The rains have cleared and the air is sharp and clean and cooler than it has been since they landed on this planet. So, even if she hadn't been looking forward to seeing Yul again, she'd be in excellent spirits. The left side of her hair is braided from front to back, showing the black roots in sharp contrast to the multi-shaded blue braid that trails back over her shoulder. The other half is shorn short, though a week's growth has left the patterns there soft and indistinct.

Hide had to put up with sink-washed clothes hanging off the bunks to dry last night, so her standard worn cargo pants and top are clean. In daylight, it's obvious that the synth-leather jacket is nearing retirement age though.

She spots the Unicorn and their vehicle for the day, but doesn't wave until he spots her, taking the time in between to observe.

As any good pilot would, Yul was doing a check of his vehicle before taking it out. He walked slowly around it, his expression cheerful, but focused, checking all the little things that could go wrong between flights. He was inspecting not just visually, but with his hands as well. His touch seemed strangely gentle, reminiscent of how his ancestors cared for their steeds.

For his part, Yul was dressed much the same as the other night, with the leather jacket unzipped. The casual uniform pants and tank top both looked freshly cleaned, the jacket as worn as ever. Aviators tucked away. Yul himself looked fresh, the slightest dark circles under his eyes cancelled by a fresh shave and shower, his long black ponytail still just the slightest bit damp.

Turning back round the front of the ornithopter, Yul spotted Mumei, his already cheerful expression brightening further. "Hey there." he called, giving her one of his playful smiles, along with a wave. "Good to see you again. Now I don't have to wonder if the other night was some sort of weird dream."

Her own expression, more focused than cheerful, brightens at the greeting. A smile spreads across her face and a bounce enters her steps as she closes the rest of the distance. "Do you often dream of climbing onto rooftops with strange women? Because I might want to trade dreams sometime, if so."

"Glad to see that you didn't decide it was a deream though. Then you'd probably have gone to do something more useful than waiting out here for a figment of your imagination." Rather than bowing, she holds out her hand. She did last serve on a Unicorn trader, after all. The movement has the same grace and feeling of being unnatural but heavily practiced as her bows the other evening.

Yul shook his head, smiling. "No, that one was a first, for dream or for reality. Guess that was why it made such an impression." His eyebrows went up, just a little, at the hint about her dreams, but he decided to circle back to it later.

And then they went up a little more at the offered hand. "Well, how about that." Chuckling, he shook her hand, meeting her eyes with his as he did so. His hand was warm, but pleasantly smooth and dry, and performed the shake with the casual competency of someone who'd been doing it his whole life. "Well, I probably would have showed up anyway. I don't mind taking a chance on a dream."

One more moment, and he released her hand, turning to open the rear side door of the Ornithopter. It was a larger one, with seats for a pilot, co-pilot, and then a few more in back. "It's a good afternoon for flying, huh? Guess it must be our lucky day." Yul said, smiling, one arm stretched up as he held the door.

Her own hand is a touch cool and very slightly clammy between the humidity and her alignment with the spirits of water. There's a precision to her squeezing handshake that speaks of trying to find that point of not too hard or too soft without a lifetime of casual use to calibrate. In that moment before letting go, her head tilts with a lopsided smile. "You really don't, do you? You'd come out and wait, and eventually decide it was just a figment from Yume-do and not really be put out. Maybe you'd make plans to chide dream me for being a no-show, I guess?"

She chuckles as she watches him open the door. "I'll take all the luck I can here," she says, climbing up into the odd little flying machine. She didn't have to duck much at her height, and slid into the copilot's seat with an easy grace, looking around for the seat restraints that were surely there.

"I've had a few lessons with shuttles, but nothing like this. Oh...but that's a standard Phoenix instrument setup, I guess...at least it looks like I remember from the Remembrance."

"Oh, sure." Yul nodded. "But I feel like me and dream you would be able to get past it, don't you think?" He couldn't hold a straight face anymore, the corners of his lips turning up.

He shut the door behind her, easily pulling open the immediately adjacent front door. By the time Mumei was settling herself in the copilot's seat, he was settling into the pilot's seat. Yul gave her a sidelong glance, noting the similar gracefulness.

