After Childhood's End

[yinyangwizard]

All childhoods must, at some point, come to an end. Magically induced ones end more abruptly than the regular kind.

Abe no Seimei wakes with a start. Not that he was sleeping until now. He was...what exactly was he doing before he found himself here? And where is here, anyway? Who is that person off to his left?

He leaps back from the stranger, leaves crunching under his feet, and gets a defensive spell into place - all before he quite realizes that he's done it, or that the stranger he's reacting to is just as startled as he is.

Comments

[margolotta]

"We should," Margolotta says. "We don't know what we were doing out here anyway."

[yinyangwizard]

"We must first establish which direction is 'back to the bar.'" As opposed to 'deeper into the woods.'

Seimei's eyes - which can see very well in the dark, albeit in monochrome - fall on something off to Lady Margolotta's side. A depression in the leaves coating the forest floor, and in the middle of that depression, a twig snapped in half.

"I think I have just found the way we came in," Seimei says. "If you will permit me, Lady Margolotta, I will retrace our steps back to the bar."

If they're observant and a bit lucky, they may find some edifying clues along the way.

[margolotta]

"If we listen for the sound of waves, we will get back to the lake," Margolotta adds, "and from there, we should be able to see the bar."

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei nods in agreement. "A very sensible approach. We can follow the trail until we hear waves, and cut in that direction."

Giving the matter some more thought, he tilts his head to look up into the treetops. "Although if you prefer, Lady Margolotta, I can try to get the lay of the land first."

[margolotta]

"How would you do that?"

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei flashes a grin. "A little spell, Lady Margolotta. Nothing fancy."

He steps over to the nearest tree - a tall pine - and puts his hand on the trunk. He summons forth a small cluster of shikigami. They're invisible to the naked eye, but stir the twigs and needles of the pine tree as they swarm upwards.

When they band together at the top, Seimei is able to see the surrounding landscape from their perspective, as if he himself were perched on the tree. To his vision, everything appears in shades of silver, grey, and black - but it's quite clear.

Seimei calls most of the shikigami, save for one that he sends arcing out of the forest to the peaked roof of the air temple. It will serve as a beacon, so he can sense his way and won't get turned around. "It's about two kilometers to the edge of the forest." He points. "That way."

[margolotta]

She starts walking, very quietly. "I do wonder how we got in this far to begin with."

[yinyangwizard]

Margolotta is awfully light on her feet, Seimei notices. He wonders what sort of creature she is (she's not human - that much he can tell), but it seems rude to ask. Seimei, for his part, makes a deliberate effort not to be too quiet.

"Perhaps we were following something, or searching for something." Seimei rubs his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if something mesmerized us. That would explain why we don't remember how we got here."

He hopes that's not the case, though.

[margolotta]

"That would be rather hard for them to do to me," Margolotta says. "But then, here in Milliways, there is always a bigger fish."

[yinyangwizard]

"Very true. In a similar vein, one is often reminded of just how little one actually knows about things." Seimei pushes a low-hanging branch out of the way and gestures for Lady Margolotta to go past him.

He also sends a scouting party of shikigami ahead of them - towards the one sitting on the air temple - to scout the ground ahead. There isn't exactly a clear path here, and neither he nor Lady Margolotta are appropriately dressed for contending with underbrush, mud puddles, etc.

[margolotta]

She quietly walks among the plants; her night sight is of course excellent, and there is hardly anything that she needs to worry about.

"Useful, to have that sort of spirits," she says.

[yinyangwizard]

"Oh, they are very useful indeed!" Seimei agrees. "People used to underestimate them because on their own, they tend to drift about mindlessly, and they're not very powerful. But they're a bit like ants, or bees. When they are organized and directed properly, they are capable of amazing things."

[margolotta]

"Oh yes, there is a famous witch in Lancre who can borrow bees," Margolotta answers. "Very useful."

[yinyangwizard]

"'Borrow' bees?" Seimei asks. He has only the vaguest idea of what the term means, and that idea is drawn solely from context. "Does she...take control of them? Extend her senses with them?"

[margolotta]

"Both," Margolotta says. "She sends her mind away with them, controlling them only very gently. She has a special sign she holds while she is borrowing, to indicate to people she is still alive."

[yinyangwizard]

"Oh! You would be surprised at how many mages have to take such measures when they go into a trance," Seimei says with a chuckle. "Or maybe you wouldn't. Watch out up ahead, by the way - my little friends say there's some sort of burrow under the ivy."

He would rather avoid having either of them turn an ankle in it.

[margolotta]

"Oh," she says. "The infamous demon bunnies, I suppose."

[yinyangwizard]

"Possibly. Although there's no one home at the moment."

And Seimei has an odd memory, or a fragment of one: crouching behind a rock near the Caribbean inlet and whispering to someone: "K'sho! No pirate boats!"

He shakes his head to clear the cobwebs as they reach the ground-covering ivy that conceals the burrow. He picks out a path around it.

[margolotta]

"I wonder where they have gone?" Margolotta asks, almost idly, as she picks her way among the underbrush.

[yinyangwizard]

"Or why they have gone, but I cannot say that I'm sorry to see them go." This little walk in the woods would be more troublesome if the demon bunnies were still around.

[margolotta]

"They might have gone to where they are far more trouble," Margolotta muses.

[yinyangwizard]

"I hope not! Although that is, unfortunately, quite probable." Seimei sighs. "I wonder if anyone has seen them in the Labyrinth."

Seimei hasn't, although he's run into a number of more dangerous (and bizarre) things there.

[margolotta]

"Well, then I pity the world they end up in," Margolotta says.

[yinyangwizard]

"They could end up in a world where the local fauna is a lot nastier than they are, and wind up as prey for something," Seimei points out. "In which case it would not be a terrible thing at all for that world."

Then, Seimei supposes, one would have to pity the demon bunnies.

[margolotta]

"Oh dear," Lady Margolotta says. "Yes, I suppose the Tall Blue People World would be able to deal with them."