Clover Clues and the Fugitive Fawn

We slept for a few hours and awoke to a view of the open ocean. Laser yawned cutely. By the Sisters, how did I not see this before? I was falling madly for her, and I hoped she would feel the same way in the future. If not...I would win her heart. "But now's not the time for that." I said aloud, surprising myself.

Laser stretched in her seat, oblivious to my thoughts of her. "I agree. While we have the time, we should plan out our investigation."

"Ahem! Definitely." I concentrated on a visualization spell, illuminating the clear plastic wind visor in front of us with green light. I started out by displaying a generalized map of Neighpon. "The Empire of Neighpon is a pretty big chain of islands, roughly the size of Coltifornia. Luckily, we don't have to search the whole country for the Royal Vestments."

Laser began making dots on my map with her vividly red magic. "Right. Our thieves are powerful magic users, judging by the weapons they used. And the fact that only very strong magic can tap into the power of the Vestments. They employed a deer assassin, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're deer. They most likely live in an area near a deer tribe. That narrows our search considerably."

I tried to focus the search further. "Where are the big schools of magic in Neighpon? I only know about the Mahō Daigaku in Umamachi." I cleared the visor and started writing a list of gathering places for magical beings.

Laser looked over her notes. "Hmm, that's tough to say...there are lots of private schools, and others that are outright hidden. Those schools fiercely guard their magical secrets."

"NIRO will have to help us on that front." Laser raised an eyebrow at me. "The Neighponese Intelligence and Research Office. They've assigned us an official attaché, somepony named Hanzō."

"Oh, that reminds me. I did some research on Neighponese culture, and there were some basic things I wanted to go over. When we meet this pony, he will introduce himself as Hanzō, but we can't call him that."

"We can't?"

"Nope, we have to call him Hanzō-san. That's the default honorific suffix." Laser cleared the visor again and started writing down suffixes. "It's like saying Mister Hanzō, and not including it would be really embarassing for everyone involved. Saying somepony's name without a suffix implies a very intimate relationship."

"Ah, so since I'm posing as your newlywed husband, I'd just call you Ruby?"

"Yes," Laser blushed. "Since our cover story is that we're Lucky Find and Ruby Shines, a newlywed couple on our honeymoon, that would apply."

I couldn't believe that they had assigned us this cover with no input from us. Could it be that we naturally looked like a couple? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "Alright, alright. Any other things I should know about? Oh! Don't they bow?"

"Yep, instead of a salute or a hoofshake, a sign of respect in Neighpon is a simple bow of the head. It's really not any more complicated than that."

"Hmm...anything else? No special table manners you can think of?"

Laser flipped through a guidebook she pulled out of a satchel "Um...apparently it's okay to slurp your noodles."

I chuckled at that. "I should do just fine then!"