Akodo Susumu waits in the freshly cleaned sitting room. Any letters received have been sorted and delivered to their intended recipients. He is starting to make tea, and sitting at the writing desk, working on some notes.
A servant treads up the stairs to announce his Lady Shosuro, another laying down her instrument, then withdrawing. A moment later, she glides into the yashiki, cool and collected, bowing quite properly, then dismissing the servants. She stands there for a few heartbeats, letting a small smile creep to her lips. "Hello, Susumu. Did you get my letter?"
Susumu blushes deep crimson, but nods an eager assent. "Yes, I did. It is...I do not think anyone else will find it. It is a hidden treasure to me."
She smiles mischievously, gliding to a seat next to him, placing her hands on either side of his face, pressing her brow against his. "I thought you should know my feelings."
Susumu raises his eyebrows with a touch of humor. "I...did not doubt them."
"And," she presses her lips against his softly. "Before you start worrying again, I am still a bit sore, but I am very, very happy."
"I am glad to hear that, Etsuaya." He will softly return her kiss.
"I do have some actual business to speak of, Susumu--" but she tucks her veil out of the way and gives him a proper kiss, full and passionate.
He lets the kiss linger, closing his eyes. Eventually, it ends, and he slowly opens his eyes. "Yes? What business can I help with?"
She chuckles, low and warm. “One more kiss before business?”
He smiles. "Of course!" And holds her for another passionate kiss.
Too soon for her liking, she leans back, smoothing out her sleeves and her kimono skirts, tucking wayward strands of hair back into place. "Ahem. Business."
Susumu also tries to force the color out of his cheeks, with limited success. "Right. Business."
"I love to see you flushed like this," she purrs, then kisses his cheeks briefly, one, then the other. In the next heartbeat, she has re-places the golden bends that hold her veil in place over her mouth and nose. /Business./ "I think I see a way to tie in your Military Track with the criteria that has received a good bit of support as of now."
"Oh yes? We have been doing a lot of work here to see if we can get our aims included in the exam."
"Your clan's key goals pertain to a way to recognize and recruit possible officer candidates, yes?"
She slides down to an elbow, and looks about. "Do you have any pillows...?"
Susumu looks away, somewhat upset. "That..." And then he hears her second question. "Of course. I will get some for you. We keep some in a spare room."
And he will return a few minutes later with some effective, but not particularly decorative, pillows. "The clan seeks, broadly, to insure tactical knowledge in any imperial candidates. We...I did not advocate strongly enough for such a proposal initially, and so it has fallen by the wayside. This is unfortunate, but I must adapt and look for secondary objectives, such as the officer track in the examination."
"So I've been reading," she smiles up at him and takes the pillows, arranging them in a manner quite similar to the one he'd glimpsed in her room. She reclines onto her elbow, stretching her legs out, feet peeking out from beneath her kimono's skirts. "While I was reflecting on our last visit, the idea came to me," she gives a slow, sensual smile, "If you also focus on support of Standardization, you could advocate for the inclusion of certain classical texts that go on at length about tactics."
"This will ensure that candidates -- across the entire Empire -- will have at least a basic grounding in Tactics, as Akodo's writings are most certainly a classical text."
Susumu nods. "Yes, of course." Then he pauses, and sighs. "I have not forgotten your request for support for the anonymity proposal, as well, and I hope that our resources are not stretched too thin to cover all of these areas." Unfortunately, I can hardly say that I have the ear of the Yanagi as far as the precepts of the examination are concerned, and I want to make sure that I act in concert with my fellow Lion to best deploy our resources."
"Thank you," she nods seriously, then quirks her eyebrow. "The Yanagi seem to be making themselves scarce." "Secondly --" Etsuaya leans forward. "I believe that if we can get Aggregate Scoring -- a proposal from Crab to be scored by subject and overall -- in place, you'll be able to quickly find suitable candidates for officer training." "Now, also… I have a question about the difference between tactics and, er, logistics..."
"Oh yes? I can see if there is some knowledge I have on this matter that might be useful."
"In the texts I've started reading, there seems to be a difference between tactics and logistics," her brow furrows slightly, clearly venturing into an area she is by no means fluent in. "It seems to me that a good grounding in the work behind bureaucracy and taxation [Government skill] -- moving large bodies of /things/ -- about are quite important to a military candidate. Isn't this an essential part of tactics?"
