Aminakari

Chapter 2:



Was she already dead? She'd managed to level herself out, nervously extending her arms out to either side; windmilling them slightly as her legs stretched out underneath her torso, searching for an absent ground. The space around her was empty, but yet filled at the same time; lazy ribbons of blue white energy intermixed with crimson and deep pink threads wafted forward and back, occasionally entangling in one of her limbs before slipping free as easily as water between flowing rocks. Everything seemed so lethargic and dreamlike she wondered if any of it actually were real. Something flickered in front of her eyes and she reached out, suddenly desperate to grasp whatever it was. A groan of effort escaping her lips as she stretched out, fingers groping yet finding no purchase. She felt a cry of despair rise in her thoat and escape as the world around her evaporated and she fell heavily to a very solid, and very real earth.



Grunting she pushed herself to her hands and knees, realizing abruptly she was at the bottom of the well. Had it been a hallucination, maybe she had hit her head, but she was more than happy enough to be alive at this point. Strangely though, as she looked around the bottom of the well, she did not see any of the bones she'd spotted from above before. Her elbows and knees hurt, and she was developing a headache, how was she going to get out of the well now? she hadnt seen a ladder inside the well before... Flopping over onto her side she rolled to her back and stared upward. At first it did not quite hit her, but as her brows buckled in a frown of confusion she realized exactly what she was looking at... the sky. It was a bright, pristine robins egg blue, a wisp of white cirrus cloud drifting towards one side of her field of vision beyond the lip of the well.



"What?" She murmured, cocking her head, and rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. But the sight remained the same, where had the roof of the little storage building gone? She hadnt seen a sunroof, that would have stood out bigtime in her mind considering the delapidated insides of the building when she'd gone in. Was she still hallucinating? maybe she was still unconsciouss. Something shifted just at the edge of her vision at the side of the well behind her head and she twitched tilting her head back, her green eyes meeting another pair over the lip of the well. Thin fingers curled over the edge of the lip of the well tapping idly as the eyes glittered curiously. Little more than the forehead belonging to the eyes otherwise visible.



"Um.... how did you get down there?" The voice was rather high pitched, and innocently curious, definitely a girl.



"I fell." She called back, her voice a low drawl, she was rather too tired to care if this was a hallucination or not.



"How? I was here for houuurs, nobody came here all day." She snorted and rolled onto her side, intent to ignore the newcomer, only to hear something land lightly behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she started violently and scrambled up and back, whoever had been up at the lip of the well had decided to simply come right in; was now crouched down less than a foot and a half away from her, wrists flopped on her bent knees and head cocked curiously. Large bright orange eyes shone with pupils the size of pinpricks, framed by heavy dark orange lashes, her hair pulled up into two pigtails on either side of her head, the locks still managing to drape the ground, like oversized dog ears.... that desperate thought made her giggle inwardly though her expression remained unchanged. "Your just a ningen, so you couldnt have simply appeared you know. Or are you trying to confuse me?" The girl leaned forward almost nose to nose as she shook her head quickly.



"I'm telling you the truth, I fell, and then... I was here at the bottom of the well." The girls face scrunched up, eyes narrowing and mouth pursing tightly as she thought hard in a rather exaggerated manner. Looking a bit like she'd eaten something terribly sour rather than having thoughts of any kind. Then her features abruptly relaced and she grinned hugely.



"My name is Naomi! I dont get to meet a lot of ningen so this makes today my favorite day of the season!"



"Um.... my name is... Aminakari." She responded warily nodding at the odd looking girl. "I suppose, I dont get to meet a lot of... whatever you are either." Naomi's eyes went comically wide as she clapped her hands to the side of her face.



"Oh my! You mean you don't get to talk to youkai? I know you must think the lot of us brutes but it really isnt like that at all. Come on!" Naomi shot to her feet and held out a hand, when Aminakari simply blinked at her, Naomi huffed and wiggled her fingers like waiting for an impatient child. "Even if your a ningen who can just appear when falling from nowhere, you can't climb up these walls."



"What are you going to do?" Aminakari asked as she unsteadily climbed to her feet, realizing with a start she was almost half a foot taller than the other girl.



"Get you out of course, humans dont belong in wells, didn't you know that?"



"But... how exactly?" Naomi rolled her eyes and reached out, grabbing Aminakari's sleeve, the next thing she felt was as if the world had tumbled out from beneath her feet and she was being pulled in a thousand different directions, before she was suddenly standing beside the well. As soon as she felt her world recentralize, she tumbled to the ground wide eyed as Naomi burst out in raucious laughter spinning in place and clapping her hands in elation.



"I didn't know I could bring humans with me! what fun! It is going to be a great day today, ne Ami-chan?!"



"Ami...chan?" Aminakari frowned, she had few friends, and not a single one of them referred to her by anything other than her full name.



"Hai hai! Ami-chan! Aminakari is hard to say ne? But you can just call me Naomi."



"What... did you do anyway? I feel aweful." Naomi scuffed a foot and pouted before she seemed to burst into a shower of white tufts and seedlings. Aminakari could not stop the scream of shock that tore itself free of her diaphragm, that didnt even stop when Naomi abruptly rematerialized, looking shocked herself by Aminakari's reaction. "You! you! you fell apart!" Aminakari pointed wildly.



"I didn't fall apart! I was showing you how I got you out of the well!" Naomi cried out, aparently just as perturbed as Aminakari given the situation.



"you mean I.... I... oh I feel sick." aminakari clutched her stomach and groaned, this was one weird hallucination, when the hell was she going to wake up? As her world spun and she slumped forward, the world becoming a blur of color before smearing totally black, and her last thought was *Maybe now I'll get out of this dream*



Naomi blinked as the young woman drooped forward, curiously she moved forward reaching out and tapping her twice on one slumped shoulder. Upon recieving no response she moved around in front of the girl and crouched down, poking her in the head; no response... apparently she had really lost conscioussness. Naomi yawned, rapidly becoming bored, but she couldnt leave her new friend slumped over in front of a well, besides she didnt know another youkai that could claim they had found a human in a dry well, after having appeared from the very ether. As Naomi reached out to grasp Aminakari's arm to pick the girl up, there was a commotion as the trees parted and several male villagers broke the brush line.

An arrow thunked into the ground where Naomi had been standing, but she had immidiately dissipated into a cloud of white tufts and dispersed into the breeze, vanishing.

"Foul demon." One man snarled, before his gaze fell on the crumpled female. "Aya! Someone, go get the lady Kaede! The demon has attacked someone!" Two men quickly parted from them headed back to the village, while the remaining group approached warily, who knew what sort of demonic magics had been cast upon the hapless female.

It took a brief time before the villagers returned with Kaede and a few more armed men, lest the demoness return. The old woman took quick stock of the situation, hobbling forward she hunched over the crumpled figure, holding out a hand as gnarled as a withered tree she flexed her fingers. Around her the village men waited silent and stony eyed, awaiting the judgement of their lady priestess. When Kaede's features softened, they breathed a collective sigh of relief even before she spoke, Her voice gruff with age.

"She be not harmed nor possessed by the demon magics. Merely unconsciouss from a fright is all." She lowered herself slowly to the girls side and brushed strands of dark hair, trying to get a better look at the girls face. Delicate features werw still twisted in worry despite her unconsciouss state, but it more than likely would not be long before she woke again. "She be not a threat to us, we will take her back to the village."

"As you say lady Kaede." One of the larger villagers picked the girl up draping her knees over his left forearm and bracing her back with his right, her head dropping uselessly against his chest. They returned to the village and the girl was placed in Kaede's hut on an old futon while the withered old priestess waited for her to wake.