[D2LE] The night is cold (Expecting)

[Shosuro Kaoru]

The weather was still unsure if it was early Spring and late Winter, and the cold had pushed back Kaoru inside, within the warm walls of the tea house.

She carried with her usual writing case, but had put aside to enjoy a hot cup of herbal tea. Her table was one of the few to still be empty, due to being so close to the door drafts of cold wind struck each time someone entered or went out... But that way she could keep an ear on the outside world just in case.

She wasn't expecting another loud death tonight of course. But better safe than sorry.

[Shiba Jiro]

A somewhat familiar face appeared in the doorway, welcoming the familiar warmth of the tea house. He scanned the room for a place to sit and then noticed the Scorpion he had seen sitting by herself in the garden the other night. He steps closer to the table and nods. "Shosuro-san. Good evening. May I join you?"

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"Shiba-sama."

Bow and all.

"Certainly, please take a seat. How was your day?"

[Shiba Jiro]

He bows before taking a seat. "My day was nice. Hopefully my evening will be free of screams and tragedies," he says inclining his head.

"So far that seems to be the case. And I finally get to sit and have a conversation with you after the previous attempt being aborted. It's an odd sequence of events though, because our introduction was cut short when I didn't know your name. Now after two days of competition I do know it. Yet I feel like I need to introduce myself even though we've both learned names by now. Strange sensation."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"Formal introductions indeed carry for weight than simply catching one's name from circumstances. So let's start anew.

I am Shosuro Kaoru, daughter of Shosuro Nagisa, currently undergoing training as a scholar to eventually become an advisor for my lord. Nice to meet you Shiba-sama."

[Shiba Jiro]

"A pleasure to meet you. I am Shiba Jiro, artisan of my family's school. I look forward to getting to know you and participating in the tournament with you."

He smiles softly. "You are a scholar? I'm certainly no Asako but I will do my best to keep up."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"You don't have to worry about that. I'm actually not more knowledgeable than you in absolute. Simply your expertise is specialized – you know in great details about materials, colors, shapes – while mine is spread thin between many different subjects.

My aptitudes is not so much that I know a lot of things by heart but more that I know where I can find complementary information quickly should they be needed.

In other words, if you have a complex question for me, I'll request a few days and access to a good library before answering it."

[Shiba Jiro]

"So you would be able to tell me the best way to research a subject, but you would need to use the best way to research a subject in order to tell me about, say... different orchid cultivars?" he asks with a nod.

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"I know absolutely nothing about orchid cultivars at the moment.

If I was to learn about them urgently, right here and now, I would first take a good night of sleep since it's so late. Then, rise several hours before dawn and go do some reading in the garden. Such public gardens are usually tended to in the soft darkness before dawn to stay resplendent under the sunlight so there's a good chance I'll be able to meet some gardeners soon and ask them to teach me on the subject, or to redirect me to someone who can.

In case no gardener shows up, I'll go to the market as soon as the day truly starts to find an orchid seller and ask them instead. If that doesn't work either, the day should be advanced enough for me to inquire about who deals in orchids in the vicinity at the local administration.

If the demand is not so urgent, I'll spare me the wait in the cold and increase efficiency by jumping directly to the last step after a more ordinary sleep and day schedule.

There are sources of information on the oddest subjects everywhere really. The rest is compromise between how in-depth I must explore the subject and the time I have to gather information about it."

[Shiba Jiro]

"I am so completely unstructured in my own endeavors," he admits with a chuckle. "I'd have probably just gone straight to the garden, recreated the orchids I saw there with paper or paint, then looked for a library to poke around in. Wouldn't have even initially thought to ask someone probably."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"Knowledge always comes from people. Books are but a practical way to store it and share it in the long run.

Note that your approach is perfectly valid if you're skilled enough to make close enough replicas, which I'm not. Maybe more time-consuming in the short run, but you'll get to keep these references with you for the long one, so all depends on what you hope to achieve. Most problems have many solutions really.

I'll take it painting is your medium of choice? Artisan is such a wide term, that covers so many specialties."

[Shiba Jiro]

"I have no preferred medium, though I most frequently practice origami," he says, bringing a piece of paper out of his kimono's folds. "For how convenient it is."

He starts folding, without watching.

"But I also enjoy creating more practical item, all the way from the collection of raw materials like woodcutting. Often doing carpentry or woodworking, then applying carving, painting and lacquering to make the object more artistic in nature. I've even created ikebana from origami that I have created. I am not a fan of limiting expression."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"But by not focusing on a single skill, aren't you limiting yourself on what you can achieve using that particular skill? Mastery requires dedication after all.

Not saying that your approach is wrong, or right for the matter. Just that there is also a trade-off to making that choice of diversity."

[Shiba Jiro]

"Well, in most cases, that might be true, but then I may have traded time practicing propriety and social graces in favor of those skills," he says with a shrug.

"It all depends on the things we value."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"You're not interested in the glory to be earned with producing a masterpiece then?

And I'm using a plural you here, as you, your lord, your clan. Being an artist is one thing, but you're first and foremost a samurai, whose actions are before all determined by what the clan deems to be best."

[Shiba Jiro]

"I'm actually not. I'm concerned mostly with producing works free of error, and I have relatively strict standards for myself on that front. Anything I make is for someone else, and so I don't wish to give someone a mistake I have made."

"But glory, fame, being known for my art? It serves to feed the ego, and I would rather someone be pleasantly surprised with the quality of my work rather than put more pressure with expectations compounding my own."

His hands keep up their work until the shape of the finished product emerges. He slides the simple scorpion across the table. He still hasn't looked at it, and is apparently serenely confident in his art from touch alone.



D2 LE Origami | TN: 2 | Success: 2 / Opportunity: 0 / Strife: 1

Success

Kaoru heals 3 strife from school ability

[Shosuro Kaoru]

Koaru looked at the art piece with intellectual curiosity.

"How many different ways to fold a piece of paper into the shape of a Scorpion do you know?"

[Shiba Jiro]

"I haven't a clue, but there are many. Including some that are more... realistic in proportion and scale. Those take more paper and time though. And then there is the fact that I could make any number of small changes to alter the appearance slightly leading to slimmer profiles, smaller claws, a more prominent tail. I suppose the number would be technically equal to the number of times an origami scorpion has ever been made or ever will be made. In practicality, probably more like two or three significantly different bases."

[Shosuro Kaoru]

"And how did you learn to do this? Is there a book with all animal-looking paper folds, and you studied them one by one from ape to zebra? Did you focus on clan emblems only? Or is it that once you've assimilated about a dozen or so, you can easily improvise new shapes from what you already know?"

[Shiba Jiro]

"That is not far from how I happened to learn it, though I did not limit myself to animals either. Flowers, stars, boxes and other objects. Sometimes I'll look at a thing and wonder if I can recreate it in paper, then I go about solving that with a few or a few dozen sheets," he says with a shrug. "Give me some time and I might even be able to come up with a different way to produce a scorpion origami if I was so inclined."