Celadine Hills (Farmland)

Listening to Jun’s story, Naoki nods somberly in acknowledgment. There is common ground on at least that, Naoki figures, the strong desire not to be taken advantage of. For several moments after Kate’s remark, Naoki remains silent, choosing her words.

“Right,” says Naoki, with some measure of confidence.

Shifting slightly to address Jun directly, she continues, “Allow me, now, to say that I have no hard feelings, and cannot justify holding any against you. As I see it, you had no such malice in mind. You meant to do as you have done, and not be pushed to the bottom by what you saw as an attempt of mine to undermine your autonomy. Your shouting and harsh words were only in response to my own- an appropriate response, for which I can’t blame you. Though perhaps you could have responded differently and de-escalated the situation, it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to. ”

Though still not quite smiling, the corners of her mouth are turned slightly upward, and she nods solidly at the conclusion of her statement in an attempt to convey good faith. For another moment, she hesitates, unsure if she should go on at all, but decides to.

“I feel as if I owe an explanation. … My conscious intention, why I have been trying to tempt you into bed has not been out of any desire of mine to dominate, to violate, or ‘take control of your destiny.' That would be exceedingly hypocritical of me. I never- never have, and would never force myself upon someone, having been a victim of such things myself.”

Without dwelling on that for more than a single beat, she continues, “But I tempt. I charm, I seduce, and I’m not above thinly veiled excuses to remove clothing. I would be lying if I said that my motivations were entirely pure, but I do it because…”

Naoki hesitates, rolling her shoulders as she searches for the right words.

“Because I care. I am a woman- a sensual woman, who loves to be loved and loves to love. I have the ability to gratify and satisfy like none other, and I want to use that to bring ecstasy those I care about. The reason I have chased you so is that I want to bring it to you- as an expression of my feelings and as a service. Some people make their friends gifts- they bake cakes, or give flowers. ... I make my friends walk funny.”

After pausing for a few moments to smirk slightly, she adds, “And again I would be lying through my teeth if I said that my immodest motivations are ever entirely selfless, I don’t mean to feign that pretense. It would be false to say that I don’t find you attractive and admire your wonderfully shaped behind, or that I don’t deeply regret ruining the opportunity that was last night.”

In speaking now, she seems both shameless and sincere, proceeding directly without so much as a second thought.

“But it has never been my intention to make you feel uncomfortable, pursue you as a ‘conquest’ or anything of the sort. I apologize that I came off as… as predatory, and seeking your submission. In hindsight, I ought to have abandoned my efforts after your first refusal. Or the second. Had I known all this at the time, I would have- and communicated more clearly. But I interpreted your evasiveness as related to your then-lover, and then as an unwillingness to try something ‘new,' with someone like me.”

Bouncing slightly in her seat, Naoki sets her chest in motion, an exceedingly obvious indication of her femininity.

“But most change their minds on that topic verrrry quickly once I have the chance to convince them, so I pressed. ... However. Now that you have made your stance clear to me and stated you are uninterested, I will- of course, cease to seek intimacy with you.”

Kate snickered at how Naoki and Jun both needed to make a formal address just to give a hug. Needlessly complicated as it was, she hypothesized it was so they could vent out their frustrations before settling down. Instead of voicing her thesis, Kate instead turned to hold both her friend and her aimée in a wide embrace.

"See how much easier it is just hugging it out." Kate tightened her grip and turned to Naoki. "Just don't spend too much time looking or I'm going to send her picking flowers from the seabed." She said jokingly. And without blinking.

"Yah... You may have a point."

Once they separated Jun fell back in her chair. The feeling of relief was comparable to finding out that you didn't fail that math test you really should have failed. After a few seconds, she suddenly shot back up.

"Oh! That reminds me! There was something I was going to show you, a new type of farm."

Looking less like an exhausted student and more like a bright-eyed child, Jun walked briskly towards the door. "Come on. Come on!" She beckoned as if desperate to put the whole episode behind them.

---

Assuming they heeded her call, she would lead them back down the tower and out into the fields. It wasn't a very long walk. It would take them past some scenic hills and irrigated valleys, dotted with simple-robed land-tillers working with tools and casting spells. There was one particular field they were headed towards, a field filled with verdant rice stalks interspersed with small, clover-like ferns.

At first it wouldn't seem all that extraordinary, but nearby were several large crates from emanated a fervent chorus of... quacks?

"They aren't native to the expanse you see. We actually got them from Gauldin. They're a bit of a nuisance but we found a bunch of uses for them, and frankly I think they're cute. We're still training them. I was supposed to arrive sooner to release them but I think they'll be alright."

