Would You Like This?

[fastermindf_ck]

Where: A small restaurant in Suna
When: January 9th
Notes: Closed to Uzumaki Kazue
-

In retrospect, Shisui really should have heeded the name of the food. He really should have. He'd been so sweetly assured by the waitress, though, that it was their delicacy and everyone liked it...

He looked in distaste at the sand dumplings. The flavor wasn't bad, and Shisui might have liked them in any other circumstance. But now with sand stuck in every crevice of his body and the arid air coating his tongue and lungs, the dry dumpling made him want to gag. He took a pull of the cactus juice in front of him and withheld a shudder.

He hated Suna.

Sure, the people were phenomenal in the fact that they could stand this place and make a life, and a six year old here probably had more endurance than Shisui could ever dream of, but that didn't change the fact that he couldn't stand it. Putting the glass down, he scratched at his peeling nose. Even with head protection, he'd still burned. It wasn't like it couldn't be so hot in Konoha, but there was almost always some sort of shade. In Suna, outside of the city, there was nothing to be found for miles. He grimaced.

One more night, and he was gone. Just one more. Mission complete, he just needed to make sure everyone was happy.

He stared at his plate. That didn't make Shisui happy. Glancing around the restaurant, his eyes fell on a young kunoichi a table over. He didn't have his hiate-ate on, but he thought the fact that he was getting over a sunburn, and the clothes he couldn't get to fold quite right marked him as a foreigner.

He shifted towards her and smiled sheepishly. "I guess you wouldn't want a plate of sand dumplings?" He felt bad returning them, considering he'd eaten only half of one--still in his hand. Knowing ninja, though, she'd probably think he was trying to poison her.

A Damsel Moderately Distressed

[sekihan]

Where: A minor village close to the border of Earth Country
When: Backdated a little over a week to New Years
Notes: Open!

Ashiko sighed, a mournful contrast to the festive air engulfing the latest village that her master's whims had taken her to. While others might relish the chance at a holiday, she loathed being sent out on these specialized errands, deep, deep down where the guilt of resenting an order couldn't reach. It felt wrong to be so far from her master's side; what if he needed something from her? What if he let his meal schedule slip without her there to police it? Her master was wise and powerful and noble, of course, but all great men had a tendency towards tunnel vision at times. She had once returned from an errand to find him holed up in his lab, subsiding off of rice balls he had roasted over a nearby burner.

The memory still jolted her awake in a cold sweat, sometimes.

 

Another thing she disliked about errands such as this, she thought as she tightened her grip on the thick parcel of dried herbs and regional extracts she had been sent out for, was situations such as this. Small, pale, and pretty as a doll, Ashiko was outwardly the very antithesis of dangerous. As such, she was often targeted by all sorts of lowlifes that thought they could take advantage of her apparent weaknesses. And that was without factoring in the cheap booze that was flowing freely with the birth of the new year.

 

"If you gentleman would be so kind as to step aside, I have a schedule to keep," she excused herself politely. It was a long shot, true, but she always at least attempted the diplomatic route. The two hulking louts blocking the small street merely sniggered to each other and bared crooked grins her way. Inwardly, Ashiko sighed. Outwardly, however, she slowly adjusted her grip on her package so that she could subtly worm a finger into one of the hidden pockets lining her wide kimono sleeves, her polite smile not wavering so much as a millimeter.

 

She hated having to resort to such tactics; it was one thing if her master ordered her to poison somebody who had been inconveniencing him, but taking the initiative herself for the sake of riffraff such as this was nothing more than a waste of the materials her master had so graciously provided for her, in her modest opinion.