An Encounter of the Godly Kind
This was the first “recent” dream that I could and still can remember quite clearly. It’s been a little over a year since I had it, but I had written it down not long after it happened, so this one is mostly a copy-paste from my documents.
Another thing to note is that this is the first of two dreams that take place in the fictional bubble-world of Gensokyo, home to the vast majority of the Touhou franchise.
Moving on to the dream itself...
I didn't quite know or understand where I was or how I had come to be there - I was just kinda standing there stupidly in the middle of the road, looking around. It was also a worn gravel road - well-traveled by carts and feet of many sizes. Dragging the toe of my shoe through the dirt on the road I found myself produced dust and left a furrow - there was detail in the rocks and sand, loads of colour that I normally don't think about, the sensation of the breeze, the scent of the cleanest air I've inhaled in my life, laced with the fragrances of flowers and trees... it was incredible. I was in a sort of valley in the road - behind me, the road went up a hill and out of sight, so I had no idea what was back there; and same thing for the road before me. To either side it was thickly forested - I would have needed a blade to cut through underbrush if I wanted to traverse it.
There was nobody coming or going for me to ask any questions to, so I just sighed, shrugged, and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and started walking up the road in front of me. It was the way I was facing, so I figured that was the way I was going before I apparently forgot whatever it was that I was doing. That sort of thing happens a lot, for me. Maybe I'd figure it out when I got where I was going.
I continue along this road for what feels like a couple hours - it goes over and between hills, turning around ones that are too steep or difficult to navigate with a cart. At the top of some of these hills, I catch a glimpse of mountains all around me, though one in particular is rather impressive in size - I am clearly situated in a forested valley, and I have still remembered nothing, at least until I had a chance to take a better look around and see all these mountains.
It dawned on me that the impressive-looking mountain was quite possibly Mount Yatsugatake - I was effectively exploring Gensokyo on foot. With this thought, I looked around again, trying to burn the entire scene into my head, and then I started running and laughing like a bloody idiot until I ran out of breath not even thirty yards away. I lost it, cackling like a madman in the middle of the road - this was [exciting] news, though! I would much later wake up and be thoroughly disappointed to discover that it was a dream, but I was incredibly happy - I thought it was all fake, but I felt it when I smacked my cheeks, I ran my hands in the dirt on the ground and threw stones just because I could, and behaved like a general lunatic, because I was growing more and more convinced that this was real - Gensokyo was real, people. I wanted to tell someone - anyone, jump for joy and share my excitement, run around and see all the faces I knew by name, see all the places - there were important people I [really] needed to talk to, even though the risks of doing so were outrageously high; I wanted to become a youkai, because screw this silly human nonsense. Humans are dumb, fragile little things that break if you blink at them wrong. Surely there had to exist some way or method by which to become a youkai - tales abound of humans becoming youkai or other such things, and I fully intended to find out [how].
Once I was finally able to recollect my composure after at least twenty minutes of parading around like a moron - I convinced myself to consider the chance that this was [not] Gensokyo, and would reserve my judgements for once I had a chance to ask someone - and I resumed my walk. After a while, the trees started to thin out and give way to tall grasses and weeds. Having unintentionally discarded the notion that this wasn’t Gensokyo in favour of my hopes that it [was], I figured that one of the only places devoid of trees in Gensokyo were near the Human Village, so I must be getting close to somewhere that I could safely ask some questions and confirm or deny my suspicions. However, as I crested the next hill, the green of the tall grasses was dotted by more and more red across the next couple hills - getting close enough to inspect some of this red, I was able to immediately identify it as clusters of spider lilies, and that the field ahead was pretty much nothing [but] spider lilies. I was heading in the opposite direction of the Human Village, straight into Muenzuka. I knew quite a bit about this place - somewhere in these fields was a small house where the treasure-hunting mouse youkai, Nazrin, lived. I wanted to meet her, and see if she held true to my mental preconceptions of her. I looked around as I walked, and saw no sign of a small house, but as I walked I thought about it - I probably shouldn't meet her as a human, because she's a youkai, and well... youkai [eat] humans. I'd wait until I was a youkai myself before taking such risks. Then I stopped here, on the side of a hill topped by a large tree, and thought for a moment - I didn't want to take unnecessary risks, yet I was walking straight into Muenzuka? I was on the Road of Liminality - the only thing ahead of me would be the Liminality Market, which is populated mostly by the dead, and the River Sanzu, which might be known better by some as the River Styx. Every world and realm has a River Styx [somewhere] - it is important to matters of life, death, and rebirth... though there was no crossing that river unless I were already dead, and the ferryman of this particular instance was not someone I wanted to trifle with just yet. I had a brief pang of anxiety when I questioned why I was on the Road of Liminality - I wondered if I had died, which would explain why I had no idea how I had gotten where I was, and looked back the way I had come. I didn’t feel any inhibitions or sensations that would suggest I was prevented from turning back, so even if I were dead, I would probably be able to at least return to Gensokyo proper. I looked back the way I was going, up in the direction of the large tree at the top of the hill. The Sanzu River was presumably in that direction - if I had died, and I continued going in this direction, I would eventually reach the banks of the river and be ferried across where I would be put on trial and entered into some sort of afterlife system that may or may not involve reincarnation. I looked down at myself - I at least [seemed] to be tangible, and I recalled being able to interact with the world when I had been throwing stones earlier, so surely I was still alive. In that case, anything that lay ahead of me was not something I should get involved with as a human.
