Mumei rattled down the long road to the shrine, enjoying the rain sheeting down the little vehicle. Surrounded by water, but not drowning was something she hadn't been able to enjoy in a while...she really should find and visit the pool they surely had in the settlement.

She stops to pull out her holorecorder to snap pictures of what looks like one of the giant fungal trees just melting in the rain. "I wonder if that's part of it's normal life cycle or if the rain disrupts it?"

Tsugiharu considered the melting scenery.

"Hmm. My guess would be that it's related to it's reproduction cycle. Heavy rains would seem fairly normal for the biome, so I could see using those rains to disperse far and wide." he offered.

He looked up at the stormy sky.

"Quite the sight though. Not something you'll see in The Hive or on a spaceship." he said.

Earlier that day Izumi had received the following message.



He had replied. FoxComm 210 had altered the message (in)appropriately. Izumi had given in on correcting the over keen autocorrect function.



. . .

Currently he was right against the window staring out at the fungal forest, probably trying to spot the Raker that had escaped him a few hours earlier.

"hmm...might be that they kind of flow away to new spots then..the spores, I mean."

She glances at the Kitsune and shakes her head. But she's pretty sure he's listening. Anyone chattering at that speed is probably mentally multitasking like whoa.

"So I guess I should tell you what I'd heard before we get up there." She starts the little vehicle moving again, steering around a large lumpen thing that seemed to be slowly shifting across the track, whether that was due to waterflow or its own energy was questionable.

"Don't know if you've met the twin Shiba-samas. Talked to them a bit yesterday and one of them's been up there a few times, and there was some kind of ritual. Said she always felt drained and kind of fuzzy after being up here. I didn't notice anything like that when we cam, Kitsune-san, so that seemed odd." Mumei paused for a rattling section of rough stone where the silt of the path had washed away. "She's not a shugenja, so she wasn't doing any kind of strenuous invocation or anything."

"Drained?"

The Kitsune didn't look away from the window, probably confirming Mumei's multi-tasking theory.

"Initselfnotsuspiciousatall. Ithasbeenveryhotbeforethisrainstarted. ButcombinethatwiththenonsensicalkanjionthewallsandthelackofTaoorFortunism . . . worthtakingalook, butnothingtodisturbthePhoenix. Wedon'thavemagistrateorevenyorikipowersofinvestigation."

There was a very brief pause.

"PerhapsIshouldmeettheShibatwins. Ihavesomemedicaltraining. ItgoeswithbeingaKitsune."

If her communicator were more advanced, Mumei would set it to record and replay the Kitsune at a slower speed. As it is, she focuses on the wet road for a long while to let some meaning filter through.

Magistrates, meet the Shiba, weird but not suuuper weird.

"She's native, so I wouldn't expect the heat to get her as much, you know? But yeah, a healer's eye instead of a dancer's would be handy there." She nods. "I mean, she seemed kind of messy? But I don't know her, that might be normal."

"I don't really know how the settlement views this place, you know? I'll have to ask Asako-sama tomorrow when we go out exploring. But communing at a shrine shouldn't bother anyone, right?" The last has that tone of sweet innocence that says she was quite happy asking for forgiveness rather than permission when it came to spiritual matters.

"It'satempleandwe'llbepraying. What'swrongwiththat?"

The Kitsune seemed comfortable and as he had the status here he'd be taking the responsibility.




Unless he just blamed the Spider. Which seemed to be the 'in' thing to do.

Tsugiharu listened as the watery world flowed by the windows.

"Hmm, as far as I know if the shrine's not forbidden, there's no rational reason we would be in trouble for going there." he mused.

"Although given some of the potential risks the candidates how been allowed to be exposed to for the official parts of the miai, I wonder....." he said, trailing off and rubbing his chin in thought.

Mumei glances at the fox. "Like falling off steep cliffs?" She shakes her head.

"That leave you with any bones that are gonna be good for predicting the weather?" she asks as they pull up to the shrine. The basalt is extra impressive washed clear with all the rain. Glistening black stone everywhere.

________
I will not describe it as looking like a reaver sneezed on everything in character. But I do want to note that it crossed my mind.

"Itwasafungalstalknotacliff."

Not that falling off an oversized mushroom is more glorious than falling off a cliff.

Tsugiharu considered the shrine. It honestly looked a great deal like various shrines to the Dark Fortunes. But given the Phoenix's irrelevant opinions on the Dark Fortunes, it didn't seem likely that it was one. Still, it and the Governor's apparent devotion to Strength, gave him pause.

"Hmm. Who was this a shrine to again?" he asked the group.

"Theelementalpowersoftheplanet."

He looked up at the wet rock.

"ThatwaswhattheMikowemetheresaid. It'sbuiltonaconvergenceofthefourelements."

He paused . . .

"NowthatIsaythatIrealiseshenevermentionedVoid. JustAir,Earth,FireandWater."

Tsugiharu shrugged a bit.

"Well Void is commonly thought to be the element that unites the other four, so I would assume that the shrine has a connection to it as well. I wonder why they built one shrine to all four elements though. Being Phoenix I would have thought they'd build a shrine to each." he mused.

Mumei nods. "And there may be none here who recognize the pull of Void." It was still a rare gift after all. The pull of the void between stars was a different thing.

She glances at Tsugiharu, "I don't recall parts of the shrine dedicated to the elements, but she noted that the four were strong here. Seemed like...a reason to build here rather than focusing on any of them. It's specifically a shrine to Mori no Reiou...so to the forest...king? maybe?" She hadn't gotten a good enough look at the strange kanji to tell which were used.

Before opening the door into the rain, she adds. "My first day, I spoke to the kami and they noted that the world whispers to those who can hear, but that the manthing and womanthing do not listen. It sounded like...a warning?"

"Ominous....and cryptic. Not uncommon when communing with the kami. They see so much more than us, it's hard for us to comprehend at times. Odd though. The Phoenix have no shortage of shugenja, one would assume they any warnings from the kami would have already been picked up." he mused.

She nods. "I would have thought so too, so maybe it's nothing. But it's a lovely day to commune with water, no?" She pops the door and wedges her borrowed umbrella out to shield her a bit as she steps into the rain."

"Warningsonlygetheededifthey'reactuallypassedon."

Long familiarity with Lion and them considering ecological warnings from the Fox to be low priority. That was until the food crops failed, then it became high priority . . . but way, way too late. Fox parables could be pretty grim.

It was then that the lack of umbrella dawned on him.

"Crapcakes."

He quickly started piling his many electronic devices on his seat in the ATV, intending leaving them behind to avoid water damage. His sidearm stayed though. Lion pistols were built to survive a little rain.

She looks back, and just hands the umbrella over the top of the vehicle. "Here Kitsune-san. No sense trying not to get wet when planning to talk to the water spirits, hmm?" She does pull several things from her own pockets to tuck under the seat, and shelters a small cone of incense in her hand.

"So, into the shrine, or shall we just find an overhang someplace to chat a bit out of the way of any miko or acolytes?"

"Overhangshouldwork. Alltheelementsarehere."

Then he realised the Spider might not have had the full brief.

"GeothermalenergyunderusforFire."

That did get a raised eyebrow from the Spider.

"Ah, I guess that would make sense. Can't be a union of the four elements without fire and the shrine's not on top of a volcano." he said. "But I agree, an overhang might be best. I'm sure they wouldn't want to interrupt our piety."