D3: EM: Congee and throwing sticks (Expecting)

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi smiled. "My cousin is a delightful women, and a skilled painter. Perhaps not as skilled with a paint brush as myself when it comes to make up but I think even a Kakita might find her a challenge." She said lightly, and paused. "Maybe."

She smiled wryly at the Kuni. "True, imagine that. Fire kami would make an indecent woman out of me, I would think if I caught aflame. I'd be okay but I think my kimono would tragically wouldn't make it." She chuckled warmly, blushing and scooting around another puddle caused by cart wagon wheel before offering her arm to Yasu. "Up ahead looks a bit risky, you can use me for balance."

"Well, I am growing to old to remain at home and I was blessed by Natsu Togamaru my Father said to me when I was younger." She smiled, nodding towards the monks as they passed and nearly lost her balance as a child zoomed past playing with a gaggle of others but it caused Koi to let out a small laugh and chuckle. "This weather might calm the earth but it makes the fire in children burn bright, ney?" She commented before returning to the subject at hand, again pausing to look at a stall filled with parchment that was very much being careful to protect it's wares.

"Truthfully speaking, since my Father's passing I feel more of a stranger at home than I have anywhere else. I believe a housewife would suit me well, providing and caring for a home as well as maintain lands, and keeping the house in good shape sounds ideal to me." Koi blushed and thought about something mischievous for a moment before . "I would not mind a coastal based marriage but I would happily go anywhere. I just want to make sure that I have meaning, and that the person that takes me values me and trusts me."

She smiled before saying, passing a bu to a merchant for some fine parchment used for scroll writing and left her details to have them delivered to the Inn later as well. "Plus with my siblings, my Mother could do with some space in the house once more."

Koi pondered the question about state of dreams, and nodded. "At times, dreams can have meanings and are indeed prophetic but a large portion of the time dreams are just a way for our mind to process events going on in our lives - worries, concerns and stress. Plus diet also effects it, avoid pickled cabbages later at night does weird things to your dreams trust me. Sometimes, it's absolutely necessary to just vanish into Yume-do and allow the stories to unfold so you can reset, evolve and learn from everything that happens but that's entering territory of hypotheticals and arguments that I still have with my sensei's as time goes on."

Koi laughed at a memory. "And if you find it hard to drift into deep sleep, and dream of nonsense there is always ways for you to be placed asleep." She still felt the goosebump from her sensei during her gempukku after all these years.

[Kuni Yasu]

"My mother once told me that, on average, Kakita artisans are the best artists and the Isawa the most attuned to the elements. If you've got a bit of skill, their schools will set you up to be as good and solid at your skills as you can be. But the really exceptional artists and most powerful shugenja can show up anywhere. Without training, they might not ever be better than the folks mentioned. But with some training?" She takes the offered arm, though figures who is supporting whom will be an open question, particularly with small humans darting about. "So it's worth remembering not to take such things for granted."

She reaches to catch the collar of a young boy who hits the mud just wrong as his headlong dash takes him from pounding along a covered porch, out into the rain. Momentum takes him right off his feet, dangling just a bit above the mud from the large woman's grip with an eloquent "Urk!" She shakes her head as she set him back on his feet to bow and dart off after his friends.

"Very bright, right into soggy puddles. But that doesn't seem to douse them much."

She listens to Koi's reminiscence and musing as they approach the planned-upon stall. "The Deer are rumored to make really compatible matches after all. I have to imagine the includes folks not being uncomfortable or unvalued. Harder for me is being sure that a match is, hmm...prepared for our lands. My mother, same one as talked about artisans, came from the Isawa. Fit in like those clever joins the woodworkers use. Said that you can't entirely prepare anyone for that. Either they were made to fit, or they weren't."

Nodding along with the information about dreams, she pauses as Koi makes her various purchases. "We're trained to write our dreams upon waking, both to spot ominous patterns of corruption and potential divination. Or the lack of dreams that says we're drugging ourselves to sleep much too hard." The latter was more common among the warriors of the clan, honestly.

The little stall had obviously opened well before, but was really just hitting its stride as folks started moving around in the rain.

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi listened to Yasu as they walked, smiling at her antics with the children and genuinely seem to be enjoying the time together. "That is entirely fair, and I agree with you but at the same time she is my cousin and there isnt many of us compared to any of the Great Clans. I like an Underdog." She said with a chuckle. .

She watched the city still trive under the terrible weather, and bowed her head at a merchant that tried to persaude Koi to have a look at better umbrellas and her eyes lingered at them but her coin purse deduced it wouldnt be worth it.

"Well, Summer flames burn the brightest and hardest to put out." She said with a chuckle.. "Kami of fire in the heart of children, more passionate than any artist I know."

"Ha." Koi chuckled. "You mean a dovetail technique? Yes, that is a good binding technique. Holds the corner quite nicely, it gives it structure and grip like climbing a rope - if its silk its hard to climb, if made from hemp it is rough and textured." She raised a brow at the Kuni before smiling sheepishly. "I love to woodwork..."

Koi had to tighten the grip on the arm for a moment as her foot slipped but she was able slide into it a little flowing into a step into their destination all gracefully and totally not groaning as a muscle twinged in her hip.

Koi nodded. "Yosh, if it a good technique. My Mother is very rigid with that style of maintaining control. It helps you learn what is important and isn't or is hormonal filled nonsense." She smiled. "This one time a boy in our village came home late from an outting with his friends and we were doing a stargazing session with our sensei, while we hiked up the mountain to the observation point he had to read his diary aloud..."

