Master Expeditionary Explorer Envoy Pechin Kaze

"Have you got anything to carry it in?" she asked over her shoulder. He watched her, a fragrant steam was rising over her smooth bare shoulder.
"Hmm?" he intoned, slightly distracted remembering last night with her. "Wha...what am I carrying?"
"The food, silly. Do you have your container?"
"Aah, of course. Always my love." He turned to go to his well worn, brown and green pack that had touched almost as much ground as his boots and seen everything in his past. He pulled out different articles, a piece of bingata, a small roll of hashi, one short one long, a bashofu, some very sturdy trousers, thin shirts that still provided protected from sun, but not heavy in the heat. There it was, wrapped inside one of his shirts. He sniffed it. The shirt needed a wash, was that blood on it...
"Found it," he called back to her.
"Bring it here, I know it needs a wash."
"Yeah, I got it...actually I washed it in the ocean last I used it."
"Well, give it a proper wash then. I can only imagine what you've put in there since." Her tone inferred a question in his choices of foods he sometimes tried, but when in Rome...
He came back to the kitchen and scooped water into the large bowl they used for cleaning.
He unwrapped a set of lacquerware not normally seen outside the islands except in the courts of royalty, used by kings and queens. Here in the Islands it was common to have for daily use.
When traveling, he always carried a nesting set of Ryukyuri lacquerware. One of the pieces serves as a base, large enough for rice and vegetables, and two that stack on top of the one. The two that stack sit side by side so it is only two high. All stack together with a lid that keeps everything sealed. He'd taken more than one unexpected dip in the water, and the food was always perfect regardless of his submersion time.
The outside of the nesting boxes were of the deepest black, almost like the darkest cave he had ever seen, or that spell that one necromancer had cast where his torches couldn't even light. That was a harrying event... Inside the boxes were colored the most spectacular red. Sure other places make "red" colored tableware and eating implements, but Ryukyuri lacquerware is unique. It's red is a deep, vibrant color of red that actually changes with time and sun exposure. What made Pechin Kaze's set unique was that on the outside, on the lid and bottom was a coral inlay set and protected under the lacquerware in the rough design of his namesake seal.
He finished washing the set and dried it with his shirt, before realizing he wasn't in the field and caught a swift pinch from her.
"Use a cloth please, you're not a primitive," she said for the millionth time to him. "Anymore anyway..."
"Yeah, sorry" being already mostly dry, he still made the effort and placed the containers near to the stove.
She gently poured soup into an extra lacquerware container of stacking bowls, then more into their own bowls. Rice went into the larger and a couple of umeboshi. Fish in another, and finally a large helping of his favorite ninjin shiri shiri (carrot salad) in the last. She reached below and pulled out another smaller container a little bigger then a pill box that he usually carried on his longer trips. This she refilled with local salt in one half and fuchiba in the other.
They let the food rest and cool while they took their bowls over to their chairs to sit and eat, watching the waves gently lap against the shore. Small birds ran along the sand, snatching tiny crabs up for breakfast.
"How long this time?" she asked. She never asked how far because she knew he would go past his limits and always find something new.
"Probably just 6 months. I'm almost done with the travel. I want to do the next one after this with just you. No more crews, no more working, just the two of us."
"You think so?" She knew his wanderlust was strong. She had it too, but he was infected magnitudes above hers. She would hear him in his sleep speaking in other tongues, sometimes thrashing about, running, swimming, fighting. He never laughed in his sleep though. She always wondered what he had seen that he never spoke of, what nightmares he had seen when he wasn't asleep...
"Yeah. It's not my last travel, but it's my last travel like this, for the job. Next one is for us." He paused a moment, then raised an eyebrow. 
"Can you plan us an onsen tour maybe? Back to where we went for our honeymoon?"
Now she knew he was serious. Not only was that one of their first trips, but the first real trip they had taken as a couple. A day into the week long travel, and she knew they were a perfect match as travel companions, which was great because they were compatible in almost every other way too.
"I'll make plans in a few months, before you get back. If you make it sooner, all's the better."
He bent slid over and kissed her on the cheek.
She rested a hand on his. 
They gazed back out to the horizon.

by Original Mr Ty and niji-midjounrey