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 Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:38 pm
  This is a private roleplay between Bataar [Kayakurai] and Yue Lao [Face Your Demons].
Setting:
The market.
Well, they survived the fight, and after some cooling-down time it turns out Yue has decided that Bataar is the perfect victim for her new hobbies. The first up: Stamp collecting!
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:53 pm
All Yue Lao did was fight, practice fighting and brew alcohol. She barely worked at the Ichi-koi anymore, as she helped her othermother far more often. The cheap labour was useful to her. Not that Yue wasn't paid for what she did, just that she would work harder and more than the others because it was her passion, and her mother, whom she respected and owed. In any case, recently she had decided that (or rather, been told) she needed more hobbies. Chishio was worried by her fierce daughter, and sought to soften out her edges.
It had begun with sewing tiny clothing for Mr.Princess, but after several scratches and hands full of needle-marks, Yue was sick of Chichi's attempt at a "hobby." She had to excuse herself from her mother's company, and uncomfortably propose that there were other hobbies for her. And her mother had grown very serious, and basically said that if she did not find her own hobby she would be condemned to return to sew with her. So Yue Lao grimaced and spent the next week or so wracking her brain for a hobby.
The culmination was that she would try every hobby until she found one which didn't suck. Attempt one on her own was training Hime-san to do tricks. That ended with bite-marks and a very lazy golden lion tamarin who wouldn't even budge when she entered the room. As soon as she did, he basically played dead the whole afternoon. Attempt two... was stamps. Yue Lao did not really understand stamps, and they kept sticking to her fingers, but she could maybe do something with this. It was relaxing, right? Except it didn't feel very relaxing. Perhaps she was doing it wrong.
She needed a stamp-ally who was resilient, whom she disliked enough to subject to whatever hobbies she found, and whom she liked enough to spend time with. The only candidate who came to mind was Bataar.
Although they had fought the first time they met, he was pretty easy to spend time with, as it was never boring. Besides, Yue liked to fight, so if a couple of these hobbies degraded into combat... who was Chichi to complain? She was trying new hobbies. Yue Lao had obtained a starter's set of stamps, and wrapped them up in a case, heading out to find Bataar. On her way to where she figured he might be, she came across a rather large Mongolian asleep in a vendor's cart. The vendor was screaming at him, jumping up and down, but the Mongolian didn't seem to budge.
Yue Lao walked right past the screaming vendor and leaned into the cart, Hime-san sitting on her shoulder. "Hey, Bataar. Get your a** up. I have something for us to do today," she said, using a piece of the vendor's cloth wares to tickle the large mongolian's foot and dart away, watching him.
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:13 pm
The vendor's screams did not penetrate his mind as he snored softly, dreaming, no doubt, of sugarplums and fairies. In the midst of these dreams, however, a familiar voice came to him, first a bit hazy and then rather loud. The odd sensation on his foot didn't help much, either, and, combined, the two forces caused him to tip and fall right off the cart. He felt himself coming up with a series of snorts and grunts as he was knocked awake by his contact with the ground and rolled over soon afterwards, probing his nose to make sure it wasn't broken(again).
It was then that the Mongol's attention was drawn to Yue Lao and he frowned as he sat up. "You woke me up." he muttered, stating the obvious. Still, he didn't looked that disappointed mainly because he'd fallen asleep simply because he was extremely bored. He stood and scratched his head and then looked expectantly down at the fighter who had come by in order to disturb him. There was no telling why she'd come.
"What now?" It was, he supposed, worth acting as if he actually had a say in things.
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:31 pm
Yue Lao grinned widely as Bataar hit the ground, and she kneeled to watch the rolling. "Why'd you fall off the cart?" Yue asked, as if she had nothing to do with it. Hime-san screeched at him from where he had jumped onto the vendor's cart. He wanted nothing to do with the Mongol and in fact was afraid of being claimed as his "rat" again, even after that difference had supposedly been solved with their fists.
