near the end of the festival week

[shakenit]

Chie and I have been working with Charalampos - I'm more and more certain that's Hikaru-san, for the record. He's

well. He's doing science about the gods, more or less. His theory is that divine presence within their Chosen people functions like a load-bearing wall in a house, and the Thing With Feathers dying ripped that wall away with no warning. He's looking for more information about how Chosen interact with their gods, if there's anything we can pass his way.

He was also invited to - I guess we might as well call it a seance? One of the Veiled Lady's priests managed to speak with the Thing With Feathers. It said it was killed by a weapon but wouldn't specify further, and anyway that doesn't seem to have been its main point.

[Written slowly, like she's copying from notes:] "The birds still fly. The wings remain. So too does hope." "Scars take time to heal. Never gone. But better with care, with love, with hope." "Hope is found in darkness. It never surrenders."

Just because a god dies, then, doesn't mean the thing it represents is gone from the world. If we're right that another god is going to die, then that's likely about to be very, very useful information.

Comments

[highsteaks]

Mr Chara's got a whole transcript of the seance, but it's too long to copy into the journals. But if you come to his booth or his house and say you're our friends and helping us, he'll probably let you look at it.

Me and Sumire HAVE read the whole thing and I think the Veiled Lady did it. Because the priest who was doing the seance was a Veiled Lady priest and like why wouldn't the Thing not tell everyone who's the murderer unless if it DID it would mess up the guy who's doing the seance in the first place? But it's only a theory. Maybe it's a dumb one.

But also the Veiled Priest guy did ask straight out who dunnit and the Thing was all "I will not have your HOPE lost." Only with a lot more pauses, I guess?

[shakenit]

Right, yes. He does. [At least Chie knows why Sumire's trying to distract herself.]

I don't think it's a dumb theory at all. I just don't know if there's any way we could prove it, since the gods aren't here in a physical sense in the first place.

[highsteaks]

[This is because Chie is ALSO trying to distract herself from the other murder by trying to solve this one. The other one is actually solved, it's just really awful and terrible and they hate it. Apron Brick Lady is the WORST.]

Yeah, I don't know how either. But if we ever do get proof...

[shakenit]

The other trick might be getting people to believe it. She seems to have a

benevolent, if slightly creepy, reputation.

[unsheathedfromreality]

She is Death.

Kindly or not to her worshipers, they do know she will take the precious and the beautiful and never return them, without explanation or apology.

[shakenit]

That is a very good point.

[highsteaks]

Oh right, because she's like the death god or whatever.

[shakenit]

And the reason there are so many ghosts at the festival.