Hoshi no Amaterasu

[Amaterasu]

Had she known what a day this would turn out to be, Amaterasu would have skipped breakfast and spent her time meditating to steel her mind. But of course, it’s easy to make better decisions in retrospect than when you don’t know what’s coming.

It all began like the other days in Hoshi: awoken by the simultaneous rising of the sun of the Frozen Fields and the artificial sun hanging over the city that slowly turned up its brightness, the Kami rose from her futon, stretched her limbs and performed the standard morning ritual of things to be done in the bathroom. Then she folded up her night gown, left it next to the rolled-up futon and opened the window to her bedroom to let the air cycle a bit. Then she stayed and looked over the town. It was such a weird feeling… from her bedroom she could see the streets and houses of the residential district and a corner of the Port district, and everything was silent and unmoving. That was to be expected of course, since nobody actually inhabited Hoshi, but with the good state of repair in which everything was it looked like the townspeople had just vanished one day. Not even abandoned the town, just disappeared from one moment to another. Poof.

She withdrew from the window and smiled. Right now Hoshi may look like a ghost town but what it really was was the foundation of a town that was just waiting for townspeople. Like a big machine that just needed to be filled with materials to process, or like a five-tier staircase arrangement for Hinamatsuri ready for the dolls to proudly stand on it. She would watch over Hoshi and see it grow, she would care for it and for everyone that came to live in it and she would work together with Amber to spread their vision of peace to the entirety of the Frozen Fields… and beyond, maybe.

While she descended to the ground floor her mind drifted off to work already. What was there to take care of that day? … oh right, the interfaith temple of worship in the religious district. If she remembered correctly that still needed its furnishings and an altar. And she needed to check if the Origin Mirrors had been correctly set up.

When she entered the kitchen she noticed, much to her susprise, that Oki was there. He sat by the fire, warming himself and just accepting a bowl of soup from the chef - a secondary that Amaterasu had summoned to man the kitchen - but when he saw her he stood up hastily. “Amaterasu!” he exclaimed.

“Oki! Is everything okay? I thought you were out scouting.”

“I was. There’s some issues. You have to come with me!”

“Alright… explain the matter on the way then.”

“Amaterasu-sama, a moment of your time if I may”, the chef interjected and handed her a small basket with several onigiri. “Here. I made these at Oki-sama’s recommendation, a breakfast for you to enjoy on the go.”

“Oh, thank you Kyusaku-san! To work on an empty stomach would have been a hardship.” That was all she could say before Oki impatiently pulled her away. There was no time for etiquette now, and Amaterasu soon understood why.

Leaving a clear trail in the fresh snow that seemed to point back straight to where the troll territories were a division of what were probably trolls were approaching Hoshi. They were too far away to distinguish in number, but it had to be a squad. Maybe a dozen or so individuals? “And that’s not all”, said Oki as he showed her through the streets of Hoshi to the opposite side of the plateau. A group of what were probably dwarves was approaching from that direction, which is to say from lands under the jurisdiction of King Bruenor Battlehammer. Both were coming straight towards the plateau. There was no way they hadn’t seen the town’s buildings yet, let alone the artificial sun hanging over it all.

“Well… I knew we would have to deal with this sooner or later but I’d hoped that it would be one at a time, not us getting pincered.”

“What are we going to do? The trolls are not going to be very friendly to us since we’ve affiliated ourselves with the dwarves and killed some of them, and we can’t risk upsetting the dwarves either, their relationship with us is delicate enough as it is. And if the two groups see each other a battle will break out.”

“Then we just have to ensure that they do NOT see each other.” She rubbed her forehead. “Let me think how we’re going to go about this… the trolls and dwarves have to be stopped as far away from the town as possible. We cannot allow either of them to climb onto the plateau… the trolls are a more martial race that respect strength, but they are also our enemies - if I don’t appear they’ll take it as weakness and attack. The dwarves on the other hand will respond better to diplomacy - they might take it as an insult if I don’t speak to them but send you guys to speak for me, like I believe myself superior to them... I’d say that the trolls are the greater threat right now, then. I’ll have to descend to meet them. Oki, you and Fiara go meet the dwarves. And have Fiara call Urist to join you guys. If they try to force their way into Hoshi warn them that it would cause a breach of trust with me. Don’t threaten them or physically get in their way, but if they refuse to listen to you call me. I’ve my Communicator on me.”

