#thank you all for sticking with me =u=d we're now back on track

[journeyofthemoonprophet]

There is an outpost on the edge of the Oina territory, and not a far journey from the passageway Ikken told you about. The guards posted apparently rotate every month, and just your luck, the next pair leaves to trade out tomorrow. Thanks to Ikken, you'll be following Akari and Burai out at dawn, taking you most of the way you need to go. He even promised to give you one of his old maps for your journey south... well, he'll trade it in exchange for a favor... that being to bring Akemi back home along your way.

("Do you normally stay in Wep'keer this long at a time?" you had asked her that evening, and Akemi argued that it's a very long walk for someone her size, before sheepishly musing that she was going to be in so much trouble...)

You try your best to get some sleep, but your nightmares prove persistent. The dead are restless as always, but even more so now that you plan to leave. Every time you wake, you're left with the phantom chill of icy fingerprints on your limbs, clasped around your ankles, tugging you back by the arms, hooked around your shoulders and wrapped around your throat.

Why should you get to leave? they whisper, echoing louder in your skull and off the walls each time you awaken. How do you lead so many to death and bring a curse upon the world, and still get to walk away a second time?

The third time you jolt awake, you sit up to find the room is suddenly way too small, too warm, to the point where it's actually hard to take a comfortable breath. You have to go outside, at least for a moment.

You try your best to be quiet as you push open the door, and the cold air on your face is an immediate relief, however small. You don't go very far, opting to just stare up into the sky from a few steps away. The moon is barely a sliver, and you'll be lucky if any of it's left in tomorrow's sky. Not exactly the most promising omen... especially for you.

"Even with travel in the morning, you're once again wide awake..."

Glancing over your shoulder has Yawa staring back at you. Ah, damnit, and you had tried to be so quiet. "I'm starting to wonder if maybe you belong in the moonlight," she muses, tilting her head to the side. "It certainly seems to have an effect on you every time you're standing in it."

"Sorry to wake you. Just... needed some fresh air." You still have no idea what she means by that, but still do your best to casually wave her off. "I'll be inside in a moment, promise. You can go back to sleep."

Not surprisingly, Yawa isn't deterred by this, and instead tromps over to join you. You're half-expecting to get dragged back by the ear, but instead she just studies your face; it's almost torture how silent she stays, and how long she does so.

"So many thoughts behind those eyes," she eventually murmurs. "What's on your mind Waka? Wondering if perhaps you should stay instead?"

You shake your head. "I can't stay, and I know that, but..." You glance back up, though instead of the moon your eyes settle on the uppermost path. "It still feels a bit... wrong, I guess. Leaving them behind like this."

"You mean the ones who died..." Yawa hums a bit, and out of the corner of your eye you see her following your gaze. "You worry you're abandoning them?"

"Am I not, in a way?" You offer her a shrug, eyes not once leaving the horizon. "Not that I have much choice in the matter, but... do they understand? Or even care?"

Another hum, this one as if she finally understands. "You fear they'd resent you, then."

You really don't like how this woman's managing to cut to the core of you. Should you tell her? Should she be the first you confess the blood on your hands to? Maybe she already knows; Yawa would've been first to hear whatever you'd end up mumbling in your sleep. Maybe it's your imagination, but you swear the wind is still moaning with the dead's laments, carrying them from Lake Laochi to drift past the two of you.

Of all the people who fled the Celestial Plain... of all the people who should have lived or died...

"If any one of us that boarded that Ark should currently be dead on its floor, it's certainly me." For many, many reasons. The wind hisses past your ears as you raise your gaze back to the moon, and your heart aches at how empty it looks with just one little sliver left. "A prophet rarely sees his own future... perhaps I'm just running from my fate, and I don't even realize I'm doing it."

There's a long pause... then a set of hands on your face as Yawa gently pulls you down to look her in the eye. "Listen to me, Waka. I can't speak to how life was on the Celestial Plain, but here? Life is a gift, one that you're never guaranteed to keep. Even the gods that are dead would want you to live that life instead of spending your days asking whether or not you deserve to do so."

If only she knew why you're questioning it. The little 'heh' that escapes you is mirthless, flat as the ice on the lake. "You make it sound like that's so easy."

"Oh, it's definitely not. There are days that being alive feels more like a miserable curse than a gift." Her thumbs brush the corners of your eyes, and it's only now you realized you're teary. "But no one--not even the gods--can change what's happened; we can only choose how to move forward. The sun will still rise tomorrow whether we're ready for it or not, and it's up to us what we do with the day it brings." She chuckles a little. "Speaking of the sun, you still have that goddess to meet up with, yes? Certainly she wouldn't resent seeing that the escape wasn't completely in vain."

That's now two people who've said something like that. The mention of Amaterasu does rouse your spirit again, though the feeling is wavering dangerously, teetering on a knife's edge and threatening to slip from your grasp. Yawa seems to sense this, and before you can speak any doubts, she leans forward to rest her forehead on yours.

"Honor her and the dead by allowing yourself to live," she murmurs. "Don't let that resolve you share fade away by the time you meet again."

Resolve... that seems a good word for it. It's what fueled the fight on the Celestial Plain, and what's stirred in your memory to keep you going thus far. The breath you take is shaky, but the flickering feeling evens itself out into something smoother, warmer, burning just a little more steadily. Just enough.

"How did you get to be so wise, Yawa?" you murmur, and she huffs a quiet laugh.

"I'm a grandmother, dear. We're all wise." She pats your cheeks a few times before letting go of your face. "Now come inside before the cold makes you sick. You have quite the journey ahead of you, and Burai will be cross if he has to carry you a second time."

#Okami #Waka #HELLO I AM BACK #As I said in the OOC post the busy period at work obliterated me for a grip but we are through the other side and I can actually write agai #thank you all for sticking with me =u=d we're now back on track #Journey Through Nippon #I swear this wasn't long to make up for missing weeks this one was gonna be long no matter what