prismatica | video | call out to the afterlife

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video | call out to the afterlife

[ Shino gets the camera rolling, and backs up, leaning forward and looking to where the light is, leaving him looking off camera. ]

The blinking light means it's on, right? [ He breathes out in a huff, straightening up and reaching for the table at his side. His fingers linger there, pressed against barely visible pieces of paper. ] Okay, so I don't know how to show pictures I've drawn except like this, and I have a few people that aren't here but might show up sometime, so if anyone sees them, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

[ He picks up the first, then shows each of them, one after another. ]

This is my little sister, Hamaji. And this is my older brother, Sousuke. They're the most important that I know about right away. Hamaji wears black dresses with lace and sturdy heeled shoes, and Sousuke is usually dressed like he's part of the church. You can find him in buttondown shirts, too, like this. [ He lets the drawings be lowered to show the white buttondown he's wearing. The pictures are set on the table, and he gathers up the next few. ] Then there might be one of these guys...

This is Kobungo, Genpachi, and Keno. They're the people who'd most likely want to find me. Genpachi might be in or out of military uniform? Kobungo is sometimes in his inn uniform. Keno always tends to dress traditionally.

[ These are set back on the table, his hand lingering on the surface. He looks to his last drawing, seems to frown, then picks it up to show the camera anyway. Once there, the dog is clearly given more depth to their eyes than literally any of the people, and that's... for reasons! ]

Then there's this guy, Rio Satomi, who'll probably be frowning and angry, because if I can't stand being here, he's going to hate it even more. I guess you could tell me if you see him, too.

[ All the pictures are now back on the table, and a crow, who had been off camera for most this, hops in camera and starts prodding at the drawings while Shino addresses the camera. ]

My name's Inuzuka Shino, and you can contact me on this weird phone if you see any of them in the future. Thanks!

[ He smiles, waving at the camera, as the crow picks up a drawing and attempts to fly away, over the camera, leading to Shino darting forward, hitting his comm, sending it flopped flat to film darkness as he calls out for Murasame to drop that, don't eat the drawing, you stupid bird, and then a fumbling click as the feed finally ends. ]

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[Oh... That was. Confusing sounding. Deep, but confusing.]

Ah... they have pointy ears... or animal ears... not the moonblessing, either, just. Naturally.

And they smell sort of... like animals. If that makes sense...

[ He blinks, registering both these facts while thinking about the brothers in oni form. ]

... Uh, not really? What kind of animals?

Ah...

[She tries to think of how to describe it without being rude, absently rubbing at her nose- more sensitive than a human's but not quite as keen as a true beast's.]

Depending on what type they are, I guess? I know some dog demons... and a wind demon... and before I came here I met a water demon... and they all sort of. Smelled like what they were?

[She guesses Murasame would smell like a crow, but- That one's obvious!!]

[ He blinks, since... that makes sense, even if it's not how he's ever scented demons back home. Maybe it was? But most aren't animal related, huh...

He wonders what he and Murasame smell like. One would think bird, but he has a feeling it's more metal and rain and something dark and hulking. This isn't his demon's true form, after all, and no natural animal can stand being around either one of them in close quarters. ]

I guess that makes sense... demons just kind of have their own scent back home. Maybe extra ones depending on what they are, but it's two different things, I think?

Maybe it's different depending on the world? Some of the ones I know are from the same world... and I've met all sorts of people that don't exist in mine now, and sometimes I didn't figure out what they smelled like until I got here. Like "androids", do you know any of those?

[Not that demons and androids were the same in any other way but... this talk of scents, but!]

I found out when I went to a world with it that some of them smell like plastic... but before I found out plastic I couldn't quite figure it out. So many your demons would be like that for me?

[... though she supposed they could test it?]

I guess that makes the most sense with it being different... I've come across so many different kinds of people with different things about them that'd be strange back home. I haven't met anyone who says they're an android... but I know what plastic is, so there's that?

[ Are androids... plastic? Really if he knew it was more like they were advanced robots, much more svelte and singular than the GIGA units they'd traveled the Nothing in, it'd make sense! ]

You'd know as soon as you were around us, so seems like we'll know whenever we meet. Assuming we meet? These picture phones are so weird...

