(expecting; please ask before approaching)

It had been a long, demanding day. Perhaps that was why Yul was having so much trouble going to sleep. His legs, as much work as they'd gotten throughout the day, felt twitchy and restless. And so, even if he felt that it might be good to make an early night of it, he decided to wander around the city instead.

Besides, what was the fun in turning in early?

Somehow Yul found himself wandering through the marketplace, as it was called, wearing his leather jacket, of course. Taking in the sights and sounds, all the liveliness, Yul found himself perking up. And then the smells... Yul had simple tastes, and the food being cooked in the restaurants and street carts appealed to those tastes. He walked slowly, casually, looking this way and that as he went.

Mumei's half cascade of blue hair shimmers purple under the glowing red of an apothecary's sign. She's crouched down, apparently speaking to someone _under_ a counter filled with jars of musty herbs and stinking extracts. She sits back on her heels, holding a small bundle to her nose to inhale, before nodding and flipping something that catches a glint of light under the counter as well.

Standing, she tucks it into a pocket as she backs away from the stall, looking up at the buildings that vanish into darkness above the market's glow. Paying so little attention, she backs right into Yul, correcting with a dancer's grace before the touch becomes a shove and spinning around to see just how much apology is needed. Great Clan, well-dressed...

With a deep bow that doesn't go so far as dropping to kowtow on the filthy street, she offers an Izumi-worthy string of apology "SumimasenVerySorryTotallyMyFaultWon'tHappenAgain."

Grunting, Yul took a little step back as he was bumped into. Although, Yul noted, it was a very graceful bump, like a very aggressive dance move.

He smiled gently, returning her bow with a relaxed air. "Hey, no problem. It was probably my fault. I wasn't watching where I was going." Yul shrugged, shoulders rising and falling visibly in his leather jacket. "I haven't been in this area, so I was just kinda looking around, I guess."

His lips quirked a little more. Tilting his head, Yul regarded Mumei curiously. "Ummm... sorry if this is a weird question, but do you know a Kitsune Izumi-sama?" That string of words had seemed familiar to him, too.

Standing and sheepish, Mumei bursts into laughter at the question. "Oh...oh yes. Kitsune-san is a bright-haired comet of man, and unstoppable on the dance floor." She shrugs her own tattered synth-leather jacket back on her shoulders after that bow.

"But...I'm not usually able to keep up with him like that." She offers a less apologetic bow of greeting. "Nakauchi Mumei, lately of the Far Winds trading vessel. And going backwards, I *definitely* wasn't looking where I was going"

She cocks her head, looking him up and down. "I hope I didn't just miss you on that trip. There were kind of a lot of crew but not so many I ought to have missed you entirely."

Yul chuckled. "I knew the first part about him. I didn't know the second. But I'm not surprised, if he dances the way he does everything else." Enthusiastically, that is.

His friendly smile became a grin. "Nope. Wasn't on it. I'm sure I wouldn't have missed you, either." It seemed like the thing to say. He bowed again. "Shinjo Yul, Seventh Skyrider Wing, Insect squadron. It's a pleasure to meet you, Nakauchi-san." His eyebrows went up. "Oh, actually, Kitsune-san did mention you, actually. Well, I suppose it's not exactly a big miai."

In a gesture rather like hers, Yul tilted his head, regarding her. "So, what brings you here? I mean, here here, not here the planet." He waved a hand at their immediate surroundings.

"We do have a small settlement here, so Kitsune-san might have actually met another Osprey here...which is not the usual state of things. But yeah, he was probably talking about me." She chuckles. "Hope he was nice about it then," she says without sounding like she'd expect anything different. MCA gang had each others' backs so far at least.

"A fighter pilot? Yeah, can't imagine you'd want to fly something slow as those traders. Honor to meet you." And with no real worries about the less than entirely legal provenance, she digs into a pocket on the inside of her jacket. "I'm here finding these."

She holds a crumpled paper bag with the musty smell something like a dried shitake, but a touch sweet, with a sour tang on top. "Prime Asakaze Red Hat...supposedly."

