The Young Men's Christian Association is a world wide charitable organisation with a Christian ethos whose aim is for young men of poor or otherwise dodgy backgrounds to have somewhere to stay and people to help them stay on the straight and narrow.  In Cambridge things are slightly different.  The residents are 68% female for one thing and the largest demographics include language students, students at CCAT and Chinese, Iranian and South American teenagers just coming to Cambridge to enjoy the experience.

Anjie put away the last of her clothes in the dresser provided and stacked her luggage in the closet. A quick look out of her window assured her that she couldn't see her house from here, which was surprisingly calming. Now that she was settled in, she decided to have a look around.

Inoue isn't entirely certain what this YMCA thing is; before she had left home the most she had been given was a crash course in English and twenty pounds. She was not overly worried; she trusted the Forces That Be to deliver her wherever she was needed and to give her the strength to overcome the obstacles. She could handle herself.

That didn't mean Inoue wasn't still a little worried. She had made the trip from Japan to Great Britain in three days. On foot! Even counting the "shortcut" she took, that was impressive... and concerning. Whatever was about to happen in this Cambridge place, it was big and soon.

Inoue couldn't help but sneak another look at the pretty girl whose portrait she had drawn. "Who are you...?" she quietly demanded of the sketch. It didn't answer. It had only the psychic energy she herself had imprinted on it, and she had just as much of a clue then as she does now. It will not be offering any answers anytime soon. Ah well.

As she nears the reception area, Inoue folds the sketch back up and returns it to her bag. She thatches her fingers in her lap and smiles prettily to the Authority Figure. Pretty. Feminine. Harmless. "Hello!" she greets. "I have... papers?" She is pretty sure the papers she had found in her bag had instructed her to come here!
This message was last edited by the player at 18:28, Thu 06 Jan 2022.

Lindi smiles a white toothed smile and does a little toss of her head.  She's just as feminine and just as harmless.  She takes hold of Inoue's papers and takes a look.  "Mr Jagger", she calls, turning around to talk to a colleague and in the process revealing an expanse of soft, pale neck.  "I think this might be the young lady you were expecting?"

The young man looked over and smiled.  "Ah yes, Konnichiwa.  Welcome to Cambridge.  You're fully paid up for a whole year, which is most unusual.  Here is your key and here are this week's meal tickets, they're labelled and dated, one a day for breakfast and one for the other meal, which is an evening meal on weekdays and a midday meal on weekends."

Mr Jagger said to Lindi.  "Are any of our Japanese residents present?"

"Yes, as far as I know most of them are and..." There was a tall Japanese woman who seemed to be in her early thirties.  "Hiromi?" she called.

The Japanese woman wandered over. "Yeah?"
"This girl just arrived from Japan.  Could you take her to her room and show her around please, room 415?"
"Yeah, Kon'nichiwa, hanabira, kore wa Igirisu de no saisho no hidesu ka? Kono yō ni."
 

With this, Hiromi led you down a long corridor, past the snack bar where she had been five minutes ago, past the stairs that led upstairs to the Residents Dining Room and the TV Lounge and finally to the lift.  "It doesn't often work but today we're in luck."

It is one o'Clock in the morning and one by one the stars go out, soon enough the streetlights follow as fog arises from the ground and thickens around you.  Those who are awake feel a sudden cold, not a September cold but a December cold.  For those who remember, it's a December 1963 cold, an 1816 cold, a cold that sinks down through the bones and kisses the marrow.

Those who are sleeping dream, touched by malicious spirits, they find themselves struggling against a bitter wind that sings knives of a cold not seen before.  Behind them they hear the howling of wolves, ahead the raucous calls of hunters.  Neither seems a safe bet.

Inoue can't help but eye the soft tract of neck flesh. What an unusual detail to rise fo the level of conscious attention. She wonders what it means.

Ah yes, Konnichiwa. "Konnichiwa~!" Inoue repeats merrily to the man she supposes is Mister Jagger. Oooh, meal tickets! She shall guard them with her life because they are the fuel for her life! She sticks them in the envelope with her sketch of Ann Winters and adds the key to her chain. She supposes the priestesses must have called ahead with one of those fancy electronic phone thingies. She never had cause to use one.

Inoue bows a farewell to Mr. Jagger and hop-skips to catch up to Hiromi. "Hai!" Inoue confirms the older woman's question. "Watashi wa saikin tōchaku shita dakedeshita."¹

Inoue takes in the space as she is escorted, mapping it all out in her head. It sounded like she would be living here for the foreseeable future, so she better get comfortable with the layout. She pauses at the lift, staring at the contraption skeptically. "Watashi wa koshō ni okori yasui kinzoku-sei no hako ni tojikome rarete iru no wa fukaidesu. Kaidan?"<sup>2

1</sup> "I have only just arrived." (polite tone)
² "I am uncomfortable being locked in a metal box prone to malfunction. Stairs?"

