Post by Hida Tetsuko on Nov 27, 2017 16:50:00 GMT 10
Just want to share this very sad story that happened at a Winter Court I'm playing in. My character is Akodo Shigemori, an Ikoma bard and courtier. He was also born with a twisted leg which is why he uses a staff to walk.
As the dawn light of Lady Sun began to penetrated the windows of the Lion embassy, music could be heard. It was light and lyrical. As gentle as a sakura blossom opening on a spring morning. As free as the song of a nightingale in a purple twilight.
It was Akodo Shigemori, playing the shamisen, sitting in seiza on a cushion right by the windows, the instrument cradled carefully in his lap, the bachi held in his hand with as much gentleness as one would caress a lover.
His eyes were closed as his other hand moved along the neck of the instrument. It knew the notes, knew the timing, knew what it had to do to create a melody of perfect beauty.
Kairi's eyes opened, much as they usually did after she was meditating, like a cat’s - one at a time. She sighed nasally, realising the shamisen music, and that it was coming from the next room over. Picking up her manuscript she had spent most of the night working on, she realised the music was coming from Shigemori's room.
Time to face the music. Literally.
Shigemori continued to play, the music both calming and invigorating as always. Like rain drops on a pond, a soft wind moving over the grass, a single butterfly coming to land on a leaf.
Sighing, Kairi picked herself, and her manuscript up, and knocked on the doorframe to his door. His room was next to hers, so it did not take long, but she still waited expectantly, swallowing her pride with her tone.
Shigemori finished the song, a series of notes cascading up like stars lighting up in the sky. Then he put down the shamisen.
“You may enter, Kairi-san,” he said. He seemed in a more agreeable mood than when Kairi had last seen him.
Kairi came before the older Akodo, bowed mutely and kneeled before him somewhat uncomfortably. Mutely, she offered up her manuscript.
And mutely, Shigemori took it. He read it in total silence, his face an expressionless mask.
“This is a good composition, Kairi-san,” he said. “You have done well to reflect on your actions.” His eyes moved over it again. “I do not encourage you though to see all other clans as enemies, even Scorpion make suitable companions at times, providing one exercises prudence and discretion.”
He handed it back to her with a satisfied nod.
"Akodo-ue asked me the question at the Topaz of what I had learnt about my enemies, I assumed..." Kairi seemed apologetic, in stark contrast to before. "...Thankyou Shigemori-sama"
“Ignorance and inexperience can be forgiven, Kairi-san,” said Shigemori. “Providing of course they are followed up by reflection and knowledge.” He was thoughtful a moment. “Would you mind indulging me in listening to a story for a moment?” Shigemori asked. “I think you would find it if interest.”
Oh Kami, another one? Make it stop!
"Of course. I am always ready to receive wisdom Shigemori-sama"
“When I was younger, perhaps around your age, I was sent to my first court posting. At Kyuden Hida,” he began. “One might say there could have been more illustrious appointments, but I was determined to do what I could there for the glory of the clan.”
“Sent with me was a duellist, Akodo Takeda,” said Shigemori. “You probably would not have heard of him, but he was most remarkable with the sword. So fast with with iaijutsu draw. Yet his tongue was faster still.”
“Well, one of the events at court was an iaijutsu tournament. Takeda bested them all, even a Kenshinzen of the Kakita. After the tournament we all went out to a tavern to celebrate and he bought us all drinks.”
Here Shigemori’s voice started to sound a little sad. “I must admit, the sake and shochu flowed rather freely that night, particularly with Crab brewers being what they were. We were happy, boasting as young samurai do, but Takeda...” Shigemori looked a little sad. “Takeda would not stop. And when he finished bragging, he started insulting everyone in the room, calling them cowards for not being able to best his blade. We left before they threw us out.”
“Now Crab are usually fairly straightforward with their dealings,” said Shigemori. “Many times I’ve found it refreshing, even when they have insulted me to my face. At least I know. But...” He turned to Kairi. “For the worst insults, things are...a little different.” He paused, remembering. “We were set upon by Crab in masks with clubs and staffs. They forced us into an alley, saying we would pay for the insults they had suffered that day. By the time they had left, we were all bloodied and bruised. Takeda had been attacked the most, and we thought he had been knocked unconscious. But he wasn’t. He was dead.”
He paused a moment, letting that fact sink in with Kairi.
Kairi listened intently and sighed quietly and politely, her nostrils flaring. It wasn't out of impertinence. It was.....something else.
"I understand. I do." She said "I'm not Takeda-sama, though. I don't have a mouth on me"
“No?” asked Shigemori skeptically. “You do not have the discipline of when not to speak, or when to stop speaking. This wasn’t the first time someone had taken Takeda to task on words he had said. And he did not always speak so rashly only under the influence of sake. It was known to many. And it was such a waste, such skill such beauty gone, like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“There is fire within you, Kairi-san,” continued Shigemori. “It would be much better in your skill with the blade, which I know is considerable. I do not suggest you will end up with the fate of Takeda. But such rashness, such impulsiveness...you do see where it leads?”
"It doesn't lead to much good. You have made your point clear." Kairi bowed her head "What do I need to do?"
“I think you know a lot of that already, Kairi-san, your manuscript was quite thorough on that,” said Shigemori. “You need only apply it, practice it, and continue to reflect on it.”
The sun was rather high now, the day was beginning properly.
Shigemori put his shamisen carefully back in its case. “Now, it would not be too hard to guess that you wish to run off and see those friends of yours,” he said. “Please make sure to see me this evening, we do need to do some work on you speaking properly before the court.”
Fine, if it means my friends get to see me I'd march to the shadowlands themselves.
"Very well. Any other sage advice?"
Shigemori frowned at her insolence, but said nothing on it.
“You are dismissed,” he said.
Kairi made to rise, and then stopped herself.
"Shigemori-sama. I am trying. This is not my way, but I will attempt anyway. I just need to see the path."
She left without another word.
Shigemori sat thinking for a while after she left. She did sound in earnest about how she would try to improve, but he knew the battle of wills between them was far from over.
Perhaps another approach would work better. He went over to the desk and began to write a letter.
