The Welcome Dinner (Post-Event Thread) [D1, Early Evening]

[Shimizu Ryori]

"Oh, " he nods looking less confused "so what does your stick mean?"

“I have no stick, I’m a woman,” she says with a laugh.

"Does a woman have no use for a stick?"

[Moto Khulun]

That elicits a feral grin filled with shrimp as she replies, “I have more uses for your stick than I have for the man!”

[Usagi Tomoe]

"Aha, yes!" Tomoe agreed with the exclamation to merriment and gladly had some more kumis and baklava.

This one seemed soon much better than the Moto pair from this morning. Fortunes, I hope I can marry someone like that!

"There's lots of poetry about nature in the Empire. Are you familiar with the traditional poetry or was there perhaps other forms that were more popular in your travels?"

[Ide Samai]

"If I knew, I'd gladly tell you," he smirked, "home isn't exactly a concept I know Well. If I have a choice, I'll do something that lets me travel some at least. But duty is what it is."

"True, Duty is a Virtue after all..." She smiled at him, her eyes once again wandering over the crowd. "One here will be my betrothed. The thought is... strange. And thrilling. What do you think Shinjo-san?"

"Strange is a word, yes," he nodded, "exhilarating works as well. A bit intimidating, maybe," he laughed.

"Quite true... but then, we thrive on challenges against the unknown." She leaned towards him. "I wonder how will our Moto cousina dare."

[Shinjo Akil]

"Quite true... but then, we thrive on challenges against the unknown." She leaned towards him. "I wonder how will our Moto cousina dare."

"Oh, I am sure they attack the matter with the confidence and sureness of spirit that we know them for," he nodded and smirked, "certainly they have no fear of a challenge."

[Seppun Hideo]

She nodded. "I have but my pallet seem a bit more sensitive to set spices, Seppin sama. I hope your meal was more enjoyable."

"Spices?"

Hideo paused to consider that. Thinking over the meals.

"The Unicorn certainly have used some interesting ingredients. I'm unsure exactly what was in each dish, but I found them to be very enjoyable. I would assume our meals will continue to be in this design. Hopefully Moshi-san can grow accustomed to the foods, or marriage may become a difficult situation."

[Asako Yuki]

Yuki smirked a little and lifted her own hand to cover her face. "Is he handsome, then?" She asked with amusement sparkling in her eyes.

The Shiotome blinks, thinking before saying her mind. With proper words chosen, she replies, "Many would say so. I can only assure his presence is amusing, and brings open smiles to people's faces."

Yuki giggled again. "That is good to know, Otaku-sama. If he is half as entertaining as this dinner has been it will be time well spent."

[Soshi Yuuru]

How to explain . . . ? Where's a Kitsu when you need one?

"It is a matter of spiritual purity. That grown in the earth and fished from the waters is of the highest purity. It is something impressed on us at an early age by our priests."

Yuuru leaned in towards the conversation and smiled, "If I may... It's a matter of dealing with dead things and blood from what I remember. Both things are considered impure by many religious leaders. Warriors deal with death and blood quite frequently, but have several rites that help protect them from the potential dangers. And even though we deal with blood and death, there is a bit of a taboo on willingly taking something considered 'impure' into your body."

He smiled gently again, "It is a bit of a strange distinction when you think about it though... We eat other living beings like chickens and fishes with regularity. Monks won't for the most part, and some priests may shy away as well... From what I can tell it's mostly animals that are domesticated in some way and serve other purposes than food that tend to be tabooed. It's all a bit high-minded for me personally. I mean... one has to eat what is available to stay alive sometimes. I've been lost in the woods for long stretches at times and had to rely on things far less tasty than a bowl of rice and some miso soup. I doubt there were many times during your travels though that you had the luxury to pick what kind of animal you wanted to eat."

[Matsu Kogo]

Kogo looks at Otaku-san with a warm gaze. "It is, very much so. A friend who has been with you through many days and many strange places. I fear too many discount the bonds that can appear between samurai and the other creatures of this world."

"Are there others in the Empire with bonds like our two families have? We certainly encountered many different creatures in our travels that various peoples had bonded and paired with."

Kogo looks slightly abashed. "Of this, I am less sure. I know of tales, but I have traveled relatively little through lands or met many outside of the Lion clan. It is why I was glad to accept your clan's invitation. I felt it would be immensely beneficial as well as interesting to meet so many from so many different clans. So far, it has turned out to be true."

