Ch 15: On Station [End]

Things fell into a smooth rhythm after those early weeks.

Brody, Deckard, and I found ourselves permanent members of the staff once we got our rooms, and our friendly little smugglers that arrived from outside got us what we needed in record time.

Brody decked out her room much in the same way a college student would, and of course got her massive, flat screen TV to watch her cartoons on. Despite her grumbling, the castle was however not going to budge on the furniture, so she got a large ground couch with a lot of cushions to keep her comfortable. This included a rice maker, fridge, a gaming computer, and weapon racks… which were to also “keep her comfortable”.

Deckard was given a classic room in the seldom used wing, and kept it strictly traditional except for a small mini fridge to keep his drinks cool. There must have been a lot of koolaid in that fridge, because the man had gone completely native as far as it went with clothing and living. He had done away with his normal boots, the clothes he brought over, and the only thing modern about him was his combat gear.

The castle staff loved him for that, obviously, which made their poker nights infamously loud if the Tanuki showed up.

Which they always did, it seemed like.

Deckard was also heading up in the modernization of the castle’s defences, including mounting pintels for larger weapons as well as digging mortar pits for point defenses of the surrounding area. If the man really got his way, he would likely get a few artillery pieces in the castle as well, but I told him to not hold his breath on that particular star wish.

Me… well. I already had a room, technically.

Tano and I have found it an agreeable situation to both room together, our window always having a clutter of crow offerings on it every morning, which are always placed in a basket so the other crows could peek in and see who was balling large that day.

I got us a slightly larger fridge, she… did not get us a larger futon, as she turned out to be a malicious cuddler, but our DVD collection grew substantially as I showed her the finer points of Human cinema.

Our weapons hung together on the wall, as she laid claim to the M110 and threatened me with her fan when I offered to get her a new one. Our body armor sat on T-stands below our rifles, and for some reason she always wanted the arms to touch so “they could hold hands”.

Tano was always doing odd stuff like that now adays, including sewing little cartoon Onis onto my clothes.

She still tried to get me to wear those damned kimonos every day, even attempting more seductive forms of bribery that still only swayed me to wear the pants. I still preferred my more modern garb, as well as my modern wool socks and things spun in comforting cotton. I was slowly getting used to living in an old Japanese castle, desperately wishing for our own toilets and wash rooms, but it seems that is still a few years off.

Tano kept herself busy chronicling the battle of the castle in a large tome while I am patrolling, but she would stretch her legs beside me through the day while wearing her body armor. She get a bit fidgety when we passed certain sections of the castle, or some parts along the walls, but that was just the combat jitters growing in her veins.

It didn’t take long, but the castle was repaired a few months after the ending of the battle, the yellow Oni taking great care under the directions of Deckard and the many wizards that helped piece the walls back together. There had been some talk about a name for the conflict that engulfed the castle, and some castle staff were calling it “The Battle of the Brass Waterfalls”.

I thought the name was little more romantic than it should have been, but my name of “The Day of Black Snow” was rejected for being “too dark”.

With the castle spic and span, back in shape and form, things turned to the newly laid ground for the village.

With the old villages burned to ashes, a new massive village was to be constructed around the castle with its own wall system, and work started in earnest from both the magically aligned folk of Japan and the friendlier yokai.

Temples were remade and laid to ground, homes constructed in the old ways in their classic styles, and the place was a thriving town by the end of Summer. Restaurants and pubs were filled with people and their families, babies newly born wailed from the freshly built hospital, and families began to repair themselves from the hard times.

More odd was that the yokai didn’t leave this time, instead sticking around in this new, curious place of power. When asked, the Kitsune, more good-aligned tengu, Rokurokubi, and Yuki-onna spoke of an “air” around the castle now, a knowledge that they are “safe” within the grounds and cannot fall under the influence of others, such as Prince Aozora.

It gave the new village a bit of odd charm, and hundreds travelled in to see the yokai living as neighbors to the merely mortal. It created a few issues here and there, such as the Tengu running off with sake or the Yuki-onna making icicles where they shouldn’t, but it just added to the vibe.

As for the leaders of that safety, I was instructed to be the head of it, and the arrival of an invisible Chinook helicopter really stirred up the villagers and their yokai neighbors.

Snapping into view after the wizard on board lifted the spell, the Chinook landed outside the castle walls near a gathering of wagons, the horses with their eyes covered, ears plugged, and noses in fresh tasty hay to keep them distracted from the thud of the blades.

My new Platoon poured off the ramp, hauling crates between them as they disembarked, and they were transported up through the castle gates to where I waited with Brody, Deckard, and Tano.

I also made sure to have a few Kitsune loitering around to spook them as they came up the road, as well as some of the castle staff going about their duties to really knock it home that they were somewhere else.

As they hopped off the wagons with their weapons crates, I stood there in those stupid ass kimono pants, my plate carrier over one of my casual long sleeve sunshirt, and my boots. Tano matched my energy with a mix of modern wear while taking cues from Brody’s own mishmash of elements, though Deckard was still deeply sipping the koolaid in a full men’s kimono under his gear.

