there is no place in the world we do not belong

[tenthousandmiles]

who: Ginko & open!
what: you get a memory and you get a memory and YOU get a memory
when: during the memory event
where: around the city + in yo brainz
warnings: Mild body horror in the third memory

[Wherever you are, wherever you're going, you're probably generally minding your own business. But sometimes walking through a town means brushing against people, and when that inevitably happens as you pass by Ginko, maybe you'll see a flash of a memory that's not yours....]

Who are you?

The god-eating mushi

A Sea of Writings

[ooc: memories in individual comments! if you'd like something specific, please feel free to PM me or hit me up on plurk @ goodluckmodes

Comments

two.

[tenthousandmiles]

An ominous bell tolls in the distance. Most of the villagers can't hear it, but the apprentice of the local mushi-shi can. You tell him it's nothing for him to worry about, and continue your "stroll." You find his mentor at the summit, where you knew he'd be. He smirks vaguely at you, as if amused to see you.

"Oh, you still have business with me?"

"Your foot's not injured, is it?!" Your voice is rough and angry, a rare frustration lancing through it. "All that time, you were beckoning a Kuchinawa in that inconspicuous place."

"What are you talking about?"

"That bell-like sound that's getting closer...that's the cry of a Kuchinawa. A mushi that eats guardians....mountain and swamp guardians, and takes their place."

"...It is also a mushi that will bring stability to those places. It is my mission to do this. Don't interfere."

He looks down, then, a deep grief evident in his eyes, weighing down his entire frame.

"The previous guardian was a magnificent one. It was a beautiful guardian whose figure was that of a giant old boar."

His grip tightens against his walking stick, fingers clenching around the wood.

"I am...to blame. I shouldn't have said what I did..."

But you're not listening. You grab at his arm, trying to tug him away from his perch. "Save the details for later. Get off this mountain now."

"It's too late. The Kuchinawa has already found me." He shakes his head. "A creature like the Kuchinawa ought to sit in the guardian's seat...it's too difficult for a human..."

You've already moved away from him, though, pouring something onto the ground. He asks you what you're doing, alarmed.

"I'm ripping the mugura from you."

"It's useless! Even if you could do that, there's no other recourse..."

"There must be something, other than doing this! What about the villagers? They revere you...need you..."

You grit your teeth, agitated. It strikes at a vulnerable place in your chest, twisting up in your insides with a sense of loss that's not even yours to feel, but aches nonetheless.

"You said you were a little envious of me. But the truth is, I was a little envious of you, too. You can't just decide to die by yourself like this!!"

You place your hand on the mountain where you splashed the kouki earlier, trying to draw the mugura to you--pull those mushi forming the nerves of the mountain away from Mujika before the Kuchinawa can devour him.

"Don't! You'll only get yourself dragged in!"

The rest is a blur. The mugura envelop you as the bell tolls again, signalling the arrival of the Kuchinawa, and then...

It's a memory within a memory. You feel the sudden swell of images from an entirely different person's life. About a man and a village and a woman who loved him. A man who indulged in a brief moment of unrealistic fantasy, and the woman who was willing to kill a god, kill the guardian of the mountain, to make it a reality.

You feel all of his guilt and his fear and his suffering, the overwhelming burden of taking the mountain's life onto his shoulders for years and years and years.

---

A warm room, blankets covering you, and smoke you recognize as mushi-repellent filtering through the room. Mujika's apprentice sits there, leaning over you.

"When I arrived at the summit, you were on the ground...and Mujika was nowhere to be seen. I looked and looked for him, but I couldn't find him. There wasn't a trace of his den, either. And not one villager remembers who Mujika was."

You close your eyes.

"Once a guardian is eaten by Kuchinawa...once the guardian is replaced by a new one, that's what happens."

hope you don't mind my popping in!

[somakemelaugh]

The brush hadn't been intentional, just a step too close as he tried to pass between the man and pillar on his way from work in the crowd, but what happened next took him by surprise. Memories slipping between him and another were rare still, but nothing new to him, only this time, it had happened while he was wide awake. Lost in the reliving of it, he slowed to a stop right in the middle of the sidewalk, until it let go of him.

When it did, he shook his head, blinking several times though it did his vision little good, disoriented somewhat from the experience and that he'd been seeing things in crystal clarity, as he hadn't seen them in centuries. One hand went to a temple, reality sliding back into place, and he thought to turn back to look in the direction from where he'd come, unsure of who or what he was searching for. He hadn't been paying much attention to who he passed by in his travels so much as where in space around him that they were, mind set on one thing, and now he wished he had.

not at all :D

[tenthousandmiles]

Luckily, the man in question happens to pass through again not long afterward, having apparently realized he had gone in the wrong direction to wherever he was headed. And though the vision was through Ginko's eyes, his voice will probably be recognizable when he pauses--having noticed the other man's apparent disorientation.

"...Are you alright? You look unwell."

8DDD yay!

[somakemelaugh]

His search hadn't been brief, curiosity getting the better of him - he'd even wandered back in the direction he had come from a ways to try and find who it was or what it was that had given him the strange memory. The man approaching him then wasn't one he recognized, but the voice caught his ear right off. Undertaker turned his head sharply in that direction and looked the other up and down one good time, tilted his head.

"Well as ever." He forced a grin, his usual response to... well, everything. "Tell me, lad. Did you feel something strange just now? A flicker of memory, by any chance?"

[tenthousandmiles]

Ah dear. This again.

"I hadn't, though I don't doubt that you did. It's been happening fairly often recently."

A shame that these memory exchanges, so far for him at least, have only been one-way. He has no way of being able to tell what this other man saw, which complicates things at least slightly.

"If you have any questions about whatever you saw, I'll answer them."

[somakemelaugh]

So it hadn't been a two-way happening. Not so unusual, then, not in this instance. But that it had happened while they were both aware and awake still had his interests. The memory, he could care less about; that it had happened at all was what had him.

"Only two, since you're so kind as to offer. Looks like this is growing more and more common. Have you ever had this occur while you've been awake? Those times I've had it happen to me, those involved were asleep."