L5R Chronicle: The First Days
Once upon a time there was a chick (that's me), named Otaku Liu, who was kind of spoiled. Now, this girl got home from riding one day and a family servant told her that she had to go be an Emerald Magistrate in a pretty darn seedy city - Ryoko Owari in Scorpion territory. She wasn't very happy about this, but hey, MONEY IS MONEY, right?
So she took off from home and started traveling south to the Rokugani Capital of Corruption. As she left, she noticed two people riding behind her, but after visually identifying them as of her clan, she promptly ignored them. Riding for about a day, she reached a town with an inn. She embarrassed herself by bringing her no-dachi in with her (as if being a good head above everyone else and having gaijin-blue eyes wasn't bad enough), and then got ripped off for price of food and lodging. Grumbling, she ate in her room, slept, and had all intent of getting off to an early start.
However, when she woke up, she discovered that the guy she'd thought was a stableboy had actually been a thief, and had walked off with her horse, including all of her belongings that had been on it. This did not make the girl a happy camper. On a tip from the innkeeper, she headed for the market, where she had to make the acquaintance of a rude little boy, a clueless fruit seller, and an equally clueless pig farmer before she got incredibly lucky and saw someone riding her horse (being of the Otaku Battle Maidens, she rode an Otaku warhorse - not a common steed).
She blasted off and accosted the guy on her horse, and discovered that he'd paid 3 koku for it at a stall down the street (this pissed her off - her warhorse was worth 50 times that). He didn't want to go through the hassle of going back and getting his money back, and she was rather desperate and scattered, so she offered to buy the horse back from him. She bargained him down with a gritted-teeth smile to 4 koku from his insultingly low price of 7, launched herself on her horse, and went to wreak holy hell on the man who'd stolen her belongings.
Getting to the man's stall, she dismounted and threatened his life if he didn't return her belongings... RIGHT NOW (she was a spoiled brat - she threw decent tantrums). After much weaseling on his part, she intimidated him into returning her saddle and bags, as well as getting directions to the weaponsmith he'd sold her weapons to.
Never one to kill commoners indiscriminately (even though perhaps this time she REALLY felt like it), she left the man relatively unharmed and thundered off to retrieve her swords and bow. Arriving at the stall, she saw a pretty buff old dude, and explained the situation to him. He was wary at first, suspecting her to be an agent of the people who'd stolen the weapons in the first place and to be trying to get them back. He was impressed, however, by the detailed knowledge she possessed of her family katana and her no-dachi, and felt pity on her. He didn't even let her recompense him for what he'd paid for the weapons, and she marked his name (Kitaro) in her memory in case she ever returned to that town.
Made paranoid by that encounter, she later only stayed in a town long enough to grab a meal, and slept in the fields. Days passed as she traveled, the only notable occurrence being that she paid a 10 copper toll on a bridge that she later suspected hadn't had a toll at all.
So anyway, she'd gotten a good distance towards her destination, when, passing through a city, she heard a commotion. Curious, she rode towards the docks to see an opulent Phoenix ship and a Lion guardsman hassling the passengers. Whispering questions to the crowd, she learned that the master of the ship was also a newly designated Emerald Magistrate, surprisingly assigned to the same city as she. As odd as this was, considering that only one Emerald Magistrate was customarily assigned to a city, if a city had one at all, she shrugged and saw the chance for a free ride. Introducing herself, she pleaded prettily to hitch along.
She was a tad shocked to find a freakish little albino her future partner-Magistrate, but she'd been teased enough as a child for her great size and blue eyes to not particularly care about appearances. In due course and without much conversation, they reached Ryoko Owari, but the freak headed straight for a tavern instead of the palace and promptly got himself shitfaced on a gaijin drink (what's vodka?). Amusedly, she arranged (along with the freak's head lackey) to pretend that they hadn't arrived until the next day, to let the poor Phoenix recover.
Partway through the night she checked in on him, and ended up replacing his vodka with water, for his own good. She kept the vodka, though... you never know what might come in handy, especially when it's simultaneously intoxicating and flammable.
The next day, they presented themselves to the Scorpion Governor-ess of the city, where the freak made an embarrassing fuss about living arrangements (they were to be split up and live in different buildings), and the girl tried to ingratiate herself a bit. The Governor was a pretty badass lady, and the girl didn't want to end up floating in a gutter before she had the chance to make some money and get the hell out of there. They were told that they were to have a THIRD partner - a Dragon, showing up "soon," and were led off to their place of residence to start learning how to perform their duties. As they weren't to commence their official duties some three weeks hence, the freak disdained studying and went to go get sloshed again. Meanwhile, the girl worked herself into a (private) righteous rage over his idiocy in bitching to the Governor, especially when her life was at stake.
She'd hoped for a good argument with the freak, but somehow drunkenly divining her anger, he hid from her that night, and by the time they'd woken that morning, she didn't feel like yelling at him anymore. Instead, she went in to talk to him somewhat reasonably, explained why perhaps they shouldn't be making waves, and just let the matter drop.
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