"Ah, yeah?" she said inquisitively. "I guess that's one way to approach it, Tsuruchi-sama. Actually, that's probably the best way to approach things when you're away from home. You got to roll with the lemons...or is that how the saying goes? Are you banging it up at the events at least? Those gotta be worth some sort of entertainment."

"Sure." Yul said, giving her a friendly smile. "We can see who can pin the other first." Nozomi seemed like a nice young woman.

Yul's eyebrows went up. "Actually, on my homeworld, there are some groups that do exactly that." He frowned. "I think they might have a few guns. But definitely not all of them. They just live in the old ways. It's kinda neat..." His lips quirked. "No flying, though."

"Doing fairly well at those, won the one today." There had been only two of them so far so hard to say if his luck would last. "It was a bit more fun then riding giant birds too."

"But what about you Kuni-san, been doing much rolling with the lemons? Or is most of your time spent standing in lines?"

"Heee, I will I will! I'll cuddle him every night!"

She held up the little plushie.

"Hmm, I should give him a name. Maybe Naka?"

"We can see who ends up on top? Ha, ha," Nozomi concluded in a stilted manner. She pulled at her collar as if she was hot or constricted. It was even more of an anxious movement than her glasses thing.

"Oh, yeah, the Lion have those sort as well. I shouldn't have made fun of them."

"Definitely take the chance to ride around the countryside on otori-back if you can," Akagi urged. "It's not as fast as your starfighters, but it's another feeling entirely to have air rushing past your face as the bird carries you at a run. No one on my ship would've done anything like that, so it'll make a fine tale to tell."

"I'm sure I've taken too much of your time for now, Daidoji-sama," the Scorpion said with an apologetic smile. "I hope we will cross paths out in the field sometime, though. It was nice meeting you!"

"Exactly." Yul grinned. "Although I gotta warn you I'm pretty good. And I don't like to give up until I'm on top..." Yul had a competitive side.

He shrugged. "Hey, don't worry about it. I mean, it's strange. But there's a kind of nobility to it."

Yul glanced around. "I should go. Until next time, Kitsu-san?"

Nozomi twiddled with her thumbs and then nodded. "Okay I guess I'll see you later!" She looked away and then flared up. "Oh! You can have my comm identifier. For the wrestling. Yes."

"Oh, good idea." Smiling, Yul brought out his communicator; fairly standard military issue, except for a Unicorn sticker on it. Tabbing through the buttons with both hands, he quickly brought up his information, holding the device out to her to get the info from.

Nozomi did her best to make it quick. "There," she said, smiling meekly afterwards. "Call me, maybe?"

Yul nodded. "Sure thing, Kitsu-san." He said, smiling gently.

He turned walking away, looking back over his shoulder with one more smile as he did so.

/exit

"It's probably more accurate to say that I've been picking lemons than rolling in them. It's a shame about missing that giant bird contest, I could probably use a bird myself but at least that will avoid any incidents about me getting into a fight with the same bird. I've been mostly busy at the stacks at the temple, trying to learn about this planet as much as I can. It's a fascinating place and I'm not just talking about the mushrooms."

"I passed on keeping the Big bird myself, just seemed a bit irresponsible to take ownership of one for a while and just kinda waving goodbye at the end of the miai. Kinda like buyinf a pet then returning it after two weeks."

"That's probably why I haven't seen you around though, I don't spend too much time at the temple myself." Which some might consider a bad thing. "Still nice to know you found out some neat stuff abotu the planet, andything in particular catch your eye?"

"I don't know, isn't that the best sort of bird?" Eriko grinned, "sort of like a nephew you can wind up with all of the candy in the store and pass it back to your sibling? But sure, I get you. Our Phoenix hosts aren't the sort of people you want to peeve off. I think I'm able to draw the line on that."

"They had a pretty neat memorial at the shore around here. It's not exactly much, to be honest, just a plaque and some holy wards. Apparently, it's the largest settlement of the first founders on this planet. It didn't quite last long until they...you know...croaked," she shrugged.

"Maybe? I met a couple Phoenix bird experts my first day here, so I'd have to ask them." He had no idea why bird experts were even a thing, not to mention a pair of them. "You make a point though, that might be the sort of thing I did to my parents with my younger sisters when they were small." When he was on break from school and got the chance to visit.

"That sounds, unfortunate." He repleid thoughtful. "That is was the largest settlement of the first founders makes it sound like there were others though. Did a whole lot of them fail maybe?" Was there a reason why the phoenix had decided to build here and not elsewhere?

"They failed, all right," she nodded sadly at that fact and took a glance around. It was noisy enough around to talk about it. "They more or less died. It was a disastrous crash landing almost two hundred years ago and apparently the survivors couldn't be rescued in time. There's a few of them scattered about when they ejected their escape pods, most of them landed on the beach apparently."

"That's unfortunate." It did mean they didn't make an actual landing though. "Under the circumstances I suppose death was expected. This is not a particularly easy planet to live on from what i can tell."

"I imagine even Imperial Explorers would have trouble finding things to eat around here if they landed for the first time. However, I don't think the local wildlife is as picky if I had to guess," she gave a solemn shake of her head.

"Anyway, enough depressing talk. I think I'm grab something fizzy and sugary and call it a night. Thanks for saving me from that waiting trap, Tsuruchi-sama. You have a nice night and take it easy, alright?" She gave him a quick bow and made her way out in short order.

/exit

"Have a good night, Kuni-san." He replied with a biw, if nothing else the kuni was a bit of a whirlwind.