[Day 4 - Mid Evening] Urban Adventuring

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko nodded appreciatively when she was handed the plushy, noting that they've managed to manufacture her design but her eye was perhaps more on the build quality as she looked at the stitching. Her hands went to the embroidery of the eye and the lips, with her fingers feeling the material used. She even made the plushy wave, as if to check if the pose would maintain its hold or poorly sink under scrutiny. Heimen short-run manufacturing shops were plentiful around this area but finding the right one took a bit of work. There was a rather tight timeline.

"...Protect it?" She asked with a raised brow at first before holding back a chortle. "I guess I'm going to take that as a resounding review from a Kuni. That's probably a good sign. I suppose the target market is supposed to be for everyone but it helps that it doesn't look too goofy to those who started the custom. We'll see how it goes."

She would nod at the attendant in approval for the work. "This looks good, well done. Have the others shipped over to my storage."

[Kuni Koyuki]

"Strange."

Koyuki leans off the counter, taking a few steps away before turning back toward Mariko. Arms crossing over her midsection she looks to the plushie, then the woman, and then back to the plushie. All an effort of somehow mentally connecting the two in her mind. As she'd said, it was strange. Of all the things she might have thought Mariko would be doing this was perhaps the last on her list. Or, well, it wasn't actually on her list and had to hastily be scribbled in all the way at the bottom of it to make up for the lack of foresight on such an unlikely scenario.

"Actress, dutiful servant on the Scorpion, and.. plushie baron?" she adds the last more like a question than anything.

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko held the green plushy under her arms as she raised her brow at the title that was given to her. Perhaps she should have given back the plushy to the heimen for storage as she perhaps looked a bit silly holding it while discussing her business with another samurai. She tapped on her chin and shook her head. "No, not quite. Again, it's something of a creative side project. As an actress, I'd like to think of myself as something of an artisan at the end of the day. Sometimes performance art isn't enough and pursuing other avenues might allow me to broaden my expression when I wasn't allowed before."

After a beat, she presented the one-eyed plushy to the Kuni. "Would you like a 'preview sample' for being my reviewer, Kuni-san?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

Staring at the thing in Mariko's hands, she really should have said no. It was such a dumb little thing and yet- "Sure," she says, in a very uncertain tone. Looking at the thing like it might explode any second for a moment, she winds up saving herself from worry by just focusing on Mariko. Hiding that expression under the shift back to a previous point.

"When my father took up a creative side project he whittled little figures into wood that was shipped in from all different crab worlds. My mother, she took a fondness toward the occasional practice with a brush and painted paintings of a like that she never let anyone else ever see. I recall fondly the first time I caught her burning her work to ensure that it was never recalled by any others eye. Some samurai write poetry," she says, gauging the other woman all the while. "Bayushi Mariko, however, apparently fills a warehouse with plushies of her own design. Never let it be said that you do not go the extra mile Bayushi-sama."

[Bayushi Mariko]

If this was an insidious Scorpion plot, Mariko designed a rather cute package in the green plushy to carry out those sinister machinations. Mariko gave Koyuki a small smile as she handed over the plushy to her. "It's all yours, enjoy. It won't replace your own doll, obviously, but I figured it could provide you with some company at the very least."

She found herself tilting her head at the mention of Koyuki's mother burning her art, her creative work. A Crane might have considered it a tragedy and she almost thought in the same vein but recalled she had some work that she wish she could burn herself. However, those creations were in the studio's hands now. "Only for the time being. With Realm Con in the next few days, we'll see how many people are willing to get one of their own."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's long assorted life experience came all together in this one moment. How when she accepted this small, cute, and adorably awkward little plushie she did so properly and then ultimately decided to hold it around the neck. In her mind, of course, it just seemed the most sensible way to hold the thing. Yet, there was no denying it looked the way it looked and at the very least no one would be surprised by it when they registered the fact of who, and what, she was.

Still, the evening puttered on, "This has been quite the strange evening, Bayushi-sama. I had not thought I would have ever met your like, or let alone be here like-" she takes a gander down at herself, holding the plushie out here standing with a Scorpion actress of a of a ancestral line that included, supposedly, the actress of one of the movies she always used to watch with her mother. It was, quite wild. Yet- "this," she finishes. "It has been a learning experience. Best I think I get back to my job, and I assume you yours."

[Bayushi Mariko]

Mariko might have considered the way she held the plush to be weird but considering the plushie had such a large neck that blended with its body, she didn't quite think twice about any meaning that came from it. Maybe.

"Yes, quite an experience. I hope I didn't disappoint Kuni-san with the reveal. Sometimes an errand is just that, an errand." She said with a small smile, wondering if she expected something more. There was something surprising, at least, on both their parts. "Yes, I should get back to my condo. It's getting rather late. Thank you for the escort, Kuni-san. I'm just going to grab a taxi"

She said as she reached for her communicator and put a request for a ride with a few memorized flicks of her fingers.

[Kuni Koyuki]

"I have had much worse reveals than this one, Bayushi-sama," she says. Eyes narrowing on the small smile, as it were. Something about her smiles always gave that feeling like there was something behind them. Enough to spark interest for a fleeting second at the mystery of what that might be but ultimately- "I don't like to get too ahead of myself with mysteries, set on what they must be. Doesn't let me enjoy the experience of figuring them out as much."

"Call if you ever need, Bayushi-sama," she says, offers a perfunctory bow- waiting only for the return- and then departing with a sub-casual pace. Walking along on her own way, but still keeping her in eye long enough to see that taxi pullup. Taking up some step nearby or other waiting spot that wasn't perfectly in view of the woman. Something about the idea behind being an escort for the evening tethering her there.

[Bayushi Mariko]

"Of course, have yourself a good evening, Kuni-san," she said before giving a return bow back. There was a moment she wondered when she would need to call a Kuni in her line of work but she supposed stranger things have happened in the city. It would perhaps surprise her how many circles Koyuki found herself in during Winter Court.

Her ride would come soon enough and she would make her leave without incident.

/exit

[Kuni Koyuki]

Sat on a couple of steps, Koyuki pulls that plushie up in front of herself. Looking into it's eye, it looking back at her. Having distantly seen Mariko off it was just her and this little plushie now. Giving the thing a little squeeze at the arms like she knew what she was doing with it.

"What do you think about all this?"

The plushie does not respond.

/scene