Stones and Strings [Day 9 LE]

[Togashi Saruko]

"Passed your time make it sound like there is no place for you or your people anymore... I don't think that's true. I'm sure there's much about the coast and the ocean you know that we don't. Maybe we could learn from one another?" She did feel for the tribes who were feeling left to the side, but she also hoped they could find a place in the Empire, as part of the greater whole.

[Ko]

"I don't mean that, not exactly." Ko shook her head--negating, but also shifting a few strands of hair away from her face again. "I don't think we can go on exactly like we have. But hardly any outsiders ever came to the shore, for such a long time..." She trailed off, gazing pensively around at the camp and its wildly varied occupants. "It's hard to see what home will be like when that changes--in my mind. It's going to, though, if I do what I came for."

[Togashi Saruko]

She noticed the pensiveness, but more importantly, she was listening to what Ko was saying. "And what did you come for?" Saruko inquired, leaning a little bit closer to hear what had led the young woman away from her coastal home.

[Ko]

"To get help for someone else." Ko sat up straighter and brushed shed strands of fiber off her lap. "My kin who are in danger from a monster beg the boon of rescue from your Kami. I told your Hantei about it a little while ago. Aid for aid, that's how friendships are sealed in the songs." Her lips quirked. "Even if my aid for this rescue won't be near as strong as a god's."

--
(... or will have told Hantei about it, once that thread advances. )

[Togashi Saruko]

"You're very brave..." Saruko spoke with surprise over the fact that Ko was braving such a great danger for the sake of those in need.

"If only I'd known sooner... I would've sent word to my husband before we left Great Mountain City."

[Ko]

"It has to be done." Ko shrugged. "It's hard for them to leave their home. Much easier for me to go. And... I wanted to see these gods from the Heavens."

She tugged another knot tight and gave Saruko a curious glance. "Your husband?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"Ah, uh, yes..." she nodded. Unlike some of the others in camp, she didn't really go around announcing who she was married to. She liked it better when she could approach people on equal footing, to learn more about them and they could learn from her too.

"Togashi-Kami, of the Dragon Clan."

[Ko]

"Oh!" Ko's eyes widened and she forgot her handiwork for a moment. "Really? I mean, uh, I believe you! I just didn't know. Dragon Clan... I know there are a few of your, uh, your husband's followers in this caravan, but I didn't meet any on the road before that. Your settlements must be very far from the Crab Clan?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"There's me and two others, yes. Wu, and Nadare." There was a warmth in her tone as she mentioned her fellow members of the clan.

"Our clan has settled down in the northern mountains, so... yep, pretty far away from Crab lands." She chuckled softly. It was almost an entire Empire between them. "It would've taken a long time for any letter to reach home though... so... now that I think about it, it probably would've gone faster to just take the shortest route home, instead of a letter."

Without a proper letter-service, letters didn't exactly travel fast these days.

[Ko]

Ko nodded. That made sense--even if you knew how to write your message down so the words still existed without anyone speaking them, someone would still have to deliver the writing. At that point you might as well just go and tell the person you wanted to tell, yourself.

"Um... so, how does a person come to marry a god?" It hadn't even occurred to her to ask Kinsen this question, she realized. Maybe Saruko Godswife was more... approachable? Or possibly Ko was just getting more accustomed to the whole idea. "Did you know he was a god when it happened?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"Oh, I knew," she chuckled, giving Ko a firm nod. "I met him... five years ago. My tribe had heard the stories of the Sun Children that fell from Heaven, and that they were going to gather again in the lands of the Seppun. Frankly, I was really excited to go see them myself! Actual gods walking our world is like right out of a story."

Saruko sighed wistfully as she recalled the first time she arrived in the Seppun lands.

"I was just really fascinated by him and his siblings at first. You've seen Shinjo-Kami and Hantei-Kami here, so they look very much like us, but... bigger." The Kami were all quite tall compared to humans. "As for how I came to marry him... eh, it would take a couple of years before I realised that it was what I wanted. I think my husband was more waiting for me to come to that realisation myself, but I never doubted him when he said he wished to be life-bound with me. My tribe don't really have... marriage, like many others do, but being life-bound is a serious committment of love and affection for us."

[Ko]

Ko's mouth gradually formed a wow shape until she remembered to collect her jaw. "That sounds really... human. Actually."

She chewed on this thought for a few moments as she got out her knife--a dangerous-looking point of knapped stone fixed to an ivory handle. "And they all married mortals? I heard about some who did, but every time I turn around there's another." That seemed promising, for gods who wanted to be chiefs among humans. "And you're... happy?"

[Togashi Saruko]

"Most of them have decided to marry, yeah, and those who did married humans of different tribes." She spoke warmly of the marriages.

