Pulling the strings!
Meta silliness!
In Puzzle Park. Onya had requested that I play for her. Which I was quite happy to do! Until...
Jini's playing stops, suddenly, and she falls down on one side. There is no speaker hum now.
Onya's eyes flash open, and she stands to all four legs, bringing herself to hover over Jini, sniffing over the girl. And prodding her with her snout.
[ Onya licked you! ]
Sasamui
Black hair pinned and rolled neatly, wearing a deep blue silk kimono, every detail of her form is crisp and perfect. Bright alert brown eyes and lips red as blood contrast her porcelian white skin and rouged cheeks. She stands only a meter tall, but perhaps 'stand' is not the right word, for she is a bunraku doll, and her Ashi-Zukai; a boy of perhaps 14 dressed entirely in black is bowed beneath her, his fists moving her kimono as she moves, his footsteps stomping the ground for her. To her left stands her Hidari-Zukai, in his 40s and also dressed in black, he controls her left hand, moving in perfect synch with the aged and stooped Omo-Zukai, whose elderly hand is clutched tight against her back, working the complex mechanisms that give her face life. With his other hand, he works her right hand with the fluidity and grace of a lifetime of study. Always sitting near them is the Joruri, sitting on his knees, back held perfectly straight as he narrates the tale of Sasamui's life. Finally, completing the complement is the Shamisen... Perhaps older than the Omo-Zukai himself, she sits hunched over her instrument, her long boney fingers evoking the mood of the moment from the strings.
Sasamui's shimasen, who had been entranced by the music, opens her eyes and peers at the fallen doll. "Are you alright?", she inquires.
The joruri shoots her a stern glance.
Then he reads loudly, "THE GIRL looked up, alarmed, then rushed to the fallen creature exclaiming, 'Are you alright?'"
Jini twitches a little. Her many-fingered hands spread on the ground and she levers herself up. "What - oh, I almost used riffs I shouldn't have and I locked all up!" She giggles. "I'm okay!" She kisses Onya delicately, and waves happily at the crowd of puppeteers around the puppet.
The zukai move in unison, carrying Sasamui to Jini's side. The omo-zukai outstretches her hand to touch Jini's shoulder.
Onya cants her head to the side. "Shouldn't have? Might I inquire as to why?"
The shimasen exhales and relaxes. With the soft chatter of mechanical workings, the omo shifts Sasamui's face to a relieved expression.
Jini reaches up to touch Sasamui's painted cheek, smiling happily. Her ears flip as she turns to look at Onya. "Oh, because they were really dangerous! Sometimes I pull out the riffs I learnt in Darkwave in completely the wrong context!
You say, "I almost burned the air up. But it's okay! I'm safe!"
Onya blinks, and chuckles, a sly grin. "Interesting. This explains much," she murmurs, and stalks around Jini, her long, long tail running along the rockerdoll's back. "It's good to know that there are built-in safeguards, then."
Shimasen sighs to herself and strums a slow, sullen melody.
Sasamui's voice, at odds with the music of the shimasen is expressed by the joruri in a soft falsetto, "I am glad you are alright. The music was very pretty!"
Jini looks at the Shimasen a moment. There's some strange dynamic going on in that cluster that needs caring repair... She just watches for now. And sighs happily, pleasure-tuned body caressed. "Well, of course! They had to do something when they converted me into a Doll. Something about the politics of having a weapon as one of them!"
Jini nods at the puppet. "Thank you! It's what I'm made for."
Onya's teeth flash, she seems utterly entranced by this notion. "Indeed. Beautiful," she purrs, and nose-bumps the rabbit.
The omo tilts Sasamui's head slightly and elevates her eyebrows slightly, "You.. Became a doll? How dreadful."
The Discount Bin Ninja has arrived.
Jini giggles, reaching up to kiss the dragon, her fingers twiddling the dark scaled cheek. "Of course! It was a nice change form my earlier life." She giggles again, casually strumming a feedback chord from her guitar.
Onya eyes the Ninja. "You again."
The Discount Bin Ninja twirls something metallic and red in her fingers. She looks innocent, though the expression is difficult to make out from her mask. "Who again?"