---

Dreams were very nearly Inoue's stock and trade. Sometimes they were pleasant, and sometimes frightful. She had learned to navigate both. She brandishes her naginata -- summoned to her hands by the mere thought that is where it simply should be -- and advances with a cautious urgency. There was danger in this dreamscape; if the monsters did not catch her then the cold would do her in. She needed to find shelter!
This message was last edited by the player at 18:30, Thu 06 Jan 2022.

Hiromi grins at Inoue's answer.  Recognising the polite tone, she shifts easily into English.  "Perhaps it would be better if we speak in English so that my use of familiar tones does not give offence.  I am from Sendai, you understand?  We're an uncouth lot there."  So much is clear from her accent and the tight jeans that emphasize her shape.

When you express an entirely sensible preference for stairs over the lift, Hiromi said, "There are 60 steps" but she begins climbing the first of them.  Your room is on floor 4 (which would be floor 5 in some cultures because in England the Ground floor is the floor below floor 1).

When you arrive, Hiromi says, "I don't know whether you like cricket but you have a magnificent view of the University Cricket Ground at Fenners.  I'm three doors down."

One cannot fight cold with a Naginata, but looking around, you find yourself just outside the YMCA.  The glass door is locked but there is a man inside using an industrial vacuum cleaner.

Inoue nods. "That does seem to be the general form here," she notes with a seamless transition back to English. Elissa and her rough overtones come to mind. "I have met one other student and she was a sweary lout! What is a shitkicker?"

Inoue takes to the steps with enthusiasm. A workout at the end of every day to help keep the body in shape! The bounce in her step diminishes some by the third flight but she shows no signs of slowing down. "Reminds me of the trip up the temple stairs every morning back home!"

"I am sure I will learn to like Cricket," Inoue says with a slight grimace that seems to add whether I want to or not. "Thank you for your help, Hiromi. I am sure I will need as much as I can get. Ah! My name is Inoue!"

---

Coldcoldcoldcoldcold! Spotting possible salvation Inoue breaks into a run towards the glass doors, banging on it with her free hand to get the janitor-looking man's attentions. "Help! Let me in!" she pleads through the transparent barrier.

Dave looks up from the machine and heads to the door with a bunch of keys jangling as he moves them from belt to hand.  He looks past you and asks, "Did they give you any trouble Miss?"  He nods toward the pale blue clad army that seems to be assembling on Parker's Piece.

Inoue looks back, noticing said army for the first time. "Ah, no, but they are making quite a din!" She bounces on her heels as she waits for the doors to open, both in anxiety and in some small effort to keep warm.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 22:37, Thu 06 Jan 2022.

Dave opens the door and on stepping through, Inoue finds herself in her own bed and it's not nearly as cold as she thought it was, but it is dark and she is wide awake.  She has school tomorrow.

Inoue sits up in bed, nervous and confused. What the heckin' heck kind of dream was that? It was so unusually vivid but, at the same time, it had ended so abruptly. What was the point? ... Maybe it would make more sense in the morning. Inoue pulls out her dream journal and makes a few brief notes, then flops over and goes back to sleep.

(( Entering scene from Cinema msg #39. ))

Inoue locked the door behind her as she returned to her dorm room, leaned back against the door and sighed loudly. What a wild day this had been! She blames the toast gods; by their fickle whims do things happen fast! But despite the lingering redness in her eyes and cheeks, she is glad that things happened the way they did. With all the initial awkwardness and yelling out of the way early there was surely no way the days ahead of her could be worse than this. Sure, there might be demons or such which might hurt her, but she had trained for that. Angry schoolgirls... Inoue had no idea how to deal with angry, argumentative, self-righteous schoolgirls.

Inoue pushes off the door and walks to her trunk¹, kneeling in front of it as she works the lock. The smell of cedar rushes up up from the empty chest to greet her. She smiles knowingly at its depths. She takes a deep breath, filling herself with air and determination, and imagines sculpting her emotions to into a ball which she sends through her arm to her fingertip. She does a little twirl with her finger and taps the rim of the chest.

"Was zweie ga aulla yor cest mea!"

With a shimmer, her possessions appear!