In the privacy of the Lion embassy Akodo no Asako Saori sat in the room she had been assigned, pondering once more over the letter that Akodo Shigemori had sent her. Oh yes, she had known that her daughter had been entranced by this Scorpion boy at the Topaz Championship, but what could be overlooked in a child over the course of 3 days, could no longer be overlooked as the months crept past.
She sighed. Kairi had done well for herself, achieving the honour of being trained by Akodo Toshiro himself to become a Swordsaint. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she thought of the missives she had received from the respected sensei about how Kairi was progressing. Fortunes but the girl had spirit. She recalled a certain Phoenix girl who too had rebelled once upon a time. Yes, Kairi certainly came by it honest.
She sighed as she rose from her seat, preparing to go corner her daughter before breakfast. Despite the fact that she was proud of Kairi, she would never achieve her full potential if she was pampered. No one ever did. She slid open the shoji screen and made her way to Kairi’s room.
Letting herself in without any ceremony, she found the room to be empty. Well that was just as well. She would wait. Saori settled in to do just that. Yes, she would come back and then there would be a reckoning.
Kairi returned from breaking fast somewhat unceremoniously. She was in high spirits as she returned to her room to study and potentually get a quick cat nap to catch up on missed sleep before she was called on for the day.
Instead, when she crossed through the shoji screen, she was met with one other person in the room - she looked like Kairi, but older - like the younger woman had aged 20 years within days.
Well I'm already dead
"Ancestors guide you well to this place..." Kairi bowed "Mother."
“Kairi-chan,” Saori responded briskly. “You were up and about earlier than usual. Any particular reason why?”
"I wanted to bring glory to the clan by getting a headstart on the competitions." Kairi responded. It wasn't a lie.
“I see. And have you succeeded?” was the next pointed question.
"Not as of yet. I tried two rooms, but felt myself called back here to begin my studies instead."
There was a matter-of-fact tone in Kairi's voice
Saori pursed her lips. “It is good that you continue to attend to your studies while here,” she allowed. The silence fell between them for a moment, as she liked her daughter up and down.
“Do you know why I am here?” She asked just as the silence would start to feel uncomfortable for Kairi.
"Probably because I argued with Shigemori-sama?" Kairi said sullenly. here we go
“Have care to your tone when you speak to me!” Saori’s voice was not loud but was sharp as the edge of a blade.
“And would you care to expound on the topic of your insolence to Shigemori-san?” It was not a question.
"One would assume I wouldn't have to. Or you wouldn't be here."
Should I just get my swords now, Mother?
“So you choose defiance,” Saori said, sounding oh so disappointed. “One would think that you had better sense in every possible way. I see now that it was a mistake to assume anything about you.”
"I choose not to dishonour my mother by assuming she doesn't already know." Kairi responded "If you want the truth of it then I believed Shigemori-sama was jumping at things that were not present and told him as much. He took umbrage with me over that."
“You were taught to respect your elders!” Saori snapped. “If Shigemori-san believed that you were making doe eyes at that Scorpion, then it is not your place to contradict him! The very fact that you so vehemently deny it betrays your lie!”
"Deny what?" Kairi asked, her hands balling into fists behind her back "I've answered your questions about where I've been and what I've done here."
What more do you want from me?
Saori’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Do you think I left my duties at home and came all the way out here to Kyuden Seppun, because you’ve been a dutiful samurai and daughter, whose only goal is to honour her ancestors and bring glory to her clan?” Saori’s voice was dangerously soft, a tone that Kairi would know meant that she would not be let off the hook until she had had...a thorough lesson.
"No, I didn't." Kairi said slowly, calmly, coolly. "I just seemed to remember something about my mother telling me not to take a hit lying down, and that's why I argued with Shigemori-sama. I will do better next time."
“Insolent, unrepentant girl!” Saori’s hand whipped out to strike her daughter across the face with her folded fan. “You think that you’re so smart and so talented that all can be overlooked and forgiven. You should know better. You have disappointed your father and me both, more than ever before. When you were a child, such rebellions could be forgiven. But you are an adult now, Kairi! Or perhaps I should continue to call you Rei, since apparently you do not feel like growing up and shouldering the responsibilities required of an adult!”
Kairi's head turned with the force of the slap and she looked straight into her mother’s eyes. There was no cry, no tears, and no rubbing the wound.
"Yes, Oka-sama." She said quietly
“You have a duty to do, not just here, but every day of your life! Have you no care for the shame you have visited upon your family, your husband by continuing this...this...” Saori’s mouth twisted unpleasantly, as if she couldn’t bear the taste of the words she spoke, “...longing you have for a dishonourable, untrustworthy Scorpion?”
"We are honestly just friends, Oka-sama." Kairi maintained her respective tone.
“Do not seek to further your shame by lying to me, Rei!” Saori’s words dripped with scorn. “If you were just friends there would be no reason to get so emotional when you were caught, and certainly the issue would not have arisen in the first place!” The frostiness of her manner was almost palpable- a bystander might have sworn that the temperature had chilled by several degrees. Saori had no need to raise her voice to make the full effect of her words felt.
"I am not lying." Kairi tried mustering all the confidence she could "The boy in question, a Bayushi, is a friend with a wicked sense of humour. He tries needling me via mock forgetfulness about the rules of propriety. Shigemori-sama merely stepped in on him during one of his finer and more arrogant practical jokes."
“Do you think that I do not know about what happened at the Topaz Championship?” Even quieter, and if possible, more dangerous.
I mean, it' be a first for taking an interest in my life.
"When I became an adult I put away childish things, for I was no longer a child."
“And you continue to lie,” Saori replied. She looked at her daughter with a mixture of disgust and pity. She let the silence between them grow.
Kairi just sat there, stewing, not even looking at Saori. Instead, she looked at Unity - shining softly in the mid-morning sun.
"Fine." She said through gritted teeth "You got me. Thrash me like you did on that mountain then."
“You don’t deserve the honour of crossing blades with me,” was Saori’s response to that. “Today, you are a pitiful shade of what you should be.” She shook her head. “I only draw my blade to instruct a worthy student.”
Kairi bowed her head low. She kept her eyes firmly on her feet "....my penance, then?"