"Why would I do a thing like that? You sleep so charmingly, like a baby," Yue said, clasping her hands together and fluttering her eyelashes. He didn't really seem upset at her, so there was no particular reason to deny the obvious, but it was her nature, after all. The vendor seemed frustrated, but he managed to maneuver around them to reclaim his cart and continue down the path. Hime-san leapt off and sat on Yue's shoulder again as she stood back up, her legs growing sore from crouching when she hadn't stretched well yet.
"Oh, I just thought you could experience the wonders of stamp-collecting," Yue Lao said, "So get up, let's go get food and I'll show you how it's done. I am the stamp king, after all," Yue declared. She only had a beginner's kit, but that somehow made her an expert, according to her wild claims. She stretched her legs while she waited, and stared at Bat, waiting for him to fully wake up. She waved her kit of stamps at him, as if telling him to hurry up.
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Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:30 pm
Bataar dusted himself off a bit just for the hell of it and then proceeded to level a glare at his questioner. "Why does anyone fall off a cart?" he demanded, peeved. Clearly he couldn't help this sort of thing and he was, luckily, none the wiser for the fact that he had woken up all because of Yue Lao. Still, he felt that he lived a rather tortured life with all of this unexpected waking up and such.
The captain also disliked the fact that he was being compared to a baby because he most certainly was not anything like one of those frail squealing creatures! "Shaddup." he huffed, straightening out his furs as if it would make a difference when it came to his relative presentability. He was filthy, as always.
"Stamp-collecting?" Bat demanded as if he'd never heard such a thing in his life. The only reason he started to follow the fighter was due to the mention of food which was excellent when it came to coaxing the Mongol in any direction. "Hmph. You're a girl. You be the stamp-princess and I'll be the stamp-king!" he declared, although he'd never touched a stamp in his life. It just seemed worth it to point out that he wanted the titular dominance.
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Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:03 pm
Yue Lao smiled her seemingly endless smile at Bataar and stuck the tip of her tongue out. It tasted like dust, but she was doing her best not to indicate such. "Well," she began, pretending to think hard about it, "since it's you... It was likely because you have no reflexes." Yue winked and rocked on the soles of her feet. Without realizing it, her real new hobby was probably harassing Bataar. It was kind of like poking a sleeping bear; she fully expected him to bite, but every time she would just run away screaming with laughter and come back again to try the same thing. Probably until she lost an arm, or something.
Yue wrinkled her nose, catching a whiff of Bataar in the heat as he adjusted his furs. "Are you sure something didn't crawl in there and die while you were asleep?" Yue asked. Hime-san was covering his nose with both paws.
"I'm not a girl, I'm Yue Lao; the one and only," Yue retorted, dismissing his declaration with a wave of her hand. She looked over her shoulder and grinned moments after. "If you want to be king, you'll have to stamp-fight me for it!" Yue insisted, with a wicked grin. She did not know how one could stamp-fight, but she was sure she could make something up. Meanwhile, Yue's feet were making a beeline for the noodle shop she loved so much. It had her favourite spicy noodles with a slice of pork on top. She usually picked the bamboo out, though; not out of actual dislike, but out of habit from when she was little.
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Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:24 pm
Bataar's mouth contorted into a shape that wasn't quite identifiable as he attempted to process this latest insult. "What you're forgetting is that I could crush you in one fell swoop!" he declared, gesturing to his impressive musculature. Still, it seemed he was bent on tolerating the fighter in front of him, simply because he never really had a chance to see what he considered to be his own friends lately.
The mongol looked pleased, however, that his smell was so very repellant. "It weakens you, does it?" he asked, the desire to brag written all over his face. "Oh, yes, I have brought more than one enemy down in this way!" he stated, now strutting along down the street as he straightened his painfully epic hat.
"Pfft." Of course Yue Lao was a girl! She was, after all, all pink and stuff. Bataar and his sexist stereotypes would survive for yet another day. "Well, I'm way better at that than you are!" he snorted, surreptitiously attempting to identify the nearest restaurant because, to be quite honest, Bat didn't exactly remember the last time he had eaten. These things were hard when you couldn't read menus and such and you had a terrible aversion to vegetables and farmers alike.
"Are we there yet?" the Mongol asked impatiently, listening to his stomach issuing a rather disagreeable sort of growl. He was going to have to find more people to feed him.
