[D8, EM] A favor for a favor (Closed)

[Bayushi Senshuken]

Senshuken wakes up early today and asks for breakfast for two to be brought to her room. Before long the hotel stuff delivers green tea, two miso soups, rice and grilled salmon with vegetable on the steam.

The Bayushi takes one last look at the low table in front of the window and rubs her eyes. She should be here soon.

[Yasuki Taraka]

And so she was. The Scorpion hadn't given Taraka alot of details about the purpose of the morning meeting, but Taraka assumed given the venue, it was to discuss details of their deal rather than asking which outfit she should wear to pose for her imminent victory photo at Flying Battle Carps. Still, it was a nice excuse to walk down Friendship Street She'd chosen business casual for the day, Shen didn't strike her as the type to enjoy super formal wear, but she just couldn't bring herself to toss on a t-shirt for a business chat.

After navigating to the hotel the Scorpion had said she was staying at, and the right room, Taraka knocked at the door.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

"Please, come in!" She hears Senshu's voice. The Scorpion is dressed in her usual street style. Buggy black pants, black crop top, red sneakers, red suspenders and a red beret. No mask. She's already in seiza behind a low table.

[Yasuki Taraka]

And in she went. She cast an appraising look about. Hotel rooms were always kind of impersonal, but sometimes you'd spot the odd trinket or keepsake lying about of interest.

She bowed to the Scorpion.

"Good morning, Bayushi-san. Thank you for inviting me over for breakfast today. It makes for a nice change of pace." she offered sincerely.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

Senshu offers a seated bow along with a welcoming grin. "Good morning, Yasuki san. Thank you for joining me. Please have a seat." She pours tea in two cups and reaches for one, but doesn't drink till her guest seems comfortable.

Around the room, there are personal trinkets or memorabilia. Just 3 bike hemets that certainly belong to the Bayushi.

[Yasuki Taraka]

She wasn't a Phoenix, so she had no problem making herself comfortable with tea.

"So, today's the day, huh, Bayushi-san?" she asked.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

"Ah yes!" She grins. "The rally day. Are you by any chance free to be my mechanic? I can do it on my own, but I would love some company."

[Yasuki Taraka]

Taraka grinned a bit.

"There's no way I could pass up a chance to ride along with someone so clearly passionate about racing, Bayushi-san. If the price of the ride is being a mechanic for the day, that sounds more than fair." she agreed.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

"Great! We have a deal then. I provide the speed and you add up on the fun with your screwdrivers."

She reaches for her cup and sips some tea. "But that's not the reason I asked this meeting. There is a far more important deal that I want to put on the table."

A breath. "I want to marry into your family. With the governor in particular." She lets that hang for a moment. "It will be good both for my clan and yours. And even better for our common business interests in the island. I wish for your assistance and promise my assistance in the future in a matter of equal importance."

[Yasuki Taraka]

Taraka also paused for a moment. Perhaps to see if the Scorpion was about to go Juuust Kidding! Or maybe for Miya Kisha to leap out of the closet to announced she'd just gotten Kisha'd! When those failed to materialize, Taraka then spent another moment considering the sheer magnitude of the ambitions people she did business with. First a vassal family, now a marriage to a governor. It made her dreams seems almost humble by comparison.

So far.

She sat down her cup.

"You certainly don't ask small, do you Bayushi-san?" she said, amused. "I'm sure you realize that I don't have the power to just hand out marriages to prominent political figures."

Yet.

"But there are things I think I could do to help you with this. After all, I do have a keen grasp for mergers and acquisitions. If you'd find it helpful, I'd be happy to listen to your pitch for why you think this one should happen and provide you my feedback on your points, and provide you with arguments you'll here against it so you can prepare for them. It seems like a good place to start, don't you think?" she suggested.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

"I do realize that you have no power over this, but you are a local, you must certainly know who must be approached. Who should hear my pitch. You could be my nakodo in this and together we could flourish."

"Honestly, I think that I'm perfect for this."