But then I heard something I hadn't yet heard in my trek - the sounds of something presumably alive. It was coming from the tree at the top of the hill... and it sounded like someone snoring quite loudly, like they didn't have a care in the world. Curious as to what someone would be doing way out here, and so brazenly falling asleep where they could be attacked or eaten, I ascended the rest of the hill and there, asleep against the trunk of the tree, was one of the people I both wanted to meet, and yet not meet.
The ferryman of the River Sanzu. Komachi Onozuka, the shinigami.
She was sleeping peacefully because there was nothing that would risk bothering her, of course. Her fingers were interlocked and resting on her stomach, though her knuckles looked scuffed and bruised. Her clothes looked dirty and tattered, like they had simply been used beyond their limit and she didn't really care to have them replaced or fixed. The haft of her scythe rested on the ground next to her hip, and went up under her interlocked hands, across her chest and over her shoulder, with the blade in the air like a pennant marking her claim on this tree in particular. I was frozen in place - I didn't want to move in case I disturbed her, which might mark my premature demise, but I [really] felt like I needed to turn around and get the hell out of there. But something was bothering me.
The state of the shinigami was unusual - she's depicted as wearing modest, bright blue attire, and being very well-kept. She has bright red hair kept up in two high pigtails, a very womanly figure, and is often depicted by fans as being so well-endowed as to be.. ahem.. spilling out of her top, in a literal sense. She was definitely womanly, that wasn't in question - but despite how peaceful she was sleeping, she looked like she had recently gotten into a fight where she didn't fare so well. She was a bit bloodied and bruised in some places - nothing that wouldn't heal in a day or three, and nothing concerning, but her hair was mussed, her clothes were worse for wear, and the thing that struck me as the most odd, was her scythe. It is usually depicted as this large thing with a broad, wave-shaped blade, the edge polished bright and the flat painted black - but the scythe she had was a pitiful thing. The blade was bent horribly out of shape, and it was rusted so bad that it was literally falling apart. The wooden handle looked extremely worn, polished by excessive handling, but brittle and rotten-looking. It wasn't any of my business, but it troubled me - I don't have any fondness for Komachi, but to see anyone in such a state was bothersome. I couldn't do anything about her clothes, but the scythe... I have been studying how to refine and work metals - I have been planning to work with aluminum so that I could cast parts for cosplayers, and learned details on how to refine and work with other metals too, so I thought that maybe I could at least do something about replacing her scythe. It was iconic to her position, but was also extremely important to her job as ferryman - she used it as the rudder and pole for her gondola, ferrying the souls of the departed across the River Sanzu. Her clothes still kept her modest, but her implement was not going to last much longer, by my judgement.
