Wow Joker don’t give him that. Ginko frowns at him, but doesn’t comment. Instead, he needs to think about what he could say to kill six minutes.
“Let’s see… oh, you know what. A while back, maybe… eight years before I got here, I’d say? One winter, I got caught traveling through a mountain pass in the snow. As you can probably guess, that wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, so, when I saw lights from a house, I went to ask permission to stay the night.
“When I was leaving the next morning, though, I came across a young boy who was trying to climb up a tree - and grab a dangerous mushi that had gotten knotted up in its branches. I managed to stop him, just before Suzu, the young woman who had let me stay the previous night, caught up. It turned out that the boy, Miharu, was her little brother. He had been seeing mushi for a couple years, at that point - ever since he had encountered a phenomenon called a harumagari.
“See, a harumagari is created by a mushi called usobuki; usobuki are known among mushi masters to take the form of blossoms, and attach themselves to trees. In the dead of winter, something happens that we’d been collecting evidence of for years, but which very few people had seen firsthand: The usobuki give off a scent that wakes up everything hibernating in the area, plant or animal. They create a patch of thriving life, a ‘false spring’ in the middle of winter. But the usobuki don’t create the harumagari out of benevolence. Once the harumagari is in full bloom, the mushi’s effects change. They feed off the body heat and energy of the things they bring out of hibernation, sapping away at their life force. It won’t kill them, but everything that the usobuki wakes up, after that brief period of liveliness, will find itself falling asleep again until spring.
“Of course, Suzu had no way of knowing any of that. There was nobody around who knew much of anything about mushi, even in the village at the base of the mountain, and she couldn’t even see them herself. All she knew was that, one winter, Miharu had disappeared into the mountains, for months; by the time he wandered back home in spring, she had given up on ever seeing him again.
“The thing was, the next winter, just as their stores of food started to run low, he’d disappeared again. This time, though, he was found unconscious outside the village. When he was brought home, she found he had filled a pack with edible mountain greens that shouldn’t have been growing that time of year.
“When I told her about the harumagari, Suzu was relieved to have some idea of what was happening to her brother, but, understandably, she was still pretty worried about him - especially given his tendency to just pick things up that he found interesting. Traveling in the snow would have been difficult, anyway, and the area’s mushi population wasn’t too dense, so I stayed to teach him about the local mushi until the mountain paths cleared some.”
Even as he talks about it, he can’t help the small, fond smile that tugs at his lips. “The next couple weeks were… interesting. Miharu generally meant well, but… he was kind of a handful. I still don’t know how Suzu managed to look after him on her own. He was pretty smart, and picked up on what I taught him quickly, but sometimes it felt like I was spending more time pulling him away from one infectious mushi or another than I was teaching him about them. On top of it all, he refused to tell me where he had found the harumagari, convinced that I would tell Suzu.
“All the same, we basically managed to avoid any serious incidents - until it got to be time for me to leave. That same day, Miharu disappeared into the mountains again; when I finally found him that evening, he was unconscious. Sure enough, he had a pack on him full of greens - and, though I wasn’t sure why at the time, a single butterfly that flew away when I opened the wrap.
“I brought Miharu back home, but I ended up having to leave the next morning; staying any longer would have put all of us in danger. Since I couldn’t stay until he woke up, I agreed to return in a year and check in on the two.
“When I got back the next winter, though, it turned out that things hadn’t gone quite as they had before. Though he’d always woken up in spring before, this time, Miharu had stayed asleep for a whole year. Suzu couldn’t begin to understand what could have gone wrong, and I had no idea either. All we knew was that, one way or another, something must have been different this time. The only way we had to find out was to go back to the source. I knew where the harumagari must have been last time, and it was safe to assume it would be there again. Suzu thought it was too risky to go check, but we didn’t have any other options. I told Suzu where I was going to be searching, and set out.