Inoue is very grateful that she does not have to share her room with a classmate; not because she desires privacy or space (though she admits that having them is nice) but because trying to explain her practices to a stranger not in the know would be difficult to impossible. Inoue may have been steeped in the traditions of her Sisterhood since she was little but she is not blind to how strange it all might seem to another.

Inoue pulls out several wooden incense burners, lighting them with a long-handled match. Next she removes a roll of black velvet and spreads it out across the floor, revealing a pattern in vividly contrasting silvery thread. She begins peeling off at a leisurely pace the layers of clothes she had worn that evening, breathing deeply of the earthy fragrance filling the room. When done she kneels in the center of the circle, nude save for a silver chain bearing a torii gate pendant that rested just above her modest bust. She takes the deepest breath yet, holding it, letting the sacred incenses propagate through her body. Then, she speaks;

"Honored spirits of venerable England, let my voice reach you. I have come from afar and know not the circumstances of this land. Bestow upon me the knowledge I seek, and I will realize your desires upon this plane. Let our wills entwine; let my body become your instrument; let my voice speak your words. Rrha yea ra corpu mea nha spiritum yor!"

Putting out a general call like this was always risky. She had to admit that she was nervous to do so in a land that was apparently so cursed as to summon a slayer to it. But she needed to know what this place's deal was, sooner than whenever the kami deigned to visit her dreams and in more detail than the tarot could provide. It was worth the risk. She hoped.

All she could do was wait and see who -- or what -- answered her call.

¹ Which she totally always had, honest! Timey-whimey and all that!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:10, Sun 23 Jan 2022.

That which came moved more quickly than any spirit Inoue had ever known, more quickly even than any spirit of which she had heard.  It reeked of power and yet, when it spoke, its voice was gentle, one might almost say it was kind.  Oh but it was venerable.  It was ancient even.

It seemed to stretch and yawn, stretching Inoue's body in ways it was not used to and in directions that were not even possible according to any laws of physics that were taught in even the best of Japanese schools.

Once it had settled down it looked in the mirror and said, "You are too small and too weak to be a host and yet you open yourself as a hind opens her throat to the wolf.  What would you have of me, youngling?  What do you offer?"

The wolf growled and there was a howl that could be heard from the moon or only within this very room.  Herne reached out to take hold of Inoue's hand, settling in, moving her fingers one at a time.  "Should we dance, youngling?" he asked with Inoue's own lips, with Inoue's own tongue.

It was with some small shame that Inoue squeaked in delight, terror, and confusion. This was a secret thrill of hers, but this time her call was answered by something far in excess of anything her modest magicks and training were meant to handle. Perhaps her elder sisters would have been prepared. Or maybe not. It was hard to say either way, or even think when her mind body and soul were being stretched to their limits in eldritch directions that she had no name for. It was all she could do to hold onto her being.

Inoue did not resist as the spirit, this Herne, slipped its influence in the metaphysical spaces between her muscle and bone, standing and appraising her body without her input. Inoue may be young, but she did her best to make her body a suitable vessel for her honored spiritual guests; her nude form on display was fit and trim throughout without losing its feminine softness. The only thing that might mar it were the scars; many of them almost invisible to all but the most critical appraisals, but some larger. Training accidents, mostly. There was magic to deal with such things, but Inoue felt every mark told a story worth telling.

To and from someplace deep within herself, Inoue thought her intents to Herne in words that transcended language. Witnin the soulspace, there were no secrets or deceptions, only pure psychic communication. Inoue felt the gentleness of Herne's contact, abrupt and eldritch though the initial brush may have been, and responded in kind, bearing to her a soul full of confident determination and nervous thrill.

I am a shaman still in training and apologize for the meagerness of my magics, Inoue offers to Herne. It was just one sentence but offered a wealth of deeper knowledge, limited by the spirit's curiosity and capacity to absorb it. Even so, I am less vulnerable than I may at first appear! I am new to these lands and seek information to aid in my mission -- and perhaps a little bit of fun in the interim.

I would very much enjoy the opportunity to dance with you! Duty could wait. After a day like this, Inoue needed a little fun.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:16, Mon 14 Feb 2022.

Herne takes Inoue dancing over Parker's Piece imparting both an animal energy and balletic grace into the dance, every step teaching her more how it is to be hunted and to be hunter.  Herne is no fae though, whatever humans might think and he dances to the iron wall and touches it with her fingers, leaving no harm to either wall nor flesh.

He dances her back to her room and in the twinkling of an eye, picks up paper and charcoal and sketches a rough outline of somebody vaguely human.  "This is Christopher Pressman and it is Joe the Goblin.  On their own, they are harmless but together, not so much.  They could break Cambridge University for all time and the Faelands in England for even longer."