Eh, worth it as trophies and curiosities anyway. Its a soldier's right to loot.

"I'm going to go towards the walled city of silk now. You're welcome to come along."

"I've certainly not got anywhere else in mind to go yet!"

So she thinks she will.

Megi finishes setting up cleansing and seals and so on, and the soldiers decamp, and she says goodbye to various friends (with a last hurrah in privacy, in Yhal's case), then assumes her more usual form once they're clear of any immediate travelers.

"Do you want to try a shortcut through the Spirit Realm? This would also involve visiting a graveyard. Or maybe you want to see the path to the city and how things change along the way. It's pretty stark."

"I could go for either, I think!  Is the Spirit Realm, like, any more dangerous than getting lost there - or overworld travel - sorry, taking the actual road - would be on its own?"

"It would be dangerous to get lost in the Spirit Realm- Or World, the words are used interchangeably. We can exit back to the real at any time unless we go way off into the void or the mists, but exactly where and when can be... Variable. Sticking to the path is pretty safe. And kitsunes are sort of at home there, to an extent."

"Yeah, I was already factoring in the non-predictability of random Spirit Realm exits into the risk profile.  Are there, like, monsters in there, though?"

"There are spirits. There are mostly not curses. Monstrousness is relative. Sort of treat them like wild animals? Wary and not bothering each other."

"Then I think getting used to the Spirit Realm while I know someone who can walk me through it would be a better idea."

"Then off to visit a graveyard we go." It's the same one as before; The blue blobs milling idly around are gone now- "I saw to their last requests earlier, and joyfully, nobody has since died!" 

The red torii gate stands tall. "Now, gates like this are symbolically entrances to the Spirit World. It's a place shaped largely by belief and stories, more than physical reality. Graveyards are where the dead pass into the Spirit World and eventually on to Great Wheel of Reincarnation- It's a place you can visit if you really want to, in the spirit world, but I do not recommend, it's way too intense, in a bad way- And because the gates are symbolically passageways, and often blessed by the Light Gods besides, they become real passageways for those with the means to enter."

"...I have to wonder if any of the various fictional analogues of this are going to at all prepare me for the real experience," she does not ask, as she tries to shake a mysterious earworm out of her head.

"I mean.  Definitely not.  But I do wonder."

"I suppose you'll see~ Well, off we go."

She takes Alicia to a graveyard. There does seem to be something... DEEPER about this place. Like a still, cool lake. Slightly minty.

"You should be able to just do it. Follow me."

And she steps into the red torii gate and - there are ripples, turning sideways into a place that is not there except it IS, she can almost see it, below, beside- And is gone.

Pfeh, mint.

Oh, cool, she can see the --

The first impression the spirit world gives is that it is big.

Everything is slightly more colorful. Everything is slightly more meaningful. It feels good just to stand there and be, feeling the sense of deep-vast-connected. The graveyard is not the ordinary block of stone markers here but a large if not vast field of monuments and markers. Some simple, some much more elaborate than they were in reality. Fresh flowers. Burning incense. A few are broken or worn, but most are in good shape.

The trees off to the side of the path loom, darkness entangled in their canopies. Wild growth of thickets spring up between them, lush and green. Dappled golden sunlight that almost tastes like amber falls in shafts to the ground, where the petrichor and mystery scent that dominates the new scentscape pervades but does not overpower the rest.

The path here is clearly relatively new; It stands at odds with the forest around it, narrow and besieged, the forest still trying to reclaim the swathe cut through it. There are signs of progress- Lines of tamer, more obliging plants used to the new reality, but they are thin.

Megi looks slightly different. She's practically glowing pink, and her jewelry seems more elaborate and obvious, her clothing shows more skin, and she has an almost lewd-saintess-like quality to her, somehow, someone who will cook a warm meal for and hug and sleep with anyone who asks.

Ah.  This is the Nobilis-side Ninuan-analogue, the one she doesn't know if it has a name because if she recalls correctly the thing we call 'mundane/Prosaic reality' in that cosmology is localized to Earth, having occurred as a ~trauma response after the Chicxulub Impactor, which was some other kind of -- Anyway.   What we have here, she thinks, is the things that are more real than reality itself.  The beautiful shining wonder of it all.

...Watch out for World Serpents.

Is there a mirror -

Megi has a mirror!

She could also just ask, she supposes.

"What do I look like when I'm approximately 40% more numinous by weight?"

Megi inspects her carefully.

"Oh, I can almost see how you'll look when you have your dream... Sort of? You look like you should be wearing glasses and a fancy hat! But you're still a fox for now... A very dignified and dynamic one. You look like Sinnah would like you."

"...Damn, that's neat.  And - yeah, honestly, it's still weird that I don't have my glasses nowadays and I'm a fox.  I keep catching myself pawing for them to put them on when I wake up in the morning, sometimes, which is just...  Honestly it's kind of funny."

"You look...

"Pink?  Glowing.  And just, a lot more like yourself, I think.  Which is a silly thing to say, but it's the best I've got.

"...Like you're a work of art and someone turned the stylization up to - indicate your character more than your immediate material reality."

"That sounds about right for the Spirit World! Though not all like how they look, here."

"It's revelatory, isn't it?  I can just imagine that some might not like what they see beneath their own illusions."

And if you told her there was anyone who was truly comfortable with the truth of themself underneath it all, she'd call them either the Buddha or a liar.

"Mmhmm..."

She makes a face and picks at the overly fancy necklace. It clinks lusciously.  

"I like being pretty and expensive shiny things perhaps a bit too much. At any rate... On with the trip?"

"On with the trip."

Megi starts a nice jog down the path. The trees twist and change away from them, the graveyard receding in a bit of a non-euclidian way, as each step along the path takes them far, far and away. That, after all, is the nature of paths and roads.

"The Spirit World is surprisingly little populated. Some kitsunes hang out here habitually, and sometimes priestesses can access it or kitsunes bring mortal friends, and there are nature spirits and departed souls who haven't yet truly departed, but compared to the material and people's propensity to build cities there, not so much, you know? And many of the enclaves here, hidden temples and residences, little patches of reality bloated enough to call home, are retreats. If they don't want you to find them, you likely never will."

She nods.  "That is, after all, the nature of sanctuaries."