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Crystal Clear Ice

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WanTheFloof

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RP Date
Y43
RP Location
Ice Queen Sake
Part of business was knowing where and who to sell to. Egwene had been contemplating and creating a special sort of net with drone variant for deeper sea extraction. They were designed for unconventional sea mining using sluices and electromagnetic attraction disks, much like the Rock-Sucker. And while making this, she realized the potential for more esoteric science instead of electromagnetic disks to draw out everything else that was in the ocean aside from magnetic metals. They would pull out none-ferrous things like gold, but also other crap that was not meant to be in the sea, effectively cleaning the thing up and leaving pure salt or fresh water, depending on which it was applied to.

So, finding a relatively successful business woman who also cared for the environment, Egwene stepped into Ice Queen Sake, dressed in a shirt, blouse, skirt and tie. She thought she looked really smart, though if other people thought the same was up for debate...
 
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The sitting room of the master's residence at the Ice Queen Sake facilities was a square room with tatami floors and a wicker ceiling suspended a metre or so above the exposed beams that formed the structure of the house. Hidden lighting along the top of the exposed beams bounced off the ceiling and illuminated the space gently. To one side of the room, there was a bamboo rod hanging from a beam that ended in a piece of metal that included an ornamental fish and a hook that suspended a cast-iron kettle over an open fire in a sunken stone hearth. Symmetrically opposite of the hearth on the other side of the room there was a low wooden table with an integrated orange blanket, next to which there were a pair of black silken cushions. The left and right walls were sliding paper dividers, shōji, through which more light flooded into the room.

The most eye-catching element was the back wall, which was a series of sliding doors similar to those on the left and right walls in function, but these were black lacquered wood that shone even in the relatively dim light. A gold-leaf mural spanned the entire length of the wall, depicting a massive beast with dark stripes along its slender body and down its long tail. The beast was pouncing from its hiding place in the darkness of a bamboo forest. It was leaping towards the onlooker, so its head was huge and rendered in exquisite detail. Its jaw was open, exposing its sharp fangs. But its eyes were full of humanity and cunning. The flickering light of the open fire caused the shadows to dance across the mural and the gold to shimmer in such a way that it seemed holographic, gaining a third dimension by means of optical illusion.

The bamboo forest slid open and from the darkness beyond, an older geshrin woman stepped into the room. Her neatly-trimmed straight black hair framed a face that, despite having been obsolete for decades now, was still quite handsome, bordering on pretty. Her dark eyes in particular had youthful energy that belied her age. Her smile seemed to raise the temperature in the room noticeably. She wore a black kimono that was plain above her orange obi but embroidered with gold thread below in the pattern of bamboo shoots and leaves. The woman slid the door closed behind herself, proceeded to the centre of the room, and bowed deeply to her guest.

"Welcome to Ice Queen Sake, I am Kinoshita Fusako. I am honoured by your visit."
 
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The owner herself came out to greet her, in a beautiful black Kimono and then even bowed. It was all so very much in the ceremonial side of things, it made Egwene feel awkward. Her cheeks flushed a soft red at the whole thing and she squirmed a little uncomfortably.

"H-hey...I'm just a mechanic. You don't have to be so f-formal around me" she stammered, biting her lip as she shuffled on the spot, nerves and anxiety all the way at the top right now.
 
Fusako's eyes followed Egwene as she began shuffling, then narrowed as she considered her options. Though she often found that putting her business acquaintances somewhat off-balance could be beneficial, she hadn't intended to make her guest feel uncomfortable. The poor young woman seemed terrified, so the sake maker tried to think of what she could say to put her at ease.

"Oh, that's a relief," she admitted with a small laugh. She exhaled deeply, and in doing so her body language became much more relaxed. She began to approach and made an effort to accentuate how awkwardly the tight kimono restricted the movement of her legs. "Just between you and me, I hate being so formal. But I always want to make my guests feel welcome, and for some, a show of respect is an important part of that."