When she got close enough, she raised her hands towards the crates, whose lids flew off.

A mass of wings and feathers exploded out from the crates. Ducks. Dozens of strange, almost regal-looking waterfowl with green crests and fluffed out brown manes scattered across the field and started diving into the plants. They seemed to be feeding on something voraciously.

One of the royal looking birds, for whatever reason, took a detour from the main group and instead landed right in front of Lady Naoki and Kate. It looked up at them coolly without making a sound, as if it was waiting for them to commit a crime.

Jun chuckled awkwardly.

As eager to move on as the others, Naoki is glad to be led and follows happily. Out in the sun, looking on quietly as Kate interrogates the populace, Naoki begins to get the feeling that the trip proper has now started. Out here, hundreds of miles away from any stately obligations, there’s a certain sense of silence that's unfamiliar. No one ringing in her earring, no meetings to attend. Not today, not tomorrow, or even the day after. It’s an unusual feeling, Naoki finds.

Naoki also begins to get the feeling that she should have brought a hat. It’s awfully damn bright out here.

Soon enough, they are upon the crates. As the ducks emerge and spread across the lake, Naoki’s ears move quickly, turning toward the source of each quack.

“Ducks.” She states the obvious. And such ducks, at that; among the best looking ducks Naoki has seen to date. That’s something about Gauldin, she supposes. Everything is far fancier than it needs to be. And it seems the birds are no exception.

Having run afowl of a rotten duck once before, Naoki isn’t entirely keen to approach closer than a few feet. As such, she stands a bit behind Kate and meets the gaze of the audacious duck. It seems shady. Naoki looks down the end of her nose toward it, unblinking.

What, duck? Have you something to say?

It was needless to tell Kate to take any sort of notes. Her mind was overclocking itself like a watchmaker gnome at Giantsville. The methods weren't exactly revolutionary, but the sheer scope in which they had accomplished the cultivation of the crops was impressive. It was a semi-autonomous ecosystem that would require less upkeep since pest control was done organically. It would be impossible to make something like this inside the city, but the surrounding fields could make good use of these techniques.

There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask but was distracted by the fowl invasion on Naoki's tail. She'd probably scream or something else as well, which would certainly catch Kate's attention.

Her first thought was thinking what Naoki had eaten today to prompt such action from the bird. Her second thought was to slap herself in the face for the first. Her body was moving before the third thanks to the reflexes learned during growing up with unruly animals. "Shoo! Shoo!" She clapped loudly next to the duck to scare it away. If successful, she'd chase it away for a few feet further on the account of trespassing on the nibble-territory reserved only for family, friends and special guests. Even as she chased the poor bird, she held back a laugh. If the Empress business fell through, Naoki could just as well earn her keep fly-fishing.

"There is no such thing as a friendly bird, Jun. They're animals, just like bears and wolves," She stated matter-of-factly, the corner of her mouth betraying the sober facade. "They can't- _*pfft* They can't always be trusted. Take notes." She said cockily.

She felt Naoki might be a bit tense so for all the jokes she wanted to make at her expense she instead stroke her tail and checked it for any damage that might have occurred during the onslaught. "You 'kay, hun?"

Jun's lips pressed together and widened, as if the crease between them had forgotten what curvature to take to either smile or frown. She muttered the phrase "Vokri", and after a few seconds Naoki would sense little strands of auburn hair start to prickle their way out of her tail's follicles to take the place of their fallen comrades.

The duck had waddled off somewhere, still carrying the fuzzy bundle in its beak.

"Now I may be wrong..." Jun said in a drawn out, somewhat academic tone. "But I believe he mistook your tail for a fox's, which are natural predators of ducks. He's a real knight in shining armor, that one. I'm thinking of naming him Foxbane... er, that is, assuming his assault on your person doesn't constitute an act of war on Isra." She chuckled nervously. "Anyways, the ducks will continue their work. I don't think I had a chance to properly answer your question. We may want to check out the new elven spiritual center on Mt. Silver. It sounds boring but-" She leaned in and whispered loudly, "-it's basically a spa."

Her eyebrows waggled slightly, in the hopes that the duck incident would quickly evanesce away like deja vu.

Naoki’s eyebrows furrow with something akin to discomfort as the fur on her tail returns. A strange and not wholly pleasant feeling, that. The sensation of hair growing so quickly. Spending a moment to examine the site, Naoki is surprised to find... nothing. Her tail seems just as it was, just as it ought to be.

