The rain was still coming down, but that wasn't going to stop a pair of Skyriders. Certainly not from the elite Seventh Wing, Insect squadron.

Dressed casually as always, but with the addition of some raingear, Yul walked with his wingmate out towards their craft. "You've had a chance to take one of these up, right?" He asked, giving her a quick glance. "Funny little things, but they can fly alright."

After a moment, he waved a hand. "Why don't you take lead anyway? I already took it out this morning, and I'm taking it out later today." Yul smiled. "Can't live on adrenaline all day every day, even if I'd sometimes like to."

"In fact, I did so two days ago," she replied smugly, taking off her aviators and putting them into the pocket of her jacket. "But yes, the assessement is correct in that it is a strange aircraft, but flies decently enough. Can't compare to even the atmo-bound fighters though." They could at least fly properly.

"But sure, I'll take lead. Got you as my co-pilot." As was proper. She was the better pilot of the two.

Her umbrella was stowed away in a holster to keep the raindrops on it from spilling everywhere. "You can tell me about your flight?" Climbing into the ornithopter, she went over the security checks.

Yul flashed her a grin. "Of course you did." Typical Wasp.

He shook out his own umbrella, tucking it next to hers, before sliding gracefully into the co-pilot's seat. He, however, left his aviators on. He sat, arms casually crossed, adjusting his seat, but not assisting with the security check unless asked; better for pilot familiarity.

He shrugged, shoulders rising and falling. "Ummm... no, actually." He shot her a half-smug, half-apologetic look. "Except to say that the rain isn't too bad for flying. But the rest of it you might disapprove of."

Having familiarized herself again with the controls, she put her aviators back on, in preparation for any sharp light from the sky.

She was about to put on her headset, but had to stop and give Yul a dumbfounded look. "You..." Hyeon-ju sighed, "... what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time? Is it something that will reflect badly on your or the Unicorn?"

Yul considered that for rather longer than was probably reassuring.

"I don't think so." He said firmly. "But if there's trouble, I'll accept responsibility."

He pursed his lips, looking out the window. "But I was helping someone. It was a good mission." He looked back at her, grimacing. "I just don't want any of the heat on you."

Yul was many things, but Hyeon-ju knew he was not a liar. A reckless daredevil that got into trouble, but not a liar.

"Very well," she nodded, accepting his pledge to take responsibility. He was a man of his word.

"A good mission, huh. That's... good, I guess? May I know whom you helped?" Finishing the preparation, Hyeon-ju fired up the engine and hailed the tower for permission through the headset.

Yul chewed his lip for a moment. "It's in strictest confidence, but yeah. Kuni Eriko. There were a few of us there... all good sorts, or so I felt. But you know how it is when you work with someone, right?" He frowned. So why were he and Wasp so... nevermind.

He made sure he was strapped in. "I met her a few days ago. She's cool. Smart. Pretty." He shrugged. "There'd be worse matches. I'm not sure I could do that to Hide, though."

"Hmmm... well, we are supposed to seek alliances with both Crab and Lion. A Kuni would be good for us, but if that risks angering a Lioness, probably best not to pursue it," she remarked, calmly tactical as she often was.

The tower gave them signal that they were cleared for take-off, and the conversation fell silent as Hyeon-ju skillfully took the strange craft into the air. As she was now flying with someone she knew, and not with one she wanted to impress, one she was watching with eyes in the back of her neck, and one who was fawning over being airborne, she felt a lot more relaxed than last time she was flying one of these things, and she took the ornithopter higher now.

It was only natural for Sky Riders to want to be closer to the sky, and they weren't flying for sightseeing as much right now.

"... Have you made much contact with the Crab apart from this Kuni Eriko?" she asked, breaking the calm silence that had settled over the two Sky Riders.

"Oh, I think she'd understand." Yul said. "It just wouldn't be a good bro move." He shrugged. Maybe she didn't get it.

The last few times Yul had gone up, he'd been focused on flying. Now, he sat, looking out the window. Content with the silence, he glanced back as Hyeon-ju spoke. "Not really." He said, shrugging. "I met Hida Akemi a few times. But we never really had a chance to talk, and certainly not one on one. Didn't really feel like a connection."

