Mizuiro's Cavern

There had been a blizzard forming in the mountains for several days now and the tengu had even gone so far as to issue a strict weather advisory to the inhabitants of Youkai Mountain. However, rather than listening to the warnings of “a bunch of silly birds that think they know everything,” Miyu had proceeded to go for a mid-afternoon run up the mountain as she sometimes liked to do when there wasn't much going on. A foolish decision, that. She hadn't even brought a scarf with her and now she was caught in a very bad snowstorm indeed. She was too far up the mountain to risk trying to get back to her hut in the Great Youkai Forest, so her best bet would be to try and find her way up to the Moriya Shrine where she would surely be given shelter.

The weasel youkai had done her best to stay on the trail, but the snow was falling so thickly that it was impossible to see anything more than an arm's-length away. Miyu grinned to herself, trying hard to ignore the fact that her teeth were chattering. Guess I should have listened to those featherheads after all, she thought as she reached up to blow warm air onto her trembling fingertips. She suddenly stopped in her tracks as she felt a breath of warmth from what she thought was the direction of the mountainside. Squinting, she could just barely make out the entrance of some sort of cavern.

Miyu hesitated for only a moment before stumbling through the snow and stepping into the cave. It was warm and dry and given the proximity of the shrine, anyone who happened to live here probably wouldn't be too bad of a sort. Once she was far enough inside that the worst of the wind had dissipated, Miyu shook herself in a manner reminiscent of a wet dog, ending the brisk movement with a sharp flick of her long tail.

“Eeeeeeeh? Is anyone home?” she called as she bent down to brush the last of the snow from her feet. “It's snowing something awful outside, so I'm coming in. I promise I'm not a crazy person.” And with that, she set off down the curving tunnel, her wooden shoes clacking loudly on the stone.

Although the intensity of the heat was almost as uncomfortable as the snowstorm outside, Miyu's curiosity had been piqued and she would not be able to find a comfortable spot in the cave to sit and wait for the blizzard to quiet down... not until she had had a good look around, at least.

She paused at the edge of the metal lattice, her scalp prickling and the fur on her tail frizzing up until it resembled an overlarge bottlebrush. If the anvil and weapons were anything to go by then this was someone's forge, and where there is a forge there is bound to be iron, one of the very few things that Miyu feared. The material wasn't exactly deadly to her, but coming into close proximity to it could be very painful and debilitating. Her own magic sickle was made of some sort of pressed ceramic from the outside world rather than the steel alloys or iron that most other residents of Gensokyo used for tools and weapons.

At this point Miyu almost retreated back to the entrance of the cave; the idea of being close to iron was repellant enough to curb even her voracious curiosity. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the details of the objects on the shelves through the heat haze. Her fingers itched to go through the crafting materials just to see what was there, to “borrow” something small and glittery that probably wouldn't be missed. She shook her head, the tails of the purple ribbon tied to her earring fluttering in the hot air. Much as she would have liked to explore the underground forge a little more, she didn't want to get any closer unless she knew for sure that she could avoid any iron that happened to be there. Walking on that metal thing probably wouldn't be good for my shoes anyway, she thought as she pushed her lips out into a childish pout—and then frowned guiltily as it occurred to her that the person who used this forge almost certainly wouldn't be glad to come back to find a nosy weasel poking through their belongings.

In any case, there didn't seem to be anyone here now and the intense heat was beginning to get more than a little uncomfortable. Still, even if she couldn't look at all of the things on the shelves, Miyu wanted to know who worked here. She decided to wait around for the mystery smith to come back, even if the storm blew itself out first. The weasel youkai moved back up the tunnel until the temperature was tolerable once more and sat down to wait. And then, despite the rather steep slant of the floor and the decided lack of a comfortable futon, the warm air began to make Miyu drowsy. She struggled against the sleepiness for a few minutes, blinking quickly and rubbing at her eyes, but after she had nodded off a few times she gave up, curled into a loose ball against the wall of the cavern and promptly fell asleep.

Miyu was startled awake at the sound of the first bang and she had jerked herself up into a sitting position with one hand pressed to the sickle tucked into her belt before conscious thought truly returned. Her slender eyebrows drew together in a slight frown as she realized just what the sound was and where it was coming from. It seemed as if the owner of the forge had come home, or had perhaps been home the entire time.

Curiosity piqued once more, the weasel youkai gathered her feet beneath her, stood up, and then immediately pressed the heels of her hands into the small of her back as a twinge of pain ran down her spine. Growling softly under her breath, Miyu rubbed at the sore spot for a moment and then did a few simple stretches to help alleviate the ache. This was definitely the last time that she was going to let herself fall asleep on a stone floor. That done, she trotted back down the winding tunnel, the hollow tok tok tok of her wooden shoes on the stone barely audible under what she thought was the sound of a hammer.

She paused at the edge of the metal grate once more and squinted into the heat haze in the room. The smith's black clothing and the odd metal things—wings, maybe—that were sticking out of his back made him easy to spot. For a moment Miyu was certain that his head was on fire and was about to call out to him, but then she realized that that was just the color of his hair. She shuffled to one side and tilted her head to try and see what he was doing, flinching a bit and pressing her ears back at the loud banging. Although she had initially had the impression that the smith was rather short, now that her eyes were beginning to adjust to the haze and the dim light she could see that he seemed to be standing in the pool of lava. It was not the strangest thing that Miyu had ever seen in Gensokyo, but she was taken aback and simply stood there for a moment, blinking owlishly.

“Excuse me—” she called, and then raised her voice to a shout in order to be heard over the noise. “Excuse me, but why aren't you catching on fire?”

Ah, well that made sense. An immunity to lava would certainly be a useful ability for someone who works with molten metal and so forth. Miyu had never met a forge youkai before and the fact that a gossipy creature like herself had heard nothing whatsoever about his living here only made him that much more interesting.

“Miyu Yamashiro at your service. I'm just a weasel hiding from a blizzard,” Miyu said humbly as she performed a funny little mock-curtsey, and then continued with an impish grin. “Well, a sickle weasel to be more exact. Slicing up travellers is generally frowned upon nowadays though, so mostly I just run errands and babysit children.”

The weasel youkai tilted her head to one side and then the other as she tried to get a better look at what Mizuiro was doing with his wings. She had always rather admired people who were good at making things. She herself had never been able to summon the patience to sit down and really work on something for any extended length of time. “I had no idea that there was a cave here, actually,” she remarked, fiddling absently with a loose thread in the hem of her shirt. “I was lucky to find it; I might have frozen before I got to the Moriya Shrine otherwise.”