"Most do not know their own depths, Kuchiki-san. Kami are easy in comparison. Stars are harder...but I'm not convinced that's because they are more complicated, rather than more alien." She picks up on the shift in tone, if not from whence it comes.

Crouching beside a mixed planting of tiny flowers scattered on ferny stalks, and knee high mushrooms that glow brightly in UV, she pushes the goggles up to look at the bright yellow of the flowers and the corrugated browns of the mushrooms. "It's tough to look at ourselves with...whatever the equivalent of UV goggles is to pick up the other kinds of energy we absorb and reflect. A mirror doesn't cut it. Picking something that defines you, or anyone else, is an entirely different exercise than finding depths.

"Is that such a bad thing, Nakauchi-san? If you had a magic pair of glasses that let you see the sum total of a person at a glance, would that actually be good?" he asked.

He looked at a speckled worm that....you couldn't see at all with the glasses on, as it crawled by. He'd only noticed it as he'd taken the glasses off for a moment to adjust them.

"Huh, look at this worm, Nakauchi-san. It's invisible if you look at it with the glasses. Some kind of defense mechanism do you think?"

"I don't know if it would be good or bad, Kuchiki-sama, but it would make some things easier. Like...finding suitable matches in a crowd of young samurai."

She examines the worm. A larval form, or was this an adult? Either way. "Maybe. But it would stand out as a void on these bright ones. So either predators have trouble noticing that, or that's not where they hang out." The...she would have said leaf litter, but more like fungal litter, was noticeably less reactive in UV.

Before offering a full explanation, she asks, "you know that what we're seeing with these is probably not what other creatures see, neh? Those blues are made blue for us, but the things that see them without aid see a color we don't have words for." Not that light spectrums were her specialty either, but you never knew just which bits of information anyone had.

Tsugiharu nodded.

"Hm, so it could be a defect in the glasses. Whatever higher color the worm actually produces only rendering it invisible to the glasses. Though one would then wonder if the defense is against gardeners rather than natural predators." he offered.

"A defect? No. Merely that we can't entirely see through another's eyes, unless the kami can be convinced to let us do just that." She taps the goggles. "These...imagine what might be seen?" She's more used to the technology when looking at stars and galaxies to map out routes and envision all of the energies at play there. "This might get long..."

"We see this flower interacting with the spirits of light and water and air...and we see it as a color we call blue. I don't understand the whole of that interaction myself. But...we know some people, don't see blue...it's all greys. Something is amiss with even their ungifted abilities to interact with those spirits. Right?" She considers. "You probably understand that side of it better than I would."

"We can't see the interactions happening at another level, with the dance of kami up into colors more violet than violet and deeper red than red. Just this little rainbow of color. But other creatures see this blue, and that color we can't. We're all seeing in grey compared to them. So they might still see the colors of this worm just fine." Which...leads back to the goggles she holds up.

"If we want to imagine those colors, this has to show them to us in a color we can see and understand, because we can't change our eyes or minds enough to see colors we don't know...well...not with a 1 bu set of spirit tech at least. So these show us those colors in oddly glowing blues and reds and golds. But that means it needs to dim the blues and reds and golds we'd usually see, or we'd have trouble seeing these overlays. Imagine laying a transparent holoscroll on top of another and trying to read both. It's really hard if you don't make them contrast differently somehow."

Tsugiharu listened attentively throughout the explanation. All knowledge was useful somehow, and he wasn't going to miss any by letting his mind wander. Defect might be too harsh a word, it was just one that was on his mind alot lately. He wondered if Phoenix nobility had access to higher end models that could customize their shows.

"Hmmm, I take your point Nakuchi-san. Although one wonders what particular meaning there is in this worm's mix of muted colors. To better blend in to it's surroundings to hide from predators? Or perhaps the local fauna know that such colors mean it's toxic. Most fauna use very bright colors to warn of that, but given the number of worlds there are, that rule might not always be true."

"That. Is a job for the scientists to study. Because I doubt we'll solve it on this walk." She points to the muted loam. "Though it does seem likely to blend in there pretty well if it tends to stay on the ground."