Still looking out the window, Yul spared his wingmate a quick glance. "What about you? Anything?"

While she had her aviators on, he could practically see feel the raised-eyebrow-look in his direction. "Bro-move... ugh, never mind. I'm not even going to dvelve into that." That was a Yul thing.

"One of my roommates is a Crab," it felt easier to talk in the sky. A Sky Rider was always most at ease airborne. "Kuni Koryn, but... well, he's a kid. A good kid, but a kid nonetheless. He practically finished his gempukku right before coming here. I briefly met this Hida Akemi, and some of the other Crab, on my shuttle down... Fundai Tetsu, and Yasuki Nishida. But they were kind of busy with themself and the Spider there."

She gave a shrug and sighed. "I honestly had expected the Lion to be more difficult to approach, but we've easily found common ground with them and we've all approached eachother equally. The Crab seem to be plentiful here, but none have made an effort to reach out to us..."

"Koryn, huh?" Yul nodded, committing the name to memory. "Oh, my mistake, I met Nishida as well." His lips twisted. "Ehhhhhh... he seemed alright. If we'd brought some Ide, we might have made him a better match."

He glanced at Hyeon-ju. "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they have their own ideas. Clan, or otherwise. I heard one of them made out with a Spider." Yul made a face. "What's up with that?"

His glance at Hyeon-ju became a look. "So what about you, huh? Found anyone to thaw your heart yet? Or... make a good match? I don't know." Yul looked out the window again. "Just, how are you doing, I guess?"

"I have a pretty good idea on who did the making out. Saw Hida Akemi and Daigotsu Shokomaru at the club some days ago, wasn't sure if they were going to start a fight or start making out. She pushed him away and shouted NO before storming off though... but I heard yesterday from a date that they had been back again the night after and were all over eachother again."

She rolled her eyes behind the aviators. The lack of proper decorum was appalling, but what else could you expect from Crabs and Spiders.

"... I've met many interesting potentials. Just... I've no idea." Hyeon-ju pressed her cherry-red lips together. "It's hard to make a choice, and then I also have to consider that I might not be making a choice in the end. But, I've been fine, I guess. No reckless trips like you've been doing."

Yul snorted. "Yeah, that'd have been my guess, too." He shrugged. "Well... I just hope she isn't getting into anything she can't handle." Akemi wasn't a friend, exactly, but they had fought together. She could probably handle herself.

Again, Yul snorted. "No reckless trips? You don't have to tell me that." He tilted down his aviators, to look at her directly, his brown eyes interested. "But... okay. How about this. Imagine we're up there, in our ships. Your possible suitors are all in front of you, in ships of their own, closing fast. Cicada gives the order to break and attack in pairs. I've got your six, so don't worry about that."

He nodded to her. "Who do you target? Don't think, just go with your gut."

"I'm sure she's a big girl and can take care of herself." She wasn't going to just assume that anyone here wasn't an adult and couldn't take care of themselves. Except for... right... Nara and Koryn. They really shouldn't be here, it had seemed to her.

She was confident enough in the machine to look away from the sky and at Yul as he gave her that serious look. Her own hazel eyes barely readable behind the lens of the shades. The grip on the controls tightened, because Yul knew she hated these hypothetical questions where the instinct was to follow her gut. In the squadron, she knew exactly what she would get if she had to pair up with anyone of them - they had trained together so thoroughly, she didn't have to think.

... And she hated the uncertainities all the options before her had.

"You can't ask me to choose like that, Cricket. I've not even known these people for a week yet, and the clan trusts us to make good decisions here." Her voice was slightly strained, showing her own frustration with the question before her because she did not have an answer. Her gut wasn't telling her anything of what to choose yet.

Yul sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It wouldn't be proper procedure." It was a terrible impression of Hyeon-ju. By some coincidence, it actually made a pretty good impression of Ishiyo.