“You will attend to your studies and you will do your duty by your clan, your ancestors and your family. You will leave behind this nonsense with this Bayushi, who isn’t fit to lick the sweat off an honourable samurai’s tabi, and you will become what you are meant to be. That is a that is required of you, to do your duty. Disobey me, Rei, and I swear that you will find yourself alone.”
"Yes, Oka-san." Kairi said mournfully.
After last night, how do I tell him that now I might have to call things off?
She lifted her head ever so slightly "W-Will that be all?"
“I have several things to do whilst I am in the Imperial City. You may be sure that I will be keeping an eye on you and your behaviour. Disobey me and you will regret it. Try to play me for a fool and lie to me again? You cannot even imagine what will happen to you.”
For fucks sake, I cannot catch a single good fortune.
"Yes Oka-san. I will honour you and do as you ask."
Saori rose regally. “I hope you will, Rei, for your own sake.” And with that, she swept out of the room, leaving no opportunity for rebuttal.
In the next room, Shigemori was reading from a scroll, the cat curled up in his lap. He did not look pleased at what his note had wrought. In fact, he looked a little sad.
Shigemori sat at his desk in his room. Scrolls and correspondence in front of him, but he paid attention to none of them. He was deep in thought.
He, of course, had heard the confrontation between Kairi and her mother but had not thought it prudent to involve himself. One did not interfere with a lioness chastising her cub.
Hopefully, hopefully, this had had the desired effect on Kairi and she would heed their words and refuse to see this Scorpion. For if she did not...
I only hope it is not too late, thought Shigemori, though wilful young girls will insist on doing what is not best for them. At least Kyoko is safely with the Lion Legions for now...
“Akodo-sama? All is ready,” said a servant, bowing to Shigemori who quickly dismissed him.
Everything was ready. The tray of tea implements, the calligraphy scroll he had drawn and hung on one wall-“first snow”, it said-, the ikebana arrangement of snowdrops beneath it.
He only had to await his guest.
Akodo no Asako Saori clapped her hands outside the door to announce her presence.
Shigemori put his documents away and crossed the room, using the stone basin to cleanse his hands and mouth.
He then opened the door and greeted Saori with a silent bow, as was customary.
Saori returned the bow. “Shigemori-san, thank you for inviting me,” she said. “It is a pleasure to see you again, though I wish it were on happier circumstances.”
“A pleasure to see you as well, Saori-san,” said Shigemori. “But we must make the best of things as we take them.”
He led the way to where everything was set up. An iron tea pot on a brazier. On a tray a dark tea bowl in a crackle glaze tea bowl and whisk, a cloth, a small container of matcha powder with scoop, and a small plate with a winter-themed wagashi cake on it. In this case, it the form of a plum blossom covered in frost.
They both sat down on the cushions opposite each other.
“How lovely,” Saori remarked, as she settled onto her cushion. “How are you, Shigemori-san? And your lovely family? What a relief it was to find out that you would be here with Kairi-chan.”
“I am keeping well, thank you,” said Shigemori. He began the ritual of the tea ceremony by cleaning the utensils with the cloth and a little boiling water. “Kyoko-chan with the Seventh Legion, she writes that she hopes that she will see combat next year. Ikuda-kun will make will make his gempukku in the spring.”
He laid the cloth aside and added water to the tea bowl, just enough so that it was still thick and began to whisk it. “I do consider it fortunate that I am here with Kairi-san,” he said. “From what she has told me, she has quite good prospects for the future. An invitation to the Kensai dojo is quite an honour for someone as young as she is.”
“Hai,” replied Saori, a hint of the pride she never would have admitted to Kairi that she felt in her voice. “And with Akodo Toshiro-sensei as well!” She sighed worriedly. “But she is stubborn and she thinks she’s in love with this Scorpion boy... by the Fortunes, Shigemori-san, how like her mother she is. But she has come to a much less forgiving place than I was in, and she has much more to lose than I did. I worry that she will ruin all her prospects by carrying on an indiscreet affair with this Bayushi Saizo, shaming her husband and her family.”
Shigemori nodded slightly ask he whisked the tea, bringing the whisk gradually up so it would make a nice foam on top.
“What is worse I think is that it is not ignorance on her part,” Shigemori said gravely. “Kairi-san knows what she is doing is wrong, knows what the consequences are. Yet she still goes ahead heedlessly, continues her defiance.”
He was quiet as he added more hot water to the tea.
“Such promise, and to throw it all away,” he said. “Yet, I have seen it before.”
He bowed and offered the tea bowl to Saori to drink.
She accepted the tea bowl with a slight bow. “She tried to lie to me about it,” Saori said, sounding hurt and disappointed. “That alone is enough to tell me that she knows she does wrong.” She fell silent and sipped the tea slowly. “Did we ever lie, Shigemori-san? Even when we were caught?”
Shigemori cast his mind back to that court at Kyuden Doji almost twenty years before. He and his wife Hatsumoto had been newly married the previous spring. And so had Saori.
Their eyes had met over the stream of the Winding Water Banquet, trying to outdo each other with their poetry as the sake kept coming. And it had gone further from there, much further...
He shook his head, dismissing the memory. “We didn’t lie,” he said. “No,” he added, “I must be honest, we did not lie, but we wanted to. We made plans to leave, to run away together. And we were not only caught, we were fortunate to be.” He looked up at Saori with a wry smile. “We were young, we knew better and still didn’t, and we were fortunate to have those around us who did. Although,” he added dryly, “I think your husband has yet to find a reason to exchange more than just a few polite words with me.”
She laughed a little as she passed him the tea bowl, the same laugh that had rang in his ears like music all those years ago and had enchanted him. “He was comforted to know that you would be here with Kairi-chan at Court. Kyuden Seppun is no easy place to be, and he knows despite everything that you will care for our daughter as one of your own.”
She smiled wistfully. “We were so young, and so stupid...and so sure that what we were doing was right. I can only hope that Kairi does not push past the limit from which I can save her from herself. She is so young, and so talented, Shigemori-san...she has a bright future ahead of her. I feel for her husband, really.”(edited)
Shigemori took the tea bowl from Saori and carefully began to clean it and the rest of the tea utensils, placing them carefully before him for Saori to inspect.