Onya coils her tail loosely around Jini, careful not to interrupt any playing, and sets her on her back, between her wings.
The Omo-zukai quickly recoils Sasamui, shifting her face to a hint of alarm. "'Assassin!', the girl whispered to those close enough to her to hear."
The Discount Bin Ninja raises her arms, still twirling the red thing in her fingers. "Spy! There's a difference!"
Jini settles into the embrace of Onya's tail happily, lazy loops of ghost-noise with simple, echoing bleeps drifting from her ears as her fingers laze across the fretboard and pickups.
The zukai move together, giving Sasamui a defensive stance and at the same time leaning her towards Jini. "But to be a thing that is owned and controlled. I... Could not live that way."
Onya chuckles, stalking over towards the Ninja with a Doll on her back (who is, for the record, the third person to have the luxury of dragonback-ride from Onya), and snorts heavily. "So what brings you up here? I can assure you that any reality-destruction that might have occured was certainly stopped by well-timed and placed safeguards."
Sasamui's head is turned to squarely face the ninja. The joruri, turning the page frantically, speaks for her in a quick falsetto: "If you have come for me, it is too late. I have come to like this place and the freedoms I have found. I will not return to my father. "
Jini laughs. "Why not? Everyone loves Bubble Dolls! We're cute and cuddly and harmless and always ready to help someone."
Onya twists her head around to Jini, a wicked grin on her features. "Aye, and utterly predictable. For instance- if I asked if I could hunt you down and eat you, you would likely say yes, and even likely put on a good show of being afraid and terrified if so I asked you to. Correct?"
The Discount Bin Ninja grins. This is reflected in her posture, exaggerated like a puppet or a cartoon, or perhaps just a ham actor in a mask. "Easy, easy. I'm here to relax. I'm not after anybody. I am in service of the Red King, and herald his coming."
The Discount Bin Ninja now gestures to Onya. She is still playing with that damned throwing-heart. "And really. Is it illegal to take a five-minute break? Jeez."
The omo-zukai relaxes Sasamui's pose just a little, and bows her head. The joruri reads for her, "Forgive me. Funny that after all this time in this world I still seem to always jump to the wrong conclusion."
The Discount Bin Ninja bows to Sasamui, shuriken-heart drawing to a standstill. "No, not at all. My clan has been in service to the Red King since its creation long enough ago that I can't remember when it was. We are not often known, even less-frequently known by name. I am Oyuki, also known as the Discount Bin Ninja."
Jini looks down at the ninja. A haze of pink swirls in the air, sparkles shining in time with her background music. "Is the Red King back so soon? Rocking!"
The Discount Bin Ninja stares up at Jini, blinking. "He's been sleepin' for a while now. Waking up soon. We thinkin' the same Red King?"
Jini nods happily. "Oh, of course! I'd be delighted to wet myself in terror for you, miss Onya! I'd have to have a bladder installed, of course. But I'd scream and flee the best I could!"
Onya snorts, and chuckles. "Thank you, but no. I have more filling things to hunt these days." She pauses, considering things for a moment, and then settles onto her stomach, her head still twisted back. "Tell me something. What is the probability that, one day, everyone will be something akin to Dolls?"
The joruri glances at the shimasen, who appears to be daydreaming; having totally missed the dramatic cue.
"I saw the King play live once," Jini says, stars in her eyes. "He's so dreamy. He set his guitar on fire and it ran up and down the strings, and his flesh melted off and he kept playing with the armature beneath..."
The omo swivels Sasamui's head around almost unnaturally to stare at Jini, her mouth left agape.
Jini casually plays what she thinks the shimasen might have underscored the puppet's stare of horror with. The emulation of the ancient instrument is precise.
You say, "Oh, no, miss Onya. We need to have someone to serve! If you put a bunch of Dolls alone in a room, we tend to just giggle a lot and go on autopilot and fuck until we need recharging!"
Onya chuckles, and laughs aloud. "You say that as though it's a bad thing, Jini," she purrs, grinning.