"Getting soldiers to the field is important, and it is true that it is more difficult for a poorly supplied army to triumph. However, it is entirely possible for a smaller force to rout a larger one, and that is where tactical considerations come in to play. Consider the Unicorn clan's way of war: they will almost never outnumber their opponents, but the tactical benefit of having a large cavalry force may be enough for them to triumph. They would never have been able to re-enter the empire without those tactical advantages."
"So, because the cavalry have speed and mobility, they have lesser need of supply lines? Therefore need for two separate skill sets…" she muses with am apologetic little smile. "This is outside the scope of my training… You've studied this, I assume?"
"Until this year, this was my entire life. My education was almost entirely concerned with becoming a competent officer. Other skills, including logistics, were secondary."
She touches his hand, then slips her fingers under his sleeve and runs her hand along his forearm gently. "In my education, we were more concerned with games of manners, reading faces, catching lies." "While we were given some training in unarmed combat, it was something I never really got the knack of, at least not until I started working with Kakita Inoue a few weeks back. Ahem..."
Susumu pauses, looking at her directly, processing this. "So...when you threw me, it was something you were trying for the first time?"
"No," she settles a little deeper into her pillows, shifting her knees, a shin peeking out from her skirts. "It was the fourth time I'd tried. After throwing /me/, Inoue-san showed me the proper placement, after which I tried throwing her. Mostly unsuccessfully. Though she was expecting it…" she dropped her voice, "and it was not… not with a lover."
"Ah. I see." He pauses for a moment. "Are your parents courtiers for the clan as well?"
"Ahem," she cleared her throat. "No, actually. My mother is a courtier, she taught me the koto. My father is a bushi in my Lord's household, it was he who taught me Go, and had hoped very dearly that his little Chou [butterfly] would follow in his footsteps -- but it was not to be."
"I have a younger sister who is studying the sword, and at least one of the young twins, boys, is showing inclination toward martial training. It also helps that they have, so far, not fallen off a horse in the worst way possible," she jests.
"And then you, like myself, suffered because of poor medicine applied after the injury. Hence my work, so that there are fewer of...fewer people must suffer as we did." He pauses. "It is good to have such a family as yours, I think. Hopefully the ancestors will bless them with good fortune."
"Agreed," she nods solemnly. "And it is likely the twins and my mother would have died without a good midwife present. What is your like?"
Susumu shakes his head. "Very small. Both of my parents are officers, and I have no siblings. I have some cousins on my father's side, but have only met them a few times, years ago."
"That must have been very lonely," she murmurs. "Small wonder you are so quiet..."
Susumu shrugs. "There is an old saying among the Akodo: 'Every Akodo is your brother'. I had my classmates at the dojo, and they were, for the most part, all of the family I needed. Most of the time I was at the dojo anyway, since my 'family home' was just a string of legion postings."
"That is a good saying," she replies. "Those in my school were a bit more fond of the saying that we were like 'iron sharpens iron.' Quite competitive, though they mixed us up enough that we were both opponents and allies, all knowing that it was going to be our sacred duty to root out the wicked and corrupt among the clans." "Mother is terribly proud, and Father is worried about what Spring may bring."
Susumu laughs. "Ha! The Akodo have the Matsu for that." He refocuses for a second. "Why does your father fear the Spring?"
"He is a warrior, son of warriors, noted for his courage in service to his Lord. But he is also a historian. It has been seven centuries since the last large-scale conflict between clans, which created an opening for the Gozoku conspiracy to seize an incredible amount of power from the Emperor. My father fears a Clan War is coming," her voice is very, very soft.
Susumu looks skeptical. "I know only the current conflicts of my own clan. Our conflict with the Unicorn seems likely to resolve within a year or two, depending on how things go. The...situation with the Crane I am less sure of, but that has been going on for so long that I do not know that it portends any great change in the empire. I do not even know that Akodo Toturi-ue will push much farther on the Crane this year, although I have no special insight in that regard." Susumu shrugs. "Perhaps his wife will turn him towards peace, at least on the eastern front. I do not really know."
"Many of my people speak well of your new Champion,"`she slips a hand into his, still worried. "I don't know much of tactics, but my Father has admonished me to not take sides -- but it seems that many people are already drawing up what those sides may be."
Susumu looks nervous. "Many of us were concerned, especially since {the last Lion champion before Arasou, who's name I don't remember} passed over Toturi for the succession, and Toturi accepted that without complaint to lead a life of contemplation." Susumu's expression brightens. "But, so far there has been little change. He has not dramatically attempted to change the clan. It is...possible that our work here will do more to change the Lion than anything else, which is an uncomfortable thought."
