((Thanks for the RP ))

"Ah, Kuchiki-san," said Hakka, fan raising to cover the lower half of her face, the design a pink sunset with black tree branches, with with and red blossoms, amusement clear in her voice. "If there is a gathering such as this, a courtier will be there. Our trade does not stop, simply because we are not as ideal as our more martial of brethren. Besides, this one has always enjoyed a challenge."

"Well Doji-san I would never say you weren't ideal, I think someone would find it hard to stay true to themselves while trying to criticize your potential as a marriage candidate." he said with slightly awkward chuckle, he was clearly no courtier and the attention from a rather pretty Crane threw him off balance a bit.

"So uhm how have you found Asakaze so far?" he asked fidgeting slightly with the prayer beads in his unoccupied hand.

"hooo, yeah. Do the Spider do that yeast vat protein stuff? Worked on a few clans' ships now and they all seem to like serving that." Her face is eloquent in her opinion of the stuff. "Loaded with a ton of salt and hot sauce, you can kind of choke it down."

"But mushrooms? Amazing aren't they? I mean, they're a bit like yeast, but just incorporate much more interesting chemicals." she lifts her drink in the vague direction of 'away' "Like, we were out in the forest today and it just started raining stinging pollen. Hurt to breathe it, and even the bugs went burrowing away from it. But it might be the exact same fungus we're eating now." The rather obvious military uses of irritating pollen aren't remotely on the Nakauchi's mind.

Tsugibharu nods.

"By necessity really. Most of the Spider holdings outside of Blacksun system can only produce food under industrial conditions. The Hive, my home, is a hollowed out asteroid, Nightfall's rotation is so slow that it's nights last for weeks, Whispers doesn't revolve at all, leaving an equator of viable twilight between scorching heat and freezing lightless cold, and Blightwell is only inhabited underground. So if the food isn't shipped in from Blacksun, it's made in factories and vats. So meals like this...." he explains, gesturing to the feast of foods that the locals merely had to gather and grow under a real sun. "Would be obscenely lavish."

She grabs a fresh skewer from a passing servant. These look seasoned with black flecks of something and are so fresh from the oil that it still sizzles in the crannies of the breading. "Well, I guess that's enough reason to hang out at a miai and eat the Phoenix's food for a while. I'm certainly not above taking advantage of that...and tonight's free drinks." She lifts her cup for a pointed sip. Solidly headed at least one and a half sheets to the wind by now.

"But I mean...lots of fungus does just fine in the dark. Whyn't you grow those on Blightwell?"

"My apologies, Nakauchi-san. Most people don't think of mushroom farming as really farming. You know, the old traditions of Rice and Fish being the only "proper" food for samurai." he said with a shake of the head at such foolish notions.

"Blightwell does a little of that, but it's still fairly ill-suited for that. It's a very rich source of minerals, but the campaign to pacify it was particularly difficult. There are still large sections of the planet where the rocks are still melting from the defeat of the natives. It'll likely be a few centuries before one can go outside with any less protection than one can wander around the surface of a spaceship hull in flight."

She shrugs. "If you've got yeast vats, there's room for mushrooms. A sack of sawdust and nutrient slurry is enough for some of em. A lot of ships grow some, even if they don't have enough room for plant hydroponics. It's not like vats are real farming either, but I've chatted with a lot more growth chambers than farm equipment hopping from ship to ship."

After a pause to try the skewer and decide if she liked the spice on it, she adds undiplomatically, "Blightwell sounds pretty awful."

A small shrug.

"Well on the surface, it's well named. But it is a very valuable mining colony, so those of means fashion themselves rather beautiful mansions and palaces. Beauty blooming among the barren rocks as it were."

It didn't bear mentioning what Blightwell was like for those without means.

"But perhaps Whispers would appeal more to your aesthetic? Some find the perpetual twilight of the habitable zone rather romantic and worthy of poetry."

That provoked a grin. "My people are experts in self-reliance Daidoji-sama. We need to be skilled in all sorts of different things to survive in deep space. Never know when you'll be finding, fighting, fixing, or flying."