And those stupid split toed boots.

“Howdy fellas.” I called out, walking down towards them from the steps of the castle as they formed up, all of them still looking around with wide eyes. “Ride in nice and calm?”

“As calm as it could be.” A woman called out, obviously their leader until I came onto the scene. “I’m Holvic, I’ll give you a list of all their names here in a minute. Did you know they have flying heads around here? Our Chinook’s gunner mowed one down as we were coming over the mountains.”

I chuckled at that. “They just look scary, and die to most things you poke a hole in them with.”

“The koi pond was nice.” Holvic said with a chuckle. “Is that where Deckard shot that sea mine?”

I nodded. “Saved our asses with that one, we would have looked like a bunch of Elves flying through the air at Helm’s Deep if he hadn’t shot that damn thing in time.”

Deckard barked out a laugh at that, while everyone else chuckled.

Tano didn’t really get it, but I hadn’t shown her the Lord of the Rings yet, and made a mental pin to play that one tonight during our cuddle time.

I showed them to their berthings, a long garrison room that the staff had cleaned up for them to live in. It could fit the thirty troopers comfortably, and I left them to get set up and get their bearings.

When lunch came around we all sat at our own table, now called the “Blackpowder and Iron” table by the staff, and I broke down the normal schedule when classes would begin in the Fall. After that we set up the new mortars, a recoilless gun, and mapped out where the new guard stations would be along the walls and gatehouses.

It felt like I had been talking all day and walked nearly ten miles by the time the sky fell, and the last bit of introducing them to the crows had taken the longest.

Onoue Enri had once again taken a new stab at fixing the crows, and now the third accent of country yokels joined the bonstonian and jive, giving the air an even more chaotic twist.

Onoue didn’t take it well, of course, and the Platoon was worried about the woman who kept sobbing at her desk.

With the work day done, dinner eaten, and the Platoon off to their rooms to rest after their long day of travel, I slowly made my way up the steps towards our room, sliding open the door with a sigh as I stepped inside.

Tano was sitting at her writing desk, legs splayed out beneath it and wiggling her yellow feet back and forth on her heels. She was wearing one of the more modern tank tops I had bought for her and a pair of dolphin shorts, her little quill pen itching and scratching at the paper as she looked up at me.

“Get your men all situated?” Tano asked me, rinsing off her quill in a little bowl of water and putting it on a holder.

I nodded with a yawn, watching her cork her ink pot and shimmy her way free of the table. “Yeah, gonna get them started on their routes tomorrow so they are used to them by the time the kids get here.”

“Aw, did someone have a long day of walking and talking?” Tano said in mock comfort, standing up and walking over towards me to throw her arms around my neck. “Does someone need a strong ‘wittle Oni girl to wash them in the baths?

I leveled my eyelids at her, grimacing. “We only did that three times, and it was because I was still healing.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Tano said lowly with a grin, running her yellow fingers through my hair as her chocolate brown hair fell over her eyes again. “I don’t remember you hating it.”

The hair always did it for me, and I just let out a laugh as I wrapped my arms around her. “Despite how much I may have liked it, the castle staff did not appreciate the noise we made, and I did not like the dirty looks they kept giving me for ‘ruining the sanctity of the baths’.”

Tano giggled loudly at that, then kissed me on the lips, the way she always did when I got back to the room late.

I held that kiss with her, reapplying as I saw fit in order to pull those cute little noises she made in her throat when she was enjoying herself.

I broke the kiss with a soft click of our lips, then rubbed the tip of our noses together as I spoke softly. “Still wondering what I meant by Helm’s Deep?”

“Oh my gawd, yes!” Tano huffed out as she hung her head backwards. “It’s been driving me crazy! It’s from a movie, isn’t it? We haven’t seen it yet or I would have picked up on it immediately!”

I nodded, looking over to my old translation earring on the shelf as I guided her towards the large flat screen that was only slightly smaller than Brody’s. “It is a movie, but it is not one we can watch from the middle. You see it starts with the Fellowship of the Ring, and only after that can we watch The Two Towers.”

“Is it in the two towers movie?” Tano asked me, sitting down in front of me and in between my legs once I found my seat. “Oh wait, you’re gonna make me watch another trilogy, aren’t you? This better be a more entertaining watch than the space wizards with the laser swords, I kept falling asleep during those and the siblings kissed… which was gross.”

I laughed at that as I opened the DVD player next to our sitting area, putting the first movie in and closing it with a press of the button. “Oh, I think you’ll enjoy this one far more, you may even find it kinda familiar.”

“Oh?” Tano asked me with an arched brow, snuggling back into me and pulling my arms around her. “You think so?”

I looked down at her, letting my eyes flow down her chocolate brown hair, her yellow horns, and my silence caused her to look up at me.

She smiled up at me, her purple eyes glittering into mine, and I leaned down, giving her a soft kiss on the forehead.

“Yeah.” I said softly, hugging her to me as the score began to grow on the speakers of the flat screen. “I think so.”