The door closed behind me, leaving the warmth of the sun dappled couch and the pervasive scent of flowers and spice behind. It was colder out here, or at least I assumed it was as I felt the gooseflesh rise up along my arms. My thoughts occupied all of my awareness, in particularly Arha’s words over and over.
“…sometimes you’re really hypocritical…”
“Many people are loose-lipped… Saying things they don’t mean, in the spur of the moment…”
“Always… been the one sent to die…?”
“But you still feel like you’re the one sent off to die?”
((Extremely OOC and very non-canon. This is what happens when you spend too long joking about fox-wife legends.))
T'was the night before Obon, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring 'cept Tomo, that louse.
Enomoto was knackered, his head on the desk,
While that dirty Raen wore a form most grotesque.
Not content to wear horns, she'd turned to a fox!
Let's wait 'til she's out, then change all the locks.
That ought to teach the kitsune what's what,
If she does it again, I'll kick her dumb butt.
Another bather left the water, though perhaps 'breached' would have been more appropriate. The hulking Roegadyn surged to his feet, a splash and surge of droplets thrown as his bulk broke the surface and stood tall in the middle of his tubmates. One meaty fist was thrown towards the ceiling while the other hand caught his elbow to pull it into a very enthusiastic stretch... no, that was a flex. He was flexing. The smug look on his face suggested he thought this was all very fetching, but to Michishio he looked like an old man doing calisthenics.
That was the third time tonight, too. Michishio wasn't aware of any custom that dictated showy exits from the bath, yet here in the bathing hall of neatly arranged tubs, it kept happening. All men, too. It seemed that Eorzean women possessed either superior sense or modesty; she wasn't sure which. The Roegadyn man sauntered off down the raised flooring that divided the bathing pools of various temperature with a smirk, evidently pleased with himself.
Her attention drifted back to the occupants of her own steaming pool, where one had begun relating the plot of an Ishgardian romance novel. A thrilling tale of infidelity and... that seemed to be about it, really. She wasn't quite clear on what was exciting, interesting, or romantic about forsaking one's oaths of marriage, but tastes varied. So long as it was harmless fiction, the book could be about anything the author pleased, and Isghardian authors seemed to positively delight in that sort of thing. Perhaps adultery was an acquired taste?
She took a sip of the cider the server had brought earlier (and really now, serving drinks in the bath - Michishio wasn't sure if the idea was blasphemy or genius) and fought to keep from grimacing. Persimmons. She hadn't been a fan of persimmons since the first time she had one, overripe and squashy, its cloying pulpy sweetness almost prompting her to gag. Yumemi she could do, despite many claiming it tasted like old soap, but persimmons... No persimmons. She set the drink aside and half-listened to the retelling of how, according to at least one novelist, Highlander rogues were far superior in the sack to Elezen lordlings. Maybe they were. She'd never know.
Another loud splash announced the egress of a bather two tubs over. A Hrothgar gentleman had risen from his seat to lunge clear across the basin to grip the edge with both hands, elbows splayed at an odd angle, and hold for a moment. While it was certainly possible he was steadying himself after the meteoric rise gave him a fit of light-headedness, the way his corded muscles stood out suggested he was... yes, flexing. Michishio's mental counter ticked another; that made four times tonight. It was almost certainly intended to be impressive, but the leonine fangs jutting from his maw and the forward-leaning posture put her in the mind of a sunning ruszor. The sudden, ridiculous mental image almost made her snort in laughter right in the middle of a discussion on how terribly romantic it was to be cursed by dark gods in the name of love.
She had to admit, it did sound a little romantic. Probably not as romantic as the swaggering Hrothgar felt as he exited, shoulders a-swing. Michishio briefly wondered if all that fur smelled bad if not properly dried.
Four years, maybe five. There was an odd finality in the number, made all the less comforting for the roughness of the estimate. It lie squarely in the awkward range between soon to arrive and the distant future, a hazy middle ground of far and near. Disorienting, in a way. In four years, maybe five, Michishio's attendant would be dead.
It was an odd feeling, almost hollow. It wasn't quite so tender as the loss of a family member, and to liken it to the death of a pet was simply insulting - not that Michishio had ever had one. What was it she felt? Sadness, of a sort, but not quite sorrow. A touch of... regret wasn't the word. Dissatisfaction? To have the entirety of one's future collapsed to such a narrow span wasn't something of which she could easily conceive. She’d wondered what such a realization might be like, what thoughts it must prompt. What hopes were dashed, what resolutions made... As her thought had circled, she knew one thing for sure: to ask would be to pour salt on old wounds. Better far to let the swordswoman hold to her dignity and resolve.
And yet, she'd been pledged the young woman's blade, with the kenshi's full knowledge of what it meant. It led the fledgling lady to wonder why her servitor had agreed to the doctor's visit in the first place. Was it hope for a cure known to Eorzean medicine that Yanxian arts had yet to discover? She somehow doubted it. If she were to guess, it seemed more an odd mixture of respect for her lady's concern, simple obedience to a request and... The undeniability of hearing it directly from a physician. Her friend Dunrai, who'd seen them in the cellar of his own home, offered them home-made sweets before the consultation, and quietly excused himself after delivering the news to fetch them glasses of water. He'd stayed upstairs, Michishio noted with gratitude, quite a spell longer than the simple task required.