“You’re forgetting that I earned my place in the dwarven hall too”, Oki pointed out with a grin. “The dwarves will hopefully see me as someone too important to ignore. I’ll give it my best.”

“Don’t hesitate. I’d hate to sacrifice a good relationship with the dwarves over this but we have to establish ourselves.” With that they split ways and Oki ran back to the palace to find Fiara while Amaterasu hastily summoned a pair of snowshoes and a Fur-Selkie mount as soon as they were in deep enough snow. The trolls were far out yet and she wanted to keep it that way..

They apparently noticed her - not that a Fur-Selkie with a person on it was easily missed - because they stopped for a bit, seemingly speaking to each other, then began to move towards her again. Despite her concerns to keep them away from the plateau she stopped at a distance and let them cover the remainder of the distance so as to not appear desperate or panicked. Around her neck the Yasakani no Magatama hung, their weight reassuring her. And she knew that at a moment’s notice she could produce the Kusanagi no tsurugi if things got violent.

Now as for her opponents, they were an interesting bunch. A group of ten, all going on foot and carrying most of their items in huge backpacks. They had a pack animal with them, a strange four-legged creature similar to a horse but with wide feet, that carried more supplies. Of these ten, five were trolls of the sort that she had seen before: the dark-skinned kind with tusks coming out of their mouths. Three were brute humanoids with gray skin that reminded Amaterasu of oni: they looked incredibly dim, as if even their brains were replaced with muscles. And two looked like fat humans with large teeth protruding from their lower jaws. Of these two one was wearing a decorated helm on his head which tipped her off as to who the squad leader was.

“Ho there, strangers!” she greeted them as they came within hearing range. “What’s a group of trolls doing so far out in the wilds?”

“None of your business, human”, one of the trolls replied. They didn’t so much as slow down, clearly intending to just circumvent her.

“Sunny day, isn’t it?” she asked undeterred. “You’d almost think there’s two of them.”

“Two brighty-shinies not be normal”, the squadleader responded. “You know why there two now, little creature?”

“One of them’s a fake. It’s just to brighten our day if it’s cloudy.”

“Who ‘us’? Little creature have friends here?”

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

“Gruwsh is here to to claim glowy-beam land for trolls. You go away and Gruwsh leave you alive today.”

“Glowy-beam land?” Amaterasu asked and chuckled. “You mean the beam that’s been shining into the sky a few weeks ago?”

“Yah, is what Gruwsh meant. It big Omnehlum source for make chief Zul’Jin stronger.”

“There’s no more Omnilium to be found here than anywhere else, Gruwsh. I’ve been up there. All that’s up there is a little ghost town.”

“Har har! Ghosties no scare Gruwsh. Gruwsh bring mighty troll shaman for ghostie-shoo-shoo.” He tilted his head to the side. “So, why little creature not gone? Does it want to die?”

“The plateau doesn’t belong to the trolls. If you try to pass you’ll regret it.”

“Kill her”, the single troll next to Gruwsh said apathetically. One of the ones in the back promptly raised a wooden staff that became enveloped in green light while another pointed a bow at Amaterasu. The kami ducked to the side and rolled off her Fur-Selkie just in time for a blast of green energy to miss her chest. A moment later an arrow buried itself in the snow next to her. Had she rolled further it would have hit her square in the chest.

The next instant the two trolls that had attacked her were knocked on their backs as two jade beads hit them square in the foreheads. Amaterasu waved her hand and returned the beads to her necklace. “Those two are just dizzied a bit. But try again and I’ll smash your kneecaps next”, she told the troll that had spoken.

Gruwsh laughed and clapped his hands, which sounded like someone was knocking two heads against each other. “Har har har! Little creature is strong, Gruwsh like! Zan’Kar, you know better than interrupt Gruwsh when he doing the talks.”

“This woman is standing in our way. I won’t allow her to delay us. We can’t-”

The squad-leader reached behind the smaller troll, apparently named Zan’Kar, grabbed his head with his massive brutish hand and smashed him face-first into the snow at their feet. Even though the snow absorbed most of the hit, Amaterasu shuddered as she heard the crunching sound of rock against skin and bone and saw as the snow turned a little red. Gruwsh then held the other’s head under the snow against his struggles for a bit, before letting go. The troll pulled his head from the snow and gasped for air. There were bloody cuts on his face and his nose was bleeding.

