He watched Atticus as the man altered the carefully constructed dreamscape. It was, he suspected, a show of power. If it was to intimidate, Atticus would be wasting his time and energy - the Medicine Seller had no interest in such things. If it was to impress - then it Atticus had accomplished his goal. True, the Medicine Seller had some control over his surroundings - there had been times where he needed to delve much, muchdeeper into a Mononoke's mind to dredge up their Truth and Regret. The illusions he created to probe their psyches had given him some basic grounding in this malleable plane. But Atticus controlled it with the ease even many of the spirits did not posses.

The Medicine Seller was fascinated.

"There are many things here one could call ...peculiar. The nature of duality should not be one of them."

He took a long pull from the pipe, and exhaled, filling the air with sweetly smelling smoke, and then offered it to the stranger.

"How does a man from beyond this place command it so deftly, I wonder?"