The hidari quickly hands up a diminuative paper fan to Sasamui, who, just as quickly, is made to demurely bow her head and blush.
The Discount Bin Ninja sets herself somewhere high. High places are comfortable! "Tell me, lady! What of yourself?"
The shimasen snaps out of her daydream, her attention suddenly sharp and focused, listening to the music much the way a hungry wolf might stare at meat.
Jini laughs. "We can't get bored but we're just HAPPIER when we're serving someone!"
Jini grins at the shimasen, and ripples off another glimmering shamisen riff. This one has nothing to do with Sasamui's motions or story.
Onya chuckles, and purrs, shifting to allow (and suggest that) the Doll slide off of her back. "Indeed, indeed. I don't think service is quite my expression. I'm too...forceful," she murmurs, and yawns widely. "I require rest."
The Discount Bin Ninja gnaws on part of her mask, watching and listening now.
The old woman picks it up, catching the chord and sending a second voice circling high and low around it.
The Discount Bin Ninja listens, tapping a finger on something, quiet, but obviously happy.
Jini bounds off of Onya's back, bouncing a few times when she lands on the ground, and curtseys exaggeratedly with a hissing spiralling decaying chord accent. "Whatever you require from us, you have but to ask, ma'am!"
The joruri, sets his jaw and his face grows a it red despite his best efforts to remain emotionless. He pointedly does not look up from his text.
Onya snorts, and chuckles. "What I have need of at the moment, only I can provide. I go to home, to see my roost and rest."
Onya nods to everyone, politely, and disappears.
Jini grins at the Shimasen and saunters into the midst of the puppeteers surrounding Sasamui, kissing the Joruri gently on the cheek as she trades increasingly merry riffs with the wizened musician.
The omo starts to move Sasamui to wave but Onya is gone too quickly.
The Discount Bin Ninja shakes her head and sighs. "People here are so distracting." Clear amusement is in her voice.
The young ashi's mouth drops agape. "They should not see us.", he startledly says to his master.
You say, "Oh! I'm sorry, sirs! Shall I forget you?"
Jini blinks innocent, wide eyes.
The Omo gives the boy a quick kick and a stern look. The hidari puts his finger to his lips shushing the boy.
The Discount Bin Ninja rubs her temples. "Oiiii. I need wine. Sake!" And it is in her hand, small cup and bottle.
The joruri, face a livid red, turns the page and announces rather tersely, "Who are you talking to?", the girl inquired.
Jini giggles, dancing to the music she plays with the shimasen. "All the people around you!" she says to the puppet.
Shimasen's fingers move nimbly on her chords, aknowledging the kiss only with a flury of joyous notes.
You say, "Your whole crowd of symbiotes and artificers. You're a most beautiful dance of cooperation, miss Sasamui!"
Sasamui (narrated) says, "I do not understand. There is only the assassin and she has said naught."
The Discount Bin Ninja drops to the ground, crouching. "Spy. I do not make my living by death. I make my living by information." She smiles, and it is obvious and warm. "Some, my dear lady, would be under the impression that you are not as real as you truly are."
The omo-zukai turns Sasamui's head left and right (but never directly towards another member of the troupe). "I see no one," the joruri frantically exclaims in a hoarsening falsetto.
Sasamui is bowed apologetically, "Forgive me, Oyuki-san."
The Discount Bin Ninja nods softly, eyes closed. "Many do not make the distinction. I take no offense."
Jini looks at the shimasen, head tilted curiously. And shrugs. "I must apologise, lady Sasamui! My visual processors must be in need of maintenance again. I often see dreams that aren't there!"
The Discount Bin Ninja edges toward Jini and whispers. "It is impolite to point out the puppet masters. The play is to be so complete that they are unseen and invisible."
Jini laughs. "We're all on strings!"
Jini gestures to a shimmering, hard-to-notice umbilical that leads from the base of her throat off into the distance. Often silent, it occasionally thrums with little quivers, just before she moves.
The Discount Bin Ninja nods. "My puppet masters are simply as stealthy as I. You can't even hear the music playing, it is so subtly worked into the sounds around us."
