damned_institute | Dayshift 22: Sun Room (Evening Shift)

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Dayshift 22: Sun Room (Evening Shift)

It was probably a good thing Penelo listened to that weird silver haired man (she never really did get his name, did she?), because her short investigation of the Bulletin Board revealed that she wasn't alone after all. Larsa and Gabranth were here too, for whatever reason.

Penelo still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the concept that Gabranth was alive, when she had heard his dying words and had later attended his funeral back at Archades. Basch had taken his place since then, and it just boggled her. How could Gabranth have returned to life? There was no force in Ivalice that could do that.

Then again, it looked like she wasn't in Ivalice anymore.

Penelo sighed, seating herself at a table near the bulletin board as she waited for Larsa and Gabranth to arrive. Hopefully, Larsa would have some answers; she never doubted his ability to dig up information, no matter what the situation. Even so, what did they get themselves into?

"At least Vaan isn't here," Penelo reminded herself. She had gone from frantically searching for Vaan to praising the Gods that he hadn't been captured in this prison.

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"I count those years," Waka pointed out, with something approaching seriousness again. "It was quite a long time to be bored without you around, after all."

Waka nodded in agreement. "Thankfully," he echoed. "But ended badly? Our journey is far from over, ma cherie, for better or worse. Whatever made you think it was?"

Since when had Waka taken to saying such things?

The goddess sobered a little as well, yet she couldn't quite hide the amusement that danced in her eyes. Ears should have been perked and frisky, a tail should have been wagging, but in the absence of that she'd just make do. "You sound like you truly missed me." She held her hand over her chest, that grin never leaving her face, as she added, "Is that how you could keep faith in the gods, even when the rest of the world had lost that faith? Knowing that I'd awaken one hundred years later?"

At that question, though, Amaterasu frowned and pawed at the man's shoulder, staring at him far more intently than a human should have. "What do you mean, it's far from over? We both went into the Ark of Yamato, we both fought there on the Day of Darkness. Unless this place is part of that journey...?"

"How could a friend of the gods be anything but faithful?" Waka smiled back at her with a hint of mischievousness in his own eyes. "You'd never have let me hear the end of it." Then, more seriously, he added, "Besides, how could I not have faith in you for a hundred years when you had done as much for me?"

At Amaterasu's next statement, however, Waka went still. The Ark? The Day of Darkness? Both had been lying for them at the end of their journey - their journey in Nippon, at least - but both had been a long ways off according to his prophecies. Amaterasu, when he'd left her, still hadn't been quite ready...

And Waka knew he hadn't been in the Ark himself since he'd crashed it, over two hundred years ago...largely because it was frozen solid within Laochi Lake.

"Ma cherie," he said slowly, almost gently - he wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but when dealing with the gods anything could and did happen and he didn't believe for a second that she didn't know what she was talking about, only that there was some discordance here, "when I arrived here, you'd only just defeated Ninetails. We were nowhere near the Ark, and if we had been I would never have let you board it because you were hardly ready to face what lies within when I left you."

Suddenly the warmth of their meeting was chilled.

"...I was afraid that I'd never be able to speak to you. You had faith in me, but you're the only one. The sun's cold here, it isn't related to my power any longer. Can't you feel it? This place feels cursed; maybe that's why I don't have my powers any longer."

Her lips curled into a frown, and suddenly she rested her head on Waka's shoulder, only just keeping herself from curling up on his lap or something else possibly embarrassing. Not that she minded, but Waka had brought it up. "I had all of the Brush Techniques, and after defeating Ninetails, his dark spirit retreated to the north, just like the other demon lords. At your prompting I went to Kamui, and there we discovered the Ark, frozen inside of Laochi Lake. But with the sacred sword Kotone, the Lake was thawed and we could go inside."

"You and me only; it wouldn't let Issun in with us." Her head drooped at that, her body going slack at the memory. While the Wandering Artist had sometimes been a pain, he had been a true companion and parting had been extremely difficult. "Inside was the source of all the darkness. I was too slow in fighting the other demons, so by the time I came across you fighting with that demon, the Day of Darkness had arrived. And you protected me when I was helpless."

Now was the time when Ammy licked the side of Waka's face, obviously distraught and yet glad at the same time. "I'll never forget what you did for me. But even you couldn't protect me forever; it hit you, and you fell into the darkness below. I thought that you'd died. You shouldn't have scared me like that!"