[Bayushi Suteichi]

Yuki smirked a little and lifted her own hand to cover her face. "Is he handsome, then?" She asked with amusement sparkling in her eyes.

The Shiotome blinks, thinking before saying her mind. With proper words chosen, she replies, "Many would say so. I can only assure his presence is amusing, and brings open smiles to people's faces."

Yuki giggled again. "That is good to know, Otaku-sama. If he is half as entertaining as this dinner has been it will be time well spent."

Having taken some time to walk about to try and settle his stomach from the filling meal, Suteichi came upon the Asako and Otaku.

"A most spirited and blessed evening to you both." he greeted with a soft, pleasant tone; followed with a respectable bow.

"Samas, this one is Bayushi Suteichi, might I have the honor of your company for a moment?"

[Usagi Tsukimi]

"In time every student becomes a teacher. And anyone that's truly living is always a student," he says with a smile. "I think that's simply going to be more pronounced in coming years with exchanges between the Unicorn and the other clans." As she looks at his features he pauses for a moment as there eyes meet. For that moment he just looks with a smile wondering at what she's thinking about.

"I hope I am forever a student, as I am infatuated with what is new and yet to be known," she said with a light nod, and blushed brightly when their eyes met, before she looked down into her water cup once more.

[Ide Samai]

"Oh, I am sure they attack the matter with the confidence and sureness of spirit that we know them for," he nodded and smirked, "certainly they have no fear of a challenge."

"Yes,, throwing caution to the wind..." She half-smiled. Her family was close to the Moto, and while she was optimistic, a small social disaster was far from impossible.

"What do you think of our guests Shinjo-san?"

[Kakita Nanami]

"Ohh really?" Baatar said skeptically. "I've heard fortune tellers talk like that before, when the yarrow sticks aren't cooperating. 'The gods are displeased' and stuff. It's no big deal if you can't really talk to the kami, Kakita-san. You don't have to pretend just for me."

The tea cup was set down - hard. She worried for a moment that she might have cracked it; in fact, a small puddle of tea had formed around it. "Moto-san," she said with just a hint of harshness in her voice, "that sounds dangerously close to a slight against the honor of the Crane and the Dragon. Since you are just recently returned, however, I will recognize it for the ignorance it is."

She sat up a little straighter, composing herself, "Simply ask any shugenja. The kami have become increasingly distant of late and we have all suffered for it." She remembered all too well the day barely a year ago that had claimed so many of those still in training and left others weakened and injured.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Hmm." Saksaha looks at Taira curiously, gives the clear liquid another sniff, and empties the cup. In a thoughtful kind of way, though. "My mother's cooking is comfortable, but all the same I know it is not as fine as this." She tilts her head to indicate the spread on the tables around them--the beads of her headdress clack faintly as she does--and sets the cup down. "Now that I am to live in Rokugan, I think I must learn to tell good sake from bad. Unless I can find among you Rokugani a husband who is content to drink only kumis and arkhi..." She spears a bit of fried cheese with her chopsticks and nibbles, ruminating on this possibility.

Oh... interesting.

"Perhaps it would be better if you could find one who helped you learn the good from the bad in Rokugan? After all, he would count on you to help him with these new wonders your clan has brought with you."

Taira fished about in his bowl with his chopsticks until he had a strip of grilled... something. He didn't know what precisely it was, but it was clearly the meat of some sort of... not bird or fish.

And it was fabulous.

"I've heard a little about this kumis, though I haven't tried it. Arkhi I've never heard of. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me?"

"Perhaps," Saksaha allows. "Although I am sent here to find a husband, not a sensei. It seems to me it is not good to mix the two too closely."

She sets her chopsticks down and rises a little on her knees to get a better view of the table's contents, successfully finding a wooden bowl with a ladle, filled with an opaque creamy liquid which she draws back toward herself and Taira. "You must try the kumis before you can understand arkhi... Scorpion-san?" she says, belatedly taking notice of his colors and insignia. "Kumis is the mother of arkhi. The gentle mother. To make the arkhi it's distilled, with a fire and a cold basin... I am sure your people must have something similar. Only made of rice, or something." Her voice is a mix of confident and vaguely doubtful.

Taking up the ladle, she transfers some of the kumis into an empty cup and slides it toward him.

[Matsu Nintoku]

The Matsu moved towards the small dumplings, taking one of them and nibbling at it carefully. The taste was strong and strange to his rokugani palate but he would be a liar if he said he didn't like them.

It seemed as the Unicorn cuisine was not that bad after all.