Notes of tiredness
Today we went to the old college town then backtracked for more shopping in the smaller and more familiar state capital where my church is. I had one last library book to return (having scanned the one story I needed out of it for when and if I get back to my project of watching and reviewing Aoi Bungaku) which necessitated the trip, but after offering holiday cards (offer still open, look in my recent entries), I realized I didn't have any, and the hippie-inflected downtown area seemed like the perfect place to find good ones; indeed the first place I went, the peaceworks store, had something just lovely.
As for the rest, I'm trying to avoid buying even books and things I would otherwise want until after Christmas, and most of what makes it onto my wishlist isn't in stores anyway (Christmas convinced me to wait on Ooku #4; I told myself if they had Hero Tales #2 I'd get it, but I've only seen that in a store like one time...). Eating out choices were, as usual, reduced to the least common denominator of a crummy buffet.
Tomorrow I go to the dentist, which I'm looking forward to because one of the coil springs in my braces has rotated just wrong so that the end of it will hook the inside of my lip without liberal application of wax, and if I eat anything I have to bite off (like a sandwich), the said wax will be pushed out of place resulting in less pain than it sounds like, but still somehow an appetite-killing ordeal.
On a random note, the other day I finally did try going back to Hulu and watching Hero Tales, but actually I didn't make it through the first episode; not sure why. The first volume of the manga seems kind of schlocky, like as though someone said to themself "I think I'll create a shonen series of limited scope" and proceeded to competently do so, but there's some kind of emergent magic (to say "alchemy" would be cruel in this context) that just isn't there. (Let's see, so far, the hero is a standard issue hothead who I have no particular affection for, his sister has a kind of slapsticky power but doesn't rise to the awesomeness common to FMA's women... Oh, here's a bit-villain psycho lesbian who apparently doesn't wash her hair, that's certainly creative...) I still like the manga enough that I want to see it play out (see above), but somehow the anime, with the popping veins and the spurting black blood and the ridiculous thrown-through-stone-walls fight scene as the very first thing that happens, came across as much dumber. I should go back some other time and give it another chance... But I might want to read the comic first.
It might also be the mood I've been in. For as voracious as I was not long ago, I just don't feel like watching or otherwise consuming much of anything. Back when I was that voracious, I liked to think that it was a charging process and would eventually enable an output phase, and now I might like to think that has come to pass, but...
Writing has been slower than I'd like. However, I do have something done since last post, so here it goes...
Miboshi watched from the trees along with the black cloaked scout as the Sei of Suzaku ascended the pass, some distance short of where the other Sei of Seiryuu were waiting. Even the ones he hadn’t seen before, just the lightest touch of their minds was enough to identify them. It was Nuriko leading the oxen drawing a covered cart, and of course he knew Chichiri and Tasuki following it. Inside, the scout sensed four presences, but thought some of them seemed strange as Miboshi listened in on his mind.
I see. You were almost clever, Miboshi thought---they were even ready for Amiboshi, with cotton in their ears. The Miko with the Shinzahou, the Emperor, and Tamahome, the one liable to his control, were somewhere else; the cart was there to obscure their absence, and Chichiri was using some sort of magic to try to cover it over, giving the black cloak false impressions of chi inside it. For Miboshi, however, the ploy was pitifully transparent. Reaching telepathically into it, he found only one mind, one fairly radiating fear that the ruse would be discovered.
There’s only one in the cart; go back and report to Nakago, he telepathically told the black cloak, who bowed quietly and vanished. This was an unexpected boon; even if Nakago knew that the Suzaku Seishi were playing him for a fool, the earlier demand that he kill Chichiri would force him to take the bait anyway. Miboshi was aware that Nakago was not perfectly under his control, but he didn’t really want the Shinzahou either, so he didn’t have a compelling reason to rebel at this, and it was quite certain that he wouldn’t order any of the others to do such dirty work. No, sending the scout back with that news practically ensured that Nakago would knowingly allow the trick, and catching him out at it would have its use...
Only one thing remained. Again he reached out to the one human mind inside the cart---Chiriko. His agitation made him the best target for the same trick he had used on Mitsukake on the ship, sending him one sudden urging that could be mistaken for his own idea.
Don’t forget one of them can read minds! You absolutely must not think of where they are!
Predictably, Chiriko’s immediate attempt to seize the knowledge and force it away brought it right into plain sight: the winding mountain stream on the map, confirmation of exactly who had taken that route...
Miboshi withdrew with a satisfied smile. All too easy...
*******
The cart seemed to crawl up the pass at a snail’s pace as Chiriko rode inside, helplessly thinking of ways the plan could go horribly wrong and blaming himself for having thought of it to begin with. Only at the last minute had he thought to load the cart with bags of grain so that it wouldn’t be noticeably lighter than four people should make it. Just the other day Chichiri had said that any trained magician could sense chi, and she had told him she would try to cover for it, placing an empty open clamshell inside the cart for reasons he didn’t entirely understand, but maybe what she did wouldn’t be enough; maybe having to do it would tire her going into the battle. A sudden realization that with Miboshi there, even his own thoughts could betray them bent the worry around into a frantic cycle until it was all he could do not to clutch his head and scream; even the hair on Tama’s tail stood on end.
“They know we’re coming no da,” Chichiri said from beyond the curtain at the rear, muffled by the cotton in his ears but still understandable. “I felt one of them in the woods; they just came and went, so I think they were scouting no da...”
Chiriko could only hope against hope that it hadn’t been Miboshi. As they continued on, the others must be bracing themselves for the battle ahead, but what could he do in those kinds of situations? For a long time it was just the smothered crunching of the wheels over the ground, hoofbeats, footsteps...
