endgames | 002 -- [Action || Voice]

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002 -- [Action || Voice]

[After a good week of mostly having his nose stuck in his journal, Shikamaru is fairly satisfied that he knows it forward and back. As for half of the information he's gotten out of it? Not so much. But thinking is troublesome, and he's tired of trying to figure out what to do with what he's learned.

Thus, Thursday morning on sees him doing very little at all, besides sitting around on a bench stationed alongside the path between Seventh Heaven and Good Spirits, watching the clouds go by with a content grin on his face. Ah, that's much better.

Sometime into the evening, before it gets dark out, he lights a cigarette and opens his journal.]

...So anyone know how to play this Pai Sho game? [ It's going to be his earworm until he finally gets to play, dammit. B| ]

[Filtered to Akimichi Chouji, Uzumaki Naruto, and Aburame Shino || 95% Unhackable]

Oi, let's get something to eat later.

[OOC: Forward-dated to Thursday, when there's good weather again. |D]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You can just get it back after dinner. Say seven? He probably won't be looking for it before then. And that way, if you don't have a chance to play anyone else, you can play with him.

Works for me. Thanks for the loan.

No problem. Actually, I wanted to talk to you anyway.

Yeah? [He tucks the board under his arm.] What about?

[A courtesy glance around - more for his sake than for hers.] I spoke with the Malnosso like I said. You were right, the echos were connected with everything breaking down like it did.

That's what they told you? [He take a moment as if to consider that.] You sure you can take them for their word?

No. But they seem pretty shameless so far. When I asked them why they made us fall in love with other people for a while - told them that I was unhappy about it [To say the least. That was probably the first conversation she had with Catherine that she wasn't yelling at him.] - he told me it was because he forgot to carry a decimal.

Besides. He said it was 'The Great One' who managed to fix it. A few months ago, this guy was so impressed with something else 'The Great One' did that he rearranged the stars in Luceti to read 'Praise the Great One.' For weeks.

Oh, that's nice. I'm glad they have enough patience to make sure they rearrange the stars just right.

[Her comment about decimals and some of the other replies he's read have had him thinking though... Bah. That's exactly what he didn't want to do today.]

But all right. Let's say we take him to be honest. [Although the bumbling personality could be a lovely facade.] Did they explain it any more than that?

Not really. [She's hesitant to talk about how she pressed for information about their alternate selves.] Although I did ask about the people who.. replaced us, and they didn't know any more about it than what we'd guessed.

[Oh, he doesn't know about that. Might have just been the old man who didn't know more than what they'd already thought of...]

So they really are clueless.

[He'll keep his questions to himself this time around. Katara was nice enough to dig as far as she already did.]

Maybe. [She doesn't really like thinking about what else he said. She doesn't like thinking about that other her... or Sokka's for that matter.]

[Okay, enough of this seriousness. It's troublesome for both parties.]

Don't worry about it too much. It's not worth the effort if you can't understand more about it.

[A soft 'heh.'] You remind me of a friend of mine.

[She shakes her head.] But how am I going to know if I can't understand more about it if I don't make the effort?

You won't. But what's the point of making the effort if you know you won't be able to understand it with the information you have? Unless you're interested in the headache, it doesn't do you much good.

Maybe. But you'll never know what you can find if you look at something a different way. [She shakes her head, dropping the topic.] Anyway, did you want me to show you how to play?

[He's spent most of his life putting that to practice.]

That'd be great.

[Glancing around the path, she locates a convenient bench and walks over.] OK, when you open the board there's a bag of tiles in there, those are the pieces.

[So be careful when you open it up, man, because she doesn't want to have to pick them up.]

[ Of course. Neither does he. 8|

He pulls them out, and examines a few.] Lots of flowers. [Oh, but there's a dragon. Good. He feels more manly now.]

Each piece means different things in how you play the game. [Katara proceeds to give a fairly good layman's explanation of Pai Sho.]

Got it?

I think I get the gist of it, yeah. [The grin on his face is a lot more content this time around. These are the kinds of things Shikamaru would rather spend his time thinking about.]

Do you want to play a quick round? I'm not as good at it as, well, just about anyone, but at least you'd be able to see if the rules stuck or if you had any other questions before you go met Iroh.

Heh, if you have the time. I don't wanna keep you if you have somewhere to be.

[BUT IF YOU COULD THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.]

[She shrugs.] No where important. Do you want to go first?

Sure thing.

[He's picked up on how to play this game pretty quickly, it seems. He's reminded of his first attempt playing shogi, and how actually playing it felt like he was discovering the game. It's quite the experience. If he gets bored enough this next week, he might just make his own pai sho board.

Despite downplaying his skill, it's obvious before too long that he has a knack for the game.]

[Katara's not much of an opponent for him, as she's never actually played more than a game or two, so it's almost as if she's learning along with him. It will be obvious to Shikamaru, though, that she plays to win, learns as she goes along, and makes surprising decisions that even - occasionally - work out well.]

You're really good at this.

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