Fox kid

[Hida Tetsuko]

===========================
**In a little Interview Room...**

You've had time to rest from your kata for a bit and now you are escorted to a small room built out of shoji screens in some part of the building. The room is actually not empty...in fact, it could be a child's play room. There is paper and a writing set in it and a desk. Some flowers in a small vase. Some dolls outfitted as if for a kabuki play. Some bamboo strips and string. Nothing much.

The student who leads you to the room welcomes you to sit. "It might be a while," they suggest. "You can play with any of this stuff, if you like. Master-Sensei will be by when he gets to you."

With that, the student leaves, leaving you alone in the room.
For the longest time, Akairo sits silently. He’s not sure what to do so he does nothing. When nothing happens he cautiously picks up the brush and dips it in the ink.
Carefully he begins to draw, lines which form a mouse, scurrying about.
A’s Akairo draws, Kasa appears from his sleeve. When the drawing is finished, Kasa jumps onto the paper, his tiny feet running across leaving tiny footprints in his wake.
Akairo stops, his brush making a puddle on the paper which only makes things worse.
“No, Kasa, they won’t like that.” Akairo attempts to pick him up but it only drives the mouse towards the ink puddle, causing it to splatter. “No, no, you’ll get me in trouble again. Just like in father’s study.”
Akairo’s hands are stained with ink as he tries to catch his mouse. He scratches his nose and a black streak is painted across his face.

[Hida Tetsuko]

The shoji screen slides silently open, and you hear a sniff. "Really?" A lean, black-haired, dour-faced man stands in the entrance, looking down at Akairo with an expression somewhere between contempt and disgust. The man is immaculately dresed in white kimono and hakima, trimmed with black, every hair cairfully in place.
"I believe you're supposed to write with ink. Not roll in it."
Akairo quickly grabs Kasa and makes a low bow, his inky hands disappearing into his sleeves. He didn’t trust himself to say the right thing so he said nothing at all.
The man frowned. "Speak up! Or did a stray heimin child wander into this room by mistake and is too frightened to speak his own words?"
Akairo startled like a frightened rabbit. “N-no sensei.”
The man looks down his nose at the boy as if deciding to deign to give him a moment of his time, and then finally sits in seiza. "I am Doji Motonari, Master Sensei of Poetry. And what, exactly, do you think are you doing here, foolish boy?"
Akairo swallowed. “To, to test for the Kakita Academy, sensei.”
"Yes, yes. Your test is over. You can go home now." He waves his hand impatiently.
Akairo froze. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, at least not according to Tsuano. “But...”
Motonari raises an eyebrow. "But? Are you hinting that you would like to stay here?"
The thought of being confined to the walls of the Academy terrified him. Away from the forest, the wind...* “No...yes...I.” *He wanted to do his adopted parents proud. But more than that, he wanted to do Tsuano proud. “The fox kit needs to know the ways of the forest, to hunt and track or they will be lost.” *His words fell flat though. He had not done enough, he’d have to tell Tsuano he had failed.
Motonari glares steadily at the fox child and his "poem". "Your parents are not here. Many fail the test. They go elsewhere. Other Dojos. Other Lands. Lesser, but content for their aspirations. No one is here but Me. And you." Then he speaks slowly, coldly, in clipped words. "Do. You. Want. To. Be. Here?"

[Hida Tetsuko]

Akairo closed his eyes and was quiet for a moment. “This morning I didn’t, but I bent with the rest like willow wands in the wind. I did my best, but not much was expected of me than a fox could learn to fly.” He was quiet again, breathing deeply. “But when Kakita Masarugi-sensei spoke, when he tested us, I wanted to then. I truly wanted to see how far I could go, how long I could last, and keep going. To start by tracking the moon at dusk and keep on, hoping I would see the dawn.”
Motonari listens silently, a stern expression on his face, but...perhaps...less hostile. "We can test you. Forge you. Draw from your spirit a symphony that you did not know you contained. But it will not be easy. Labor and suffering exists at the center of all on Ningen-do, and the greatest must forge themselves in the fire of that suffering. Are you prepared?"
“Butterflies forge themselves in darkness, yet all for that brief moment in the sun. I cannot be as certain as they are for my future, but I will try.”
"And what can a butterfly offer to the Academy, in return for its flashing moment in the sunlight?"
“The glory in its beauty and grace.”
“I hope I can, or I could.”
"And you are willing to work for it...with everything you have, to win that moment?"
“Yes.” Akairo’s voice was certain and sure.
Motonari stands. "Then we shall see what hatches from this cocoon. A common moth, or a butterfly." He inclines his head as he leaves.
Akairo sits a moment. Did he pass or not? Then left the room.