video | un: konoha

[lumberlady]

[Lunatia's resident centaur lady is back on screen, starting out her post with her customary bow and smile.]

Hello, everyone! It's been a while since my last "post", I feel like there's probably so many new people here now...

My name is Konoha... If you don't know me yet, I'm a jinba... Or a "centaur" if you want! ... I'm from Tateyama in Japan, but lots of people say I'm from the past or that jinba don't exist, so I guess that's not very helpful? Anyway-

[She twirls the camera around, giving a panoramic view of the bucolic Tsurugi Farmstead and a large palomino centaur working in one of the fields before coming back to her face after she accidentally focuses on her front hooves.]


My husband and I run Tsurugi Farmstead in the Greatmoon Groves, and we're hoping to hire a few more extra hands to help out during harvests and planting! Which, um... Happens way more than I'm used to in my world, so...

[No one point out why that might be...]

You don't have to have experience farming, but you do need to be willing to work hard. It's not easy to work the earth, you know! It wouldn't be an every day sort of job, just a few days here and there throughout the month, but we pay in chroma money at the end of each day. And on days you work, you can take home a small basket of the harvest for yourself, and I'll provide lunch for free!

I guess I should use this chance to say that we also deliver, if you're looking for fresh vegetables and rice for yourself or your own business! Or you can find us on weekends at the green market... Wait, I feel like I'm forgetting something... Oh!

[As if remembering, she pulls out a piece of paper from the bear pelt tied around her "waist", checking it with a squint. Right-]

Also, my neighbors said I should mention that everything we grow here is... "organic". Apparently that's popular!

Thank you for your time, everyone! If you want to sign up for work or you have any questions, I'll answer you here, okay? And if you know where I can find a priest or priestess to bless the rice fields before planting, let me know, please!

Comments

[oceno]

... I see. In that case, it is fortunate that the princess has good taste, though I am surprised nonetheless. I had an inkling, but the situation was a lot more dire for jinba than I initially thought.

[It was... not unexpected, even in his tone of voice, but an observation.]

[lumberlady]

... Mmm. The wars ended when I was really young, so I don't remember it much at all. But Sha Gozen said... it was really bad. The breeding stables, and the jinba hunts, and the armless...

[Slowly, Konoha resumes chopping, her expression a bit drawn but still trying for positive, her voice tinged with hope despite everything.]

But Sha Gozen is doing good work now! She finds jinba like me work, and connects us with humans... I'm sure things will get better.

[oceno]

The armless...?

[He starts, then pauses, and follows it with a shake of his head.]

Oh, forgive me. It seems to be a dire topic.

[lumberlady]

No, it's fine. If you ask me.

[Unspoken, but implied... She didn't mind if he asked her, but she'd rather him not bring the subject up with her husband, who'd been old enough to remember those days very well, when she'd been fortunate enough to have been born at the tail end of the war period.]

When humans used to catch wild jinba... they'd sometimes cut the arms off at the shoulders. To make them easier to break for riding, or battle, or the breeding stable.

[Not many had survived that time. She'd only seen one with her own eyes, an old, sway-backed nag of a woman... But it had been terrifying to see. Horrifying to imagine an existence in which you couldn't feed yourself with any dignity, couldn't bathe properly, couldn't dress yourself. Couldn't survive without the care of the humans that had enslaved you.]

I never met her, but. My parents told me my birth mother was an Armless. I can't imagine what her life was like.

[oceno]

[...

He falls quiet for a moment, considering this. If he were to be honest... In his era, it would be no surprise if his men did the same thing if the jinba were considered as livestock. He would've probably done it too, out of ignorance-- or arrogance? He's learned better, but Richard was pragmatic if nothing else.]

I assume your husband must have witnessed these, if you wish me not to speak to him about it.

[The implication of her words made him wonder. Was he much older than her that he would witness it, or were they simply leading too different lives?]

[lumberlady]

[Konoha fills the silence with the sound of knife on cutting board, the occasional passing of a new vegetable to peel over to Richard.]

Mmm. The hunts took almost his whole family... and then his village... and the few that were left had to live on the high mountains to stay hidden from humans, where the air was so thin they could barely survive.

[To this day... She can't understand it. How humans treated livestock... Fine. But jinba... they could talk, and think, and cry, and feel in ways that were the exact same as humans. They weren't like cows or horses...

But unlike her husband, nearly twice her age (something some people in Lunatia found odd but was rather normal by her world's standards), she hadn't lived through it herself. She couldn't truly know.]

... Sometimes it feels like the wars are still fresh for him. He's much better around humans now, but.

[Despite her best efforts... She could help him, but she couldn't help him from a place of actual understanding.]