He sighed again. "Nevermind. Sorry. For that, not for the question. But I think, at some point, you're gonna have to figure out what your gut is trying to tell you, Wasp."

Turning, Yul went back to looking out the window. "What about that Akodo? He seemed like your type."

If it wasn't for the proper discipline they both had as pilots, she probably would've swung the steering hard to one side as she leaned closer. "That's not what this is about. It's about who I'm going to marry, damnit. I don't want to make a bad choice that I have to live with for the rest of my life."

Taking a silent and deep breath, she looked back ahead to the sky infront of them. Below they could see the river appearing in places where the fungi-forest gave way to it.

"Hm... Akodo-gunso would be a good choice. Probably the best one on paper. I've just not spoken enough with the guy to make a call on that, and... well, I'd marry into the Akodo then. He's a prized pilot for the Lion, so chances are high that either we'll be rotated around and never see much of eachother, or I'll end up grounded." And being grounded was just the worst fate for a pilot. It wasn't often Hyeon-ju talked about things she was scared of, but that was a legit fear she had.

"On the other hand of good choices, there is Matsu Chiyoko. She's a famous warrior, could potentially marry out, and she'd be a fine samurai for the Utaku. I've spent some time with her, but I'm not feeling a strong connection yet."

That she specified good made it seem like she was considering options that had some baggage to them. Complicated choices.

"Tsuruchi Hayato of the Mantis is... as we saw in the Biathlon, incredibly skilled. Rich family. He's also... easy-going. Pleasant to talk with. Probably the most enjoyable company I've had this miai so far. But he is a Mantis. Not an enemy of our clan as such, but aligned to them... though, it seems he's not particularly enjoying that state of affairs."

She sighed, her fingers moving a little over the controls to ease her own tension. "And lastly, Kuchiki Satoru of the Spider. Calm, intelligent, a shugenja, a doctor... has the makings of a teacher." And the Utaku were keenly interested in bringing in more shugenja. "But, he is a Spider, and that is his biggest flaw. And the one flaw I am having a hard time ignoring."

To her credit, she was talking honestly, without the usual tone like she was delivering a military report. Being in the sky did help bring out the better parts of her.

Grimacing, Yul shook his head. "That's not what I mean..." He said stubbornly. But how many times had they had this argument? Shaking his head, more wearily this time, he let it go.

He listened as she laid out her rather numerous possibilities. "I've met most of them. Not the Spider. Chiyoko's very interesting, and very pretty. Hayato..." Yul grimaced, then smiled. "Well, actually, I hung out with him for a bit. He did seem like a pretty cool guy." He looked at her, eyebrow going up visible even over his sunglasses. "I figured he'd be more my type than yours. And the Akodo seemed fine... you don't think they'd let you fly together?"

He stared at her a moment longer, then shook his head, shifting in the seat. "I don't think you should marry out, not if it means joining the Mantis, and especially not the Spider." There was a hint of tension in the normally cool Yul's voice.

"I don't know. I haven't asked him how the Lion would do such a thing... maybe something to do if I meet with him again." She clenched her jaw a little. "And no, I don't plan on marrying out to the Mantis or the Spider. But so far, at least the Spider is unlikely to marry anyone in."

Apart from nepotism-boy, the Spider weren't doing too hot in the miai. Most of them had started out pretty poorly.

"But... that's enough about me, right? What about you?" Turn-about was fair play, and she felt she had shared more than enough right now.

"Good." Yul said, softly, almost gently. "Good." Sighing, he smiled at her, just a little.

His expression returned to its usual neutral cheerfulness. "I've got a name or two in mind. A good match. And then one I've got a really good feeling about."

He looked out the window. "Have you met Nakauchi Mumei?"

She gave him a curious glance, taking the ornithopter a little lower to get a better view of the landscape. "I've not, but I have heard her name mentioned."

An Osprey wouldn't be bad. But they could do alright with almost any of the Minor Clan choices available. Not amazing choices, compared to the Great Clans, but decent ones - the MCA had merit on its own, and its representatives here were good ones.

"You got your eyes on an Osprey gal?"