[Day 8, MM] The spear, not the brush (open)

[Matsu Inori]

"You, Bayushi Choudai, I feel, have stronger human sentiment than most others - but only a normal man's capacity to wrangle it. Conflcts that others hide, out of propriety or shame, sometimes break free, and show."

Inori shrugged. It was...an unseemly quality by all that society had taught her. Yet, personally - it was charming, in its own way. She minded a lot less than she should.

"The conflict of Bushido, writ large. Talking to you...we have to ask ourselves questions many of us can avoid for years."

[Bayushi Choudai]

"Then I'm doing the job a Scorpion ought."

He chuckled.

"The masked villain, making the noble heroine actually ask questions about the code she lives by."

[Matsu Inori]

Inori reacted right away, bristling - which she assumed was the intent.

"Question..." she frowned.

The noticed how the Bayushi had neatly deflected half of her statement, and smirked.

"I still have far too much hair to play the part of a Taoist monk though - guess I'll have to be the Lion for now. But hey, I do have mystic powers!"

That said she set down the spear, pulled out one of her paintings...and concentrated briefly.

"Remake" she said, as something like red wisps and smoke played over the worn wood - which suddenly was straight, true and glossy, almost like the day it was made.

[Bayushi Choudai]

He clucked his tongue at that, and selected a worn bokken.

"Alas, my villainy is undone."

He gave it an experimental swing.

"Best thing for it, really. That's what it's for."

[Matsu Inori]

"I wasn't sure it would work. I can let my orange friends give the bokken a once-over, too, you know" she said

It would be a lot more impressive if I acted more confident Inori mused to herself I mean I am not, but with increasing practice...I know these things work now

"A lot to think about once this is all done."

[Bayushi Choudai]

He reversed his grip and offered her the bokken.

"Practice where you're safe, Matsu-san. Develop your confidence for when you'll need it. Because nothing is ever really done."

[Matsu Inori]

Inori nodded, then focused again, studying her painting. On it, there was the depiction of a chipped bowl, surrounded in a haze of smoke and a few orange wisps that looked a little like embers with just the hint of a face.

"Remake" she said, and likewise the Bokken...was reforged.

"I suppose so. I don't have certain plans yet, but there is some indication that...more will be asked of me in the near future. I should be prepared"

[Bayushi Choudai]

"Spoken like a samurai, Matsu-san."

His tone was entirely respectful.

He examined the bokken and smiled.

"Ready for more hard use, which will no doubt leave it in the same state or worse. But it'll last a little longer, which is the best anyone can do."

[Matsu Inori]

"The bokken, yes. It is. Are you, Bayushi Choudai? You look awfully wrinkled"

she said, teasingly. And...considered.

"I just realized I might be able to do something about that as well. Huh. Most...curious"

[Bayushi Choudai]

"Oh?"

He seemed genuinely curious.

[Matsu Inori]

The Phoenix mystic might have disappeared and taken his overseas-stimulant with him - and many amenities that would be available in future times and other worlds likewise were not available to Choudai. But in the hands of Matsu Inori was another thing entirely:

A scroll, depicting a metal bowl, with leaves and herbs swimming in it, standing over a brazier. But more than just herbs, there were small blue shapes in the bowl itself, and also rising among the steam that lifted from the bowl - inhaled by what looked to be an older man in a Yukata, sitting before the brazier and breathing in.

In other words the key to a very convenient minor miracle. Spirits rising up from Inori's hand at the word

"Invigorate!"

flowing into the Scorpion's nose, with an effect much like almost 4 Rokugani hours of uninterrupted sleep.

[Bayushi Choudai]

He blinked. Then blinked again.

The pain was gone. All of it.

"Matsu-san, if the Lion armies cannot find a use for someone who can cure hangovers, then I have to seriously question everything I know about bushi."

[Matsu Inori]

"I've come around to that notion, yes" she said "Although it took some trial and error putting my ideas into practice. I thought I'd be able to do these things, mind you, but that hardly gives me the confidence to walk out there and tell everyone I can. Besides, even if it did, I did not succeed in the way they anticipated"

She sat back, carefully rolled up and stowed the painting, then flexed her head left and right.

"A lot of people, I found, are unflexible that way. Once they have a plan for you, they want you to succeed in that exact manner, and get offended if you don't, even if you do something else rather well"

[Bayushi Choudai]

"That's their problem, Matsu-san. Maybe it's just all of the cooking I've done, but some of my finest creations have been happy accidents. Sometimes, you just have to deal with what fate hands you."

[Matsu Inori]

"I plan to" she said "Honestly this entire thing has worked out a lot better for me than I would have expected. Even if I am not named ambassador, and I am beginning to hope I might, I gained...perspective while I was here. Confidence. In quite some part also because of you, Bayushi-san"

She tapped the side of her practice spear.

"I rather suspect you had to learn that lesson yourself at some point. It sounds a bit like a lesson learned at a price coming from you"

[Bayushi Choudai]

"Call it an accident of birth, Matsu-san."

He seemed content to leave it at that, as he readied his bokken.

"Shall we?"

He readied to spar, a mediocre bushi facing a shugenja who had once trained to be a good one.

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