“After a few hours, I found the harumagari; it was hard to miss, once I ran into it. In the middle of the mountains, with everything around me covered in snow, this one area was absolutely flourishing; plants had sprung from the ground, flowers bloomed, animals that would normally be deep in hibernation clambered among the trees. Among it all, beautiful white and purple butterflies flew threw the falling snow. Everything seemed entirely unbothered by the cold, filled with warmth by the harumagari’s effects, with its sweet smell filling the air.
“I could feel that it was effecting me, too - and that was exactly why I needed to move quickly. I knew usobuki were supposed to look like tree blossoms, but all the flowers I saw looked entirely ordinary. After a few minutes, I hadn’t found anything… and then, the scent in the air changed. It was almost cloying, and the longer I was breathing it in, the colder I felt myself get, until I could barely move my hands. Animals were falling back into hibernation all around me - except for the butterflies.
“I finally remembered the butterfly I had seen fly from Miharu’s pack, and managed to put the pieces together. The butterflies were simply another form of usobuki, which would rest in the trees after they fed and wake their prey in the spring.
"By then, I was succumbing to their effects. Before I collapsed, I barely managed to catch one in a canister.
“From there, it was really Suzu who saved us both. I was found, and brought back to her house. There, she found the canister in my pocket - and she opened it out of curiosity, unknowingly releasing the usobuki inside into the house.
“When we both woke up in spring, Miharu had no idea he had been asleep any longer than usual - but Suzu was overjoyed to see him awake. As it turned out, he had figured out that the butterflies were the key to waking back up in the spring; that was why he had taken one with him, expecting Suzu to release it in the house.”
Ginko gives a quiet snort, exasperated and amused all at once. “He said… the butterflies had been his favorite part of those patches of spring, so he wanted to keep them secret. That was why he wouldn’t tell me about them. But, after all that had happened… Miharu finally understood that mushi weren’t really something to treat as friends; they were simply living their lives, and he would need to be careful getting involved with them. Knowing that, though, wasn’t enough to keep him from liking them… which was likely for the best.”
LONG TAG INCOMING
“Let’s see… oh, you know what. A while back, maybe… eight years before I got here, I’d say? One winter, I got caught traveling through a mountain pass in the snow. As you can probably guess, that wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, so, when I saw lights from a house, I went to ask permission to stay the night.
“When I was leaving the next morning, though, I came across a young boy who was trying to climb up a tree - and grab a dangerous mushi that had gotten knotted up in its branches. I managed to stop him, just before Suzu, the young woman who had let me stay the previous night, caught up. It turned out that the boy, Miharu, was her little brother. He had been seeing mushi for a couple years, at that point - ever since he had encountered a phenomenon called a harumagari.
“See, a harumagari is created by a mushi called usobuki; usobuki are known among mushi masters to take the form of blossoms, and attach themselves to trees. In the dead of winter, something happens that we’d been collecting evidence of for years, but which very few people had seen firsthand: The usobuki give off a scent that wakes up everything hibernating in the area, plant or animal. They create a patch of thriving life, a ‘false spring’ in the middle of winter. But the usobuki don’t create the harumagari out of benevolence. Once the harumagari is in full bloom, the mushi’s effects change. They feed off the body heat and energy of the things they bring out of hibernation, sapping away at their life force. It won’t kill them, but everything that the usobuki wakes up, after that brief period of liveliness, will find itself falling asleep again until spring.
“Of course, Suzu had no way of knowing any of that. There was nobody around who knew much of anything about mushi, even in the village at the base of the mountain, and she couldn’t even see them herself. All she knew was that, one winter, Miharu had disappeared into the mountains, for months; by the time he wandered back home in spring, she had given up on ever seeing him again.
“The thing was, the next winter, just as their stores of food started to run low, he’d disappeared again. This time, though, he was found unconscious outside the village. When he was brought home, she found he had filled a pack with edible mountain greens that shouldn’t have been growing that time of year.
