The Way of Sensei Wu

With a clear and crisp nightsky, conditions were ideal for gazing at the stars. And with new faces there were new possibilities, new strands added to the weaves of the tapestry of destiny... perhaps some of them he would be able to pluck out as something unique, that would stand out amongst all the others.

Genkai exhaled hot air softly, and his breath lingered in the air for a moment in a faint cloud. His neck stretched to one side, then the other, followed by both arms stretching out too to guide the internal fires throughout his body. He could feel the cold against his skin, but it did not bother him.

His green eyes focused upwards to the sky, making out the location of the stars and their movement on the sky.

An amused voice drops from a low branch. "You got the lectures about wandering the woods at night being dangerous, right?" There's a rather average sized and shaped person with a less average fox mask highly visible in the dark, standing on that branch and leaning against the trunk. "I'd worry about it less, but...woolgathering's likely to see someone trip or slip down a crevice and all. The snow hides em a bit, even if you're paying attention."

The voice drew his attention away from the stars, and the monk turned to look in the direction of its speaker. Dangers? he glanced down at the still very pristine-looking snow. This place was not like the mountains of the Dragons, where he knew the dangers. It had its own unknown dangers.

Lifting his gaze up, he nodded to show his appreciation for the young woman's warnings. Then without a word, he held up a hand, gesturing to the nightsky above them, as his green eyes still remained focused on her, as if beckoning her to look up at the stars with him.

Obviously another monk. Would this one be all sudden moves if she followed the distraction up to the sky? Eyes narrowed with a little suspicion, she looks up, ears metaphorically pricked for the sound of movement that might mean a flying kick aimed her way.

“Least you’re not walking with your eyes so high, I guess.” She measures the stars with her gaze, light-colored eyes jumping from spot to spot and occasionally offering a flash of white behind the mask. “Something interesting up there tonight? Heard owls a bit ago, but I think they’re mostly done for the night. There was a foxtail star up that high a bunch of years back. Wasn’t wearing swords yet then, but remember folks being interested.” She looks back down, curious. “Anything like that tonight?”

Lantern light filters through some nearby bushes. The soft crunch of snow being trod upon.

Kaito Maya came upon the Soshi and Togashi. The paper lantern hanging off the bo she carried against her shoulder backlit the Phoenix woman, casting soft light and long shadow across her face.

"Ah. Good evening, samurai-san. Quite an evening for the stars, is it not?" The words were cordial enough, though the tone was cool. Distant. Typically Kaito.

As Naoko spoke, the Togashi monk watched her in silence. There had probably been many others that had looked at her with such eyes that seemed to take in so much of her, but few had probably done so in a way that felt like staring at the soul.

Suddenly aware of the rude staring, the monk bowed as he averted his gaze, while his hands busied themselves with retrieving rolled up paper from inside his robes. He straightened from his bow and unrolled the paper, revealing drawings of the constellations. One way to read the stars for divination.

The arrival of another stargazer made Genkai focus on the Phoenix, offering her a silent bow as well.

As he stared, the green eyes stared back, taking on an edge of challenge as the monk's gaze became, somehow, intrusive. There surely was no tail bristling up there, but the sense of it lay in the silence between them before the young man broke the tableau to display his drawings, and the gently-lit Phoenix gave the pair a third point for their attention.

Naoko offered a the newcomer a bow from her spot on the branch before hopping off, catching the rough wood for a moment on the way down to slow her short drop. Way easier to see the star charts from down here...and with the lantern supplementing moonlight. "Guess it is a good night for it. Air's clear up here." She points to a set of stars on the map. "the Celestial Drums, I recognize, but never did learn most of them. Just liked that you could never see them being played because their thunder only shows up with stormclouds." It's a fair bet that not everyone considers that collection of stars to be drums.

She looks between the two samurai. "Are more folks coming out to stargaze?" Scratching the back of her head, she looks a bit embarrassed, "Didn't quite catch all the scheduling announced and so on." Because it had been boring, and mostly the same day by day by day.

