Know Your Past

[Dracos]

Aisu-chan had a fun call with Grandma Tsurara today, but she asked an interesting question: How much do I really know about the story of my friends?  I know, kind of weird, but she got into it and reminded how important it is to be aware of your background.  A yokai who doesn't know their history, really can't harness fear of it.  It's important to understand, because we're going to be fighting creatures with long legends themselves, and we can't lose on that front.  So I'm going to try and do spotlights for each of the members of Clear Skies, even myself.  Maybe we'll learn something about it.

You might not get realize it, but Aisutori is a Yuki Onna.  My family is native to Japan and has been involved in the protection of Kanto province since a long time ago under the Nura.  Grandmother Tsurara still works up there, looking after her part of the family and the marketplaces, the cool breeze of eternity.  Her family there always treats Aisu-chan very nice when we visit, and they have the best ice cream in all of japan!  My parents moved us down to Osaka before I was born though, so we protect the area around that when we can.  What is a Yuki Onna though and why do people fear us?

Well, according to the myths, we've been haunting the mountainsides of japan for many many years.  There's even a lot of stories on how we like to seduce woodcutters.  Hearn wrote a very popular one about Oyuki and Minokichi many years ago, where the yuki onna Oyuki murdered Minokichi's father by freezing him to death and then made him promise to never tell anyone.  She then pretended to be a normal young woman and married him...vanishing though when he told her about that night.  I wonder if we're descended from Oyuki-chan.  I'll have to ask grandmother next we talk.

Anyhow, it seems there's not a lot of popular stories about us that don't involve us murdering people even with a kiss.  We're not really like that!  I don't really want to kill anyone!  I'd rather sing!  Aisu-chan promises her song and a good night kiss!

But yuki onna can be much like mountain sirens.  I'm really good with the basics, bringing the ice and snow wherever I am, but tales of old tell how Yuki onna could lose people in snowstorms of mystery, redirecting their vision until they couldn't tell right from left.  They could fly over the snow, floating along the snowflakes like a ghost.  In Yamagata they say how we were once princesses of the moon who descended upon the mountainsides, and lived lonely lives when we learned we couldn't go back.  In Iwate, they tell secret stories of how we can pull the spirits of men from them.

I've never seen Grandma Tsurara use much more than snow either, but I'll have to ask her if she can do these things next time I call.  Maybe I need to practice harder!

I'll write on Noriko-chan next.  This is Aisu-chan, going to bed!