Carefully, I approached the shinigami - I had no intentions of disturbing her, but I had no clue about how scythes were constructed, so I needed to inspect what I could of it. She didn't even stir - amongst fans, she's depicted as being a lazy slacker, but I didn't think in the slightest that it held any water - it still wasn't any of my business, though. Without touching it, I carefully looked over the scythe - it looked like the pole was definitely longer at one point, and the poor blade would be hard-pressed to cut a stick of butter, but the construction was fairly simple enough to understand, so I wrote a couple notes and drew a small diagram in my pocket notebook, and turned to leave. I nearly had a heart attack though, because as I was turning to leave I forgot that I needed to be quiet - I had spun on my foot, which made a loud gravelly crunching sound as the stones and dirt beneath my shoe complained. Naturally, the snoring immediately stopped - I looked over my shoulder to see if she had woken up, and was greeted by a pair of crimson eyes glaring straight through my skull. I thought I was going to piss myself - I was convinced I had just written my death sentence. She just glared at me in silence though - so I quickly stammered out an apology and very briefly explained that I was drawing something about her scythe and didn't mean to disturb her. All she did was raise her brow at me, direct her gaze up at the blade of her scythe, then look back at me like I was some sort of alien, before sighing, adjusting herself for a more comfortable position, and waving her hand at me to say "shoo, shoo". I didn't object - to the contrary, I made my way back the way I came like someone just lit a fire under my ass, looking over my shoulder a couple times to make sure she didn't change her mind and decide that I needed to die.
Once I was back on the forested portion of the road, I started keeping my eyes on the ground in front of me - now that I was relatively safe from the ire of Komachi, I needed to start looking for anything that might contain iron. It wasn't too hard - there were nails and bits and bobs from carts and the like scattered all along the road. It wasn't long before the pouch I had on my belt was full of rocks and metal bits - mostly rocks that I thought held iron. Dunno what I was looking for, really, so the rocks I picked up were pretty arbitrary. A few hours later, I finally saw the wooden walls around the Human Village, and made my way to one of the gates... where I was promptly stopped and interrogated by the gatekeepers because they had never seen me in the village before. Youkai can look remarkably human, so I half expected their suspicion. I must have stirred in my sleep here or something, because I have no idea what happened between the gate and walking up to what was very obviously a blacksmith's shop, as indicated by the open work area, the anvil, and the furnaces. It was quickly becoming night, so I knocked on a door hoping for the shopkeep - I explained that I was new in the village and didn't yet have a place to stay, but that I had business with him in the morning and wondered if I could sleep nearby. A nondescript grunt later, and I was walking to the side of the shop and getting comfortable on the ground.
I no more than close my eyes for a moment and I am already opening them back up due to sunlight and the sounds of activity in the workshop, though I open my eyes to find that a hen had decided to park itself on my stomach while I slept. I pushed the chicken off me and got up to check for bird poo - thankfully there was none, but now I was awake and had metal things to do.
It felt like I was at it for weeks - I had asked for a bucket to collect metal into, and I spent huge portions of my time scouring the roads for what I could find and bringing it back to the shop, but once I had three buckets of nails and metal, it was time to refine it all. With the smith's help, I fired up the furnace and worked the bellows to bring it up to temperature, then put what metal I could into a large crucible, melting it and purifying the iron. After it was melted, I poured it into a long cast to make a rod out of it, cooling it with a water and clay mixture once it had mostly solidified. I had to teach the smith about adding carbon to the iron for a steel alloy, but soon I was busy applying a hammer to the metal. I wasn't quote working it into shape yet though - I was folding the metal and burning wheat grasses in with the steel as I did so. The metal was folded more times than I cared to count, but once it had that lovely damascus effect in the metal, I started shaping it into the familiar wave of Komachi's scythe. The smith had stopped giving me advice and help - he was unfamiliar with the processes I was using, and was of the opinion that I was wasting material, so I had to sharpen and polish the blade myself, then find a suitable wax wood pole that I could use for the haft. Finding one after discussing with the guards and being directed to their training grounds, I assembled the scythe, oiled the blade, wrapped it all in canvas and tied it with twine, then left the village.