“Zan’Kar will not tell Gruwsh what Gruwsh can and can not do. If Zan’Kar unhappy with that, Zan’Kar can challenge Gruwsh to battle.”

The smaller troll gritted his teeth but didn’t reply. He just crawled backwards. Gruwsh returned his attention to Amaterasu as if that had never happened. “So, little creature say we regret going up?” he asked.

“There’s nothing up there to get that you can’t find anywhere else. I can lay out how the glowy beam happened if you like, and you can go back to tell your chief about it. But the ghost town up there belongs to me and I’ll defend it against intruders. Tell me Gruwsh, do you want to risk dying over a hunk of rock and some abandoned houses?”

“Har har har! Gruwsh no risk dying because Gruwsh strong!” The huge troll then paused, took a moment to think and ‘hmm-hmm’ed loudly. Then, in an almost frightening display of intelligence for a creature looking this dim, he said: “How about little creature let trolls go to glowy-beam land and see if there really nothing for take? If there no big Omnehlum source then trolls leave glowy-beam land again.”

Amaterasu crossed her arms. “The ‘nothing to hide’ route, I see? No.”

“Why little creature say no?”

“Tell me Gruwsh, do you go away from your squad when you need to poop? Do you hide behind a rock when you do it?”

“What dat got to do with glowy-beam land?”

“Just tell me.”

“Yah. Gruwsh go hide behind rock.”

“But you’re not doing anything forbidden or wrong, right? Why do you do it anyway? You’ve got nothing to hide from your squadmates.”

The troll frowned so hard that his leathery skin wrinkled. “Aghhh, little creature is confusing Gruwsh much. Why little creature talk about poop when it got nothing to do with glowy-beam land? Gruwsh no longer want to talk with little creature.” He began walking forward threateningly. “You leave now or Gruwsh make you.”

Amaterasu flung two beads at the big troll’s chest. They bounced off without leaving so much as a dent and the troll didn’t even slow his steps. She stepped backwards to maintain a distance and continued to pepper him with attacks, aiming for whatever weak points she imagined that beast to have: his eyes, mouth, knees, elbows… nothing. Not the slightest flinch. Her only success was that she got him to close his eyes and let the lids deflect the attack.

“Little creature fight or run!” Gruwsh demanded after a while with annoyance in his voice. “No fair if run and fight at the same time!”

With every bead that bounced off the troll’s body Amaterasu grew more disheartened. And this was just one of them! There still was another brute that looked much like the one now wildly swinging at her whenever he believed to be within range, not to mention the ten other trolls. Well, nine perhaps since the one had had his nose smashed in by Gruwsh.

Did the Prayer Beads not have the force to finish the job? She reached out to summon the Kusanagi no tsurugi but had to stop for a moment to focus, and the trolls used that to their advantage. She didn’t see the arrow coming and flinched when it dug itself through her dress into her shoulder. Her concentration was broken, the half-formed blade disappeared again, and Gruwsh darted forward, getting close enough to grab her. She was a split second too late in withdrawing her arm from his fingers closing around it.

Once her hand and half her lower arm had disappeared in his iron grip the troll began his assault. Amaterasu’s vision exploded into red as his first punch hit her square in the face. She heard the crunching of bones breaking. His next punch sunk into her chest and forced the air out of her lungs, and she felt her ribs break. The third hit landed a bit lower and the breakfast her stomach had begun to digest came back up. That was when the adrenaline came rushing in and numbed the pain.

Reflexively Amaterasu transformed. In her wolf form her paw, being much smaller than her hand and arm, easily slipped from the troll’s grip and she fell to the ground, rolled over and turned away. Then she ran.

She knew that every step she took would make it worse for her once the shock wore off. She winced as she felt the bone splinters pierce parts of her body that she didn’t even know existed until now. She bled from her snout and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as the red life-juice dripped down the sides of her maw and into the snow. If she got caught again she was done for. And she would get caught again. The troll had already injured her beyond where she could feasibly fight or run. And she knew that she was on borrowed time: as soon as the pain set in she’d be unable to do a thing.

