Setting Up (D13, LM. Open)

[Togashi Saruko]

Saruko hadn't yet heard that Shinsei had returned to camp, so instead she was busying herself for the moment with his place. She'd set up the tent, and now she finally had finished putting his things back in there as well. Thankfully not a whole lot, considering his ascetic style.

As she was looking for a place to sit for a breather, it was then she finally realised that his usual rock to sit on was gone.

[Shoji Haka]

A tired-looking woman with white hair wanders nearby, kicks at the ground until she finds a flat place, and then sits down, a few sticks of meat clutched in one hand.

Ignoring Saruko, she starts chewing on one of the jerky strips, her face contorting in obvious displeasure at the taste.

[Togashi Saruko]

She looked up as she heard someone approach, and... kind of watched the woman go about her business. Including the disleased snacking.

"Hello?" she questioningly stated, trying to see if she could get contact with the strange-looking person.

[Shoji Haka]

"Hmm?" Haka looks up, midway through chewing her meal. "Ohw. Hehwlho."

After a moment, she holds out a meat stick to the other person. "Mheat?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"Oh... no, thank you," she declined in a polite tone. "Please, eat up."

The strange woman seemed familiar enough. But it had almost been two weeks, so it made sense that she had seen her in passing. "You're... one of the Shoji, yes? I've seen you around camp."

[Shoji Haka]

Haka nods and swallows. "Yes. This one has been around camp, so she could very well have been seen. How is the morning treating you, Quiet One?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"Hmmm..." she took a deep breath. "... Concerned. My friend, Shinsei, is gone... and I don't know where he is, or if he's coming back. Yet I'm here, putting up his tent, in anticipation that he'll come back."

[Shoji Haka]

"This one knows Shinsei," Haka says, concern in her voice. "He is missing? Since when?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"He... disappeared, a couple of days ago at the last place we made camp. No one seems to know where he'd gone, but I heard someone had gone looking for him," the concern didn't leave her voice as she spoke.

[Shoji Haka]

Haka frowns. "Someone should have come for Haka. She could have spoken to the spirits or the Great Emptiness and found him quickly."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Haka is... a mystic?" Who was Haka? And... hey, the Great Emptiness? That sounded like what her cousin Karanoko spoke of.

[Shoji Haka]

"Haka offered you some unpleasant meat." She makes a vague gesture with her hand. "It is best not to speak names in company of the named person, as it attracts malignant spirits."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't know."

It was news to her, but she saw no harm in indulging in that particular custom.

"Uh, well, hmm..." The woman had white hair, so that seemed a good reference point. "Is White-Hair a mystic? My cousin, who is one, also speaks of the great emptiness."

[Shoji Haka]

"A shaman, yes." She takes another bite of the tough meat and chews it. "It is likely the same. It is everything and nothing, like a deep forest that has no end. Everything that comes after death, and everything that came before life."

[Togashi Saruko]

She nodded with understanding, though it was a gesture lost on someone blind. "How can you commune with it, to learn about what has happened to Shinsei?"

[Shoji Haka]

"The Great Emptiness knows everything that has happened, much that us happening, and some that has not yet happened. The difficult part is finding the right question. Then one simply asks and waits for a response."

[Togashi Saruko]

"That's amazing," she remarked with an astonished gasp. Karanoko tendened to just space out when she asked the great emptiness of anything.

"Have you asked questions about this mission to save the Kami too?"

[Shoji Haka]

"No." There is a simple shrug. "Nobody has asked. They seem to have a plan, and they do seem inclined to changing it."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Oh? What have you heard about plans, and the changes?" She sounded curious of the blind woman's insight.

[Shoji Haka]

"The plan is we march south into certain death and then do something vague and save a god." She holds her hands out to her sides in a 'that's it's gesture.

"This one suspects that there is more enthusiasm than planning in this expedition."