The walk back to the tree in Muenzuka took a few hours, but Komachi wasn't there. Now knowing this to be Gensokyo, without any doubts, I simply continued down the road, eventually coming upon what was obviously Liminality Market. I was surprised, because I fully expected a lot of noise and commotion, but the place was empty - but after experiencing consistent chills down my spine, it occurred to me that it is populated by the dead, of [course] I wouldn't be able to see anyone going about their business here, it is literally a ghost market. Assuming that Komachi was busy at the River Sanzu, I continued through the market and walked for another hour or so before coming upon a short pier with a gondola docked at it's end. I didn't see Komachi anywhere, so I figured I would wait at the end of the pier - surely she had to come back at some point. But instead of having to wait, I reached the end of the pier and found that she was asleep in the bottom of her gondola. Her clothes were still a mess, but her scythe had degraded much further - the blade had outright broken, and it looked like she was concerned about the haft breaking soon, because she had wrapped it in cloth. I was completely mystified as to why she didn't replace these things herself - she had so much money that she didn't know what to do with it, because it was part of her job to collect the wealth of the deceased as her fee. Nevertheless, she was there, and I had gone through the trouble of making this scythe replacement. I debated simply leaving it on the pier, but then I thought that perhaps something else might make off with it while she slept, so with extreme hesitation, I stood the haft of the wrapped scythe upon the pier, lifted it, then lightly knocked it upon the planks, loud enough to rouse her. As somewhat expected, she did wake - but she looked at me with one eye. Like I wasn't actually bothering her, or she knew I was already there - thinking about it, she hadn't been snoring, so maybe she was just laying there. In any case, I recollected the replacement scythe, and presented it in her direction.
All she did was lay there and look at me like I was the most fascinating thing that had happened to her in a long time. She didn't look angry, which was a relief, just very confused. I had to tell her, "For you", and extend the wrapped parcel towards her a bit further. Not thinking it possible, she somehow managed to look more confused, but she sat up and exited her gondola, hesitantly receiving the scythe. I gestured that I would hold her old, battered one so that she could unwrap it - and she did both of these things. Her old scythe felt like it would crumble away in my hands after she had handed it to me, but it looked like the only reason she let me touch it was because she could tell what was wrapped - it was a pretty obvious shape, after all. She didn't seem terribly enthused or overtly happy once she had removed the canvas and twine and inspected the new scythe, but she was definitely not displeased. She hefted it and tested the weight and balance, walked down the pier a bit then swung it a few times, before looking at me over her shoulder. I don't remember exactly what we said, but it was effectively along the lines of her asking why, and me explaining my observations and efforts. I remember her specifically saying that she was fascinated by the patterns in the metal - the damascus folding - and she had said that it was definitely not something done or made by anyone that she knew of within the Gensokyo Barrier. I didn't want to outright tell her that I had made it - I didn't want it to become a thing for people to come to me asking for metalwork, so I simply told her "a certain someone saw that you had a need, and took the liberty of handling it for you". She just gave a coy grin, which told me that I had failed to obfuscate the scythe's origin, so I sighed and made to leave before things could take a turn for the cheesy, but before I was off the pier and back on my way to wherever, she simply said "I'll be sure to treasure it", and all I could do was groan under my breath and fight a stupid blush.
I was already walking through Liminality Market before I realized that I had forgotten to return her old scythe. I cursed and turned around to walk back, but she was a few yards behind me, with the new scythe across her shoulders and her arms draped along the haft, looking pleased as peaches. I apologized for walking off with the old scythe and offered it back to her, but she said to do what I wanted with it, so I shrugged and kept walking - she caught up and kept pace with me for a while, until we reached the tree in the field of spider lilies, where I had first caught her napping. I was planning to bury the old scythe there, because I had no need for it and it had surely carried a long service as Komachi's partner - I remember reading that it was proper respect for all of a tool's services if you bury it after it has broken beyond repair, and that laying it to rest would prevent it from becoming a malicious tsukumogami, or artifact spirit. While I was using my hands to dig a shallow trench for the scythe, Komachi took a nap under the tree - I was tired by the time I had completely buried it, so I followed her example and leaned against the tree for a nap as well.
Falling asleep for my dream-nap coincided with me waking up for real, sore as hell. My legs, arms, shoulders, and back ached to kingdom come. I bitched and moaned for most of the day, but as the day wore on, my dream wasn't fading away - it was still fresh in my mind, as if it really were something I had been doing for the last couple weeks. It was about two months before I decided to write this dream down, and in the process I decided that it would be a good idea to keep this habit for if another occasion came up where I had another vivid dream of this caliber. Good thing, too.