Wedding at Fire Shrimp Village an L5R PbP

Hiruma Ōguri was seated on a large bench in the garden, watching colourful fish swirling in the well-designed channel surrounding the inn. One could think that his intense observation was culinary in nature, and he was just assessing their sashimi factor. Aha! While not entirely a baseless presumption, it was not true this time. The Crab was taking the necessary post-meal mass-accruing rest, and the pastime his mind invented was to figure out whether fish in the pond competed among themselves in any form of race!

Seeking a brief respite from the inside, one Kitsuki decided to visit the gardens. She took a short walk to get her blood pumping again after sitting so long. Spotting the Crab and noticing his attention was firmly fixed on the fish, after a moment she smiled.

"I fear if Crab-sama wishes for a show he will likely need to retrieve something to properly motivate his performers." She folded her hands into her sleeves and bowed, "This one is Kitsuki Tanaka, courtier in service of the Dragon."

"Of course! Ill-fed competitors are sluggish and weak!" The Crab spoke out even as he was turning to greet the woman. Adding a supple form with intelligent gaze to an interesting timbre that carried playful irony so well drew a broad smile out of the massive man, in addition to a bow, of course. "I am Hiruma Ōguri, a sumai maehashira of the Raikuto stable, yoroshiku, Kitsuki-san! I must ask you, in addition to other questions I want to ask you: do you perchance carry any loose rice or crumbs?"

“Sadly no, I carry no loose rice or crumbs,” Tanaka lets a moment pass to see if her words had drawn any sort of reaction. Then a sly smile formed on her lips, “But, perhaps, I could be persuaded to part with…” She drew out a small bag of honeyed sweets from her sleeves, “some of these. If the intended use is intriguing and the proposed method cunning. They are after all, a grander prize then a few discarded crumbs.”

"Ah, a worthy treat!" The wrestler brightened, enjoying a touch of slyness in a conversation. "So you want me to devise a clever plan? Very well! How about this: we sprinkle a bit of crushed sweets at opposite ends of the channel and watch fish gather there. Once they part into two groups, we rush toward the halfway point, deploy the main prize and see which group gets there first!"

Kitsuki Tanaka considered the plan a moment and by way of answer withdrew a single sweet. She crumbled it in her hand and held a closed fist level with the ground on her outstretched arm, ready to sprinkle half its contents into the Crab’s palm. “Intriguing enough, though I may seek to extract a replacement if things go awry.” The Kitsuki allowed herself a quiet chuckle.

“I assume there will be a certain amount of improvisation in the current plan?”

"I enjoy good honey, though can't say if fish do!" The Crab smirked, extending his thick arm. "If it's from me you'd extract a replacement, Kitsuki-san, then I am more than willing to invite you for a meal that can in aftermath yield more bait for fish races!"

He stepped away. "I say we do our best acting on our techniques and things are most likely to go right. But do tell, can you move fast from out there to right here for the second stage?"

"I would be honored Hiruma-san," Tanaka inclined her head, "Are you perhaps on your way to the Fire Shrimp Village? If so then our paths run parallel."

She took a step back, "I am not particularly fast I fear, but it should be sufficient for our purposes I think. I would ask you the same but I suspect a quickness of foot inside a sturdy frame."

"We shall see regardless." With that the Dragon made her way to her designated end and waited for some sort of signal to begin sprinkling the candy dust.

I am! There is a sumai tournament thrown because of the wedding. So we'll have an opportunity to meet for dinner. I am looking forward to it!

He looked at himself and grinned. "Hah, I can't complain neither on my footwork nor my fleetness of foot, but my dohyo opponents quite likely do!"

Conservation of momentum would dictate that the man's velocity could be difficult to control and yet he paced and strode toward his end point with trained grace, likely deliberately showing off to make it look attractive to his audience of one.

While there, he lifted his full hand over the water while extending his other hand toward her, folding fingers five to zero in regular intervals.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. FEEDDOWN!

And with the signal, the candy was sprinkled into the channel. Tanaka then made her way to the center as fast as she could...which given her attire was not that fast. For the traditional clothing of the courtier was not made for sport. Still she made it to the finish line, drawing out her bag of sweets as she moved.

"I...do not know what one who officiates a fish race is called." She holds up the open bag, offering one of the remaining sweets to sumai.

He had been there first, somehow marking the middle point with his presence to which Tanaka 'ran' up.

"An umpike?" He grinned, accepting the sweet to crumble it.

"...ha!" Tanaka chuckled, "Well umpike, I ask you show due to diligence in the performance of this duty." She pressed her lips together to give the most solemn of expressions, as if the fish race was a matter of life and death!

"It would be unbecoming to provide either team the advantage." Her little mask of grim intensity broke and the sly smile returned.

"Some think my ring sobriquet should be Wazanodaiheiki, the Great Armoury of Techniques! I know what diligence and precision are." He grinned with wry confidence. He really enjoyed her sense of humour, alternating between grim solemnity and slyness. "No unfair advantage shall be granted, may the best pod win!"

He did use his natural sense of distance to determine the exact middle point, then took his foot out of the geta and stirred the water there with his big toe before sprinkling the rippled area with crumbs. "Let's make bets! The loser composes a poem about this extraordinary occasion of the first sanctioned fish race this establishment has ever witnessed!"

Tanaka nodded at that, she had...as much as one was able while running and throwing candy...tried to observe the fish early in their little game. Of course it was not enough to make a fully educated guess, but it was better then nothing.

"Very well. I choose the ones you gave food to." She also took the moment to savor one of the remaining candies and offered one to the sumai. "The first? I suppose the clarification of sanctioned makes it so...likely we have been beaten to first race by some innovative child or three."