Brews and Tattoos [Day 1, EA]

[Togashi Nadare]

No one had seemed interested in listening to his suggestions about how to pack for trip. Nadare took the hint and wandered off somewhere else. Letting his feet lead the way he eventually ended up at the Pure River Brewery.

It was an interesting idea, the mass production of alcoholic beverages. His own experience was more in the realm of poultices and medicines, each of which resulted in small amounts of the stuff. He tapped his chin as he wondered about scaling up such things...

[Ko]

Ko, meanwhile, had also heard these Crab knew the mystery of brewing, and the sun was above the spar...however, she'd only made it as far as the brewery entrance before being stopped in her tracks, eyes wide, by the spectacle of the huge copper cauldrons and wooden vats inside. That's... that is not how the Aunts do it.

"Whoa...."

[Togashi Nadare]

"Yes? I suppose it is an impressive structure." Nadare placed his hands behind his back and walked over towards the new arrival. "You are a fellow traveller then?" He smiled politely.

[Ko]

"How many people are drinking all that?" Ko murmured half to herself, blinking. Then she turned her head to get a look at the person who'd spoken to her. He was almost as outlandish--literally, outland-ish--as the big copper vessels. "I've never seen anything like this," she admitted with a sheepish look, running a hand through her already somewhat tousled hair. "We make our beer in clay pots back home. I would say they are big pots... well, I would have said that, until just now."

[Togashi Nadare]

"Yet your pots are still the biggest pots you have, so it is not an unreasonable thing to say." He shrugged and gestured to the massive copper contraption. "Would you really need that much beer?" His eyes seemed to glow a little more brightly.

[Ko]

"The whole village would take a long time to drink that much, never mind one roundhouse." Ko shook her head. "Everyone would be sick before it went out or went sour. But there are a lot of people in this Crab Clan."

She still sounded slightly doubtful.

[Togashi Nadare]

"Perhaps they plan to have many festivals? Or simply wished to see if it was possible." He shrugged and looked at Ko more closely. "And where is home?"

[Ko]

"Just because they could, you mean?" Ko grinned, finding that idea quite funny. "For people who have a god among them, why not?"

She turned to face him properly and spread one hand flat against her chest, over her heart. "I came from the sea coast far to the east of here--a place other tribes call the Lonely Shore." It had been strange to learn that name during her travels; to the shore people it wasn't a lonely place at all.

"I name myself Ko. And other things, but... those wouldn't mean much to you, outsider," she adds a little sheepishly.

[Togashi Nadare]

"Indeed, because they can." He smiled and looked at her closely as she replied.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ko. You are correct, these other names would mean little. And I have never travelled east, so this Lonely Shore is not a name I know either." With a shrug he opened his arms wide before placing them behind his back again.

"Then again, we cannot know everything, Ko of the Lonely Shore. I am called Togashi Nadare, of the Dragon Clan. Perhaps you would like to join me in investigating this...beer palace?"

[Ko]

"I greet you, Togashi Nadare." Ko let her hand fall away from her heart.

"Yes, let's. Maybe this place will share its mysteries." The description of this the brewery as a 'beer palace' made her grin; it certainly bore about the same relation to the family root-fermenting jar as a palace did to a fish-drying shack. She made to step into the building, despite the almost palpably thick smell of malting grain that filled the air inside. "Dragon Clan... that means you follow a Kami, doesn't it?"