"I have faith in you," Waka corrected her, a little baffled. For one, that she seemed to think anything could prevent his having faith in her (or at least relegate it to the past tense) was inexplicable, as was her statement about her power. She still had the red markings on her skin; he'd thought that they vanished when she lost her power. "Mais oui, there is something wrong about this place...it doesn't feel like any curse I've ever encountered, however. And it's not just godly powers that are being suppressed; I can't seem to summon Pillow Talk here." To say nothing of the fact that someone had apparently subdued him long enough to take his beautiful clothes and his mask...

Normally he would never have admitted such a failing on his part, but Amaterasu remembered him now, was his friend again. Posing was no longer ~~quite as~~ important.

He didn't mind her leaning against him; hadn't he done much the same to her statue over those one hundred years? "At my prompting..." he mused aloud. In fact, prompting her to head north had been the very thing he'd been intending to do next, just before he'd woken up here...it didn't make sense. It was as if this Amaterasu were from the future, which was - not actually as impossible as it sounded, as he'd already foreseen her little excursion through the Spirit Gate in Kamui which would send her back in time one hundred years.

Except, of course, that she hadn't been to Kamui at all yet. Not the Amaterasu he knew.

"It sounds like you've gotten ahead of me," he murmured as he continued to listen to her story. Issun's not being allowed onto the Ark; now that was a detail too accurate to have been made up, even if he'd thought the goddess the type to lie. Only those prepared to accept their destiny, whatever it might be, could board the Ark, and Issun was firmly entrenched in denial. And there was no way Amaterasu could have known about that without having gone to the Ark herself, because in all the two hundred-plus years he'd known her, Waka had never mentioned that detail to her - before she'd met Issun, it was unimportant, and afterwards it hadn't yet been time to reveal such things.

Waka wasn't sure what surprised him more - the possibility that he'd died or the lick to his cheek from a beautiful goddess. (Granted, the lick was from a beautiful goddess who'd spent upwards of two hundred years as a wolf, but it was still not something he was accustomed to.) "Moi, die?" he inquired, genuinely astonished. "And who would look after you if I did?" He fought down the instinct to pat her head; perhaps her wolfishness wasn't just a trait she was having trouble shaking off.

Still, he felt rather uneasy. The chain of events she was describing sounded accurate enough, playing out pretty much as he had expected them to...and the thought of him possibly dying was hardly a pleasant one, particularly since if the situation arose he wouldn't change his reactions in the slightest, even knowing what they led to.

Was it possible he had done all these things, and somehow forgotten?

When was the last time that Amaterasu had been this confused?

Amaterasu drooped against Waka's shoulder, and it wasn't difficult at all to imagine white ears limp as they should have been. Even her voice was a canine whine. "If you can't use that sword, then neither of us have our powers. Maybe we're in one of the Yomi Hells?" It would make sense; wasn't that where gods went when they died? Her spirit had obviously not remained in the Ark, and it wasn't the Celestial Plain, so where else could they be?

She did perk up at his astonishment, and Amaterasu couldn't quite keep from scrunching her nose and huffing at him. "A certain someone didn't tell me about the Spirit Gate of Kamui; meeting me again was weird." To be honest, Amaterasu had almost felt inadequate when compared to her past self. And she had realized, at that point, why Waka had been so disappointed with their first meeting; Shiranui had power beyond what Amaterasu had been able to obtain, even with all of the Brush Techniques, and remembering how she had sacrificed herself...

...she shook her head, the motion passing down her shoulders and back by force of habit. "Nobody would look after me. That must be why I'm here. I fought against Yami after you were knocked into the Darkness, and I thought I had won. But... I hadn't. It drained all of my powers again, and I couldn't get them back. I didn't have the praise for it."

Now she drew up her knees to her chest, falling silent with that confession. The crimson marks on her face were faint and dark, a deep almost-brown red, like dried blood or ancient paint. Compared to the vibrant crimson it was supposed to be, it was obvious that something was wrong with her; even if her words and posture didn't put that point across. But how else could she put it? Waka was the only one who believed in her any longer. Issun had obviously lost his faith when he couldn't join them in the Ark, and no one else seemed to believe in her strongly enough either. She was a goddess with only one follower, how could events have devolved that far?

"I'm not sure I would have the dubious honor of being sent to the same place as dead gods," Waka observed absently. "Much less all the other humans here, who seem nice enough. I don't believe this is any hell at all, and if it were then there would be considerably more of a demon presence here than anything I sense. So perhaps we haven't died, but have simply been sent somewhere else..."

He tapped Amaterasu's scrunched nose lightly with his flute. "I only just became aware that you would be going through the Spirit Gate a few days ago, Amaterasu. I haven't had the chance to tell you until now in any case."

