Hunters Moon - IC

[Keeper]

It was still early morning and there was a haze of smoke over the city as people lit fired to feed the masses."
Moon found herself wondering where they got all the wood from?
Despite the interlude and the rather bizarre happenings of yesterday, every step Moon took weighed heavier on her shoulders.
The weight of her failure was burden indeed, and she wondered now how she might ever move on from it?
People at her monastery home and back in the Beast Courts always talked about her as though she was special, she had been given all the best teachings and had received better treatment because of it.

True she was special in that there were so few her kind left in the world, but they spoke about her in terms beyond that. Auspicious was a word she had heard used a few times.

With this special treatment came a lack of something. that being failure.
Not failing to perform during training or getting something wrong at a ceremony, but actually failing at a given task, not achieving the desired outcome.
"Enough!" Moon scolded herself. "Dwelling over the past does no good if one does not use this knowledge to change what they do in the future," she quoted aloud.

A warm wind had picked up, and Moon could smell the woodsmoke mingled with the scents of foods.
Moon found a dirt road and followed it towards the city. Ahead of her a middle aged couple were carrying several bundles between them.

A rickety wagon was approaching, coming from the town. The driver, a grizzled old man with an unfeasibly large and dirty beard growled at the couple as they stepped off the road. "Git out of the goddamned way you stoopid chinese cunts!" the old man growled at them as he approached.
Moon's eyes opened in surprise as a hot, buzzing, tingling sensation shot from her groin to her temples, following the lines of Zhang's markings and her legs buckled.
She fell backwards in shock.
“Stoopid assed chink!" The old man said as he drove the cart passed.

Moon lay there in the dusty ground staring up at the blue sky.
She'd heard the old man and understood every word. She burst out laughing.

[Keeper]

Moon's onward journey into the city was slow. She kept stopping every time she head one of the white men or women speak.

The sensations flowing from her crotch to her temples had started off intense but she became accustomed to it.
She heard people talking about their lives, their families their horses, young Tobys gammy leg and Mr. Owen's wife, whoever Mr. Owen was?
Hundreds of voices whose words floated passed her previously, but now they broke on her like waves and eventually she could barely stand it.

Eventually she made it to the boarding house and her room. The magical pulses had lessened by then, as she had left the English speaking part of the city and entered Chinatown with its familiar languages.
However, the after effects of this enchantment still lingered on. "Damn you, Zhi Zhang!" Moon cursed under her breath.

She made herself comfortable on her bed and sorted out the situation like Ai had shown her.

"Master Tails, are you there?" she asked the empty room when she had composed herself.

[arcanus]

"I think its is time" responded a voice not that of Master Tails
From the corner of her attic room the White Crane Woman stepped from a shalt of sunlight.
'Time for what' Moon replied automatically
"Your purpose, you admonish yourself for failing your training, it is enough, I speak not out of disrespect but with celestial mandate, the Courts of Blood and Beast are consumed in the wars of man, it is they that have lost their purpose".
'The decision has been made by the Jade Court that you will be told your purpose, rather than that duty be left to those clearly incapable"

"You are a Spirit Guard Chuang Moon, a Shifter born with Spirit Blood, your training by Jade Allies of the Beast Courts to prepare you to protect the Spiirt Realms now the doors are open once again to the vices of man"
"There is currently a battle for this City, a battle not just for its bricks and mortar but its spiritual power, the appointed one is important to this battle and your task to find her, all the more important"

[Keeper]

"Spirit Guardian!" Moon spat the words out into the dusty attic room. “I had one person to guard and I couldn't manage that," she did not try to hide her own self loathing from her voice.

"Child, this is not the time for self pitty. You will pick yourself up, dust off your wounded ego and place it back into the box from whence it came. Ego has no place in your Duty." White Crane Woman glared at Moon, her dark foreboding eyes daring Man to continue wallowing in her self-serving despair.
Moon saw the challenge, felt the beads at her neck grow warm and saw too that White Crane Woman's words carried true. This was no place for her self pity and doubt.

"You allow the beast within you to control your actions,” White Crane Woman said, but Moon caught no accusation in the words, only observation.

“I Must maintain balance between beast and man, they must act in harmony so that the best aspects of both can guide my actions,” Moon quoted one of her masters back in China.
White Crane Woman sighed, "You must take this seriously, young Moon.”

"I am," Moon said with all sincerity, "I quote Master Yun to remind myself that I must strive to maintain a balance within myself, to control my more primal urges so that they do not cloud my reasoning. And to listen to them too so that intemal debate and reasoning do not lead to inaction and procrastination." Moon sat on the edge of her bed and rubbed her hands together as though exercising some stiffness from them.
In a move that surprised Moon White Crane Woman sat beside her, took her hand in hers and squeezed gently.
"Moon, my dear Child, for Child you still are, the Courts ask and expect much from you. There are those who believe you to have a destiny, a grand purpose on this world. Not that any of them can tell you what that purpose is, of course. Many of them look to you for results without truly telling you what they expect of you, again, because they don't actually know.”
"When will I know? How can I find out?" Moon pleaded.

"Cheung Moon," White Crane Woman smiled at her. "You are a Spirit Guardian,” she said slowly.
"Take that on face value and strive to protect them you are charged to. The how and the what will come or they will not. But if they do not, you will not need to worry long."
Moon caught the meaning in White Crane Woman's words.

