Map Within Rising Smoke
Leaving the Forest of Lurking Beasts, Meioshi walked over to her estate's garden for a moment to think of Shanwang's riddle. He decided to hang out at his old prison for a while to marvel at the difference between where he was under Unmei's control and where he is under Meioshi's control, even going so far as to walk around the cliff to venture deeper into the Jigoku estate, or what's left of it! She let him do this so that he could, in a way, let himself feel the weight of his own emotions. As menacing as Shanwang was, he had the capacity - as small as it is - to feel certain things beyond anger and confidence. It's what caught Bichisutomu's attention when he confronted the Oni from what Shanwang has said. Meioshi believed that if her ancestor could see potential in Shanwang as something more than a frightful beast then so could she. Hearing his footsteps against the earth fading away to her family's boating dock, she caught sight of the transitioning pathway to the cobblestones leading to her garden.
It was located on the right side of her home just in between the clinic and her museum. Though, to many others, her home seemed quite grand with all of the different buildings she owned, Meioshi found she disagreed with others calling her wealthy. Her vow of poverty didn't allow her to take money, so she keeps very little at her side and often gives it away to pay for other people's services or to help beggars. Even being called Lady Meioshi felt odd to her when she only ever wanted to be called doctor, but, given that the translation of her name means doctor when written correctly, she supposed that she could take some solace in her identity being literal. After all, she was a female doctor. Unless she takes into account her brooding, temporary ally's nickname, she didn't want to be called a witch either.
Sesshomaru, to her, could be rather odd at times. He had this strange need to do things his way, but, when that method didn't work out for him, he sort of... closed himself off first before he floated to whoever he believed could be of assistance or came back with a solution. He won't simply say he needs help. He kept doing it when they were at Shinju o Tateru. They were in the village for a few weeks at best, but he never stayed around his men to evaluate his findings. He would pop in on her at random times and briefly tell her of his findings if she asked. Now and then, Ohta or another child under her care would offer up a suggestion or clue, but he waited until Meioshi made a final word before he moved to try something else. Ohta, being her little bossy one, often made Sesshomaru and Jaken join them in relaxing so the two could think. Meioshi wasn't sure if the reason he stayed around her was because he was surveilling her or if he was silently asking her for help. He was so gung-ho about solving the issue at these Mujina Woodlands himself, but, when he came up with nothing, he would muse to himself in a corner on his own. It wasn't until she bypassed his warning to stay out of it that she got him to formally ask for a suggestion as indirect as he could make it. She looked up at a weeping willow tree and wondered about the quiet man. What made him so distant from his kind? Has he always been like that?
Attention taken from her, Meioshi heard some birds tweeting in the blooming flower trees in front of her museum. She wondered if the little birds were confused by their stuffed comrade or a statue of a comrade. Usually, if she or the kids couldn't stuff an animal, they would sculpt, paint, or draw one. Kyoko almost always visited the museum first while Meioshi was toiling away with something menial. She loves her taxonomy assignments and somehow doesn't mind stuffing the many different species of animals she gets to study... except the squirrels. Poor Kyoko was crying for weeks because Meioshi stuffed a squirrel she recognized and had an attachment to, but the little one had come to accept that her beloved squirrel was in the "memorial" phase. Kyoko was going to be an excellent surgeon with time. She found a sense of enjoyment in dissection practice, and she was quite skillful in being able to guess correctly at the time of death of a living creature. Meioshi fully supported her girl's dream of being a detective. It was unorthodox for a woman to do that kind of work, but the doctor believed in her apprentice and knew she could change the way the world viewed the working woman and the female scientist.
Smiling at her apprentice's potential, Meioshi thought of something as she looked at the birds entering the open windows closest to the roof of the aviary portion of her bestiary museum. She quickened her walking pace to her home and hustled into the side entrance. Opening the shoji door to the spiral stairs, she skipped over some steps to run up to her sleeping quarters on the next floor. Another set of shoji doors opened as she ran to her right side to enter the observatory room. It was an interesting place designed to be three-tiered with a glass ceiling. A lot of natural light entered the room, and it could be one of the most romantic spaces in her home when her candles were lit at night or one of the most enchanting if she went out to capture fireflies with the children. It was the resting place of one of her favorite hobbies: cartography. Walking up to the hemisphere near the center of the room, she looked at the blank, curved surface of the grey, smooth stone. This was where she built terrains from clay or constellations from crystals.
