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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 12:03 pm
Aquarius had continued to be uncertain about which shrine should be built first. What Kumiko had suggested was that they just build a shrine in the first place they came across that looked like a place that any of the Signs would absolutely love. It was a fair answer, but it had meant wandering around, looking around for something that looked right. Three months had passed, and they'd finally found something good.
It was near the coast, at the last steep hillside before a wide river continued wending its way across the flats to fan out into a delta opening into an ocean bay. The midday sun sparkled off the cascades tumbling down over the mossy rocks, a rainbow shimmering above the foamy base where the water pooled before drifting back to its course. Aquarius grinned widely. Flying Stars could get to just about any shrine, so no issues there. Terrestrial Stars could also get a lot of places, with some perseverance and hard work; this place, though, was reasonably accessible. Aquatic and marine Stars, however, had it very difficult, and the nice delta and river opening out on the bay made this a great spot for Novae to come, too. Beautiful, accessible, full of water and light and rainbows and suchlike, ideal for Aquarius' own shrine. Bonus, the sun rose over the falls, which would give a nice sensation of her blessings falling down from the skies. A good beach sunset was nice, but, again, not required. Kumiko paused beside the Sign, looking critically at the landscape. "This is the spot? How did you want us to build the shrine, and where?"
The land was marked out by waterways and the cliff face backing the waterfall. Aquarius hadn't been the most forthcoming about the nature of these shrines, but the idea of building something on or around a waterway sounded like a nonstarter of an idea. Pretty, but improbable.
She sighed and winced her sky blue eyes shut, swallowing a groan of disapproval. There'd better be a reasonable way of making this happen.
The thought did cross her mind that, perhaps, just maybe, shrine building wasn't hard or complex. Hah, and it snowed at the equator of this world. Why else did they have the Sign tagging along with them, helping them with their assignment? Well, more like life mission for the herd, but she didn't consider it the wisest thing to actually make snide comments to Aquarius' face. One did not just go around pissing off a Sign. Not even the nice ones. ESPECIALLY not the nice ones.
But she could still hope that it wasn't that difficult to build a shrine, given the terrain they'd likely be working with.
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:13 pm
Aquarius looked around more carefully, considering things. "Well, we're going to start with a circle of stones. The biggest we can find and move. I'd like to center it around the base of the waterfall, using the cliffside as part of the circle, so we won't have to move quite as many of the stones. Decoration will happen later, as well as anything else I feel we should add. Sound reasonable?" she asked, a mental image of her shrines back in Dreamspace coming to mind.
Kumiko listened, and sighed. At least it wasn't too complicated. But that didn't stop it from sounding like a hassle to construct. "Good thing we're not talking about some huge boulders on some misty moor, and we're not talking about lintel stones. Do-able, but not easy. I suppose all the shrines will be like this? Hopefully decorations won't be too complex, and I can see why you'd want 'em. Otherwise, all thirteen shrines will look roughly identical." Toby was not going to be fine with this idea. But then again, he wasn't much more a model of patience and nicety than Kumiko was.
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Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:19 am
Aquarius shrugged. "For now, the shrines will be architecturally very similar. More advanced shrines back in Dreamspace used to take whole teams of very powerful Stars to raise them. I understand there are too few Stars like that in this world, and they are too widely scattered. So we'll start with the basics. Develop into complexity later. Let the landscape do a lot of the legwork in the meantime."
Oh, how she missed her shrines in Dreamspace. The delicate carvings, slender archways, some filled with colorful glass, hung with windchimes and epiphytic plants. Trickling waterfalls, cascading everywhere, with her shrines perfectly arranged to catch both the light and the storm.... She missed it. But this world wasn't ready for those kinds of things. First came the standing stones in the perfect locations.
Kumiko nodded, mentally calculating. She'd heard a bit about the elders who claimed to have been bestowed with magic no one else seemed to possess. The pieces of the story felt like they were coming together. Perhaps too neatly, but, then again, it was unreal, having this conversation with one of the Signs. More complex shrines sounded intimidating, but that wasn't for today. That was for the day when the herd itself possessed more powers. If they were still building shrines at that point.
"Makes sense," was her curt reply. "Let's get started." Kumiko turned to the rest of the herd to start giving directions to what would become the core of the first shrine to any of the Signs in this world.
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