YANAGI: Guardian Deity of the Great Forest - Prologue (Patreon)

This is the opening part of the story which sets up the elements of the world, while providing some lore and the main concepts of the story.

I will have at least the first chapter (but hopefully more) available to read by the end of the week.

Here is the transcript:

-----------------------

The world and its contents are built from a flow of energy, a churning whirlpool of souls. Whether a tiny pebble or a mountain, whether a lowly insect or a Deity, this energy is the essence by which they exist. It is said that some places or beings, like natural wonders or ancient trees, have a surplus of this energy, which in turn leads to them being fertile grounds for new life to be birthed or for a Deity to manifest.

The flea traversed the vast forest of coarse hairs, searching for the best spot to dig-in its needle-like mouth and harvesting the lifeblood of its host: a rat subsiding in the streets of a human settlement. Many of its brethren species subsist on the same host, but untold more exist within the brood of the rat. The flea does not know that its life is short, for in its mind is only the thought of passing on its lineage and to that end it seeks to feed and grow. It does not feel the moment that a mop swings down on its host, landing directly onto it and squishing it to death.

As a life ends, its essence moves on, joining into the whirlpool of souls, before a new vessel is found, wherein it can once again take hold.

The fieldmouse runs through the tall grass. It has yet to grow to full maturity, but it has no choice but to flee its cosy nest alongside its siblings, as a fox has found it and killed their mother. It does not think about the future, for the present is too overwhelming. Like most of its kind, it will live a short anxious life, always fleeing threats, while trying to find a mate and siring its own offspring, so that its kind can live on. For this particular mouse, its end comes in the form of a hawk that has scouted the tall grass for a while. It swoops down with such speed that the mouse does not see it coming.

The size of one’s essence may grow over the course of their life, but it may also shrink. This affects the vessel they are reborn in, for a small essence cannot fill a large cup, nor can a small vase fit a large essence. But there is always a fitting vessel for any essence.

The shrike has caught a fat larva and is circling in the air, looking for the right kind of bush or tree, before alighting on the branch of a locust, upon which thorny protrusions it impales its prey. To onlookers, its act of feeding may seem barbaric, but to the shrike it is simply the way it keeps its wriggling prey still as it eats it alive. There is no malice in the act, though some might say it is karma, when, upon finishing its meal and preparing to take off, a stray cat leaps from below and catches it mid-flight.

Some acts, like cruelty or conscious evil, can taint essence and condemn it to a cycle of rebirth into wicked vessels. Likewise, improper treatment by outsiders can mould a vessel’s essence and turn it evil. Weapons belonging to killers are tainted by their heinous acts and become malign things that may in turn corrupt a new wielder. However, there are forces of purity and goodness, who possess the skill to heal the malignancy of such vessels and their essences, though in some cases there is nothing that can be done and an exorcism must be performed, whereupon the twisted essence is cast back into the whirlpool of souls, with the faint hope of it healing before it is next rebirthed.

The black cat saunters down the street between wooden houses belonging to the humans of a great city. It always travels the same path, visiting familiar houses on its journey, where it is loved by people and fed scrumptious meals. At the end of the day, when the sunlight wanes, it has a stomach full to the bursting and returns home to its owners, who greet it with love.

The cat is a rare being who gets to live to the full length of its essence’s ability, and when it eventually succumbs to age, its owners comfort their crying children with the fact that long-lived cats are believed to become Minor Deities known as Nekomata, who are distinct due to their second tail and are possessed of great wisdom and mirth.

Those vessels, who get to live to their fullest extent and die a peaceful death, are believed to be blessed and in rare cases elevated to the status of Minor Deity. Sometimes, the essences of certain places or certain objects are enhanced by being worshipped in the form of enshrinement. Shrines may be great or they may be small, but the act of worship is by itself the catalyst upon which the essence of a place may be condensed to bring good fortune and peace to an area, or elevate an object to become a vessel for a Minor Deity.

In the case of the black cat, who was once a shrike, after being a fieldmouse and a flea, something very rare happened, as it was elevated to the position of Guardian Deity by a Divine One’s benediction. Such Deities, as what its essence has become, are the caretakers and protectors of places of great significance. As mountains and large forests are believed to be wellsprings of essence, they are in need of such Guardians, to ensure that the wellsprings are not tainted and that the places are kept intact from the predations of man, who, in their overzealous drive to expand and march the road of progress, often trample the sacred flowers that keep their essence pure.

Bordering a large city, in fact the human capital of this enormous island, is a forest atop a mountain that is known simply as the Great Forest. It is one such wellspring of essence and it is thanks to its presence that the human settlement can thrive peacefully. But that peace has been tainted by the invasive efforts to plunder the Great Forest of its wealth of strong lumber and precious ore beneath its mountainous rock. Those humans, who are attuned to the souls of things and the flow of essence, warned their leaders of the dangers of such devastation of nature, but their warnings went unheeded. To compound the disaster even further, the majority of inhabitants in the capital consider the worship at shrines and of Deities to be a frivolous thing. Many do not see the essence of the world nor do they feel it, so to them it seems a lie spun by priests, but little do they know that their rejection of the importance of worship in turn fuels the degeneration of the bountiful essence that has kept their settlement peaceful.

As the Great Forest withers away, and its shrines and temples are ransacked and abandoned, the wellspring becomes tainted and the peace of the humans is disturbed by infighting, struggles for succession, adultery, murder, theft, rape, and more. The capital becomes a pit of despair, while its leaders push forward relentlessly, ever in pursuit of more power and wealth.

It is at this time that a Divine One has decided to turn the bountiful essence of the long-lived cat into a Guardian Deity, while those few who believe pray vehemently at the only shrine left intact, atop the peak of the Great Forest.