[D7 EE Saksaha's] Halp!

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

After the event Dong-Ha had rested a while after the Moto event, winded by his lackluster performance and somewhat shocked by the turn of events. Figuring he had a problem at hand that he both had caused and probably deserved, Dong-Ha followed the age old tradition of sorcerers and decided to make it someone else's problem.

"You there, cousin?" He called out as he reached Saksaha's tent. "Got some time?"

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Some sounds of rustling cloth and wooden objects being set down come from inside the tent, and then the flap... flaps open, and Saksaha pops her head out. "Dong-Ha-san? What is it?" Seeing that nothing is on fire or anything like that, she shoves the door further aside and stands in the entrance, looking her cousin over. "Tea?"

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"Need to talk." he quipped, nonchalantly stepping in to her yurt. "Lovely." Dong-Ha nodded at the offered tea. Then he remembered they had a bigger problem at hand. The young mystic sighed. Why did the trouble seem to follow him, even when he did his best to keep all the trouble and arm's length away.

Dong-Ha sought out one of the pillows lying on the floor, sitting down cross-legged. "Though... before I start, did you talk to Khulun-san?" A kinswoman hellbent on doing stupid shit was unfortunately more important than his love troubles.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Did I talk to Khulun-san." Saksaha half-sits, half-collapses onto another pillow and clutches at her head with one hand while giving the coals of her hearth a fresh stir with the other. "Did I talk to Khulun? That woman is impossible, Dong-Ha-san. You were right about her."

She sighs gustily. "Though it killed her, she would go talk to this... creature. Though I had a dream, a true dream, at the last, and rode out wild to warn them all, she would still stay and talk. And when the creature had said its piece and Ide-sama made to go, she would not go at anyone's word but her own, but must stay and ask it more trivia, about its tale and its tricks and what it likes to eat for breakfast for all I know." Sparks fly up as Saksaha's fire tongs shove at a coal with particular violence. "And then, then, then she offers it the hand of peace! A man with the marks of Hell on his body for all to see, his face ghastly pale as the belly of a fish. Even he thought her a fool then, I think."

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

Dong-Ha only nodded as he reached for the cup. Told you. "Talk." Dong-Ha huffed as he listened Saksaha recount the events of the previous night. "She must be possessed or somesuch. Cursed." the young man mused. The blasted Moto was indeed more trouble than Tomoe, Hotaru and Hitako combined. Not that he had seen Hitako since the second day of the miai. He had never considered him charming and now there were three girls singing for him. On the other hand, at least Khulan was less awkward topic.

"We ought to talk with Ide-dono. He ought to send her home." In time honored wizardly tradition, Dong-Ha's 'we' actually meant 'you'. "Shinjo-kami was compassionate, but she was no fool." The excuse that their ancestor had held a parley with the ninth would not fly.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Can he do that? Would he? If she marries here she will marry out, and at least she will be some other tribe's problem. They will not care so much who her uncle is," she adds with a harried look. "And once she marries out she will never again speak for the Unicorn." Throwing up her hands, she can't restrain one more exasperated outburst. "It was like watching a child who will not take his hand away from a hot brazier, because he would rather be burned than be seen to mind his mother. Embarrassing! Of all the things I thought such a meeting could be, I never thought it might be embarrassing."

She turns her anger into motion, getting up to fetch a brick of tea which she shaves rather fiercely into the water in her cooking pot. "At least the monster's offer was so insulting that even she took pause. I think we need not fear the Clan will try to deal with him." She pours in a generous measure of milk from a covered dish. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"I don't know. But to keep her here is to invite folly." Dong-Ha murmured, unhappy by the recent turn of events. "Letting her marry into an another tribe would be like selling lame mare and claiming she van run, cousin. She is.. she should ne be allowed to be here. Fir her own good." The young man added, huffing. "What would the others think of us if we presented get as one of our finest maidens? I mean we are already but.."

"So what did that stranger offer?" There wa a hunt of worry in Dong-Ha's voice. "I am curious." The familiar strange gleam returned to his dark eyes as he waited for an answer.

