The silent stone (EM, D11)

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

Ryoko had come to chat, and found an empty tent.

Settling on the stone to think, she sat cross-legged on the mysterious stone the man had carried with him... probably... and fixed her gaze on the camp, her expression clouded.

Pulling in the elements, calming herself, she kept a collection of small pebbles turning circles in orbit around her head, along with small leaves, caught in a seemingly captive puff of air, turning circles about her, a halo of earth and wind, tugging at her hair.

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[Shoji Haka]

A tired-looking Haka approaches from the center of the camp, carrying some strips of dried meat and a slightly discolored orange. Her path seems as if it will take her right past Ryoko.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

Ryoko waved, and then belated realized she was waving to a blind person, and called, "Bath Shoji! Hello!"

Her voice seemed cheerful enough, and she added, "Are you doing well?"

[Shoji Haka]

Haka pauses, then adjusts her path to bring her closer to Ryoko's voice. "Good morning. This one is a bit tired still, but otherwise she is well. How is bath woman?"

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

Trying to remember the right way to answer, Ryoko lapsed into silence for a moment, and then said, carefully. "Ongaku no Ryoko is well."

That was how she wanted, right?

"Has the one called Haka had trouble sleeping?"

[Shoji Haka]

"No, just tired from all the marching. It is difficult to maintain a quick pace when one cannot see the ground."

Haka kicks at the ground a few times to find a relatively smooth place and then sits with her food. "It must be very far south, yes?"

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"We are - very far, further than I've ever seen."

Ryoko seemed concerned, but otherwise said nothing. "I suppose they don't have room on the wagon, then."

Shaking her head, she added, "Regardless, I'm glad you're holding up. Have you had heard much of the places we've been? Did you have time to explore the Nezumi city?"

[Shoji Haka]

"Not much. This one did not care too much for the smell of that place. Like too many animals in a pla e with not enough fresh air."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"I think I know what you mean... if I hadn't been looking for... people... I wouldn't have gone in."

She pondered it, quietly. "After I did... I learned things I perhaps didn't want to know. Have you ever hated someone, Miss Shoji?"

[Shoji Haka]

"No," she replies, shaking her head. "What happened in the rat place?"

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"It's... what didn't happen."

She sighed.

"I grew up my entire life... afraid of Nezumi. Hating them. I heard what they did to my mother's people, enslaved and worked them like animals... yet... when I got there, they were not cruel to me, and all of the ogres were gone."

Steadying herself, she added, in a small voice, "I wonder if perhaps... my tribe are the only ogres left."

[Shoji Haka]

"Hmm. It is possible... but then, the world is a large place. There may be some far to the north, or west, or even further south. And there is across the ocean, as well!"

"Even if they are the last, nothing has actually changed since you left, other than your perception of the situation."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

Ryoko nodded, and then realized who she was talking to.

It was hard to remember that...

"You're right. I guess it just takes away hope... but they could be far away. They might still be living further away, it's true..."

[Shoji Haka]

"There is always hope," Haka points out. "That is the point of it. If one were only hopeful in the face of good things, that is not really hope, so it? Just sort of assuming that things will not change."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"That's true."

Ryoko laughed.

"So the question becomes what I should hope... and how I should respond to that hope. Perhaps... what it asks of me."

[Shoji Haka]

Nod nod.

"Yes. And what bath woman can do to fix the problem. If the answer is nothing, then she should not worry about it."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"True. There are things I can do when I return home... but not now. For now, we have to finish the mission of this journey."

With a chuckle, she added, "So, tell me, have you found anything worthwhile on this journey? New friends, a clan that interests you, some new knowledge?"

[Shoji Haka]

"It has been very interesting. Travel is a new experience, and this one learned that spiders can talk. That was a revelation."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Spiders... as in the clan, yes?"

Surely not animals.

Please not the bugs.

"The clan called spider, yes? Not... not bugs."

[Shoji Haka]

"No, the crawly bugs. This one fought a very large one that could speak. Maybe the smaller ones can speak as well, and Haka could not hear them because their voice was too quiet. Maybe all bugs can speak?

Her brow furrows as she ponders that. "Maybe the group will discover large flies soon? Or maybe people so large as to make the spider seem normal sized in comparison!"