I met a lot back in the group I was with before I came here... and some of them smell like oil and metal, some like this "plastic" stuff... so I guess it's just. Different worlds and all sorts of other reasons.

[Oh-]

I guess I could just sniff for crow? My sense of smell isn't that great, though, I'd have to be kind of near you... but we could meet sometime! This city is so large, but I prefer talking in person to these phones anyway... We don't have them in my world. Or... anything at all like them.

Half the smells around here are enough to give me a headache... how does a city with people who end up with super senses part of the month stand being like this?!

[ Let him complain, even if he looks abashed a moment after. Ah, he doesn't need to complain in front of her! ]

I... don't know if that'd work? The sniffing. Meeting up is probably easier. I definitely think it's better than these picture phones!

No, I totally get it! Mines better than a humans, sure, but anyone better than mine must be so overwhelmed, I thought...

[Complain away!]

Do you want to, then? I don’t mind- you seem nice!

[And it may be naive but... she’s nearly a half ton of muscle, so. Unless someone has shown themselves to be physically stronger she accidentally assumes she can handle most human shaped people if she ended up being too trusting...]

Mine's not necessarily better, just more sensitive to some things...

[ He's Normal. Normal, okay! ]

Huh? Yeah, why not? I don't mind, and you seem nice, too.

[ He smiles at that; on the bright side, he's honest, and he's not much of a danger overall. Not to someone who isn't intending to harm him grievously, at least. ]

I'm not so great at navigating around here yet... where's someplace easy to meet up with someone? Hard to get lost finding?

[and who’d want to do that???]

How about the Greatmoon Groves? On the east side there’s a park with lots of benches?

Greatmoon Groves, east side? I should be able to find my way there.

[ He gives a firm, enthused nod, because getting used to navigating here is a good thing. Especially if he ends up having to track down any of his important people.

Besides, can he really end up missing someone seven feet tall? ]

[Indeed, Konoha is very hard to miss.

The sound of hooves announces her presence in the park before anything else, the sharp sound of unshod hooves on stone path, trotting closer. Curious if she could find him that way Konoha is trying to sniff him out, smelling for bird or crow and trying to pick anything out from the groves itself that she can, scenting the wind every few feet and adjusting her direction, tail alert beneath the fabric work over her rear for modesty amongst humans.

This way? Over... here?

It’s taking a while, but to her credit she’s going in the right direction?]

[ Shino and Murasame have taken to investigating the trees at the east end, Murasame perching on the lower branches and peering down at Shino, who stares back up at him. They're not immediately obvious in the gentle crowd that moves through the area, a shortish young man and the crow disguised by the shadows, and neither of them smell quite like they should‐certainly, warm bodies, one with a featheriness to it, the other with warm skin and a pleasant sort of light floral soap, but also something... dark. Heavy, not quite bloody, never that, but as if there's an implication of it.

Shino waves at Murasame and then collapses onto a bench, tipping his head back to stare up through the branches of the trees overhead. His legs are straight out in front of him, everything about his posture relaxed, until the crow who'd been in the tree hops off and flaps his wings as he flies out, heading toward the figure of Konoha with a caw and a called out: ]

Jinba! Jinba!

[ As he wheels higher overhead. Shino lifts his head, looking in Konoha's direction, and he smiles at the sight of her: larger than life, and she says that she's smaller than others. Incredible! He pushes up to his feet, wearing slacks and a buttondown shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Murasame continues to circle overhead before angling back toward him, coming in to land on Shino's shoulder with practised ease. ]

Konoha!

[ He lifts a hand in a wave of sorts, having called out in what amounts to a shout. This had been about scents, hadn't it? Probably, but he's upwind anyway, and he's curious if not expectant. ]

[In the end, Konoha isn’t quite positive she’d have been able to pull them out of the crowd by scent alone, because in the end it’s the visual register of motion that brings her to Murasame, identity proven once the bird began to caw out her- well, species would do!

There’s too many strange aromas in this city and this park, but when she meets Shino’s gaze and identifies him from the video Konoha is quick to trot the rest of the distance between them, greeting him with a bow that brings her down more to his height.]

It’s nice to meet you in person!

[Unsure how smart a demon he is, Konoha still greets the crow with a smile when she straightens up, adding,]

You, too!