“Just ahead on the left slope no da,” Chichiri warned.
Perhaps another minute or two went by before Chiriko thought he heard the distant notes of a flute. It’s about to start...
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡
As for the rest, I'm trying to avoid buying even books and things I would otherwise want until after Christmas, and most of what makes it onto my wishlist isn't in stores anyway (Christmas convinced me to wait on Ooku #4; I told myself if they had Hero Tales #2 I'd get it, but I've only seen that in a store like one time...). Eating out choices were, as usual, reduced to the least common denominator of a crummy buffet.
Tomorrow I go to the dentist, which I'm looking forward to because one of the coil springs in my braces has rotated just wrong so that the end of it will hook the inside of my lip without liberal application of wax, and if I eat anything I have to bite off (like a sandwich), the said wax will be pushed out of place resulting in less pain than it sounds like, but still somehow an appetite-killing ordeal.
On a random note, the other day I finally did try going back to Hulu and watching Hero Tales, but actually I didn't make it through the first episode; not sure why. The first volume of the manga seems kind of schlocky, like as though someone said to themself "I think I'll create a shonen series of limited scope" and proceeded to competently do so, but there's some kind of emergent magic (to say "alchemy" would be cruel in this context) that just isn't there. (Let's see, so far, the hero is a standard issue hothead who I have no particular affection for, his sister has a kind of slapsticky power but doesn't rise to the awesomeness common to FMA's women... Oh, here's a bit-villain psycho lesbian who apparently doesn't wash her hair, that's certainly creative...) I still like the manga enough that I want to see it play out (see above), but somehow the anime, with the popping veins and the spurting black blood and the ridiculous thrown-through-stone-walls fight scene as the very first thing that happens, came across as much dumber. I should go back some other time and give it another chance... But I might want to read the comic first.
It might also be the mood I've been in. For as voracious as I was not long ago, I just don't feel like watching or otherwise consuming much of anything. Back when I was that voracious, I liked to think that it was a charging process and would eventually enable an output phase, and now I might like to think that has come to pass, but...
Writing has been slower than I'd like. However, I do have something done since last post, so here it goes...
Miboshi watched from the trees along with the black cloaked scout as the Sei of Suzaku ascended the pass, some distance short of where the other Sei of Seiryuu were waiting. Even the ones he hadn’t seen before, just the lightest touch of their minds was enough to identify them. It was Nuriko leading the oxen drawing a covered cart, and of course he knew Chichiri and Tasuki following it. Inside, the scout sensed four presences, but thought some of them seemed strange as Miboshi listened in on his mind.
I see. You were almost clever, Miboshi thought---they were even ready for Amiboshi, with cotton in their ears. The Miko with the Shinzahou, the Emperor, and Tamahome, the one liable to his control, were somewhere else; the cart was there to obscure their absence, and Chichiri was using some sort of magic to try to cover it over, giving the black cloak false impressions of chi inside it. For Miboshi, however, the ploy was pitifully transparent. Reaching telepathically into it, he found only one mind, one fairly radiating fear that the ruse would be discovered.
There’s only one in the cart; go back and report to Nakago, he telepathically told the black cloak, who bowed quietly and vanished. This was an unexpected boon; even if Nakago knew that the Suzaku Seishi were playing him for a fool, the earlier demand that he kill Chichiri would force him to take the bait anyway. Miboshi was aware that Nakago was not perfectly under his control, but he didn’t really want the Shinzahou either, so he didn’t have a compelling reason to rebel at this, and it was quite certain that he wouldn’t order any of the others to do such dirty work. No, sending the scout back with that news practically ensured that Nakago would knowingly allow the trick, and catching him out at it would have its use...
Only one thing remained. Again he reached out to the one human mind inside the cart---Chiriko. His agitation made him the best target for the same trick he had used on Mitsukake on the ship, sending him one sudden urging that could be mistaken for his own idea.
Don’t forget one of them can read minds! You absolutely must not think of where they are!
Predictably, Chiriko’s immediate attempt to seize the knowledge and force it away brought it right into plain sight: the winding mountain stream on the map, confirmation of exactly who had taken that route...
Miboshi withdrew with a satisfied smile. All too easy...
*******
The cart seemed to crawl up the pass at a snail’s pace as Chiriko rode inside, helplessly thinking of ways the plan could go horribly wrong and blaming himself for having thought of it to begin with. Only at the last minute had he thought to load the cart with bags of grain so that it wouldn’t be noticeably lighter than four people should make it. Just the other day Chichiri had said that any trained magician could sense chi, and she had told him she would try to cover for it, placing an empty open clamshell inside the cart for reasons he didn’t entirely understand, but maybe what she did wouldn’t be enough; maybe having to do it would tire her going into the battle. A sudden realization that with Miboshi there, even his own thoughts could betray them bent the worry around into a frantic cycle until it was all he could do not to clutch his head and scream; even the hair on Tama’s tail stood on end.
“They know we’re coming no da,” Chichiri said from beyond the curtain at the rear, muffled by the cotton in his ears but still understandable. “I felt one of them in the woods; they just came and went, so I think they were scouting no da...”
Chiriko could only hope against hope that it hadn’t been Miboshi. As they continued on, the others must be bracing themselves for the battle ahead, but what could he do in those kinds of situations? For a long time it was just the smothered crunching of the wheels over the ground, hoofbeats, footsteps...
“Just ahead on the left slope no da,” Chichiri warned.
Perhaps another minute or two went by before Chiriko thought he heard the distant notes of a flute. It’s about to start...
‡ original post at Dreamwidth ‡