She was, Fortunes be praised!

"Your thanks are accepted. Carry the Fortunes."

"My trust in Otomo Keihime lies in her abilities as Empress. As Empress, she will have my devotion, and my fate will be hers to decide. The others may behave differently. Their characters will be severely tested, and many people fail in less serious circumstances. If they do, they must be corrected."

"If they could be trusted to serve the victor as they ought, then certainly."

"I guess we'll find out. After all, one of those two is going back to her palace at the capital, where the power of the court will come gradually under her control, and the other is going home to Kyuden Doji, where she will be forgotten as just another Crane."

"And then she knelt and wiped the floor like a servant at Keihime's request. And don't give me that "strength in abjection" crap. One person was standing at the end of that, and the other was on their knees. And that's how this is going to end."

"The sheep bleat when they are enclosed, but they are kept safe in spite of it." Lady Matsu shrugged. "The clans would of course prefer a weak Emperor, as they have in the past, with loose rules and a pony for everyone. But a weak Emperor does not reign well, and eventually we'll be right back here ...

"Tomorrow. Well, the way I see things, Soshi-san, is that there's only one heir to demonstrate that she's got power already. That's what we need; someone to whip all this into shape. Once she gets rid of Rumiko and the paperwork on the adoption gets finalized, it's all over and everything can get ba...

"Wouldn't have been the first." She steps back. "Well, those people you want to thank seem to be out, so you've got the bonfire instead."

"Sailing so far above it all didn't stop you from keeping a little list, did it?" She gets right into Eiji's face. "Spitting your bile enough to get it off your chest, or do you wanna name a champion?"

The Lion guards seem a little nervous at first, but guide Eiji through the delegation house to the back, where the dividers describe an area almost entirely taken up by Lady Matsu practicing kata. "Hnn?" she asks, looking over her shoulder. "Ah, a Scorpion." She drops out of her kata and is suddenly...

Kakita Hajime wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 28, 2025 5:52 pm

Lady Matsu in her element! As lovely as a painting! How fortunate to have a silver lining in the form of this vision of lordly might." His trademark smile begin to break open.

Lady Matsu rolled her eyes. "Timely interventions are my stock in trade, Kakita-sama. You know this."

"With you? Of course not. I admire many of your qualities. With your vassal? If she ever finds the courage to come to me, there will be only one walking away. Only Heavens know who of the two." She inclines her head respectfully while walking. "Forgive me for taking up on your time. I wanted to mak...

"With this specifically? Nothing. Just two separate yet fine examples that not everyone holds bushido as close to their hearts as expected of honorable samurai. They," she gestures back towards the temple where the bodies of the attackers lie, "dishonor their schooling and their sensei. She dishono...

And now everything is quiet. Arai has seen these techs before. "Disgusting." She whispers to herself. "How much have the honorable fallen." She turns her back to return to the Crane House. There are cleansing rites to be performed. On her way back, she makes sure to cross ways with the Matsu daimyo...

That makes it Matsu Tsuruyo's turn. Matsu Tsuruyo is delighted to be able to kill someone today. It had been over 10 days since she done killed a man, and already she was beginning to feel the itch. Attack roll on skulkmeister Raising twice for Feint and once for damage | 10k8 ⇒ 65 (TN: 43) It was s...

Matsu Tsuruyo looks at the situation, by which she means the GUY THAT THINKS HE CAN GET AWAY FROM HER!? and runs 100', which you can do when you have Water 5, placing herself between him and the wall (it worked for that Crab guy!), and snarls at him: "You should die now, weakling."

At this point, the door to Lion House opens, and everyone in the castle can hear a shout of pure exultation as Matsu Tsuruyo bounds toward the fray, her eyes shining with pure joy.

[Matsu Tsuruyo has entered the chat.]

Lady Matsu looked at what Keihime had wrought...and had a strange thought. Here is a woman who said something, and then it became so. She has presented a vision for the Empire, she has not stood on ceremony, but has reached out for power, and she has exercised that power and been obeyed. Tsuruyo smi...

Lady Matsu strode onto the floor. "There are many things that one could say about this proposal in principle. However, I will limit myself to an observation based on the actual point of law Yasuki Masaki has cited. Yasuki Masaki claims that only the Imperial prerogative permits war between Families ...

And Lady Matsu merely folded her arms and looked away, as clear a rejection of an offered intervention as ever there had been.