"Yeah?" Yul said, frowning with concentration, a tiny crease in his forehead, as he began to flip switches, powering on consoles, the little craft beginning to come alive. "I'll make sure your controls are live, then." He flipped one more switch, lighting up her display, then looked at her. "That was one of your ships? How many have you had, anyway? Real berths, I mean, not just as a passenger."

"I mean, I'm pretty easy going." She shakes with a silent chuckle, the grin growing as she speaks, "And getting stood up in dreamland, while the other person looks confused in ningen-do must be a know problem." She curls around, clicking her seat harness in place...then working bits of jacket under the annoying parts of the straps as padding.

"I'm going to hope mine don't need to be live, since that says something went kind of wrong on your side there. But thanks."

"How many..." She takes a heavy breath, blowing it out noisily as she thinks. "OK, I wasn't exactly crew, but not really a passenger as a kid, but I lose count back there and I did get stuck a stations a few times when mom had contracts on grotty little ships that didn't take any family or passengers along. Once I was old enough, I was running errands for crew pretty regularly. But...since training and getting official berths?" She pauses to count "Five. Two long and three short hops. Only been a passenger getting from training to my first, from my last to Silent Gardens to be briefed for this, and then here."

Yul, likewise, seemed to be having a bit of difficulty with the buckles and the faux-fur part of his jacket, but he managed to clip himself in pretty ably.

He shrugged. "Or you just want a turn flying. Or I want to take a really long look out the window." Yul flashed Mumei a quick grin, but then his expression turned more serious. "Or, yeah, if something goes wrong." When things went wrong flying, they tended to go wrong very quickly.

Yul let out a slow whistle. "I've only had the one tour. About a year. If I wasn't here, I'd probably be going out with the same ship."

He took a deep breath, his finger hovering by the ignition. Turning to Mumei, Yul smiled. "Ready?" His lean form seemed... not tense, exactly. Full of energy.

She nods at his alternative reasons to take the controls, which are quite correct.

Nor does she speak when he asks if she's ready. She curls one foot onto the seat, under her knee and shifts to watch him--the coiled energy ready to move, as if it's his own push against the ground that will take them skyward. Her eyes shine with a smile that only barely touches her lips, intent.

She nods, and watches, and really looks forward to that eventual dance with someone who throws such physicality into something he has to have done a thousand times already.

Yul's eyes met hers, glinting to match, a whole swirl and mixture of feelings in his brown orbs. Slowly, he nodded, acknowledging their shared understanding as much as anything else.

He pushed the button.

The ornithopter wasn't exactly the most responsive piece of equipment; pushing the button made its blades begin to whirl. Still, the shifting of Yul's focus was a visible thing, his gaze going forward, his breath slowing, his hands gripping the controls, well, rather like a dance partner. The hum of the engine grew louder, the steady beat of the blades faster, faster...

Yul pulled up on the stick, then pushed it forward. The ornithopter responded to his touch, lifting gracefully into the air, and then surging forward. In a few moments, they had cleared the airfield, heading up and out.

She takes a long, deep breath in as the little ship lifts and the planet tries to hold them back. The press of liftoff has always been her second favorite moment of travel, with those rare moments when weight vanishes being the first. The transitions are the the thing to savor in their transience.

And this? Even more so, enjoying the focus and obvious enjoyment of the Unicorn in his element. The scenery will still be there in a minute.

Her voice is a quiet, and intense from her seat. "I love the moment the ground falls away, but still seems to hold me. It echoes the most amazing lifts with trusted partners, where you know full well that a slip could crack your head open, but nothing in your body pays attention to that."

Breathing slowly but steadily, Yul didn't answer just yet. The little craft was still climbing, angled back, gravity and g-forces working together to push them back in their seats. Slowly, he brought the stick back to center position, the craft leveling out, equilibrium returning.

Yul sighed, relaxing, his more usual smile returning to his handsome features. "Yeah. I know what you mean. For me... a ways out from my home, there was a cliff over deep water. We'd run, and we'd jump..." his smile softened, "right at the peak of the jump, that's what it's like to me."