"Let's start again,"
she suggested and extended a hand. "I'm Fusako. And you are...?"
 
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Egwene was relieved to see it was just an act. She wasn't used to being treated like that, and it really caught her off guard. Though when the woman became far more friendly, Egwene gave a gentle smile. The way the Kimono restricted her legs however, got Egwene's mind whirring, and she bit her lip. It was bad manners to make fetishistic advances towards someone you had just met, so she just kept that in for the moment.

"Respect is fine. But, that was kind of a lot to deal with" Egwene replied, taking the hand and shaking it. "Egwene. I'm here to talk to you about an environmental business preposal"
 
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As they shook hands, Fusako placed her other hand on top, sandwiching Egwene's between both of hers with soft pressure. The older woman was happy to see the mechanic smiling, but noticed when she started biting her lip again. Is she still uncomfortable? I will have to work harder to help the poor dear relax.

"Of course, I totally understand," the sake maker replied, and lifted one of her hands to gesture towards the table and blanket off to one side of the room. With her other hand, she kept ahold of Egwene and tried to gently guide her over. "Let me make it up to you by helping you get comfortable and getting you something to drink. Water? Tea? Sake?"
 
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The facial expressions for this lip biting was different. Before she looked liked a deer in the headlights, but now there was a sultry tilt to her eyes, and a more seductive smile than the nervous awkward one. Still, she tried not to be too overt with it, and let herself be guided over to the table. Egwene was a very firm woman, either one who hide quite a lot of muscle behind that cute office uniform, or something else...

"I'll...have whatever you are having, Fushko" Egwene replied, her face a strange look of trying to stop looking like something and doing a poor job.
 
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The tabletop was a single slab of wood, the cross-section of some ancient tree, the edges of which were still wrapped in gnarly bark. The surface had been sealed with something like epoxy to make it smooth and flat, but clear and thin to allow the pattern of the wood to be admired. The orange blanket that seemed to be built into the table was thick, but light, seemingly full of something like downy feathers or cotton fluff to help it insulate against the cold room. The table was low, designed with kneeling in mind, but lifting the blanket revealed that there was a lower section of the floor here allowing those sitting at the table to sit with their feet down in the modern style. Somewhere under the table, there was a source of warmth.

Once Egwene was seated, Fusako walked around and folded back the blanket on her side revealing a platter that she lifted and placed atop the table. On it, there was a white ceramic teapot with tea leaves painted in blue, another white ceramic vessel within a larger container made of unglazed clay, two plain white ceramic cups that were so wide and shallow that they were almost bowls, and a heavy towel hiding something beneath it. There were also two sets of chopsticks next to four small dishes, three of which contained shrivelled plums. The fourth dish contained a mound of white rice.

"Help yourself to some ume with rice," the older woman ordered as she gestured to the plum dishes. She first pointed to a dish containing dry plums, then to the one with plums in a thin liquid, then finally to the one with the plums in a syrupy liquid. "These are dried, these are salty, and these last ones are sweet."

"And don't get the wrong impression,"
she continued sternly. "I make umeshu with this fruit once a year, and these are simply the excess from last year that I had nothing better to do with than to preserve and serve to guests."

Fusako then picked up the heavy towel on the platter, revealing a simple cast iron stand that was conspicuously devoid of whatever was meant to sit on top of it. With this in hand, she shuffled over to the hearth and lifted the cast-iron kettle, using the towel to protect her hands from the hot metal. She shuffled back over, then poured some hot water into the unglazed clay container in which the ceramic vessel was hiding, careful not to get any of the hot water into the vessel itself. Once this was done, she placed the cast-iron kettle on top of its stand, and the towel to one side on the table. The kettle, still hot, radiated warmth onto their faces. Then she sat and tucked herself under the blanket, before pulling the ceramic vessel out of its container and pouring them each some warm sake. She lifted her cup.

"This is fresh sake. It is unpasteurized, unaged, and generally regarded as quite unrefined," she explained, doing her best to soothe her guest's aversion to formality. "Consider it the least formal of any sake you will drink. Kanpai."
 
