[Day 4 - Mid Evening] Urban Adventuring

[Bayushi Mariko]

As much as Mariko stood her ground on her posturing against Koyuki, it was hard to match her height, unfortunately. She would turn her head slightly to avoid the incoming smoke before looking back at her.

"I guess smoking is a start," she nodded with a small sigh. "Inhalators are always a bit soft for my tastes, especially if you've ever had the real thing. Vapour and cartridges don't compare to the same warmth and flavour. I kind of found myself smoking more than I had to when I made the switch. It's cleaner and trendier at least?" She shrugged.

"I don't know if there's much of a movie here, Kuni-san. There are no plot twists here. I wasn't trying to be confrontational. I was just a bit curious about you, that's all. I can't give everything about myself away and I'm sure you feel the same about you. So, that's fair for both of us. We can agree on that, right?" She said as she reached into the inner pockets of her coat and drew out a cigarette case, opening it to reveal several clove cigarettes within.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki took in her measure once more, eyeing over the woman from the dominant position afforded her by the luck of her genetics. Inhaling a deep fresh breath of air she lets it all out in a long and overdrawn sigh. Shaking the inhalator in her hand a bit like it had some lunch money and she was trying to get it out. Stepping away first by moving to the left, "I was doing good for a while, so close to quitting," Koyuki circled back and returned to a previous far more conversational distance.

"Seems another bad habit of my career, expeditionary forces," she gives Mariko a look, "always find myself jumping at shadows. Can never be too sure even in a place like this. Streets themselves will bite you, tumbling building or something off on it's last legs collapse atop of you before anyone realizes." Koyuki shakes her inhalator again, considering it, and then makes eyes at Mariko's cigarette case. One hand open, other palm facing down with the inhalator tucked underneath as if she was half ready to put it away.

"We can agree on two things, that, and that vapor and cartridges don't compare for shit," she said, the swear relieving a little of that built up tension in her shoulders.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko looked a bit amused as she looked around the streets. While it wasn't as nice as the other districts, they were still a bit away from the worst parts of the city and there were always worst places to compare any place to on the World of Dreams. "I hope you're not completely on edge, Kuni-san. Despite what you might hear as a reputation on the World of Dreams, crime rates against samurai are relatively low. Random acts of violence are rare here and everywhere proper samurai find themselves is kept up to code. The Scorpion Clan historically are very strict on enforcement in matters of law and order. We would be able to maintain such a living and dense city otherwise, everything would collapse on its foundations."

She pulled out a clove for herself before doing a subtle gesture of offering one to the Kuni. While she did watch smoke just now, they did just both agree that inhalers paled to the sensation of the real thing, so it didn't really count. She fished out the thin lighter from a side compartment and ignited a long flame to light her own. If Koyuki accepted, she would naturally do the same for hers.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Stepping forward again, this time only briefly to take one of the cigarettes, Koyuki waited to get hers lit while she started, "Unfortunately not everything you hear about Kuni is an innaccurate stereotype," she says, leaning in for the light and then stepping back. Initial hit of smoke still trailing about her as she steps away again, "But it's a healthy sort of paranoia, I'd think. Comes with a lot of advantages in my line of work. Security consultation, that is.. of course," she glances back with a slight smirk around the cigarette.

"That said, no offense meant to you or your superiors Bayushi-sama. I am certain you all do an absolutely excellent job of maintaining your peace, and world," she says. Taking up the cigarette for another short drag of it. Letting it hang loosely, but steadily, between her index and middle finger as a resting position. "Just another old habit of mine, expeditionary forces taught me well," she chuckled, but no smile rose on her face.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko closed her cigarette case with an audible click before she stowed it away in the pockets of her old coat. She gave her coat a quick dusting after. This was probably something she should toss soon, especially when it didn't work out very well as a disguise at the arcades earlier.

She took a small drag from her ciagerette and let out some rather fragrant sweet vanilla smoke in the air. Her head inclined to give a few subtle nods as she rested crossed her arms over her body to better maintain the cigarette in her hand. "Mm. I'd like to think that the Bayushi are actually well versed with the 'healthy sort' of paranoia as you speak. Probably not in the aspects of spirituality like the Kuni but we're more paranoid than scheming as you might think. Creatures of necessity more than anything else. Then again, that mutual similarities of paranoia are most likely not the reason why my late father married my mother."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki raises a brow there, but doesn't follow the thread right away. Taking the breath for her own drag of the cigarette again, an almost swinging motion of her arm through the air with the cigarette in hand. That burning tip leaving a very light trail of smoke in the air before her. Small red smear at the edge of her cigarette noticeable as the stub was faced Mariko in the resting position Koyuki had worked out.