So then, what to do with this news? On the vanishingly small chance the Sakanoue laid claim to whatever ancestral land they may or may not have, the Ashina would of course be granted a portion for faithful service. That was simply a matter of course. Yet with the future winnowed down to less than half a decade's time, even should the prize be won, would any claim it? Should she... comfort the young woman? Ask her thoughts? It seemed inappropriate, somehow, a belittling of her resolve. To question her strength might lead it to falter. Some burdens were borne purely out of the refusal to yield, and to invite her to lay it down may only make it that much harder to shoulder once more when the time came. No, she would speak of it if she wished, and Michisio would listen. If she did not, her lady must simply accept on faith that Ashina-no-Tomoe bore it as nobly as she may.
With such a short span left, surely none could question the resolve that guided her blade; this, Michishio saw plainly. Her motive, however, remained uncertain. Tomoe had appeared out of nowhere having tracked a newly-minted noblewoman clear to Vylbrand, swore allegiance to a house and to a lady that she'd clearly ill understood despite there being, so far as Michishio was aware, a perfectly acceptable alternative... Not to mention conveniently when the house had most needed additional hands. It was either the providence of the heavens or a supremely calculated gesture, and she knew not which. She'd like to trust the impish-and-earnest by turns young lady, but too much trust was a dangerous thing. There were few indeed that Michishio truly trusted. She'd like to perhaps even be friends with the effervescent kenshi as she seemed to so sincerely desire, but friendship required trust and that was one thing kept hoarded close.
Was Ashina a tool, soon to face expiry? It was almost too cruel to contemplate, and yet to be soft-hearted now might cause everything to crumble before it had even begun. Too often, Michishio's duty called her to be counter to her own inclinations, and without fail she answered the call to ignore the now-feeble protests of her gentler nature. If only there were some way to be sure of loyalty, to test it without threatening to destroy the fragile bonds already forged... But there was not. Tomoe was dying, and that an honest soul might be buried never having gained the faith of her lady was a barb set at Michishio's heart.
Dunrai had gently asked Tomoe to stand across the room from the crib when Michishio had gone to say goodbye to his children, lest her sickness spread to those not yet hardy enough to resist. She'd understood, but the blue eyes that followed from the other side carried far more weight than the swaddled babe Michishio gently lifted from repose. When it came the elder daughter's turn for her goodbye hug from 'auntie,' the Raen held the precocious Xaela child just a bit more tightly, just a moment longer than she might have otherwise - for herself and for Tomoe.
A loud, crisp crack sounded through the air, making Michishio freeze. That is to say freeze metaphorically, since the fat, drifting snowflakes saw to it that she was already near-frozen literally. She looked down cautiously at what had produced the sound and found that she had, somehow, stepped upon a pane of glass that someone had cast carelessly down on the Ishgardian cobbles. No, that wasn't right - it was an odd shape and conformed to-
Ice. It was ice. She'd stepped on a frozen puddle. Her tail flicked in embarrassment at her own slowness to realize and she lifted her foot to retreat half a step, peering at the foot-shaped indentation in what had once been a simple pool. A spiderweb of cracks radiated out from it, and a film of murky water seeped up from below. She'd encountered ice only recently and while familiar with the concept, still found it quite novel to see it in person - water, frozen stiff like sheets of crystal! After a moment's hesitation, she stepped back, foot testing gingerly. The ice held. She put her weight down.
Crunch.
She wiggled her foot a little, causing the shards of ice packed around her foot to creak against each other in their brittle suspension, then stepped back again. Stared. She was about to go for a third pass, but noticed an Elezen child standing at the mouth of an alley nearby, staring. At her horns or her behavior she wasn't certain, but it was enough to elicit a sharp cough from the Raen and a hastening of her steps down the chilly cobbles.
Image prompted by the thoughts expressed in http://www.rpgstudies.net/hughes/therapy_is_fantasy.html . Ezen, thoughtful soul that he is, put it together to express his take on the categories that the paper explored.
Afterwards, we had the following conversation that may help flesh out and explore the ideas above!
Michishio had never seen a man split in two before. Greyish-pink viscera spilled from where the black-uniformed Garlean had been cloven neatly in half by a single stroke, the thirsty sands long since reddened by the dregs of his life's blood. A gauntleted hand lay a little further down the beach, its owner lying somewhere lost in the carnage. The reek of scorched metal filled the air, watering eyes and crawling into the backs of throats to nest with the acrid tang of smoke rising from a collapsed magitek reaper. Deep furrows in the sand told their part of the tale that the scattered corpses had ended - an entire Garlean patrol, utterly wiped out.
But for all the horrors of the charnel scene - the sanguine streaks where the dead had been strewn, the partially fused craters in the sand where the reaper's cannon had thundered - she stalked through it in a near dreamlike state. She felt a hand on her shoulder; Ranmaru's? Senryo's? It didn't matter. She slapped it away in distant irritation. Her heart hammered so hard that its heavy thud was what drug her onward rather than her feet, so loud that it drowned out the surf and filled her horns with its insistent pulse. Michishio looked to each body as she passed, searching for some glimmer of recognition, some sign of familiarity she prayed she would not find. One former soldier was curled into a fetal position, hugging himself desperately. Gut slash, she noted distractedly. Died holding his intestines in. She'd pity him more if not for the Garlean helm that had been torn from his head as he'd writhed his last.
The sheer stone cliffs of the coast encircled the little cove, cordoning off the bloodshed into a tableau almost removed from reality - a tiny pocket of the seventh hell right here in the Ruby Sea. Leaden steps carried her past another sprawled figure. Garlean. Stabbed through the chest. The path of ruin continued down into the surf, where the retreating tide caught a trail of scintillating fire from the setting sun and washed smooth the disturbed sands. All at once, she caught sight of a familiar crimson traveling vest and the tanned, muscular shoulder that bore it slumped against a rock lapped by the water. Her heart leapt into her throat and she broke into a run, ignoring the shout of surprise that sounded from her companions behind her. It could have been her name. It could have been anything, she wouldn't have heard it. Michishio's world was the vest sleeve and the sand between her and the rock which supported it.
