There was one thing Sasaki shared with the peasants that came to the inn to break their fast, and that was an amazed sort of curiosity. She kept her own curiosity in check, however. The smallfolk eyed her with a baffled and undisguised curiosity; she was much more discreet; she snuck glances at them from the corners of her eyes, or the intermittent glance. She stood out to be sure; she wore silks while they wore heavy clothing from linen and wool. She was petite, at least a foot shorter and anywhere between sixty to a hundred pounds lighter than the peasants she dined with.
In the beginning, Sasaki's mother had praised her daughter's dauntless spirit, her daring, and her fearlessness. In time that had turned to frustration, as Sasaki defied her again and again. As Sasaki approached adulthood, her mother's attitude had turned regretful. Where she'd once praised Sasaki's challenging gaze, she now bemoaned it. Why couldn't Sasaki do as she was told? Why couldn't she act like a proper lady?
Sasaki eyed the people that shoveled their food into their mouths without regard for manners, tableware, or cleanliness. What would her mother say to that? At this moment, Sasaki was as demure and reserved as her mother was, the perfect Yamato, compared to the unhinged savagery and uncouth, slipshod mannerisms of the Anglish. That brought a small smile to her face.
Sasaki glanced at the stairwell leading to the second floor. Someone was coming down. Her eyebrow raised minutely as the person reached the landing. The woman was completely unlike any of the other Anglish she'd seen before. The woman was tall, dressed like a man, with fringed leather breeches, shirt and waistcoat. Hanging down her chest past her waist was a thick braid of white hair. She wore some sort of Anglish sword on one hip and a- she blinked. What was that? Some length of wood and metal at her hip. A club of some sort? The woman herself was impressive. She carried herself with an almost palpable aura of authority, her face all regal planes and imperious beauty. Her eyes, a pale, watery green flicked across the room, and Sasaki unconciously nodded her approval at the way the woman seemed to weigh and appraise her surroundings and the people. Whoever she was, the tall woman was no peasant.
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Down in the common room, Katarina and Mystia were offered a hearty repast of eggs, sausage and bacon drowned in some rich gravy. No utensils were given, only some thick, crusty biscuits. Katarina, familiar with such foods, dug in with vigor, using the biscuit as a scoop. Mystia, unused to such fare, had a more difficult time of it.
Katarina glanced to the side as she ate, distracted by movement. A young woman, waiflike and delicate, ate with a pair of slender wooden spikes, using them to tweeze her food into her mouth. There was a certain elegance in her movements, from plate to mouth, to the way she covered her mouth as she ate with her other hand.
Katarina casually wiped her fingertips on the napkin she was given and straightened, eyeing the young woman.
She was perhaps a little smaller than Mystia, and possessed of an elfin sort of loveliness with thin, delicate and angular features. She had a long fall of jet-black hair that was cut ruler-straight across her brow, and she wore silks and a type of pleated skirt favored by certain types of warriors in Yamato, an island nation hundreds of miles to the west.
As Katarina rose to her feet, the smaller woman, as if by some unspoken agreement, set her food to the side and rose to her feet as well, her almond-shaped eyes never leaving Katarina's face.
Katarina eyed the woman with barely concealed disdain. This was the one to be feared? The woman barely came up to the tops of Katarina's breasts, was nearly rail-thin, and carried herself as if she were a foot taller than Katarina herself.
"You're the troublemaker?" Katarina asked doubtfully. Had Katarina unbraided her hair, it would almost be as long as the woman was tall.
"Well, I certainly hope so." The waif rapped back smartly. "Who put you up to this? Was it that horrible old woman? The pastor? Or was it someone else?" the woman had a strange, slurring way of speaking. Katarina didn't reply; she simply reached out and pushed the woman's own silky black hair back from the side of her head.
"Well, you're certainly no elf." Katarina decided. "And from the accent, I'd say you're certainly very far from home, Yamato."
The smaller woman's almond-shaped eyes opened wide in surprise. "Now that's something I wouldn't have expected anyone here to know. You're well-traveled, it seems." She replied with a hint of relief in her words. "The last village I was at chased me away with pitchforks, screaming 'elf! elf!' at me." She replied with mock horror. "As if they knew what an elf looked like." she added with an ostentatious eyeroll.