"I don't imagine the Bayushi are the scheming cartoon villains they're painted out to be. Maybe it's the lack of propaganda for it over in Crab space but," she shrugs. "Suppose it never seemed that sensible to me. All that work can just go up in smoke, in the end. Still-" Koyuki brings her free hand up and digs inside of her shirt. Pulling up a small pendant of sorts on a thick string that rest low enough not to be noticeable on her person otherwise. Slipping her hand into her back pocket now she pulls out the slim communicator device she possess', Crab long-term burner as it was. If or when she left the planet, easily enough to process everything on it and dispose of as it were. With a dexterous shifting of the device in her hand, a few pressed buttons, and a flick Mariko's own device would receive a notification and information packet of Koyuki's details.

Conversationally, "Kuni blood in you?"

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko did find herself taking another glance around the streets before she took another drag of her cigarette. There was a good reason that cigarettes weren't favoured anymore, considering the ashy mess that they left behind as well as the littering laws of worlds with large cities. It was mostly done indoors and in places where the business would tolerate that habit. However, they were in a heimen zone and Mariko was sure they could blame the mess on them. She would give her cigarette a few taps without regard once she noticed the coast was clear from any patrolling yoriki.

"The proper idea behind that is that we don't scheme without a good reason, often because there are no other ways to go about it and that's the route we're willing to take. That's what we're taught from my perspective at least. You can't exactly go around picking a lock or smashing a window when the door was never locked in the first place." She would raise a cautious brow at the communicator that was presented before her, rather a bit unsure. Did Mariko manage to get on her good side or was she using this as a means to track her? She did pull out her communicator but didn't fiddle with it just yet.

"Yes. My mother was a Kuni before she joined the Clan." She gave a small shrug of her shoulder. That didn't make her a shugenja or witch hunter, understandably, not that she wanted those jobs.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's focus shifted perceptibly on that raised brow, "Good. Kuni blood is good. Crab and Scorpion are allies. If you are who I understand you to be, well.." she shrugs, and tucks away her communicator. Looking up and down the street, less concerned about potential patrolling yoriki and more as just a break to give her something else to focus on. Tapping out her cigarette just the same as Mariko had done.

"You didn't take all that posturing to heart, did you? It was a tactic as much as your own Bayushi-sama. I hope you understand that much. I put on pressure, and you wear a pretty smile with mean eyes. More than one way to crack an egg, or get someone to start making mistakes enough to find out who they are," another drag of the cigarette punctuates the sentence, this one long and held in her lungs a while. Blowing the smoke out through her nostrils like the many representations of a dragon floating around the empire.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko would flick on her communicator and accept the incoming request that was sent to her by the Kuni. She supposed she didn't promise her anything yet. A contact was a contact, not a contract. She stashed away her communicator and raised her brow in regards to Koyuki's mention of Kuni blood. "Here I thought Kuni blood merely meant that I had underdeveloped smiling muscles and a more profound resting face," she said as a half-joke on the matter.

"No, I admit that I was having a little fun with it. But I suppose it was interesting to try to gather some of those attributes from you, Kuni-san. Sorry, I didn't mean to touch too much on your time in the expeditionary forces. I'm sure there are some instincts that aren't exactly casual and bringing them out is more business than anything. I could never match up to that, not with the life I lived but it was insightful," she said before the brought the cigarette to her lips and the sweet exhaling of smoke followed after.

[Kuni Koyuki]

"Glad you found it so insightful," she says. Cigarette up to her lips she narrows her eyes on Mariko again, looking her over. That little ember at the end of her cigarette flaring up with the inhale as she let the smoke travel down her throat, tickling along it's way in a familiar fashion and warming the inside of her lungs with the smoky embrace.