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Egwene did indeed help herself to some ume with rice, a bit of each salty, dried, and sweet. Though, the woman went through an interesting routine of pouring some Sake out and explicitly stating how informal it was, like Egwene's reaction had driven her entirely the other way with this. It made her giggle some as she took the sake and drunk a bit.

"Well, since we are both doing our best to be informal, would it be informal to draw erotic art of the person you are talking to?" Egwene asked, a playful smile on her face and a teasing tone to her voice. Though, the glimmer in her eye made it clear she was serriously asking.
 
Fusako's eyes went wide, and she almost choked on her sake, putting her cup down on the table in front of herself and bringing her wide-sleeved hand up to cover her mouth. After a moment spent coughing, she managed to clear her throat and gave a genuine laugh that welled up from someplace deep within her. I thought I had her off-balance, she mused to herself, and with one move she turned it back on me. The sake maker put on a curious expression and thought about how the mechanic had phrased her question.

"Are you offering to draw me? Or are you asking me to draw you? Or are you suggesting both?" The older woman asked. "I am no artist, except perhaps in the art of producing libations."
 
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Apparently yes, from the Fusako's reaction. Egwene would politely let her recover while smiling gently and drinking the sake. And then when she finally did speak, it was far from opposed to the idea. Which was very nice to hear.

"I am offering to draw you, yes. I don't need a model, though I am sure you'd look beautiful in what I have planned regardless" She'd finish the sake then put the cup down. "Ostensibly, I am not an artist either. But I have an art program installed which I work on in my spare time. It's easier to do there, the universe is not kind enough to have a ctrl+z in real life. I put some processing towards it, with background aid from TONY, and it creates a nice end product, I think. Nothing spectacular, but nice enough"
 
Fusako tried to remember the last time she had used a computer for more than just sending and receiving messages, but no memory came to mind. Despite this, she understood the gist of what the mechanic told her. If this woman has an art program installed, the sake maker considered, she must have a digital mind like a nekovalkyrja. Fusako inspected Egwene's face and concluded that she didn't look like any neko she had ever seen, but she rarely had the opportunity to spend much time with them, so she couldn't rule out the possibility.

"It's been some time since I've been that informal," the older woman admitted, thinking of her late husband. "If you'd asked me when I was younger, I might've been offended. Perhaps even outraged. But I find myself deeply amused at the idea. It's not every day that someone surprises me."

Fusako lifted her cup to her lips and closed her eyes, sipping softly at the warm liquid. Her mouth filled with sweetness that quickly evolved into a subtle fruit flavour that defied identification before it settled into a lingering earthy, bready, mushroomy aroma. With her cup still at her mouth, she narrowly opened her eyes and peered over the rim at her guest. Then she looked down at the table before replacing her cup.

"Who is Tony?"
 
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"I think you'd look beautiful whatever emotion you showed" Egwene replied, a teasing smile and a quick wink to really sell the idea that Egwene was totally down for this whole interaction now it had gone away from stiff celebrity-esque mode.

Playing with the empty cup for a moment, Egwene put her words together then looked up at Fusako.
"TONY is my MI. His main housing is surrounding a quantum computer that holds bits in superposition until observed. TONY is a very simple MI but that is because he is only half an MI. Even though my head is a centimetre squared larger than the normal head, it is still far too small to house a true MI and me at the same time. So he has his other half in my Combat Flight Suit"

With that way too much information out of the way, Egwene gave an awkward smile and hoped she hadn't boiled the poor Sake Woman's brain...
 
Fusako nodded slowly while Egwene explained, then reached over to lift the sake serving vessel from its container. It was made of white ceramic, like the teapot on the table, but instead of having blue paint in the shape of tea leaves, it had a simple design consisting of three thin strokes of blue paint sharing a common root. It was meant to be reminiscent of the grassy rice plant. The older woman first filled Egwene's cup, and then her own before putting the now mostly-empty serving vessel away in the larger container, where it floated and tipped against the rim. She took another sip of her replenished drink.