"They didn't do that here?" Katarina replied, and the woman raised an eyebrow. "I have been ostentatious with my visits to the local Church." She replied. "Apparently elves don't worship the Golden Lady." She added, and then smiled a little. "Or perhaps they assume that the Golden Lady will strike down those that befoul her hallowed ground."
Katarina nodded. "She always does, in one form or another. Been here very long? Maybe you can point me to the general store." She asked innocuously.
"It's not hard to find." Sasaki replied in a dry voice. "And I've only been here a few days. The rains are atrocious."
"Are you a Shrine Maiden?" Katarina asked curiously. There was a rumor among Witch Hunters that the Yamato Shrine Maidens could use magic, and if this was true, Katarina wished to test herself against one. The Yamato nation was aligned with the Anglish Empire, though the Yamato refused entry to any Witch Hunter to their lands. The Yamato gave the Anglish the secret of making steel, and the Anglish gave them shipping rights and boarwood, a scarcity on the Yamato islands.
"My apologies, you're less well-traveled than I'd assumed." The Yamato woman amended with a mocking laugh. "Not every Yamato is a Shrine Maiden." She finished.
"No shit, that's why I asked." Katarina returned sarcastically, bristling under the woman's caustic attitude. Mystia eyed the two of them apprehensively over her trencher, a crumbling biscuit forgotten in her hand.
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"Oh my." The woman replied, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "Such an... impulsive response." she judged, and then her small smile returned.
There was something disquieting about the woman, something Katarina couldn't place her finger on. What was it? She set her mind to think on it while she questioned her, absently keeping her eye on Mystia, who was still eating.
"What're you doing here?" Katarina asked, and the woman laughed. "Not even a dilettante of the social graces, then, hmm?" She replied mockingly. "Ah, well. It was wrong of me to assume that an agent of the Golden Lady would bear the sophistication of proper etiquette." She bowed a little. "My apologies again."
"Unless I miss my guess, the nearest Yamato settlement would be east of Einsamkeit." Katarina stated, eyes narrowing in thought, and the woman smiled mysteriously. "And that settlement is hundreds of miles away south of here. What would bring one such as you to a logging town?" Katarina asked pointedly.
"'One such as you.'" The woman quoted wonderingly, touching a manicured fingertip to the side of her mouth. "Such a ... unique turn of phrase. 'one such as you'. How delightfully loaded with implication." She added dryly. "Turn your inquisitorial fangs elsewhere, Lady Agent, you will find no heresy with me." She finished sharply.
"Then explain why you're here." Katarina replied flatly.
"I shall not." The woman replied, as if deciding on the spot. "I am not beholden to you. You hold no power over me." Her eyes held a hint of challenge.
"You'll answer my questions." Katarina replied, rising to that unspoken challenge.
"As if you could stop me." The smaller woman spat back. Katarina chuckled right back at her.
"Near as I can tell I've got a foot of height and about sixty pounds more muscle than you, so were I you, I'd be a lot less lippy and a lot more helpful, less you discover just how impatient I can be." Katarina warned, shifting her foot and twisting her body slightly for more maneuverability.
"You want to try and see if you can make me?" Sasaki dared, likewise shifting her body.
"What, you want to go through the wall? All right; let's not fuck around anymore; through the wall it is." Katarina agreed, and lunged forward.
Sasaki sidestepped, but Katarina shifted her leading foot, twisting so that she faced her opponent just as Sasaki struck. The Yamato's stiffened hand crashed into Katarina's vest and Sasaki immediately jerked her hand back. Beneath that layer of travel-stained and patched gray silk was something as hard as steel.
One of the women of the maiden house raised a tentative shout for them to stop, but was ignored. Katarina snatched forward, grabbing the front of the Yamato woman's dress. Sasaki moved to break Katarina's grip, but Katarina did something wholly unexpected; she brought her forehead down like a comet, headbutting the other woman.
Sasaki staggered in shock, Katarina took advantage of the moment, forcing herself to ignore the ringing in her head as she shifted her grip on the woman and heaved her through the wood and plaster divider between the the maiden house and the general inn. Sasaki hit the wood floor and rolled, twisting so that she rose up in a fighting stance as Katarina marched through the hole she placed in the wall.
