Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you! [OPEN]

[smokydemon]

Characters: Hijikata Toshizou, anyone on the 4423
Content: It's Hijikata's 30th birthday, which is the perfect time for the 4423's crew to engage in their ship pastime of harassing him until he starts throwing things!
Setting: Anywhere on the 4423
Time: Early afternoon of May 5th (so backdated about a week)
Warnings: Grumpiness, cursing, smoking,

Comments

[theschmotone]

There was one quiet, relatively undisturbed place below decks, and Dimo had found it. It was another good half hour before his guard shift started, and the Jager was enjoying the break to sit back against a stack of crates and work on the map of Bydan that he was putting together. A small leather caddy contained his pens and inks, and a spare piece of board served as a hard surface on which to fill in the details on the paper. The beginnings of a street could be seen, along with the hardware shop, and the amount of detail that Dimo was putting into the map suggested that he took it to be as much a work of art as a functional chart of the area.

Dimo felt downright smug right now. Much as he was fond of his friends, it was good to have found a peaceful spot where he could just work on this sort of thing and be left alone. He was also a bit surprised that no one else was having the same idea about the spot that he was, though.

[smokydemon]

After his encounter with Beat, Hijikata decided that it was time to find someplace more secluded. So he'd gone far from his room--too obvious-- and far from the strategy room, down and down until he got to the storage areas. Maybe if he just hid out...

But as luck would have it, it just wasn't going to work out that way. The scratch of a pen against parchment alerted him to another presence, and he stopped in his tracks. Maybe he could back out before the Jager noticed he was there...

[theschmotone]

Wait, what was Hijikata doing here? And with an even more irritated look on his face than usual. Dimo looked up at him, mild interest showing in his yellow eyes, and scooted over a little so that there was floor space for the both of them, but not too close together.

"Hyu looks like hyu's trying to find a place to hide," Dimo observed, putting the cork in the bottle of blue ink and switching to the green. "Dis iz a pretty goot vun, und I von't bother hyu if hyu just vants to relax."

[smokydemon]

No luck--of course not. It was his goddamned birthday, after all. Still, Dimo was... more tolerable company than he typically expected anyone to be. Smarter than some of the other Jagers and a good deal of the humans on board. Didn't bother him too much.

He considered briefly, then sat down on the floor, mustering his dignity. It was better than being somewhere more public. "Ship's too damned crowded today," he noted, almost absently, taking his pipe out and filling up the bowl. "I take it you wanted someplace quiet, too..."

[theschmotone]

As far as Dimo knew, the ship wasn't any more crowded today than it normally was. Even if they were docked, the flow of people off and onto the 4423 wasn't any more than it was usually. But sometimes all the bustle could get to you, and you just needed to spend some time away, keeping no company but your own.

"Iz hard to concentrate on getting dese maps done vhen zomevun's alvays interrupting me und vanting my help moving zome crates or standing lookout or vhatnot," the Jager admitted, dipping his pen into the new bottle of ink and carefully sketching out the forest to one side of the town. Bydan was a logging town, so there would be plenty of it to put in. "Can't draw if iz all noizy und vhatnot, und if dere's all zorts of interesting scents to distract me. Down here, I can actually get zometing done." He shot a quick glance over to his companion before resuming the sketching. "Vhat about hyu? Zeems like hyu doezn't vant anybody to be findign hyu, eidder."