“Her future is there, she need only grasp it,” said Shigemori. “I will do my best for her, yet I fear that will not be enough.”
He then offered her the plum blossom cake to end the tea ceremony.
“It never occurred to me otherwise, Shigemori-san,” replied Saori with small smile. When the tea ceremony finished and the plum blossom cake shared, Saori stood and bowed to the Lion. “It was good to see you again, Shigemori-san. I hope we will see more of each other in the future.” With a final smile, she exited quietly.
From the rooms where the Lion Clan are staying, the sound of shouting and breaking china can be heard. The voice of Shigemori, loud and full of the fury of a thunderclap, his words something no samurai should be caught uttering. The servants flee into the corridor like frightened doves, not daring to return unless summoned.
The loud, endless, raging bickering of the spirits around the castle was unending since that scandal. Some of the spirits who lingered had seen much, though they shared little about that with the Sodan Senzo. Instead the Kitsu got to listen to spirits bickering about who was more at fault, and which child was more dishonored by this. This followed her all through the halls, until she came to a door louder than even the spirits talking around her, the swearing evident of the pain and anger within. " Kitsu Himiko, requesting entrance." The shugenja had her back towards the door, as she waited for the man to calm down. She had no intention of speaking bad of the dead, and was intent on instead dealing with the pain left behind.
She was answered by a series of oaths and profanities of what would happen to anyone who dared open that door.
The shugenja only nodded, silently allowing herself to set in seiza, watching over her lion-brothers outburst from outside of the room, silently.
A woman is seen making her way to Shigemori’s room. At first glance, one might think it was Akodo Kairi. On second, one would realize that she was probably about 15-20 years too old to be Kairi, not to mention that the Akodo’s Seppuku had taken place earlier that day. She clapped her hands and opened the door without asking if she could enter.
Shigemori sat on the floor in his room, the eye of a sea of destruction of broken china and overturned furniture.
He had witnessed Kairi perform the three cuts. Quiet, proper, and with dignity. Her eyes still rimmed red from the angry tears she had wept when she had been told of what had been decided.
Now, it was finished.
The servants had fled, terrified as the full weight of Shigemori’s fury had set itself on everything in sight. Overturning tables, smashing and scattering whatever was in his way. His staff was by the door, having been thrown there when he told the servants to leave him.
Now he sat drained.
I should have told her
The thought surprised Shigemori, it had a pang if regret with it. And regret was a sin.
It would not have made the slightest of difference, he told himself, she knew what she was doing was wrong, knew the consequences and still did it.
His hand absently played with the broken pieces of pottery.
“Such a waste,” he said to it, his voice quiet and full of sadness.
Clapping interrupted his mourning and the shoji screen slid open. There was only one person it could be.
Akodo no Asako Saori has aged at least 10 years in just a matter of days, it seemed. Her head was still held high and her posture almost defiantly perfect. But a slight redness around her eyes betrayed the bitter tears she had shed.
Shigemori staggered to his feet, using an upturned table to stand upright.
"Saori, I'm..." For once in his life, Shigemori found himself at odds of what to say. "I'm sorry!" The words tumbling out in a desperate plea for mercy. "I am so sorry, I couldn't save...our daughter."
Saori paled again at the reminder that the bright light in her life, the daughter she had borne, raised and taught was no longer. “I failed her somehow,” she said, her voice rough from crying and thick with unshed tears. “I don’t know where I went wrong, but I failed her. It was not your fault, Mori-kun.” In this moment of emotional upheaval, she slipped back to the name she could have once sworn was carved into her heart forever.
“No, no! Never say that!”
Shigemori staggered painfully across the shattered room, grinding shattered wood and broken china under his feet. But he did not care, that pain would leave, the one inside would not.
“You did the best you could, but you could not change who she was. None of us could.”
“She was such a bright girl, a good girl,” Saori mourned, a single tear collecting in the corner of her eye. “I had such hopes for her.” She looked up at Shigemori as she sank to her knees, heedless of the mess on the floor. “How could it have come to this?”
Shigemori didn't answer, he didn't have an answer, there was no answer. He looked down at Saori, her eyes pleading with him to say something, anything that would make the pain stop, that would make everything better. But there was nothing.
He reached down, gently touched her cheek and brushed away the tear.
Saori reached up to hold his hand against her cheek. “I never regretted it,” she whispered. “How could I, when we had her?” She closed her eyes, allowing herself to be soothed by the touch of her old lover’s hand. No, she did not feel the passion she had once felt for him. But somehow, it seemed right to share the pain of losing her daughter with the man who had been her father.
She let her hand fall away. “How could she have been so stupid?” She burst out. Yes, anger hurt less than grief and sorrow.
With a little difficulty, Shigemori sat down again. This time he put a noticeable distance between him and Saori. Not just for propriety, but what she he was about to say. “If you wish to put blame on anyone, Saori-san, it should go with me,” he said, his voice having that familiar crispness to it. “I saw her yesterday, just before you arrived. We...both spoke in anger, and I fear my attempts to dissuade her may have driven her into his arms.” He was silent for a long time. “Blame me, Saori-san, I can live with that.”
She shook her head almost immediately. "No, Shigemori-san," she replied, regaining her some of her composure. "It is not your fault. I just...we just have to learn to accept that somehow, despite all the effort that was made to raise her properly, me, despite my husband who never knew that she was not his, and even despite you here and now, somehow either we all failed collectively, or she was fundamentally flawed, to be taken in to such an extent by a Scorpion" The last was spat out as though it were a filthy word.
Shigemori nodded. “Our failure, that she paid for,” said Shigemori. “She was samurai at the end, Saori-san, what we wanted her to be. And what now will never be.”
He felt tired, but he knew he had to move on. There was work to do for the living, there always was.
Hours later, Shigemori emerges. His clothing his neat, his hair in a perfect topknot, his beard trimmed. Yet he looks as if he has aged visibly; more lines of worry in his face than the day before. Yet his stride is confident, his tone curt. He sees Kitsu Himiko sitting there, how long had she been waiting for him? He gave her a nod in greeting. “Come, we have work to do,” he said. He walked off at a brisk pace and fully expected her to follow.
