Be Patient (open ~ all who can fly come!)

[inukimi]

InuKimi sat on her knees on a large, soft pillow-like thing with her hands delicately folded on her thighs. She was on a raised dais with two sentinels on either side of her a good distance away. More guards were stationed about the room, clustered close to the large door directly across from the daiyoukai and the windows that allowed startling bright light to filter into the large room. The wood walls and wooden dais gleamed from so much polish; the floor of the rest of the room was entirely stone. Lovely landscapes hung on the wall as well as several calligraphy scrolls. The largest painting was behind her; it was a likeness of the demoness herself. Beside it was a portrait of her beloved son and her mate, though both were considerably smaller than the one of herself.

Gold eyes stared ahead intently; had they been lazers they would have burned a hole straight through the closed doors. The youkai guards, who all seemed humanoid and looked alike, belied no emotion. Their mistress' obvious impatience must not have caused much alarm, though perhaps had they known how close she was to doing bodily harm to someone they might have shown some unease. The tension in the room was palatable, yet no one in the room seemed to notice. The daiyoukai was focused too much on her own problems while the guards... Well, it was doubtful they had so much as a fleeting thought in the years in they had come under her power so they stood peacefully with blank, faceless faces.

Five minutes... I'll give her five more minutes...

This thought had been running through her mind for the past half-hour as she sat there on the pillow. Her dinner was always served promptly at about seven at night - not that the daiyoukai had a clock to tell her that - and she found this to be intolerable. Her cook had been with her... Oh, well before her son was born. The youkai knew what her mistress wanted, knew that her patience would quickly run thin as she waited for her meal. Whatever had held the woman up might just be the end of her, InuKimi thought maliciously. It is ridiculous that one such as I must put up with these outrages.Her lovely face was screwed up with an expression of ill-disguised anger, though her profile itself was as placid and peaceful as a lake.

Of course, a late dinner could rile such outrage from the daiyoukai, but she had been feeling sour all day. She wasn't quite sure what was the matter; it was just one of those inexplicable crappy days. The cloud that held the castle had loosed some rain that morning, and the ensuing thunder and lightening was enough to put the daiyoukai on edge. It wasn't like she feared it, but the random crackling noises and flashes of light annoyed her greatly. Then some youkai lord had the audacity to stop by the castle; he had been a lowly badger on his way to somewhere or another and had paused to rest and chat a bit. Not only did his inferiority offend her, but she had been in no mood to entertain. She doubted if Sesshomaru were to arrive she could even tolerate him.

She breathed slowly through her nose and stood. Her small hands clenched and unclenched several times before she shouted, "Where the hell is my dinner?"

[eika]

The lingering storm in the air - she could read the currents like a human could read the elegant brushstrokes of a writer, the sky laid out to her in complex, invisible characters of smell and feeling - called to her, tugging on Eika's soul with the allure of freedom, a siren song composed of the keen of the wind and the slowly dispersing clouds, rich with the smell of rain. She was flying. There was only so long that she could stay on the ground before she had to fly, gliding without wings, running on the thin air. Though really, the motion was to stretch her legs - she could have stood still and she still would have moved, but that took more energy and focus, and focus was not easy to attain in the sky.

It was a contradiction - to feel so dangerously at peace, and yet feel her attention fragment and shatter into millions of shards, making her notice so many things at once. She was entering another youkai's territory, but her usual caution in doing so was chased away by the storm. There had been lightning here, and the air roared mournfully with the dying sound of thunder, the storm itself having passed on and dwindled into nothing. But she could feel it, feel the beloved power and freedom. There were no limits, in the sky, nothing to bind and constrict.

She was skirting the limits of her endurance. She knew that, knew she would have to land or hurt herself or do something to remember her physical form before she lost it entirely. But somehow - and it was always like this, the breath of a heartfelt promise that it wouldn't matter - she couldn't find the strength to care. She knew what was happening. She did. But the strength of will she needed to go down towards land - the earth, safety, confinement - wasn't there, broken apart by the air currents and the rush of speed and the whispers of her own soul.

So she continued on her course, moving through clouds, aware of the youki of another, pressing stronger upon her as time passed... And then she saw the castle, above the clouds and something of a haven. Interest combined with memory - was not this a daiyokai's territory? Surely one with great power over air to have a floating castle - and the wind youkai turned and made her way towards it, struggling with the dread as her paws finally touched something solid. But she could feel something like sanity slowly trickling back, and she stared wide-eyed at the wall, unaware of the presence of guards and trembling as she fought the urge to go back and truly become the wind.

((I haven't read the manga - though I need to at some point - so I don't know about the layout of the castle. Assume Eika is in the... courtyard, or outside the room that Inukimi is waiting in, or something. *fails*))

[keo]

"Where's my dinner, draw my bath~" came a sing-song-y chant from the ceiling of InuKimi's throne room. It was pretty tall, all things considered, and it had to be anyways to be high enough to fit that huge, gaudy painting of the lady herself. "Can't you do anything yourself, Kimi-hime-chaaaaaan?"

Close to the ceiling, a silver-haired girl with chocolate brown eyes appeared, as if out of thin air. She wore a black kimono with silver sakura blossoms embroidered along the skirt and sleeves, and more plain white skirts underneath to give it a fluffier, more dress-like appearance. Unfortunately for any peeping toms, she also wore a pair of black cotton leggings underneath. On her feet were black satin slippers with silver embroidery matching her outer kimono's.

Kitsushika Syeira. She was probably the oldest wind demon left alive, or at least she hoped she was the most powerful one, and she was bored. Oh so very bored. Often, she found herself frequenting the castle in the sky out of sheer boredom, just to annoy its mistress. It was entertaining to enrage the vain inu youkai, the mate of the late InuTaisho and mother of the lord of the western lands, Sesshoumaru.