She turned around to look at the trolls. Gruwsh was just recovering from his surprise. “Little creature became dog? How you do dat?” he asked. As he did, Amaterasu coated her tail in golden ink and drew a horizontal line into the air.

“G-g-giru”, she pressed out.

The sound of steel hitting rock rung through the Frozen Fields and Gruwsh howled as his stomach was cut. Amaterasu could see that it was a shallow injury though, enough to draw blood but little more. Even her deadly Celestial Brush technique was insufficient to inflict great damage against this brute? No matter, she had achieved what she wanted. The troll doubled over with pain and the others rushed to his aid.

She hid behind the nearest rock and transformed back to her human form, trying to ignore the painful throbs that were now starting to form. It wouldn’t be long now. She frantically searched her pockets until she found the Communicator and mashed the button to quick-call Fiara. Fortunately the phoenix girl picked up after only a few seconds.

“Mother Amaterasu? What-”

“No dime do dalg, Phee-Phiara…” Curses! Her broken nose was making it hard to speak. “Dell de dwarves do… run. Drolls addacked… doo many, doo sdrong. Fedch Kyutha- Kyutha…”

“Kyusaku? The chef?”

“Yedh, im. Fedch im from Hothi abd ude de… de Fur-Thelkieth do ride bag do... do Amber’s plathe. Dob’t waid for me.” She tried to hold the blood pouring from her broken nose but nothing helped. Her dress was already soaked.

“And we abandon Hoshi? And leave you to be murdered?!”

“Hothi ith judt… a down. Downs gan be rebuild! Abd I’ll be bag id a few dayth if I die. Bud nod you, if you die…”

“... no more. I understand.” Fiara’s voice was tearing up.

“Good. Be quig. Grab only foodth and ethentialth. I…” Hearing heavy footsteps, she stopped speaking. “I ave do go now. Dake care, Phiara.” Leaving her no time to reply, she hung up and pressed the button that turned the Communicator off. Then the shadow of the big troll obscured the snow around her, and she closed her eyes.

“Little creature cannot run from Gruwsh”, the troll said as he grabbed Amaterasu’s head. So big were his hands that just one could wrap around most of her skull.

“Dere’s noding for you do find in Hothi”, she said and closed her eyes. Her friends would be safe, that was all that mattered. She could hear the snow parting as the Fur-Selkie she had come with ran away from the smell of blood, probably back to the stables in Hoshi. Smart animal… she hoped that Oki, Urist Fiara and Kyusaku would find it. “Give me de merthy of… a thwift death, Gruwsh”, she then pleaded with her last breath. The troll, not being one to savor torture and gloating, obliged. He unceremoniously clenched his fist until the kami’s skull was crushed like a ripe grape.

As her lifeless body fell to the side he shook his hand and passed a hand over the fresh scar on his stomach. All the way across, from the far left to the far right, a mark to be proud of although it felt undeserved. This little creature had barely put up a fight. He’d hoped for a greater challenge.

“Now we go to glowy-beam land. Is up on big-flat-rock, so we find way to scale.” He pointed out the plateau while his eyes already scouted the surface, searching for possible pathways. “Once we up dere, we…” And that’s when he stopped speaking.

With no Omnilium reserve to keep it burning the artificial sun hanging over Hoshi had depended on Amaterasu’s presence to supply it all that time. Now cut off from its supply, its bright shine rapidly diminished to orange which in turn quickly died out, leaving only a huge black orb with reddish fissures and scars zigzagging across its surface, like a giant ball of smouldering ashes. The trolls gasped and pointed it out. One said that the gods were voicing their disapproval.

“Graaah! Shut up!” Gruwsh yelled and stomped his foot which made the others fall silent on the spot. “It big shiny-lantern with no smelly-burny oil left. It coincidence dat burn out now.” Granted, he felt a bit uneasy. What if the big troll-god was indeed showing his disapproval that he had tained the shiny-beam land with the blood of such a weak opponent? What if they were angry that he had not won their match in an honorable duel because Wartnose or Stinkfoot, one of the stabby-chuckers, had hit the little creature with a stabby?