As the dawn light of Lady Sun began to penetrated the windows of the Lion embassy, music could be heard. It was light and lyrical. As gentle as a sakura blossom opening on a spring morning. As free as the song of a nightingale in a purple twilight.
It was Akodo Shigemori, playing the shamisen, sitting in seiza on a cushion right by the windows, the instrument cradled carefully in his lap, the bachi held in his hand with as much gentleness as one would caress a lover.
His eyes were closed as his other hand moved along the neck of the instrument. It knew the notes, knew the timing, knew what it had to do to create a melody of perfect beauty.
Kairi's eyes opened, much as they usually did after she was meditating, like a cat’s - one at a time. She sighed nasally, realising the shamisen music, and that it was coming from the next room over. Picking up her manuscript she had spent most of the night working on, she realised the music was coming from Shigemori's room.
Time to face the music. Literally.
Shigemori continued to play, the music both calming and invigorating as always. Like rain drops on a pond, a soft wind moving over the grass, a single butterfly coming to land on a leaf.
Sighing, Kairi picked herself, and her manuscript up, and knocked on the doorframe to his door. His room was next to hers, so it did not take long, but she still waited expectantly, swallowing her pride with her tone.
Shigemori finished the song, a series of notes cascading up like stars lighting up in the sky. Then he put down the shamisen.
“You may enter, Kairi-san,” he said. He seemed in a more agreeable mood than when Kairi had last seen him.
Kairi came before the older Akodo, bowed mutely and kneeled before him somewhat uncomfortably. Mutely, she offered up her manuscript.
And mutely, Shigemori took it. He read it in total silence, his face an expressionless mask.
“This is a good composition, Kairi-san,” he said. “You have done well to reflect on your actions.” His eyes moved over it again. “I do not encourage you though to see all other clans as enemies, even Scorpion make suitable companions at times, providing one exercises prudence and discretion.”
He handed it back to her with a satisfied nod.
"Akodo-ue asked me the question at the Topaz of what I had learnt about my enemies, I assumed..." Kairi seemed apologetic, in stark contrast to before. "...Thankyou Shigemori-sama"
“Ignorance and inexperience can be forgiven, Kairi-san,” said Shigemori. “Providing of course they are followed up by reflection and knowledge.” He was thoughtful a moment. “Would you mind indulging me in listening to a story for a moment?” Shigemori asked. “I think you would find it if interest.”
Oh Kami, another one? Make it stop!
"Of course. I am always ready to receive wisdom Shigemori-sama"
“When I was younger, perhaps around your age, I was sent to my first court posting. At Kyuden Hida,” he began. “One might say there could have been more illustrious appointments, but I was determined to do what I could there for the glory of the clan.”
“Sent with me was a duellist, Akodo Takeda,” said Shigemori. “You probably would not have heard of him, but he was most remarkable with the sword. So fast with with iaijutsu draw. Yet his tongue was faster still.”
“Well, one of the events at court was an iaijutsu tournament. Takeda bested them all, even a Kenshinzen of the Kakita. After the tournament we all went out to a tavern to celebrate and he bought us all drinks.”
Here Shigemori’s voice started to sound a little sad. “I must admit, the sake and shochu flowed rather freely that night, particularly with Crab brewers being what they were. We were happy, boasting as young samurai do, but Takeda...” Shigemori looked a little sad. “Takeda would not stop. And when he finished bragging, he started insulting everyone in the room, calling them cowards for not being able to best his blade. We left before they threw us out.”
“Now Crab are usually fairly straightforward with their dealings,” said Shigemori. “Many times I’ve found it refreshing, even when they have insulted me to my face. At least I know. But...” He turned to Kairi. “For the worst insults, things are...a little different.” He paused, remembering. “We were set upon by Crab in masks with clubs and staffs. They forced us into an alley, saying we would pay for the insults they had suffered that day. By the time they had left, we were all bloodied and bruised. Takeda had been attacked the most, and we thought he had been knocked unconscious. But he wasn’t. He was dead.”
He paused a moment, letting that fact sink in with Kairi.
Kairi listened intently and sighed quietly and politely, her nostrils flaring. It wasn't out of impertinence. It was.....something else.
"I understand. I do." She said "I'm not Takeda-sama, though. I don't have a mouth on me"
“No?” asked Shigemori skeptically. “You do not have the discipline of when not to speak, or when to stop speaking. This wasn’t the first time someone had taken Takeda to task on words he had said. And he did not always speak so rashly only under the influence of sake. It was known to many. And it was such a waste, such skill such beauty gone, like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“There is fire within you, Kairi-san,” continued Shigemori. “It would be much better in your skill with the blade, which I know is considerable. I do not suggest you will end up with the fate of Takeda. But such rashness, such impulsiveness...you do see where it leads?”
"It doesn't lead to much good. You have made your point clear." Kairi bowed her head "What do I need to do?"
“I think you know a lot of that already, Kairi-san, your manuscript was quite thorough on that,” said Shigemori. “You need only apply it, practice it, and continue to reflect on it.”
The sun was rather high now, the day was beginning properly.
Shigemori put his shamisen carefully back in its case. “Now, it would not be too hard to guess that you wish to run off and see those friends of yours,” he said. “Please make sure to see me this evening, we do need to do some work on you speaking properly before the court.”
Fine, if it means my friends get to see me I'd march to the shadowlands themselves.
"Very well. Any other sage advice?"
Shigemori frowned at her insolence, but said nothing on it.
“You are dismissed,” he said.
Kairi made to rise, and then stopped herself.
"Shigemori-sama. I am trying. This is not my way, but I will attempt anyway. I just need to see the path."
She left without another word.
Shigemori sat thinking for a while after she left. She did sound in earnest about how she would try to improve, but he knew the battle of wills between them was far from over.
Perhaps another approach would work better. He went over to the desk and began to write a letter.
