HAKU
Haku did not look up as the guard's attention weighed on him heavily.
He did, however, glance back in surprise at the living portcullis.
The thing was hidden inside the outer walls; a bristling blot of black that shifted uncomfortably as if it cared not for its quarters. It glared at them with the shifting points of its many dour blood-shot eyes. Haku had never seen such a kami and had Cinna not pushed him from behind, pulling when he resisted, he would have turned back to question it. At once baffled by the peculiar strength of his curiosity, Haku startled, glancing overhead through the smoky glare of the flotilla of red lanterns as something leathery winged its way overhead.
Bats! A group of males crossed over the street in a flock of brightly colored kimono, alighting on the roofs of the storefronts. The wide avenue was choked with land bound kami and hordes of leering males of every race congregated in front of slate-fronted stores that spilled more glowing red light into the cobbled street. Haku learned why as Cinna wove her way between the horned oni and scaled lizards riding enormous shelled beetles. Their buzzing wings nearly knocked him from his feet. Lewd calls and laughter carried over the din, because beneath the lascivious glow of the lanterns groups of spider women wore kimono that made poor Usagi's look modest! The red and black of the garments were pulled low on their many arms, leaving their creamy white shoulders and long legs completely bare! Utterly shocked, he stared as one danced to music played by sisters, beckoning customers with her shifting body in such a suggestive manner blood flooded his face!
Hastily Haku looked away, taking greater care as he found himself sprinting along the edge of the rut once more. Once inside the walls the deep rut began again. And he recoiled, finding it full of shadowy creeping things. With chittering scuttling noises the obviously unfriendly beings scrambled at the steep edges, snapping and reaching at him with their insectorous appendages. But they could not climb free. Glancing at them again and again as uncertainty swarmed the depths of his gut, Haku pressed close to the cat. Yellow and red eyes winked from within with unnerving acuity until Cinna veered off the main street. Together they plunged beneath a broken stone torii gate into a narrow alley choked with from stones to eaves with sage purple smoke. What first Haku took to be piles of burning trash infested with rodents and other vermin turned out to be Gods so swathed in rags and filth he could barely recognize them. All breathed and expelled great clouds of sickly sweet smoke from their glowing pipes, glassy eyed and oblivious to them or any of the wretched creatures stacked like firewood on framework that reach up high into the mind-numbing cloud.
Coughing and wheezing, Haku gasped for air as they burst from the cloud onto another wider street festooned and shaded by tents and stalls. At once they were assaulted on all sides by hawkers proffering their wares. All swallowing eyes, wide mouths and teeth, these kami exuded greed so thick it oiled the stones beneath his feet. They thrust at him bottles full of weakly stirring mushi; caged squawking furred and feathered creatures; jars of scrambling insects and other fettered lesser beings until through the thicket of umbrella posts he saw in the distance faces staring at him through a wall of bars. It took him a moment to see the shackles on the wrists and ankles of these kami shrouded in gloom. Still and silent, they stood in droves beneath signs painted with bright and gaudy prices.
Stunned by the sight, he would have stopped to stillness right there had Cinna not hauled him along, whipping him round and once more into the forest of smoky leaning buildings. Winding their way between thick festoons of ropy spider webs stained with blots of brown and tangled with knots too large to be coincidence. Haku came up short with Lin's blade in his hand as a scream sounded directly behind him. Without looking back Cinna fled faster dragging him in her wake. Though his arm nearly wrenched from the socket, what possessed him to look back Haku would never know. He saw it clearly, something huddled and twitching on the ground. It dragged away into the smoky shadows leaving a long smear of bright fresh blood. Near to faint from the suddenly thunderous pumping inside his head Haku turned and ran so quickly he overtook the cat.
