User blog:Wuldnakest/The Cat and the Bird Part 2

       Yin stood on her hill and excitedly looked down the river at the human city, Yangzhou. In the distance she could just make out a set of white and red sails parked in the harbor. Usually shipments meant trade between Kina and the Dark Lands, but she had learned that red sails specifically meant travelers. Travelers meant people ignorant of Kina's myths, which meant those people were much less likely to have fears of jinkos, which meant she would have someone new to talk to instead of the other familiar, boring jinkos from her village. She giddily shivered from all the new things she could learn from the travelers, like magic, architecture, and writing.



       In the warm autumn afternoons, the mist that surrounded the foothills usually vanished from the sun, allowing great visibility from the hilltops closest to shore, though the hot summer afternoons had been known to completely eradicate the mist from the nearest mountains. Farther inland, however, the fog was so much more persistent that the sun couldn’t burn it away.



       Yin couldn't know for sure if any travelers would want to come to Xao-Tung-Na, the small human village nearby, but she could always hope. Especially since the last time a few years ago had brought enough travelers to nearly double the town's population. Most had left of course, save for a few people, but they never seemed to want to walk in the forest. No jinko had seen any of the Dark Landers in a while, however, and even the natives were becoming increasingly rare. Most jinkos assumed the reason was because Xao's denizens were deep in superstition, and always thought jinkos were dark creatures who would steal their people if given the chance, so they rarely left their village.



       A sudden noise pulled her from her daydreaming. She looked to her left and noticed the sound of a carriage coming up the hill. Quickly Yin stood up off the road and hid herself in the foliage. She looked up at the sky to find the sun had drifted way into the west, and she hit herself for spending so much time daydreaming. The carriage passed lazily as she watched it closely, taking in all the details she could. There was one passenger with several bags of supplies, and Yin chuffed excitedly.



<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12pt;text-indent:0.5in;">       “Looks like he’s going to stay for a long, long time,” she thought happily. “Plenty of time to teach me all about the Dark Lands.” When the carriage passed, she stood up and hurried back to her own village before the carriage made it to Xao-Tung-Na. Her own village was a few hours’ run from where she was, even for a powerful jinko, mostly because it was a mostly uphill trek into the mountains. She wanted to be able to catch this traveler before Xao's people could taint his mind with their superstitions and lies.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12pt;text-indent:0.5in;">       She ran as quickly as her legs could take her, much faster than any human could run, and almost as fast as Kina’s tigers. She sprinted through dense foliage and branches, but with her agility she was able to dodge them with ease. Jagged rocks and small pebbles against her calloused paws didn’t bother her either. Soon she made it to the river that led directly to her village, and the clear riverbanks made running that much easier since there were no branches or massive trees to get in the way.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">       Just as she was arriving at her own village in the last moments of twilight, she looked back and happened to see a moving light on the road approaching Xao-Tung-Na, and she nearly yelped in excitement. The road continued deep into the mountains, but seeing the carriage turn into the little village across the river from the jinkos made Yin ecstatic. She excitedly hurried back to her hamlet, guided by the dim candle lights in the elevated homes. She hopped and then jumped up to her house, a wooden hut hanging about ten feet above the ground in a tree to deter predators, and pulled herself inside.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman"; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:#222222">       Yin didn't bother telling the other girls about the travelers. Some had already found husbands both Kina natives and one or two Dark Landers, while others simply didn't care about men or meeting new people, at least while their monster blood lay dormant. Yin didn't care about a husband so much either, in fact the idea hadn't seriously entered her head, but she was so curious about the outside world that she had to meet a traveler and ask him what the other places were like. She lay down on her small bed and pulled the blanket over her as she looked up at the ceiling, wondering about the traveler and what he would be doing here.