In the privacy of the Lion embassy Akodo no Asako Saori sat in the room she had been assigned, pondering once more over the letter that Akodo Shigemori had sent her. Oh yes, she had known that her daughter had been entranced by this Scorpion boy at the Topaz Championship, but what could be overlooked in a child over the course of 3 days, could no longer be overlooked as the months crept past.
She sighed. Kairi had done well for herself, achieving the honour of being trained by Akodo Toshiro himself to become a Swordsaint. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she thought of the missives she had received from the respected sensei about how Kairi was progressing. Fortunes but the girl had spirit. She recalled a certain Phoenix girl who too had rebelled once upon a time. Yes, Kairi certainly came by it honest.
She sighed as she rose from her seat, preparing to go corner her daughter before breakfast. Despite the fact that she was proud of Kairi, she would never achieve her full potential if she was pampered. No one ever did. She slid open the shoji screen and made her way to Kairi’s room.
Letting herself in without any ceremony, she found the room to be empty. Well that was just as well. She would wait. Saori settled in to do just that. Yes, she would come back and then there would be a reckoning.
Kairi returned from breaking fast somewhat unceremoniously. She was in high spirits as she returned to her room to study and potentually get a quick cat nap to catch up on missed sleep before she was called on for the day.
Instead, when she crossed through the shoji screen, she was met with one other person in the room - she looked like Kairi, but older - like the younger woman had aged 20 years within days.
Well I'm already dead
"Ancestors guide you well to this place..." Kairi bowed "Mother."
“Kairi-chan,” Saori responded briskly. “You were up and about earlier than usual. Any particular reason why?”
"I wanted to bring glory to the clan by getting a headstart on the competitions." Kairi responded. It wasn't a lie.
“I see. And have you succeeded?” was the next pointed question.
"Not as of yet. I tried two rooms, but felt myself called back here to begin my studies instead."
There was a matter-of-fact tone in Kairi's voice
Saori pursed her lips. “It is good that you continue to attend to your studies while here,” she allowed. The silence fell between them for a moment, as she liked her daughter up and down.
“Do you know why I am here?” She asked just as the silence would start to feel uncomfortable for Kairi.
"Probably because I argued with Shigemori-sama?" Kairi said sullenly. here we go
“Have care to your tone when you speak to me!” Saori’s voice was not loud but was sharp as the edge of a blade.
“And would you care to expound on the topic of your insolence to Shigemori-san?” It was not a question.
"One would assume I wouldn't have to. Or you wouldn't be here."
Should I just get my swords now, Mother?
“So you choose defiance,” Saori said, sounding oh so disappointed. “One would think that you had better sense in every possible way. I see now that it was a mistake to assume anything about you.”
"I choose not to dishonour my mother by assuming she doesn't already know." Kairi responded "If you want the truth of it then I believed Shigemori-sama was jumping at things that were not present and told him as much. He took umbrage with me over that."
“You were taught to respect your elders!” Saori snapped. “If Shigemori-san believed that you were making doe eyes at that Scorpion, then it is not your place to contradict him! The very fact that you so vehemently deny it betrays your lie!”
"Deny what?" Kairi asked, her hands balling into fists behind her back "I've answered your questions about where I've been and what I've done here."
What more do you want from me?
Saori’s mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Do you think I left my duties at home and came all the way out here to Kyuden Seppun, because you’ve been a dutiful samurai and daughter, whose only goal is to honour her ancestors and bring glory to her clan?” Saori’s voice was dangerously soft, a tone that Kairi would know meant that she would not be let off the hook until she had had...a thorough lesson.
"No, I didn't." Kairi said slowly, calmly, coolly. "I just seemed to remember something about my mother telling me not to take a hit lying down, and that's why I argued with Shigemori-sama. I will do better next time."
“Insolent, unrepentant girl!” Saori’s hand whipped out to strike her daughter across the face with her folded fan. “You think that you’re so smart and so talented that all can be overlooked and forgiven. You should know better. You have disappointed your father and me both, more than ever before. When you were a child, such rebellions could be forgiven. But you are an adult now, Kairi! Or perhaps I should continue to call you Rei, since apparently you do not feel like growing up and shouldering the responsibilities required of an adult!”
Kairi's head turned with the force of the slap and she looked straight into her mother’s eyes. There was no cry, no tears, and no rubbing the wound.
"Yes, Oka-sama." She said quietly
“You have a duty to do, not just here, but every day of your life! Have you no care for the shame you have visited upon your family, your husband by continuing this...this...” Saori’s mouth twisted unpleasantly, as if she couldn’t bear the taste of the words she spoke, “...longing you have for a dishonourable, untrustworthy Scorpion?”
"We are honestly just friends, Oka-sama." Kairi maintained her respective tone.
“Do not seek to further your shame by lying to me, Rei!” Saori’s words dripped with scorn. “If you were just friends there would be no reason to get so emotional when you were caught, and certainly the issue would not have arisen in the first place!” The frostiness of her manner was almost palpable- a bystander might have sworn that the temperature had chilled by several degrees. Saori had no need to raise her voice to make the full effect of her words felt.
"I am not lying." Kairi tried mustering all the confidence she could "The boy in question, a Bayushi, is a friend with a wicked sense of humour. He tries needling me via mock forgetfulness about the rules of propriety. Shigemori-sama merely stepped in on him during one of his finer and more arrogant practical jokes."
“Do you think that I do not know about what happened at the Topaz Championship?” Even quieter, and if possible, more dangerous.
I mean, it' be a first for taking an interest in my life.
"When I became an adult I put away childish things, for I was no longer a child."
“And you continue to lie,” Saori replied. She looked at her daughter with a mixture of disgust and pity. She let the silence between them grow.
Kairi just sat there, stewing, not even looking at Saori. Instead, she looked at Unity - shining softly in the mid-morning sun.
"Fine." She said through gritted teeth "You got me. Thrash me like you did on that mountain then."
“You don’t deserve the honour of crossing blades with me,” was Saori’s response to that. “Today, you are a pitiful shade of what you should be.” She shook her head. “I only draw my blade to instruct a worthy student.”
Kairi bowed her head low. She kept her eyes firmly on her feet "....my penance, then?"