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Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:38 pm
Yue Lao would have fallen to the ground laughing if she had been able to fully see and enjoy Bataar's face contortion with her insult. She snickered. Hime-san chittered noisily and began to groom Yue Lao's braid before shooting the Mongol a seething look. "You'd have to catch me, first," Yue replied, waving at Bataar without looking back. Yue had a sort of wiry strength, but she was nothing compared to the muscular Lunarian. That was why she had to be fast, and she fought with her Meteor hammer. It was still with her, circled around her belt, its protective leather cases making her hip warm.
Did it... make him happy to smell so bad? Chishio would never allow such an odour from her daughter; it was unheard of. Yowai would never let Yue into the brewery if she was covered in so much dirt. "Bataar... let me put it this way: there is so much dirt on you that I don't know which part is Bataar and which part is filth. What happens if you shower and half your body mass washes away?" Yue grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck. It felt a little like the sun was trying to burn her shoulders.
She ignored Bataar's dismissive sound, whatever it was actually supposed to mean. Yue Lao wasn't pink, she was magenta. Not that she knew Bataar was even thinking this, or that she could verbalize the difference. Essentially, Yue Lao was far less girly than many Lunarians of various shades. "Way better at stamp fighting? Prove it!" Yue insisted, her voice seconds from laughter.
She swept aside the cloth curtain which led into the noodle shop and replied, "Unless you want to eat somewhere else...?" Yue Lao took a seat at the counter, and ordered her spicy noodle dish, terribly excited. She slid the case of stamps onto the counter next to her as Hime-san fanned himself.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:53 am
Bataar grumbled indiscernably, once again alerted to the fact that he was not the best of warriors when it came to agility. That was probably why he'd ended up with so many scars over the years, but whenever anyone had gotten close enough to injure him they generally were dished out a life-threatening injury of their own.
The Mongol was really quite insulted, however, when Yue Lao suggested that his muscles might be more made up of dirt as opposed to anything else. "That wouldn't happen!" he asserted, flustered with worry. What if everyone thought he didn't have as many muscles as he did? It was a problem that he was suddenly resolved to fix, although he thought it might be best if he ate first. "Don't be stupid." he cautioned moodily, swiping a little as his biceps as if to demonstrate that at least those were absolutely real.
He was pleased when the subject took a turn once again. "Oh, I will." Bataar answered smugly, following her into the noodle shop. He frowned, feeling momentarily awkward that he couldn't read the menu and determined to hide it. He knew from experience that most Lunarians were appalled when they found out he was illiterate and somewhere deep down the massive Mongolian didn't want Yue Lao to find out and tease him about it. In his opinion, he might never hear the end of it.
And so Bat declared that he'd be having the same as she and smiled winningly as the bowl was set down before him. He dug in immediately but was halted quickly-- something was wrong.
After a shocking burning sensation, Bataar Jaoret couldn't feel his mouth.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 7:49 am
The more grumbly Bataar seemed to get, the more cheerful Yue Lao behaved. In fact, her level of bounciness was amped up significantly from her usual lazy self. Maybe that was why Chishio had actually gotten Yue Lao to find new hobbies: Yue had taken to either fighting or being incredibly lazy. There was no in-between for Yue Lao. She had been sleeping in a lot, lately, unless it was a day where she went to train. Perhaps having these hobbies, even if she didn't entirely care about them, was making her level out.
Yue Lao often insulted others, whether purposefully or inadvertently, so it was no surprise that she had worried Bataar with her casual insinuation that his muscles were actually mostly dirt. "If you never bathe, how are you supposed to know?" she replied, lingering to tap at his biceps, looking at her fingers as if his muscles had crumbled into dirt before her very eyes before darting away. Of course she knew they were real; and she didn't really want to get punished for being so bold. And irritating. Yue was often irritating, but seldom with someone who could squash her so easily.
If she had known that Bataar couldn't read, she admittedly might have made fun of him, until she realized it actually bothered him. In actuality, her mother couldn't read for a very long time. The only reason Yue Lao could read and write was because her othermother had taught her from a young age. Chichi, however, had been very resilient to learning, and she always got flustered when she did poorly. Eventually, Yowai had persuaded and then taught her. Yue wouldn't think any less of Bataar for not being able to read, and her mothers would probably even offer to teach him. Yowai, most likely.
