Not very long after they made it to the air above the first elven village and Kaori lowered them both to just a few feet above the tribe. Unlike what Kaori had pictured, the elves didn’t live in the trees but in small huts right on the ground. The huts weren’t even grass huts but instead were made of animal skins. They reminded her of a history book she had once read in the school library about some tribes from the past in America.
Yaju knew all about the tribe and told her the names of each of the tribespeople and a lot of details about them. He was steadily rambling on about the daily lives of the tribe but she noticed that he kept looking over at her without actually looking at her specifically. He seemed to have a look of curiosity on his face but it was hard to tell for sure with his canid facial features. After a few times of him doing that their eyes met and he looked away in evident embarrassment but then turned back before sheepishly asking the question that she could tell he had been wanting to ask. “Pardon my asking Fujiwara-sama but… what’s the deal with them?” As he spoke he pointed behind her.
Kaori was caught off guard by the oddity of the question. She figured that if anybody would know what was going on with the tribespeople, it would be him. but as she looked where he was pointing it wasn’t at the ground but directly behind her. She turned her head and caught a fleeting glimpse of a blackish shadow. Once she was alerted to the presence she realized she could sense it. Only, it wasn’t an it but a them! She concentrated on feeling the unseen the way the elven youth had and closed her eyes.
Suddenly she could clearly see every animal and tree for miles in a ghostly outline that overlapped each other. She could also see in every direction at once, a rather surreal experience. As if they were standing in plain sight, she found eight black figures behind her and three white ones above her. Each one had a differently shaped outline and they were varying heights. One was only about the size of a housecat while a couple were human sized. Something stood out about them as she was observing them all. Of all the things around her, only nine of them were solid while the rest were ghostly. One was a light gray in coloring, that was Yaju and the other eight were dark gray bordering on black, they were the ones hiding behind her where she couldn’t see them with her eyes. The last three were an almost silver-white color and seemed to have the outline of wings or something.
Opening her eyes, she kept them in one direction and pointed to a spot in front of her before calling out in her mind to the figures behind her. “You eight, get out here where I can see you this instant! I don’t know why you were hiding but I was put in charge of this world and I wasn’t told about you being here. Who are you? Get out here now!”
At her words, the eleven figures scrambled out in front of her where she pointed. They were a strange looking collection of creatures with horns and spikes on some while others looked greasy and nasty. Three were bright to the point of being hard to look at but had between two and six wings each. There was one that looked exactly like her and one that looked like the dreamiest guy she had ever seen. At first, she wasn’t sure what was going on but before they even spoke, she had figured it out. The shortest of them was roughly the size of a housecat or a young toddler but it had wings and small horns on its head. It was an imp, she was certain. That could only make the rest of the black ones some kind of demons, right? Then the white ones were angels!
As she was observing them she noticed one trait they all had in common, each of the blackened ones had glowing, red, pupilless eyes. After a second of contemplation, the one that looked like a total ikemen cleared his throat to draw her attention and bowed with the rest following suit. “We beg your pardon Boss-lady. *a chorus of sniggers went among them and Kaori suddenly felt great annoyance because she had never liked being addressed as Boss-lady* We were swept along with you when you died and ended up here with you. We were assigned to you during life as your personal demons.”
The White one with six wings bowed and spoke next. Her figure was just coming into focus but it was hard because she was so bright. Kaori could just make out what looked like a kimono in white and around her face was a silvery glowing halo of light so bright that it obscured her features. “We beg your forgiveness Goddess Fujiwara Kaori-sama. We were sent along with you to your new world but were never given a reason or even told we were going to be sent. We thought about introducing ourselves but we didn’t want to interrupt a conversation between two gods. That would be too rude of us. I see now that not making our presence more visible was just as rude and we apologize for that. The three of us were assigned to you during life as your guardian angels and it seems we will be serving under you now on this world. *She seemed to get flustered and bowed even lower* I mean, we will be serving you if you will have us! I certainly didn’t mean to presume.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The one that looked like her spoke next and as Kaori looked closer at her she realized that a lot of her features were exaggerated like the blemishes on her skin and the bags under her eyes. This one looked like her but seemed to be all the worst parts of her physically manifested in one place and Kaori realized that this was the self-image she often had of herself. “We would like to first apologize to you. Some of us have been with you your whole life and have been troubling you the whole time. I only got sent to you when you were eight and started to compare yourself to others. But Anger here has been with you since birth. *At these words she pointed to a short red skinned demon whose face was the very definition of oni* We demons were born to torment humans on Earth. In the same way, most of the angels there spend their entire existences going from one human to the next keeping them from listening to us or inspiring them to do great things.”
Anger, as he was introduced, bowed a little lower before speaking. “A pleasure to finally meet you Kaori-sama. I used to have such fun getting you riled up in the middle of the night when you were a baby. I hope you don’t bear us ill will because of it but we demons are used to it anyway. I only ask that you not send us all away. We’ve been there for your whole life and now that you have become a divine being it would be our honor to serve under you going forward.”
As he stood there bowing and shifting his three eyes nervously about Kaori looked over at Yaju. “Are there any other angels or demons on this world?” Yaju shook his head no.
Kaori looked back at the hopeful looks on the demon’s faces and thought she saw the same thing on the faces of the angels but couldn’t tell for sure. After a second glance at the angels she got an idea and willed the light glowing from them to fade and it did. She could now look directly at their beautiful features and see clearly that they were just as anxious as the demons. Looking at the demons she decided to try something similar with them and willed them all to have human-like appearances. In only a couple of seconds and with a few startled cries from them the demons all gained more human appearances but still retained most of their demonic traits.
She smiled. “Well, it seems that you are all subject to my will anyway. I see no harm in keeping you all here. I might be able to make use of you going forward, once I figure out what I’m supposed to be doing that is. In the interim, it’s nice to have you on the team. I’ll look forward to working with you.
When she bowed, which she was used to, all the rest of them bowed very low. She wondered if they would break in half. As she rose from her bow she became aware of noise below and looked down to see all the elves in the village bowing with their heads on the ground. Some were pointed in odd directions but most were bowing in her general direction. Kaori looked at Yaju in question and he just got a toothy grin and shrugged.
Kaori got a sudden bout of inspiration and called to Yaju. “Which one is the shaman?”
When he pointed the shaman out she called everyone over to stand around her. She then willed the shaman to lift his head and open his eyes. She gave him a brief vision of herself with everyone around her. Accompanying the vision she gave it a special bright silvery white glow behind her, Yaju, and the angels while providing a glowing black aura behind the demons. The shaman only had a moment to take in the vision but after that he immediately began wailing and jabbering about what he saw to the rest of the village.
Kaori decided this was good enough for today and left with her entourage in tow. Shortly after they left the elves decided to carve a log in the semblance that the shaman described to them. After all, it wasn’t often that the shaman got a glimpse of the god of the hunt and he had never seen the other gods before! This was a big event and every elf in the village had felt their presence, even those that normally couldn’t feel anything. Little did the elves of the village realize just how much change this would herald in the coming years.