She raises one finger to count. "The Crab and Scorpion alliance is re affirmed with such a marriage." A second finger. "I come from money" a third "and my mother is a provincial daimyo in the world of dreams." Another finger. "I am the fourth child and my siblings already have children of their own, so it's not that I will inherit the mantle, but Nakahama will still benefit from the bond, especially if my clan manages to expand our business interests in the planet. I'm not just a random samurai looking up in the ladder and dreaming of climbing higher." Second hand and a sixth finger. "Of course, I am a trained courtier and I could help Yasuki sama in cooperation with her sister. Or I can just sit in my corner, play with my toys and look beautiful while doing it. That's up to the governor."

And a last, seventh one. "Last but not least, for all it might count, there's a mutual likeness between her and me. I am the person who can give her exactly what she wants on a personal level. She cannot keep avoiding marriage for ever. Why not go for someone she likes and carries ties with a world that can prove to be very useful. Someone who understands and fully accepts her. Someone who can either work hard or just deal with her hobbies, depending on the governor's wishes. Someone who knows how it is to be a member of a leading family. Someone like me. Or me specifically to be more precise. I'm a catch."

[Yasuki Taraka]

"Think more advisor than actual nakodo, Bayushi-san. They have someone who is the official nakodo, and they won't be impressed with you wanting to bring your own." she said.

She listened to the pitch, mentally taking notes.

"Hmmm, alright, so the pitch is too long. You're not going to win the nakodo over with volume of arguments, they're just going to take their choice of the faults, and ignore the rest. We want our pitch to be BOLD, with the strongest arguments up front. Then when they ask questions, we can hit them up with strong supporting arguments." she advised.

She took a ship of the tea.

"But for the moment let me take up the mantle of bored nakodo and give counter-arguments point by point so we can refine the pitch." she said, emphasizing that these were not her own opinions, but meant for training purposes.

Taraka crossed her arms, and gave the Bayushi a look that read, 'Bored, impatient, and unimpressed."

"First point: That could be any Scorpion samurai and marrying an island governor isn't going to move the needle on the grand stage of politics. Arguably, what the governor needs is not stronger relations with the Scorpion, but someone who solidifies the support of the locals.

Second Point: Are you trying to say you're good with money, or are just used to spending it? Unless you're clan is offering a sizeable dowry for this marriage, we have no shortage of people here who can outperform you when it comes to commerce.

Third Point: Not bad, but how will this benefit Nakahama? Or are you just trying to impress us with your pedigree, because there are a lot of governors with families we could choose from.

Fourth Point: This is an argument for why your family is willing to be rid of you Bayushi-san, not an argument for why we should take you.

Fifth Point: IF your clan manages to expand business interests? My nephew COULD find a big bag of money tomorrow, should we take every such possibility into account?

Sixth Point: This point makes you not special in the slightest, Bayushi-san. There are millions of courtiers in the Empire, and many bring real value and achievements to the table. We're not looking for a karo's assistant or another pretty face to feed.

Seventh Point: Mutual likes? Are you kidding? If you claimed you two were in love, I'd have called you a naive fool, but now I'm not going to be so nice. The point of the governor marrying is to strengthen not just her family, but her rule. She can like whatever she wants, but if her spouse can't do that, it's not just not a match worth making."

She uncrossed her arms bringing 'grumpy nakodo' time to and end.

"No offense meant Bayushi-san, but you've got to be ready to take on the most hard headed, disagreeable person because you've really only got one shot with the official nakodo. They're not going to argue, they're not going to be persuaded, they do not care about your feelings. Just what they view as 'best match' and they're not going to argue about it. So does that give you some ideas on how to refine your pitch?" she asked, genuinely wanting to help.

[Bayushi Senshuken]

She taps her fingers on the table, but she doesn't seem nervous. It's mostly getting into the role.

"I offer a grand connection to the World of Dreams. Perhaps, nakodo sama, you could persuade my most esteemed mother to offer such a chance to Nakahama. A good dowry to my family could do wonders. Who knows?" She shrugs indifferently.

