Pssst didja hear? [Sound test]

[all_that_glimmers]

Who: Yuuko+Mineto
Where: After game start
What: Gossip swap~



When most people talk to their plants they don't expect the plants to talk back, let alone lean into water like a cat looking for attention. It had been a hot day and humans and youkai weren't the only ones feeling too hot. One of these days Yuuko would remember to install air conditioning in the shop but her water magic was keeping her cool for now. Other people in the shop would be less fortunate.

"Have you heard the news?" Yuuko asked lighty as she fussed over the plant.

Comments

[all_that_glimmers]

"Evil is not a human invention," Yuuko said simply. "A trip to Four Lions or the subway will find you relative evil but maybe its just definitions and societies. In our society youkai society would seem rather evil and depraved in many ways. And then there's bureaucracy, lawyers, and loan sharks in every society! That guarantees evil will thrive forever.

"And grading when willpower exists? For example," Yuuko leaned in with a cat's smile, "where does someone like I rate on your ideal scale?"

[warbringer]

Mineto seemed a little puzzled. "If I have to tell you where you are, you aren't on it at all," he said simply, as he took a downwards look.

[all_that_glimmers]

"Too bad." Yuuko pulled away with a slight shrug and melodramatic sigh. "I don't make the cut at all for the great Mineto Ozaki. Ah well. I have several years to prove you wrong but the person you're looking for will probably have to be someone extra-ordinary. Or a Gary Stu/Mary Sue.

"Or maybe you'll be lucky and the influx of new mages will bring you someone? Or the love god will help do the work for you and prune out the weak ones."

[warbringer]

Nothing registered on Mineto's face at the literary terms. In the end he decided they weren't worth the effort and sat himself in the chair that was tucked in the corner of the room, swinging around to face her and lounging like he owned the place.

"I do things myself, but you cannot hope he'll do your work simply by wishing it."

[all_that_glimmers]

"Nope, that'd be impossible now," Yuuko said, nonplussed. "He doesn't have any places to offer those wishes anymore for one. He's also the wrong god to grant any wishes I might have and even if he were, gods aren't reliable or completely altruistic."

She picked up a vial from the side and it glowed a dark blue at her touch. "But as they say, if you want to do something right do it yourself. The love god might just end up being good news for me in the end or he may make things more difficult but the playing field will be changing."

[warbringer]

"No, there's still the odd place," Mineto said, more to himself. But what he said was in earshot. "Just a few. But..."

He thought of the parks in the city and the bear statues, and the increasingly prevalence of them made him feel a little unpleasant.

"I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil. Nor should you."

[all_that_glimmers]

"As long as none appear as customers," Yuuko replied. "If the love god came in here and demanded service as the owner I couldn't turn him away. Literally, given the raw power he'd have. I wonder how many vials he would fill..."

She shrugged again. "A question for someone else. I have no intention of joining in on power struggles - I'm a simply a shopkeep, though excellent, and have more pressing priorities."

[warbringer]

"Speaking of which," Mineto said, "I did come here for a reason."

He leaned forward as he spoke.

"Do you have the list?"

[all_that_glimmers]

"It's never just a social call." Yuuko sighed and shook her head. She walked over to the counter, though, and touched a panel. It took a moment to ask the wood to move but it gave, slowly sliding enough for her to pick up a brightly colored piece of sticky pad paper.

"It may make you less depressed than usual to know there's a few more names on the list than usual."

[warbringer]

In a curious, amused sort of way his eyes followed the paper from the desk to the air as he remained seated - one hand drumming a pattern on the arm. The other pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh," he said. "Before you were born I was making social calls. If I wasn't, I'd take it and go. So stop it with the melodrama," an irritable sigh came out his mouth. "Kids."

[all_that_glimmers]

"But it's a healthy expression of my personality!" Yuuko pouted, but it gave way to a smile. "And you wouldn't even need to take it and go, Oza-jisan. There's a wonderful invention most bosses use these days called email - instant information and saves trees."