No. Right now he needed to focus on what chief Zul’Jin had ordered. Occupy the territory with his trolls, dig up the source of raw Omnilium and alert Zul’gurand as soon as he’d found it. “We go now. You come with Gruwsh.” And because no troll objected they all followed him, towards the plateau.


On the other side of Hoshi Fiara, Oki and Urist had thus far had a somewhat pleasant conversation with the otherwise stubborn dwarves, explaining to them what the real reason behind the pillar of light was and that there was no Omnilium to be had here - or if there was, wouldn’t Amaterasu have harvested it already? - and that while sure, they could force them to let them into Hoshi, that would be a pretty hard act of aggression against an allied Prime who might not take it too well. Not to mention, they were building an outpost here that would be very beneficial to Dwarfholm if the dwarven faction remained in good standing with Amaterasu. Once the dwarves realized that the stories told by all three of them matched and that they were risking the alliance of a Prime over an uncertain amount of Omnilium, they were a bit more polite.

Until Fiara’s phone rung.

With the call set to speaker, Oki and Urist could listen in. The Oina warrior clenched his fists as he realized why Amaterasu’s speech was like that and wanted to go, but Urist held him back. They remained silent throughout the conversation. Then the sun went out.

“These trolls will pay”, Oki said bitterly.

“We can help ye”, the dwarf captain said.

“No”, Fiara responded firmly. “Mother Amaterasu’s orders are clear. We are not to throw ourselves into a pointless battle… if a Prime cannot stand up to these trolls, would we have any chance?” She turned to the dwarves. “We will be in touch with Dwarfholm soon… Hoshi has just suffered a major blowback but we’ll drive these trolls out and finish what we started… or start anew elsewhere if we cannot. Even if we won it would be a fruitless effort as long as we don’t have the manpower to defend from the troll’s reinforcements.”

“Hmm”, the captain mumbled in reply, and nodded. “Very well. We’ll report back ta Dwarfholm about this all.”

“Please do. Hopefully the next time we meet will be under better circumstances”, said Oki. He had already brought the Fur-Selkie closer and now helped the dwarf climb on. As the dwarves readied to leave the trio began their rush back to Hoshi. “Once we get to the city, Fiara goes to find Kyusaku and Urist stays with the animal. I’ll see if Amaterasu has sent her Fur-Selkie back to the stables… riding on two of them will be better than if the four of us climb on one’s back.”

“I’m already calling Kyusaku”, Fiara responded and held up her Communicator. “Keep it down a bit… Kyusaku? No time to explain. Pack all the food and drink you can and the absolute essentials for cooking! We’ll be there in five minutes and departing in ten! Amaterasu has been killed, we’re evacuating Hoshi!”

Under the dead sun they rushed into the city as soon as they arrived. Fortunately the three of them had no important personal belongings in their room, nothing indispensable - they had brought their weapons in case things escalated, which was all they needed - and Kyusaku had sufficient time to hastily pack up what they would need for the next week. With a Fur-Selkie it would take a day of travel to reach Atlas, but they could never know what issues might come up.

Strange… despite how this was but a ghost town without actual inhabitants, and what was much worse, it was an above-ground ghost town, Urist felt sadness as he overlooked the plateau from the Fur-Selkie’s back as he waited for the others. He’d grown attached to this place over the past weeks. He’d helped with designing it, so in a way it was his brain-child too.

How long did it take Primes to return to the living again? Something about a week, he remembered hearing. He felt like his guts were forming a knot out of a sudden. She would come back, right? No, of course she would, she was a Prime. Primes came back.

Five minutes later the four Secondaries fled Hoshi, leaving the plateau in their wake. Only once they were at a fair distance did Oki sign them to stop and looked back through a pair of binoculars, before bitterly having them go on. “The trolls have found a way into town. I just saw one of them kick in a door”, he said.

“We’ll get our payback”, promised Fiara. “For now, let’s just make sure that we remain safe.”

“Yes. We have to depart towards Atlas. Amaterasu will hopefully meet us there… let’s go.”

And so they departed, leaving the infant town behind not seeing the plumes of smoke of fires that the trolls lit from what wood they could find, to keep themselves warm. After all, without the artificial sun there to provide heat the Frozen Fields’s cold winds were quick to reclaim those lands.