The joruri, suddenly taking almost a wicked smile nods to himself, draws a pen from the drawer in the podium beneath his script and quickly writes a few things in his book, then just as deftly replaces the pen.
The Discount Bin Ninja pretends to make no notice of the joruri's quick change to the script.
Sasamui (narrated) says, "If someone were hiding here, wouldn't it make them unhappy to be seen?"
Parity steps off of the lift, looking about and saying, "Greetings."
The shimasen, taken aback by such hackery misses and hits a sour note. She glares at the joruri.
The Discount Bin Ninja nods firmly. "Of course it would." She is grinning, broadly. And takes secret pleasure in the internal discord.
Jini kisses the shimasen, dartingly, on her way out of the midst of the puppeteers, and giggles. She sits beneath the Cube Tree, turning her volume down with a hand at her breast and quietly experimenting with melodies.
The joruri flips back a few pages, glances over a few paragraphs then comes back to his present page.
The joruri reads to the fourth wall, "Sasamui thought about the admission she had made to the spy. It was true. She no longer wanted to return to her home; to be a puppet, controlled by her father or the husband to be; nothing more than a plaything. But what would she make of herself in this strange place?"
The shimasen's fingers lovingly stroke her chords, finding a momentary balance between her own thoughts and those of the play, a distant, lonely sort of sound as Sasamui sat and thought.
Jini giggles mischeviously, and a microphone appears in her hand. She jacks it into her sex and whispers, the processed sound swelling from her ears, an eerily perfect imitation of the jorui, but her words. "Sasamui looked curiously at the rabbit. She wondered how the girl came to be a plaything, and to take such delight in it. Was it the same when she chose to be everyone's toy as it would be if she had been born to the role?"
The joruri looks like he just swallowed a goldfish. The omo-zukai and hidari seem similarly stunned, completely freezing for a moment.
Shimasen falls over laughing!
Parity tilts his head slightly, looking between Sasamui and Jini, watching quietly.
Jini leans against Parity, a soft, comfortable weight kept at a pleasant temperature, and plays a mysterious little coil of sound. The strings of her guitar vanish here and there.
Parity loops an arm comfortably around Jini, hmmming quietly as his fingers brush against her side.
The troupe attempts to collect itself (save for the shimasen who continues to howl like a hyena) The omo-zukai shifts triggers, opening Sasamui's eyes wide as the hidari puts a fan in her hand, which the omo then draws to cover her embarassed face.
Jini nestles against Parity, the sounds of her playing a quiet vibration in her body.
The joruri edits his volume quickly and reads the ammended text, "Miss Jini. Why do you say such an embarassing thing? I would never think such things. and... why have you made your voice like my father's? It is very distressing."
The omo shifts Sasamui's expression to a more hurt-looking guise, desperately trying to follow the joruri's cues.
Jini blinks. "I said nothing, madam Sasamui!" she laughs. "I only practice my music."
[OOC] Jini says, "Nowhere in the rules of Bubble Dolls is it said that they always tell the truth. Far from it."
The omo-zukai makes Sasamui's expression nearly as resentful as the joruri's. Said narrator speaks again for the girl, "That voice came from you. I heard it. Why would you do that?"
Jini looks at the puppet. Or at the joruri. Both. The volume on her music rises. Calming, entrancing, beautiful, honest. "I would never do a thing like that," she says. Her eyes are wide and gaze-trapping. The music thrums softly. "What did you imagine me saying?" Jini is innocent and trusting. And trustable.
Jini swirls at the center of a subtle vortex of belief.
The joruri smiles to himself and speaks for the girl. "Well. I thought... No. Nevermind. I suppose it was like when you imagined there were other people around."
Parity makes a lead sheet from nothing, a slight smile on his face as he twists its shape into that of a rose with deft motions of his fingers.
Jini giggles. She plays a final chord, a soft sealing, and blows a kiss to the puppet. Or to her handlers.
You say, "I must be catching!"
Jini sinks into the kiss for a moment, then sighs softly. "I must depart, sir Parity. My power reserves have run low. I have to return to Charm for a new load of rainbows and happy thoughts!"