"Which...is perhaps not a bad tactic to emulate here, when not ranked particularly well by the metrics of the Phoenix nakodo. Better to be overlooked by the brighter birds to possibly have a chance at making your own choice."

Tsugiharu chuckled a bit at the analogy.

"Well perhaps, as long as the Phoenix nadako don't consider you so unimportant they throw you out with the compost." he said, conscious that was a strong possibility for himself.

He looked over at the Osprey.

"So if Nakauchi-san is not hoping to be stolen away by the fanciest noble most favored by the Phoenix, what kind of choice would she like to make, had she that power?"

Mumei sighs and becomes very interested in fiddling with her visor. "That is a very popular question, and I've only the most vague ideas. I live from ship to ship, which is just how it is for a Navigator. How do you even have a marriage around that? So...I guess I hope I like whoever it is and that they're either also hopping ship to ship or don't mind being alone a lot." It would also be nice if they were pleasant to tumble too, but that did not seem like something to say out loud.

"And you, Kuchiki-sama? Have you found any preferences in the few days of the miai?"

Tsugiharu chuckled a bit.

"My apologies for asking a boring question, Nakauchi-san. I'll endeavor to be more creative in my approach from here on in." he said. "My preferences hardly matter though. My clan was fairly explicit as to what qualities would best suit the clan. One wishes for a harmonious partnership of course, but I doubt you'll find anyone just wishing for a truly irritating partner."

He looked at a nearby tree of an interesting hue and then looked up.

"What is your favorite type of star, Nakauchi-san, and why?"

She intended to say that it wasn't dull, just common and not easy to answer. But that was cut off decisively by Tsugiharu's question.

"Oh...that's so hard, like asking for your favorite child." Which has to be a rote answer, because almost everyone has a favorite child, even if it's not nice to say so. "The young ones are so active, reaching and aware in ways that are new to them, but they are very, very hard to really synch up with. They haven't touched enough yet. The old ones have, but they are ancient beyond my mind's grasp and alien, but easier to learn about through communion. I love how fast-hot the little white ones burn though, I think they're my favorite at all ages. They run fast, for a star, and you can't help but come away from communion with them inspired...your own flame struggling to match them."

She winds down to a stop...Nakauchi shop talk could get a bit impenetrable. "Ah...hmm...in a similar light, does Kuchiki-sama have a favorite...tiny organism?"

____
(because I can't remember if they're called microbes or anything of the sort here.)

Tsugiharu chuckled a bit.

"Hm, in a similar light you say? That's quite good."

He waved the question off a bit though.

"Well, unfortunately Nakauchi-san, being attached to the military some of the more interesting specimens I've studied are highly classified. Precautions against them getting into the wrong hands of someone who might use them for fairly dishonorable means. So I will need to be sparse with the details. I will say it's interesting how greatly they range in many respects, such as durability. There are some bugs that you can freeze in a block of ice, haul halfway across the Empire, set the ice down on an entirely new world, and the bug will go right back to what it was doing before you froze it. Other specimens, a barely noticeable temperature change is the different between aggressive growth, and death."

He looked down the path a bit.

"Hm, speaking of temperature, how are you finding the weather here? This has to be quite different than the climate controlled environment on a ship."

And despite cliches surrounding talking about the weather, she found herself more than happy to finally complain about it.

"I mean, I've been planetside dozens of times, and this has to be the stickiest, swampiest air I've ever been in." She rests against a large stone, a short, sharp nod dropping the goggles back into place. "I feel like my skin might just start sprouting mushrooms if I stay her too long."

She sighs, tilting her head as she stares at some sort of lichenous growth that drapes in graceful curtains from a sprawling trellis. "I guess this kind of sight is why people think it's worth it." To human vision, it's a drapery of lavender and ochre gold, lovely in its own right. The visor displays a curtain of hues rippling with any breeze.

Tsugiharu sat down a close, but not too close to the Osprey. One had to maintain proper distance as was proper.

He nodded.

"True on both accounts, Nakauchi-san." he agreed. This weather was not exactly fit for a researcher from an artificial world either as the sweat on his brow would attest.

He watched the flow of the fungus.

