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Noriko has been busy in the time in Milliways, but she's not in the bar itself. She's amassed hundreds of origami cranes in all shades of the rainbow and sizes, and in wildly different patterns, which she's gently layering into a tall glass jar. As she fills that up she's making dozens of miniscule cranes to drop in, and while it may not be the requisite thousand it's certainly enough for her.

While she's layering carefully, she's got earbuds in her ears thumping out music to which she's murmuring along with the rather fast rap. She's got good flow, nobody can deny that part.

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There is a toddler, followed by a cat, watching Noriko with extreme fascination.

Noriko eyes the toddler with an eyebrow raised, pausing in folding one of the tiny cranes. It looks like a miniature of one of the Grey-Summers clan, and she's not really sure what to do with it.

"Please someone come along and be your owner."

"Butterf'y!" the toddler declares, pointing excitedly at the crane.

The cat, a tabby, quietly comes closer.

"Stay," she says forcefully, holding her hand up at the kid.

"Not a butterfly. Crane, totally different animal."

"Cwane," the toddler mimics. "Pwetty paper bug!"

The cat hops up onto her table.

"...Close enough, kid," she says. "Bird, though. Flying, feathery, eats bugs."

"Birb," Egil says.

That is when Teja comes up from the forge as well, and scoops up Egil.

"It is paper-craft, from the land of Japan," he explains to the little fellow.

The cat on the table tries to catch a crane.

The cat gets a gentle cuff to one ear, just enough to dissuade it from picking at the birds. "No," she says, and picks the animal up around the belly and plopping it down o the ground.

"You let your kid wander much?"

"No," Teja says, "and if he is out of my view for a moment, then at least one of the cats will be with him."

It's the safety of Egil that he cares about, not the safety of everyone from Egil. Of course, Egil getting in trouble means a threat to Egil, so he makes sure Egil doesn't upset anybody else, either.

"Yeah, cats don't make for great babysitters," she says, carefully scooping tiny birds into the jar in layers of color.

"I don't think espousing the virtues of origami's gonna go him a lot of good."

"You might try," Teja says. "He is interested in making things."

"Birb!" Egil says, as if explaining to Teja.

"You wanna take a raincheck for when he actually knows what it is I'm making?" Noriko asks.

"He knows it's a bird," Teja says, picking Egil up.

"Yeah, picked up on that," she chuckles, and slides over a sheet of paper. "If you're expecting him to make a bird you might be a little disappointed, though."

"I am sure," Teja says, "he will be content with watching you make them, for now."

"Happy to provide free entertainment," she says a little dryly as she makes a crease sharper by pinching it between the unyielding metal on her fingertips. "Just keep the cat off the table and it'll be great."

Teja picks up the cat and puts him on his shoulder; he is big and strong enough for a small cat and a little boy.

"We all provide that for each other."

"Or you would if I found you entertaining," she says.

"Another would entertain you, who in turn is entertained by me," Teja says. "Or some more twists."

"That depends on who you're entertained by," Noriko quips.

"Egil does seem to be entertained by your origami birds," Teja says.

"I'm pretty sure he'd be entertained by basically anything," she says.

"Birb!" Egil says, pointing.

"He likes all kinds of things being made," Teja says.

"You telling me you let him in the forge?" For real, though, not the best place for kids.

"And Pyrrha lets him into the wood-workshop," Teja says, "and into her tattoo studio. We watch him well; he has his own little wooden play-forge, also."

This looks more interesting, and familiar than most of what she's seen in this weird place.

"Those are cool." She comments, siting in a nearby booth.

Edited 2014-10-11 04:42 (UTC)

Noriko looks up in the middle of a verse--the first, to Tech N9ne's Fragile--ad studies the kid in front of her through the growing-long fringe over her eyes.

"Cranes? Yeah. I used to think about doing the whole hanging senbazuru, but I really doubt it'd do anything but take up space. This works better," she says, motioning to the glass jar which might stand eighteen inches tall. Might. "More portable, too."

Not that she's intending to move it much, but still. It's the principle.

Fry picks up a crane from the floor. He's a little put off by the rapping, but he turns the origami over and looks at it.

She notices--eventually--and looks down at the child holding one of her green cranes with white checks all over the colored side of the paper. She'll interrupt her own verse to speak to him.

"You can keep it if you like it that much, kid."

"I like the green." Fry says, looking up at her. "And the pattern. Thank you."

He turns it over. "How did you make it?"

Well, at least this one's old enough to converse with. "It's origami," she says. "You follow a pattern for the right folds, and you have a bird."

"That's clever." Fry says. "Like an aeroplane."

"Yeah, it's like an airplane," she says, pulling over the stack of papers. "Here, which colors do you want to go with the green?"

Fry comes over and has a look at the papers.

"Blue please." he says, watching eagerly.

"Sure," she says. "This one's going to be bigger than what you've got there, but it's the same folds. You want me to show you?"

"Yes please." Fry says.

He doesn't reckon he'll be able to copy but he can always watch.

"Sure thing," she says, and walks him through the folding and fluffing of the paper form.

"You can ask for instructions, you know."

"I think I would do it wrong." Fry says, not quite having the terms 'manual dexterity' in his vocabulary but aware of the general gist.

"Everybody does it wrong the first couple times. It takes skill, you have to develop that and work on it. But you can learn precision with your folds and get better."

Fry picks up a piece of paper and tries to cautiously copy what she's doing. But he's having a hard time just getting the first fold exactly straight.

"Here, come here. There's a trick to it. Start at the corners, like this," she says, miming it with a fresh piece, "And then work your way to the crease, from the middle out. It makes it straighter."

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