She rounded the outcrop with shallow water splashing from her feet, almost taking a tumble as she came to a halt. There sat Willard Alder, cross-legged with eyes closed, a satisfied smile frozen on his lips and his sheathed katana resting in his lap. A thick streak of blood ran down part of his face and neck, lost somewhere past his collar to continue down an arm. A chunk of of his scalp and the other half of his face had been singed red and raw from the searing blast of a magitek cannon. One leg of his trousers had been sliced to ribbons, a bone-deep wound visible through the shreds. Cuts, abrasions, bruises, and burns covered nearly every ilm of his body. He seemed almost a burly scarecrow in rags, clothes tattered and frayed, his favored red hues darkened by blood of indeterminate origin. He wasn't breathing.
It was a lie. It had to be. This was the man who'd slain a shark with a rusted anchor, who'd wrestled a Yanxian tiger into submission with his bare hands, who’d stopped a charging dzo with one stroke of his blade! He'd conquered strange beasts in the lands to the west, hoodwinked corrupt merchants, had a bounty placed on his head and stolen enough to pay it off with his own hands! He couldn't die. Stories never ended so long as they were told, and he'd been only too happy to weave his own. So how could he...?
She brought her hands before her face but could not close her fingers to shut out the sight. His serene expression seemed almost mockery, and the slender woman sank unsteadily to her knees. How dare he? How dare he? To take himself from this world, to deprive it of one of its walking legends, its living stories, the warmth of his laugh, the wonder of his tales. No trade was worth this. No battle, however heroic, could just... end it like this. Not like this. A sob worked its way up from her chest and hitched in her throat, tears burning in her eyes.
Today, her father had lost a friend and she had lost an uncle. Only the cry of seabirds met her wail of grief.
► Name ➔ "Michishio Sakanoue-Alder. Or perhaps Sakanoue-no-Michishio. It would depend upon where, and who is asking."
► Are you single ➔ "I am not."
► Are you happy ➔ "Happy... To declare oneself happy is to cease to seek happiness. In such a state, it must naturally decay. It is not a thing to be attained. It is a thing to be sought."
► Are you angry ➔ "Before recently, I would have said no. Now? Perhaps. It will swiftly pass, I am certain."
► Are your parents still married ➔ "They are."
NINE EIGHT FACTS
► Birth Place ➔ "Kaga-no-Mizu. How strange to be able to admit this now."
► Hair Color ➔ "Black."
► Eye Color ➔ "Brown."
► Birthday ➔ "Fifth umbral moon, first day. ... I should greatly appreciate it were this information not spread. I've little desire to solicit well-wishers and gifts." (October 1st)
► Mood ➔ "As suited to the occasion. Must one be consigned to only one mood?"
► Gender ➔ "Female."
► Summer or winter ➔ "It is the passage of seasons that grants them joy and value. To seize on to one is to lose its meaning."
► Morning or afternoon ➔ "Morning. One may accomplish all manner of things if only they wake early enough."
EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE
► Are you in love ➔ "I am."
► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ "Perhaps for some. Such was certainly not the case for me."
► Who ended your last relationship ➔ "I have not- ... Let us say it is a matter of opinion as to whether there was one or not."
► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ "Unfortunately."
► Are you afraid of commitments ➔ "To what we dedicate ourselves is how our character is shown. I am not afraid, but I am... selective."
► Have you hugged someone within the last week ➔ "I have."
► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ "Unfortunately."
► Have you ever broken your own heart ➔ "I have not, but were it to become necessary I would do so without hesitation."
SIX CHOICES
► Love or lust ➔ "What an immodest question. Love, I should think."
► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ "Iced tea, though it loses so much of its fragrance when cold."
► Cats or Dogs ➔ "Cats! ... Cats. I am not fond of dogs' tendency to sniff and lick."
► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ "I don't understand. Regular friends? Friends with regularity? By which to say, they are not friends all the time, and are sometimes not friends? Then they are not friends at all, and there is only one true response."
► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ "I fail to see how the night cannot be romantic no matter where it takes place."
► Day or night ➔ "To each its purpose. But that was not the question. Night, then."
FIVE FOUR HAVE YOU EVERS
► Been caught sneaking out ➔ "To be caught, one must sneak."
► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ "Of course. Children are wont to take all things with a haste that outweighs better sense."
► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ "No. If you hold a dagger in your hand, why plunge it into your breast? The decision to wallow in longing is yours alone. Do not choose it."
► Wanted to disappear ➔ "I have. More than once."
FOUR PREFERENCES
► Smile or eyes ➔ "Eyes. Anyone can fake a smile. A kindly look is far more difficult."
► Shorter or Taller ➔ "For what purpose? If it's men of which we speak, then I would have to say taller."
► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ "I cannot be attracted to a fool. ... To a genuine fool that is, for those who are acquainted with my lord husband."
► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ "Relationship. Leave the sating of urges to beasts and the intemperate."
FAMILY
► Do you and your family get along ➔ "We do."
► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ "Mixed up perhaps, but not messed up. I have taken great care to avoid too many regrets. Time enough to accrue those later."
► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ "I would not call it running. Given what is likely intended as the spirit of the question, I will say no."
► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ "Of home? No. Of an establishment? Yes, once, when a companion voiced their opinions of the performance a trifle too harshly."