Swinging the bo off her shoulder slowly, Maya brought the lantern close to provide illumination.

"I don't think so. I came alone." Maya responded matter-of-factly, peeking over at the chart before looking up at the sky and pointing with her free hand.

"There, to the north. 'The black tortoise makes his way across the winter sky'. The girl, she ox she rides upon, and dipper she carries in hand..." The Kaito rattled through the stars that made up the potentially turtle-shaped collection of stars in the night sky, were one so inclined to see such a shape represented. She paused and looked back down to earth and the Soshi.

"Were you expecting other people?"

“Not really.” Slight shoulders shrug, the movement amplified by the padded coat covering them. “The dipper there, I learned as a long-tailed badger, stubborn creature that always stays up in the sky. Makes it useful for finding your way if you get twisted around.” She looks to the map in the Togashi’s hands, curious if it had the same shapes and names.

“Does the girl ride her ox to someplace? They’re not common in the mountains.”

"I see." Maya murmured at Naoko's confirmation of her assumption that others, including herself perhaps, were unexpected. Almost as unexpected as learning the dipper was called the badger by others.

"No more common than turtles and tigers in the sky, eh?" Maya pointed out lightly, making reference to the directional animals with an attempt at humor. Dragons and birds, presumably, were considered sufficiently skyborne enough by the Kaito to be left unsaid.

"Maybe she's going to rejoin her sisters?" An indication to the star chart of the grouping of six stars known popularly as the Sisters.

Genkai was silent as the two young ladies chatted, but that also seemed to be his natural state of being. The star charts were held in steady yet calloused hands, allowing both of the two women to look at them.

The constellation commonly known as the dipper seemed to be referred to as the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper, with its brightest star named the Celestial Pivot. All the names seemed rather formal and evocative in their naming, yet somehow managing to be relatable to the more common naming practices.

In the meantime, the Togashi had kept his attention on something else unseen. As Maya indicated the Sisters, his attention shifted back to the charts, then to the sky. Then looking back to the Kaito woman, he gave her an easy nod, giving confirmation to her question.

Naoko listens to the explanation and shakes her head with a grin, "no more common than flying tigers for sure. Just wondered if riding oxes..oxen?...is a common thing or there was something fancy to her story. Be good to see her sisters, I'm sure. Wonder if she had a name before she was put in the stars?"

Her finger reaches to trace the characters on the chart without touching it, hovering just over the paper. "I guess you use the fancy names when writing things down."

The monk's silence is only starting to make an impression as anything odd, but the very soft crunch of heavily padded cat feet on snow draws her attention as a large, very fluffy, calico cat walks toward the group with something feathered in his mouth. Stepping back from the map, the young Scorpion shakes her head with a low laugh. "Decided to share then?"

Maya's quizzical expression at Genkai's gesturing lasted until she could puzzle out reasons why he wasn't talking. To pry seemed rude. To verbally interrogate an otherwise silent monk seemed foolish. Maya didn't think of herself as either, despite the opinions of others. "Thank you for sharing your map this evening, Dragon-san."

"I saw some village children riding an ox about, once, in the paddy fields so I assume there's something to it." It was a rather weak reply. Oxen riding was not really something Maya had invested heavily into learning the intricacies of, nor had she paid much thought to its frequency in Rokugan. Something to look into, maybe?

"Your cat?" Maya asked Naoko. She didn't want to presume.

Belatedly, she follows the Kaito's lead. "Yes, thank you. It's interesting to see all those names for the stars, and which ones have different stories." She hoped she'd remember more than two of them, but it wasn't likely.

Naoko nods once at Maya's question. "It is, Phoenix-san. Hanakuso. Sometimes, he brings presents." She begins to bend toward the cat and its bloody gift, then pauses. What is she going to do with it here, in front of people? Tossing it into the forest to pretend it never happened is very likely to result in a macabre game of fetch. "At least it's a bird?" she says with an apologetic laugh to smooth over the dead animal portion of this meeting.

