Dark Edge Village

Yurio had greeted the lovely warm morning with some basic bushi exercises, and he decided to continue on that theme and had fetched his kemari ball and gone is search of a flat area to practise in.

After a little wandering the horsemanship fields were the best place he'd found that wasn't already full of people. Kemari practise began with the ball bouncing up and around as the little Lion refused to let it hit the ground.



(open but expecting)

Saksaha has come out to walk around the edge of the field and inspect the ground. This is where they are meant to exercise the horses, apparently, but her own buckskin mare Gio had a little swelling in her off hind foot by the time they'd arrived in Dark Edge Village two days ago, and if the earth is too hard-packed here maybe it would be better just to take her further out on the grass later on...

A distraction from these horsey thoughts appears when she notices what seems to be a child playing ball in a corner of the horsemanship field. Who let him wander in there? When her circuit takes her a bit closer she realizes he's not quite as small as she thought, however--definitely more boy than man, visually at least, but clearly old enough that he'd probably object if she mentioned this thought. Especially since he's dressed like a Lion.

She watches him bounce the ball around for a little while longer, leaning on the fence, then ducks under and approaches, waving hello. "Good morning. That is not quite the usual sport for these fields, but you are very good at it."

One last kick and Yurio caught the ball one handed. Turning towards the voice, he vaguely recognised her from the various events already held. A precision bow . . . well as precision as possible with a kemari ball in hand, was made.

"Unicorn-san, good morning. I am Matsu Yurio."

He glanced at the ball in his hands.

"I needed a clear level are to practise in. Too many people about this morning so this was the quietest I could find."

"Iuchi Saksaha." She even remembers to bow at the proper time, not bad! Since she is casually dressed this morning there are no beads in her hair and clothing to rattle as she does so--only her long black braid, slipping forward over her shoulder and needing to be flipped back when she straightens.

"Do you practice for a competition, Matsu-san? Or is it for your own satisfaction?" she asks with apparently genuine curiosity.

"Well I have no idea what the competitions will hold for us here although I expect something of an athletic nature, so I practise my kemari with the hopes your families have a similar game."

He bounced the ball in one hand while he talked.

"Not exactly dressed properly for it, but it is a little warm today."

"The warriors do play all sorts of games with balls. I don't know the rules very well, though." In fact, as a little girl she'd occasionally suspected they were changing the rules as they went along, but never mind...

"Dressed properly?" Saksaha takes another look at Yurio's clothing. "What is wrong with what you wear now? You look fine to me, but... I do not know all the rules of clothing in this country, yet."

"Proper kemari should be played in full formal dress. It is a test of maintaining your On while keeping the ball in the air."

He actually grinned at memories of Crane embarrassments he had inflicted in kemari the previous Winter.

"Really? In formal dress?" Saksaha isn't familiar with full court garb in Rokugan, but even judging by most people's ordinary 'nice' clothing, she's prepared to guess it's a lot less practical than anything the Unicorn consider formal wear. "That sounds... hard on your dressmakers."

"If you can keep your courtier's cap on while executing a Backwards Kiriko Double Tap then it is all worth it. Of course the trick there is to also keep your kimono down and not embarrass yourself."

"I see," she says, though in reality she's straining to picture it. And these people think our traditions are strange? "That is one rule our ball games certainly don't have. Although I am sure some of my clansmen will have interest in trying it."

Then she imagines that scene--certain Moto athletes of her acquaintaince tricked out in the fussiest Rokugani clothing she can picture--and giggles involuntarily.

He looked up at the giggling, well he looked up for nearly everything.

"How do your ball games work then? Kemari was adapted to fit in to out courts. Probably to give the bushi something to do in Winter."

"That is right, you winter gathered together in castles and cities here, I was told." Gathering for the season like that is not so different from winter camp on the plains, perhaps--except obviously it involves enough spare time and clean indoor space to play ball games inside in one's very best clothing.

"Well, there are various games..." Saksaha takes a moment to order her thoughts. "Some are played mounted, so the players must hit the ball with sticks and make it go into the other team's goal. Or they carry the ball on horseback, and try to toss it into the goal while the other team tries to stop them and take it away." She opts not to mention that in the old Ujik-Hai way, that particular game was actually supposed to be played with the carcass of a goat.

"But there are other ones played on foot, that look something like this that you were playing. Standing in a ring with a center goal and trying to make the ball go in without your hands, things like this." She laughs again and adds. "Before the Clan came back together, each traveling group had its own rules for these things, and they were not all the same. Sometimes games still become... contentious." Not being much of an athlete herself, she has enough distance from these occasional clashes not to take them too seriously.

He listened while continuing to bounce the ball up and down with one hand.

"On horseback . . . hmmm . . . "

He was obviously wondering if kemari could be adapted to horseback. Then something else she had said caught his interest.

"Came back together? You were not in one group?"

"Oh, no." Saksaha shakes her head for emphasis and spreads her hands in the air. "For hundreds of years, after the great Battle of the Rocs, the tribes of the Unicorn wandered the land separately. And even in my lifetime, while all came together for the great ride home, we organized for travel in groups smaller than the whole. As an army moves in companies, only with children and old people also."

"Oh I thought you'd stayed together."

The ball stopped bouncing, but only for a moment.

"Rocs. Iuchi Dong-Ha talked of those yesterday. I still can't imagine birds big enough to carry off horses."