In Puzzle Park. Onya had requested that I play for her. Which I was quite happy to do! Until...
Jini's playing stops, suddenly, and she falls down on one side. There is no speaker hum now.
Onya's eyes flash open, and she stands to all four legs, bringing herself to hover over Jini, sniffing over the girl. And prodding her with her snout.
[ Onya licked you! ]
Sasamui
Black hair pinned and rolled neatly, wearing a deep blue silk kimono, every detail of her form is crisp and perfect. Bright alert brown eyes and lips red as blood contrast her porcelian white skin and rouged cheeks. She stands only a meter tall, but perhaps 'stand' is not the right word, for she is a bunraku doll, and her Ashi-Zukai; a boy of perhaps 14 dressed entirely in black is bowed beneath her, his fists moving her kimono as she moves, his footsteps stomping the ground for her. To her left stands her Hidari-Zukai, in his 40s and also dressed in black, he controls her left hand, moving in perfect synch with the aged and stooped Omo-Zukai, whose elderly hand is clutched tight against her back, working the complex mechanisms that give her face life. With his other hand, he works her right hand with the fluidity and grace of a lifetime of study. Always sitting near them is the Joruri, sitting on his knees, back held perfectly straight as he narrates the tale of Sasamui's life. Finally, completing the complement is the Shamisen... Perhaps older than the Omo-Zukai himself, she sits hunched over her instrument, her long boney fingers evoking the mood of the moment from the strings.
Sasamui's shimasen, who had been entranced by the music, opens her eyes and peers at the fallen doll. "Are you alright?", she inquires.
The joruri shoots her a stern glance.
Then he reads loudly, "THE GIRL looked up, alarmed, then rushed to the fallen creature exclaiming, 'Are you alright?'"
Jini twitches a little. Her many-fingered hands spread on the ground and she levers herself up. "What - oh, I almost used riffs I shouldn't have and I locked all up!" She giggles. "I'm okay!" She kisses Onya delicately, and waves happily at the crowd of puppeteers around the puppet.
The zukai move in unison, carrying Sasamui to Jini's side. The omo-zukai outstretches her hand to touch Jini's shoulder.
Onya cants her head to the side. "Shouldn't have? Might I inquire as to why?"
The shimasen exhales and relaxes. With the soft chatter of mechanical workings, the omo shifts Sasamui's face to a relieved expression.
Jini reaches up to touch Sasamui's painted cheek, smiling happily. Her ears flip as she turns to look at Onya. "Oh, because they were really dangerous! Sometimes I pull out the riffs I learnt in Darkwave in completely the wrong context!
You say, "I almost burned the air up. But it's okay! I'm safe!"
Onya blinks, and chuckles, a sly grin. "Interesting. This explains much," she murmurs, and stalks around Jini, her long, long tail running along the rockerdoll's back. "It's good to know that there are built-in safeguards, then."
Shimasen sighs to herself and strums a slow, sullen melody.
Sasamui's voice, at odds with the music of the shimasen is expressed by the joruri in a soft falsetto, "I am glad you are alright. The music was very pretty!"
Jini looks at the Shimasen a moment. There's some strange dynamic going on in that cluster that needs caring repair... She just watches for now. And sighs happily, pleasure-tuned body caressed. "Well, of course! They had to do something when they converted me into a Doll. Something about the politics of having a weapon as one of them!"
Jini nods at the puppet. "Thank you! It's what I'm made for."
Onya's teeth flash, she seems utterly entranced by this notion. "Indeed. Beautiful," she purrs, and nose-bumps the rabbit.
The omo tilts Sasamui's head slightly and elevates her eyebrows slightly, "You.. Became a doll? How dreadful."
The Discount Bin Ninja has arrived.
Jini giggles, reaching up to kiss the dragon, her fingers twiddling the dark scaled cheek. "Of course! It was a nice change form my earlier life." She giggles again, casually strumming a feedback chord from her guitar.
Onya eyes the Ninja. "You again."
The Discount Bin Ninja twirls something metallic and red in her fingers. She looks innocent, though the expression is difficult to make out from her mask. "Who again?"