So she carefully takes hold of the little bird feet as the cat lets go of his prize, then lays it on the cold ground with a quiet "Thank you Hanakuso."

Maya watched Naoko's interaction with Hanakuso with a curious expression.

"Well, I have heard of falconry, Scorpion-san, but not...ah...catry?"

Maya looked at the dead bird, then the cat. Then the Scorpion. Then up at the stars as the awkwardness built. Back down to the Scorpion.

"So, what will you do with the, ah, bird...corpse?"

She looks up to Maya, uncertain. “Weelll, I’d usually eat it. But…” Hanakuso begins weaving in and out among the group, rubbing up along their shins with a purr. “Well, I don’t think the monks have meat in their kitchens much?” Yes…that was a normal sort of concern, right? “I guess I should bury it or…make a fire?”

"Eat it? It doesn't seem like it would be, well, worth it. It looks quite small." Maya met eyes with Naoko. Certainly there were taboos against eating meat and yet...

Reflexively, Maya offered her hand for the murder cat to rub against. "It wouldn't seem the monks would have much in their kitchen, I would think. Our meal tonight was generous, as meals at monasteries go, yet they eat so little as a rule here." She left that thought to hang in the air, her tone suggesting a curiosity at the practices of their hosts.

"I don't know of funerary rites for birds. It is a natural creature, maybe...do what nature would have?"

Murder cat rubbed happily at the offered hand, swiping the side of his face along her fingers as they discussed the fate of his gift.

"Don't want to offend himself there with treating the gift poorly. Suppose I could tell him that he should really just eat it himself this time." She looks down at the little bird--larger than a sparrow, but not by much. "It isn't much, compared to ducks and chickens. But who needs a whole duck to themselves?" She looks back to the star chart. "too small to make it into the sky though. I remember there being and eagle and isn't Shinsei's crow up there? But these little birds...I guess they'd be a single star, and nobody much notes that."

"Have you eaten at many monasteries? I've only ever had tea, at them, so this was a feast in comparison. The monks didn't even eat though." There's a soft scuff of feet shuffling a bit on the snow as she considers that. "Do you think they're fasting to feed all of us?"

Maya was quiet through Naoko's pontifications, though she did remember to pay due attention to Hanakuso.

"Why should a star care if it makes it onto someone's map or list, anyway? It's still there, still a star, list or not." The crack in the Kaito's chill reserve was sudden, like lake ice giving way to plunge one into cold waters beneath.

She was definitely only speaking about birds. Or stars. Certainly not about anything or anyone else.

The topic of food, much like food itself, was a welcome respite. "Oh, ah, yes. I've had more than a few meals at monasteries. That's life on the road, you know? Monks just don't eat sometimes but they don't look malnourished, not the Abbess and the other monks and definitely not Sensei."

Naoko blinked at the vehemence of the other woman’s sentiments, the lantern light’s reflection flickering within the mask’s eyes. “I doubt the star cares. Probably doesn’t know there’s a list either though. That might change things.” She looks back up at the stars as they speak of them, sort of, speaking through the thoughts. “What I hear of courts from monks who retired from a busier world, there’s a lot of things people end up caring about when they know about them. What sort of paper you write a poem on. There’s lots of stories about that. They sound very strange in monasteries that save paper for prayers and villages that are lucky to have a decent supply of plain paper.”

Looking back down, gaze only briefly pausing at her human companions’ eye levels before dropping to watch the cat unashamedly settle upon the Kaito’s feet, shielding his belly from the cold ground and offering her a heavy fur blanket for her toes. “No, Sensei looks like he manages his mealtimes just fine, much as this fuzzy hunter does.” Certainly the weight on her feet was substantial.

“The abbess though…” she trails off for a moment. “I think I’d like to talk to her. She’s got a curious effect on some of the wildlife here.”