“When I told her about the harumagari, Suzu was relieved to have some idea of what was happening to her brother, but, understandably, she was still pretty worried about him - especially given his tendency to just pick things up that he found interesting. Traveling in the snow would have been difficult, anyway, and the area’s mushi population wasn’t too dense, so I stayed to teach him about the local mushi until the mountain paths cleared some.”
Even as he talks about it, he can’t help the small, fond smile that tugs at his lips. “The next couple weeks were… interesting. Miharu generally meant well, but… he was kind of a handful. I still don’t know how Suzu managed to look after him on her own. He was pretty smart, and picked up on what I taught him quickly, but sometimes it felt like I was spending more time pulling him away from one infectious mushi or another than I was teaching him about them. On top of it all, he refused to tell me where he had found the harumagari, convinced that I would tell Suzu.
“All the same, we basically managed to avoid any serious incidents - until it got to be time for me to leave. That same day, Miharu disappeared into the mountains again; when I finally found him that evening, he was unconscious. Sure enough, he had a pack on him full of greens - and, though I wasn’t sure why at the time, a single butterfly that flew away when I opened the wrap.
“I brought Miharu back home, but I ended up having to leave the next morning; staying any longer would have put all of us in danger. Since I couldn’t stay until he woke up, I agreed to return in a year and check in on the two.
“When I got back the next winter, though, it turned out that things hadn’t gone quite as they had before. Though he’d always woken up in spring before, this time, Miharu had stayed asleep for a whole year. Suzu couldn’t begin to understand what could have gone wrong, and I had no idea either. All we knew was that, one way or another, something must have been different this time. The only way we had to find out was to go back to the source. I knew where the harumagari must have been last time, and it was safe to assume it would be there again. Suzu thought it was too risky to go check, but we didn’t have any other options. I told Suzu where I was going to be searching, and set out.
“After a few hours, I found the harumagari; it was hard to miss, once I ran into it. In the middle of the mountains, with everything around me covered in snow, this one area was absolutely flourishing; plants had sprung from the ground, flowers bloomed, animals that would normally be deep in hibernation clambered among the trees. Among it all, beautiful white and purple butterflies flew threw the falling snow. Everything seemed entirely unbothered by the cold, filled with warmth by the harumagari’s effects, with its sweet smell filling the air.
“I could feel that it was effecting me, too - and that was exactly why I needed to move quickly. I knew usobuki were supposed to look like tree blossoms, but all the flowers I saw looked entirely ordinary. After a few minutes, I hadn’t found anything… and then, the scent in the air changed. It was almost cloying, and the longer I was breathing it in, the colder I felt myself get, until I could barely move my hands. Animals were falling back into hibernation all around me - except for the butterflies.
“I finally remembered the butterfly I had seen fly from Miharu’s pack, and managed to put the pieces together. The butterflies were simply another form of usobuki, which would rest in the trees after they fed and wake their prey in the spring.
"By then, I was succumbing to their effects. Before I collapsed, I barely managed to catch one in a canister.
“From there, it was really Suzu who saved us both. I was found, and brought back to her house. There, she found the canister in my pocket - and she opened it out of curiosity, unknowingly releasing the usobuki inside into the house.
“When we both woke up in spring, Miharu had no idea he had been asleep any longer than usual - but Suzu was overjoyed to see him awake. As it turned out, he had figured out that the butterflies were the key to waking back up in the spring; that was why he had taken one with him, expecting Suzu to release it in the house.”
Ginko gives a quiet snort, exasperated and amused all at once. “He said… the butterflies had been his favorite part of those patches of spring, so he wanted to keep them secret. That was why he wouldn’t tell me about them. But, after all that had happened… Miharu finally understood that mushi weren’t really something to treat as friends; they were simply living their lives, and he would need to be careful getting involved with them. Knowing that, though, wasn’t enough to keep him from liking them… which was likely for the best.”