did you get up here anyway?” He asks Ikali, but appears to be addressing the thicket behind him. Ikali looks, even though he senses nothing- and nothing is what he sees.

“I just came from there,’ Ikali says, ‘I’m a mushi-shi. Did… you just control those Hikukami?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.’ the man pointedly nods and turns back to his house.

“Are you the face stealer?” Ikali can’t help but ask. Hikukami are powerful, but not flesh eating. As a matter of fact they eat… Ikali looks down at the woodships.

“Decaying matter infected with Fuki,’ he mumbles.

“Don’t touch the woodchips,’ the man warns as he walks away, ‘and if they say I’m the face stealer, that’s what I am.” 

Ikali has no other choice than to leave.

 Ikali walks all day, and finds the same rock five times. By the time he realizes he’s sealed in, it’s getting dark and he can sense that some truly dangerous mushi live here. He turns around and comes face to face with the man from earlier.

“I tried to leave,’ he says before the anger in the man’s eyes can manifest. “The mountain lord sealed me here.” It’s the only explanation.

“Well, even I can’t disagree with that,’ the man sighs, ‘my name is Fai. Come with me, you can stay at my house if she allowed it.”

“I’m Ikali, thank you for the hospitality.”

The house is warm and inviting, with the smell of fresh herbs and spices. There’s a trio of large fish cooking on the stove, and Ikali watches curiously as Fai takes the longest possible route around the cooking area, keeping as much distance from the food as he can.

“I guess you weren’t lying,’ Fai comments as he glances over at three trays of food, ‘she knew you were coming.”

“You live with the mountain lord?” Ikali asks, intrigued.

“You have to, this high up on the mountain. But no, mostly she comes and goes as she pleases. She likes me, so she makes sure I can live here.” After a pause he smirks, ‘she’s the one who eats faces.”

“Eats?” Ikali prompts, shocked, ‘I heard ‘stole’.”

“Steals then eats. Or is it eats and then steals..? I can never keep track.” Fai sits down on a pillow and gestures Ikali to do the same. There are only two pillows out.

“Feel free to smoke, I know most mushi-shi have something incense-like that they use.”

“I don’t, and the way you talk about the mountain lord, it sounds like I don’t need it.” Ikali smiles, and Fai shrugs.

The companionable silence lasts quite a while, and Ikali takes the time to look around. The whole place is a pottery studio, and the pit the Hikukami dug earlier starts to make sense. Some of the pots are finished and painted, other sit bare in the corner. At one end of the room Ikali sees a large bed of moss, hedged into a planting plot, but definitely only there for comfort. A few lazy mushi drift through it, but it is otherwise pristine. The rest of Fai’s house is covered in all kinds of mushi, and the Hikukami cling to him like a cloud. They seem to fit him, flitting like little licks of flame against hiis skin and through his hair. Once, they brush against his face, and he idly brushes them away with a surprisingly gentle hand. A hand, Ikali can see, scarred from blades. He was a fighter, then, once upon a time.

He’s actually starting to get hungry when the door opens of its own accord, and Fai looks up from his tea. The Hikukami scatter to the rafters and bully the smaller mushi away from them as a large mountain lion steps onto the threshold.

Ikali’s breath catches as those big green eyes stare straight into his soul. The flowers and herbs sprouting down her back like a mane glow as she stares him down.

Ikali bows his head politely to the mountain lord, and she squints before padding over to the bed of moss. She lies down and the entire house of mushi zoom onto her body, wrapping her in a blanket and leaving the rest of the house bare.

From within the silent swarm rises a ghostly figure of a woman, and Ikali still hasn’t taken a breath since she arrived. He watches her step out of the swarm where the mountain lion lies, and toward Fai, who pulls a wraparound robe out. He carefully straightens it, then holds it up for her to step into. As the fabric settles around her shoulders, the light fades away, leaving a pale blonde woman behind it. She tightens the robe and then smiles at Ikali.

“This is Pace, the mountain lord,’ Fai introduces, and Ikali only remembers to breathe in a gasp. Pace smiles, and he can see small fangs in her mouth. He’s too stunned to do more than bow his head.

Pace waits to see if he’ll speak, then her smile widens as she realizes he’s speechless. She heads for the food and cheerfully serves them. Ikali looks from her to Fai in shock, but Fai has a wry smile of his own that means he has no intention of explaining anything.

The meal begins in silence, Pace eating as daintily and normally as any human Ikali’s ever met. Fai as unconcerned with the god next to him as though he didn’t even see her.

Unable to take it, Ikali puts his chopsticks down and faces Pace.

“Thank you for the hospitality,’ he begins, and Pace’s smile is back. “Do you have a need for me?” It’s the only reason he can think of that she’d trap him.

“No,’ she says, and her voice is cheerful, feminine and strong. Ikali’s heart is racing. “But you’ll thank me for being here.”

“I just did,’ Ikali hears himself say, and is thrilled when she laughs.

“Stay with Fai for a few days,’ Pace instructs, reaching across the mat to take one of his vegetables with her chopsticks, “you’ll be glad that you did.”

And that is how Ikali starts living with the face stealer.