Onya coils her tail loosely around Jini, careful not to interrupt any playing, and sets her on her back, between her wings.
The Omo-zukai quickly recoils Sasamui, shifting her face to a hint of alarm. "'Assassin!', the girl whispered to those close enough to her to hear."
The Discount Bin Ninja raises her arms, still twirling the red thing in her fingers. "Spy! There's a difference!"
Jini settles into the embrace of Onya's tail happily, lazy loops of ghost-noise with simple, echoing bleeps drifting from her ears as her fingers laze across the fretboard and pickups.
The zukai move together, giving Sasamui a defensive stance and at the same time leaning her towards Jini. "But to be a thing that is owned and controlled. I... Could not live that way."
Onya chuckles, stalking over towards the Ninja with a Doll on her back (who is, for the record, the third person to have the luxury of dragonback-ride from Onya), and snorts heavily. "So what brings you up here? I can assure you that any reality-destruction that might have occured was certainly stopped by well-timed and placed safeguards."
Sasamui's head is turned to squarely face the ninja. The joruri, turning the page frantically, speaks for her in a quick falsetto: "If you have come for me, it is too late. I have come to like this place and the freedoms I have found. I will not return to my father. "
Jini laughs. "Why not? Everyone loves Bubble Dolls! We're cute and cuddly and harmless and always ready to help someone."
Onya twists her head around to Jini, a wicked grin on her features. "Aye, and utterly predictable. For instance- if I asked if I could hunt you down and eat you, you would likely say yes, and even likely put on a good show of being afraid and terrified if so I asked you to. Correct?"
The Discount Bin Ninja grins. This is reflected in her posture, exaggerated like a puppet or a cartoon, or perhaps just a ham actor in a mask. "Easy, easy. I'm here to relax. I'm not after anybody. I am in service of the Red King, and herald his coming."
The Discount Bin Ninja now gestures to Onya. She is still playing with that damned throwing-heart. "And really. Is it illegal to take a five-minute break? Jeez."
The omo-zukai relaxes Sasamui's pose just a little, and bows her head. The joruri reads for her, "Forgive me. Funny that after all this time in this world I still seem to always jump to the wrong conclusion."
The Discount Bin Ninja bows to Sasamui, shuriken-heart drawing to a standstill. "No, not at all. My clan has been in service to the Red King since its creation long enough ago that I can't remember when it was. We are not often known, even less-frequently known by name. I am Oyuki, also known as the Discount Bin Ninja."
Jini looks down at the ninja. A haze of pink swirls in the air, sparkles shining in time with her background music. "Is the Red King back so soon? Rocking!"
The Discount Bin Ninja stares up at Jini, blinking. "He's been sleepin' for a while now. Waking up soon. We thinkin' the same Red King?"
Jini nods happily. "Oh, of course! I'd be delighted to wet myself in terror for you, miss Onya! I'd have to have a bladder installed, of course. But I'd scream and flee the best I could!"
Onya snorts, and chuckles. "Thank you, but no. I have more filling things to hunt these days." She pauses, considering things for a moment, and then settles onto her stomach, her head still twisted back. "Tell me something. What is the probability that, one day, everyone will be something akin to Dolls?"
The joruri glances at the shimasen, who appears to be daydreaming; having totally missed the dramatic cue.
"I saw the King play live once," Jini says, stars in her eyes. "He's so dreamy. He set his guitar on fire and it ran up and down the strings, and his flesh melted off and he kept playing with the armature beneath..."
The omo swivels Sasamui's head around almost unnaturally to stare at Jini, her mouth left agape.
Jini casually plays what she thinks the shimasen might have underscored the puppet's stare of horror with. The emulation of the ancient instrument is precise.
You say, "Oh, no, miss Onya. We need to have someone to serve! If you put a bunch of Dolls alone in a room, we tend to just giggle a lot and go on autopilot and fuck until we need recharging!"
Onya chuckles, and laughs aloud. "You say that as though it's a bad thing, Jini," she purrs, grinning.
