Where once there were dances before the throne, the sounds of the bells still linger.
The white silhouette, once something to pursue, never returned, yet it remains an unceasing dream from which one cannot wake...
"I was a silly little thing back then, nowhere near as intelligent as our great matriarch Hakushin."
"Groping about clumsily, I was a whelp foraging through the snow, hoping to draw Her Excellency's attention."
"Funnily enough, it was exactly because of my foolhardy courage that Her Excellency had pity on me."
"And that's how I came into her service. You know, warming her hands and feet and all. Very great honor."
"Lady Saiguu would later depart, never to return, and those seniors of mine would also be lost due to various other reasons."
"And that was how someone as bumbling as I took up the role of "Miko" and grew into the person you know today."
"Thus it was in this way that the unfortunate task of putting a smile on Her Excellency's face fell squarely on my shoulders."
"The night when I first performed the Kagura dance, I felt the weight of the 'past.'"
The tinkling of the bells grew distant, and the great silver kitsune, master and friend, disappeared into the winding river of dreams.
The bells sounded again, and the obstinate sandbar loosened and dissolved into the swirling current.
The pure white, gentle figure of the past had long drifted into dark memory.
So the lone daughter of the great kitsune lineage would take up the Kagura bells, and dance for the vibrant "now."
I knew a young and obstinate tengu warrior, and used the pretext of "training" to bluff her into asceticism in the mountains,
But sensing her unruly nature, I recommended her to those block-headed Kujou.
And though I once had a competition against an obstinate oni and was defeated by dint of sheer perseverance...
I did add a few little tricks to make our contest more interesting.
I corresponded with a half-adeptus from a distant land, and gifted her fresh and supple ocean plants.
Still, I felt keenly that I could not understand her almost foolish love. Is that not a form of bondage for the adepti?
The moonlight sweeps across the imperial garden through branch and petal, alighting upon the empty courtyard.
That scene still glows brightly in my shallow heart like countless glimmering jewels...
"In the short span of these few hundred years, I have walked the earth in many guises."
"Though I have not had the fortune to have deep relationships with ordinary people, I came to know human beauty deeply."
"And Her Excellency, whom I might dare to call friend, should have more time yet to roam this world."
"So let us see this imperfect world together and enjoy its obsessions with love and hate, with meetings and partings."
With Her Excellency engrossed in her dream-real of Eternity, someone needed to look out for the common folk.
To quell the resentment of the wicked oni Kuroami, I once showed but a hint of the ominous power I wield.
And the great disturbance caused by Kosanta the Bald Tanuki would be made sport of with a little application of magic.
The marauding pirate Rinzou, terror of the archipelago, would also be betrayed over some small discordance in plans.
And as for that blank slate, that immortal eccentric...
I hope "he" will find his way and not become a threat to us all.
The darkened remains of the swordmaster's soul, the beasts of catastrophe hiding in the sacred forest, they were all wiped out...
Compared to the dream of Eternity Her Excellency pursues, such things were but fleeting interludes,
And the wait for her to come around seemed to stretch out infinitely, but I knew that time was on our side.
"I mean, a Euthymia without wind or moon, with lotuses and udumbara that do not wither,"
"I'm sorry, but the loneliness would get to me. I'd be bored to tears."
"I'd much rather snap off Thunder Sakura branches in a drunken haze and cavort with the impudent youkai."
"And no, these are not stories of the ancient past, but of a future full of hope."
"So, You Excellency, might I still have the pleasure of joining you to watch the first pale purple buds that emerge when the snow next melts?"