[D2 LM] Kitteh-ball?

[Matsu Yurio]

"They are protected and rarely travel outside our lands, but it is not only the Lion Ancestors they can speak to. Any sould that has been admitted to Yomi can speak through them."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Maybe I will travel to your people's lands, then, when I can," she says with an air that suggests this is not just a casual fancy. "I do not know if my ancestors would choose to speak with me, but I would like to know how it is for your priests to be spoken through by such a one. I've walked some of the spirit worlds in dreams," she adds, almost offhandedly, "but to be a chosen messenger must be different from just exploring."

[Matsu Yurio]

"You've walked the other realms? Like a portal or something?"

He was focused back on the woman in front of him now. Looking up, well what else?

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"In spirit only," she explains. "To you it would look something like sleeping." Well, a really deep sleep, anyway. She'd once badly frightened a guest in the family tent, and afterward made sure never to do it without someone around who could explain things.

[Matsu Yurio]

He didn't look like he understood.

"But if you're asleep . . . how do you travel anywhere?"

Yup . . . didn't understand.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

She scratches her cheek and tries to think of an even clearer way of putting it. "My spirit leaves my body behind and crosses between the realms. Only my spirit goes there, alone."

[Matsu Yurio]

He didn't really understand fully, but got enough of it.

"Is this a common thing amongst the Iuchi? It seems a wondrous gift."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Not... really," she has to confess. "It is something unusual. They say some of the old Ujik-hai shamans did it, also--those were the ancestors of the Moto, before Shinjo's time," she adds in case he doesn't know. "Since I learned to control it, I have gone mostly to the near realms--to read the omens in the realm of animal spirits, sometimes to watch over the sleep of the tribe in dreams. Yomi, like your people's priests... I have not dared." She shakes her head slightly, wondering if her mortal spirit would even be able to walk on such ground.

[Matsu Yurio]

If he were a Crab he might have been concerned that she could enter more than one realm. He was a Lion though, so his concern was elsewhere.

The Moto were gaijin? Really, truly gaijin?

He wasn't a Crane either. so some of the sudden distress would show through.

"The Ancestor's come to our priests. They do not enter Yomi. Not until such an honour is earned, anyway."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha does notice his alarm, but can't quite guess its cause.

"Still, even to speak with such a spirit is a great honor. Especially if it seeks you out," she says with a nod. "Um... is everything well, Matsu-san?"

[Matsu Yurio]

"How, exactly, did the Moto join the Unicorn?"

He tried his best to smile. She wasn't a Moto after all.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

She gives him a quizzical look and a slightly confused smile back. "Why, they made a mighty oath to Shinjo-no-Kami. Just like the first tribes of Rokugan in the days of the Fall. Our wise Lady devised a great ritual and made them her children, the same as her other followers."

[Matsu Yurio]

He nodded.

"But . . . err . . . they are not from the lands that form Rokugan, yes?"

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"...no, not originally," she confirms, with a rising intonation that almost makes the statement into a question. She's beginning to catch some fraction of his drift, but still doesn't see why he was looking so worried a moment ago. "Their ancestors come from the high steppes across the Burning Sands. It was Shinjo-no-Kami who taught them the wisdom of the Empire, and in gratitude they shared with us their ways of surviving in those lands."

[Matsu Yurio]

Gaijin . . . this is problematic.

"The other families are as they were when Shinjo-no-kami left on her travels?"