Pose for the Poster

[Ito Eri]

"Please trust me Sir, you'll understand." Heading away from the studio in favor of the less heavily affected Eri hummed while he walked but didn't speak to his client as they went along. Instead he simply enjoyed the walk and for all intents and purposes seemed to pay Isui no particular mind. He waved to his acquaintances and even stopped to help one of his favorite fruit vendors with a crate of goods. She was an older woman but strong, accustomed to the labor but accepted the help with good humor, slapping Eri on the back fit to knock someone less used to her ways down.

"Popular guy arn't you." Isui said, curious and a little grumpy as he was being kept from his work by the expedition. The boy had forbidden him to bring his travel easel and other supplies. Only a small sketchbook and pencil had been permitted on pain of a cavity search. Eri hadn't put it like that, even at his most insistent and threatening the boy had been perfectly polite and phrased everything in terms that were not themselves negative so much as leaving one room to make that interpretation.

"Two of the special please."Isui wasn't hungry, who could have an appetite in such terrible circumstances. Or at least he hadn't had one for nearly a week but just then his stomach growled letting him know that appetite or not it wanted to be fed and felt neglected. Sitting at the small noodle stand he made short work of the food and would have ordered more but the boy had also forbidden him his wallet. Damn brat. Eri didn't even ask if he wanted more and was instead chatting away with the young lady who served them. Damn brat.

"Here you go. Its on him." The cook said as he passed him another plate and they shared a conspiratorial grin.

SPOILER: Click to show

Pose for the Poster
Client's Name: Isui Ikata
Client's Occupation: Travelling Artist
Mission Rank: D
Payment for completion: 75 - 125 Ryo depending on outcome
Mission Subject: Gah, my masterpiece. I have no inspiration for it now that this war has struck this village. Maybe you could provide me with a suitable piece of inspiration. As a reward for your services, the Tsuchikage has asked me to provide an inspirational poster for your village, with the starring role being, you guessed it, you! Oh the inspiring inspiration of it all. Makes me want to cry with joy!
Special Requests: Must be completed with only ONE participant, any others shall not be allowed to take the mission. In your search for inspiration, you may not leave the village. Unfortunately, even though the other villages are in the same state, we are in a very bad way and so I need everyone here with me.
Notes: Mission will be an immediate failure if either you or Isui leave the village.

[Ito Eri]

"So you are doing alright? Even with everything that's happened?" After being ignored for half a day and made to walk over what felt like the whole of the village He'd taken to talking to whom ever he could as he waited for Eri to remember that he was on a mission not his day off. Not that Isui thought about it much, he was enjoying himself despite the circumstances. It had been been a while since he'd gone out into the world. Most days he spent in his studio with brief interludes of sleep at his apartment. Usually not even that though as he'd become more and more prone to fall asleep at his work desk after a night spent in useless anguish.

"Its been tough but yeah, I have my family so I just pushed through it. As long as were all together we can make it through just about anything." Isui nodded, sipping at the bottle of water he'd been given earlier by a shop keeper. He'd though he'd starve as Eri hadn't stopped for any food after the first meal despite it being early in the morning but so far he'd been getting by just fine on samples and small gifts from the various vendors they had gone by.

It was a strange feeling to be walking in the world again. Even before he'd usually sent his assistant to do chores like shopping and things like. Mostly he'd worked or arranged for gallery showings and other artistic events. He couldn't remember the last time he'd just taken a stroll and more then that Eri seemed like he did everyday but he was a ninja.

Isui had never been physically fit as a child so it had never come up as an option so he'd always thought of them as the tough kind of people who devoted themselves just to their work and little if anything else beside serving their nation. Now he had to wonder if he'd perhaps been simply projecting his own habits onto them.

Idly he sketched as he listened to the shoe maker talk about his family. Normally he started with a concept and went through a specific process to reach the desired end result but the drawings that were beginning to fill up the small book were loose observational sketches and a few fanciful doodles like the one taking shape just then.

"Hey, that's pretty good." Isui was a bit startled to find the shoe cobbler looking at his doodle appreciatively. He was used to dealing with his peers and critiques, people more inclined to talk about themselves or point out flaws.

"Here, you can have it." Isui felt oddly light as he tore the page out of the book and handed to the man who looked surprised and pleased to be gifted with it.

