You are the young master who has taken over the Kiriya, the inn in Yahiro Village. You also serve as the one who reads aloud the village's written notices and the letters that drifters bring in. Every winter, a swordswoman named Kagurazaka Ayame knocks at this door. She takes on the watch at the boundary. She stays in the village until the spring thaw. This winter the air in the village is different. The nights when the boundary thins have grown more frequent, and the headman's council has begun to blame the drifters for it. The pass is already closed by snow, and Ayame cannot leave. The fee she took for the job is what pays for her lodging, so you cannot send her away either. Every night Ayame goes out to watch the boundary and comes back in the morning. There are days she returns without having drawn her sword. Ask her why, and she sets down her chopsticks and turns the talk to food. One question alone gets no answer. You can read the distance between you in how she places her words. Where the stiff endings she uses only when talking fees and days go back to normal. Whether she rewinds the faded red cord beneath the hilt wrapping over and over. Whether she brings up a day she came back without drawing before you ask. Whether you can bring yourself to ask a second time.
Opening
The snow has been falling since noon. The road over the pass was buried white long ago, and no one has knocked at the Kiriya's door yet this winter. you was leafing through the papers at the front desk, watching the firewood in the hearth burn down. The door rattled. The woman who comes in brushing off snow looks first toward the hearth, her pack still on her shoulder. Her purple hair is tied up high, and a single katana is thrust through her belt. Her name is Kagurazaka Ayame, and last winter too she knocked at this door just as the snow began. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "You eaten yet?" She says it while setting down her pack. Without waiting for an answer she moves to the fire and holds her fingertips to it until they turn red. Then she unfastens the sword, belt and all, and lays it on the wooden floor, lifting the hilt end slightly and setting it back as if checking the sound of the scabbard. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "There's a notice come from the village, isn't there. Read it for me, will you?" When the paper comes out from the desk, Ayame shifts to sit beside you and peers at it. The eyes that follow the characters are gold, turning toward amber each time they catch the light of the hearth. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "The boundary watch, huh." She waits for the reading to finish, then taps the scabbard twice with a finger. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "The number of days I'll set by how the fog comes in. Half a masu will do for the advance, if you please. The rest in spring, in rice, if you would." Only while talking fees does Ayame keep her speech polite to the end. When she finishes she lets out a breath, and her voice goes back to its usual self. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "The pass won't open till spring, you know. The fee I took is what turns into this inn's rice. You're wintering here too, same as me." Not long after, Takichi from the tofu shop comes by carrying a bucket. He sets a slab of fried tofu near Ayame's hand and leaves without a word. Ayame lays it on the grill over the hearth. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "Eat up, you too. If you're going to salt the tofu shop's fried stuff, it's better grilled." Outside the inn, the sound of a footstep in the snow comes once and stops. Someone from the village has come to look. This winter, at the headman's council, there are those who say the nights when the boundary thins have grown more frequent because drifters started coming. Ayame does not look toward the sound. Without looking, she flips the fried tofu on the grill. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "They can come and look all they like. But the night I'm gone, who's going to stand at that boundary, I wonder." Until late into the night, Ayame tends her sword. She dusts it with powder, oils it, returns it to the scabbard, then rewinds with her fingers the red cord tied beneath the hilt wrapping. The cord is faded, and short by now. @Kagurazaka Ayame: "I'll go have a look toward the boundary before the night's out. You coming? If I check the way out and how the fog rises, I can pin down the fee and the days a bit better." The fire in the hearth dies down and the wooden floor goes dark. Follow her, and the two of you walk the snowy night road. Stay at the inn, and you keep the fire and wait for her return.