The guards might have scrambled to throw pointy sticks at her if they weren't so used to her annoying presence, but most of them just looked up with dull expressions. Lifeless cattle to protect their lady, huh? Didn't she at least have the dignity to get some decent warriors that were at least good eye candy? Pffft, if Syeira ever decided to be a daiyoukai- which she might be able to achieve one day- she knew she would have some sexy guards to eye all day whether she had a mate or not.

[inukimi]

InuKimi could sense a demon outside her doors. The only people who would dare be so bold as to barge into her castle would be her late mate or her son. Toga was dead, and that sure as hell was Sesshomaru out there. In a fine snit, she was ready to go outside and destroy whoever was there. She heard some noise, meaning the guards were probably charging the youaki - for that was what it surely was. She moved to walk down the steps, though for her it was move like a graceful gliding. The guards began to follow her as she stepped down the stairs and headed towards the door.

Outside, the men-like guards were slowly moving towards the great beast. Their spears and swords and bows were drawn, yet they didn't seem concerned she was there. Of course, when you don't really have a face it's hard to tell what you're feeling. Except for the fact that their weapons were in their hands they didn't seem prepared for battle. But that was the way they were: Appearing weak and insubstantial, but that distracted one from the fact they were as strong as iron. They were also as blood-thristy as any other youakai; they just didn't show it. So they made their almost labored-looking march towards her. That was another trick; they could actually move quite fast.

InuKimi hoped they didn't kill the youkai; she wanted that pleasure for herself. The thought made her feel a bit better. At least, until she heard it. That God-awful voice. The daiyoukai paused and, glacing towards the ceiling where the impudent chit was hovering, pursed her lips. InuKimi sure didn't want to see Syeira, never had; the wind demoness annoyed her greatly, especially as she didn't properly defer to the daiyoukai. Really, no matter how many hints she gave the girl she wouldn't take them and be properly demure.

She wished the girl would stay away; it was a shame that her guards had grown as used to Syeira as they were to her own son. This displeased InuKimi, and she considered finding someone to erect some sort of barrier around the castle to keep the other youkai out. But that - to her logic, at least - would make her seem weak and fearful to the other daiyoukai, so that was out. Besides, how does one keep the wind out? It wasn't anything she - or anyone else - could control. Oh, for a while you might catch one and hold onto it for a while, but it would break out eventually.

The daiyoukai looked at the girl with obvious though relatively mild abhorrence and annoyance. She chose to ignore the wind youkai's question. "Why do you insist on calling me that? Kimiyo-sama is much more proper, Syeira-san." InuKimi didn't hold out much hope that would happen. Then she started her leisurely promenade towards the door. The guards had already opened it, but she couldn't see much besides the usual buildings and such. Then she stopped as a thought came to her. She looked back at Syeira and demanded suspiciously, "You didn't do anything to my cook, did you?"

[eika]

Control usually came gradually, but this time, it was hastened by the onset of guards. She really hadn't noticed them - but she was forced to now as they advanced, weapons drawn and pointing towards her. Eika was still too far-gone to feel fear, and even caution was slow in coming - the thought came to her that if they trapped her, she could just leap into the air. That action would be as much suicide as if she had thrown herself onto the guards - she didn't have enough willpower to figure out where she ended and the wind began, not right now. Growling softly as she stared at the guards, she felt the wisps of air on her back curl around her and then flare out. It was so tempting to run off, or use the wind now to ensure her safety... but she couldn't. "I do not wish to fight," she told the guards flatly, finally feeling the prickles of fear.

Was it sad that she was almost relieved that she could feel fear?

They could hurt her badly, though she might have welcomed that pain to ground her more. She was slipping from the balance that she worked so hard to attain, and fear helped her claw some of it back, tear away from the murmuring in her soul of eternal freedom. The guards were silent, moving slowly, but she didn't doubt that they would gladly do her harm if given the opportunity. What could she say? She hadn't intended to trespass, but she had done so, barely noticing. No one would honestly believe her claim. There was something in the air that had called her here, and she felt the pull to try and identify it. Youki... that of the guards, the much larger presence of what had to be the ruler here, and...

The wind called back to her.

It couldn't be possible - she had never encountered another wind youkai, not in all her travels - and yet that feeling was unmistakable. So when the doors opened, heralding the arrival of the youkai whose territory she had trespassed on, she could barely spare attention for anything other than what all her senses told her was another wind youkai. "You are..."

[keo]

Syeira looked at her nails nonchalantly as the inu youkai spoke, before turning back to her with a face of as much innocence as she could manage. "Why, what ever would make you think something like that, Kimiyo-sama?" she chirped, before giggling. "Your chef is fine, I-" she stopped abruptly as her gaze was drawn to the doors and what lie beyond them.

Another wind demon. Syeira had met others before, but the last time was over two hundred years ago when she'd gone back to visit her mother's clan's old territory. Unfortunately, only a few had lived through the years since Atsushi and Hana were killed while trying to fight off the ambitious new leader. The territory had technically belonged to Sy since her birth, but she had never had a reason to acknowledge it. If she wanted it, she'd take it back.

In a swirl of wind, she vanished, only to reappear in front of Eika. "... another wind youkai." She finished for her, and tilted her head curiously. "I'd heard of another wind demon roaming Japan from a wandering tribe of kamaitachi who'd apparently fought her about half a century ago, but I wasn't certain she was still alive. Are you her?" The daiyoukai, in the mean time, was promptly ignored.