"Yeah, he was. And yeah, that's right." Yul crossed his arms, smirking gently. "I mean, I'd fly one if that's all I could do. But I really prefer going fast."

Leaning forward, Yul frowned. "It's... a mushroom." His lips quirked. "I mean, of course it's a mushroom. There's lots of mushrooms here." His nostrils twitched as the unfamiliar scents tickled his nose. "Is it a special mushroom, or something? You eat it?"

"I'm told you eat it, or you make tea with it, and your brain gets to do some piloting fast through dreamlike places. I'm hoping it allows deeper communion with the spirits here, being local goods and all." She cracks off a bit of one. "You're welcome to a bit, if you like."

"But what brings you out here this late?"

"Oh, no, thank you." Yul said, refusing politely with a shake of his head. "I'm not sure I'd be able to appreciate it properly."

At the second question, Yul shrugged, crossing his arms again. "I'm not really sure. I thought I'd go to bed early, after the biathlon, but I couldn't sleep. I just started walking, and ended up here." He shrugged again, smiling sheepishly. "I guess I take advantage of being able to do that, whenever I'm not on a carrier. I love flying, but sometimes its nice to get planetside, huh?"

She nods appreciatively. "Air that hasn't been recycled through every person on the ship and their socks a dozen times, food that maybe didn't come out of a vat, and stars that are magical little twinkles instead of complicated navigation points." The little bag is stashed back into its pocket. "And yet I'm still excited every time I'm shipping out again. What's up with that?"

With a questioning tip of the head down the crowded street, she says, "May as well wander together then? We're supposed to be getting to know one another, in among all these tests and such. And this place is mostly locals otherwise, who aren't on the eligible marriage material lists." With a chuckle, she adds, "Also, you're cute. In case that sounds like chatting you up is some kind of onerous duty, Shinjo-sama."

Yul chuckled softly. "Don't forget being stuck eight to a room, and half of them are snorers." His expression softened. "I can't explain it any more than you can, but I get it." He sighed, not unpleasantly, looking up at the sky. "I gotta rent one of those ornithopters." It wasn't quite the same as the freedom of spaceflight, but it would be something.

The comment made him grin; in fact, Yul was quite aware that he was good looking. "I'm glad to hear chatting with me won't be too hard on you." His smile took on a playful twist as he looked back at her. "I don't think it's gonna be a challenge for me, either." He murmured, his brown eyes glinting at her.

Straightening, he gestured. "You wanna try that way? I'm pretty sure I smelled something tasty cooking, and I could use a little something."

The neon picks out a glint of green in her own eyes, the corners crinkling with an amused smile. "Good, good. Hate to be a burden. And if you've got a nose for something, let's find it. Dinner was....before the movie sometime....no, before the arcade! I'm famished."

"I've learned maybe enough to handle one of those ornithopters, but honestly I've really just been on the simulators enough for them to license me to even be in the shuttle bay to keep the drones and interfaces happy. Did take out the little wheeled 4 seater the other day though. The wilds here are amazing. Definitely get out there and look around before it's time to leap back into the stars."

"Well, that settles it." Yul said, his tone serious, his smile anything but. "Let's get both of us something to eat."

He set the pace, a slow walk towards the enticing smells, the better to talk as they went. "I went out today, actually. It really is interesting. Saw a lizard about... this big." Yul held his hands a moderate distance apart. "It was in one of those ATVs, yeah. It was great, but I'd like to see a lot more of it. Get up there, you know? I feel like I haven't really seen a place until I've seen it from the air."

She saunters easily alongside, accepting the pace. "Ok that is a reasonable lizard size. I'm told there's really really big ones, that I would not like to see up close. We were out the other day in one of the same little buggies. Saw a bug that big. Which, I am not ashamed to say, is a bit unreasonable for a bug."

She pauses briefly as a glowing sign flickers out, then back to life. She reminds herself she isn't on duty, it's not her ship, and that it probably needs an actual engineer and not just a chat with the sign's fire kami to fix.

Finding the conversational thread again, she adds, "I do think those giant mushrooms have to look very different from a tree forest if you're up there. And you'd be safe from the spore storms, I'd think. So ornithopter would be a great way to see things."

