It wasn’t the best time to be out, with the burning red sun making everything ever so muggy. Being on the harbour mitigated some of discomfort with any winds the seas were kind enough to share. Hoshi was found with her fishing stick and a bowl of water beside her, sitting at the edge of the dock facing the Half Moon. She pulled one leg to her chest and steadied herself into a patient stance as she watched the water.

(Expecting someone)

Seiko sat quietly in the boat. She was still thinking about yesterday's storm, and that was making it difficult to think about her fishing. Of course, it would not do to come back without fish, but most of fishing was just sitting around, waiting for a fish to take a bite. What to do when waiting, but think?

If there was conversation to be had, it looked like yet would start with Hoshi.

Hoshi was fishing from a pier instead of a boat actually. Glancing to the Kaiu, she spoke up. "I see that you're well prepared for fishing already Kaiu-san."

Seiko blinked. That's funny. She was on the docks too. For a moment there, she could have sworn that she was on a boat.

How bizarre.

She shook her head. Hoshi was talking to her. About...

"Oh, hai," she replied, coming out of her fog. "Well, in part, it is because I've served on a ship before. Serve long enough, and just about any sailor picks up a bit of fishing from time to time."

Hoshi propped an arm on top of her knee, it wasn't a ladylike pose but she didn't think that the Kaiu was going to make a fuss with lecturing her on sitting habits. She gave a sound nod at the answer. "Mm. That would explain why it's slowly becoming everyone's pastime...Is that to say that all sailors are experts on fishing?"

"Well, I haven't met all sailors," Seiko replied. "And some sailors would prefer doing other things than fishing. But most sailors have taken up fishing, at one time or another, I would think."

She gave the smallest of shrugs.

"Do you fancy yourself becoming a fisher yourself, Bayushi-san?"

There was a glint in her eyes at the question and she shook her head. "No...and yes. I get plenty of fish but I don't consider myself a fisher by any means really. This would be one of my early attempts at doing so, not counting the festivals where the games are held. And here I was hoping on becoming a expert fisher by being a sailor alone. That's a pity."

"Everything good takes practice, Bayushi-san. Sometimes a lot of it."

Lost in her thoughts for a moment, Seiko allowed the tone of her voice to carry a bit of the wistful in it.

"Oh. I can confirm that is doubly true, unless you're the few truly blessed." Hoshi said that with some humour. "There's patience in practice, and sometimes you're not always meant to succeed. I was hoping that being a sailor at least set me on the right track to becoming an expert fisher. Mm, maybe I'll just stick to buying my catches instead. Less chancy that way ne?"

Seiko allowed a small smile in return.

"Well, being a sailor means spending a lot of time just waiting. Surely you will have gotten some practice in being patient by now."

She gave a her string a few idle tugs. "Maybe. Probably not in the same way as being a sailor, that I'm still learning much of. It's not an uncomfortable duty. Patience is something I have much of, but some could say that patience isn't a valued virtue as some make it out to be."

Seiko smiled a little more.

"Oh? Some would say that patience is more important to a Scorpion than another else," she teased. "All those elaborate, complicated plots need time to ripen after all, neh? Why, right now, I bet this conversation is part of some incredibly important plot that will spell a rise in fame for some Bayushi-sponsored geisha in two years."

Hoshi glanced off as she found the strength to fight down the urge to burst out in a laugh from the Crab's words. She glanced back with a released breath that blew away the end of that action. "Kaiu-san, I'm guessing that you've must have been taken from all of the legends you've heard of my Clan. I didn't know that they have that much of a profound effect on others. Hai, patience is important, but not always something that's exclusive to be used in elaborate and complicated plots. You must think too highly of me to be responsible for that. The Scorpion as well."

Seiko made an exaggerated show of blinking in mock consternation.

"Is Bayushi-san telling me that all the Crab stories I have come to know so well about the Scorpion Clan are untrue? How could that be?"

She gave a slightly over-the-top sigh.

"There is only one explanation. All those stories were part of a Scorpion plot to make the Crab think just that! How insidious!"

Shaking her head mournfully, Seiko cast her line out again, taking great pains not to look too closely at Hoshi and the expression on her face.

Hoshi released one hand from her fishing stick and shrugged with it, sure that there wasn't going to be a swordfish at this moment. "-Ah well. It was insidious anyway."

She released a small breath and glanced up. "I suppose now that Kaiu-san has figured us out, this is the part where I likely give up on the secret. Should I say that we're never up to anything and only act that way to inflate our egos? Because it worked for a very very long time. I don't know how we'll get by now."

"I'm sure your daimyo's lords on this eventually were quite clear," Seiko continued, affecting a mock-gloomy tone. "Should anyone find out the truth, they would have to be killed. It has to look like an accident too, no doubt. And since we are on a ship, there is an easy way to make it seem just like that."

"'I'm sorry, Yoritomo-sama, Captain," she went on, trying (and failing miserably) to sound like Hoshi. "'But the mast fell just as she was underneath. No, Captain, I don't think she could have gotten away in time. She had been knocked unconscious. How, you ask? She slipped, Captain. The deck was wet. I was swabbing it this morning. No, Captain, I didn't get any further than the area she just stepped in. A very tragic accident.'"

"...Have you read more than your share of pillow book intrigues Kaiu-san?" Hoshi half-joked in her question. "If that were actually the case, some sort of drastic action would be required...On your suspicion, you've only helped me with ideas. And you've made it sound so easy that it could be very likely with no effort. Is that an insidious plot too now? I don't know..."

Seiko gave a shrug.

"It was something to do from time to time. Do a bit of reading, see if I could figure out the plot, how good the author is... future reference and all that."

This was actually getting into an area of discussion that Seiko would rather not mention.

Hoshi lifted a brow when the topic of pillow book intrigues managed to catch onto something. "Is that so? Mm, I don't usually read as a hobby but I know several who do, they either do it for pleasure or just for the sake of completion. Do you consider you a critic when it comes to stories Kaiu-san?"

"Not a critic, no," Seiko replied. "It is more ...common than that."

Definitely not wanting to explain further.