Yue Lao was impressed that Bataar was eating the same noodles; she loved spicy food, and her tongue was nearly immune. Still, she asked for some rice milk. Before she even needed to drink it, however, she looked over at Bataar. Was he... okay? Yue was slurping her noodles up, attacking the delicious slice of beef, when she worried for the mongol.
"Hey... How're the noodles?" Yue asked tentatively, around a mouthful of hot noodles. She slurped them down and leaned in a little closer to quietly advise, "Thought you wouldn't be able to take the spice; here, drink some of this," sliding the glass over to Bataar so his ego could, maybe, be assuaged. If he took a sip now, it would cool his mouth down, and he maybe wouldn't have to admit it was too hot for him. Still, she wasn't too sure... he looked pretty ill.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 1:00 pm
That was it. Bataar was going to bathe, and then find Yue Lao in order to show off to her how wrong she'd been about the dirt in relation to his muscles. It was true that he was far more hygienic now than when he had been a student, in any case. He wasn't half so repelled by bathing as he had once been and besides, he had a point to prove! "Oh, you'll see." he said hotly, the color high in his cheeks, and he would have marched right on down the street to the bathhouse had he not been so hungry.
The food, however, simply was not working out. He grimaced as Yue Lao offered him the rice milk but took it, afterwards feeling as if he might be able to speak again. "That's not food." he said hoarsely, failing to check an inadvertent tear running down his cheek. Still, the Mongolian man doubted that he really wanted to push his point here-- this was, after all, something that Yue Lao appeared to be good at and he really preferred not to highlight that sort of thing. "And I can't feel my tongue." he added, wondering if that were a normal sort of reaction.
Bat shifted in his seat, ignoring the fact that the stool was creaking dangerously as he surveyed the noodle chef with a seething glare. Maybe... maybe that man was a legionnaire, and he'd been aiming to try and poison him! The captain debated with himself on how to treat the situation, his lips very evidently downturned. Should he request a battle? A duel of sorts? In the end, he was too embarrassed to ruin the relative peace in the noodle shoppe.
Plus he didn't feel too much as if he were dying anymore. "Just hurry up so I can beat you in this stamp-fight."
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 8:37 pm
Yue Lao would probably much prefer a clean Bataar, though she'd have to admit defeat and concede the win to him once he was clean and still muscular, even though she knew he was right in the first place. No harm in harassing him a little. She was beginning, in her cold and unfeeling heart, to feel a little like she was teasing him too much, though. If she could manage it, she'd probably be a little kinder. Well, eventually.
Giving him her rice milk was at least one step in the right-ish direction. Yue had long since tempered her tongue to the searing foods, but clearly Bataar was not used to her tastes. "If it's not food, don't eat it!" Yue replied, reaching out as if to take the noodle bowl. "Just get some rice with beef or something. You eat beef, right?" Yue Lao stared at him for a little while, and then burst into laughter. "I can't fix your tongue," she finally said, once she had calmed down.
She winced as the stool creaked, and wondered how the poor little thing was even holding all his muscle up. Why did Bataar look so... perplexed? Was his stomach in pain? Yue didn't even think it could be a plot against Bataar's health, as she ate there all the time, and it was simply very spicy noodles. That was why she ate here. Unbeknownst to Bataar, they always gave her extra spicy noodles, too. So they had probably served him the same thing.
"What's the rush, bugbear? So eager to lose already?" Yue grinned, slurped down the last of her noodles and broth, and pushed the bowl away.
"Let's do this! Right here, right now!" With an emphatic gesture, she slapped the stamp container down on the counter and popped it open, revealing... stamps. Little squares of paper with adhesive on the back. They all had different pictures and different values.
