A Brief Biography of the Shrine Maiden Mayakumoshi

For the people of Watatsumi, legends of the Archon War are inevitably bitter. Among the many island songs sung for a thousand years, a shrine maiden named "Mouun" once rode a vast sea beast to follow the great serpent into battle, and left a tragic renown.

Shrine maiden Mouun was born of the Uminami clan, one of the great houses that first followed the Great Omikami back into the sunlight, and to this day is still famed for the gift of whale-song and kinship with sea creatures. From childhood Mouun entered Coral Palace and, with the Divine Priestess, studied the ritual traditions of Watatsumi shrine maidens, history, governance, and island song. Her twin sister, later called "Umi Gozen"—Ayame—was a sea woman of the clan, gathering pearls.

Later, when news that the Raiden Shogun's Bakufu had unified the islands reached Watatsumi, Mouun and Ayame were already well known among the Watatsumi people. In island songs that survive, Mouun was wise and kind, skilled at mediating baseless quarrels among sea folk, while her sister Ayame was bold and open-hearted, strong enough to grapple sea beasts.

When the Great Watatsumi Omikami at last ceased to hesitate and resolved upon the eastward campaign that was destined to be hopeless, Coral Palace's first navy was personally entrusted by the Divine Priestess to the Mouun sisters—and thus began Mouun's bond with the giant whale "Great Inspector."

Legend says the "Great Inspector" was a blind giant whale, five hundred years and another four hundred in age. The deep dark seabed was its home; moon-brilliant jellyfish and deep-sea fish its retainers; five hundred narwhals on the left as guards, five hundred humpbacks on the right as musicians. Island songs also claim it could swallow ten coral isles in one gulp, and when full and asleep would snore out five reefs…

Even Watatsumi sea folk skilled in whale-song had never faced such a beast alive and returned whole. But Mouun accepted the Divine Priestess's charge, and at the moment the bright moon first broke the sea-mist into the night sky, she dove into the phosphorescent whale palace. No one knows with what clever tongue she persuaded the "Great Inspector"—only that after three high moons, when the tide drew back from the beach, the people of Watatsumi saw the vast body of the "Great Inspector" bearing shrine maiden Mouun rise from the quiet sea, glittering with points of silver light.

Thereafter the "Great Inspector" and its sea-beast servants fought loyally with the Mouun sisters for the Great Omikami until the helpless end came…

When news arrived that the Great Omikami and the "Eastern Mountain King" had fallen together, shrine maiden Mouun was ambushed on the retreat by former retainers of the tengu Sasayuri, and at last died with the giant whale "Great Inspector"; their remains were taken by Bakufu forces. Her sister "Umi Gozen" Ayame, after fighting with all her strength, vanished into the crimson sea—direction unknown.