(D3, EM) We ride at Dawn (Open)

[Saibankan]

Reinvorgorated by the food, Pei found more tears to shed.

"They kil...kil...kil....They came and they kil..kil.... Pei sniffled.

Pei shivered.

"Hid. Hid in the fields...Heard them...heard them crying out. Mama, papa, big brother, big sis...they cried out...the men came and they kil...kil..."

"Why?" came out as a choked whisper, not really a question to the samurai there, but the universe in general.

[Utaku Mukai]

Mukai runs a hand through her hair, "I can't say... and I think it probably speaks better for us that we can't say. I'm sorry Pei, no one should need to deal with this. We go off to war but we do it knowing the risks. That's not supposed to be the case for you folk."

Mukai's inexperience with children continues to show as she talks to him just as she would any adult asking the same questions. Then again perhaps that is better than coddling in the face of all that he has seen.

[Usagi Kaigen]

"Why? 'Cause they're lower than beasts."

Kaigen was looking into the middle distance. Perhaps contemplating what was for lunch.

"You got any other family? Aunts, uncles?"

[Saibankan]

Pei just shook his head.

It wasn't impossible that he had other family, but it was equally likely that with the wars and the famine and the bandits he might not.

[Usagi Kaigen]

"Well. You don't wanna go where we're going, but we can take you along a ways. Smarter people than we are can figure something out."

[Saibankan]

Pei shrank into the Unicorn's blanket.

"Ok

o

o

"

Pei was definitely still scared, but on the one hand cool Unicorn horse and food on the other staying in a ransacked farm by himself.

It wouldn't be a long wait until the burmakumin showed up to bury the dead, and then it would just be one more abandoned Crane farm falling into ruin.