"I can only speak for myself that the two of us are very happy, but I have a good feeling that the others are also loving and happy."

Having not seen ivory before, her eyes took in the sheen of the unknown material. "Oh that's really pretty. The handle, I mean."

[Ko]

"No wonder they're so busy about helping the human tribes, then. I wondered a little why gods didn't just go and do... god things."

Ko had been about to use the knapped blade to cut the ends of her cording, but instead she opened her hand to show the whole of the knife resting in her palm."Oh, that's right, your Wu asked about this too."

The knife handle was decorated with scrimshaw designs of fish and people, or maybe half-fish half-people--the images were elongated and very stylized--and the scratches had been rubbed with some kind of dye that turned the incised lines a dark reddish color so they stood out better against the smooth yellow-white surface. The carving probably made the knife easier to grip securely as well. The blade--almost like an oversized arrowhead in shape--was fixed in a slot at the end using a lashing of thin sinew.

"It's made of bone from a whale. Like a really big fish, one that can feed a whole village for a long time."

[Togashi Saruko]

"Now I wonder what you consider god-things to be," she mused with a playful smile on her features.

As Ko presented the knife, Saruko leaned in closer to get a good look. It was unlike anything she'd seen... though it somewhat reminded her of some bone-handles she'd seen before, it just seemed so different. And the carvings. "Aha! Ningyo! That's a very pretty pattern if the handle is from a big fish!"

[Ko]

"I don't know... sitting in shrines on high mountains? Drinking flower nectar?" Ko shrugged with a slightly embarrassed smile. "Spending their days with other gods, not mortal people."

She flipped the knife over to show the other side of the handle, which was decorated with more of the same, although each of the figures was a little bit different from all of the others. "Oh, you know about the sea people? Most of these inlanders have never even heard about them!" Her other hand gestured loosely around at the rest of the camp.

[Togashi Saruko]

"Ah." She giggled. "Well, if it helps your view somewhat, many would say that my husband spends much time sitting in shrines on high mountains. And he speaks with many spirits and communes with the elements and the dragons of the sky."

Togashi wasn't exactly the one who mingled with people the most, except for the ones he really liked.

Seeing the handled flipped over, she admired the handicraft some more. "Yes! I'm a storyteller, and I know of the sea-people from stories - like the stories of the ancient five races, and other stories like the mermaid who made a sea-witch change her tail into legs so she could be with people on land." Saruko spoke with great enthusiasm as she recalled the stories she knew.

"My father had some of our traders bring in materials from some coastal tribes as he liked to work with some of their materials for armor-making. One time he got a box full of what I thought was strange stones but I later learned they're called seashells. And he put them together for me in a bracelet and shared with me the stories that trader had heard from them."

She proudly held forth one arm and pulled her sleeve away so that Ko could see her bracelet made of sea-shells. It was a mixed collection of different kinds of shells, all in good condition and pretty, though for Ko it was probably quite pedestrian.

[Ko]

"Oh, I know some of those." Ko smiled and leaned in for a closer look at the bracelet. It was the sort of thing mothers and aunts might gift to children back home--although Saruko's was probably more nicely made, since one didn't take excessive care when crafting children's ornaments out of common materials, and the people of the shore tribe didn't have metal drills and files to speed their work. "Most of them, really. That one's..." She named a few of the critters whose shells were represented in Saruko's bracelet, things with fanciful names like winkles and mussels, cowries and sea-ears--most of which apparently could also be eaten.

As she was finally using her scrimshaw knife for the purpose that had actually brought it out--snipping the cord ends of her jade necklace so she could finish them off neatly--something else Saruko had said caught up to Ko. She Hmm-ed in surprise. "A sea witch made her change her tail? But everyone knows the sea people's chieftains can put off their fish tails on their own, if they really want to. At least, some of them can."


((My headcanon is that Ningyo, being related to Naga, probably have some of the same conditions attached to sprouting legs, though they aren't as good at it because of their relatively fallen state. But Ko's people also attribute a bunch of selkie-like mythos to the process that may or may not have any basis in reality... ))

[Togashi Saruko]

The godswife hmm'ed and oooh'ed with great interest as Ko explained the different seashells, and she seemed pretty much as fascinated by that as anything else. Things from the sea were probably of great curiosity to the inlanders.

"Really?" she exclaimed with some surprise upon learning that they had this ability. "That's fascinating... hmm... maybe the story changed as it passed through the land, as they often do. Like, someone might've thought it was strange that the mermaid could easily fulfill her heart's desire by joining the humans, compared to her having to make the sacrifice of it... or they just thought it strange that someone could change so easily. Many possible reasons, but few answers. Hmmmm... but, you've seen Ningyo then?" Saruko asked with great enthusiasm in her curiosity.