Hide could not help but feel smug about another flawless tour as wingwoman. She flashed the Shiba a smile, keeping her voice low as well. “Matsu Hide. It’s nice meeting you, Shiba-san. We were actually talking about planning a meeting with some friends of ours, all of which are great people. Problem is the karaoke place has room for six but we have a party of five. A good portion of them are interested in the local wildlife and could probably benefit from having someone a bit more knowledgeable on the subject than I am.”

She glanced over towards Mumei a moment and then back to the Shiba. “Have you perhaps had the chance of meeting Ujina Jin-sama or Kitsune Izumi-sama?”

Mumei holds her tongue, glancing at the screen and wincing at the long, long fall someone was taking. She really wanted to know why Hide had led into karaoke, hinted at space, but not actually invited him.

There was a reason, surely. Matsu were fierce and very strategic.

So she just silently vibrated with pent up desire to the hear the answer and see where the strategy led.

"Oh, sure! Ujina-san is in the same room as me. And I met Kitsune-sama yesterday for, er, reasons." Atsumori's brow furrowed a little. "Is he okay? I heard he took a pretty bad fall in the middle of the race course this mornin'."

A tiny little part of his brain that actually paid attention to politics stuff wondered if there was some kind of significance to the fact that this Matsu seemed to be friends with most of the Minor Clan guests at the miai. But for most of his gray matter, the question wasn't terribly interesting.

“I haven’t heard anything since he got taken to the hospital. But I’m sure he’ll be out of there in no time. Nothing keeps that guy still for too long, you know?” Hide seemed a bit concerned for a moment, but she did honestly believe Izumi would be just fine. “But wow! You room with Ujina-sama? Oh that’s actually pretty cool. See, we all met on the same shuttle here. I lucked out and got to room with Nakauchi-san here. But we promised to keep in contact and do some fun activities while we’re here.”

She took a pause, if only to gauge his reaction. But then continued, “If Kitsune-sama makes a swift recovery, we were planning on going to a karaoke place in the mall. Since you are already familiar with both Ujina-sama and Kitsune-sama, you’d make a comfortable fit as you’d be acquainted with most of the people there. Would you like to be our sixth?”

Mumei is already composing the message to Jin in her head.

And reminding herself to send a get-well text to Izumi and ask if he's going to be there long enough to need visitors. She expects he will vibrate himself out through the walls before that would be the case, but she should ask.

And then she blurts out...quietly! "Have you gotten to meet Yube yet? If you haven't, definitely ask Ujina-san why he's been holding out on you." Also please say yes.

"Oh, yeah, sure. That sounds terrific!" Atsumori nodded. "Well, err, I should warn you I sing more like an otori than a canary. But that's not exactly the point of karaoke anyway, right?" He winked cheerfully at the two women.

Basic arithmetic caught up to him shortly thereafter. "Who's your sixth?"

The mention of Yube made him chuckle. "We're lucky our room only has three bunks booked. That little blighter makes enough mess for a fourth roommate. Fascinatin', though, isn't he?"

“Ah, how could I have forgotten! The other samurai on our shuttle was Kuni Eriko-san. She’s a bit hard to read, but nice enough. She was the one that actually gave me the idea last night. And as for your singing...” Hide gave the Phoenix an amused smirk. “I’m pretty sure we’re all in the same boat mostly. But the point is to have fun while also being terrible!”

"Aww, but Otori sound kind of adorable, those little Kweh noises and all..." She laughs softly, "but don't I know it. rode out here with Ujina-san and Yube. He's incredibly sweet, but even invoking the kami to help talk to him only gets him to clean up a little of his mess."

Nara tried to watch the film. It was an interesting film. However there was lots of planning around her that was distracting, and eventually she looked back at Hide and the Osprey to see what they were talking about.

"Karaoke?"

Hide turned her attention to the familiar Spider that overheard her. “Oh, yeah. There’s a karaoke place at the mall. Haven’t had the chance to take a proper look inside, but I do know they have private rooms and stuff like that for parties.”

There’s a pause as she gives Nara a big smile. “I’m always on the lookout for new places to party, y’know?”

Mumei's communicator gives a quiet 'bzzzt' in her hand. She looks at it suspiciously, since she can clearly see Hide hasn't been typing.



Frowning, she types...

"Oh, hey, you can do that? I knew a Fox priest who showed me it a few times. Just amazing." Atsumori beamed at Mumei... then shook his head. "Although... turns out hippopotami aren't great at conversation even when you can talk to 'em, he said. Yube seems like a smart fella for his size, though. Smarter than that, for sure."