Grow into your role, or die.
It was as though she had stepped through a veil, from a world of grey and uncertainty to a bright world with purpose.
Moon was taken aback by the sudden revelation that her fate was indeed hers to control. And her duty might just mean dying in order to perform it.

"Are you procrastinating, again, Miss Cheung?" The older woman fixed the younger with dark eyes cold as the deep sea.
Moon nodded an apology, stood and gathered her weapon and travel gear.
"I don't even know how to find Hyun's parents," she said gloomily, but then corrected herself. "No matter, I search anew.”

[Keeper]

It was early morning in San Francisco and outside Moon's rented attic room with its wooden boards and single rickety bed, the sun had risen over the hills on the far of Side of the bay into a bright blue, clear sky.
The noise and hubbub of the city filtered though the single window from three storeys below.
Moon stretched and shuffled her naked body into the shaft of sunlight that illuminated a trapezoid patch of her floor, enjoying the heat.

She washed in the bowl of water the landlady refreshed each day.

Dressing, she stopped abruptly when something fell onto the floor with a thud.
It was a pouch, leather rectangle with a drawstring at the opening. Inside were a handful of silver coins and a note,

The note read:

“White man money. Get clothes. Get food, Bújo,”

She smiled, and thanked the empty room. for all his blow and bluster, he was a big softy at heart.

Downstairs she bought breakfast. The food was strange, she heard words like bacon, syrup, eggs. Strange but very nice.

Next she went outside, to the busy street. Horses, wagens, strange steam powered vehicles and so many people. Even Shanghai never looked this busy, she remarked to herself.

Moon closed her eyes and listened to the many voices. Much of what was being said was still a garbled noise. Too much, too soon, she wondered?

After a moment though, the incomprehensible language became words that she could understand. She realised that Zhangs ritual didn't make her understand the Language per-say, but rather when they spoke English she heard
Josean.

Moon walked down the street, an old man made eye contact and she said “Good morning.”

Again, she thought them in Josean but her voice sounded the words in English, albeit awkward and heavily accented, her mouth not used to formulating such sounds.

"What to do now?" she muttered to herself.

[Keeper]

It had been several days since Huangs death and the attack on the fishing village, Moon had been quiet, the Song-Gnoshi had sent her to find and protect someone, yet all that had occurred was death.

Her spirit companions had remained close but said nothing, only Tails had said simply meditate and think upon matters, life is not always fair or just nor a happy ending for most.

[Keeper]

Moon awoke on the fifth day suddenly feeling better.
Her dreams had been filled with thoughts of tiger and shadow, as though her bonded spirits were reaffirming themselves.

Ah sprang from the bed, dressed quickly and said, "I am going out. Do not worry, I will not be getting engaged in anything today. Today is about starting again.

She visited the dining room and ate then she stepped out into the bright morning sunshine.

The streets of San Francisco were, as usual, Packed with people, horses, wagons, both traditional and Ether powered.
The latter intrigued Moon incredibly. Her early life, growing up in the enclave on the slopes of a long extinct volcano deep in the forest of northern Josean and southern China had exposed her to the more traditional modes of transport; horses, carts, boats and her own two feet. Her first encounter with the steam powered wagon with their etheric cores, was in Shanghai.

She had thought it a demon driven thing until her escort and mentor had explained about the use of ether in modern machinery and contraptions.

And she discovered there was this unnerving and scary place that her mentor described as the Scope. It sounded similar and yet incredibly alien compared to the Astral realm of the spirits.

As Moon moved through the crowds, the English words from untold numbers of conversations washed over her in a constant flow. She felt the damned heat rise within her, to the point where she had to bolt down a deserted alley and cover her ears while crossing her legs. "Damn that Ji Zhing!" she said aloud.

Moon spent the day walking the streets of San Francisco, getting her bearings and a feel for the different areas.

The sun was beginning to set when she returned to her lodgings, a better understanding of the city, and she had noticed that Ji Zhing's enchantment no longer effected her.

[Keeper]

As Moon entered the boarding house she stepped into the smoke filled salon.
There were a lot of people in this evening, some whom Moon recognised as residents, some were complete strangers.
Conversation among the congregation died the instant she entered and Moon felt momentarily conscious of everybody's eyes upon her.
Many also recognised her and instantly went back to their conversations, but she was aware of more than a few eyes remaining on her.
She picked her way across the dining room and headed up the stairs to the guest rooms.

[Keeper]

Her room was quiet, except for the contented snore coming from the grizzly looking old man asleep on her bed. An empty whiskey bottle lay on the wooden floor beside the bed.
Tails was sitting in the window sill watching the people below pass by. He looked over as Moon entered and yawned.
"Sorry I have been out so long," she said quietly so as not to wake Bujo.
"Did you achieve what you set out to do this morning?" Tails asked.
"What is it you think I set out to do?"
"Get your bearings. Reset your compass. Find direction?"
"Yes, and no. I got my bearings, in a more literal sense. My compass is resetting. But direction? That I must speak with you all."
Tails hopped down from the windowsill and up on to the bed. He jumped up on to Bujo's head.
"Wake up you stinking drunken son of a whore!" It yelled.
Bujo floundered around on the bed in bewilderment, like a man who had just been drenched in ice cold water
"What? What? Hells is going on?"
"Lady Moon has something to say." Tails sat at the end of the bed.
Bujo snarled at the cat but slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position.
"What?" he looked at Moon.
"I need help. What should I do now?" Moon asked looking from Bujo to Tails and back again.