"I have learned a bit on the fixing myself, though more so I can understand precisely what I can get out of a fighteh." She tugged at the edge of her sleeves and nodded, then fetched her densai again. "Oh...yes perhaps we should exchange communicator information."

With no small amount of enthusiasm Koseki pulled out his own sensei and exchanged contact details. "Always good to know how everything fits together. Especially when your life might depend on it." A finger tapped the rather robust densai. "Honestly, most of this is taken up with safety manuals and schematics." He gave them a slightly bashful look.

The Suzume gives her a shy smile at that. "Oh... I've worked in some of them. 'Spose my name might be show up, never really checked I think", she says, shrugging but still smiling. "Not Captain Inu Shikoku-ken, sadly - they've been using bits of the soundtrack produced while I was still learning my letters. Not that it suffers from that at all", she says, smiling. "But I've worked on the ST for the last seasons of 3 millenia, Honour in Space and Benteno. Been fun work... always hoping people like it!"

As the Firefly and her switch to more... technical talk, she takes the chance to get another skewer - meat this time - and some amakaze, and keeps paying attention to them even though she doesn't follow everything. Might always be some inspiration for a theme here and there.

She offers a long shrug that almost becomes a stretch, "not great with poetry, but world like that? Half baked, half frozen?" she shakes her head. "I have to wonder how it feels. A world isn't human but...are those extremes torture or ecstasy? Worth trying to hear and learn from it, at least."

He chuckled a bit.

"Well, in truth, it was the engineering challenges and opportunities that I really thought might appeal to you Nakauchi-san. If one wants to test to see how something handles extreme temperatures, it's an ideal planet for testing, the solar farms present unique challenges in needing to not only operate in such an environment, but operate continuously and with as little maintenance and repair as possible, to say nothing of the races." he explained.

"hmmm? Leave the engineeeeering to engineeeeers, I always say," she says, a bit blurrily. And then decides that say nothing means 'totally ask about that'."What races? Like, running? Or other peoples?"

He noted the advanced state of the Osprey's inebriation.

"Hm, why don't I tell you about it another time, Nakauchi-san? It's getting late, although why don't we share communicator contacts and we'll talk about it later?" he offered, hoping she wasn't too far gone for that.

"It never hurts to be prepared. There is a hard copy of the emergency maintenance procedures stuffedinto a compartment on every one ouh fightehs." Ishiyo gives and approving nod, "I haven't had cause to use mine yet but I have heard of it saving a life oh two in the past."



"What brought you into such a field, if I may ask Suzume-san?" Ishiyo's attention shifts back to the Sparrow, it was clear the technical discussion was more to her liking but the Crane were known for politeness. And the Daidoji did not wish to push the Suzume out of the conversation in a flood of jargon.

"Oh", the Suzume said as the Daidoji's attention turned to her as well. "It's... been one of my main interests since very early I suppose. Music, I mean. What it may convey, how it may evoke emotions, make us tune in to feelings... and telling stories. There's always stories to be told - about Exploring, Fighting Pirates, finding, fighting, fixing, or flying too, ne?". She hopes the words themselves, maybe even more than her faint smile, should indicate that she doesn't mind their more technical talk and is trying to engage - even if it is not directly related to her own experience.

Not that advanced for a practiced drinker. A mere two sheets to the wind! Definitely still sober enough to reach...for a cargo pocket that does not exist in this fancy getup. Mumei sighs, rolls her eyes and digs into the cleverly hidden and utterly, stupidly tiny pocket that only fits her communicator because it's an old flip type. It's covered with a scraped and faded synthetic skin depicting some sort of pastel landscape, half covered with worn stickers.

"Sure," she says, as she flips it open, her face illuminated with the flicker of dozens of waiting messages, almost entirely advertisements or local announcements. After a moment scrolling and poking at settings, she holds it a bit higher. "There, should be able to grab it now." As could anyone else looking to pick up communicator codes nearby.