Dark Edge Village

After all the back-and forth of the night and early morning, Saksaha knows she should really take her poor horse back to the stables for a well-earned rest. And maybe have a nap herself. But horse and rider are both restless, and she ends up riding away from the settlement again after all, going on a ramble among the farmers' fields nearest the village. She's never really spent much time around this kind of agricultural work before. It's ... weird.

Eventually she finds herself under a small shady tree, sitting on the ground with her saddle as a back-rest and watching the people at work while Gio the horse grazes on clover nearby.

The sound of the horse eventually wakes Udo up. He'd dozed off for a bit. With a big yawn, he looks down from the branches of the tree.

"Of all the trees in all the world, you picked mine? How delightful."

"Oh!" Saksaha, half-dozing herself, sits up with a start and picks a leaf out of her hair. "Who--? What--? I mean..." her heart rate slows a bit as she realizes she knows the voice. "Good morning."

"It is, isn't it?" Udo smiles down through the branches.

"I apologize for startling you, though you did sneak up on me first." He chuckles. "I'm so used to the mountains, I just needed to get somewhere with an elevated view."

Saksaha laughs a little and relaxes again, leaning to rest her shoulders and head back against her saddle so she can more easily see up into the branches. "When I want an elevated view, I might get on a horse. Ride uphill. But maybe I should not be surprised you have a different approach, Togashi-san."

She stretches her arms overhead and then covers her mouth to stifle a sympathetic yawn of her own. "Well, I am lucky you are not a lynx. And you are lucky I am not a warrior with an itchy bowstring hand. So we are both in some luck today," she says with a smile.

"Perhaps not, but at this miai we are all on the hunt!" Udo leaps down with a flourish.

"Was that dramatic? I think I could have been an actor."

Saksaha giggles. "Very dramatic. But I have not seen many real actors, so I can't tell you how you compare. Maybe this means you are..." she remembers an earlier conversation, "incomparable."

Sitting up a bit straighter now that she's speaking to a person at ground level, she pats her beaded headdress gently with one hand to make sure it's still in the right place. "Then, did you see anything interesting from up there?"

"Well, I fell asleep, so..." Udo shrugs. "But when I awoke, I found something very interesting!" He gestured toward her.

"And, I will admit that to find a Unicorn sleeping under a tree this morning brightens my day considerably, given what must have transpired last night. It couldn't have been so bad after all."

"What must have..." He doesn't know anything about that! How could he know anything about that? Saksaha tries not to let this panicked flurry of thoughts show on her face---and utterly fails. Under the golden tone of her skin, she goes rather white, and her dark eyes widen very noticeably. "Um, that is, what must have transpired last night?"

Surely he'll make some comment about the rumors swirling around the Unicorn maidens' collective virtue, or the weather, or something equally innocuous. Surely, surely...

Udo sees her panic and holds up his hands. "I apologize; I have twice ambushed you. I have continually assumed that the blunt, honest Khulun would have shared that I was with her when she received the request for a meeting. Suffice it to say, Otaku-sama and Moto-san and myself were there."

He chuckles a bit. "I guess I am forgettable."

The color begins to trickle back into Saksaha's face. "Oh. You were there? Khulun spoke nothing of you, nothing at all." She shakes her head slightly as if to jog her wits back into their proper functioning. "That day we met in the stable, I had just come from hearing of this. I would not have forgotten such a detail. Maybe it did not suit so well a tale in which Moto Khulun was the main hero," she adds dryly, and sighs.

"Then you know all this, Togashi-san, and all Ide Samai-sama's worries were exaggerated. There are some who trust the Unicorn and do not announce our secrets far and wide." She gives him a somewhat relieved smile.

Udo nods. "My impression of Moto-san has certainly changed in the short time I've been here." With a slightly frustrated facial expression, Udo shrugs it all off. "Regardless, yes, I was there and told them at the time the decision was theirs to make, but warned that regardless of their choice the Champion would undermine their efforts."

Udo sighs. "The Unicorn seem a good and honorable Clan, and the Dragon are their friends. On top of that, I have respect for those that I have met. You can always trust me."

"Wise, Togashi-san. I said the same." Saksaha rubs her cheek exasperatedly. "What good could ever come of speaking with such a one? All the Iuchi agreed together to stay away, even if we could not persuade the others not to go. Then I had the most terrible dream, a true dream, and rode out to warn them, but they still would not turn back." She throws up her hands as if to say, What more could one do?

"At least that one's offer was such a mortal insult, I have no fear my people will be tempted. So you need not worry that we Unicorn will disappoint your trust," she says, meeting his eyes and nodding.

"I have no doubt in the Iuchi," he said, and left it at that.

"Shall we speak of better things? We both picked the same tree for a nap. Serendipity?"

"Yes, why not? I am tired of thinking about dark things," she assents with a half-smile. "And I believe in fate and fortune. Maybe Heaven is kind, and wanted us to meet to relieve both our worries."