Again they spun, turning at the base of an inclined slope that angled up beneath another enormous stone torii gate. This one was whole and draped with an enormous shinegawa still crackling with protective magic. It was obviously meant to keep what was below from venturing up to the next level. By some miracle they passed beneath and the road circled the swelling earth to his right. Slowly they climbed out of the horrors in the lowest level of what could only be hell, rising above the choking smoke and filthy tiled roofs. A branch of the Root Castle was visible directly overhead, casting a heavy shadow as they came to a second station post at another gated wall. Another dog barred the way with a bannered spear, this time a sandy female with a curling brush of a tail. There was a touch of red in her fur that belied the fox in her shrewdly angled eyes.
"State your business in the second level!"
"We's goin' t' The Sparrow's Nest." Cinna threw back in a hiss.
The Soldier's fierce gaze searched their masks and founding them lacking.
"Ha!" The guard barked cruelly, advancing on them as if ready to chase, "You couldn't afford it even if you sold him!"
She jabbed him in the shoulder with the butt of her spear, catching him off guard. At once Haku's quaking legs folded, sending him to a seat on cobbles at the fox-dog's feet. Because he could not go back into the below; the thought alone made him violently ill to the point of loosing what little food they had managed to find these past days. So Haku bowed; he bowed with great formality as if the guard was the Goddess herself.
"Please!" He beseeched, "By O-Inari-sama mercy, please let us pass!"
Haku looked up to find the guard pale with shock.
There was something in her yellow eyes. What was it?
He would never know because quickly she stood aside and threw her hand at the open road beyond another shinegawa wrapped torii gate as if not trusting herself to speak. Yanking him up off the ground and half carrying him with the frozen bar of her arm clamped around his waist, Cinna hurtled them forward. After that Haku saw nothing save for the cobbles passing beneath his feet until it felt as if they were rushing still even through they had come to a stop.
Somewhere close and shaded the cat lower him onto stones carpeted with green what could have been velvet. Ripping back his mask Haku turned on hands and knees and vomited in the gutter. Huddled with his clammy forehead pressed against the softness of the moss he jolted as cold hands touched him. Again it was Cinna. She was crouched beside him wordlessly offering a broken tea cup filled with murky water. Gratefully he rinsed his mouth; sparing a glance down the passage pressed so narrow between the two buildings they appeared to share the same roof. The walls were covered in more moss that let out a dull glow, tingeing the perpetual gloom with emerald light.
The cat folded up beside him until she was peering over his shoulder, looking off into the street beyond the alley's mouth. Haku followed her gaze to a respectable looking inn made stout wood and thatched straw. At its pinnacle was a second story surrounded by a veranda of paper sliders drawn and rattling in the wind. The house was so old the stones of its foundation were wrapped by the swelling roots growing out of the hillside on which it was perched. These tangles had been trained up into a living torii gate, marking the entrance to the front door. Glowing mushrooms with red caps lit the path and steps. Murmuring voices and clinking glasses sounded in the distance. Smoke drifted from the flue in an ambling curl carrying delicious smells towards them on a cold draft of wind.
No lascivious red lanterns.
No hordes of lustful Gods.
No blood or death.
But as if frightened her more than any of the horrors they had passed in the first level, Cinna stared at the inn with eyes so dilated they had gone black
"Tha's t' Sparrow's Nest," She hushed, lowering her face to hide in his arm.
Baffled by her sudden reluctance, Haku found his voice hoarse.
"I… I thought you said help was to be found here?!"
"There is." Her reply was muffled in his cloak.
"Then why are you so frightened!?"
"'Cause tha's where aye grew up… Tha's where aye learned how t'dance,"
Apparently this place held no happy memories.
Surfacing from his shoulder, Cinna was on her feet hauling him up.
"C'mon."
A chill climbed up Haku's spine as they broke out of the alley into the exposed street. Sparing a glance up and down the avenue he found the rest of the store of similar repute to the inn. A block print shop plastered with large posters of wrestling frogs stood beside a tea house frequented by a score of chattering black rabbits as the brown mouse proprietress bustled around her customers in an orange yukata carrying a tray of white and gold sweets. Across from the women, fanning himself with one of the folding fan set out on his tables, a turtle in a happi coat dozed in the endless twilight. Children laughed and squealed in the distance followed shortly by motherly scolding.