The ornithopter sped along, fungal forests below, but Yul glanced at his intriguing partner. "Tell me about dancing. I mean, I know what dancing is, obviously. But... you know what I mean, right?" Mumei seemed so full of passions, it was a treat hearing her talk about them.

While her eyes flick to the controls from time to time, refreshing memory, she's still watching; her eyes glint golden brown in this light when he glances her way.

But the question... She opens her mouth to speak, stops with a small shake of her head and starts again. "It's...a lot. Like a lot a lot." Glancing out the glass at the expanse of forest she chuckles. "But I guess there's time. Just... well, I won't be offended if you need to change the subject if I go on too long. Like...'oh my, look at that fungal growth on the left' is fine."

Conversational safeword in place, she takes a long breath and begins. Her gaze fixed on Yul, but seeing through him as she reaches for words that translate immensity into an answer.

"Imagine that peak over and over as you fling every ounce of yourself against gravity. We're seldom that weightless in a dance, but it's that same sense of..." her hands flutter and then strain upward in supplication. "Striving and surrender, all in one. And the moments when your body and its movement and the universe are one thing? You don't want the music to stop, because then that time where every step falls right, every pass and touch and lift is exactly in the spot the universe needs it to be right at that moment and you feel connected to all of it--that will end and you will be back in an aching body that remembers how gravity works."

She pauses, and takes a deep breath, still watching Yul without apology or bashfulness.

"I mean, there's...more. But that's the heart of it."

It was a nice day. With the sky clear, flying was easy. Which meant Yul could focus most of his attention on the fascinating Osprey in the seat next to him. His eyes on hers, it was easy to see when they went distant as she went into her imagination. Or perhaps memories...

"Wow." Yul let out a breath as she finished. "You really make it sound amazing. Really..." hot. Yul grinned, shaking his head, taking another breath. "Wow. I never... huh. I was going to say I never quite got there... but I think I got glimpses of it, dancing with my friends. When you've been going at it for hours, and the music takes over?" His brow furrowed ever so slightly, as he tried to remember a distant feeling, not quite there.

"Well," Yul said, as he leaned a little closer, his lips curling up into a smile. "This tells me that we really, really, have to go dancing sometime." He murmured. His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed, eyes playfully alight.

The ornithopter flew on. This far out, fungal forest was all around, visible through every window. Up in front, a vast mountain range was coming rapidly into view; Yul was not one for flying slowly and carefully, it seemed.

Her own eyes came back into the moment, still bright with memory. Smile lifting with all kinds of promises, she nods. "Pulling you to a dance floor is very high on my list of 'things to do on Asakaze,' Shinjo-sama."

"But I'm betting you've felt something similar when flying. Daidoji-sama described it a bit. When you're able to be there with all the things around you held in your mind at once and you're not exactly thinking as you move...just doing the things that are needed moment by moment." Now she glances down and shrugs slightly, a physical tension that's built in the past few minutes flowing away as she stops leaning into the seat harness. "That's not exactly her words. It's hard to describe someone else's experience. But I believe anyone can find those moments of...communion when well-trained and passionate or connected to what they're doing."

"I know this," she pats the edge of the instrument panel, "can't possibly do what your ship can. But what would you do with it now if it were? If you could fly as your heart wants to?" Glancing ahead, she grins. "Dance with mountains?"

Yul took a slow breath, his eyes drawn to that smile of hers. "It's one of my top items, too." Wow. Then he smiled. "But hey, just the two of us, no -sama." He waved a casual hand. "In fact, Yul is fine. I've never been one for much formality."

His gaze went forward, his expression thoughtful. "Yeah, I get it. And it is hard to describe. It's just like... everything's coming together in one perfect moment, even if that moment lasts for a while." He glanced over. "But yeah, I think you're right. Everyone can have moments like that."

Following the motion of her hand, Yul grinned. "Yeah, she's not my fighter, that's for sure. But it's not about the ship, it's about the freedom. Even when I just would go up in that rickety old cropduster, I could still push its limits, have a good time, feel free..." His lips quirked. "Impress girls, but that wasn't really the point. So I guess the answer to is 'whatever I want'." Flying and freedom had always been closely linked in his mind.

