Myrnal took the token, quirking an eyebrow as she flipped it over and read the address. "No, you haven't offended me. I just don't feel like listening to any lame-ass pickup lines from random guys."

She pocketed the token. "So, you're hiring. If your mistress has the terms of the job, maybe you ought to lead on. If she's in a hurry I'm ready now. If she doesn't care, I'll go harass her some other time." She started to say something else, and rethought it. "And don't call me ma'am. People called my mother ma'am. My name is Myrnal Shalienza." She remembered her manners and gave the man a quick bow. "Pleased to meet you," she finished with a smirk.

Manners, Myrnal. You're so uncouth sometimes. She had to restrain herself from laughing out loud at her own attempts at courtesy.

Straightforward. Heh.

Myrnal tilted her head like a cat as she listened to Papilonn's terms. When Papilonn finished, she tilted her head the other way, carefully considering the proposal.

Nijon. I was specifically warned against it. Which suggests to me that I'd be a dumbass for taking this job. However, if I'm only intended to be her escort to Nijon I could conceivably bail afterward. Plus, if she's a healer of any sort, the job might be less dangerous than it could be otherwise.

"I have a question. I don't care about following her around and making sure nobody messes with her. That doesn't sound like an objectionable assignment. What I want to know is why I should keep my job a secret after I've started saving her ass from... well, from whatever. If I come out and tell her to her face that I've been following her because you're worried something might happen to her, what exactly is there to be offended about? If she gets all pissy and doesn't want me around, I can just follow her in secret again."

Myrnal shrugged. "Whatever makes you happy. You're financing this mission, and you've got your reasons for... for the secrecy surrounding this. Beyond that, I'll figure...something out."

Now how to get hold of the girl and...oh. Myrnal smirked. Of course.

"Actually, I think I'll go see her as soon as possible. I have an idea, and I think I could use your steward's assistance." She turned to the older gentleman. "My good sir? If you would lead on? This will only take a moment and we can do it along the way."

This mission is going to become complicated. One of two things will happen. One, I end up hating this Minshara girl, at which point pretending to be her friend and not her guardian becomes a real pain in my ass. Or, and this one may be worse, I run around protecting her, pretending to be her friend, and then I actually decide she's not so bad. At...which point... the brothel madame contacts me to change our terms or some bull$#&^. At which point! It becomes my job to kill her or lead her into an ambush or something.

Myrnal put such thoughts out of her head. If that happened and she actually got too attached to her ward to kill her later if her employer demanded it, she would just decline to acknowledge the new terms of her contract.

If that happened, Papilonn would have been a fool to have employed a ninja and somehow expected her to behave honorably. Myrnal had a nasty habit of doing as she pleased once it came down to the wire.

She followed Jarul and once they were outside, the steward paused and waited for her request. "Okay, this is a strange suggestion, but you hired me and now you get to deal with me being out of my mind. You armed? Got a blade or something?"

With a brief bow, he produced a dagger from the folds of his clothing.

"Awesome. I assumed you would be. C'mere." The man took a step toward her. "For crying out loud. Come here." When he was within arm's reach of her, Myrnal crossed her arms and nodded. "Okay, I need you to injure me. Nothing major; you don't need to cut my throat or anything. Here."

Jarul blinked in surprise as Myrnal pulled off the black overshirt of her gi, revealing some light chain mail over a black tank top. "Don't look like that. I'm not taking off anything else. I need you to take that and slash me across the arm or something. Think you can handle that?"

Almost before she'd finished her sentence he'd reached out, the blade flashing in the flickering light of a streetlamp. The blade bit into her shoulder and in her surprise at his speed, her appreciative glance broken by a wince. "Nice hit," she said, glancing down at the thin stream of blood flowing down her inner arm.

Jarul nodded. "You should not be badly hurt." He resheathed the knife with the same grace and speed with which he'd drawn it.

"Oh, I don't know," Myrnal replied. "It looks pretty serious. I think maybe I need to, uh... go see a healer." She grinned.

The steward smirked. "It's possible. Perhaps you should have that seen to."

"Yeah. Well. I hear there's a girl in Poliho who's pretty good." With a grimace she pulled her gi back on over the injury. "I'll see you around." With her coat over her arm, she left Jarul to return to his mistress.

Myrnal tried not to attract attention as she meandered through a strange part of town. Things were a little different out here. Farmers? How long since Myrnal had gone near a farm? One older woman watched her as she walked, and Myrnal felt unbearably exposed on the open road. Knowing there was no way to stop the woman from staring, Myrnal approached her.

"Hey, 'scuse me."

"Yes?" the woman answered warily.

"Listen, I..." Myrnal lifted a hand to her shoulder. It came away wet with blood. "I've uh... got kind of a problem."

The woman was on her feet in an instant. "Oh, gods! You're injured. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm good. I just... uh... I heard there's a healer somewhere around here, and I thought I--"

"Oh, no no. You mean Min. She's another couple of houses that way." She pointed down the road. "I don't know if she'll be home, but you'll find her there eventually."

"Uh... yeah. Thanks. Bleeding sucks. I'm going to, uh... see if I can stop."

Well, at least she isn't suspicious anymore, thought Myrnal. And now I know where I'm going.

Myrnal held her hand to her shoulder. If she weren't planning on harassing a professional she'd have at least been applying pressure or something. As it was, the wound was bleeding pretty freely.

