Hoarfrost and Herbals [D3 LM, open]

[Bayushi Kogi]

As the chilly day draws toward noon, it finds Kogi tucked up by a table in the library with a stack of two or three manuscripts at her elbow. Another one is spread open before her, displaying an illustration of some kind of plant hemmed in by columns of scrawly grass-script handwriting. Her own notebook full of at-least-equally-impenetrable cursive notes lies close at hand as well.

Kogi has picked a spot near one of the paper-covered window screens, the better to benefit from the bluish winter daylight--blessedly stronger today than during the height of the storm yesterday--in addition to the candle lanterns set on the work tables. However, this choice of spot leaves her more vulnerable to the icy cold seeping in from outdoors, despite the brazier snugged up nearby. It isn't burning too high in any case, since a strong fire in a library is an invitation to disaster. So, every now and then, Kogi leaves her reading and paces a few times around the room to keep her blood moving.

[Kuu]

"Why hello again," comes a newly familiar voice. "A pleasure to happen upon you again Bayushi-sama."

He approaches the table and offers a nod, holding his writing kit. This place had some of the best tables for use in calligraphy, likely so scribes could copy writings for their own records or libraries. He takes a table nearby so that his writing supplies would not encroach on Kogi's own studies, but he does peek at the books she has.

"Gardening, wilderness survival or medicine?" he asks after seeing images of plants.

[Bayushi Kogi]

"Oh, good morning, Monk Kuu." Kogi nods respectfully. She'd just returned to her work table after another circle around the reading room to warm up; now she brushes her palms over the skirts of her robe to straighten them out, then takes a moment to arrange her sleeves. "It's hard to draw a border between those three things, truthfully." Her silk veil ripples with a short, quiet laugh.

"These are notes by somebody from the Chiyo family, from a journey to the far north. I was curious about the plants up there and how people use them. I know the northern mountains have very cold winters, even colder than here in the capital--they seem to grow a lot of things I've never seen at home." Her narrow fingers trace the stem of the pictured branch. The drawing is amateurish--but the work of a reasonably talented amateur, at least.

[Kuu]

"I've never gotten to know much about that sort of medicine. We have some slightly different teachings and methods available in the Order. I can actually target pressure points on the body to stimulate healing at an accelerated rate," he says as he goes about setting up the writing supplies.

"I've seen broken limbs and major cuts heal in seconds, not unlike what some shugenja can do. Nearly as spectacularly, though not quite. I think it would benefit most villages to have a monk trained in such to be around. But we are still a very small group."

[Bayushi Kogi]

"That's..." she raises an eyebrow, "impressive. It doesn't call for a blood offering ritual, like the shugenja use? I suppose it's not something you can teach to an ordinary person?"

She gently flips the page, revealing another illustration--something with a thick rhizomatous root and round berries. "If only such skills could be bottled up and stored on a shelf. Many places are much too remote to keep a priest, even if there were enough shugenja with enough blood in their veins in all the Empire to go around."

[Kuu]

"Technically it is a technique that can be taught to anyone, in the same way the skills and techniques of a clan's bushi can be taught to anyone, it just takes an understanding of energy and elements that monks and shugenja have. So if one were to train as a monk, even if they couldn't speak with the kami, they could learn it," he says.

"But monk training and our way of life is thus far considered incompatible with serving most clans, with the exception of the Dragon. Something I would wish to see changed. Our order has a specific mission and goal, but it doesn't define our lifestyle or vice versa. I would think that much like the Dragon, each of the clans could benefit from an order devoted to such things."

[Bayushi Kogi]

"Lifestyle...?" Kogi looks up from the page, her veiled head at a quizzical angle. "So you don't have to live any special way to learn these things? Could someone like me study it? It sounds like the kind of thing physicians dream about. On a good night." This is, for the moment, more informative than her notes, so she props an elbow on her table and turns herself a bit toward Kuu at his table.

"I don't know very much about how monks are made," she admits. "I thought a person has to renounce his family to become one. Is that what you did, Monk Kuu?"

[Kuu]

"It's an evolving thing. A few have done so, but many have been following Shinsei and his ideas for a long time. I was taken in by one of his earlier followers as an orphaned child."

"But being a monk and having a general lifestyle of philosophical contemplation and physical conditioning should not preclude serving a clan. The tattooed monks of the Dragon prove that. But in order for me to teach you how to use that ability, I would first need to teach you the basics of elemental chi and body control, which would take a while."

"But I see no reason why an ambitious person might not seek to build an order that is a part of their clan. Leaning on basic teachings of monks in general but forming an school of thought and philosophy focused on service to the clan."

[Bayushi Kogi]

Kogi rests her chin on one palm, incidentally trapping the veil closer against her face so that a little more of its shape can be seen. Nothing distinctive, though.

"So I would have to live quite differently. And take up... contemplation and conditioning." Her dark eyes shift in a thoughtful sidelong glance. "Oh. But then it sounds as if you had no choice but to become a monk, Kuu-san! Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you hadn't been brought up this way?"

[Kuu]

"You would not necessarily need to live a life of contemplation," he says with a smirk. "But you would have to achieve and maintain a physical and spiritual state that enabled control of your bodily energy."