[Before she takes a deep breath, absently trying to identify that strange, darker sort of smell. Like the layer of wet, rotting leaves a few inches down in the woods.]

Thanks for coming out here... it’s way easier to talk this way than on the devices, yeah?

[ Her bow takes him by surprise because people aren't usually so formal with him, and he sure isn't formal with just about anyone, but he thinks for a moment and returns her bow with one not quite so artful or well practised. ]

It's nice meeting you too!

[ Murasame, after being smiled at and greeted, opens his beak to say: ]

Nice to meet you!

[ He likes being included in conversations when he's in the mood for it. Hence returning Konoha's greeting, though he tips his head just so he can eyeball Shino's face right after.

Both of them notice she in no way feels like she's part of the spiritual, less human side of things, which makes sense with what she's said. It's just nice, and fascinating, considering she comes from a place that could be like his world, and yet they clearly have some big difference in peoples going on here. ]

It's way easier. I get that those weird phones can be useful, but it's such a bother... how can people talk on them as often as they do? I see them all over this city!

[Still not quite sure exactly how intelligent Murasame was, and not wanting to potentially offend by asking in front of him, Konoha is just going to keep... looking at them both.]

I still don’t really know, to be honest. I tried to get used to it, but... I still can’t do the writing well, and then there’s just the voice, plus the video...

[She laughs a bit helplessly, scratching behind an ear as a hoof awkwardly slips along her opposite foreleg. As “half” as she might appear, she moved seamlessly, rather fluid even with the size granted by ones waist beginning at what was already many people’s chest or shoulder height.]

There’s nothing at all like this in Echigo, either, so while it’s nice and all... I don’t want to get too used to it. Or spoiled!

[ Murasame seems unaffected either way, though he does watch with marked understanding, if the times when he blinks or responds with subtle body language to what's being said means anything. He's not prone to great speeches... but he's more than aware enough, in his own, far less complicated way. ]

Ah, writing on this? Or writing on the screen keys? It takes me forever, I have to write things by hand in the second thingy that comes up.

[ It's overwhelming, but phones at least exist in his time. So he could connect that much back to the rest, even if he had no reason to use Rio's phone back home.

Her fluid movement is rather distracting, simply because it's so natural and seamless, and he watches with wide eyed wonder. ]

So beautiful...

[ He says, and really, she is? Look at her! Jinba have to be incredible, and her husband has to be a sight to behold. For her sake, he hopes he does meet more, and also for himself to simply get to see more of such lovely people. There's something so much more personable about people-horses than just horses... says the guy who hasn't spent much time around horses, and only's ridden Genpachi's horse, which seems fine with a double-demon load while on duty.

Funny, that. ]

Mm! I know what you mean, though I don't know if I'll miss any of it when I get back home. Other than maybe how easy it is to get word out when you're looking for someone... way better than an ad in the paper. You said Echigo, though? [ He scratches his cheek, fishing after the memory this brings up, eventually. ] Ah, right, part of Niigata now. You've got to be from sometime earlier than me. You're still from the Empire of the Rising Sun, though, right?

[ He's met people telling him about when they stopped being an Empire, and while emotionally, he's not distraught about it either way, he has no idea what's "common" across people's realities. Or even what the words are to describe these things! ]

All the writing, really. Jinba weren’t allowed at the temple school in my village, so...

[As much as the words themselves sound discriminatory, Konoha says them as if it were just an unfortunate little bump in the road, nothing to be upset about or read into. Just an explanation for her jilted literacy when it came to kanji characters beyond ones she recognized from common signs, like “food”, “money”, or “jinba”.

He says “beautiful”, but she honestly doesn’t even think he means her, literally turning around to look at the people passing through the park behind her- and there was a very beautiful woman among them, a Prismal with glistening feathers. Only her husband ever called her “beautiful”... “Cute” she might believe, sure, but.

She turns back with another sheepish expression, one that said “different worlds, who’da thunk!”]

Yeah, Echigo... Tateyama village? I heard it was called Niigata in... the future? But it’s the sixth year of Genna for me... and I don’t think we’re an empire? I think we’re a... what’s the word- shogunate?

...

