Late in the evening a lone Kuni walks into a bar. However, this wasn't some setup for a silly joke. No, it was the passing of time for a woman whom found herself with much to think on and no desire to do it. So she ran, ran to anywhere that would accept her long enough to divert her attention. Work, drink, and perhaps later even a bath followed by the company of others. None of this mattered in the grandest scheme of things but isn't that the secret part about life? If none of it really matters, can't any of it?

A philosophical question Koyuki had no desire, nor time to think on, nor did it seem to cross her mind as she once more greeted the bottom of a glass.

And who else would be there at the bar but the esteemed Tamori Baiko herself, critically examining the bottom of her glass of Golden Swallow against the light of the bar.

Whatever it was the Tamori was looking for was forgotten when she saw Koyuki. "Ah! Kuni-san! You look entirely intact. How's this evening find you?"

She reeked of alcohol, yet she did not slur her words or seem particularly unsteady. Not at all to be expected given her performance at the sake tasting some days ago.

"Tamori-sama?" she says, more incredulously than any other emotion. Eyes narrowing she looks the woman over from head to toe, and that required a little bit of effort considering she was sat with her drink already. Koyuki's eyes narrow further, turning her head away from Baiko and looking at the table where she'd been sat. A bottle of booze in front of her she indicates for Baiko to sit with the gesture of a hand.

"Please, join me. What are you drinking to tonight, Tamori-sama?"

Baiko ambled on over, joining Koyuki. Raising her half-full cup to eye level, she gave it a gentle twirl and splashed a fair bit of her drink upon herself, took another glance and a deep sniff.

"Golden Swallow, it seems. And here I thought it was something else. Must have been an off year." She murmured thoughtfully.

The alcohol smell about Baiko was pungent, a heady mix of many different varietals. Given how she examines drinks, though, it was questionable on how much of the smell was from her sweating out imbibed alcohol or how much she just spilled on herself.

"And you, Kuni-san, what's drinking you?"

"My past, future, and the hope that one of these bottles takes them both away," she says without the greatest of spirits. Though, not in the slovenly drunkard kind of way but the kind that was just anger accentuated by drinking. Drawing a thumb around the rim of her glass she considers pouring another for herself after that. Debating quite heavily for a few seconds. However, ultimately decides to pour herself another and then offers Baiko a top off as well.

"Hey, I've got an interesting question for you Tamori-sama. Feel free to tell me not to ask, but I.. really hope you might be able to do me a favor."

Assenting to the pour, Baiko mused idly, "Oh, those can be taken away, but not with the liquid in those bottles..."

She watched the waves in her sake cup settle before turning her eyes up to look at Koyuki inscrutably, a look that is doubtlessly taught at every Dragon dojo.

"An interesting question, you say? I like interesting questions, Kuni-san." Baiko replied earnestly. "Ask one interesting enough and you might even be able to ask about that favor."

"If not the liquid in these bottles, what would do the trick?" she asks, the subtlest of smirk on her lip concealed only by the intensity of her gaze. A expectation set into her tone alike that of a woman who had an idea of exactly what she was asking.

Baiko made a thoughtful sound, cupping her chin in hand and furrowing her brow.

"Quite a question. Lots of different compounds, all depending on how one wishes to get way from those issues and," Baiko paused, "For how long."

"But it's not for no reason people say what you just did. Tell me, Kuni-san, why you wish for what you do. Divine alchemy, as you will remember, is an art and science that is internal as well as external. I could not make a recommendation without knowing the nature of one of the components in use."

"Earlier today, I admitted to a woman I think can understand me, and I might care deeply for, that I have been hoping for the chance for years to kill the only other woman I've ever loved. Not only has she accepted that, but she has offered to help. I intend to do all in my power to commit this, and do not know if I should feel elated, relieved, or the overwhelming sense of despair for the tragedy that is my life," she says, meeting Baiko's eyes with a deadpan stare that could only convey how gravely serious she was.

"Something short, an hour or two. So I can go to the bathhouse later and take the edge off," she added, leaning back into her seat casually. Claiming her glass into hand. Sipping at it while she looks to Baiko with that inherent confidence.

So, clearly, a story like that had to be complete and utter BS right? There's no way...

"Oh," Baiko said, nonplussed. "Divine alchemy cannot help with such matters, well, not in the temporary way you are seeking, anyway."

"Our hosts do offer a variety of compounds that will help you forget for some hours: Refexanol, TGF-1, among others. I've had them, they work quite well. Wouldn't recommend you get into a tub until you know how they will affect you, though."

"If I might say, though, you have quite the complex internal life, Kuni-san. Great forces are at work within you to drive such a recounting to someone who is basically a stranger, wouldn't you agree?"

Staring blankly at the Dragon she couldn't fight back the blink, the absent blink. Thoughts coming together she took another long drink from her glass and simply rest her head down atop the table. Listening to the sound of music playing in the background. With her eyes shut against the table it gave a sort of surreal experience. For a little while, she wasn't here or anywhere. Just in the blank space behind her eyes with the world drowning out into that not-so-distant music.

After a minute, "I would," she says, tidying herself up. "Congratulations, Tamori-sama. You passed the test," she says, without any humor indicative in her tone.

"I was being tested." A statement, not a question. "Interesting. What for, Kuni-san? To what end would you put me under trial?"

"Curiosity, Tamori-sama," she says, and for what it was worth that was not entirely a lie. Perhaps not true enough in the current moment to not be called a deception, but certainly true enough after it had been said. "I am curious by my nature and enjoy learning what I can of those I interact with. Especially those I have had to correct my understanding of before."

"Oh." Again, another statement. "Did you have an understanding of me before we met, Kuni-san? I ask because I'm not sure I can even say I have an understanding of myself."

Baiko opened her mouth, likely to continue into further navel-gazing Dragondom, but thought better of it.

"Regardless, I am now left to wonder how much of what you told me before was true?"

"I did. Not a complete one, of course. However, I did witness you once before and so was able to make a few conclusions about you, which proved false as they can often do," she says, almost a little too clinically as she stares down at the rim of her own glass. Contemplating that rim like it held the answer for what she wanted to do next.

Leaving enough time for Koyuki to stew on that posed question a bit, but ultimately avoiding answering. Shifting that topic of conversation to her liking.

"Few things on this world are what they seem. Trite a statement as that is, it's both more trite and also more true here."

Baiko was fine enough letting the conversation go where it went. The mountains simply were, after all.

"If what you saw before was not true, how do you this is more true?"

"Because what I saw before was based on far less information. Judgements based on less support are naturally less refined, and less likely to be true. Yet, they have their uses just the same as any. Once I found myself spending more time with you I found an equal need to adjust my understanding of you," she says, something professional in her tone despite the sort of haze that lay over her.