You have high regard for my skills, I see... It is exceedingly difficult, to depict motion like that with ink on skin.

[Kiritsubo thinks that she likely knows that. For a moment, she pauses, sipping her drink, but in that moment... the look in her eyes grows a bit different, where she regards Akua. Rather, Akua's flesh, and what she can「read」on it. Instead of just looking, she is "reading", deep and intent. Idly, her own finger traces out the exact same rune, interpreting the abstract impressions and karmic signs. The crow... it had to be that Woman, the one she saw bound to her fate, and yet-]

But I recommended a far too similar design to a different would-be client lately.

[On paper she had traced the design for the demon, showing him a red-eyed raven with a sapphire ring clutched in its claws. And he had known, then, that her eyes were as special as they seemed. Even though that man had declined her work... She was not about to give up hope she could eventually convince him. So here...]

For you... I think we would begin with gold ink, and a design that is a little more... diabolical?

[Oh, she thinks she's funny?]

That... or perhaps the strips of color that mark you still?

[It is an excuse to reach out, trailing her fingertips over the other woman's arm and finding a place upon her bicep to start counting out rows.]

Or would it be better to say... the strips of color that were your companions?

[She can see it, draped over this woman like a cloak that belonged to someone else.]