"Better?" She asks after a moment.

[Yasuki Taraka]

Taraka grins.

"Well, you definitely hit shorter, which is good. There's just two more points you need to fix. You do want deference, and I'm glad you caught that. But you also want certainty. They are looking for an excuse to reject you, not an opportunity to help you. The pitch needs to leave no room for doubt that YOU and only you are the best choice for the match." she advised.

"And then there's the other point, which, keep in mind works only with Yasuki matchmakers for the most part. You need to talk about the money. The Crane might be willing to dance around the topic with your 'grand connection to the World of Dreams', but the Yasuki want this up front. Your dowry will be this specific amount and by marrying you the island's economy will improve by these specific metrics in these quantities."

She took a sip of the tea.

"Research this thoroughly to the point where you can offer up any such requested numbers without effort, because if they ask you a question about it and you have to think about it or worse, 'Get back to them on that.' you've lost their attention. Leave no doubt in their mind that marriage to Bayushi Senshuken is the economic miracle that this island's been dreaming of."

[Bayushi Senshuken]

(I'm pretty sure that the Yasuki are to pay dowry. It's the family that gets the new samurai in Rokugan)

[Yasuki Taraka]

(I'm pretty sure that the Yasuki are to pay dowry. It's the family that gets the new samurai in Rokugan)

(English has failed you again as a language. "Your dowry" in this case means "Dowry associated with you" not "Dowry paid by you." Curse you English!)

[Bayushi Senshuken]

(Sorry I'm not a native speaker )

[Yasuki Taraka]

(Sorry I'm not a native speaker )

(I know, but you speak way more English than I speak Greek, (ie zero) so we should probably keep going in English )

[Bayushi Senshuken]

"I will talk to my mother and try to see what kind of a dowry she wishes for. Any ideas about the other point you mentioned?"

[Yasuki Taraka]

"I will talk to my mother and try to see what kind of a dowry she wishes for. Any ideas about the other point you mentioned?"

Taraka nodded.

"Hmm. Well, you know your business best, Bayushi-san. You'll want to thoroughly catalogue every resource and connection you bring to the marriage in as much detail as you can manage. For example, your mother is a prominent figure on World of Dreams, but what can you get her to do to help the island out? But since we are forming a business partnership when your clan secures your premier partnership, you can certainly list that on the assets side of your balance sheet. And if you want someone to check over your numbers, I'm willing to help you out with that." she explained.

She took a sip of tea.

"You'll also want to thoroughly catalogue all of your weak points so you can eliminate them before you put yourself before the matchmaker. Because for matches of this level, you're going to get about as through of a testing as you can possibly imagine. Of course, they'll test you to make sure you're not tainted, and I mean the really through test where you get to spend a few days naked in isolation with cameras and regular applications of jade. I don't doubt you'll pass that one, but if you did that'd be an immediate disqualification and....well we don't need to go over what the law says about knowingly hiding the Taint. A full battery of medical evaluations will follow. This will include your family medical history as far as they can go back. While you wouldn't expected to necessarily be capable of producing an heir for a surrogate, it certainly is an asset. They'll look for drug addictions and chronic health conditions. They'll run a credit check to make sure you're not deeply in debt to a third party. They'll run a criminal history to make sure you're not in the pocket of criminal organizations. They'll go through your social media presence to make sure you don't have any ties to the Spider or embarrassing incidents of insulting the Crab or just generally being embarrassing."

She took a breath.

"I know it's a lot, Bayushi-san, but that's the level of scrutiny you're going to be subjected to. It's not an easy path you've chosen, but the rewards are outstanding if you can do it. But it boils down to: get your house into complete order. If you're in debt to anyone, get out of it, if you have ties to the Spider sever them as thoroughly as possible, If there's social media making you look critical of the Crab clan, or otherwise embarrassing, scrub it with the strongest bleach you can find." she advised.