Yue Lao stared at them for a while, and then asked, "...so what do we do now?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:32 am
Bataar pursed his now-unfeeling lips and nodded sullenly, gesturing to the chef who seemed pleased that he'd get a chance to redeem his cooking, even if what the Mongol was asking for was completely bland. "Harrumph." the captain declared, not for the first time, in response to Yue Lao's teasing. It bridged the gap between embarrassment and violence in Bataar's opinion and he noted that he ought to utilize it more than he already did. It might make his life easier, plus it sounded decidedly manly.
And besides, he was not going to lose! "I bet you suck at this." the behemoth replied confidently, certain that he had an excellent chance of winning anything with the word "fight" in its name. He hardly even noticed his new nickname he was so eager to try and beat the girl beside him. This was his time! Tengri must have been smiling down at him from the heavens at this point. Bataar cracked his knuckles, prepared for the worst and then merely... stared.
"How the hell are you supposed to fight with those?" he asked, his tone deeply incredulous.
He plucked one up in order to examine it and frowned. How did this sort of thing even work? It looked just like paper to him. Once again, he looked over to Yue Lao for an explanation, but she seemed just as confused as he did. That wasn't very promising.
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 8:05 am
At least the beef and rice seemed to appease Bataar. Yue Lao might have thought it was funny, but she didn't want him to go hungry or anything. Being hungry was a lousy feeling. Yue Lao ignored Bataar's sound of.. what, dismissal? Displeasure? And continued on being Yue Lao. She stared at the dishes behind the counter, occasionally, or drummed her fingertips across the table. Her leather gloves were starting to itch in the heat, but she needed them to protect her hands from the meteor hammer's cord.
"I bet I don't!" Yue replied. The sound of his knuckles cracking made Yue Lao shudder. It was an unpleasant and threatening sound, reminding her just how much bigger and stronger he was. And then he stared, and it was ... interesting, to say the least. He looked like he could pop from concentration.
Yue Lao didn't really know how to answer him. She had been told that stamp collecting was fun and thrilling, which had of course made her think of some kind of battle. But that didn't really manifest. How could it? She realized how ridiculous that notion had been when she opened the kit and saw how small and uninteresting stamps were. She had never mailed a letter in her life. They looked... well, they looked pretty, but Yue Lao didn't really collect unnecessary pretty things.
After Bataar picked a stamp up, Yue picked one out as well. It had a picture of a crane on it. She said, "There's an adhesive on the back, you use it to stick the stamp to things... I think I'm supposed to keep my stamps in a book or something." Yue stared at it quizically and pursed her lips. Finally, she licked the back, making a sort of strangled, disgusted sound. "It tastes worse than you smell," she said, resolving not to lick any more of them. However, she then said, "I wonder how strong the adhesive is?" and smooshed the stamp against the back of Bataar's hand. She waited a second to see if it would even stick on the dirty Lunarian.
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:19 am
Bataar looked as if he were willing to prove Yue Lao as wrong as he possibly could, although the stamps had wiped the smirk clear off his face. Did the fighter beside him really find this sort of thing fun? It seemed entirely absurd from his point-of-view, but he was willing to give the situation another chance. After all, he was still responsible for winning any sort of fight they were going to have over this.
His inability to read or write had rendered stamps entirely useless in his experience, and he crinkled his nose, not knowing how they worked. Bat suspected, after all, that they still had the potential to be a weapon, but that he just wasn't seeing it. A glance in Yue Lao's direction confirmed that she probably wasn't seeing "it" either. "A book?" he asked, looking unhappy. Books definitely weren't his thing. He watched idly as she licked the stamp, finding the action a bit odd and pulling back a little as she stuck it on his hand.
He examined the stamp she'd put on him, frowning. "It's a bird." he identified, picking up a stamp with a stylized lily upon it(about the same color as Yue Lao, he thought) and sticking it on his tongue before rudely grabbing her braid in order to hold her head just right so he could apply it right in the middle of her forehead. "That's better." the behemoth said, grinning. The taste of glue remained on his tongue, but it was nothing he couldn't deal with if he got to plaster these little stickers everywhere.
"And it won't stay forever..." he added casually, before putting some thought to it. "Will it?" Bat thought it was okay if Yue Lao's forehead was permanently damaged, but not his poor hand! Maybe that was why it was called a stamp fight.
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