"Another samurai with a drastic change in the course of their life," she shakes her head, bells of her golden hair stick jingling softly. "Eh, it occurs to me that you've been thrust into this court with little training of Courtly life. Are there any particulars you could use guidance with?"
Susumu pauses. "I have been learning a lot from Ikoma-san. He has been a great help with many things in this regard. But..." He thinks for a minute. "Fundamentally, my problem is that I do not understand the other clans. I do not know what they think or want, since their training is so...different from my own."
"There is a story told, about a girl named Guwahime." She twines her fingers in hers and lies back on the pillows with a little smile on her face. "Because she was very plain girl, her father lamented that he would never be able to find a husband to his daughter. He tried to marry her to each of the Great Clans, sending her to the Clan's Court, but each time she was returning home with no promise." "One night, Guwahime went without her father permission to the eldest son of the Bayushi daimyo. The next morning, her father received a word that the son of the Scorpion Clan Champion had married his daughter /that very night./"
Susumu blinks, but is listening, assuming there is more to the story.
"You see, the plain young lady had gone to the Bayushi heir, who asked how Guwahime how she could be useful to him. She spent the entire night telling him what she had learned from each of the Clans and how to trick all of them," she shifts her hips slightly, and smiles at Susumu. "What do you think the moral of the story here is?"
Susumu sits and thinks for several minutes. Hmmm...wait, but...no..." He thinks for a couple of additional minutes. "I am afraid there is more that I do not understand about this story than that I do. Was it that the ability to gather that information in so few visits to each court was more valuable than any other consideration for the prince? It seems...a brash choice."
"The story is a fable, so there is clearly more to it than the little story, but yes -- gathering information by subtle observation is a terribly, terribly useful skill." She thinks another moment and smiles, biting her bottom lip softly. "How many of your patients have lied to you?" she leans forward on her pillows, which has the added benefit of shifting the collar of her clothing off of shoulder. "And why did I ask for the pillows?"
"There have been patients that have not known the true cause of their suffering, but I do not know there are any that have lied to me directly. It is irrelevant whether they do so or not, their body will reveal the true source of their concern." "As for the pillows, it did not occur to me to question that request. I presumed you were uncomfortable, and they would assist with that."
"That is the sweetest way I've heard someone complain about being lied to all day. That courtesy is commendable in Court." "As for the pillows, notice where your eyes are right now," she shifts her hips slightly, moving her knees closer to his -- which shifts her garments enough to show a slender leg, toes to knee.
"All over you, as usual." It's a true enough statement.
Lounging in wrapped clothing does wonderful things, shortening the spine to allow the collar to droop down over the shoulders, cling to the hips to allow for the gap that is currently exposing part of the leg. She looks up at him through her lashes.
"Move your eyes up to my face," she suggests, as if asking him to look at another set of chopsticks in the market. "Specifically, the muscles on either side of my eyes, and between my brows. Tension, maybe pain." "Sitting still for long periods of time puts stress on my back." She shifts the pillows to her other side, shifts her hips and lounges on her other side. Coincidentally, closer to him. She reaches out a hand to brush his face. "There are little tells, little tales, that can give you valuable insight. How am I breathing? My pupils, are they dilated unduly?"
He listens for a moment. "Your breath...isn't as easy as it should be. Your pupils are dilated, but there could be several reasons for that. I would assume that mine are, and yours could be either for a similar cause. Also, if you are pain, that would cause it as well."
"Pain is an old friend," she murmurs softly, looking into his eyes steadily, brushing her nose against his. "And I so, so enjoy the look on your face when you can't stand to keep your hands off of me..."
His eyes glance to the side for second before quickly returning to drink in more of her figure. "I...have not discussed our...love with the other Lion. They may not understand, and I can offer us little defense. Would you like me to walk you home?"
She raises a hand to her face to hide a laugh, "I think Ikoma-san has figured out that something is going on. He hinted as much when he came over for music last week. I'd guess he would find it advantageous in addition to finding it adorable -- but yes, I would like that, very much." Her eyes are huge, and very dark indeed. "Will you stay?"
Susumu meets her eyes. "Yes."
One would never accuse a distinguished Akodo bushi of sneaking, much less sneaking into a lady’s room. The two of them did, however, move quickly and quietly, hand in hand.
Dear bossjenry, From beginning we talk and shared everything. I had a good feeling for you. I knew there was something special in you that I cherish, you are the one I want to hold for the rest of my life, in my arms is where you belong. Your, BOSS
