Karin
It had been a quiet few days. Kokuto had left her quarters for the first regular meal in a long time. Bad patients and strange dreams had driven her into the experiments that she needed to do with a gusto that had sequestered her away from all but the servants that attended her needs. Kota had seen to her meals being brought to her rooms for the last few days, but this particular one Kokuto had awoken with a desire to interact away from her smelly plants and bubbling liquids and glass drips.

She was taking breakfast with the few others who had not yet left for their duties for the day when one of the guards arrived to explain there was a new Dragon seen arriving through the gates and due any minute and did she have time to orient him and finalize some decisions for the keeper of the Embassy. She sighed as she looked at what remained of her breakfast. It would have to wait. Kokuto set the details with the wizened figure, more than happy to hear suggestions or ideas even if they contradicted her own. The old woman bowed as deeply as she could to the alchemist before disappearing to presumably carry out those very details. It was just in time.

The new Dragon had arrived.

"Come, sit, Brother," Kokuto merrily sang out to Togashi Sanjuro. She had left her wakizashi and haori in her rooms - she was a well-known sight in the Embassy by now, so the little alchemist was dressed in the clean colorless peasant's garb she often worked in. The only sign that she was more was the deference with which the servants responded to her request for another meal to be set for the tattooed monk.

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Paula
Though he had heard stories of Ryoko Owari Toshi in his wanderings, nothing could have prepared Togashi Sojuro for the sheer spectacle of the City of Lies. His eyes widened at the architecture, his nostrils flared at the scents of the flowers, the food, the *People.* When he left the monastery, his teachers had suggested he find his way here in the hope of sating his appetite for enlightenment. By the time he had reached the Dragon Clan Embassy in the Noble Quarter, he was sure that if he did not find a way to do so here, he would not find one in all of Ningen-do.

His steps echoed through the building as he followed the guard, the floorboards of nearby rooms vibrating with each footfall, and though she may not have realized it, Agasha Kokuto could hear him coming long before he entered the room. ||Strength: Physically Huge|| With a surprising grace he bowed to her, and gently set his bulk down on the other side of the table. His smile grew wider at the mention of breakfast and he called after the servants. "No fish, please! Oh! Unless it's mountain tuna!" If his words weren't loud enough to be heard in the kitchens, his bellowing laughter would almost certainly have been.

He turned his attention back to Kokuto and spoke again at a much more appropriate volume for conversation. "My apologies sister, it has been long since I enjoyed a meal I didn't have to catch myself! Tell me of the city and our place in it. I was surprised when Iehiro-sama advised me to find my way here when I left the mountain, but now that I have ***Seen*** This place I..." Sojuro trailed off as he noticed Kokuto's unfinished breakfast sitting nearby. He pressed the back of his hand to his brow, throwing his head back in theatrical anguish. "Oh, dear sister, had I known I was interrupting your breakfast I would have meandered through the streets a bit more before arriving! Please, finish your meal. I would not dare deprive you of it!" By then his wide smile had spread across his face once more.
Karin
Kokuto tilted her head to one side, a placid smile on her face as she giggled softly at his theatrics. "In that we might enjoy the eating together, this one delayed for," She said genially. While they waited for his food to arrive, she told of the state of the city. Mostly, her words were on the health of the people, low or high. How it seemed the city was filled with great ogres for samurai, and there was a reason for so many of their clansmen arrived to the city to be healers or pharmacists. 

Like her own feet through the city, she rambled from topic to topic. A mention of a temple renovation here, poisons in the gardens there - though this was mentioned with fondness and a slightly strange look, a mystery within the very embassy. She added her own touch of the dramatic by begging off the topic for later, trailing her words just so to add to the mystery. ||Perform 1||

It did not take long for their food to arrive, though Kokuto refrained from discussing anything more serious than the weather during a meal. She had no desire to tie herself in knots from both ends. It was only once she was sure the meal was over and then had shown him around the embassy for a cursory introduction to each of the residents - or at least their rooms, that she moved on to the politics.

"But few we number in this City of Journey's End with such tasks before us," She shook her head slowly. "A lost ambassador found, a body with story most mysterious, bad patients galore," She muttered darkly about that last. The acid stains had needed most drastic measures to fix.
Paula
Though his eyes darkened more than once while listening to Kokuto recount the troubles facing the Clan in the city, the smile never left his face. It was quite a bit to take in, but Sojuro's appetite was voracious for all things, mystery not excluded. "It seems our hands are full indeed. It's a good thing I'm here then, as mine are quite large!" He punctuated the statement with a laugh and a startlingly quick shift into a combat stance, the slabs of flesh that passed for his hands presented outward. ||Jiujustu 4, Sumai||

Just as quickly he resumed walking beside her, fighting the urge to interrupt with new questions every other sentence. Once Sojuro sensed a gap in the conversation, he pounced as if he'd snagged a hare in a trap. "I'm surprised the Imperial families aren't swarming all over us. The body of an Otomo found here... I'm sure that was most distressing." Only then did his grin fade, replaced for a brief moment with deep concern. "But then, as far as the other Clans are concerned, we trade in mysteries, do we not?" The smile returned. "My journey toward enlightenment has lead me here, to this city called Journey's End by some. I do not belive in coincidences, sister."

His tone grew more serious, starkly at odds with his expression and bearing. "My masters believed that I would find something here to satiate this *Hunger* That drives me. How can a soul be ready to pass on before it has tasted all of life's experiences? In all the Empire, this seems to me to be a place that anything can be found." With a sharp exhale through the nose, Sojuro's familiar bearing returned once more. "Of course, they know better than I do! There is a reason they sent me this way, and I'm eager to prove myself an asset to my Order and our Clan in whatever ways I can!"

||Thanks
Karin
The thin brows over Kokuto's eyes crumpled up, darkening the already dark eyes beneath them. Her voice sounded concerned as she spoke, "Yes, that would be so." Sojuro lost her attention for a while as she wondered why the Otomo were not sticking their fingers in this mystery manju.

She returned her attention to him, "Indeed. If one cannot find it here, inside the Empire the Wall would be all that was left. And that be debatable." There was a small smile as she said it. She would not mention the forests of mysteries and spirits she had skirted through before. Did those really exist inside the empire anyways?

She nodded along with his words. There was always a reason for Togashi sending his Dragons where he did. "A reason there is always being. You will be what you are meant to be," She reassured him. She pointed out the rooms she had been given as they arrived at his own; the distance was conspicuous. The loose introductions of who was here and where their room was showed that she was a good distance from everyone else. The placid smile ignored this little detail.