"Greetings," she said. "Great Lord and Great Lady." Bowing as was proper to each. "I must ask you to forgive my brother-in-law. He was severely traumatized by cats as a child and has developed an almost preternatural fear of them ever since."
"I see," Tyrande said, not really meaning it. "I suppose you know why we have come?"
"I believe so," Kasumi said. "Would you prefer to speak here or within the town?"
"I think a more neutral ground would be appropriate for a first meeting," Malfurion said amiably in return to Kasumi's polite and cheerful manner.
"That's certainly all right," Kasumi said, she turned to Akane and spoke, suppressing the translation spell for a moment to speak her own language. "Can you tell the others to come, please. They probably already are, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure."
"Are you all right on your own?" Akane asked.
"Oh, I'm not on my own," Kasumi said confidently, drawing a blank stare from Akane. "These nice people are with me."
"But," Akane started to protest, until a slight change in Kasumi's manner convinced her it would be better not to challenge her sister just at the moment. "I hope you're right about them."
With that said, Akane gave the elves a last glance and darted up into the trees.
"My sister," Kasumi said, letting the translation spell overwrite her own speech again. "Has gone to get the other leaders of our group, if you don't mind waiting a moment. Oh, I've forgotten my manners! I should have introduced myself. I am Kasumi Tendo, a priestess of these people."
She bowed politely and looked to the visitors.
Tyrande glanced toward Malfurion, who dismounted from his stag and bowed before the much shorter six-armed woman.
"I am Malfurion Stormrage," he said. "Druid of the Night Elves."
Following his example, Tyrande stepped down from her tiger and told it to rest as she introduced herself as well.
"And I am Tyrande Whisperwind, Priestess of the Moon." She gestured to the two night elf women behind her. "You've met two of my sentinels, Anara and Meras."
"Yes," Kasumi said, looking to them. "It is a pleasure to see you under better circumstances. I'd offer you tea, but we've not found a source of clay to make good pots yet. Is there anything I might do for you while wait?"
"Yes," Malfurion said. "Perhaps you can tell us about your people. What you call yourself and why you are here. For instance."
"Hmm," Kasumi said, thinking the matter over carefully. "I suppose such explanations would be necessary eventually as it is." She looked about the dark grass for a bit and found a comfortable spot to sit before gesturing for the others to do the same.
"We are called the Kumojin," Kasumi said, momentarily suppressing the translation spell to let the name out untranslated. "We're not sure whether the name started with us or with others, but it is the name we have taken as a whole. It means 'spider people.'"
"As you've seen," Kasumi said. "There are four varieties. There are the Kali, like myself." She gestured to her six armed torso and eight-eyed head. "And Kumo like my youngest sister who left us just a bit ago."
"And the child with the spider body?" Tyrande asked. "And the ones that appear human?"
"You know what a human is?" Kasumi said, surprised. "And you could tell Ranma wasn't one?"
"He moves much too....gracefully," Tyrande said.
"Even while in panic," Malfurion noted idly. Kasumi flushed momentarily in embarrassment.
"Ranma is an Arachne, but his speed and grace have little to do with that," Kasumi said. "And the girl you spoke of before is a Drider."
"And as to the why you are here?" Tyrande asked from her seat in the shaded grass.
"We had little choice," Kasumi admitted reluctantly. "We are exiles from our native lands. Some months ago we reached the shores not far from here after an encounter with some fog. We've been trying to live off the land since then, but many among us are not used to being outside of cities."
"You are exiles," Malfurion repeated, interested that she would admit that. If Kasumi felt the increase in tension among the night elves, she made no sign of it. "For what reason."
"For the changes that have made us what we were," Kasumi said simply.
"You were not always like this, then?" Tyrande asked.
"Not always, no," Kasumi answered with a firm head shake. "It is a matter that is difficult to say...Unknown persons with created a sort of...sickness that spread through our cities claiming mostly women and girls while touching few if and boys or men. No one died, but, in the wake of that, we were..."
"Changed," Malfurion said, frowning.
He detected no taint of the undead on the woman. Indeed, the very opposite seemed to be true. Kasumi, among others he could feel vaguely in the town, were filled with faith. And there were three veiled points that he couldn't get a good sense of no matter how hard he tried, only that they were strong in divine magic.
"Yes," Kasumi said. "Where we come from there are only humans, and we have never met other such species as yourself. There are, however, many varieties of humanity in our native lands. My people are called the Japanese. There was a statement released anonymously after the sickness began to spread to stated the reason for its creation."
"And that was," Malfurion asked.
"Jealousy and revenge," Kasumi said sadly. "Base lusts. A simple fool with a powerful mind. The unnamed soul was only half-Japanese and had blamed his poor luck with women on an obsession for racial purity. So he decided to destroy the Japanese bloodline and get revenge on the women by changing us."
"I assume he did not succeed as totally as he thought," Tyrande said. "Else you'd not be exiles."
"No, the transformative disease did not remain contaigious as long as he expected," Kasumi said. "Our....lords collected those of us that had changed or were exposed, including several foreigners, and moved us to study and seek a cure. Upon learning that we could reproduce effectively with humanity, a small faction within our lords, those that were in direct control of us, decided we were too much of a threat to the bloodlines and ordered us executed instead. We left before that could happen, but we got lost and ended up here."
Malfurion looked about the web-shrouded trees judgmentally.
"You've certainly made yourself at home," he said finally.
"If these are your lands," Kasumi said. "I do apologize for that, but we had to find a way to survive."
A series of quiet, and not so quiet, rustlings announced the arrival of Akane with the other leaders of the community.
"Ah, here we go," Kasumi said, standing up. "Now we can really get started."
"Tyrande Whisperwind and Malfurion Stormrage," Kasumi said, reversing her original order upon picking up which of the two was the one they were most in need of convincing. "These are the others who help run the day-to-day affairs of our settlement. My other sister, Nabiki Tendo; my teacher's husband, Keiichi Morisato, who has remained human. Cologne, a matriarch of another tribe of humanity who's also somehow kept her own species in the face of this plague; and Nodoka Saotome, the mother of Akane's husband."
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(Posted Sat, 09 Apr 2005 10:01)
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