Sweet smoke drifted up from the supply caravan. Hidari's pipe was a long needle of red lacquer capped with a brass bowl, in which boiled and burned a small clump of fine resin. Neither was his, of course, not originally. But he would honestly be hard pressed to recall which raid exactly had netted him the pipe, the supply of resin, or half the trinkets that waited in his cabin back in his ship. One merchant vessel very much started to look like another after a while. As he smoked he took in the countryside, aspects of which he rarely got a good view of from the sea. The hilly road curved gently around the contours of the province, their caravan tracing along it's flank like a lover's idle finger. Hmm. Probably a few days from the nearest cathouse. He sucked a little more fiercely on the pipe. 

The simple fact was that travel was boring, long stretches of very little happening. This appeared to be something of a universal truth, as applicable to caravans inland as it was to sea voyages. But what made it worse were how stuck-up and morbid the other members of Hakumeii were. Of course the mission was important, but they seemed to be using that as an excuse to not talk to each other more than they had to. Hidari ran through the long list of time-killers he'd picked up from his crew-mates; bawdy songs, knife-games, counting challenges. The elf seemed to have a stick up her fundament, so perhaps a few verses of [i]The Maiden's Grove[/i] would poke her into doing something entertaining. Elves were so old, maybe it was even about her. He scooted a little closer to the driver of the supply caravan to make sure his voice would carry. "[i]Oi, ji-san, let me sing you a song.[/i]" He said to the older driver with a smile. 

"[i]In old Cobweb Forest / So dark and so cold / There's a maiden, I tell you / Her grove is of gold[/i]" His voice carried well as he casually recounted the old shanty which was about exactly what every shanty was about. The story of the song was about a charitable elven maiden who, naturally, was happy to offer a night's rest to the many, many travelling human men that passed through Cobweb Forest, taking them to her golden grove. And quite coincidentally, her hair was also golden. The sort of song that sailors loved to cackle about on long, woman-less nights, and come up with new, rougher verses about. He was just getting to the bit about the spearman, with his 'foe-piercing shaft' when he was able to catch sight of the elf woman's horse. Ears like that, of course she was could hear the song.