Settai

>Be a pilgrim.
>No, not the Mayflower kind.
>You’ve been walking the Shikoku Henro for the past two years.
>In a previous life, you were a banker in Naruto.
>You chose to give that up for the privilege of walking the same 1200 miles over and over again.
>Definitely the right choice.
>The pilgrimage is many things to many people, but it is always an escape.
>Don’t work. Don’t stress over trivial matters. Just walk.
>Set your own schedule. Nobody gives you shit.
>Beautiful country. Comfy little towns. Endless fields of rice. Mountains and beaches on the same island.
>You’ve seen the eighty-eight temples six times now.
>Fuck yes Kobo Daishi.
>The constant exercise has made your back and legs powerful. So many foot blisters have come and gone that you now have Hobbit feet.
>Honestly, you are a glorified hobo.
>Being a pilgrim is a license for vagrancy. You get your meals from convenience stores and eat them right outside. No clerk has ever tried to run you off.
>The best part is the settai.
>It’s alms, basically. Shikoku natives treat you like a prince. A couple times a day, somebody stops you and hands over a little something.
>Candy, fruit, beer.
>Money.
>Every now and again, you luck out and a kind soul offers you a room for the night.
>Beats the hell out of the daily grind.
>You’re pretty used to the ways of the pilgrimage, but on your fourth cycle you noticed a disturbing change.
>Fluffy ponies. Of course.

>The “biotoys” made it to Japan a couple years back, probably through a tourist or something.
>At first, they were only a problem in the central Honshu cities, Tokyo in particular.
>Metropolitan people thought they were cute, started taking in strays. Not enough to keep dead bodies from littering the streets.
>The urban herds started migrating and reproducing with incredible speed. Soon they were in farm country.
>Then Kansai.
>Then Tokushima.
>Now you see the little bastards all over the pilgrimage trail.
>Tokushima is exactly the sort of environment where fluffies can thrive. Plenty of forests and farmland. Relatively low population density. Surprisingly few predators.
>Farmers all over the island wake each morning to discover anywhere from a single fluffy to a whole herd dead in their paddies.
>They usually manage to eat a handful of stalks before drowning in the ankle deep water.
>The stupid little things wander the towns, annoying people and shitting all over the place.
>Then there are the situations at the temples.
>The monks and other attendants won’t kill the fluffies. But they sure as hell won’t let them loiter in the temples. They would eat the offerings, annoy the tourists, and shit on sacred ground.
>The worst thing is the voice.
>You haven’t read a newspaper in ages, but you hear things from other pilgrims. From what you all can piece together, the fluffies started as a potential product that was never actually brought into the manufacturing phase.
>Needless to say, they were never localized, so they only speak English.
>It makes the pilgrimage considerably more annoying to continually hear the whiny little critters jabbering incoherently at you.
>However, it isn’t annoying enough to make you stop. One of the main purposes of the pilgrimage is to force yourself forward, regardless of obstacles, making both your will and body stronger.

>Last night you slept in a lodge connected to a hot spring. Nice to sleep indoors once in a while.
>You wake at sunrise, pop a few ibuprofens and make your way to temple eleven for the seventh time.  It only takes about twenty minutes.
>Sure enough, there is a herd of five wandering the gate.
>”Pwease gif nummies.” “Babees soon. Need nummies.” “Tummy huwties. Wan nummies an huggies.”
>You haven’t a clue what they are saying, but the twee voices bother you.
>You bow at the torii gate, then see a monk shooing a little yellow fluffy out with a broom.
>”Why no wet fwuffy inside?”
>They will stay out here for the rest of the day, begging for food.
>Bastards. That’s your job.
>Number eleven is as lovely as ever. You admire the little rock pools and shrines.
>In the back of your mind, a tiny bit of worry bothers you. Today will not be a normal day.
>The road from temple eleven to twelve is notorious among pilgrims. You are looking at a full day of climbing a mountain, then descending, then climbing again until you reach the temple at eight-hundred meters.
>On your first cycle, the trail broke you. All the sweat left your body. All of it. No matter how much you walked, the trail just kept going. It was the most psychologically draining experience of your life.
>Towards the end, you had to pause with every few steps, just to summon a little more will power.
>Inevitably, you made it. Turns out all the other pilgrims you talked to were right: once you conquer the mountain, nothing else the pilgrimage throws at you seems as bad.
>You put it out of your mind. This is your seventh trip up the trail and you are much harder than you were before.
>You concentrate on temple eleven again. It’s a little unusual, being Zen instead of Shingon, not that you care. It’s good to get some diversity in your Buddhist philosophies. You even mix in some Shinto and Confucianism from time to time, because why the hell not?
>Light the candle and incense. Drop a fuda at the main shrine. Rattle off the Heart Sutra.
>Enough procrastinating. Go to the gate welcoming you to the mountain path. You aren’t nervous anymore. This is old hat.
>Your back has been bothering you a little lately (you must be getting old!), so you’ve packed lighter than usual. There’s just a bunch of bananas and two Pocari Sweats in your backpack. That should be enough to keep you hydrated and fit for walking.
>You walk through the gate.
>The trek begins with stairs. Of course it does.