Haku stared down the street as Cinna dragged him behind her, skirting the inn's fence till they turned down another moist dark alley. At the back of the Sparrow's Nest was a pen comprised of lashed bamboo. Inside were piles of trash leaned against the sheer granite wall lifting up until it met the face of the Third Level wall. The warren piles were crawling with ants and centipedes so huge they could have easily pulled a cart! Their slick red shells glistened wetly as with chittering squeals the insects fled back into their dens. Cinna paid them no heed as she hurried up the bald cypress steps to a narrow porch set against a sheer back wall. Overhead frosted glass windows peered down at them curiously as a humming exhaust fan labored away. From within came the rattling clinking clattering sounds of cooking. And such smells issued through every nook and cranny of the inn Haku went weak with hunger.
As if she belonged the cat pushed up her mask until it disappeared, knocking loudly on the blistered back door. Curiously peering over her shoulder Haku eyed the score of wooden clogs crowding the shelves tucked under the eve to either side of the door. Glancing overhead he found the frame encircled entirely by a thick rice rope bristling with rustling shide. With a gusty sigh the cat pounded on the door as no answer came, making the geta jostle and knock about on their shelves.
"By the rust of the Wheel!" An old man thundered from somewhere in the distance as things smashed and clattered, "Will someone get the bloody door?!"
Shrinking behind the cat, Haku tried to hide as the slider suddenly whisked open. On the threshold stood a young spider woman in a modest cream kimono embroidered by a splash of glowing fireflies that chased and buzzed across her swinging sleeves. Her hair was done up in the gilded lobes of an antique style and her face was painted white and pink. She held trays upon trays of mouth watering food with her many dainty hands as she looked out at them dismissively.
"We don' feed beggars no more!"
Cinna caught the door before it could slam in their faces.
"We's here t'see Pops!"
"An' why'd Pops wanna see yah!?" The spider snipped haughtily.
Haku's lips twitched. Their brogue was almost identical save their yehs and yahs.
"Jus' tell Pops Okesa's 'ere t'see 'im!" The cat spat back while lashing her tail.
With an indignant moue the spider withdrew amidst the constellation of her many hands, shouting over her shoulder more than rudely, "Oi, Pops! Some beggars're here t'see yah!"
"We ain't beggars!" Cinna stamped her foot with a furious hiss.
"I'm blind," The angry old man from earlier shouted back, "Not deaf!"
And something was already shuffling along the wide hall inside, filling the passage in its entirety with its shaggy bulk so that the spider hand to clamber up the wall and through the rafter to pass. A huge mole with dappled gray fur to match his wood smoke beard shuffled into the doorway, snuffling at the air with his bald pink snout as the thick yellowed claws of his massive paws curled around the frame with incongruous delicacy. He wore a brick red apron at odds with his lichen colored kimono. It could have been woven from the moss in the alley opposite the inn. Again and again he snuffled the air, turning his head this way and that, because the eyes behind the dark glasses perched on his nose were milky white.
"Okesa?" The mole hushed in frustration, snuffling again, "Where are you!? I hear you but cannot smell you. Blast it! It stinks of nothing but rain!"
"M'here, Pops," Cinna put her hands on his massive paws.
A jolt went through the mole at the contact that sent the doorframe shuddering as the kami rocked back and forth within it. Haku withdrew onto the porch with a wary eye to the strength of the walls.
"My Gods… It really is you!"
The mole breathed as if he did not believe it, gently clasping her tiny hands in the swallowing press of his claws. But again the old kami sniffed and snorted, lifting blind eyes over the cat's head.
"Is someone else there?"
"Y-yes…?" Haku stammered, at a loss for what else to say.
"Who is this, Okesa?" The mole muttered suspiciously before lifting his nose into the air. As he did the kami opened a mouth that rivaled even Kaonashi's, revealing bucked front teeth stained brown, "I cannot smell him over that bloody stink of rain!"
"E's ah friend," Cinna returned reassuringly.
"Then he must come in as well! Come in! Come in both of you!"
