One, Two, Many, Lots (D1, LM)

[Togashi Saruko]

She had hoped her friend Anjing had been present here, but it seemed the woman who enjoyed pounding was probably off somewhere pounding ogres. Or some other kind of pounding. Anjing did enjoy a lot of pounding, Saruko recalled.

At least for now, she could do all she could to help out with the final preparations for the expedition, and she was looking over a wax-tablet with a list of the number of people coming along, what transport they had available, and what supplies the Crab were sparing now. Reading was still something she was getting used to, so adding numbers on top of that as well was all sorts of... confusing.

Yet she somehow managed to find some understanding in the confusion. Perhaps a touch of divine inspiration, or just pure luck. She just felt fortunate there were others back home who were way better at doing this than she was for the clan's efforts.


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D1 Packing for the Expedition. Commerce untrained. +1k1 Void. TN 20: 3d10 21: +1 Provision Point

[Seidou Haruyo]

Sat nearby, lead her by one of her people as she departed from Satone at the forge, Haruyo was amid a few of the numbers of her people. They spoke to her, recited what they knew and she gathered this information with a stone-like gaze forward. Never turning her head to a voice as each one perked up from a different direction.

Eventually, after some few minutes of this, she began to explain what she'd gathered and what they would set to do. As each new piece of this information came in, she amended the record in her mind and shared it onward to the next batch that would seek her attention.

At times, like now, she merely sat there alone. With her thoughts and the calming presence of being one with her people, though many now quickly had moved toward serving some new being altogether.

Day 1, LM | Expedition: What do we need? Commerce/Intelligence vs TN 20: 4d10o10k3 24

Provision Point + 1

[Togashi Saruko]

Noticing the presence and the activity, Saruko looked up from her own work to take a closer look. Having grown up with a friend who had turned blind after a powerful vision, there were easy tell-tale signs for her to recognize another who had the same affiction. Though if this was natural-born or a side-effect she didn't know.

"Hello there," a friendly and warm voice said in greeting to Haruyo's left side, as Saruko approached the unknown woman. "You seem to be pretty good with all these numbers."

[Seidou Haruyo]

"Without the distraction of sight it is easy to keep in mind and analyze what they tell me," she said, the sly joke evident in the humored quality of her grin, indicating a space next to her with a pat of her hand. It was a seat, should Saruko wish to take it.

"Come, sit and keep me company for a bit," she said.

[Togashi Saruko]

"Thank you kindly," her musical voice conveyed her acceptance, and the shifting of woven fabrics indicated that she took the offered seat. "I am Togashi Saruko, of the Dragon. Pleased to meet you, stranger."

[Seidou Haruyo]

"Haruyo of the Seidou," she returns. ""I have heard some of such a thing, the Dragon. At one time and another, but while the past was focused on the coming of Hida and his lot. Now, many turn their focus to speaking of the outsiders with the names unfamiliar. Few of those whom I speak with, who seek my advice, wonder and worry greatly for what you yet bring with you. Though privately it may be," she said.

Feeling through her robes she finds her water bottle, tied to a string that hangs gingerly at her side. Removing the cap from it, that too now dangling from the bottle as it was tied close to place with string. Haruyo brings the container to her lips and takes a drink. Leaving it uncapped she holds it out, but not far, in the direction of Saruko revealing some of her arm under the robe and the wounds that came with her practices.

[Togashi Saruko]

Saruko raised an eyebrow at that. Not that Haruyo could see it, but it made her contemplative. What did the Seidou fear about the others?

"Thank you," she said before accepting the bottle. "But what do they worry about? Surely, the followers of Hida's siblings shouldn't be something to worry about, as we're connected by their bloodbonds?"

[Seidou Haruyo]

"What any person would fear, that which they do not know," she said, a slight smile. Though she wouldn't hear the movements of Saruko's face, exactly, she could tell any shift in tone and picked up on it far quicker and far easier than any other.

"Many of the Seidou, almost all, have quickly sworn themselves under the leadership of Hida. Joining them in some manner to that of all the others whom have come to us from the Heavens. Yet, in private moments what is one to understand about being a follower of Hida and not a Seidou? Just under the surface it is yet all the same, the same tribes and peoples and the customs. With so many setting out to learn a new way we are faced with most uncertain times, unknowing of what the future holds in such a magnitude as to have no concept of it," she pauses for a breath and to offer the moment to display her smile for Saruko.

"These are old worries resurfaced with the re-occurrence of something strange. Having so many new visitors peacefully traveling into, and staying in, Seidou lands is something new to so many of those here. Openly they attempt to be welcoming, and for what efforts they can they do their best, but privately wouldn't you too wonder what this means for you? Old enemies welcomed into our homes with open arms. I do not fear that any would break the bonds of peace we currently share but.. well, in private we are often left with our thoughts and concerns for all manner of possibilities."

[Togashi Saruko]

Saruko sipped of the water as Haruyo spoke, listening intently to the insight of the young woman.

"Perhaps I just didn't have enough enemies before to have such thoughts..." she remarked at first. "But consider the way a child first encounters most of the world - it is all unknown to them at first, yet most children are not afraid of the unknown. Rather they seek to understand it, and take part in the world." Sometimes a bit too hastily to the taste of their parents, her maternal side thought.

"But," the shifting of fabrics indicated a shrug, "just because Seidou Anjing won the heart of Hida-Kami, doesn't mean all Seidou need follow her way. My path was not the same as Anjing's, and it need not be the same for all Seidou, no?"