>The mountain is bursting with natural beauty.
>Thick forests. Bamboo shoots. Fluffy ponies.
>Well, shit.
>They must be breeding in the forests. All the pilgrims and maintenance people probably discourage predators.
>A pair of unicorns approaches you.
>”Hooman have nummies?” ”New fwend?”
>You assume they’re begging for food, which is ridiculous considering all the grass and flowers around the path.
>As you walk away, you hear their irritating, childlike voices.
>”Whew new fwend go?” “Why no talk?”
>You grimace and take a sip of Pocari Sweat.

>You have been a fool.
>It has been hours. The bananas and Pocari Sweat are long gone. It was not nearly enough to keep you hydrated or full. You underestimated the difficulty of this climb.
>Now you are sitting by an enormous tree facing a wall of statues, all of the Buddha. From experience, you know this place is about three-fourths of the way to the temple.
>You are covered in a thick layer of sweat and desperate for water. Your aching back isn’t giving you any help either.
>It feels exactly like the first time. Hell looks like the side of a mountain.
>How can you make it? Maybe you should just wait for another pilgrim to come by and offer assistance.
>So disappointing.
>A few minutes later you hear a voice. A horrible voice.
>”Wook! New fwend!”
>Dammit. How did fluffies get this far up?
>A herd of six waddles towards you. Two adult males, three adult females. A violet Pegasus carries two little foals on her back. Must be a mother.
>All the adults but the dam trot over to you. The dam plops down a couple feet away and starts feeding her foals.
>The fluffies rear up and set their hooves on your crossed legs. They babble.
>”Hoomin wan huggies?” “Pway wif fwuffy!” “New fwend haf nummies?” “Fwend wook hungwy. Eat gwassies!”
>This…truly does suck. You are at your weakest and your only help comes from the most annoying creatures you have ever encountered. Their enormous eyes surround you.
>Maybe you could kill and eat one, regain your strength. It probably wouldn’t taste good and you don’t like the thought of getting so messy.
>You watch the dam nurse her foals.
>”Good babees! Dwink miwk be stwong! Mama wuv babees! Gif wots of miwk!”
>A wonderfully horrible idea enters your mind.
>It would be disgusting. What if someone came along and found you? You don’t want to be the slightest bit intimate with a fluffy. Why would you even…
>Screw it. You’re going to do this.
>You push the fluffies away and get on your hands and knees. Slowly, you crawl towards the dam and her suckling foals.
>”Hewwo hoomin! I mama fluff!”
>You pull the foals from their mother’s teats and toss them aside.
>”Owwies! Why huwty fwuffy?” “Fwuffy stiww hungwy! Wan mama!”
>Put a hand on the dam’s chest.
>”Nu huwt babees! Babees need miwkies!”
>Now or never, pilgrim. You lean down and let your mouth find a teat. Suckle aggressively.
>The flow starts immediately.
>”Nuuuuuu! Miwk fo babees! Nu take miwk fwom babees!”
>The dam struggles and kicks, so you hold down firmly on her chest.
>Swallow a mouthful of warm fluffy milk. It’s not at all what you were expecting. Far sweeter. It’s actually good. You could see this being sold in vending machines.
>Continue suckling.
>The milk wets your esophagus and teases your tongue. You feel the hooves of the dam’s herd-mates lightly pounding on your sides.
>”Why new fwend take miwkies?” “Hoomin nu huwt fwuffy fwend! Stop now!” “Gif scawy hoomin big huwties!”
>A horrible smell enters your nostrils. You have no doubt that the dam, and perhaps a few other fluffies, have defecated.
>You stop for a moment and look forward. Ancient statues decorated with beautiful pink flowers. Listening carefully, you hear cicadas singing their rippling song in the afternoon sun. A bird tweets in the distance.
>The fluffies continue to yell, but they seem so far away.
>Already, you feel so much better.
>Lean down again. Switch teats.
>The foals cry. “Fwuffy scawed! Bad hoomin huwt mama!” “Wan miwkies!”
>The well officially goes dry. You pop the teat out of your mouth and stand.
>No fatigue or dread is left in your body. You know you can continue without a problem.
>Without looking down. You turn towards the trail and march. Although you don’t look back, you know the fluffies won’t follow out of fear. Even if they do, you can quickly outpace them.
>The screaming of the fluffies quickly fades. With a newfound spryness, you briskly jog the trail. Not only are you rehydrated, but you feel more energetic than you have all day.
>It’s like you chugged an energy drink. There must have been sugar in that fluffy milk. Incredible.

>It’s late afternoon when you reach temple twelve. You still feel a little buzzed.
>Light a candle and incense. Drop a fuda at a shrine. Rattle off the Heart Sutra.
>Soon after, the monks start extinguishing all the little fires. Must be closing time.
>Even though your feet and back hurt, the trek down the mountain is fairly easy. You think a lot about the fluffy milk.
>Maybe the little invaders aren’t so useless after all. You’ll be sure to pass your knowledge along to other pilgrims.
>Reach the base of the mountain. Find a convenience store.
>Get drunk off Asahi and Kirin.
>Sleep under a bridge.