Lumbering backwards, the mole folded up into the house, making way for them. Haku followed until the cat glanced back as him sourly waving a claw at his feet. Hot in the face he kicked off his too tight shoes, glad to have his toes free as he shoved them into the cubbies, hurrying to follow after pulling the sliding door shut.
The narrow hall immediately opened up into a monstrous atrium that lifted through billowing curls of smoke up two stories to a ceiling of vaulted vents. This kitchen dwarfed Onsen as the implements were meant to fit the hunger of the Gods. So huge were the woks, grills, kettles, and pots they could have easily stewed the mole whole. Shelves lined the walls with clear glass jars as tall as he; these were stuffed with every hue and shade of spice Haku could imagine. The only one he had seen even larger was the Bath House's colossal kitchen. Hastily he turned away from those memories, nervously eyeing the cutting block covered by the gaping carcasses of a fish so huge it could have swallowed him whole. Another shank of ribs and bloody red flesh lay next. Given his earlier encounter Haku did not care to know what manner of creature it was.
Glancing under the beams through the smoke from the hearth, he peered at the thick rows of long curtains partitioned off the kitchen from another hall. Bare white feet and whipping kimono hems darted back and forth beneath those curtains, beating a tempo in keeping with the murmuring voices and laughter drifting in from the restaurant beyond. And only when the massive pile of dishes listing in the center of the bald cypress floor moved did Haku realized it was a God. Watching them askance with sake cup eyes was an enormous human shaped kami made of stacked and tiled bowls, tea pots, plates, platters, spoons, and every other manner of tableware (1). Chipped and broken in places, the living china cabinet wore a red apron to match the mole's. He moved about with such acuity his porcelain body hardly made a sound.
"Neh, Pops?" Cinna shrunk from the china creature, eyeing his knife fingers, "Yer dishes is… uh… movin'!"
"That's Taisho," The mole waved his hand dismissively, "He just sprouted up one day when one of those stupid spiders overturned a box of porcelain. What a blessing he is! I haven't been able to cook much these days and Taisho has such a knack for it. He makes the best Chinese food I've had in years."
At the mention of food Haku's stomach let out such a despairing wail of hunger Pop's booming laughter echoed up into the rafters. Still laughing and leaning heavily on a tree trunk of a cane, the mole shuffled over to the tatami mat tucked into the corner.
"Bring something to eat for our guests, Tiasho!"
Easing down into a mountainous cushion beside the equally huge plain of a table, the mole leaned back against the wall with a sigh. At once loosing his previous misgivings, the shifting plates bowed and motioned them to a seat before turning to work at the hearth. Silently watching the cook work with all eyes on his soon to be meal, Haku sat beside the cat and nearly disappeared beneath the lip of the mole's table. Stuffing the bone cup of a long spindly pipe he produced from his sleeve, the mole held it out to the hearth. A wisp of blue Godfire zipped from the embers, happily hunkering down in the dried herbs until gouts of smoke started up from the ivory mouth. Pulling on the other end until coils of haze issued from his nose, Pop turned his sightless gaze onto the cat.
"Where have you been these nearly hundred years, Okesa?" The mole's archaic patterns of speech grew sharp with unhappiness; as if he was still upset with the cat for leaving, "I searched for you when they sealed the stairs but none has seen you! I feared you were one of the many lost to the Great War!"
"Aye tried t'come back bu' t'ways wuz closed," Cinna shot back diffidently, "Aye'm back now, ain' aye!?"
"So you are… So you are…"
The mole replied broodingly, slowly retreating into himself as if meditating. Something in his distant tone made Haku nervous. He watched the mole cagily as the fellow pulled on his pipe at regular intervals until the cat stood up and snatched it from his fingers, helping herself to the tobacco as she lazed on her cushion.
"Ye's broodin', Pops," she blew a perfect smoke ring, "Aintcha happy t'see me?"
Her brazenness seemed to shake the mole awake. Just then Taisho appeared carrying two steaming bowls of meat and rice. These smelled strongly of tangy ginger, tart oranges, and spicy chili. Each was finished with green onion so thinly sliced it looked like translucent green paper.
