D7EM, Get Good with the Gods (Open)

[Seppun Urusai]

Urusai makes his way to the Shrine where he has worked and donated, offering a kind word to Saito if he's there and his prayers whether or not he is...

[Shiba Kuroneko]

Kuroneko, like every morning, came to the temple. He saw the imperial that seemed to be looking for someone or maybe just offering his prayers. The Shiba nodded to the man even if he was unnoticed.

[Seppun Urusai]

He's noticed, and Urusai rises from his devotions to offer a greeting:

"Son of the Phoenix, have you eaten rice today?"

His tone is warm, his expression open.

"I'd hate to think you'd not, or that you were unwell."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

He heard the man address him and bowed. "I am fine and Inari makes sure that I am blessed. That is why I try to come every morning seeking their blessing." Kuroneko nodded to the Seppun.

[Seppun Urusai]

"I'm glad of it," Urusai replies.

He adds "Have matters improved here? I know it's only been a few days, and there is more to do, but it is always a help to know if things, well, help."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"Slowly people have stopped coming... I am not sure if I should continue my efforts to keep this place alive." He sighed heavily. "I know it is not my place but... yeah.... I would like to think that this is why I am really here for."

[Seppun Urusai]

"A priest called to tend a shrine?" Urusai says, then grins. "Who would ever have foreseen such a thing?" he adds, his tone flat, sarcastic--but, with the grin, the jest is clear.

[Shiba Kuroneko]

Kuroneko chuckled. "Who would have guessed?" He nodded "I guess my mother's influence is taking over." He sighed. "I miss her guidance."

[Seppun Urusai]

"Distance?" Urusai asks. "Or something more?"

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"Yeah... She taught me to pray everyday to Inari. To always keep Inari's wrath at bay... for the Frost of winter is nothing compared with the frost that Inari no kami can bring." He looked at the small shrine with his offering of rice.

[Seppun Urusai]

"The Seppun heed such tales," Urusai replies and makes room for the Shiba to offer devotions, if that is his wish.

"Few would not, I think."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

He did place his offering to the Fortune of rice. "The Sppun are the ones to make Wards for the different spirits that may attack the imperial city, right?"

[Seppun Urusai]

"So much is known," Urusai replies. "Though I'm not versed in the specifics, not being a priest, myself."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"I was just wondering... what kind of spiritual stories you have heard of those who do such work. Seems you know some." He offered a short prayer and turned to the Seppun.

[Seppun Urusai]

Urusai gives a bark of laughter, delighting in the question.

"Oh, there are many, many stories of the Seppun priesthood," he says. "Indeed, our oldest stories tell of them, for the Seppun prayed to Lady Sun before the Kami fell, even. It's part of what drove the first Lady Seppun to swear fealty to the First Emperor, in the earliest days.

"Of what kind of thing would you hear? I'll tell it if I can."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"I don't really know any. So your pick would be very much appreciated." He nodded.

[Seppun Urusai]

"Let me see," Urusai says, then launches into a tale...

A young maiden named Dokushinko was from her earliest days highly devoted to her faith and her love for the Fortunes and the wisdom of Shinsei, so she asked the Fortunes to protect her virginity. Even when she was betrothed to a man named Barerian, on her wedding day she begged the Fortunes again to protect her virginity and sang to them, "O FOrtunes, keep my soul and my body unspotted, lest I be confounded." On her wedding night, Dokushinko asked Barerian to understand her decision to not consummate the marriage, and informed him that her body is protected by one of the Fortunes, and if he was to touch or love her in fleshly wise, the Fortune would slay him on the spot. However, if he protects Dokushinko well, the Fortune would also love him and appreciate him for his purity. When Barerian asked to see the Fortune, Dokushinko told him that he must follow the Rightwise Path and get blessed by the enlightened Toshi.

After his blessing, during which he saw one of the Fortunes, who appeared as an old man in pure white garments, Barerian returned home and saw his wife’s Fortune. The Fortune gifted him and Dokushinko with two crowns of lilies and roses, and asked that they guard the crowns with pure body and unspotted thought. The lilies and roses from the crown were fetched by the Fortune from the fields of Tengoku itself. Barerian then asked his brother, Hamite, to come and accept the Fortunes’ blessings and know the truth, so he could also be protected by the Fortune. The Fortune then agreed and called his brother to come.

Upon his arrival, Barerian convinced Hamite to get blessed by the enlightened Toshi and renounce his indolence and indulgence. Dokushinko referred to them as nothing but vain things, dumb and deaf, and so Hamite went with his brother to the enlightened Toshi, and got blessed, which allowed him also to see the Fortune.

Eventually, the daimyo heard of this and ordered his officers to take the three and to behead anyone who does not make a sacrifice. On his way, Saidai, one of his officers, started crying and was bidden the executioners to his house to hear the blessed trio. From their preaching, they rooted out the false faith from the executioners, and made them devout followers of Shinsei. Dokushinko blessed them all together, and told Barerian and Hamite that they had served well, and preserved their faith, and in order to save their lives, they should do the sacrifice. However, Barerian and Hamite did not care for this, and in their unwavering devotion, fell to their knees, ready to lose their heads. When Saidai saw this, he told many others, in turn converting many of them, and also losing his life to his oppressor, the daimyo.

After Dokushinko buried the three of them, the daimyo sent for some of his men to seize her and have her taken, but they were also converted by her preaching. After hearing this, the daimyo ordered her to be brought before him, and in a trial, questioned her about her faith. Dokushinko told him that she did not fear his power, and that she would neither make a sacrifice nor renounce her faith. Dokushinko greeted a man with such power as a foolish creature. She stated that the daimyo was in all things an ignorant officer and a vain judge. Enraged by her boldness and steadfast faith, the daimyo commanded his men to bring her to the bathhouse and "burn her right in a bath of red flames.

She laid in the bath for the day and night however her body, representative of her unwavering faith, remained unharmed that she sat cold and felt no pain; it did not make her sweat even a drop. So the daimyo sent for one of his men to slay her and kill her. The executioner struck her thrice in her neck, and no more because it was against the law, yet she still did not die. Dokushinko stayed like that, half-dead, with her neck cut open for three days, preaching and converting those who gathered around her. She finally died after the third day, and after she died, the blessed Toshi buried her body with Barerian and Hamite, and it is said that the Emperor of the day, moved by their steadfast faith, named them as Fortunes in reward for it.

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"That is most interesting story, Seppun sama." He smiled. "It is sad that those who are devoted to a fortune are seen sometimes as unfavorable people."

[Seppun Urusai]

"It is unfortunate that some cannot reconcile their duties to their lords and to the Fortunes," Urusai agrees. "But perhaps that is merely the burden of an earlier life working itself out in the present one."

[Shiba Kuroneko]

"Perhaps, but one can get easily distracted by matters of the mind or the soul." He looked at the temple and sighed. "A soul that is broken by what it duties are."