She took her hand away as she stepped onto the pathway leading up to the house. "Well...." she muttered. "Here goes."

Myrnal wiped blood from her palm onto her pants. She reached up and knocked on the front door, figuring there was little reason to sneak around the back and break in through a window. She was here for a legitimate reason, or at least, could conceivably be here for a legitimate reason.

Myrnal shoved her hands back in her pockets, and watched Min leave to retrieve supplies.

Doesn't ask my name, doesn't ask how I injured myself, doesn't ask where I'm from or how much money I have. I mean, it's probably safe for her to assume I'm not here to kick her ass or anything, as she probably doesn't get many truly hostile wounded chicks around. But still. You can't just invite people into your house like that.

The ninja pulled off her coat, laying it over the back of the chair. She contemplated pulling off the belt she wore to hold the half-dozen knives she carried at all times. She rethought it. She might need those, but then again there was no sense in freaking her out at this early stage.

Then again, wouldn't she have to get used to the weapon collection eventually?

Then again. Best not to offend.

Sighing and resigning herself to the fact that she was certainly overthinking the issue, Myrnal detached her belt and laid it under the chair where she could keep her feet next to it. At least that way she'd be able to reassure herself of its presence at all times. Having it anywhere else would leave her unarmed, essentially defenseless. It would also mean someone could steal one of her most prized possessions, and that was easily the worst potentiality Myrnal could think of.

Next she started to pull off the jacket she wore over her mail, and found that the blood on her arm had dried and the fabric was now adhering to her wound. Lovely. Awesome. Downright swell. Shouldn't matter, though. No harm in letting the expert deal with it. At least Myrnal wasn't wearing every scrap of her "proper" sneaking getup.

She and her master had often joked about the irony of their shinobi shozoku. What better way to attract attention than to walk around in broad daylight dressed as a ninja? Generally the boots and pants were enough with a dark shirt, because for the gods' sake. How ridiculous. Myrnal chuckled and leaned back against her coat. She was lucky it wasn't her job to hide from Min right now. As it was Myrnal was sitting in the middle of a stranger's house, disarmed and waiting for a cute blonde girl to come and, at least partially, undress her.

This is what Myrnal got for taking jobs from people like Madame Papilonn, people who had a taste for conniving and manipulation. Things got weird quickly, but at least they usually turned amusing before they really got awkward. The awkward part wouldn't come until she started following this girl around.

Myrnal preferred subtlety in battle, but she was a straightforward girl in most cases. While there was nothing she hated more than talking about herself, she had trouble motivating herself to keep information from people when it would likely make no difference one way or the other.

But the job was the job. She'd take care of the healer, and the girl would hopefully never have to know why.

Myrnal grinned at the question. "You're right in assuming that I didn't get it in a bar. For a really nicely positioned injury, you have to be winning the fights, not losing. I don't win all my fights, but I win enough. Not everyone expects me to be as well-armed as I am."

Myrnal flexed her arm, testing the bandage on it. It was solid, tight enough to stay on if she needed to use the arm, but not so tight it would cause problems. The girl was good.

"I got myself nicked, and rather than bleed all over myself until it stopped on its own, I decided I can afford to spoil myself and get it taken care of early on. I was given directions here by some old lady down the road."

The ninja nudged her blades further back under the chair with one split-toed shoe. "My name is Myrnal. I'll pay you for fixing me up, but knowing my last name is probably not necessary right now." Myrnal sighed and stood, bracing one hand against her thigh for leverage as she left her seat. "You don't have anything to worry about from me. I don't like hurting healers." She grabbed her overshirt and pulled it back on, wrapping it around herself once more. "I figure anybody who spends all her time seeing to other people can't be too bad."

Myrnal thought, She's also got a good head on her shoulders. That'll make my job more delicate from one perspective, but the fact that she's so sharp will help her keep herself out of trouble. That's worth the extra social hassle to me.

"So? Here's the most relevant question of the evening. How much you charging?"

Myrnal raised an eyebrow. She could have afforded to be cheated out of a fair price, and would have considered it a fair expense in the course of this job. Didn't look like this Minshara was going to do that. Another point in her favor.

"What? No labor cost? No cost for the time of night, for the short wait, for the water?" She smirked. "No cost for the presence of such a fine and well-mannered animal?" she asked with a gesture to Socks. Myrnal had always been more of a dog person, but she couldn't help but respect the need of a cat to poke into every interesting event in his domain.

In fact, the cat had made a huge mess. Good kitty. Myrnal chuckled and bent to grab one of the travel brochures and handed it to Minshara. "Here. You dropped your huge pile of crap."

Myrnal blinked. "You sure you want to do that? I mean, I wouldn't object to a place to stay where nobody's going to break into my room at night, but what about you?" This girl, like so many people Myrnal had met, was profoundly confusing.

She plainly found Myrnal somewhat suspicious, which was nothing unusual. She also picked up on the fairly obvious fact that Myrnal made a career out of violence. And yet, she was giving her a fair deal and... presumably offering Myrnal a place to stay.

I mean, sure this is great for the plan and all. She seems nice enough that she won't drive me up the wall. In fact, she seems so nice that she's liable to infuriate me anyway like all people like her. I just have to wonder what the hell she's thinking letting someone like me in her house for the night.

"Look, uh... how about this. I don't like mooching off of people, especially strangers who've done me a good turn. How about I offer you the even silver piece for your services, and if you want, you can keep the change as a board charge for the night. We square?"