"Itadakimas!" Haku breathed in wonder.
Pushing up his mask and mindful to keep his face in shadow, Haku brought the bowl to his mouth and was glad for the spoon. Oh, but it was delicious! Food was such a joy he had never before appreciated.
"This is delicious, Taisho-san! Thank you!"
As if not used to being thanked the stack of cracked dishes and bowls clinked, shifting uncomfortably before going back to the hearth and taking up cooking as if he would never stop. Haku caught him glancing at his bowl from time to time as if ready to come over and refill it at a moment's notice.
"Your friend is very polite, Okesa."
Glancing at the mole, Haku shrank from the blind God's intense scrutiny.
"Yeah?" The cat lashed her tail while handing back the old kami's pipe, turning instead to wolfing down her meat, "Well 'e's ah pain in t'arse, too!"
"Where are you from, stranger? I can tell from your words you're not from Edo."
Haku nervously glanced at Cinna, appealing for instruction as the cat had told him not to speak to anyone and let her do so in his stead. Unfortunately the cat thoroughly occupied by licking her empty bowl. At once she was on her feet, bringing her bowl back to the living plates and dishes, holding it out like a begging monk.
"Neh, Taisho?" She wheedled, "Cun aye has some more?"
Startled by the cat's appearance the Dish God shrank out of the way as she snooped over his stove, picking up pot lids and poking her nose into ever skillet and wok, sniffing and sampling.
"Mmmm! That's good! Cun aye has some o' tha'?"
She jabbed her finger at one of the score of bubbling pots. As if unsure of what else to do, Taisho began ladling the contents into her proffered bowl.
"More," she coached, "Jus' ah bit more, neh?"
"Heh-heh! She hasn't changed at all." Pop's laughed beneath his breath.
Once again the mole's eerie gaze rounded on him.
At a loss for what else to do, Haku told the truth.
"My place of birth was destroyed by humans," He returned quietly, "But I found a place where I was welcomed. That is where I met Okesa."
"You were a river, weren't you?" Pops let out a long breath clouded by smoke, "That explains your smell."
Startled by the mole's sharp observance, Haku took what was offered so he would not be forced to lie. Though the mole could not see his face, he was sure that should he lie the old kami would know it. Gods could not lie, but humans could. That would have been more than enough to tip the creature's suspicions.
"They cut down the trees on the mountain who was my mother. They tore her down and used her body to fill me in. Then they covered us in concrete, smothering us in roads and… and apartments!"
Haku blinked, started by the old anger that burned in him still. At once the mole's wizened face drew into sympathetic lines, abandoning whatever misgivings he might had harbored before. And he heaved a sigh, growing troubled as he knocked out the ashes of his pipe into a bowl on an adjacent shelf.
"I am sorry for your loss, stranger. Unfortunately I am not sure I can offer you any hope in this place either. Why she brought you here I cannot fathom."
What other chance would he get?
"Okesa said you might know someone versed in the art of curses?"
"Curses?" Pop sat back with a sharp frown, "Child, this whole world is cursed!"
"Please!" Haku pressed as desperation came bleeding through his every word, "I seek a means to a very difficult end."
Pops tugged his beard as his gray brows drew into ravines over his dark glasses.
"Try Bah-Fu. The old bat has a fortune shop by the temple on the Third Level. It'll be difficult. If you can get to her be careful. Her words cost more than gold."
Here the old kami came up short as the cat returned with two heaping bowls of fish, foul, rice, soup and whatever else could be found on Taisho's stoves.
"Neh, Pops, cun we stay ah bit?" She tossed her request as if it were a trifle, "E's useless, bu' aye'll work fer us both. Promise won' be no trouble like aye wuz a'fore."
Haku blinked. Trouble? What trouble?
Apparently there was history indeed, because at once the mole went quiet, pulling on his wispy beard as his already worried face drew into dark dour lines.
"Before you ask you should know she is mistress of this house now."
