[D5 LM] - Creepy Places Deserve Haunting Music (Open)

[Nozomi]

"Sort of an added bonus. I burn easily." She grunted with a sourness to her expression. "Always preferred night and morning shifts. The sun's a little bright for me, though I know how to get by just fine." The plight of albinism, a sensitivity most folks probably wouldn't understand for a long time.

"Adding the veil ... it hasn't all been about him. Kind of a practical thing, really, and you would not believe how much it creeps people out sometimes."

[Bayushi Umeno]

"The veil or the rest?" Umeno smirked a bit. "Still, must be a bit tough, living up in the mountains, unless you bury yourself into a cave. Not a lot of cover, yeah?"

[Nozomi]

"Hate it enough that I pitched a tent while all you lowlanders slept in that nice bit of kindling the Seidou call a castle," she muttered with a dark laugh. "It's not so bad if you know where to lurk, but that's part of why I end up going down to the bogs on foraging duty as often as I do. More shadows to cover the eye. Get used to it even if I don't exactly love it. We're not really the cave-y types usually. There's a couple decent ones near the village, but the rocks in there are hard to work with. Ugly gray-black crap."

[Bayushi Umeno]

Umeno gave a shrug. "Well, we all have our burden's to bear... and bare. I'm sure you've figured your life out around it all fairly well, so who am I to give any sort of advice or sympathy? I guess I get enough sun for both of us anyway, not that you'd be able to tell with how little tanned I am now. I blame the travelling in wagons."

Her armor covered most of Umeno, but she held up an arm an pinched a bit of exposed skin, which while dark compared to Phi, was most certainly not the tan of most outdoors types.

[Nozomi]

"Advice I don't mind, but... yeah. No sympathy. That'll just get the broad side of any true Hikaru's tongue." She snickered a little. "And you don't exactly seem like the type to want it too, no offense. I get a 'can stand on my own, thank you' vibe off you." She did look at her skin and nodded. It was pale, but there was a difference there, if she gauged it right. She at least tanned a little.

"I've always been like this. Guess it's just how my skin was. I hear those Cranes have pretty pale skin too. Heh. Betcha a few are jealous."

[Bayushi Umeno]

"Oh, I'd rather have sympathy than advice myself. Sympathy's easier to ignore. People that give you advice typically can't wait for you to follow it, even if you won't."

She paused, thoughtful. "Bayushi's pretty pale, lots of the Scorpion are really. None of the Kuwagaya ever were, always outdoors in the sun. Never met a Crane, but I've seen them around the wagons. Half seem pale, but I've seen a few darker than any Kuwagaya I'd ever remembered."

[Nozomi]

"Ah, right. That one," she said, nodding. "I've seen him around. The one who talks about himself in the third person. He's... an odd one." She wasn't quite sure how she felt about him, but she hadn't talked to him for more than a second yet. That was going to change before the end of the night, oh it definitely would.

"I want to say, skin that dark? That's a gift of his people. Doesn't feel like the sort of thing you get in the fields. Most Hikaru look like they're always out in the field, always hunting something. Tanned as all get out. I kind of stand out there, but they're used to it."

[Bayushi Umeno]

Umeno shrugged, clearly not invested in the matter. "Couldn't care less about skin tone. I mean, sure, I'm more used to some than others, but not really any of my business. Never understood people superstitious about it, let alone wary."

[Nozomi]

"Superstitions are the sort of thing that only make sense to the person who has them. I've heard a few wild ones in my life." Like, for example, the blind girl hanging small stick effigies of people around the camp as charms to ward off angry spirits... "That's the sort of thing that people do that others think is stupid. With enough familiarity I guess the folks back home just got used to me not being bad luck."

After all, they weren't all dead were they?

[Bayushi Umeno]

Umeno gave a grinned smirk. "Bad luck, eh? Well I can even that out then. Even if hardly anyone liked he back home, I had a reputation for bein' quite lucky."

[Nozomi]

"Did you now?" She snorted some and smirked over at her. "I take it you had a knack for keeping the folks traveling with you alive did you? Or just a gift for making sure your targets weren't before they could do much harm? Cause it's the same difference in the end."

[Bayushi Umeno]

"Haven't traveled with people much, so I dunno," she said thoughtfully. "Still, it's seemed to be a bit more of the later. My luck never extended to the other guards after all."

[Nozomi]

"At the end of the day... we have to make our own luck. Superstitions are just that. They only really go so far. Anyone who think my eyes're bad luck? Well, they're a fool if you ask me. But you taking out the enemy? Now that's luck." She liked results, not sayings.

[Bayushi Umeno]

Umeno chuckled darkly. "Make your own luck Phi. That's all that matters in the end."

[Nozomi]

"Agreed. I should get going. It's been good to talk." She gave her a wave. "Hope your luck stays solid for the rest of this mad voyage. And mine as well." And, as long as Umeno had no need of her, she'd be on her way.

/exit