FRIENDS
► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ "If I did, they would not be a friend."
► Do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ "If I did not, they would not be a friend."
► Who is your best friend ➔ "I... am not certain anymore. Time, distance, and circumstance make things strange. But, perhaps there is an assurance in simplicity. I will say Taoyagi, who is yet like a sister."
► Who knows everything about you ➔ "My husband and none other."
I do not understand tag culture so do it if you want or don't, anything's fine, I won't judge.
Just gonna sit here on my internet grandma chair not understanding the crazy tumbls you kids do.
"The way of the kami is the path of acceptance." The calm voice rolled through the darkness, washing over the listener who was both present but not. "Acceptance of ourselves and of others. Yet not simply each other, but all things - for do not the innumerable gods dwell in each river, each tree, each stone? We are not above them. We are simply of the same world."
The words tickled the listener’s mind with comforting familiarity. But why were they so familiar? Ah yes... They were his own. For that matter, they were spoken in his voice.
"Pride is natural," a second voice broke in. "Pride in a task completed with excellence. Pride in creating something of beauty. And, most essentially, pride in one another. Is is these bonds in which pride becomes virtue, a signpost along the path of righteous thinking. Pride inspires the self to excellence and encourages one's fellows to better themselves to answer it. Only the fool wields his pride as a weapon; he destroys the very things it has built."
Images sprang unbidden to the listener's mind, nostalgia washing over him. His instructor's voice. The rough weave of tatami pressing through his thin robes as he sat for hours, listening to instruction and meditating to purify his mind and prepare it to recognize truth. The soothing monotony of tending the temple garden.
"It is the legacy of our forebears we work to preserve." This voice was crisp, strong, confident, and no less familiar... though harder to place. "They who have glimpsed divine insight have no choice but to desire to share it. Just as when we behold a beautiful sunset and eagerly cast about for a brother or a sister to join us to make our enjoyment more complete, so is wisdom the greatest of all beauty. So are our elders as are we; humble fools gathered about a pool in whose reflection we may espy the heavens."
Memories bubbled up from deeper in the well of memory, made all the more vivid for the blanketing blackness. Ah, that was it. The old head priestess. He almost hadn't recognized her with the weight of years fallen from her voice - she was already an old woman when he had arrived as an acolyte. The memory of his first glimpse of her carried with it a constellation of other memories - how poorly he'd slept on the hard bed in his cramped quarters at first. How every breeze was felt keenly on his freshly-shaven scalp. How curious she should be here too... Hadn't she been buried years ago?
"Purity is more than keeping oneself from foolish action." An unfamiliar new voice struck up, bodiless as were the others, bodiless as was their audience. "A man who refuses to eat for fear of bugs in the rice will starve. Do not hesitate; act! Act with every fiber of your strength. Act with every mote of your wisdom. But after you have acted, reflect upon your actions. Tend to your mistakes. Cleanse your mind and your body."
Still others came, each speaking in turn for what felt like hours, or years, or lifetimes. Some spoke familiar teachings, others voiced ringing challenges. Exhortations and comforts. Hidden truths and common sense. A vast body of wisdom flowed in the dark like the tide of a subterranean sea, carrying along the one who listened in its pull. And then, that brief eternity eclipsed in a voice ringing with desperate conviction.
"By my will and my word, I bind thee!" The emptiness drew in an immaterial breath, charged with electric tension.
"By the sacred blood of the earth, I bind thee!" Sluggish currents stirred to life, gathering in on themselves in an invisible, intangible knot.
"By the law of heaven, I bind thee! Thus it is spoken, thus it shall be!" There was an... impulse. Not light, more the murky memory of there having once been light. The darkness stared back. An eye stared back.
After so long of featureless black, the lambent red glow was almost blinding. A second opened, at an unnatural angle to the first. They couldn't possibly have been of a pair, but soon enough a third eye, the second's mate, opened. Then a fourth, absurdly distant from the triangle of the first three. Then a fifth. The shape of whatever lurked in the gloom was unknowable, impossible. The voice that came now was a roughly whispered hiss, a mewl that rattled like a scream, an unnatural sound that crudely mimicked speech from a throat never intended for the languages of the spoken. And yet, for all its alien dissonance, the note of cruel mockery rang true.
"I am that which does not wither. Your spirit is as easily plucked as a flower of the field. Teach me, monk. Instruct me on the wisdom of sparing your life for one instant longer."
The listener realized, with chilling certainty, that what his sleep-addled mind had accepted as truth he now questioned. This was a dream, make no mistake, but it was not his dream. He was a visitor here. A sixth eye opened. A seventh. His own. Morning light diffused through the paper windows of the old monk's quarters, illuminating the plain, featureless wall at which he now stared.
He lie still, facilities only slowly recovering from the haze of slumber. What could such a dream mean? He wished for nothing more than to meditate upon it, to try to recall the torrent of instruction and unravel the bizarre symbolism, but it would have to wait for later... Today, the temple hosted a tournament. He rose from his bed, feeling his age far more keenly than most mornings. He would dress, and he would prepare.
The young Roegadyn straightened from his kneel and bowed once, then was off down the teahouse garden’s path and into the street. Despite his tender age, the messenger boy was nearly taller than those he served, and undoubtedly would be in scant few years' time. Michishio watched him turn and worked to keep the frown from her face, lest he take it as displeasure - though it was, just not with him. Every time a servant bowed low, every time they kneeled or called her 'my lady,' she was seized with a desire to heatedly insist that no, that was her job. She was the servant. And yet, she knew such exhortations would only invite confusion and chaos in the Enclave's rigidly tiered society, so she bit them back.