[Seidou Haruyo]

"It need not, and yet there is a pressure to join with kin that has overwhelmed most Seidou into following Hida. Perhaps, it can appear a blessing to know that little has changed for most Seidou, many of us merely following a new leader. Yet those who have sworn and pledged, and those who have not, still share that uncertainty of heart for the years they grew thinking their life would be one way only to find it is going to be much the other," she said.

"Not all Seidou harbor this uncertainty, but it is the way of our ken to have many who do. As once I was just another woman, trained in the way of my people in the effort to guide them in life. Now, I find many more seek my words to bring light to their private worries because I am among some of the few who have not already pledged to Hida. They will all make their own choices in time, but their hearts are yet uncertain and in me they find a voice who is patient and is yet considering the options we have all been presented with."

[Togashi Saruko]

She nodded with understanding, then remembered the situation of her conversation companion, and added in a soft "mhm".

"It is wise to consider one's future before making a decision, but it's but not wise to dwell too long on it either. One must eat while the food is warm, as some of my kin would say." A soft chuckle at the somewhat poor comparison of food and choosing one's future.

"But if there are questions you might have about the Kami, I'd be happy to answer them for you. Many I know are close companions of them, and I was at their meeting five years ago on Seppun Hill."

[Seidou Haruyo]

"Now is a time of change for many people, and for those who ask of me what I think I would not do them such an unkindness as to not think it through to completion. With that said.." she pauses, ponders, her face contorts naturally in this way.

"It is true that there is a lot that I would be able to ask of you and these questions would grant me the clearest answers of any I have received thus far. Yet I must understand their make for myself and through my own interaction."

[Togashi Saruko]

Closing the bottle, it was gently offered back to Haruyo, as she moved with careful movements as to not catch the woman unawares. It seemed she was used to being around someone with vision-impairments.

"Of course. Myself, and others, can only show you different paths - only you can choose which path you will walk. You can show a child how to walk, but you can't walk for them." A pause, then a brief laugh. "Unless you carry them, of course, but that's a different matter I'd say."

[Seidou Haruyo]

"You can only carry them for so long," she adds with a smile. Having searched for the bottle when she sensed the movement, aided by Sakuro, she took it back and attached it where it originally hung.

"Instead, as you could show me the hints of your own path of which I might derive from your telling of these beings. I would go directly to that source and ask you of it. Your path is one that has lead you to becoming Togashi Saruko of the Dragon. As I would know of these beings I would yet like to know more of you. You are not only a friend of important people but one yourself. From the moment you first spoke I have known you as a woman positioned greater than the many of whom I usually share company," she smiled, "do not puzzle yourself on it too much. It is in the way you speak. There is an authority that is otherwise lost on those who have know less grand lives."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Oh." She blinked a few times, her voice betraying her surprise and puzzlement. "I... didn't think I spoke so differently. I grew up in rather humble circumstances, after all, in a small tribe where I spent most of my time herding animals." Thinking back, it made her laugh a little. And even now, things hadn't changed that much, considering the simple life style of her family. Not exactly extravagant like Hantei and Doji.

"But I suppose that's a way my path has changed me? Not that I really live a grand life, I feel like. Happier perhaps? Or more content with my own place in the world now."

[Seidou Haruyo]

"I would say that it is that you know your place in the world, firmly and truly. Perhaps you do not need to become one among gods to find this place, but when you spoke so calmly, I listened closely and what I heard in the words.. I knew you were yet a woman comfortable with who and where you are. Humble in spirit, you might be, but you are not alike the woman you once were. You have known far greater than any of your former ken could ever hope to know."

"You may not yet sit on pillows of the finest material, but you have something that the simple life herding animals would never have granted you; the knowledge that the choices you make will have lasting consequences for many. Grand, to a different kind of sense. You are a woman who has many eyes on her for guidance, and the weight of it is notable in your voice and the way you carry it."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Gosh," she chuckled, a touch overcome with the feelings of responsibility and embarrassed. "... When you put it like that, I suddenly feel the weight of the world on my shoulders quite heavily now. I can only hope I don't falter, or fail to live up to these expectations."

Even if the smile couldn't be seen, it could be felt in her tone. "It seems you are as gifted as others I know who don't see like I do, but possess a keen understanding and perception. Are you gifted with foresight as well?"

[Seidou Haruyo]

"Foresight?" she wondered, tilting her head forward in the thought. "No, I am afraid I have been as gift-less with foresight as I have sight itself. Merely, I am a woman born without the use of my eyes and thus have had to learn of the worlds details with a different focus. I have heard that many with sight are encouraged to "stop and enjoy the view" but I think that is a curse most of those gifted with sight have. That they must remind themselves to slow at times because of all they can experience."

"Without it I merely pay attention to the details as much as they are presented to me, and find I am far less distracted than others may be."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Ah," she said softly, "but even one without eyes can 'stop and enjoy the view', in their own sense. Such as stopping to feel the breeze, feel the earth beneath our feet, or listen to a sound. But perhaps there is something in what you say that it is not nescessarily a gift."

Saruko cleared her throat slightly. "Sorry for the odd question though. A friend of mine lost his sight when he was young after he had a vision of a great fire that would happen, and since that day he frequently would foresee things before they happened." And then there was Reiko who was nearly blind and had the same gift.

[Togashi Nadare]

Somewhere in the background a heavily tattooed man was working through the mathematical problems of supply with other members of the caravan. Finding some insight he explained his thoughts and seemed pleased with the outcome. Natural systems were something he was reasonably familiar with.

Day 1. Packing for the Expedition. What do we need? Commerce (Mathematics)/Intelligence. Void for skill. 1CR. TN25: 5d10o10k4 39