The hidari quickly hands up a diminuative paper fan to Sasamui, who, just as quickly, is made to demurely bow her head and blush.
The Discount Bin Ninja sets herself somewhere high. High places are comfortable! "Tell me, lady! What of yourself?"
The shimasen snaps out of her daydream, her attention suddenly sharp and focused, listening to the music much the way a hungry wolf might stare at meat.
Jini laughs. "We can't get bored but we're just HAPPIER when we're serving someone!"
Jini grins at the shimasen, and ripples off another glimmering shamisen riff. This one has nothing to do with Sasamui's motions or story.
Onya chuckles, and purrs, shifting to allow (and suggest that) the Doll slide off of her back. "Indeed, indeed. I don't think service is quite my expression. I'm too...forceful," she murmurs, and yawns widely. "I require rest."
The Discount Bin Ninja gnaws on part of her mask, watching and listening now.
The old woman picks it up, catching the chord and sending a second voice circling high and low around it.
The Discount Bin Ninja listens, tapping a finger on something, quiet, but obviously happy.
Jini bounds off of Onya's back, bouncing a few times when she lands on the ground, and curtseys exaggeratedly with a hissing spiralling decaying chord accent. "Whatever you require from us, you have but to ask, ma'am!"
The joruri, sets his jaw and his face grows a it red despite his best efforts to remain emotionless. He pointedly does not look up from his text.
Onya snorts, and chuckles. "What I have need of at the moment, only I can provide. I go to home, to see my roost and rest."
Onya nods to everyone, politely, and disappears.
Jini grins at the Shimasen and saunters into the midst of the puppeteers surrounding Sasamui, kissing the Joruri gently on the cheek as she trades increasingly merry riffs with the wizened musician.
The omo starts to move Sasamui to wave but Onya is gone too quickly.
The Discount Bin Ninja shakes her head and sighs. "People here are so distracting." Clear amusement is in her voice.
The young ashi's mouth drops agape. "They should not see us.", he startledly says to his master.
You say, "Oh! I'm sorry, sirs! Shall I forget you?"
Jini blinks innocent, wide eyes.
The Omo gives the boy a quick kick and a stern look. The hidari puts his finger to his lips shushing the boy.
The Discount Bin Ninja rubs her temples. "Oiiii. I need wine. Sake!" And it is in her hand, small cup and bottle.
The joruri, face a livid red, turns the page and announces rather tersely, "Who are you talking to?", the girl inquired.
Jini giggles, dancing to the music she plays with the shimasen. "All the people around you!" she says to the puppet.
Shimasen's fingers move nimbly on her chords, aknowledging the kiss only with a flury of joyous notes.
You say, "Your whole crowd of symbiotes and artificers. You're a most beautiful dance of cooperation, miss Sasamui!"
Sasamui (narrated) says, "I do not understand. There is only the assassin and she has said naught."
The Discount Bin Ninja drops to the ground, crouching. "Spy. I do not make my living by death. I make my living by information." She smiles, and it is obvious and warm. "Some, my dear lady, would be under the impression that you are not as real as you truly are."
The omo-zukai turns Sasamui's head left and right (but never directly towards another member of the troupe). "I see no one," the joruri frantically exclaims in a hoarsening falsetto.
Sasamui is bowed apologetically, "Forgive me, Oyuki-san."
The Discount Bin Ninja nods softly, eyes closed. "Many do not make the distinction. I take no offense."
Jini looks at the shimasen, head tilted curiously. And shrugs. "I must apologise, lady Sasamui! My visual processors must be in need of maintenance again. I often see dreams that aren't there!"
The Discount Bin Ninja edges toward Jini and whispers. "It is impolite to point out the puppet masters. The play is to be so complete that they are unseen and invisible."
Jini laughs. "We're all on strings!"
Jini gestures to a shimmering, hard-to-notice umbilical that leads from the base of her throat off into the distance. Often silent, it occasionally thrums with little quivers, just before she moves.
The Discount Bin Ninja nods. "My puppet masters are simply as stealthy as I. You can't even hear the music playing, it is so subtly worked into the sounds around us."