“You will attend to your studies and you will do your duty by your clan, your ancestors and your family. You will leave behind this nonsense with this Bayushi, who isn’t fit to lick the sweat off an honourable samurai’s tabi, and you will become what you are meant to be. That is a that is required of you, to do your duty. Disobey me, Rei, and I swear that you will find yourself alone.”
"Yes, Oka-san." Kairi said mournfully.
After last night, how do I tell him that now I might have to call things off?
She lifted her head ever so slightly "W-Will that be all?"
“I have several things to do whilst I am in the Imperial City. You may be sure that I will be keeping an eye on you and your behaviour. Disobey me and you will regret it. Try to play me for a fool and lie to me again? You cannot even imagine what will happen to you.”
For fucks sake, I cannot catch a single good fortune.
"Yes Oka-san. I will honour you and do as you ask."
Saori rose regally. “I hope you will, Rei, for your own sake.” And with that, she swept out of the room, leaving no opportunity for rebuttal.
In the next room, Shigemori was reading from a scroll, the cat curled up in his lap. He did not look pleased at what his note had wrought. In fact, he looked a little sad.
Shigemori sat at his desk in his room. Scrolls and correspondence in front of him, but he paid attention to none of them. He was deep in thought.
He, of course, had heard the confrontation between Kairi and her mother but had not thought it prudent to involve himself. One did not interfere with a lioness chastising her cub.
Hopefully, hopefully, this had had the desired effect on Kairi and she would heed their words and refuse to see this Scorpion. For if she did not...
I only hope it is not too late, thought Shigemori, though wilful young girls will insist on doing what is not best for them. At least Kyoko is safely with the Lion Legions for now...
“Akodo-sama? All is ready,” said a servant, bowing to Shigemori who quickly dismissed him.
Everything was ready. The tray of tea implements, the calligraphy scroll he had drawn and hung on one wall-“first snow”, it said-, the ikebana arrangement of snowdrops beneath it.
He only had to await his guest.
Akodo no Asako Saori clapped her hands outside the door to announce her presence.
Shigemori put his documents away and crossed the room, using the stone basin to cleanse his hands and mouth.
He then opened the door and greeted Saori with a silent bow, as was customary.
Saori returned the bow. “Shigemori-san, thank you for inviting me,” she said. “It is a pleasure to see you again, though I wish it were on happier circumstances.”
“A pleasure to see you as well, Saori-san,” said Shigemori. “But we must make the best of things as we take them.”
He led the way to where everything was set up. An iron tea pot on a brazier. On a tray a dark tea bowl in a crackle glaze tea bowl and whisk, a cloth, a small container of matcha powder with scoop, and a small plate with a winter-themed wagashi cake on it. In this case, it the form of a plum blossom covered in frost.
They both sat down on the cushions opposite each other.
“How lovely,” Saori remarked, as she settled onto her cushion. “How are you, Shigemori-san? And your lovely family? What a relief it was to find out that you would be here with Kairi-chan.”
“I am keeping well, thank you,” said Shigemori. He began the ritual of the tea ceremony by cleaning the utensils with the cloth and a little boiling water. “Kyoko-chan with the Seventh Legion, she writes that she hopes that she will see combat next year. Ikuda-kun will make will make his gempukku in the spring.”
He laid the cloth aside and added water to the tea bowl, just enough so that it was still thick and began to whisk it. “I do consider it fortunate that I am here with Kairi-san,” he said. “From what she has told me, she has quite good prospects for the future. An invitation to the Kensai dojo is quite an honour for someone as young as she is.”
“Hai,” replied Saori, a hint of the pride she never would have admitted to Kairi that she felt in her voice. “And with Akodo Toshiro-sensei as well!” She sighed worriedly. “But she is stubborn and she thinks she’s in love with this Scorpion boy... by the Fortunes, Shigemori-san, how like her mother she is. But she has come to a much less forgiving place than I was in, and she has much more to lose than I did. I worry that she will ruin all her prospects by carrying on an indiscreet affair with this Bayushi Saizo, shaming her husband and her family.”
Shigemori nodded slightly ask he whisked the tea, bringing the whisk gradually up so it would make a nice foam on top.
“What is worse I think is that it is not ignorance on her part,” Shigemori said gravely. “Kairi-san knows what she is doing is wrong, knows what the consequences are. Yet she still goes ahead heedlessly, continues her defiance.”
He was quiet as he added more hot water to the tea.
“Such promise, and to throw it all away,” he said. “Yet, I have seen it before.”
He bowed and offered the tea bowl to Saori to drink.
She accepted the tea bowl with a slight bow. “She tried to lie to me about it,” Saori said, sounding hurt and disappointed. “That alone is enough to tell me that she knows she does wrong.” She fell silent and sipped the tea slowly. “Did we ever lie, Shigemori-san? Even when we were caught?”
Shigemori cast his mind back to that court at Kyuden Doji almost twenty years before. He and his wife Hatsumoto had been newly married the previous spring. And so had Saori.
Their eyes had met over the stream of the Winding Water Banquet, trying to outdo each other with their poetry as the sake kept coming. And it had gone further from there, much further...
He shook his head, dismissing the memory. “We didn’t lie,” he said. “No,” he added, “I must be honest, we did not lie, but we wanted to. We made plans to leave, to run away together. And we were not only caught, we were fortunate to be.” He looked up at Saori with a wry smile. “We were young, we knew better and still didn’t, and we were fortunate to have those around us who did. Although,” he added dryly, “I think your husband has yet to find a reason to exchange more than just a few polite words with me.”
She laughed a little as she passed him the tea bowl, the same laugh that had rang in his ears like music all those years ago and had enchanted him. “He was comforted to know that you would be here with Kairi-chan at Court. Kyuden Seppun is no easy place to be, and he knows despite everything that you will care for our daughter as one of your own.”
She smiled wistfully. “We were so young, and so stupid...and so sure that what we were doing was right. I can only hope that Kairi does not push past the limit from which I can save her from herself. She is so young, and so talented, Shigemori-san...she has a bright future ahead of her. I feel for her husband, really.”(edited)
Shigemori took the tea bowl from Saori and carefully began to clean it and the rest of the tea utensils, placing them carefully before him for Saori to inspect.