Watching the sun goddess curl up then in her despair, drawing into herself, was like watching the sun disappear into dark clouds. Waka didn't believe there was anyone, upon seeing that, who wouldn't have tried to cheer her up again, and he was no exception. "Now what sort of way is that for a goddess to behave, ma cherie?" he chided her gently. "If you don't have enough believers, then you will simply have to make some. As I recall, there was a goddess, whose name I can't quite recall, who vanquished a great demon and restored life and beauty to almost all of Nippon using nothing more than her tail. Surely if she could do that, you can convince as many people as you need to do something as simple as to have faith in you."

Who could say what would happen between the two of them?

Amaterasu blinked and tilted her head to the side, stirring once more. This wasn't like the Iwato Cave, where she had retreated and sealed herself in, but it was something to that same effect. It was hard to have faith in herself when it felt like the entire world didn't believe in her, but if Waka claimed that it was possible, then she could force herself once more. She'd gone through long periods of spiritual despair, after all; she could do this.

But, as always, there were difficulties, and now that she was confident the prophet wouldn't be flying off, she didn't feel bad about asking them. "Never have I been this weakened. Without the Celestial Brush-" and here she pouted at Waka, arms crossing and eyes narrowing, as it was certainly more dignified than a simple tail!- "I can't use my Brush Techniques, and without the Divine Instruments I can't banish evil. I can't even bite like I used to. Without some proof of divinity, how can I claim to be divine?"

Even as she said these words, however, her mind was whirling. There had to be some way to accomplish her goals! If Waka believed she was a goddess, then a goddess she would be once more! Somehow, somehow she would accomplish what he hadn't quite said yet; the Celestial Plain was where she belonged, and she would shine upon the world again. Then the darkness could be banished, even from this cursed place.

Waka actually laughed at that. "Why do I need to tell a goddess this?" he asked aloud before turning to Amaterasu. "Divinity isn't something you claim. You are divine or you aren't. And you, ma cherie - Okami Amaterasu - are divine, whether or not you have the powers that generally come with it." He tilted his head in a way that was oddly reminiscent of her own habit of doing the same. "And whether or not you deserve to be divine depends upon your actions, which is to say that lying around and moping aren't particularly godlike activities. Did you need to prove you were a goddess to do godly things in Nippon, or did you perform miracles even without any way to prove that you were the cause because they needed to be performed?"

He finally gave in to temptation, reaching out and patting her head in what to a normal human would be condescending, but to a former wolf could be regarded as a display of affection. "Have I ever steered you wrong?"

Was she a goddess, or was she more a cuddly wolf with a spark of the divine?

For a human it was condescending, but for the still quite-canine Amaterasu it was enough to make her smile and nuzzle into the petting, and once more it was easy to imagine the tail and ears that should have been wagging and perked, respectively.

Which, of course, meant that her tilting her head- in the same direction as Waka, as though they were looking in a mirror- and her mouth opening slightly looked even more ridiculous than usual. "But I've been divine ever since I was washed out of Father's eye." Which, she admitted, wasn't the most dignified way of entering the world, but at least she hadn't been washed from Izanagi's nose. Or any other part of his body. Yuck.

Still, as Waka spoke, Amaterasu knew he was right. Even from the very beginning, she had performed miracles no matter whether they were recognized as her own or not. She liked the praise- it was warmer than the noonday sun and sweeter than the sweetest offerings- but when it came down to it, she really did perform miracles and help others because that's who she was. And without a voice, she'd never been able to trumpet it herself... though she had nearly eaten Issun a couple of times for falsely attributing her powers to others. Not that he hadn't deserved it...

...regardless, the goddess shook the doubts from her as though they were so many drops of water. It was obvious that she was needed in this place, and equally as obvious that, no matter where she was, she was a goddess and should act accordingly. "No," she answered with a brighter smile, "you've always been right, so how about it? What do you think I should do now?"

There was a pause, and then a half-teasing, half-chiding, half-pleading (only a goddess could count as more than one person for these purposes) look was directed at Waka. There was so much food to eat, people to see, and she had just now gotten a human body, too! "And I hope it's not another 'wait for one hundred years' prophecy."

Waka laughed again. Having Amaterasu in a form that could actually converse with him was a nice change, and having her remember him was even better. It was lonely having a friend who'd forgotten you, and/or who couldn't talk. "Well, I only have one prophecy for you at the moment..."

Brandishing his flute dramatically, he waved it through the air once before bringing it down to tap it on Amaterasu's nose. "I foresee a fulfilling experience! Try not to hurt yourself, ma cherie."

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Dayshift 22: Sun Room (Evening Shift)

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