She walked around an passed the list to him. Her writing was neat with each name with additional notes and recommendations.

[warbringer]

"Sometimes I assume you believe I haven't changed with the times." A nod. "Yes, I enjoy a call. But the day technology surpassed social interaction was the day our people became idiots."

His tone was scathing, joking, but also questionable - all these mechanical inventions yet none had lightened his burden.

[all_that_glimmers]

"That's what's in the news these days," Yuuko replied. "Kids being stuck on their videogames, people who text people in the same room rather than talking to the person, employees being fired over video instead of in person... I could make a machine for my work but there's something clinical and impersonal about it that turns customers off. And it makes it harder to get just the right mixes.

"But technology also makes it easier to find and reach out to people, as you already know."

[warbringer]

But it made no difference to Mineto's problem. He knew technology wouldn't help him. He did not blame it. He knew how useful it could be as well as faster, and as much as Yuuko did. Perhaps he was hoping it would change something. But he thought there was something missing - important indeed, because computers did not create the right quality in a person.

"Of course. It's also making everything more precise and brutal. I suppose I can appreciate that."

[all_that_glimmers]

"It's been like that for the past few hundred years or so according to the history books," Yuuko said. "I know you must have been around during the Industrial Revolution or so, or was that too far from battle fields? But brutal and precise is your nature and you literally."

[warbringer]

"The Meiji Restoration?" said Mineto. "I had just three things to teach; law, philosophy and the military. Education is the most powerful weapon. Its roots are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. War is a poor tool in comparison."

He rested his head on his fist.

"Some of the natives, unable to think, were less educated and less intelligent. They needed more literal schooling."

In short; he was a teacher.

[all_that_glimmers]

"You weren't from Japan originally?" Yuuko asked, actually sounding surprised for once. "And a teacher on top of that?"

[warbringer]

"It's common knowledge," Mineto said, leaning to the side. "For a few of us who are old enough to remember. Now it's a modern age, and still some people never learn anything."

[all_that_glimmers]

"Oh, we learn, but retaining it is the rub," Yuuko said. "That's the problem with school these days. They pound it in that you need to learn as much as possible so you can get into a good school and get a good job but push you to learn the most useless facts that no one is going to care about beyond whether it will help you past exams and assignments and once that's done it promptly disappears from the kids' little heads. Back in my day...no, actually, back in my day it was mostly useless too."

She shook her head with a delicate sigh but simply shrugged again. "Where did you come from?"

[warbringer]

"The Gallic Empire."

He hesitated and leaned against the other side, resting comfortably against the arm. That was a bit too old-fashioned. It didn't even exist anymore. "Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom. Western Europe."

[all_that_glimmers]

Yuuko whistled. "Then you're so old the place you're from doesn't exist anymore. You're not too bad looking for your age then, Oza-jisan."

[warbringer]

The moment the compliment left Yuuko's lips, Mineto's face switched from nostalgia to deep thought, and then it amused him that she had said it in the first place and he laughed.

"Now I'm sure to live two decades longer. Thank you."

[all_that_glimmers]

"Or two centuries or longer," Yuuko said with a bright smile. "You're not on your walker or sitting outside your property with a blade screaming for youngsters to get off your lawn yet. Though you could probably easily cash in for your senior discount."

[warbringer]

Patiently Mineto listened and waiting for her to finish speaking.

"Rest assured when people trespass on my lawn I shall cut them off at the knees." His voice was low, and he sat up in his chair. "Do stop making it seem like I've entered the last stage of my life. I don't plan to harvest my blessings just yet."

[all_that_glimmers]

"But blood on the grass tends to look rather tacky, and they'd probably say as much if you could hear them," Yuuko replied easily.

"I don't see you as that at all! By the time I'm toddering around or drop dead you'll still be looking as good as you are now."