“Her future is there, she need only grasp it,” said Shigemori. “I will do my best for her, yet I fear that will not be enough.”
He then offered her the plum blossom cake to end the tea ceremony.
“It never occurred to me otherwise, Shigemori-san,” replied Saori with small smile. When the tea ceremony finished and the plum blossom cake shared, Saori stood and bowed to the Lion. “It was good to see you again, Shigemori-san. I hope we will see more of each other in the future.” With a final smile, she exited quietly.
From the rooms where the Lion Clan are staying, the sound of shouting and breaking china can be heard. The voice of Shigemori, loud and full of the fury of a thunderclap, his words something no samurai should be caught uttering. The servants flee into the corridor like frightened doves, not daring to return unless summoned.
The loud, endless, raging bickering of the spirits around the castle was unending since that scandal. Some of the spirits who lingered had seen much, though they shared little about that with the Sodan Senzo. Instead the Kitsu got to listen to spirits bickering about who was more at fault, and which child was more dishonored by this. This followed her all through the halls, until she came to a door louder than even the spirits talking around her, the swearing evident of the pain and anger within. " Kitsu Himiko, requesting entrance." The shugenja had her back towards the door, as she waited for the man to calm down. She had no intention of speaking bad of the dead, and was intent on instead dealing with the pain left behind.
She was answered by a series of oaths and profanities of what would happen to anyone who dared open that door.
The shugenja only nodded, silently allowing herself to set in seiza, watching over her lion-brothers outburst from outside of the room, silently.
A woman is seen making her way to Shigemori’s room. At first glance, one might think it was Akodo Kairi. On second, one would realize that she was probably about 15-20 years too old to be Kairi, not to mention that the Akodo’s Seppuku had taken place earlier that day. She clapped her hands and opened the door without asking if she could enter.
Shigemori sat on the floor in his room, the eye of a sea of destruction of broken china and overturned furniture.
He had witnessed Kairi perform the three cuts. Quiet, proper, and with dignity. Her eyes still rimmed red from the angry tears she had wept when she had been told of what had been decided.
Now, it was finished.
The servants had fled, terrified as the full weight of Shigemori’s fury had set itself on everything in sight. Overturning tables, smashing and scattering whatever was in his way. His staff was by the door, having been thrown there when he told the servants to leave him.
Now he sat drained.
I should have told her
The thought surprised Shigemori, it had a pang if regret with it. And regret was a sin.
It would not have made the slightest of difference, he told himself, she knew what she was doing was wrong, knew the consequences and still did it.
His hand absently played with the broken pieces of pottery.
“Such a waste,” he said to it, his voice quiet and full of sadness.
Clapping interrupted his mourning and the shoji screen slid open. There was only one person it could be.
Akodo no Asako Saori has aged at least 10 years in just a matter of days, it seemed. Her head was still held high and her posture almost defiantly perfect. But a slight redness around her eyes betrayed the bitter tears she had shed.
Shigemori staggered to his feet, using an upturned table to stand upright.
"Saori, I'm..." For once in his life, Shigemori found himself at odds of what to say. "I'm sorry!" The words tumbling out in a desperate plea for mercy. "I am so sorry, I couldn't save...our daughter."
Saori paled again at the reminder that the bright light in her life, the daughter she had borne, raised and taught was no longer. “I failed her somehow,” she said, her voice rough from crying and thick with unshed tears. “I don’t know where I went wrong, but I failed her. It was not your fault, Mori-kun.” In this moment of emotional upheaval, she slipped back to the name she could have once sworn was carved into her heart forever.
“No, no! Never say that!”
Shigemori staggered painfully across the shattered room, grinding shattered wood and broken china under his feet. But he did not care, that pain would leave, the one inside would not.
“You did the best you could, but you could not change who she was. None of us could.”
“She was such a bright girl, a good girl,” Saori mourned, a single tear collecting in the corner of her eye. “I had such hopes for her.” She looked up at Shigemori as she sank to her knees, heedless of the mess on the floor. “How could it have come to this?”
Shigemori didn't answer, he didn't have an answer, there was no answer. He looked down at Saori, her eyes pleading with him to say something, anything that would make the pain stop, that would make everything better. But there was nothing.
He reached down, gently touched her cheek and brushed away the tear.
Saori reached up to hold his hand against her cheek. “I never regretted it,” she whispered. “How could I, when we had her?” She closed her eyes, allowing herself to be soothed by the touch of her old lover’s hand. No, she did not feel the passion she had once felt for him. But somehow, it seemed right to share the pain of losing her daughter with the man who had been her father.
She let her hand fall away. “How could she have been so stupid?” She burst out. Yes, anger hurt less than grief and sorrow.
With a little difficulty, Shigemori sat down again. This time he put a noticeable distance between him and Saori. Not just for propriety, but what she he was about to say. “If you wish to put blame on anyone, Saori-san, it should go with me,” he said, his voice having that familiar crispness to it. “I saw her yesterday, just before you arrived. We...both spoke in anger, and I fear my attempts to dissuade her may have driven her into his arms.” He was silent for a long time. “Blame me, Saori-san, I can live with that.”
She shook her head almost immediately. "No, Shigemori-san," she replied, regaining her some of her composure. "It is not your fault. I just...we just have to learn to accept that somehow, despite all the effort that was made to raise her properly, me, despite my husband who never knew that she was not his, and even despite you here and now, somehow either we all failed collectively, or she was fundamentally flawed, to be taken in to such an extent by a Scorpion" The last was spat out as though it were a filthy word.
Shigemori nodded. “Our failure, that she paid for,” said Shigemori. “She was samurai at the end, Saori-san, what we wanted her to be. And what now will never be.”
He felt tired, but he knew he had to move on. There was work to do for the living, there always was.
Hours later, Shigemori emerges. His clothing his neat, his hair in a perfect topknot, his beard trimmed. Yet he looks as if he has aged visibly; more lines of worry in his face than the day before. Yet his stride is confident, his tone curt. He sees Kitsu Himiko sitting there, how long had she been waiting for him? He gave her a nod in greeting. “Come, we have work to do,” he said. He walked off at a brisk pace and fully expected her to follow.