[ That's his cue, isn't it? Kim bows his head respectfully towards her as she glances over at him - not a custom that he's personally used to, but one that he's caught onto quickly enough upon his arrival here - and manages to keep his expression smooth and impassive, even though the absurdity of those little spectacles perched on her wide face would be funny underneath other circumstances. It's always the ayakishi that look human but not quite that are the oddest and sometimes the most off-putting to him. Like they're regular people, just slightly wrong. ]

Thank you for your consideration. As he said, we wanted to come to someone who knows the river best. A Honne-Onna unfortunately lost her leg -- snatched away by a dog, she said. The last anyone had seen it, it was plunging into the river.

[ In a perfect world, it wouldn't require favours to get someone to share some simple information, but the ayakishi aren't terribly different from human beings in that regard. ]