"Well... uh. You were at the Moto thing today?" He had not seem her but surely she had been around.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"Maybe." Saksaha shrugs unhappily as she stirs the tea. Selling a lame mare dosed up with a bit of liniment to make her frisky is a little low, perhaps, but not at all unheard of. Shame on the buyer who doesn't know horseflesh well enough to spot an unsound beast anyway, right? "She would have less influence in other clans. Here she has family in high places, and young warriors who listen to her." Though Monhkbaatar had seemed to show some sense and spine eventually, so maybe Saksaha should be more optimistic on this front. "It was a deadly insult, cousin. That one claimed the darkness that held our Lady in durance is also Hell's enemy, that she is alive, and that he will tell us where she is if... if...If we would sell him in exchange the corpses of all of our people who die for ten years, to march in the army of Hell." She snatches a pinch of salt from the little wooden box that stands ready to hand for her tea-making and tosses it over her shoulder, making a warding gesture.

"He asks us to strike a bargain that would make our Lady and all Rokugan cast us away, in exchange for only knowledge when we know the nature of Hell is to lie. We would be mad to accept." Saksaha looks like she might spit if only they were out of doors.

This seems to have driven 'the Moto thing' right out of her head, but after a long moment she remembers there was something else they were talking about. "Oh. I was there. I... was not exactly awake the whole time, maybe."

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"Mhmhm, but I cannot see that winning us goodwill. If we want any, that is. Ought to marry her to the Crane then. Nothing much to lose there." in the short few days Dong-Ha had managed to develop poignant opinions about the children of Doji. "What!" he exclaimed when she mentioned the bargain. "That's insanity. No... that's not even insanity. That's stuff of purest evil. I do not think Shinjo-kami would be happy to return to us if it meant that several generations of us were serving the armies of Hell as ghuls or worse." the mystic's words were filled with loathing as disgust marred his face. "And Khulun offered her hand to someone who would have our dead? Or was this before the offer?"

"Oh well.. ahem. The Moto had you to compose a song for the person you would marry. A.. ballad." he explained, flustered. "I think I did alright, I am no bard after all." Dong-Ha shook his hand as if to dismiss his part as irrelevant as faint blush rose to his cheeks. "However, three... three girls spoke my name. Three." He pressed his head between his hands, distraught as he was. "Three.."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

"After. Like to any parley with another tribe." Saksaha seems to run out of steam on the subject somewhat, having spent much of the day thinking of little else. "I must write it all down to send to Iuchi-dono, of course. All should be known so we can make defenses against this threat. There were other disturbing things that stranger said, also... I will show the letter to you when it is finished. It still needs recopying clean." She pinches up some more salt and this time adds it to the pot, where it belongs. "Maybe Batul-san and Yukarin-san also? They were in this too."

"Wait... three girls?" She bites her lip to stifle a snicker. "What three?"

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"Usagi Tomoe, Bayushi Hotaru and Seppun Hitako." Dong-Ha listed the names, keeping his gaze somewhere on the floor. "I mean, I have spent some time with Usagi-san and I.." he stammered a bit. "..I think she is nice." the young man bit his lip nervously. "Bayushi-san consulted my omens and told me I ought to act... so I talked to Usagi-san. We get along." He wasn't going to go into details even if there wasn't much detail to go into. 'Held hands' was not particularly shocking for anyone of their age. "She seems to like me. She's smart and kind. I think she'd make a decent wife." the last admission brought a blush on his cheeks.

"But uh... I've talked all of once with Seppun-san. Once." he looked up, seeking out Saksaha. "Why she'd do that." Dong-Ha shook his head. "And Bayushi-san... she must have misunderstood me. I mean, it's not like I don't like her company, for what I know her... but she sang this strange song, where she said I was a 'kink'. Do you know what kind of animal kink is?" the dumbfounded young man asked. "And she she... said I like girls in cages." Dong-Ha looked positively crestfallen. "Why she would think of that."