"Shame I'll have to claim walking away with the joy of playing the game with you. Since, in the matter of the play, I think you unearthed far more about me than I you. That and I suppose the pleasure of your company for a while, good looking companions are worth something. It was a fun challenge though. Trying to get something out of you, that is, it was fun. So, do we continue our walk toward your mysterious destination together or is that a secret you intend to keep close to your chest, Bayushi-sama? I'll ask directly out of professional courtesy, and curiosity," she adds with the slightest hint of a smirk.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko wasn't quite fully finished with her clove but decided that it was perhaps enough to get more than a taste in her system. She dropped the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with her equally old-looking canvas sneaker shoes. Her gaze couldn't help but look around once more to see if any authorities were around. Despite knowing that she was perfectly safe here, it was just a natural tick of hers when it came to being a celebrity and practicing what most would consider unattractive habits.

"It's not a big secret." She smirked at the question, clearly amused that was a subject that was causing much tension earlier. Something she would accept as her fault, playing a bit of secret keep away. "At least, to most. I was trying to pick your brain for more than one reason, especially when it comes to hobbies and such. My mother is a far different Kuni than you, obviously, but I suppose I was wondering if you had a wish doll when you were younger? My mother gave me one when I was younger and once I got older, I sewed the other eye in."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Mariko stamping out her own, Koyuki was quick enough to follow cue. However, that wasn't without getting Mariko's monies worth as she sucked down on the cigarette the embers burned through the stick a bit faster so that it neared the filter more than Mariko's own had gotten. Holding the smoke in she tosses the stump on the ground carelessly and stomps it out with the heel of her booted foot. Even though the action wasn't mechanically any different that when Mariko did it, the boots certainly gave it a more forceful appearance.

"Interesting. I did. Like you, my mother was also a Kuni, my father married in from the Hida. Though I'll admit I was a sentimental child, and so when I signed up with the expeditionary forces to cut my teeth against the galaxy I left the doll with my mother. 'So she'll protect you while I'm not here.' Or some-such, I was a real sappy kid," she says, just a little disgust slipping through her otherwise protected features.

[Bayushi Mariko]

"It's surprising that you didn't take it with you." She smiled faintly at that. "But I can imagine that those lockers in the expeditionary forces must be tiny not exactly made for keeping your personal things, barely even your own things for duty. I still kept mine, even if we're all supposed to outgrow it. I think. Mine wasn't pretty, I don't think many of them are supposed to be. Just a tan blob with machine stitching that is supposed to look like a mouth with buttons for eyes."

With the cigarettes put out, Mariko continued walking again. This time, there was a little more purpose in her steps and she led them toward her actual intended destination. "Spirits aren't supposed to take on normal forms, at least what I was told as to why it was just a blob with barely a face."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Something that almost certainly didn't go unnoticed when Koyuki moves to match her step, and keep the pace flowing forward rather than dawdling about like they'd been. Giving enough time for Mariko notices how Koyuki doesn't hesitate to check over her shoulder once in a while even when they're walking.

"You're not really that surprised. Though, I am sure my mother told me a few of her own lies about the construction of the thing. Just that kind of excuse mothers like to give, so you had a better reason for why yours didn't look as nicely as others might have had. All the while your mother just wasn't very good with a needle," she says, a sense of levity to the words her facial expressions didn't seem to convey. "Is this what this is really all about then, a doll? Seems.. strange." Unless she was still missing something, of course. Which Koyuki on principle didn't discount.

[Bayushi Mariko]

"No, not just a doll," Mariko would reply a touch defensively on the matter before shaking her head. "Yes, I figured as much. Without being able to see the kami, I had to take a little of her word when it comes to the doll. I guess it was more of a homemade plushy, really. You had to understand that I did feel a little embarrassed about the thing, no offence. I grew up around other Scorpions and on the World of Dreams, so there were naturally always better-looking things around. My friends would give me weird looks about keeping the thing. Of course, I was told if I didn't, bad things could happen to me. So it was a little more than just having a doll. So in a roundabout way, I had to protect the doll just as much as it was protecting me."

With that, she would near a plaza on the street with various businesses for the heimen in the district, most seem to specialize in tailoring, drycleaning, and various fabric stores selling designs discarded by samurai a few months ago when the hottest trends rolled in.

[Kuni Koyuki]

That defensive tone brought on a smirk that only seemed to rise in the eyes, it was hard to notice- but noticeable enough for someone as versed as Mariko likely was in micro-communications. A glance around the district gave Koyuki just enough time to think out her play.