He looked at her, smirking. "Of course, we're right here. And those mountains are right there." The smirk became a grin. "Ready to dance?"

Watching him instead of the mountains for now, she offers a single nod. "Since that appears to be 'whatever you want' right now, I'd very much like to see you dance with this bird." She pats the console again with a sly smile that says she's well aware of the double meaning.

Turning to watch the majesty of onrushing mountains, she says quietly. "I'm of a minor clan, Shin..." a pause of intaken breath, released with a soft, "Yul." Another pause to feel the shift of the name on her tongue. "I wouldn't presume to suggest, you know? But then I am certainly just Mumei."

Looking for the airsickness bag provides a moment's distraction, a small shift in mood as she holds it up. "Just give a moment's warning before spinning so I don't need this, hmm?"

When dancers spin, they find a fixed point to watch to avoid getting dizzy as they whip around. Mumei fixes her eyes on Yul, more interested in the interplay of effort and emotion within that landscape than the one outside, even if it was not a trick that would necessarily work when it was the whole world spinning.

"Alright. Then let's do it." Yul looked at her and smiled. "Mumei." He said her name softly, as though enjoying the taste of it.

Her hijinks with the bag was a good reminder to focus; not that he needed one, but nevertheless. "I don't think I'll be spinning. You can do it with this sort of rotary-bladed ship, but you lose a lot of altitude. But..." He bit his lip, cutting off the rest of the words, the first peak just ahead of them. "Okay, here we go."

Yul's grip on the stick was firm, guiding the ornithopter close. His expression was set, serious, some tight lines visible in the lines of his jaw, over his cheekbones. But his eyes were oh so alive, almost blazing in their intensity.

The cockpit began to rattle slightly, wind coming of the mountain howling around them. The little craft pressed forward, dropping altitude. "Turn." Yul murmured, the only warning as the craft suddenly banked sharply. The wind, formerly pushing them down, almost seemed to propel them up and around, their passage blast snow off the side of the mountain.

Rounding it, there were two more peaks just ahead, jagged and rocky. Yul took a deep breath as he guided the ship towards them, his focus complete.

Fingertips interlaced, index fingers resting against her lips, the Osprey watches, letting her gaze flick to the onrushing mountain, each glance widening her smile. If she's worried about a crash, the only indication is the feral quality her grin takes on.

She could certainly feel the altitude drop, glancing forward at his warning, her own eyes widen at the field of snow filling everything before them, and the the friendly air *bounces* them, or so it feels, and Mumei finally breaks her silence with a crowing laugh of pure delight.

Turning, she sees that focus, and swallows the words bubbling up. She glances at the oncoming peaks, then the instrument panel, eyebrows lifting. Biting her lip, still grinning, she takes a small breath. She's watching still, but poised to reach for a control if needed...even knowing her skill would probably be useless in a situation where his failed.

Even with his focus on the task, Yul couldn't help but grin as he heard that laugh. However, his frown deepened as he examined those two peaks, and the narrow space between then as they grew closer and closer. "So... you know how I said I wouldn't be spinning? About that..."

"Spin." Yul warned, his voice firm. Up near the top of the crevasse, the Ornithopter suddenly turned, angling and going into freefall. With surprising grace, it almost seemed to glide through the narrow space, Yul and Mumei experiencing a moment of weightlessness. Another moment, and they were through. Yul's face was tight and intense as he guided the craft into a tight roll, his long ponytail spinning about, a slight metallic clatter from the back from some unsecured items. The engine growled, blades thrashing as the craft righted...

The wind settled. Everything was peaceful. The Ornithopter drifted quietly along. It seemed they'd entered some sort of valley, water and rocky masses, covered with greenery, visible below.

"Wooo!" Yul turned to Mumei, grinning in sheer exhilaration, his chest heaving. A few beads of sweat decorated his forehead. "How about that?" Adrenaline still surged through him, the look he gave her still held some of that intensity, fading slowly.