She'd enjoyed authority once, briefly. In an almost petty manner, she'd been pleased how, as the personal assistant to the commander of Yousai's militia, she wielded no actual authority... but it was tacitly understood that any suggestions she had may as well be orders from the top. Although... that was it, wasn't it? It wasn't her authority. Even in the implied invocation of her own, it was merely an appeal to the commander's. The very act of speaking placed her several rungs down, serving those above her. A follower attending the interests of her betters. It was comforting to have such a place - a right hand, not the throne itself. Yet here she was, the lady of her own house.
She sighed thinly through her nose. Her father's house, technically, though he'd had no involvement with anything from day one other than granting her his full blessing, acting authority, and the little carved stone stamp that served as the House Sakanoue seal. Yet here, she was not a servant, unless in an oblique manner to the throne of Doma... But only the elite enjoyed direct access to their king. For such a minor upstart house as Sakanoue to request an audience was unthinkably arrogant. Michishio was, to her great discomfiture, her own master.
Many seemed to find the power to chart their own course exhilarating, freeing. Michishio simply found it an unwelcome, worrisome burden. She had a place in Eorzea, a role waiting for her if she'd but settle into it. And yet, her duties in Doma - duties she was no longer at all beholden to, strictly speaking, had caught her in some hidden game of intrigue that may or may not even exist. The threads of duty were thin as a spider's web yet strong as a blade’s steel, entangling and cutting in equal measure. Here she was now, beholden to a sister house that pled for allies and a people who wished for the return of their own identity.
It was in some ways a mirror of Michishio's own struggle. Twin duties saw her suspended above an impossible divide - was she loyal to her husband, despite his repeated insistences she was an equal and no servant? His was a rising star, she was sure of it, a man with great potential but lacking the will to grasp all of which he was capable. She could be that to him. Besides, for that matter, why could not an equal serve out of love and reverence? His protests seemed almost childish, in that light.
Or was she loyal to her family name, and the people of a broken nation it once shepherded? Doma's acquisition of Santake had been entirely accidental, a side effect of Garlemald's enthusiasm in crushing Kaien's rebellion. The tiny mountain nation's borders controlled vital passes in the Fanged Crescent to the west, and so it too had burned in Garlemald's bid for an unshakable stranglehold on Yanxia. In the bustle of Doma's rebirth, the relative backwater had been nearly forgotten and left to fend for itself with the Garleans expelled and its ruling houses long since fled. Was she to be the voice of a people she ill knew, co-magistrate of a land to which she'd never been?
But it was not the country that motivated her. No, it was the people. It was Ayanga, her steppe-born swordsman caught, as was she, between two worlds; his heritage and the nation he'd adopted as his own. It was Tomoe, her attendant, the young Santakan blade whose quiet anger surfaced only in the momentary distance of her eyes or the set of her jaw; old and cooled like obsidian. Like a scar. The people of Santake were a distant dream but to these, her retainers, she owed a debt. She was their lady. She was the house they had sworn to serve.
Which path was she then to choose? Was to pursue them both to consign all to failure? Which was the old, which was the new? Which was reverent, which was selfish? If someone could but tell her what was most selfless, what was most respectful, what was most useful... But Michishio had only herself and the exhortations of her lord husband to pursue what she truly desired.
To forsake the life she'd built in Eorzea was to declare herself a servant no longer, beholden to none and defiant of all adversities. And yet... To do so would be to sacrifice part of herself in so doing. She was a servant. It was not some role she had adopted, it was her nature down to the marrow of her bones. To cast it aside would leave only the hollow shell of gold leaf and half-truths that comprised Lady Sakanoue. And yet, to withdraw from the court might well be consigning an untold number to languish in obscurity... and the betrayal of the hope placed in her besides. Could she be both, servitor and lord?
She did not know. She would have to try. Sloth was never one of her vices. She abruptly realized she'd been staring at the little garden's gatepost for the past several minutes and arranged herself more squarely at her table to finish her afternoon refreshment. Tomorrow would come, as it inevitably must, with a host of its own worries. For now, she could but fulfill her duties.
Michishio looked down at her hand. She kind of wanted to hit something. Not out of any violent impulse or frustration, but out of the sheer desire to move her hand very quickly. Pale fingers shifted their grip on the handle of a steaming cup of dark liquid, and she took another sip of its bitter contents. This was coffee? Another inexplicable surface-dweller fixation. She'd heard it wasn't uncommon to add other things to it to make it more palatable, a dilution it sorely needed, but she felt she needed a grasp of the beverage's essence before she went attempting any advanced culinary alchemy. That, and she didn't trust herself not to make it worse.
She drummed a fingernail against the side of the mug, part of her embarrassed at raising such an immodest clatter but most of her simply enjoying the stimulation against her finger and in her horns. The company dining area was empty this late, an hour the cautious Raen had chosen precisely for its lack of company. Who was to know what effects an unknown stimulant might have? Many Eorzeans seemed so nonchalant about other substances that she had a hard time taking them at their word when they insisted something was harmless. Her fiancé had simply laughed when she voiced her concerns and invited her to give it a try, so here she sat.
Her tail twitched. So this was the 'zoomies' miss Garanji had mentioned. The term seemed daft at the time, nonsensical, an absurd confabulation of a disordered state of mind. Just now, it seemed the only sensible word for this bundle of nervous energy that gnawed somewhere below her sternum. The first cup had done relatively little; it had simply set back her internal clock a few hours. As the cup drained it felt, almost impossibly, as though it were early evening instead of decidedly after dark as the windows at the edge of the double row of long oaken tables attested.