He let Mumei alone to type on her communicator, glancing up to take better notice of the little, overdressed doll-woman discussing karaoke with Hide. Huh. Looks like she'd fit into a karaoke box no problem, but I'm not sure there'd be room for anyone else around that dress.

"Sorry, Kitsune-san...sounded kind of odd. Wanted to check that he's ok after today." She apologizes for typing in the middle of a conversation. "And...Weeellll, I can talk so they'll hear and understand, but I can't hear anything back yet. That's a different set of invocations. But yeah, Yube's pretty smart." Very impressive Mumei

"But what's a hippopotami? I don't think I've run into those." A sudden screech and crash from the screen draws a glance and a wince. ooohh, speaking of running into...

"Ooh. I'd love to go! That sounds like a lot of fun" Nara beamed a big smile, looking at the others then back at Hide "I like to sing. My father said I have a really nice voice."

"At least he's communicatin'?" Atsumori looked a little concerned. "That's good, yeah?" The flaming pile of debris on-screen dragged his attention away for a moment. A figure was walking away from the crash without looking back, silhouetted by the fire. "Whoa. Nice shot there."

Hippopotami quickly diverted him from the film again, however, at least partly. "Oh, they're remarkable beasts. Imagine a kind of fat pony, but about two hundred percent wider. Skin more like an elephant or a pig. And they swim as well as run. They're actually closer related to whales and porpoises than anythin'." His damp hair fell back toward his eyes as he nodded animatedly. "As far as I know, nobody's brought 'em to any other worlds, except maybe in a zoo somewhere. Too big and mean to be anybody's choice for world-shaping, and too particular about their habitat. They only live on a little bit of the homeworld, around about the Senupeto provinces."

She nods to the question about Izumi, "Yeah, they treated him and let him out pretty quick, sounds like. Now he's having some issues with his communicator." From her amused grin, it could be surmised that they were not major issues. She raises her battered communicator. "We should trade comm codes, neh?" She glances at Hide. "keep plans straight for karaoke, and..." as much as she does not want the elegant competition around for this operation, she makes a concession to her one rank of knowing what politeness is, "yours too Susumu-sama...ahh, in case someone cancels and we can fit a different 6th person in."

Her imaginings of a fat pony related to whales was...nowhere close to what an actual hippo looked like, though Mumei had the correct spirit of utter ridiculousness in her mental image. And then his hair fell in his eyes and she clamped onto Hide's elbow to keep from reaching out to tuck it back, nodding along with the recitation until she thought her voice would work properly.

"An angry...fat pony whale...that can run... Wait?! They're only on the homeworld? You've been there?" There was a definite eagerness to the question.

"Oh, yeah, sure thing!" Atsumori fished his communicator out of his hip pocket and called up his personal five-elements code. His comm was a Phoenix model, so of course the little square barcode matrix had a properly auspicious elemental design at each corner, with the smaller square in the middle bearing a decorative symbol for Void. "You want to scan me, or shall I scan you?"

"I know, what luck, right? I just left a few weeks ago. Kind of miss it already, if I'm honest. Wasn't easy to get that internship, but it was worth it... and not just for the hippopotamus."

"I can scan yours, if you have it up." Only the best unintentional innuendo here. "I only really remember how to opencast mine, I'd have to dig around the settings for the visible code." She releases the Matsu's elbow to reach over and catch the flashing matrix. "Phoenix use such pretty codes. Mine's just pixels, as far as my eye can tell."

"Would it be horrible if I wanted to find a time to ask an utterly ridiculous number of questions about your time there? I really want to visit someday but..." a sharp inhale as she realizes, "you had to have taken pictures, right?"

Atsumori obligingly held his comm closer. "Is it pretty? I don't really look at it that often," he admitted. "Back home the ambient magic plays with the short range signals sometimes, when the Isawa have an experiment going, so you get in the habit of doin' it this way."

"Horrible? No!" His eyes widened a bit, and then a slow grin appeared. "Are you joking? My friends back home are already sick of hearin' about it, Nakauchi-san." He shook his head, cheerfully rueful (if such a combination of expressions was possible, Atsumori was the kind of person to discover it). "I didn't see everything there is to see, of course... it's a big planet, and I was mostly working and all. But I'd be fair stoked to talk about it if you're interested."

"Yes! I want to hear as much as I can. If I ever get to go, it might not be for long, and the more I can....feel how the planet is beforehand, the more likely I can attune to it a bit when I try to commune with it." His enthusiasm is obviously infectious, at least where she's concerned, though they're kind of blocking Hide's view of the movie, which continues to be even more dramatic than they are.

She lifts her communicator. "I'll ping you? Go explore and hear all about it?"