“Mmmh… my thanks,” Naoki supposes aloud. Talk of the beast’s intentions falls on deaf ears, though those same ears perk at the mention of going somewhere else. That seems like an excellent idea.There ought not to be any damn birds over there, one would hope. More likely, there would be hot springs, scantily clad elves, and quiet places suitable for recreational massaging - all of which Naoki can get behind.

Though still slightly ruffled, Naoki smiles and nods her agreement. “By all means,” she says, “Let’s.”

[ A week before Jun's meeting with Doobie ]
It's spring in the Celadine territories, and the rolling hills are bathed in the warm noon sunlight. The sky is a brilliant azure, and puffy snow white clouds drift lazily by overhead. A gentle breeze sets the grass rustling and swaying, sending rippling waves of gold and green through the grasslands. A lovely day it is, all things considered.

This day, a peculiar pair grace the hilly landscape. Atop the crest of one of the mounds, a large, muscular man with snow white hair and a strong jawline, the picture of a noble knight of old, lay sprawled beside a diminutive brunette, his left arm wrapped about her shoulders as he holds her close to him. Eyes of deep violet gaze lazily up at the sky, tracking the clouds with mild interest. Any denizen of the Land-Tiller's State knows that this is Jun of the Celadine, many-times saviour of the world and heroine to all, and her considerably less well-known boyfriend, Vaelar Black, former Medanese noble and de jure leader of the semi-famous mercenary company, The Order of the Hammer.

Vaelar points up at the sky with his right hand, and the sleeve of his flowing white tunic slips down to reveal interlocking plates of mithril covering his skin from his elbow downward, attached to his flesh like a very intimate glove. Runes of Dwarven origin cover it almost completely, and with every motion of his arm or hand, a different sequence of runes glows blue for a moment before going dark once again. A strange contraption, to be sure.

"See that one there, love?" he asks, indicating a strangely-shaped cumulus cloud in the sky. "That one looks just like Blackbean."
The cloud is vaguely bird-shaped, but the mind does most of the work in turning it into a crow in particular. Vaelar doesn't expect Jun to respond. Jun has been in a bad place for the last year or so, and he's willing to do anything he can to help her break out of her funk. Some might call what she's doing self-betterment, what with all the incessant training she's been submitting herself to since the accident. True, Vaelar trains for combat every day even if he no longer takes an active part in the management of his mercenary company, but Jun's constant drill to the neglect of all else in his mind can not be good for her overall health.

He'd tried to reason this out with her in the beginning, but after the incident in which her failed attempt to cast a high-powered spell cost him his sword arm and caused her great pain, it had been hard to rationalise why it was bad to keep training to stop that from happening again. And so, Vaelar was helpless to do anything but watch as she ground herself down to exhaustion and starvation before collapsing into a restless sleep upon whatever surface she found herself. Finally, in the middle of one of her thirty-eight hour training sessions, Vaelar had stopped her mid-punch, taken her in his arms and told her that they ought to go somewhere nice to relax after she'd exerted herself so much. After a very lovely picnic -- for which Vaelar fixed a great number of delicious treats, including the first meal they'd ever eaten together, Sellsword Stew -- they had lain upon the hills to watch the clouds go by, and talked until they each nodded off into a nice afternoon nap.

That was months ago, and the tradition has carried on ever since. Jun's pathological commitment to gaining power at the cost of her very self has certainly been winding down somewhat, but Vaelar's come to enjoy the daily outings, and, he hopes, so has she. He leans his head over to rest upon the crown of her own, sharing his warmth and his calm with her. He knows she's hurting, and badly, but he's always been better at causing misery than salving it. All he can do now is share her pain, and hope it helps her come back from whatever bad place she's found herself in.

Vaelar does not sigh in disappointment, or shake his head, or attempt to rationalise away Jun's self-hatred. Instead, he simply holds her closer to him and plants a gentle, loving kiss upon the crown of her head.
"It'll be okay, sweetheart," he reminds her gently, for the hundredth time that week. It might not be okay now, but Jun has been getting better by his reckoning. Slowly but surely, it will be okay.

Vaelar turns to wrap his other arm about her, the warmth of the mithril plating surprisingly close to that of his average body temperature as it presses into her back. He turns her toward him and wraps her up in his arms to hold her close to his chest, turning onto his back again so that she's laying upon him. His arms may not be as all-encompassing as her gambeson, but he's surely just as warm.

"You know, I think those may have been the best honey butter rolls I've ever made," he states mildly, referencing their earlier picnic in an attempt to get Jun to think of something other than beating herself up, "and the Cremeschnitte was pretty good too. Could've been better, but it was my first time making that recipe. What do you think?"