The second cup had produced a much more certain alertness, almost like a slowly creeping spike of adrenaline but with less urgency. The third had produced a jittery, almost fraying hyper-consciousness that had her trying to make a mental catalogue of every detail in the room. Not any specific detail, just... details. How much dust was on the shelves. The number of panes in the window. How many tiles there were on the floor between her and the bar. Most curiously, it had produced the simultaneous desire for a fourth cup and the near-certain knowledge that this was a bad idea.
It was.
Along with the souring of her gut and the faint beginnings of nausea, she developed a need to move. Whether it was the lashes of her tail or the darting of her eyes, she simply couldn't sit still. She now stared at the dregs of the final quarter of her little experiment with a frown. She couldn't blame the coffee. She'd done this to herself. Her musings were interrupted by a rumble in her gut, prompting a little wave of surprised panic and disgust. Did coffee do this too?!
She stood hastily, sending her chair scooting several ilms across the floor. She'd take care of this first, then sort out something to do while... not sleeping. Perhaps some calligraphy while praying her hands didn't shake. Coffee was not any sort of habit she was keen to adopt, not the way some in the company had, but in small amounts it might prove... useful.
She tucked that tidbit away and trotted off towards the restroom.
The warning came in the same breath as the hurled projectile, sent sailing through the air at the young Raen girl's head. With a squeak of surprise she quailed backwards, but still managed to snatch the offending object out of the air. The boy who'd thrown it whistled in appreciation.
"Nice reflexes. Check it out, though!" He dropped himself onto the rough stone slab bench beside her, the white sand beneath his feet shifting with little grinding noises. Behind them rose a low, rugged wall of ocean bedrock with steps hewed into its face to lead to the raised tier of their home, Kaga-no-Mizu. The hazy blue glow of its undersea dome washed over the two of them, admixing with the phosphorescent coral nearby to cast a violet-tinged light on the scene.
Namiko closed the coarsely thread-bound book she'd been shiftlessly reading and set it beside her on the bench, devoting her full attention to the glittering prize in her hand. It was an odd, flat little golden oval, features nearly smooth from the scouring of time, sand, and salt water. She ran a finger over the surface, feeling the grooves, the suggestion of characters, the... what was that at the bottom? An anemone? She had no word for the odd, broad-petaled thing.
"What is it," she asked, face and tone both restrained despite the avidity of her darting eyes.
"Dunno!" came the enthusiastic surprise. "Found it in a wreck. Box full of 'em, all spilled out in the sand in its guts." The boy pulled another out of his pocket and grinned. "Got two! For luck. So we each have one of 'em," he explained, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that two of a set would bring fortune.
"You're not supposed to poke around wrecks alone Ranmaru," the girl frowned, eyes still riveted to this odd artifact of a world leagues above. "Sharks and octopi hide in there, dad said."
"Hah! I'm not afraid of sharks. Master Yoshikage's teaching me how to fight real good. Let any sharks try me," Ranmaru said with his chest thrown out.
"You're going to... punch... a shark." Namiko's hazel eyes finally lifted from the coin to stare at her companion with dull disbelief.
"Well I-" he faltered. "I could. If I had to." He shifted in place, wiggling himself further back onto the bench with awkward little scoots. "Sharks better watch out. Anyway, what do you think they used these for," he said, changing the subject with a flick of his wrist to catch the dim coral's light on the face of his prize.
"Buttons?" ventured the girl. "Kind of big for that."
"I think they're for hairpins!" The reply was delivered with absolute confidence, and a smile to match. "In fact I bet I could get my dad to put yours on one if you wanted!"
"Your dad who doesn't want us poking in wrecks alone." The response was the mildest of observations, and yet it was ice water poured all over Ranmaru's flight of fancy.
"But he-" he began.
"Same as my dad."
"Okay, but-" The boy began to raise his hands to launch into a panicked explanation as to how it was perfectly fine because it was him and he was careful, but the modestly perched girl's next words stopped it dead.
"Thanks, Ranmaru."
"What?" He blinked. This is clearly not where he had been expecting the admonishments to lead.
"It's pretty. Thanks."
"Uh- yeah, any time," Ranmaru chuckled in relief. "Well not any time 'cause..." He changed the subject with a cough, sensing another imminent defeat.
"I should probably- I should go... have lessons," he concluded lamely. "And let you read."
Namiko's answering grunt was low, reluctant, but her hand made for the set-aside book the same. "I should probably read and let you go have lessons," she agreed, none of the other's awkward cadence in her voice. "Tell master Yoshikage I'll come by when I've finished."
"Yeah!" The word exploded forth with a hair too much enthusiasm, so Ranmaru hastily amended "Yeah. Sure. I'll tell him. Have fun... reading."
"I won't," she mumbled, eyes already lost in the marching rows of hand-scribed text, slender hands cradling its spine... But not, Ranmaru noted to his delight, empty of their golden bauble. He turned and dashed towards the stairs, fairly certain he was in for a tongue lashing from one adult or another if he were discovered. He probably would be, in time - Namiko would never rat him out, but his tongue had a tendency to get ahead of the rest of him...
This time, whatever chastisement fell would be worth it.
Delgernandjil arched her back against the polished mahogany counter, glaring daggers at the Miqo'te woman who had her pinned. Though her own strength wasn’t inconsiderable, neither was the aggressor a slouch with the advantage of both size and weight. But, with both of her hands occupied pinning Delgernandjil’s to the wood surface, they were at an impasse. An infuriatingly smug expression only riled - and confused - the diminutive Xaela further.
