>Is our hometown particularly fortified?
>"Don't imagine they'd need it or want it."
>Not the tengu cities themselves, really. The white wolves provide security on the frontier, with guardposts and fortifications at strategic locations. With the Oni gone, the Dai-tengu turned the might of the Tengu outward, to ensure no one bothered them unless they had Dai-tengu permission, which has been of course rarely granted. This gave the other tengu races more ability and room to focus using their territory on industry, beautification and of course, pleasure.
>"If they were outcasts, they might." Celes counters. "It has been my experience that a people expelled from a region are left with a sense of concern, almost paranoia, towards the ones who expelled them."
>Let's approach and have a flyover for anything interesting. Also, do the forests that used to be at the base of the mountain still seem to be there, or have they
given way to fields or grazing lands or the like?
>Drifting slightly to port, you and your companions angle in to do a quick fly by of this village that wasn't there when you left. The woodlands around the base of the mountain seem largely intact, even in the area of new development, which is something of a surprise. That's not to say there aren't fewer trees in the area of the village, but there has been far less removal than you might have expected. Perhaps whomever established that village didn't want to deforest the area any more than necessary? You can't be sure.
>There has been a large amount of development around the lake and river attached to it. Several homes and buildings have been built close to it, and a number of piers, each seeming to be painted a bit differently than the last, poke themselves out from the land like multicolored fingers. Fishing nets hang drying in the spring air, and poles and smaller nets seem to be plentiful. The lake itself is also full of activity, a number of small boats dotting the surface with many more humanoid figures
playing in and around the water.
>There are two structures that stand out among the rest of the buildings in the village. One is a two-building complex straddling a small portion of the lake that has all the earmarks of a white wolf made brewery, albeit one of the largest ones you've ever seen. The other is an expansive stage and field on the southeastern outskirts of the village, the stage part of which is presently unengaged save for a teenaged human plucking casually at a three-string guitar. At least two dozen people are presently using the field in front of the stage for purposes ranging from tossing a frisbee back and forth to a picnic to simply reading a book beneath a blooming cherry tree.
>The figure that catches your eye on the field below you, however, is a feminine figure with exceedingly long blonde hair that seems to coil around her exceedingly shapely legs. That can only be the wind spirit Ranka Kitajima. Or at least, this world's ersatz version of her, you remind yourself, recalling Celes' advice. The wind spirit is casually floating away from a pair of younger women, a white-winged yamabushi tengu and a human, both of whom are blushing furiously.