[ That's... ]

Why are they keeping you out? Was the building too small? That's not hard to fix, it's not like bigger buildings or outside doesn't work most the time.

[ He's frowning, for all she hasn't sounded like this is strange, he finds it weird. He's an orphan, a church orphan, and his education was addressed. Sousuke has helped educate brats before for the church as well, so what makes Jinba any weirder than church orphans?

As it is, the rest flows away from him, and he has no idea her looking around is related to his comment about her—he assumes she hears or scents something odd, but it seems to resolve into nothing with that sheepish expression. ]

Ah, yeah, that's a while ago. I'm from the Taisho era... [ he names some year within it, but considering his canon never bothers with a sensible era or actual date, lets stick vague! ] Back then everything would have been the shogunate, wouldn't it? So much happens in history over a few hundred years... it's crazy.

[ He says, like he remembers much of it; he remembers more than he lets on, but history is long stories about things which usually have little to do with him, so yeah, it's hard to stay focussed! ]

["Taisho" is one she hasn't heard before. She heard... "Heisei" and "Meiji" and some years... someone told her that Genna was in the "1600's" and that they were from the "2000's"...

So she assumes if someone says they're from Japan's future... she has to at least think in the hundreds of years... and she isn't creative enough for that, she thinks. It's mind boggling, hard to imagine... but she has to accept it. Has to nod... She can at least confirm it was the era of the shogunate.

But if he's from the future... Maybe he'll know about the Warring States period. If his world has demons, maybe he can assume what humans are capable of doing to those that aren't like them. She's reluctant to explain it all, the unbelievable cruelties inflicted on her kind that she may not have lived through herself... but she's seen the scars that remained.]

Ah... it's not about the building. The wars ended a few years ago in my world, but... there are still some humans who think poorly of jinba.

[She's still wording it very gently, knowing it was a long, long story, not wanting people to think poorly of her world, but-]

The monk in my village said it was pointless to teach letters to a beast, and that we couldn't reach enlightenment anyway, so, I just didn't go. I don't really need to write back home, though, so it's not so bad.

[ Oh, no. That's more than enough for him to fill in the blanks, and his eyes drift downward, lips thinning out as he listens. There's nothing he can do about it, both a world and hundreds of years removed, but it's not a new behaviour: humans find reasons to other each other. Species who look obviously different? It's even harder to find mob mentality compassion.

Not impossible, because peace is possible, but difficult. And when it comes right down to it, according to Murasame, all demons are a product of humans, and humanity's darkness. The parts of them that most don't want to talk about. ]

I'm sorry that's the kind of situation you had to deal with... and that humans have been so cruel to jinba. Not that apologising changes anything, but... [ he looks up again. ] Wars bring out the worst in too many, and memories are long when they should be short.

No, you don't have to apologize... You're not even from my world.

[She hated to see people feel bad about something they couldn't do anything about, let alone didn't have anything to do with in the first place, and she's quick to rush to say that, waving her hands.]

There's plenty of good humans, too, like my parents... and... it's much better than it used to be, really.

[No more breeding stables, no more Armless being created to be made completely dependent on human masters, no more battles fought astride jinba mounts...]

My boss says... a decade or so more, and it should be even better!

[Once memories begin to fade, and the old guard to die.]

Mmm, yes! There's got to be good people, the world isn't made up of just the mean ones. Like your parents. [ ... she's adopted? ] Most people are good at heart. Even if they mess up, they're not just one thing or the other... but that's why it's frustrating when people choose to be small.

[ When they see reasons not to, when prejudices are shown as being incorrect. He has a personal stake in this, he knows, but he wrestles with the idea as a whole. ]

The longer peace stretches, the more memories can fade... that kind of a thing, huh?

Mmm. I believe that, too.

[Very adopted. Though more than one person has heard that and given her a look that definitely implied they were imagining lewd things between horses and humans, so thank you, sir, for not...]

I hope so, anyway... It's still... really fresh for some people. I know I had it easy... I was too young to remember most of it, but. There are some people who still do... and I know scars don't heal that quickly, but.

[But she tries to smile through it the best she can. Tries to do her part to bridge the gaps.]

It's not like that for your friend, is it... ?

[Murasame, that is...]

video | call out to the afterlife

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