Cinna's chopsticks stopped midway between her bowl and mouth. She dropped the piece of meat back into her bowl as her hands began to shake. Putting them down, she bent gripping the lip of table. Curls of wood started from the surface as she sank her claws deep, growling low in her throat as her tail bristled three times its size, lashing back and forth. Haku shrank from her as the murderous look returned to her bloody eyes.
"She's still 'ere?!"
She: the cat spat the word like it was poison.
Who was this terrible she they spoke of? Haku was not sure he wanted to meet her. At once the kitchen grew dark and quiet as the Mole and the cat glowered off into respective corners. Baffled and lost, Haku could only watch and listen in hopes of understanding. He did not wait long for Pops began again in a low voice simmering with long withheld anger.
"After everything that happened somehow that whore spider devised a way to marry my dim-witted brother! How she managed it I'll never know. Marriages between levels are strictly forbidden!"
"This is my house more so than it ever was my brothers!" He hammered the table top with his fist, "But she has this place overrun with her sisters! Sparrow's Nest?! Ha! Try spider's nest! That lot has the fool so thoroughly wrapped up in their web he hardly recognizes me anymore! It won't be long before she convinces him to send me away or worse!"
They were interrupted as a different spider women in a fushia kimono painted with green peonies pushed her way between the curtains carrying piled dirty plates. Theses she dumped onto the floor without remorse, not even bothering to stack them.
"Oi, Taisho!" She shouted at the dish God imperiously, "Aye need lemon chicken, broccoli beef, an' imperial pork fer ah party o' nine. Make i' quick, neh!?
"Get out, Numa!" Pops snarled, in front of them with shocking swiftness, blocking them with his enormous frame, "You are not permitted in my kitchen!"
"Ain't yor kitchen, old man!" She hissed back, baring sharp teeth, "We's short staffed an' aye's gotta get done wit' servin' so aye cun git ready! We's dancin' tonight an' wouldn' yeh love t'watch?"
Numa wiggled her long body suggestively, sticking out her tongue and making rude gestures with her many hands knowing the mole could not see. But Taisho saw. He slammed one of the pots onto the burners loudly, making the spider jump.
"Wot's yor problem, eh?!"
Taisho conjured one of the dishes from the spider's feet, making it shatter around her bare toes. With a shriek she recoiled furiously.
"Yor gonna pay for tha', y'stupid dish heep!"
"I said out!" Pops thundered, slamming his walking stick against the floorboards.
"Aye's goin'! Aye's goin'!"
Before she did the spider saw the cat from the corner of her eye.
With a piercing shriek the waitress sprang into the rafters as if afraid of being chased, hanging upside down and continuing to scream atop her lungs. Shuddering and clamping dish palms over the sides of his bottle head, Taisho stamped his foot, summoning the dishes from the floor and hurling them at the spider.
"Oneh-san!" She ducked and dived among the rafters, "Oneh-san!"
"Get out!" Pops roared over her, "I said get out!"
At once the curtains ripped aside as another spider came thundering into the kitchen. Her dressed hair was piled so high and festooned so heavily with turtle shell pins, bells, and foil flowers it was a wonder she could keep her head upright! The many sleeves of her heavily padded purple kimono were embroidered with layer after layer of gold and silver cobwebs, which flashed brightly beneath her wide obi of red and black hour-glasses. Four eyes glared from a painted face that might have been beautiful save the cruelty glinting on the razors edge of her crimson irises as she glared up into the rafters. Already on his feet beside Cinna, Haku slid his mask in place and found the cold hilt of Hanoane beneath his tatter cloak. Because these were the eyes of a creature that had killed and would gladly do so again.
"Get down from there!" She snarled, "What at the mess you've made!"
"Look, sister!" The smaller spider stabbed her fingers down at them, "Look!"
Such a look of hatred crossed the spider's face upon seeing Cinna.
"YOU!"
