Oh!  Hi!  Cats!

She can't really wave at them, and she doesn't think she should, but...

Cats are neat, and that probably shows in how she looks at the sight.

"Ah, I stopped there a while ago- They had a rodent problem and brought in a bunch of cats. I guess it got reflected here. The animals that you find in the Spirit World are usually just animals. You can harvest plants and animals here and bring them into the material though! It's just not great to do it too much- The spirit reflects the material and the material reflects the spirit. Overhunting here will affect populations in the material, too."

On they go. Another village, this one surrounded by too-real fields of rice. Another graveyard. A Spirit World reflection of the town, including Fake Wizard Guy's giant house.

"...Huh.  More like Nobilis than I thought it would be, I think."

"...Should we prank his not-a-wizardship while we're here?"

"We've already got his hat. No need to take it further, in my opinion."

"Fair enough."

"Mhm! Best pranks are maybe a bit mean but certainly not cruel."

On they go.

The landscape of the Spirit World changes fairly rapidly. The forest thins, replaced with abstract representations of fields, houses, villages. Then they turn and proceed down a Spirit River for a while, walking on wooden and stone bridges through cultivated boggy/swampy areas. The water glistens invitingly and there are berry bushes, taro, lotuses, and cattails, and villages on and in the water.

Then the wooden paths change to stone and there are stone houses, mills, dams, terraces, and aqueducts. They encounter one large spirit at this time, an enormous frog-like being with deep purple mucusy flesh napping in a muddy field. Megi just continues on.

She's following Megi's lead, and - not poking that water, she doesn't know where it's been.

It's been a couple hours now of weird Spirit Terrain and a too real, but also eerily somewhat empty, world.

"It's safe to forage and drink here," Megi comments. "More nutritious than usual, even! But moving on is fine too."

"Oh, good, not faerie-food rules.  I was just a little concerned that the water was too attractive.  I suppose if it was a trap it would actually feel like a trap, though."

She could use some water, to be honest.

Megi will stop and cup river water in her hands to drink, then.

"Mm... That doesn't never happen. When in doubt, trust your nose. Though, really good illusionists can cover scent too..."

"Just being careful in general seems like a good plan."

"Just know that kitsunes do inevitably reincarnate, with more of themselves than most others. A light rinse more than a deep scrubbing.. I find that knowledge really soothes me."

"Yeah.  There was - not a story, but a story built off of the bones of another story, exploring places the original could not or would not go - that posited the existence of a semi-immortal wizard that had to - one, possess the bodies of his own descendants every time he died, which happened a lot because he was having this really big fight with the gods over, like, [human] advancement, and two, all but rebuild his psyche from scratch after that happened because he remembered almost nothing, and...  Well.

"I always felt rather like he had a particularly raw deal of it."

"I... Don't think that's how it really works for them. But. Oho, stories of stories, hm~? I was tempted into writing one of those, once, when the author clearly got the romantic pairing of Mai Ro wrong and she'd go much better with someone who actually appreciates her intelligence instead of that limp noodle courtier Feroy. Plus, the tension between her and the Notal ambassador Martle, they had great chemistry like that scene where Mai sarcastically lectured him on sect politics- I'm sorry, I just get very excited about this- Anyway in my version she runs off with him as a 'political hostage' and escapes the scheming for the most part."

"I don't think it is either!  Just.  You know.  If it were that way it would be so fucked up."

Anyway!

"...Even in what feels to me like ancient times, there is still the soothing self-similarity of fandom through the ages, it seems.  Go on, tell me about it, I always like hearing people talk about things they're passionate about.

"...I've never really gotten anything off the ground, myself, as far as longer-form writing goes, but I always have wanted to."

Megi will go ahead and gush about the Water Witch Diary series then!! Her fanfic of it, and how it compares to the original, and so on and so forth- It really rides best on the back of its strong characters and their constant striving-

The Spirit World gets more tangly and confusing the closer they get to the city proper, the horizon obscured and local landmarks exaggerated. At one point Megi takes them off the side of the path to avoid a headless charioteer racing down the stone road- "That's just Hunan, he's harmless if you don't try to slow him down."- And, at length, they are at another massive spirit mausoleum. This one is absolutely overflowing with spirits, decorations, music and food and booze and incense and activity, and appears to have a party consisting of mostly ghosts going on!

There's another kitsune in an improvised arena, fighting with a ghost who's wearing ghostly armor and wielding a ghostly sword.

...Not getting run over by the chariot is just good sense.

The fight's pretty interesting...

In fox form, fighting consists of a lot of very fast lunging and twisting and dodging, trying to get swipes in with tooth or claw or a flame-tipped tail, which seems to be what the ghost is watching for most particularly.

Mystery Kitsune is Very Fast. Armor Ghost's friends are cheering him on!

"You are quite difficult to hit!" Armor Ghost declares.

"Wouldn't be worth challenging if I wasn't, would I?" She responds, in a faintly amused tone. "Come on, you want that last bit of glory, right? Or can you not even manage one solid hit-" And she dodges again, and the fight continues.

Flamey tail...  That seems really neat, when is she going to be able to do foxfire stuff?

Megi is sticking close to Alicia for now.

"This," she declares after she's had a chance to take in the sights- The fight, the ethereal booze, the music and dancing and decorations, "Is the last festival. Unique to the City of Silk, an eternal party of the recently dead. One last hurrah... It's taboo to be maudlin here, though, so do you want a drink? Want to dance? Play tag with some kids? Or many other things besides! Or we can return to the material."

"I don't think I'm feeling maudlin right now, so much as fire cool when can I do fire," observe the kitsune over there, "if that's - well, I don't rightly know - but I was never much one for all the hustle and bustle of parties my first go 'round.  Though perhaps I'll be more amenable in a form that doesn't make me want to spontaneously combust from dread upon being observed, who knows?"

"You'll have your Red Dream eventually, dear, there's no real rushing it." Megi hugs her and kisses an eartip.

Well!  Um!  This is nice...

"...Yeah.  'Eventually' just feels like so far away."  Like suffering through the gradual process of transing her gender last time, but - no dwelling on that.

Hug hug hugs are nice.

"Mmh. I won't keep spouting platitudes, that sounds trying. There are more relaxy parts of the last festival if you want. Or there's the material and an inn. All up to you."