"Take it outside!" The innkeeper roared, and Katarina nodded with a grin, still advancing.
Sasaki lunged forward, hands blurring. Katarina couldn't keep up with the other woman's speed, but she could take the woman's hits. Sasaki avoided striking Katarina's core; it seemed she'd learned her lesson. Instead she struck at Katarina's arms, wrists, knees, and feet. That gave Katarina a slight edge; she shifted her postion, leading Sasaki with her, and as Sasaki's fist once again went for the Witch Hunter's elbow, Katarina dropped her arm and then brought it back up, looping around Sasaki's arm and locking it into place. Sasaki immediately brought the heel of her hand up to strike at Katarina's chin, but Katarina simply slugged the smaller woman in the stomach, forcing all the air out of Sasaki's lungs in one explosive breath.
Katarina hoisted Sasaki over her shoulder, spun and opened the door to the inn, and then heaved Sasaki with all her might. The Yamato woman cleared the boardwalk's rail and sailed into the muddy street.
Katarina looked back at the Innkeeper. "Sorry about the wall. You should know though, Sasaki's perfectly human." She advised, and he nodded.
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Sasaki lay in the middle of the street, skirts thoroughly coated in mud. Her chest heaved with labored panting. "I can't believe you just did that." She wheezed as she struggled to get her wind back.
"Oh, I'm sure I can do all sorts of surprising things." Katarina replied, staring down at her.
Sasaki's mouth twisted at that, and she limply flopped her hand at Katarina dismissively. "Don't get full of yourself. The throw, I was expecting." She croaked. "Through the wall?" She wondered as if to herself, and let her hand fall limply in the mud. "Never crossed my mind."
Katarina laughed at that. "Yes it did. The wall definitely crossed your mind." She quipped. "If you're still feeling mouthy, I'll do it again and again, at least until your skull cracks open. Then your mind'll be all over the wall, not through it."
"Truce?" Sasaki asked, and raised her hand.
Katarina nodded. "Truce." And helped her to her feet.
Both of the women were aware of the crowd their fight had drawn; not just inside the inn but out in the street as well. Katarina banked on the rumor that she was a "Lady of the Church" to have circulated through the tiny hamlet while she slept, and her deliberate provocation of the Yamato woman was was intentional. The town, or at least a portion of it, had seen Katarina hurl the strange woman through the wall of the inn and into the middle of the muddy street- and likewise had seen her help the woman up. The woman, while strange in looks and mannerisms, was no threat at all to a Lady of the Church, and thusly was no danger to the town itself. Likely the woman had her own agenda, and that agenda would likely intersect Katarina's own in due course, but for now she was content with her demonstration.
As Sasaki rose to her feet, she eyed the taller woman. "To answer your question, you might as well ask why a leaf falls into one mud puddle and not another." The woman added a wheezy sardonic chuckle and a slight shake of her head, raising her hands in surrender. "I go where my feet take me." She added casually, hands gesturing. "I am the leaf, and the storm has blown me to land in this puddle." She shook her head. "There is no 'reason' or 'purpose' for me to be here, Lady of the Church, except for the storms. When they clear I shall be on my way, looking for my next purpose."
"You're a mercenary?" Katarina asked doubtfully. The woman laughed, thin shoulders shaking mirthfully. "Certainly not. I do not bare my blade for coin."
"What do you bare your blade for?" Katarina asked, an edge to her voice.
"Purpose." The Yamato woman replied. "And before you think to test yourself against me, understand that while your purpose and mine may have intersected here in this muddy town, you shall not meet my blade, no matter how you should ask." She added, with a contemptuous glance.
The woman straightened her back gracefully, and slipped her sword over her shoulder. The innkeeper had only exaggerated a little; the blade was certainly longer than ordinary swords. However, on the woman's petite frame it seemed mammoth.
How could she draw such a blade? Katarina wondered as the smaller woman moved towards the inn with stately grace. Unless the woman drew the sword partway and perhaps cast the scabbard aside, there was no obvious way she would have the leverage to pull the blade from its sheath completely. Even Katarina, who was much taller than this woman, would have problems drawing the blade completely from its sheath in a practical way.