Tag: Chitose

#17 Chitose, Of A Thousand Years

| November 26, 2010 | 0 Comments

17 鶴

Chitose • Of A Thousand Years

People all over the world invoke Chitose when they embark on a thousand-crane-folding project, but not everyone is who Chitose chooses. Chitose is finicky and lazy, the immense amount of power in the thousand-feathered wings often inducing lethargy and, frankly, Chitose has little patience for people who do not believe in what they are doing.

One is actually folding away one’s life, one crane at a time, in a way shedding; for every wish, a crane, and for every crane, a piece of mortality is lifted away. It is not successfully lifted if one does not believe that one has lost something in exchange for what one wishes, and to Chitose, this is like being served stale wine or a half-baked rice cake. When a successful devotee has folded the last crane, thereby activating the completed wish, Chitose is there to meet them along with a Fire or a Snow to point them to the Parade.

The difference is that, as a reward for their strong belief, Chitose gives them a feather from the Thousand-Feathered plumage, to “make your travels henceforth lighter.” Nobody knows if Chitose is a male or a female, as cranes can be hermaphrodites and can’t be bothered with limited human imagination.

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