"I think I understand. There are one and a half people in the body I see before me," the sake maker observed. "And both of you would be drawing me, in a sense. I confess that I am a little shy to think that Tony will be helping you when I've never met him."
 
"Don't worry on that front. TONY is just a machine. Maybe has more capabilities than a car you drive, but is ultimately the same as the car. Technically I am also a machine, but I am a full blown LI, so there is only one person, and one smart computer. TONY doesn't exist in any real sense, he's just a mechanical assistant. Though I like to think of him as real because it helps keep me grounded at times"

She'd thank Fusako for the new drink and take a gentle sip.
"And I can tell you I have the deepest of appreciations for your beauty~"
 
"I won't pretend to understand the difference between an MI and an LI, but I do understand my car," the sake maker stated, thinking of her meticulously maintained delivery car that was nearly as old as she was. "My car is a tool to be used that takes no action on its own. If you say that Tony is equivalent, then I understand that."

Satisfied, she took another sip of her drink and thought for a moment, thinking back to before the soul transfer that had placed her in this body that her guest so appreciated.

"Thank you, I was very pleased with the upgrade from my previous body," she finally replied to Egwene's compliment. "I have been very hard on this body, but it has never let me down. That's why I'm so hesitant to go through another upgrade."

Then, a lopsided grin slowly developed on her face.

"Alright, Egwene. Draw me. What do you need me to do?"
 
"MI is Machine Intelligence. It's basically a term for a fancy computer. LI is Living Intelligence, a human brain scanned into the digital sea and supported by a high powered quantum processing unit. The difference is scale, like a knife to a nuke, you know?"

There was a bit more conversation, and then finally she stated her interest to be drawn. Which was nice, because now Egwene could - and did - get to work.
"Merely give me your permission. I didn't want to overstep my boundries. Though, the question is, how far do you take erotica? I like to start subtle, but there is quite the depth that can be plunged if you have an interest for it"
 
"Well then, you explicitly have my permission." Fusako considered the notion of erotica depth before she continued. She wasn't exactly sure what Egwene meant, but she wondered if anything was capable of offending her at this point in her life.

For some time, she wondered when her sensibilities had changed. She thought back to her youth, getting married, and losing her husband. She thought about her years of apprenticeship to fill the void that he had left. Then she became the master. These days, though she was loathed to admit it, her apprentices could easily run the facilities without her. Finally, she decided that the change must have occurred during her first few years here, running the entire operation on her own. That time was filled with challenges that had almost ended her dream before it began, but she persevered. And afterwards, the stresses and anxieties in her life felt like they had been subdued. She supposed it must have made her less sensitive to matters of sex as well.

"You've surprised me once already today. Do so again," the sake maker ordered with a smirk before issuing a challenge. "That is, if you are able."
 
"Then I shall start simple and move on to deeper stuff as we progress" She would reply, taking a sip of her drink and getting to work. Fusako would look beautiful all bound up, but subtle was promised first, so subtle was made first. It would be simple, and delicate, not notable as anything overt. And that was exactly how Egwene liked it, the compounding worry of being found out mixing with it being a thing to begin with.

"Though, I did not come here to draw you. I came here to talk to you about business. So let us talk that while I work"
 
"I was beginning to wonder when it would come to that. I admit that I've been rather enjoying the foreplay," she giggled. "So to speak."

Fusako picked up a pair of chopsticks and used them to combine a dried plum together with a small amount of rice, which she delicately placed into her mouth. The pickled plum was a powerful medley of sour and bitter, but the rice helped to subdue the intense flavour. She knew that it was also quite salty, but somehow that only served to increase the other flavours.

"But indeed, let's talk business," she accepted. Then she tilted her head to one side, looking curious. "Don't you want me to disrobe while you draw me? Or am I clothed in these erotic drawings?"
 
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