Dark Edge Village

In the damp morning air, an Iuchi leans comfortably on the split wooden fence of the animal pens. Her left elbow rests on the top rail, and the other hand is stretched out to give a friendly scratch on the nose to the enormous yak who's come over to give her a security inspection. By her feet, a small bucket rests in the wet grass.

She's humming to herself, something with a vague tune and even vaguer words.

He hadn't slept well after his soaking the night before and now he was hearing rumours of a battle and deaths. Despite knowing it wasn't his place to do any 'scouting' he was out and looking . . . but was diverted by a familiar face and an unfamiliar setting before he got too far. He approached but paused briefly to read the sign.

Well I don't have a straw cloak on me anyway.

"Good morning, Iuchi-san."

He bowed.

Saksaha stops humming and turns, looking around... and then down. "Good morning, Matsu-san." She returns his bow, wiping a few stray yak hairs from her hand onto a fold of her woolen skirts. "What is it that brings you here today?"

"Just out walking and . . . saw the . . . well, whatever that is."

He pointed at the yak.

"Hairy ox?"

"Close," Saksaha says, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. "She is a yak."

She puts out her hand again and the big hairy beast snuffles at her palm, hoping for a treat but accepting a scritch between the ears, which she has to reach up to deliver.

"A yahhkk?? Never heard of one. A kind of ox then?"

With his track record of trouble with animals so far this week, he kept a 'polite' distance.

If that grey flea bitten excuse for a pet kitteh turns up I am going to feed him to this yahhkk.

"I am no animal breeder, but I think they must be close cousins," Saksaha agrees. "These ones are well suited to pull our wagons in the cold and dry places. And give milk and butter... I suppose this is not a thing oxen are raised for." Not judging from the way some of the guests still turn green when confronted by an innocent dish of yogurt, anyway.

Seeing that Yurio is keeping a cautious distance from the beast, she gives it a final pet on the nose and steps away from it as well, scooping up her empty bucket by its leather handle as she goes.

"That cheeez comes from these?"

He looked both dubious and surprised at the same time.

She muffles a giggle with her free hand. "Of course! Or from goats. I do not think this is stranger than that that tofu-stuff of yours comes from... beans?"

That really was still a mystery to her. Beans! Cheese is far more logical.

From animals . . . why couldn't it be simple and proper like tofu from beans.

"Tofu is a pure and proper food . . . not that your cheez was bad. I quite liked the taste."

"So it is good, but it's not proper to you?" she asks, remembering now how Bayushi Hotaru had seemed rather surprised to learn where milk came from. "It is very healthful, you know," she adds doubtfully, in case he is in fact unaware of this.

Maybe if this one drank more milk as a child, he would not be so... adorably tiny.

"We just . . . . never had it before. I don't even think the heimin make it as I'm sure we would have heard of it."

He looked dubiously at the animals around him.

"There's no blood involved, right?"

"No, no!" she assures him. "Not if the animal is healthy. And if it is not, we would not use the milk." But, oh gods, she suddenly realizes, her face falling a little, if I marry out of the clan, will I never taste another blood sausage for all my life?

She pushes this alarming thought away and continues, "If I can find that mischief of a goat of mine, Matsu-san, I can even show you how it is done. I think she must be around here somewhere."

The relief that no blood was involved was evident on his face.

"You have your own goat?"

He blinked.

"Well I have a cat, but I didn't think of goats as pets."

"She is not a pet, really. But she thinks she is," Saksaha says wryly. "I nursed her after we lost her dam. Now that she is grown, she will not have anyone else milk her unless I am there." She shakes her head in mild exasperation, though not without a certain fondness.

"And she is too clever at slipping her rope. I think she must have gone to shelter with the other stock when it rained."