"I have seas without water, coasts without sand, towns without people, mountains without land," Meioshi repeated, eyes shifting as she stared back at her reflection in the glossed stone.
"Ogre Island is closer in character to a continent, doctor. The commanders ruled what would be considered countries or states..."
She repeated the riddle a few more times until she looked at an unfinished work of hers. Her eyes widened a bit and she said, "It's a map! Seas, coast, towns, mountains. All things describing the physical features of new territories without physically being present! The riddle is telling me where the map is! Representation, representation. Right then, what is the next part of the riddle trying to tell me? I have no feet, no hands, no wings, but I climb to the sky. What climbs to the sky naturally but without body parts or some sort of mechanic to do it? What's being represented here?"
Stepping away from the glossy hemisphere and turning to her maps on the wall, she caught the sight of her old farmer's weather map. She used to collect them to make better star maps as a child. These days, she used them for actual farming and harvesting practice. Wait!
"What about water like mist or steam or fog or, or...?" Meioshi whispered, closing her eyes.
"The commanders are supplementary to each other. For one to do his job, you need another to do his, and so on..."
"Each one controls one of the eight elements of the living world: water, fire, earth, wind, force, time, metal, and light. The king, of course, is the master of thunder and lightning..."
"All Oni know when their kind is born, in trouble, or dead," Shanwang replied, grinning.
"Smoke!" Meioshi said. "The riddles crafted by each commander... link to another. They need each other to oversee the fate of all their kind. If Numa-o is the controller of the waters, then his riddle must link to another commander who can produce or control smoke. They must be working together to hide each other. To ensure no one finds either of them, they have to hide the map leading to them. The map itself is within the smoke that rises to the sky, so where would smoke continuously rise or magically be unending? How thick would the smoke have to be?"
"Apart, we are invisible. Together, we are direction. In your hands, I will never be. Where is the commander?" Shanwang asked, completing the riddle.
"Maps aren't invisible, though," Meioshi said, folding her arms to bite one of her nails. "They just need to be made or memorized. The same could be said of smoke. You merely need flint, stone, and wood to make fire, which inevitably produces smoke, but only the process of it can be memorized. Smoke is a result of a process. Maps of memory or charting. Maybe... it's the process itself that's being described. Apart, we are invisible because we have to be made. Together, we are direction. Is it saying that after you make the map and smoke you will be pointed in the right direction? No, what if...? What if that part of the riddle is the clue to finding the map? A place where things are made?"
"Then, you'd be on the right track," a familiar voice said from the window.
Meioshi turned around for a moment only to be terrorized by the grinning face of Shanwang staring at her. Only his head was in the window, the rest of his body was covered by her house. She let out a yelp before shouting, "Heaven's sakes! Why are you in the window? I thought you were going back to your palace!"
"Well, I was until I heard you musing," Shanwang replied, raising a brow before lowering it back. "Looks like you got most of the riddle solved. The map to Numa-o's territory is indeed within the smoke. Now, you just have to find the blacksmith the riddle is talking about. Of course, there's a problem with that."
"Oh, gods, no," Meioshi complained. "What now?"
"The blacksmith doesn't know he has a map in his smoking forge, but you can try to use the sprites to find the three-eyed oxen in the blacksmith's possession," Shanwang suggested. "Oxen are sacred animals."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say this Numa-o gent was sending me on a wild goose chase," Meioshi said, folding her arms. "Guess I'll use my boat to make the trek to this blacksmith you're talking about."
"I don't know him, personally, but the commanders did apparently. He must bear an impressive skill with weaponry or armor," Shanwang remarked, narrowing his eyes at the commanders' secrecy. "Before I leave from here, I've another riddle for you. Might help with the direction part of the first riddle. Tool of a thief, toy of a queen. Always used to be unseen. Sign of joy, a sign of sorrow. Giving all likeness borrowed. What am I? Behind my eyes, you cannot see what goes up and down without moving. Through my eyes, you will see this thing running without legs yet hardening like stone. What can you see with me?"
Meioshi was quiet as she looked at Shanwang grinning at her. She took a deep breath and then said, "I swear you do this just to toy with me."
"Meh, sometimes," Shanwang responded, shrugging his large shoulders.