Heedless to Pops, the spider threw out her hands, moving so quickly they were bright purple blurs. Grabbing a pot lid, Taisho blocked a thick silky rope that would have struck the mole. The silk lance punctured the metal lid by an inch, making several of the bowls comprising the Dish God's arms shatter as they absorbed the forceful impact. Just as fast was the edge of Lin's blade. Easily it sliced through the sharp spears of sticky silk the spider cast at Cinna, sending a wind ripping through the kitchen that sent living fires in the hearth guttered loudly as the spit and smoked. As if seeing him for the first time, the queen spider grazed him with the sharp edge of her dark glare.
"Enough, Jouma!" The mole once again hammered his stick on the floor, making the whole room shudder, "Okesa is my guest!"
"You have no say, old man! I will not have that in my house!" The spider bit back scathingly, baring rows of needled teeth as she paced like an animal.
"Maybe this'll change yer mind! Aye's ah payin' customer!"
Haku flinched as Cinna hurled something past his shoulder. A flash of greed overtook the fury in the spider's face as she caught the heavy pouch. Sparing two eyes and two hands to peer inside, Jouma held the rest at ready. Shocked by the contents, the spider turned all her eyes inside before yanking it closed and stuffing the pouch into one of her voluminous sleeves.
Just then another mole came shuffling through the curtains, getting tangled up in his blindness. He was as slight as his brother was stout, wearing a pale blue silk robe long in sleeve and collar of foreign make that made him look like the curling smoke still stirring around the room in swift agitation.
"What a fuss!" The little mole twittered mildly, "You know how I feel about throwing dishes; plates don't grow on trees, you two."
"Talk your wife, Gichi!" Pops spat ungraciously, "She so loves to throw things!"
"Jouma?" He piped while waving his hands around seekingly.
"Here, my love!" She cooed while folding around him like a cocoon, dwarfing the tiny mole, "Would you like me to play the koto for you on the veranda?"
"Oh, that would be lovely!" He exclaimed, at once distracted as he tried to pat one of her many hands but missed, "You're still going to dance tonight, yes? You know I can't see but I love to listen."
Had Haku not known any differently, he would have considered the old God senile. But he could see the pull of the spider's influence wrapped around the mole in a shimmering network of threads. And he was quite sure she could convince the kami of almost anything thanks to the work of her wiles.
"Of course, dear," Jouma patted his hand reassuringly.
In spite of her saccharine tone her sharp eyes flashed to the rafters. She jerked her head at her sister. The harried waitress spider dropped from the ceiling to hold open the curtains. Again the God woman had to bow to fit under the archway; she was quite huge. Without further comment Cinna sat and began eating with gusto.
"How can you eat at a time like this!?" Haku demanded after the spider had gone.
"'Cause aye don' know when aye gonna git t'eat again!" She shot her red eyes up at him swishing her tail, "Gonna sit 'n' help me, neh?"
Hauling him to a seat by the hem of his cloak, she shoved the second bowl at him. Sick to his stomach, Haku stared at the food with while what he had already eaten turned to lead in his gut. He flinched as Taisho pried the lance of silk from his pot lid, clanking and clattering angrily as he tossed it on the fire and went back to cooking. The range began belching black smoke as if mirroring the dish God's foul mood, consuming the tendrils of silk and transforming them into curling spirals of red ash. As if suddenly exhausted the mole sank back against the wall with a sigh, once again making the building shudder.
"Will you stay somewhere else? There is another inn down the road a short way. It is shabby and the food is horrid, but the rooms are clean."
"Only got ah day an' ah night then aye gotta go," she picked at her food, reminding Haku of the promise he had forced upon her, "An' aye'd rather spend i' here wit' yeh on t'edge o' trouble."
"Stubborn girl," the mole flashed a weary smirk, "At least between the two of us we can really piss off Jouma."
Cinna flattened her ears, "S'dumb t'poke ah hornet's nest, Pops."
"Isn't it?" His smirk became a grin, revealing stained teeth, "But its much fun!"
Notes:
(1) This is a Seto Tiasho, literally translated ceramic general, which is a tsukumonogami comprised of discarded dishes and other kinds of tableware.
