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Parcly Taxel: After spending the previous day recovering from my possession and getting to know Kino better, the surreal part of my dreams became more vivid and more comforting, to the point where I needed a spell to instantly pack my saddlebags the following morning. I had discovered that my pet phoenix was a switch for the aforementioned "kinoscape" of bizarre phenonema surrounding my normal dreamscape; if it passed into the real world, my dreams would return to being realistic throughout.

Princess Luna: It is fortunate that the fragment of my tantabus that lodged in Parcly's brain was small. If it was any bigger, it could have overpowered her, transforming afterwards into a creature that could regenerate its detached pieces from deep space… oh, that would be an eternal nightmare stretching even into the Crystal Empire!

On a brighter note, Parcly did harbour some guilt that was eaten away by Kino, such as the pain of studying the magic taught at my school, the darkest magic around that doesn't corrupt you. There was a twinkle in her deep purple eyes, themselves an object of anguish — forever marked this way as one of my personal disciples (before she met me, her eyes were a lighter shade of blue).

Parcly: Before embarking on my long-haul flight back to Canterlot, I had a walk around the streets of Ueno (上野), which is perhaps better-known for its park but which I did not visit. Instead, I admired the very small stalls that were always overflowing with customers, some of which had even less space to manoeuvre because they were parked under a raised railway track nearby. I did not eat anything, as that could destabilise my still-healing body, but Spindle got her fill of emotions and Kino got ideas for decorating my next dream.

Spindle: On our way to the Narita airfields where we would take off, I reflected on the many portraits of Japan we had seen together, from the Blue Pond in Hokkaido's forests to the thatched houses of Shirakawa to the bustling metropolis that is Tokyo. In some sense, these scenes are contradictory; how could a snowy forest alone be safe from the throngs of fashionable ponies or the hums of air conditioners and heaters? Yet the islands and their varied geography isolate these scenes while adding connecting context — train rides through the mountains, for example. So the portraits combine into a story that can be read in any order, and a moving one at that.

Nothing is said about Japan's history there, however. Three hundred years ago it was in a self-imposed isolation, communicating with the outside world only at designated locations and forbidding its ponies from migrating out. Native culture and customs flourished during this period, developing into the flowers that still bloom today — calligraphy, rock gardens, tea and tatami mats and so on — even under a mentality heavily focused on the future. This last fact was demonstrated to us on our trip.

Parcly: The sun's disc had been reduced to a thin sliver of light when I rose into the wintry air amid a circulating sea of ponies and planes. Perhaps it is appropriate that as I began my fifteen-day voyage at sunrise, I ended it at sunset and the beginning of Luna's night, the latter of which would progress over the course of my flight. Dichotomies like this are common in the philosophy of the Japanese, as I thought to myself while gazing at my own galaxy:

White over white, sunrise will be.

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Posted previously at: 2016-12-16T06:44:01 | Posted previously by: Parcly Taxel