She chuckled. "First time I ever heard a boy say he likes me." She smiled before going somber. "He was a good child, we had a bad sickness hit our village that year and a lot of the children and elderly didnt make it."

She changed direction quickly. "What tea would you like, Yasu-san?" Koi said offering her a seat.

[Kuni Yasu]

"Dovetail, yes. That's what it is." she nods pleasantly as they make their way. "You're a woodworker, then as well as...well everything else?" She pauses a bit, midstep to offer support on that slip, her own connection to the earth a solid one. "I've always admired the craft. So precise and pragmatic, but also beautiful if done well."

She listens to the tale with an understanding nod. Crab were sturdy, but even there illness took its toll each year, and they heard of those illnesses that swept other places far more harshly. Settling to the seat with a small nod of thanks and amusement as the Moth plays pseudohostess, Yasu thinks only a moment. "Genmai goes well with the rain, doesn't it?" Something about the roasted rice carried a memory of fire with it.

She rifles through her satchel for her own divination kit to add to the morning's activities. A much simpler little box, a tin really, of some soft metal coated with worn, but pretty, paper, is set on the edge of the table.

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi smiled, and shrugged sheepishly before admittingly bowing her head in thanks for her connection. "My Grandmother taught me, I find I need something to do when something settles within my mind like the earth kami and just stagnates. Plus, I get bouts where I sleep lightly and can not drift off again so I pass the time working with my hands. I enjoy it. It brings me peace which brings me to the first thing..."

Koi nodded and ordered a pot Genmai, and some of the spiced red bean buns they did to share. Taking her seat she produced two items, a delicately carved deck box made with a fine spruce wood that had the Moth Clan mon engraved into it and filled with silver - her divination cards.

The second box was longer and wider but flatter, it was made from a red wood polished smooth and without any roughness. It seemed to be made from two segments one slightly larger to overlap with the bottom. The top carved with stars, moons and a series of lanterns on the corners. Opening the case it was filled with small palletes of colourful makeup, bright hues and dark shades of very fine quality freshly placed in the box but also could be removed to be replaced if it runs out.

Koi presented it to Yasu with a smile. "A gift, Yasu-san. I enjoyed our first meeting and I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion about the art it takes for our makeup. I carved this box some years ago when I was missing home, these are the constellation of stars about my village during the Summer and the make up from my village, I thought you might like to try new paints and hues for the future. I hope someday we meet again."

[Kuni Yasu]

Yasu laughs at the sight of the box, eyes crinkling with it. "It's lovely work, and such a pretty wood." She reaches to run a finger along the smooth surface appreciatively. "But honestly, if it's to remind you of home...and here you are maybe marrying away from there for good? You might miss it in that coastal town or riverplain or wherever you end up. I'd feel bad taking that comfort from you."

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi visibly blushed, and nodded. "It's rosewood, I found a tree that had fallen in our forest a few years ago and thought the red hue to the wood is just beautiful like yourself." She said softly, and looked down a bit embarrassed. "I could know these stars and constellations anywhere, Yasu-san. I see them in my dreams, and I know I will never be too far away from home not to find my way back. I do not need these for in Yume-do, I will always remember what home is..." She smiled softly and bowed her head. "Please, I insist that you accept this gift. I would give you the stars from the town if I could and mix them into the make up to make you shine when you wear this but this is the closest I can give you filled with my imagination and the very best of memories. They will serve you well in your life."

[Kuni Yasu]

The second one was always harder. Particularly when flustered by compliments. "Ah, so..you won't need the constellations box...um.." She dips her head in a bit of embarrassment to fumble the words quite so badly. "You children might. And Later. The stars change over time, don't they? It's like a frozen bit. Like a map. For descendants a long time from now. I can't take this from them."

Yasu's lips press suddenly together, as if to forcibly still her rambling

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi stared at Yasu, and said softly. "My children?" She said giving a small smile. Pity, look at her struggle. She is so cute. Koi thought before allowing a small sigh to escape her lips. "I find the likely chances of myself having children to be less than likely with my particular tastes in partners if you understand my meaning, Yasu-san?"

She thought for a moment and said softly. "My children, should I have them, will know their Mother's home by the stories and dreams we shall share around fires at night and in the dark when the moth's flutter around the lanterns. They will not miss my village, or not be lost for they would have heard the tale a thousand and one times, it will flow in their veins much and fill their minds when they drift to Yume-do. I appreciate the consideration, Yasu-san, but I find myself knowing that the make-up will serve you well and I will know they will make you as beautiful throughout your life as you are now before me. Please, accept them." She said softly, bowing.

The tea is served during this time, the heimin looking a bit confused by the situation but places it and leaves.

[Kuni Yasu]

Yasu bows to accept it, grateful to have a proper excuse to look down as she juggles compliments she's unused to. "Thank you for something so beautiful. It's lovely to see the skill in this and know I'll have it always to remember this time, regardless of how the festival ends." Well...assuming the festival didn't end with the entire forest being swallowed by a portal to Senkyo or something. "But I can't help thinking you'll have children, whether or not you bear them. You seem too fond of the littles in your life not to raise some. And while my mothers were a political match and are very attached to their consorts, there's enough mirror matches out there where consorts are just..." she gestures vaguely, "useful for the needs of the family."

She gets a curious look, eyes squinting a bit as she looks to the divination tools. "Do you ever see children in your divinations? Or the dreams that touch on the future?"