"Hm, well some say there is no art without suffering. It seems a fair trade, but for those moving to this world, I hope the customs as far as clothing goes are relaxed as they can be to accommodate the weather. Can you imagine walking about in one of those outfits you see in period pieces? Like trying to survive out here in what, eight layers of kimono?"

"Pheww. That'd be murder. I've performed in that kind of thing during training," she holds her arms out, perfectly miming the weight of pounds of silk draping from her arms. "Had to be soo careful with the historical outfits, and they weren't even from old Rokugan. They were costumes from the start, but real silk and weighed a ton."

"But the stuff I've seen the locals wearing looks a lot lighter and more comfortable. If I were staying, I'd definitely trade this outfit for a local one." She tugs at the sleeve of her jacket as if to widen it. "They've got poofy sleeves and legs, light fabrics. Must be some kind of material that stays a bit poofy instead of just wilting and sticking to you in this damp heat."

"Have you ever seen ancient outfits? Like in a display or anything?" Museums weren't really a thing except the living one of Rokugan itself. But plenty of wealthy samurai collected and displayed such things.

A small shrug.

"I've seen pictures in my studies. I had a sensei who believed that to truly understand a topic, you had to go all the way back to the beginning. And I don't mean beginning like, "Here's where we study Shiku the mother of modern medicine.' but all the way back where the focus was almost entirely on wound treatment, and you just had to pray really hard if you got ill."

He watched one of the rainbow-hued butterflies float by on the warming currents of air in the garden.

"Though to be honest, it was actually somewhat informative. With nothing but the Kami's teachings and experimentation they got quite far. Frequent bathing, especially when one was involved in combat, utilization of the local herbs to treat toxins, proper waste management, burning villages if they were lost to a plague to prevent it's spread. Don't get me wrong, if I get sick, I want a real medic, not a time travelling doctor from the past, but it was a good reminder that even things we consider wholly modern, they were built on a very impressive past."

"We do hang onto our past," she taps her wakizashi with a wry grin. "I'd like to go visit the old world and look at that past. But you're right. I probably would not want to live there, when the stars were just...points of light flung by the kami, instead of their living, breathing siblings."

"Even as familiar as we are with the healing powers of the water kami, I'm glad we have modern medical treatment to fill in for the things they cannot do." She breathes deep, as her eyes flit between the butterflies, some kind of hovering swarm and the dancing veil of fungus.

"Huh...I just noticed that even here with all the growth, the air doesn't smell odd to me anymore. This is just normal now. Hope our clothes aren't permanently stamped with the Asakaze smell."

Tsugiharu blinked at that. He really hadn't noticed that.

"Hm, well less an issue for those who'll be making this their new home. For those of us not, there will probably be some ribbing waiting about being a 'fun-guy' until the smell can be laundered out. But people do adapt pretty readily to the new normal. Quite probably a good lesson for the miai. I'm sure in time, should things transpire that way, you'll eventually get used to be addressed as something instead of 'Nakauchi-san.'"

Mumei nods and smirks at the pun with a small shake of her head. "Well...minor clan. So I've been expecting a different name unless I'm paired off with one of my fellow Alliance friends. But that doesn't make as much sense, politically, as everyone picking up some great clan connections." She's relatively blasé about the dispassionate nature of the equation.

"I'm a little surprised there aren't more locals participating though, since I imagine a big reason for this event was to get the current generation married off to better advantage than they'd get all staying local or trying to get a word in edgewise at offworld courts."

A small shrug from Tsugiharu.

"Well, I would assume the governor is trying to recruit able bodied warriors to expand the Phoenix's control of the planet. And so a batch of invitations were released, which were then entered into the grand game of politics where they were exchanged for favors and promises of all sorts. It's hard to place a hard value on a miai invitation after all. Is it worth a school opportunity or ten barrels of protein goo? I assume somewhere along the way a Susumu intervened for some scheme or another diverting a surprisingly high number into the hands of the Spider, much to the governor's consternation."

He watched one of the local birds snatch a bug mid=flight, and sail off with it's first meal of the day.

"But so it goes for running a colony as does much of life. You don't have the ideal parts to hand, but you make them work the best they can."