"A bug?" Yul made a face. "No, I'm right with you there. Where I'm from, I'm used to them not being any more than." Smiling, he held up forefinger and thumb, perhaps an inch apart. He noticed her pause at the flickering light, and looked at her curiously, but paid it no mind himself; he was a pilot not an engineer, after all.

He nodded. "Yeah, it's really nice. You really get to feel she shape of a land, seeing it like that. I mean, there's something to be said for up close, too, which is why I went out today. But you can see the mountains, and the rivers and the trees... the mushroom trees" Yul chuckled at his correction, "-all that together, it's like seeing a whole picture, when before you could only see part of it."

As they walked, they began to encounter food stalls, staffed by busy heimen chefs. "What do you think? Skewers? Noodles?"

"Hmmm..noodles. I want to see what the broths are like here with so much interesting fungus around. There were these flakes on some of the fried mushroom skewers at the feast on the first night that were really interesting...like savory and spicy all at once." She glances across the stalls. "I see spicy noodles, 'Yu's famous noodles', and...oh...Otori noodle soup."

She makes an apologetic face, squirming a bit. "I _know_ they're food as well as mounts here, but I'm not sure I can look Hiroki in the eye if I've just had a nice bowl of her cousins."

Yul grinned at her. "Oh noooo... I think you're right. I don't usually think about that sort of thing, but maybe I shouldn't do that to Maverick. Noodles it is, then."

He surveyed the choices. "Let's do the spicy noodles, then. I had lizard skewers at that feast. The spices were good, and I figured hey, why not try something really new, right?"

This time of night, none of the lines were very long; they'd have their noodles in no time.

A nod offers agreement as she heads for the stall. "Maverick? That sounds like a name for a bird that will make your life interesting. Trying to make your own trouble appear?" The grin is teasing, as she fishes into a pocket for her zeni.

The smell from hits the nose with a peppery sting and a richness that speaks of meat stock. There may yet be a bit of Otori in the making here...but so much less blatant. That helps. There's a warm, almost nutty scent of probably mushrooms as well.

A prep plate sits just at the edge of the veritable cauldron of broth, topped with a giant egg, sliced into sections like an orange. The well-made faux bowl of soup, stuck to the cart's sign to illustrate the delicious (if apparently dusty) deliciousness that awaits customers indicates that each bowl gets a slice of egg that covers about half the contents.

"Ok...I'm not going to ask and just assume that is a giant lizard egg. Ok?"

Yul shrugged. "It seemed to fit. Besides..." he flashed her a quick playful smirk, "-maybe I like a bit of trouble."

The scents hit Yul's nostrils, seeming to go straight to his brain, or maybe his stomach. He waved to the stall owner, holding two fingers up; the owner bowed, beginning the prep.

Turning to look at Mumei, Yul grinned. "You'd rather eat a giant lizard egg than offend your Otori, huh?" It really was more likely to be an Otori egg... He studied her a moment, then nodded. "Alright, giant lizard egg it is. I can hardly wait. Hey, if the skewers were good, I'm sure the egg would be, too."

She looks a bit sheepish. "Yeaaah. I mean...she's going to lay eggs someday. I probably won't still be here, but still. It's tough not to bond to creatures when you know they can understand you." More firmly, she adds, "and giant lizards would be just as happy to eat me, so I feel kind of justified"

The vendor is definitely a showman. Scooping the noodles with tongs and lifting them higher than you'd expect he'd be able to reach, before swirling them into the large bowls. He poured steaming broth with expert accuracy, dashing in handfuls of sliced vegetables and probably fungus, sliding in the slice of egg so curled around the inside of the bowl, and finally sprinkling a liberal dash of black and red flakes across the steaming surface.

Mumei just looks at the giant bowl for a long moment, until her rumbling stomach promps her to slide a couple zeni onto the cart counter. "Still pretending it's a lizard egg, but I think I might just eat it anyway, even if I saw it plucked straight from an Otori nest, that smells amazing."

Grinning, she points toward a nearby, flat rooftop. "In the interests of living just a little dangerously, think we can wrangle two full bowls of noodles to the roof?"