[Iuchi Saksaha]

Saksaha presses her hand to her lips, since poor Dong-Ha really seems in some difficulty and it wouldn't be right to let on that this is actually also kind of funny. It's the rest of his life they're talking about, after all!

"A kink? Like something... bendy?" She fiddles with a scrap of copper wire still lying out on her table from her latest crafting experiments, curling it into a zigzag around her fingertips. "As for cages, this is a metaphor, maybe? A Scorpion thing? People say they are almost as good at this complicated poetry as the Crane... Bayushi-san does like you, you know," she points out with a smile, now that she's got her expression back under control and no longer fears breaking out in giggles. "She told me so at the concert her kinsman put on. I have no idea about this Seppun Hitako, though. This one time you met her, you didn't save her life or something, did you?"

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"I don't know. I owe her anyway, so I plan to ask the next time I see her. Better she explains herself, eh." Perhaps kink was large majestic noble beast of the legends. Something akin to Ki-Rin, but with wings, split tail and wicked horns. Well, it's be cool if her opinion of him was good, at least.

"She does?" Dong-Ha's eyes widened as his hands dropped to his sides. "She never told me anything." Dong-Ha's mind was working on a rather complex calculus, causing him to freeze for a moment.

For finite sets W and F, where list of future spouses is (W ∩ F) ∪ T, and where T ⊆ F. For all all objects in F,C, f(F) > f(W) where f(x) is a simple function that maps complexity of a given item.

"What did she tell you?" he leaned towards Saksaha is if being closer to the girl somehow squeeze the information out of her. "Please tell me." Dong-Ha insisted.

"No, we discussed magic. She said she's studying under the jäde champion, by the name Fairuz. Who came from the sands to Rokugan and won fame in some tournament. Now he's serving the Emperor. She seemed to be more interested in my stones than me, really." He flicked one of the many charms dangling on his belt.

[Iuchi Saksaha]

While waiting for Dong-Ha.exe to resume normal functioning, Saksaha gives the simmering milk tea a final stir and ladles it out into two bowls, making sure to scoop carefully so that the leaves stay in the bottom of the pot.

The thing about the stones is just too much for her composure, though, and she lets out an involuntary snort of laughter. "Well, it would be no good if your future wife is not interested in your stones, either! No, sorry, sorry." She goes a bit pink and waves an apologetic hand in front of her face. "That is odd. She may be one of those who wants to choose an Iuchi for our bloodline, or our secrets. But even so, why not get to know you before singing about you in front of everybody?"

She slides a bowl of tea across the low table toward Dong-Ha. "Bayushi-san... I will think. We were talking only a short time before she spoke of you. She said you helped her well to understand the Unicorn. I said I was happy she liked you. I meant this very generally, but... I think she took it another way. She looked very pleased and said that you made yourself likeable to her." Saksaha giggles behind the rim of her teabowl. "Also she blushed. So I am not surprised if she sings for you. But you like Usagi-san, too..."

[Iuchi Dong-Ha]

"Thank you." Dong-Ha muttered softly as he reached for the cup Saksaha offered, placing it on his knee. "Uh..." having her laugh at his choice of words caused the young man to blush and while he wanted to yell at her for misunderstanding him, the young mystic could quite not overcome his shame. "Uh.."

Figuring it was better to tackle the matter rather than to further discuss his stones, Dong-Ha merely nodded. "Uh, could be. But well, it's not like meishodo's a huge secret. I mean, anyone willing to learn it can. Never heard to of teachers turning away students." he shrugged, taking a sip from the milk tea. "Either way, it's a mess. I mean, I guess she's not an evil woman, but I'd rather wed someone else." a small sigh escaped from his lips. "I mean, I wish she'd talked more with me."

"Uh, well, it's not like Bayushi-san is mean or ugly. She's actually a great diviner." Dong-Ha explained. "I'd have been happy to marry her, had I not met Tomoe-san. Oh Benten, why do you play with us." he added, muttering under his breath. "But I didn't think she actually liked-liked me. Bayushi-san that is." Tomoe's affections were more obvious.