Dark Edge Village

The village was different to everything Nintoku expected. One one hand he offhandedly knew that the village had been part of Lion lands until recently while on the other he expected the Unicorn to have changed it radically to adequate to their foreign tastes; he expected to see a village transformed into perhaps an alien landscape better fitting the writings of a fantasy novel than what it actually was, a normal rokugani village with some strange constructions around it to house the foreign members of the Ki-Rin.

He sighed at his childish notions and resumed his walk through the streets of the perfectly banal village.

Akil, on the other hand, didn't really have expectations for villages. The places he had seen were so varied in nature already, that by now seeing the same village for more than a few days at a time was the odd thing.

The other odd thing was not preparing to ride this early in the morning. I mean, sure, he could have been riding if he wanted to. But normally by now Setem would be ready for a long day's ride. Instead, he hadn't even been pulled out of the stables yet. As he walked through the village, these thoughts almost made him laugh. And thankfully did not distract him so much as to make him fail to notice the Matsu that was destined to cross his path.

The Matsu noticed the Shinjo and immediately thought how peculiar it was to see one of the Ki-Rin without their steeds. He immediately greeted the man when he realized he might have been staring at him.

"Good Morning Ki-Rin-san." his tone was slow enough to allow the man to understand him if he didn't talk rokugani well but at the same time not slow enough as to insult him.

Akil bowed politely, his hands held carefully at his side so he didn't accidentally offer a hand shake. The Ide said don't touch them unless invited to, he kept that mental reminder constant now. As he rose and listened, he smiled a bit. "Well met, Lion-sama. I am Shinjo Akil. Have you eaten rice today?" what an odd way of greeting someone. "Hi, Samurai-sama, did you remember to eat today, or do you need to be reminded by this random jackass you've never met?"

The Ki-Rin seemed to have little to no accent, something he was extremely thankful for, and seemed to have the bases of rokugani courtesy down.

"I have, yes." he nod in agreement before taking measure of the man "I am Matsu Nintoku."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Matsu-sama," Akil spoke calmly as he rose from his bow, relaxing just a bit. "I hope your journey here was without incident?"

"None of note at least," he commented idly, as he waited the man to introduce himself. "I thought about riding here but I am still very much a green rider."

He nodded a bit at that, "riding can be tricky I imagine if you have not been doing it long."

"At all," he retorted "while I'm still green when compared to a member of your clan I think I might be quite proficient when squared against another member of the empire."

"In fact I polished my skills in horsemanship simply because of your clan." he admitted "My bride will bem from your clan so I might as well learn how to properly ride to make her feel good."

"They will appreciate that," he smirked, "especially the Otaku. You may take some time to learn proper grooming and the like if you marry one. It may become part of your routine."

He was a bit confused at first until he realized he meant the horses; he didn't know why he thought he'd have to groom his Otaku wife.

"Proper grooming?" he inquired, his mind wandering away from his silly thought "Is there some sort of ritual?"

Perhaps they treated their horses with the same religious zeal samurai treated their katana.

"Not particularly, but I am not sure what your grooming practices are for your... Horses." It was generous to call them that, right? "My Setem in particular is rather particular about his grooming. I'm sometimes surprised he ever let's anyone other than me touch him with a brush."

"To be honest I wouldn't know." he said candidly "After we ride our mounts we hand them to the stable boys that take care of all of the details."

"Though..." he frowns as he remembers the sheer size of the beasts the unicorn ride "Your steeds dwarf our own mounts by quite a lot. Its certainly a sight to see the Ki-Rin ride them let alone imagine riding one of them."

"We do that to some extent, but it would be a poor unicorn that was not trained to take care of their own horse." He nodded, "especially when one travels as much as we did. There is rarely time to worry about stable boys when one can just as easily do the work themselves."

"Unicorn?" his eyes widened as it dawned on him, they didn't call themselves Ki-Rin anymore. "I'm sorry to ask but... What is a unicorn?"