[D3 LA] - Fletch (Open, expecting)

[Nozomi]

"Sounds like a lonely existence. I can appreciate that." She didn't like being around this many people all the time. Her throat felt raw with all the chattering she'd done in the last week of her life. There was something to being alone with her thoughts in the marshes for hours at a time. And then, she said something about ... music?

"Did you say music? What sort?" It wasn't a big fascination for her, but she did enjoy song at least. One of the reasons to justify coming together.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"We have songs for many things. We play the morin Khuuru..." She patted the instrument slung over a shoulder. "Drums, flutes, all sorts of things. It is how we celebrate festivals, how we see off the dead, or even how we pledge ourselves in pacts of marriage."

A soft chuckle. "It was because of a festival that the ogres first came to the village, so there is something special about it, for sure."

[Nozomi]

She reached down to pat a small clay flute at her side and smiled. "We favor flutes ourselves. I haven't been playing as much lately, because we're on the march and I wouldn't want to draw attention to us, but ... I think I'd like to hear you play one of these days." Music soothed the savage beast, and it pleased the stealthy little stabber it seemed. "I think the sounds of a flute are a good sort of thing to send the spirits off to the afterlife. Follow the sounds on their way to Meido. Fitting."

Probably because the Xun had a bit of a haunting tone.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Meido... I don't know that place."

She quirked her head. "Is that the name your tribe uses for the next life?"

[Nozomi]

"It's a word I've heard used for the afterlife, yes." There were other words. She barely understood them or their distinctions, other than that Gaki or Jigoku were very bad things and Yomi supposed to be a good thing. Meido was just... simpler. One word. Leave it at that. It wasn't like she had much to do with the dead anyway. "What do your people call it?"

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"We don't have a name for it - we've never been there."

She laughed, a soft, husky sort of laugh. "After death, the deeds of the departed are sung, so that the spirits will speak well of them when they are given their new life, as spirits in service of the great maker."

"That future world... we don't know what it is, only that the soul must move on to it - lingering only causes suffering."

[Nozomi]

The irony that her own name was 'ghost' in her tongue wasn't lost on her. Lingering is suffering, but it can be endured sometimes. She nodded. "I suppose you don't really need a name until you get there, do you? Heh." She kind of liked that in a way, even if precise names helped in other ways. "Most Hikaru aren't really all that spiritual themselves. Kind of a practical lot. Rocky crags don't breed philosophers."

Unless you were Togashi, of course.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Well, we just keep our philosophy about the things we can do - how to live while we are able."

Ryoko gestured to the camp around them. "The things we can do to earn a song so grand, it echoes through all the spirits on the way to the afterlife."

[Nozomi]

She snorted and shrugged. "I'll admit. I don't really need songs sung about me. I just like coming back to know a job is well done, and the right people care that it's well done. A good hot meal doesn't hurt." She could actually be a fairly simple person, for all that her ego had massive demands at times. It was a weird combo. "But I get it. You're here. So you're concerned with here, not after."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"You don't need to have songs sung about you while you are alive - they couldn't be complete, after all."

Ryoko crossed her arms, expression fierce. "Everyone deserves a telling when they die - it's how the spirits will know to recommend you to a good new life, once you are passed on to the maker."

[Nozomi]

"My life isn't the kind of story that you want told around the campfire." She shook her head and shrugged noncommittally. "I lurk in the shadows, hunt for what we need and I kill those who would threaten us when they aren't looking. It's not stuff for loud singing and praise after. All I need to know's the job's done and folks are safe. If they really want to sing about me after I'm gone, I guess sure. Just wouldn't expect it that much."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

Ryoko frowned.

"Why would you want to live a life that is unworthy of song?"

[Nozomi]

"Because the things I do need doing, but they don't need singing," she said with a shrug. "Not everything someone does needs to be sung about, after all. But I suppose if we save this Fu Leng, I don't mind being sung about in that. So I'll take that song then." Because she was actually hoping it would get her the right attention.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Hmmm."

Ryoko sighed.

"I guess I don't know about that part of life. I'm just an Ongaku."

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, she added, "People tend to tell us the things they want spread about, not secrets. My tribe isn't big on secrets."

[Nozomi]

"Hikaru aren't big on them either, but every once in a while we have them. Nothing that needs to be 'kept' but it's not the sort of thing you share with just anyone." A shrug, she looked over at Ryoko curiously. "So, then. When not tending the herds and playing music, what do you do?" she asked, leaning forward to look her over. she didn't look that strong...

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"That's much of our time, we also have to cook, and keep the wagons in good condition, some in the tribe make things out of wood, or trade with local villages..."

Ryoko shrugged. "In the evening we tell stories, relax, make music or dance... some of the boys like to play games with a ball filled with sand, but I don't understand it, personally."

[Nozomi]

"Sounds pleasant enough. Don't suppose your songs would be that much different, though maybe... we like to dance to ours." She snorted and laughed about the ball with the sand. "We don't go in much for games like that though. Kind of wastes good hide and we don't have enough of that as is."

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Ah, when you butcher a buffalo, there is much hide to work with - there are always scraps."

She didn't mention which materials were sometimes used to create those balls.

"We also like to dance, though I didn't learn the ceremonial dances... at least not well. I play, others dance. It is the way of things."

[Nozomi]

"They're much larger than the occasional fawn or goat, I would have to bet in that case." Because that was the largest thing that they could tan the hides of. "I don't think I've ever really known much of the creatures. I might have heard stories more than ever really seen them for myself." Water buffalo weren't exactly the sort of things that climbed up into mountains afterwards.

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

"Indeed. Much larger."

She gestured with her hands, round, larger than a typical barrel.

"Big beasts, slow, but very strong. They make good meat, good labor. We trade for farmed things, sometimes lend our herds for village plowing, in exchange for a portion of the harvest."