Random Happenstance [OPEN]

(This RP is not limited to the crews or ships, but if your Captain is not planning on stopping at the Port chances are you aren't here either XD If people want to break off and do pairs things (aka, rated stuff), please start a new thread~) Kiku just happens to be at the Port because he was visiting some old friends.)

***

Kiku sat idly along the ledge of a fountain, watching the passersby with little interest. Absently, he twirled a coin between his fingers, as if contemplating tossing it into the waters and making a wish. The wind gently brushed his hair, carrying to him snippets of the conversation around him. He could distinguish between the Dockers and the Otherlanders, their sharp contrasting speech translating easily for him. Among what sounded like foreign languages ground under the pestle, the Otherlanders' foreign tongues stuck out like a rusted nail in a badly placed floorboard.

He wore more common clothes to the Port, insisting (more like arguing) with Yao that his silk attire would garner too much unwanted attention. And although he would never admit it to Yao, he preferred the plain breeches, flat shoes, and brown shirt because it did not produce nearly as many awkard situations as wearing silks. Too many people had mistaken him for a female, and his rather feminie Captain did not help in his defense. Besides, his whole reason for going ashore other than to escape the ship was to visit an old friend...and to repay some debts.

He hid a smile, still feigning disinterest as he flipped the coin expertly over his shoulder. It disturbed the water with a soft 'plunk', and he closed off the conversation for a moment to make a wish.

'Something different...I want something different to happen today.'

He had no specific orders from Yao, though he assumed he was to gather information and bring anything pressing to his attention. Sighing, he drew from a small satchel a small roll of paper, an ink pot, and a feather. He had nothing else better to do, and the urge to keep his Rouglin fresh nagged at him. Balancing the paper on the fountain ledge, he dipped the feather in and began to scribble down the bits of conversation he picked up, accompanied by their translations. He did his best to tune out the Otherlander's talk, finding it more difficult when more of them seemed to be approaching his sitting place.

Lili looked around the port, looking for someone who might have a job to offer. She had started to make that a habit; after all, she didn't want to live on the street forever. Of course, she also made sure to keep a low profile for the moment, just in case she would run into a man who would do… things to a young woman such as herself, though a small voice in her head told her that if she didn’t get a decent job soon, she might have to sink down to doing things like those for a living. She quickly pushed that voice away.

As she kept walking around, listening to the people around her (that shopkeeper apparently needed an apprentice…), Lili eventually noticed that she had arrived at a part of the port she had never been at before. As she looked around, she saw a fountain, a wishing fountain judging from the man(?), a few years older than her if she were to go by his looks, tossing a coin in it. As she got closer, she noticed the man was writing something down. Her curiosity drove her closer, not to mention the fact that who knew, the man could need help with something. She stopped at the other side of the fountain, peering over the man’s shoulder. It seemed to be some sort of… translation?

He paused in his writing, sensing another person standing close to him and looking at him...or rather, at the paper in his lap. He glanced up, meeting the gaze of a young lady. He kept the paper in plain sight, not wishing to arouse suspicion from her. He doubted she would be able to read the Rouglin, but the translations she could probably read if she could decipher his scrawl. He was not the most proficient at writing, though he was far better than the ten-year-old Rat that had accidentally been taken aboard the White Lotus. Still, he had no royal's handwriting, but at least he wrote in the Common used by the Otherlanders in the area. He carefully placed the quill aside, capping the ink so it did not dry out. He would not write anymore while he had someone watching him.

"Is there something that I can help you with?" He inquired, the words sounding a bit accented after his long days speaking in Yao's tongue. Yao had forced more proper Common on him, though he loathed the formation of some of the vowels like he loathed bathing. Yao had also taught him his own tongue, the one he spoke in his homeland and to his crew. Kiku liked listening to it, though he hated speaking it. He knew his own native tongue was different, though Yao only knew bits and pieces of it and thus could not teach him properly. That, and Yao felt he was better off learning Common and Chinese, rather than Japanese.

Idly, he removed another small coin from his pocket and began to flip it in the air, twirling it between his fingers before it sailed upward again. He was careful to keep it far away from the young lady, but close enough that she could watch his showmanship and skill. He continued this game, switching hands and rolling the coin along his palm or the backs of his fingers. When he grew tired of playing, he flipped it into the fountain and watched it silently for a minute. In his mind, he was making another wish, and after he completed it he took another coin out of his pocket and offered it to the young lady.

"Would you like to try?"

((Kiku is calling it Common, since we haven't yet established what the 'universal' language of the Port/AU is, and it distinguishes it from Rouglin, Chinese, Japanese, etc.))

Ah, so it WAS a man. And Asian too, Lili realized as she saw his facial features and heard his accent. She wondred where he came from... China, perhaps? Somewhere far away at least, no doubt about that.

"Oh, well, I... I was wondering what that you were writing is," Lili said as she watched the man play with his coin. How skilled...

"Try?" she repeated as he asked his question. She then nodded and took the coin he held out. "Yes thank you."

She tried to flip the coin the same way as the man did, but had no success. This was harder than it looked. She tried a second time, and this time she managed to make it do a small flip before it fell to the ground. Picking it up, she briefly wondered if she'd keep it. Eventually, her conscience won out and she handed the coin back to the Asian man.

"If you don't mind me asking, sir... Where are you from?" she asked as she handed the coin over.