"To your point, I do not wonder what might have been, only what might be. If a samurai lord extended an invitation for me to join their clan and family there is nothing that would stop me other than loyalty to the order and belief in it's purpose. And even if I chose to do so, as long as I maintained my conditioning, I would still have the knowledge and skills necessary to continue performing the kiho I know. Even if I trained for some other purpose."

"It is like any skill. You learn how to do it and you can do it. Learning how is simply a far more involved and intense process than most other skills. Although knowing such things does not prevent me from enjoying alcohol, fine foods, shopping, spending time with lovers or waging war. You met Nozomi the other day and she has a daughter, so she likely has had love and attachment with someone no? But she can still perform kiho just fine. I knew one monk that loved to gamble and he was the one that taught me a kiho that allows one to ignore certain levels of pain and debilitation. It's much less restrictive in practice than you might assume, just a lot of work to get there."

[Bayushi Kogi]

"Huh." Kogi seems to find this answer quite interesting. "...So many skills to learn, and so little time in one life. You do give one a lot to think about, Monk Kuu. Perhaps I'll ask Nozomi-san if she minds having her pulses measured sometime."

She Hmms a bit behind her veil. "Nothing to stop you other than loyalty? That's a big something, though."

[Kuu]

"It is a very big something, but it is a personal something. The order nor the philosophies of Shinsei require I stay. But the question is where does that loyalty lie? To the efforts of the order, the order itself, the philosophies of Shinsei, the man that raised me? If my loyalties are to philosophy or theological pursuit then my loyalty to the order extends only to the point that another organization has ideals that fit better. If it's to the Order then it only applies as long as the Order stands, and if it's to the man that raised me then I would follow him wherever he goes. But who knows what my loyalty applies to other than myself?" he says with a chuckle.

[Bayushi Kogi]

"True. Nobody else can measure another man's loyalty until the moment he acts." With her chin still propped on one hand, Kogi taps her index finger against her silk-covered cheekbone. "And I can't begrudge you spinning some mystery around it. I suppose you must have it clear in your own mind which of those things holds your loyalty"--a person, a philosophy, a group--"but that doesn't make it everyone's business."

[Kuu]

"For some they announce it and wear it on their sleeve, for others it is deeply personal. And it can shift over time as well. A person may find that once they have a spouse and children that loyalty to family becomes more prominent. Abuses by a lord might embitter someone that was once very loyal," he says with a shrug. "Even the Kami's loyalties likely shifted. Once they fell to ningen-do and found followers, they likely gained a loyalty to those that chose to follow them. How much that loyalty may have shifted from their siblings or other ideals is something only they can know, but I imagine that we are much like children to them."

[Bayushi Kogi]

"There shouldn't be conflict between loyalty to one's family and loyalty to one's children, if all of them are behaving according to their obligations," Kogi observes, arching a brow. "Speaking on principle, of course." It seems this Scorpion has also read her Akodo.

"I know I would never wish to cause any discord between my lord and his brothers and sisters. I suppose you haven't experienced that, Kuu-san," she adds, with a thoughtful air. "Swearing fealty to a god. It's... not a trivial thing."

[Kuu]

He nods in agreement that in the vast majority of cases there should be no conflict between loyalty to clan and children.

"Well, that is also a big difference between a monk's life and most others. We swear no fealty. However, we do take vows, often to fortunes or ideas, sometimes even to ourselves. These vows tend not to be in conflict with any mortal interactions for the most part. Technically we do not even swear fealty to the emperor, but that does not imply disloyalty for us."

"So you study medicine, I have learned a different way, and shugenja know a third. It seems unfair that there should be only three known ways to heal, but so many more to do harm. It really puts us at a disadvantage no?" he asks with a smile.

[Bayushi Kogi]

"Hm. Well, in honesty, all those differences between methods that matter so much to warriors... from a physician's point of view, they collapse back together, rather." Kogi shrugs, almost a bit apologetic. "Sewing up a cut... it doesn't matter very much if it was made with Nanzi's technique or Jiyo's. Or a slipped kitchen knife. But there are a dozen or more different tricks for tending a cut, depending on other things, and I'm sure those all look much the same to a warrior."

"Things are usually more complicated from the inside than they look from the outside."

[Kuu]

"Yes, if you are focused on cuts. But there is also poisoning, drowning, choking, disease, and age. It's true that many injuries are healed in similar ways, but a healer needs a far wider knowledge to do their job because of the ways a person can be harmed. That is one thing that my technique can't handle, the multitudes of less traumatic health issues."

[Bayushi Kogi]

"Only a few of those are ways to do harm. Usually they just... happen." Kogi's brows arch for a moment in the space above her veil. "Unless you know a martial art for making a person suffer age and chronic disease. I really hope not."

She glances down at her book again, then back up at him with curiosity. "So you can make your body hot, and heal another person with chi flow. But not if they're sick, only injured? Hmm. Perhaps you won't put me out of work yet."

[Kuu]

"I imagine not," he says with a smirk. "At best, there is a kiho that allows a practitioner to strengthen themselves against the effects of poison and disease. As for a martial art that that could inflict aging and disease? Not that I am aware of, and not that I'd care to learn, but also potentially not impossible with theoretical applications of chi."