The joruri, suddenly taking almost a wicked smile nods to himself, draws a pen from the drawer in the podium beneath his script and quickly writes a few things in his book, then just as deftly replaces the pen.
The Discount Bin Ninja pretends to make no notice of the joruri's quick change to the script.
Sasamui (narrated) says, "If someone were hiding here, wouldn't it make them unhappy to be seen?"
Parity steps off of the lift, looking about and saying, "Greetings."
The shimasen, taken aback by such hackery misses and hits a sour note. She glares at the joruri.
The Discount Bin Ninja nods firmly. "Of course it would." She is grinning, broadly. And takes secret pleasure in the internal discord.
Jini kisses the shimasen, dartingly, on her way out of the midst of the puppeteers, and giggles. She sits beneath the Cube Tree, turning her volume down with a hand at her breast and quietly experimenting with melodies.
The joruri flips back a few pages, glances over a few paragraphs then comes back to his present page.
The joruri reads to the fourth wall, "Sasamui thought about the admission she had made to the spy. It was true. She no longer wanted to return to her home; to be a puppet, controlled by her father or the husband to be; nothing more than a plaything. But what would she make of herself in this strange place?"
The shimasen's fingers lovingly stroke her chords, finding a momentary balance between her own thoughts and those of the play, a distant, lonely sort of sound as Sasamui sat and thought.
Jini giggles mischeviously, and a microphone appears in her hand. She jacks it into her sex and whispers, the processed sound swelling from her ears, an eerily perfect imitation of the jorui, but her words. "Sasamui looked curiously at the rabbit. She wondered how the girl came to be a plaything, and to take such delight in it. Was it the same when she chose to be everyone's toy as it would be if she had been born to the role?"
The joruri looks like he just swallowed a goldfish. The omo-zukai and hidari seem similarly stunned, completely freezing for a moment.
Shimasen falls over laughing!
Parity tilts his head slightly, looking between Sasamui and Jini, watching quietly.
Jini leans against Parity, a soft, comfortable weight kept at a pleasant temperature, and plays a mysterious little coil of sound. The strings of her guitar vanish here and there.
Parity loops an arm comfortably around Jini, hmmming quietly as his fingers brush against her side.
The troupe attempts to collect itself (save for the shimasen who continues to howl like a hyena) The omo-zukai shifts triggers, opening Sasamui's eyes wide as the hidari puts a fan in her hand, which the omo then draws to cover her embarassed face.
Jini nestles against Parity, the sounds of her playing a quiet vibration in her body.
The joruri edits his volume quickly and reads the ammended text, "Miss Jini. Why do you say such an embarassing thing? I would never think such things. and... why have you made your voice like my father's? It is very distressing."
The omo shifts Sasamui's expression to a more hurt-looking guise, desperately trying to follow the joruri's cues.
Jini blinks. "I said nothing, madam Sasamui!" she laughs. "I only practice my music."
[OOC] Jini says, "Nowhere in the rules of Bubble Dolls is it said that they always tell the truth. Far from it."
The omo-zukai makes Sasamui's expression nearly as resentful as the joruri's. Said narrator speaks again for the girl, "That voice came from you. I heard it. Why would you do that?"
Jini looks at the puppet. Or at the joruri. Both. The volume on her music rises. Calming, entrancing, beautiful, honest. "I would never do a thing like that," she says. Her eyes are wide and gaze-trapping. The music thrums softly. "What did you imagine me saying?" Jini is innocent and trusting. And trustable.
Jini swirls at the center of a subtle vortex of belief.
The joruri smiles to himself and speaks for the girl. "Well. I thought... No. Nevermind. I suppose it was like when you imagined there were other people around."
Parity makes a lead sheet from nothing, a slight smile on his face as he twists its shape into that of a rose with deft motions of his fingers.
Jini giggles. She plays a final chord, a soft sealing, and blows a kiss to the puppet. Or to her handlers.
You say, "I must be catching!"
Jini sinks into the kiss for a moment, then sighs softly. "I must depart, sir Parity. My power reserves have run low. I have to return to Charm for a new load of rainbows and happy thoughts!"