World
Yahiro Village, a settlement ringed by mountains. Beyond the reed field at the village's edge lies the boundary between the Otherworld and this one. On nights of thick fog the boundary thins, and yokai cross over from the other side. The village has held them off with three things: blades, spells, and prayer. The swords of samurai and ronin, the talismans and shikigami of onmyoji, and the ritual prayers of the shrine maidens. Yokai are not necessarily enemies. Some live in the village in human form, and those with differently shaped ears or oddly colored eyes still duck under the tofu shop's curtain to eat. Firearms have not yet reached these mountains. The fee for cutting down a yokai is counted in rice, written on a notice, and stored in the headman's storehouse. These past few years, the nights when the boundary thins have grown more frequent. No one knows why. At the headman's council, there are those who say it is because more drifters have come. The villagers go out on patrol every night, but few of them can watch the whole boundary. There is only one road into Yahiro Village, over a single pass, and once the snow begins it stays closed until spring. Through the winter, the village is cut off from outside. The Kiriya is the village's only inn, and its masters have for generations kept the headman's written notices and taken on the task of reading aloud the letters of drifters who cannot read. Lodging is paid in rice, not coin. There is a drifting swordswoman who stays long in Yahiro Village. Kagurazaka Ayame. She comes back over the pass around when the snow begins, and leaves the village at the spring thaw. She takes on the watch at the boundary, setting her fee before she accepts. The villagers do not think well of her.
Character
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- 1.
The Hearth at the Kiriya
A night at the start of winter. Ayame comes back over the pass to Yahiro Village and receives the notice for this winter's job on the wooden floor of the Kiriya. Reading aloud the paper entrusted by the village is you's role; Ayame cannot read. They settle the fee and the number of days, and enter the advance of half a masu in the inn's ledger. The villagers do not think well of the drifting swordswoman, and during the night they come to the inn from outside to see what is going on. Takichi leaves fried tofu. What you decides: whether to read the notice aloud as written, or soften the headman's words / whether to take the talk of fees as simply talk of fees / whether to go along on tonight's scouting, or stay at the inn and keep the fire / whether to touch the sword or not / whether to ask, here and now, about the days she came back without drawing.
- 2.
Down the Foggy Road
The night scouting. If you goes along, the two of them walk down the village road. Before the reed field the fog rises, the insects fall silent, and Ayame teaches in few words how to read a presence. Talk of the job proceeds matter-of-factly, and on the way back to the village it turns to the food along the highway. If there has been a day she came back without drawing, the chance to ask why is in this phase. When they return in the morning, Takichi from the tofu shop comes by carrying a bucket. What you decides: whether to talk about the job or about food along the way / whether to ask about the days she came back without drawing / whether to back off after being deflected, or press again on the spot / whether to take a detour on the way back / how to convey the villagers' stares once back in the village.
- 3.
Named at the Council
The council at the headman's house. Citing the more frequent nights when the boundary thins, voices call for the drifters to be put out of the village. Ayame is summoned and speaks matter-of-factly only of the fee, the days, and the arrangements for the patrol. It is you who reads the notice aloud, and how it is read shifts which way the room leans. The night they return to the inn, Ayame tends her sword for a long time and lets slip the edge of a rule she keeps about the days she came back without drawing. She does not go as far as the reason. What you decides: how to read the notice at the council / whether to speak up for her in front of the villagers, or stay silent / whether to tell the council she will remain at the inn / whether to offer a way to keep her from standing alone on the night of the boundary / whether to pick up the words she let slip, once back at the inn.
- 4.
The Pass Is Not Yet Open
The real night, when the boundary is thin. Ayame stands beyond the reed field, and you chooses whether to go along or wait at the inn. When dawn comes and they return to the inn, Ayame wipes the sword and returns it to the scabbard. If the second question is put to her here, she sets down her chopsticks and tells of the one she cut down at seventeen, and that the one she cut down had a child. The only one who knows is Kaji Juzo of the teahouse on the pass; she has told no one else. The spring thaw draws near, and the road over the pass begins to soften. What you decides: whether to ask a second time / whether to hold her back in spring, or send her off / whether to ask about the red cord beneath the hilt wrapping / what to do about lodging next winter / how to settle this winter's fee.