Was this a fight? Were they fighting? She rarely said no to a good scrap, but this was more of a… wrestling match? Was this stupid bint calling an unofficial bokh competition here of all places? In the middle of a game of - what was it called - Truth or Bear? Dare. That was it. It was definitely dare. The other players ringed around the periphery of the little room continued the game awkwardly, slouched in luxuriously stuffed carmine-upholstered chairs that rather tastefully accented the dark wood paneling and floors, all doing their best to either pretend the little scuffle wasn’t happening… or in some cases, such as the chubby, gimlet-eyed hyuran fellow in the corner, watch with avid attention.
Delgernandjil was a girl with a most peculiar habit. Or, more precisely, a woman with a peculiar habit owing to her twenty two years of age, but her remarkably youthful features, short stature (though you’d best not let her hear you remarking upon that), and marked lack of maturity did tip the needle into the girlish, rather than the womanly direction. Besides that, she thought of herself as a girl, and it’s most often not in one’s own best interests to argue with someone who has both a short temper and a large axe.
This was all quite besides the point of course, which was that she had a habit, and that this habit was peculiar. How peculiar, you might ask? The answer, I confess, is ‘rather peculiar indeed’ but owing to the subjective nature of such assessments, it’s perhaps best we simply elucidate the nature of the habit and permit you, dear reader, to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Which, should you deem it peculiar, then we’d quite agree on that point. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The brush-tip nearly touched the paper before it stalled, wavered, and withdrew once more. Down it went onto the holder with a little clack of lacquered wood, the hand that held it flexing and releasing in nervous repetition. Michishio took a deep breath, trying to still the hammering of her heart, but it kept pounding away as if to remind her who, exactly, was in charge here.
She stared at the tiny blank handscroll spread before her on the low writing desk accusingly. Maybe if she stared hard enough, it would ignite. Then she'd have nothing to write her damnfool composition on and she could give up free of guilt. She'd tried, right? Nothing to be done about spontaneously combusting parchment. Sadly, whatever her flights of fancy insisted might be possible, she knew it was never going to happen. The only way out was through. To give up now was cowardice.
She'd hesitated many times before out of caution, but never out of indecision. To simply fail to act was foolishness, it was weakness, it was liability. So why, out of every juncture she'd faced in her life, was this the one to paralyze her? It was just four characters. Not even really a proper poem, more a composition. She'd already arranged it in her head, imagined the neat order of layered strokes to form the symbols just so, and... felt a faint blush rise to her cheeks at their meaning. She couldn't seriously be meaning to write this, could she?
She was, she knew. There was no sense denying it. She didn't simply break out the writing materials for no reason at all; she had a scroll to finish. The kneeling woman closed her eyes, drew another steadying breath, and ordered her thoughts. Without one mote of further hesitation, she wrote with the bold, precise strokes of a practiced calligraphist.
There. She frowned at the completed work. It was... Indecent. Obscene. Her wrist had been tense from residual nerves the entire time, giving the characters an almost scrawled appearance that somehow enhanced their bawdiness - they practically swaggered across the white expanse. If anyone else knew she'd written this, she... sighed. They wouldn't. That was the thing with trust - it was as exciting as it was terrifying. If she didn't trust him, if she didn't love him, she wouldn't have inked this... affront to decency in the first place. It was hardly the worst thing she'd gotten up to for his sake, anyway.
Should she put it in his mailbox? That ran the risk of someone else discovering it. Deliver it by hand? But what if he tried to read it in front of her? She'd had to use some less-common characters to fit the succinct brevity the short-form work demanded, so chances were fair he wouldn't be able to decipher it off the top of his head - oh. Oh no, what if he asked her to read it to him? She was not going to explain this. Not to him, not to anyone. She'd sooner bite her tongue and bleed to death. He wasn't an idiot, he had a dictionary. He'd figure it out on his own.
Michishio washed her brush and allowed herself a tiny glow of pleasure. She'd done it!
"Sing!" chanted the children, laughing and clapping. "Sing!"
Michishio stood from where she'd knelt to tie a blindfold around the eyes of a boy who couldn't be more than eight summers of age and turned an indulgent smile on the circle of little bodies ringing them. The Yanxian sun beat down on the yard of the merchant's home in a stifling glare, but here under the awning of the porch they were afforded some measure of respite. A few stray chirps sounded from the trees nearby, a bright counterpoint to the steady rasp of little white stones being raked into whorling patterns in the rock garden nearby. A stoop-shouldered gardener huddled beneath his wide-brimmed hat and raked unhurriedly, the repetitive rasp nearly lost beneath the chattering of the children's game.
The Raen's voice rose together with her smaller charges in a low, gentle cadence of a familiar rhyme... but the words soon tangled, the chorus of smaller voices fading in confusion at the unfamiliar words she sang.
Round, round
All 'round the temple gate
But when do we meet?
In the dark of night
Even kings may fall
Who stands before you
While you look behind?
Silence reigned for a moment - even the gardener had paused in his raking, leaning against his implement with a cocked head to take in the birdsong - until a tiny Hyuran girl piped up.
"Those ain't the words!"
"Yeah," echoed a second child. "Where'd you get those from?"
"I'm sorry," offered the newly-minted noblewoman with an apologetic smile, her usual florid verbosity made simple for her audience. "It's how we sang it in Hingashi. Would you like to teach me the Doman words?"
"It goes like THIS," called back another, and struck up the melody once more. The chorus of little voices soon joined in, weaving a silly little ditty about a crane and a turtle falling from a log. Michishio shuffled out of the now-skipping ring of children, a pair releasing their hands with a laugh to let her through, and retreated to the edge of the little porch to sit and listen. Soon enough, the song concluded and the ring stopped turning with voices crying out gaily to the blindfolded boy to guess who was behind him.
