Izanami's Dream

Life, Supernatural

Izanami, spirit-queen (ie, high priestess of the Crone's church and wife of the shogun) of the Tsukimoto, receives a vision from the Cowled One and informs her husband, the Shogun Izanagi.

Izanami, the spirit-queen of the Tsukimoto, receives a vision from her goddess, the Veiled One. She is walking through the great sakura forests of Tsukiyama, where each tree is one of the dead, when the evening sky turns as brown as stone and buzzing fills the air. A thousand insects descend from the north and begin to devour the trees, crawling all over her and desecrating the sacred places of the mountain. A phoenix then crested the horizon, and in its claws was a bow shaped like a crescent moon. From it, it unleashed volley after volley of arrows, each slaying countless insects. Izanami, after much thought, interprets it to mean that a great calamity and threat to the Wheel will come from the north, and that it will be defeated by her people, but under the reign of the Phoenix. This aspect puzzles her, until her husband, Izanagi, offhandedly remarks about the tenacity of the Rose Kingdom, which has been defeated time and again by its neighbors but always returns stronger than ever.