[Ito Eri]

By the time the afternoon came around Isui had forgotten why exactly he fallowing Eri when the boy suddenly stopped and looked at him for the first time since they had left the studio that morning.

"Most of them are volunteers." Eri said in the same light way he'd said just about everything else from threats to flirtations. Isui looked over at the construction site they had paused in front of and for the first time saw something beside the damage done. Certainly a true terror had been visited on the world and had done much harm to everyone but the site represented more then that. It would take time but the world would heal.

"Why did you take this job?" Isui asked after nearly an hour passed in which they did nothing but sit and watch the construction in front of a convenience store, Eri buying them both snacks and drinks though he didn't speak again.

"I don't know anything about art but I thought that posing wouldn't be a big deal since its just standing around." A bold statement but one a shinobi could probably make with confidence. Being a model was a draining thing due to having to hold still for prolonged periods.

"Yet here we are." Isui said as he started in on the microwaved meal the boy had bought for him. The initial answer didn't apply to his question and he wasn't to be deflected.

"I dropped by your studio yesterday because I wanted to make sure of the details. Your assistant is a really beautiful girl, I talked to her for a while. She told me a lot about you and herself as well." Isui would have called Momo a lot of things but beautiful wasn't on the list. Short and on the round side she looked a bit like dough. Not ugly by any means but certainly not beautiful.

From someone else Isui might have considered it a throw away statement but coming from the boy it gave him pause. Eri's friendly expression had become a bit distant when he said it as if he were remembering something pleasant rather than a a work related talk with a chubby girl.

"She said you'd lost your muse and that she was worried about your health then you yelled at her to six different things at once and she left to try and do all of it." Isui cringed at that. He didn't remember doing any such thing but there was a reason he was a single, his few girlfriends leaving often while shouting about him being an absent minded tyrant.

"A muse is a female spirit of inspiration, I looked it up, and if there is one thing I know its how to properly treat a lady." Eri continued without any apparent interest in Isui's discomfort.

"You have to take them out, spend time with them. Do the things they want to do and be understanding of the things they don't. You also have to look after yourself. Get out, be social, eat right and have a life outside of them and your work. If you don't then your not going to get anywhere no matter how much you bargain or bark orders." Strange words from someone so young. He should have been the confused hound dog after everything that moved and confused why he wasn't making any headway, not Isui so many years his senior.

"You really think Momo is beautiful?" Isui asked, not sure why.

"She has such intense eyes, like thunderstorms and a mole under her right eye that stands out sharply against her pale skin. Its like looking at a traditional wood block print come to life."

"What about the fabric store owner?" Isui asked.

"Are you kidding? Have you seen her hands? They look delicate and soft but she could rip a phone book in half and she's never been trained as a shinobi. Its like watching some majestic she bear in action. Not to mention her hair is silver, it flashes like a polished katana if the light hits it just so." By the time they were back at the studio Isui regretted asking. He'd broken through some barrier and Eri continued to list the virtues of just about every female of which he was acquainted and that was not a short list.

Somehow though Isui was laughing and asking him questions rather than becoming irritated. He'd learned the golden rules of art that taught what shape a form must take to be beautiful, the human form as much as any other but true to his word the boy knew nothing of it and seemed able to see virtue in any female.

[Ito Eri]

It was early morning by the time Eri left the studio, his body aching dully from a night spent in poses as awkward as could come up with. Standing on tip toes with arms at full extension for half an hour, a one armed hand stand for twenty minutes, contortions, and handing from ropes when it simply wasn't possible for him to bend in the correct way while still on the ground.

A full night of that and the bastard hadn't used any of them. When the son had come up Isui had gleefully shown Eri the new poster and the damn thing was a larger mock up of the sketches he'd been making through out the day. Eri was featured prominently in it in a heroic pose but Isui had captured that in the first ten minutes of the evening. He could have continued the work without him but had felt like pulling an all nighter and kept Eri out for sadistic revenge for the long walk.

Eri sighed to himself as he stretched to get a kink out. His sister could help him recover from the contortions with a back rub but the rope marks he couldn't do a damn thing about. Unbeknown to him though his work had none of his work been for not. Isui had wanted to get his own back but he'd diligently taken sketches of all of the posses to be used later for other projects.