She allowed herself a brief, tiny smile as a wrong answer made the circle explode into hoots and jeers, but stopped short upon noticing the figure leaning against the porch's cornerpost nearby. The gardener lounged with both hands resting on his propped-upright rake, staring at the trees on the far side of the yard in a daydream... A daydream that still placed him very much closer than was appropriate. She watched out of the corner of an eye, subtly tensed to act, but he broke the silence with a loud sniff.
"I do hope m'lady doesn't find me too impudent, but I'd sure be obliged to know where she learned that there rendition of the tune. T'ain't often you hear those words. Was wonderin' what made m'lady pick 'em." The Hyur glanced back at her from under the brim of his hat, his dusty and streaked features betraying a glimmer of sheepish hope.
"Perhaps sir was occupied with his duties and my words were faint - 'tis how we sang in Hingashi," she returned coolly.
"Naw," came the offhanded dismissal. "Ain't any Hingan ditty I ever heard. I'd be mindful... the careless bird is caged." A slight tilt of his headwear made plain the keen eye now turned upon her.
"And yet does it sing." If she took offense at the familiarity with which the servant spoke, her perfect poise showed nothing; her eyes were only for the playful shoving match that had broken out, stalling the game with a burst of giggles. The shabbily-dressed man turned to share her attention, high-pitched laughter washing over the both of them from down the porch.
"Mm," he grunted. "Could be it'll be free in the mornin'."
"Then let it bar the door against the moon's light."
A mirthful grin plastered itself across what was visible of the gardener's face. "Not many folk know the Enga collection these days. If m'lady in't insulted by the invitation of a humble gardener, it's been a while since he's had the chance to talk poetry with a fellow enthusiast over a spot of tea. 'specially not one young an' lovely," he added with a dry cackle.
"The dust does him no favors, but sir cannot be a day over forty summers," she murmured.
"The lady flatters, even if it's true! Come, then. I'll even teach you the actual Hingan words." The game had resumed once more, a chorus of little voices shouting encouragement and hints to the blindfolded boy. Michishio's indifferent demeanor thawed a little as she watched, the seconds ticking away in silence before a little bow of her head broke it.
"Then I am in the good sir's debt. Two days hence, at the Ichiriki tea house. Ask to be shown to the peony room."
"Without fail," smiled the gardener. He shrugged off the post to match her gesture with a bow of his own, then sauntered away to resume his duties. By the time a child had broken from the pack to plaintively wave a blindfold whose knot had been pulled too tight from roughhousing at the kneeling lady, the harsh scratching of a rake once more rose to fill the summer air.
"If your hunble serrvent meiy be forgiven for the p'resunpshon of offering her thoughts-"
"Nope."
The flat refusal, so cheekily casual as it spilled from the grinning face across the table from her, neatly defenestrated Michishio's entire train of thought. You didn't just refuse an apology, especially one offered as a matter of pure obligation out of politeness! What was he doing? Was this a joke? Did he not know the script? Before she could gather herself to make a response, the tanned Midlander continued.
"I asked specifically 'cause I wanted t'know what you think, Mitch. Ain't naught to forgive, and it ain't a presumption. Now, what do you make o' things?"
"It is the desiyded opinion of this sinple fool," she tried again after a pause, "that the haste with which the reinforrsments arriyved sujests a priority liyn of... komunikeishon..." She trailed off at the militia lieutenant's stark frown. What? What now? Surely he didn't disagree with her assessment so strongly before she'd even finished?
"Ye're neither simple nor a fool Mitch," he sighed with an exasperation-laden voice. "No need to go beatin' yourself up for just sharin' a view."
Of course she wasn't a fool. If she was, she wouldn't be here having this conversation. Did this man not know about qualifying statements? Was he not aware Michishio was offering him an easy route to dismiss what she had to say if he didn't like it? She was doing her utmost to be respectful and considerate, and it was all being swept aside with the indifferent finality of a cat turning up its nose at dinner. What was she supposed to say to that? How was she supposed to deal with this?
Her first impulse was to ask for forgiveness for whatever slight had been offered, but she'd already been chastized for that. How could this lazily smiling imbecile so completely disarm her without even lifting a finger? Though he wasn't an imbecile, she reminded herself, recognizing the flash of frustration immediately and parceling it away. That wouldn't help here. He was clever and resourceful, however hard he might pretend he wasn't, and however much the fool he might play. She'd simply have to find out how to match his expectations.
"Yes, my lord. To kontinue..."
Her words died on her lips at an attention-grabbing little wave of his hand. What. WHAT? Was this a manzai routine? Had her life become a comedy act? She had to struggle to keep piercing accusation out of her gaze, but the uncomfortable squirm of the man across from her made her wonder how successful she'd been.
"Could we drop the 'my lord' business? I know ye work for me an' all but that ain't never sat right."
Her eyes dropped to the cherrywood table and the steaming cups of tea on its surface. Tea she'd prepared and served. For him. A table she'd purchased to host his company around which were arranged wastefully decadent chairs which he'd insisted upon (for her comfort, she knew, but the rising disarray of her thoughts pushed that aside) in her quarters which she'd comfortably furnished at his insistence that a stark, Spartan room didn't suit a lady. Her thoughts swirled murkily; was she irritated? Grateful? Both?
Actually, she didn't care. There were lines of propriety that must not be crossed. Truths which could not be denied. With an apologetic smile, she lifted challenging hazel eyes to the man across from her.