"That makes sense," she began. Her composure kept intact and voice even as it always was throughout. "That you wouldn't know as much growing up on a world like this of the tradition. It's true, actually. I knew a kid back home who lost theirs, and the story rocked the whole station when the kid turned up missing the next day. They never found the kid, even after days of searching the whole sector. Eventually they just gave up. Parents reported for weeks seeing the kids doll showing up in different places around the house, like it was looking for him. Some say that the thing looked distraught but I don't believe that, how can one of those things look distraught?" she adds with a shrug. Looking to Mariko with a 'no shit, this is for real' kinda vibe in her eye.

It was, of course, total and complete bullshit however.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko raised her brows at Koyuki at first when she told her that little story regarding the missing child. It had her going at first until she realized that her leg was getting a little pulled on the matter. Admittedly, it probably took as far as the shrug before she realized that it was not an entirely true story. Which part? She wasn't entirely sure. She let out a sigh on the matter, not knowing how to feel about that, especially when getting the wool pulled over her head. There was a moment she chewed on her bottom lip that she caught herself being scared for a moment. "Well, they could always look a little better."

She approached one of the counters that seemed to specialize in some rather custom manufactured clothing, most seemed to be utilized for some rather kitschy logo or photographic printing. It was unlikely that a photograph of your parents printing on a shirt was going to be fashionable in any universe or setting. The attendant at the counter bowed deeply at Mariko, recognizing her immediately and sending one of the employees dashing off to get something.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki finds herself nearby Mariko, but a bit further than if they were explicitly together at the moment. Leaning on the counter, and if it weren't for the clear Kuni face-paint mannerism with her jaunt over here one might of mistook her for a thug the way she leaned. From this nice little new vantage point she gave a glance around the stall but instead turned her attention back the way they came, looking out over the expanse as much as she could see.

"They could," she jumped back in to that conversation. This time having a distinctly truthful air in her explanation, "It's tradition. Ancient ancient tradition my mother used to say. My mother was as Kuni as they came, and she did love investing a curious spirit into me. So, the story goes that Crab children never used to have much but they needed something. Those dolls were great, and they were all the kids have. Maybe there's something to that spirit story after all, and something really does watch over you so long as you care for it. Or, maybe they just didn't have much in those ancient times and it was the best way to inspire the kids to not destroy the only comfort toy that their parents could afford to make them."

"I always kinda figured it was the former but," she shrugs. She wasn't exactly invested in it that much.

[Bayushi Mariko]

"I never said I hated the thing." She would point out as she looked over to the Kuni at the counter. There was a moment where she wished she could get some of that Crab height with how she was leaning on the counter. However, that was a thought for a different time. "In ancient times, I'm sure losing your parents was pretty common too, so something had to stick around to watch over you."

There was a momentary pause from Mariko as her mind dipped into thinking about the parent she lost, albeit it wasn't from neither defending the ancient Wall nor fighting corruption. Nothing to share on that front.

"...Anyway, I been toying with a design in honour of that. Just a little side project to exercise my creativity outside of acting. There isn't a lot of creativity when you're given a certain script or character, most of it is done in the writing process. Maybe I could get your feedback on it. My creation, that is, not my acting. Hopefully, they do a good job with the manufacturing..."

With that, the store attendant would return the item that she requested. She would be handed a green plushie with dog-like ears but most notably one eye was missing.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's head bobs in a slight nod incidentally at the suggestion of ancient parents being lost often, it of course made sense even considering todays modern standards. Less so, but possible enough. Crab families were just typically fairly strong like that, in a certain sense of the word. At least Koyuki's had been.

Brow perking up at the revelation of the idea, Koyuki almost smiled. There was that little crease in her makeup that one could tell one was coming but it never did, and the smile or whatever it was that inspired her mouth to move ever so slightly simply faded away as Koyuki focuses on the little creature of a creation. It was, by someone else's measure, a dumb ugly looking little green thing that didn't even have both eyes. At least, that was what someone with a taste like a refined Crane might have said. However, this was Koyuki, and for all her hatred of pastels and assorted cute things this little one called out to her.

"I like it," she admits, almost like she's surprised herself with that admission. "It-" Koyuki's lip scrunches up with a thought on how exactly to say what she felt when she looks at it but, it wasn't exactly her forte. So she scrapes together all the words that feel most right, "I feel like I should protect it, when I look at it."