(Day 5, EM) No Mudbath for Your Coat! (Expecting)

[Moto Butaj]

"Butaj doesn't know about all things, but some are." He smiles. "Like horses. Smiles are bigger. Hearts are bigger. Nights of music and stories. Our view of the world." Butaj looks down, presumably at his hands. He stretches them locked together until knuckles pop softly. "Men are quite big too."

[Seppun Hitako]

Hitako looks him over, head to toes, then back to head, taking her time. "So I see. But, why are the horses for the women bigger than the men's then?"

[Moto Butaj]

"Because they belong to the Otaku alone, who earned them by weathering captivity in Laramun. When they overcame evil sorcerers who held them, they took their magical great horses." Butaj explains. It is obvious that he has great admiration and respect for the Otaku.

[Seppun Hitako]

"Oh. They were strong enough to hold the entire family?"

[Moto Butaj]

"Butaj thinks they were the greatest evil of the Burning Sands in their time, but he doesn't know too many details." Butaj shrugs, then begins to comb Huludai.

[Seppun Hitako]

"In their time? They are no longer a problem, then? Or there is a greater evil we should watch out for?"

[Moto Butaj]

"Maybe they are, maybe they are not. For Butaj, Laramun is a legend, he has not been there. Nor has he fought evil cults in the Ivory Kingdoms. The Burning Sands have many evils, big and small, old vanish, new emerge. The greatest Butaj has known were the slavers of the Senpet Empire."

[Seppun Hitako]

"Slavers of the Senpet Empire? Are they very likely to come this way, or simply like a pit - something fairly fixed in place, and to be avoided?"

[Moto Butaj]

"The Senpet Empire is very powerful, but so are the Yodotai further west and the Ivory Kingdoms of the Maharaja in the south. And there is also the Jewel of the Desert, where the Houses of Dahab hold great power over trade. Butaj is no man to discuss politics but he thinks they have enough of their own problems to seek routes to the East, which are not easy to find and even less easy to cross."

[Seppun Hitako]

"So, the Burning Sands helps to keep us safe, then?"

[Moto Butaj]

Butaj doesn't know if he understands the question. "Ummm... if there are more empires than one, they fight each other and don't look elsewhere? Or is is about mountains and deserts that separate the East from the Burning Sands?"

[Seppun Hitako]

"Are not the mountains and deserts the true Burning Sands? I know many consider the whole region thus, but the mountains and deserts would seem to fit the name the best, to what I know."

[Moto Butaj]

"Butaj would say that all the land west where Amaterasu is called Shilah and Onnotangu Kaleel, as far as the western seas beyond which Merenae lies, can be called Burning Sands. But Butaj is no wise man so he won't argue."

[Seppun Hitako]

"Neither do I know for surety. I merely have a little information, and much guessing."

[Moto Butaj]

"There are wiser people among the Unicorn than Butaj, among the Marta and the Iuchi and the Ide. They know more about the world."